“Men have secrets women have no need to know,” the nomad had said quietly. “He should be the one to tell you if he feels the need to do so.”

  Sybelle had shaken her head. “My brother has told me nothing.” She had not gone back to the Serenian’s room. “But I have heard tales of the man they call the Raven.”

  “The Raven?” Catherine had questioned, but could get nothing more from the Kensetti princess.

  Yuri had likewise been obtuse when she waylaid him outside the Outlander’s room.

  “Do not ask me things I am honor-bound not to answer, milady,” he cautioned her. “His secrets are safe with this warrior.”

  “What secrets?” she belabored the point. “You bring this man thousands of miles to wed me and yet you will tell me nothing about him?”

  But Yuri had given her no explanations.

  Misha would not even come when she had him paged.

  Nor would Doctor Talebov allow her into the Serenian’s room.

  “He is very ill, Highness,” the physician informed her. “The fever is worse and he has had to be restrained. He would not want you to see him so.”

  “You tied him?” she gasped.

  “For his own protection, yes.”

  It was later on that morning that Catherine went to the chapel to pray and spent the better part of an hour before the Blessed Mother, seeking guidance.

  On the third day after Catherine’s discovery, she went to Conar’s room and was finally allowed in to see him.

  “Don’t stay long,” Doctor Talebov warned her. “He is still very weak.”

  “Is the fever gone?”

  “Yes, but he will need to remain in bed for several days yet. I have ordered beef broth with each of his meals. We need to build his blood up again.”

  The physician patted her shoulder and left, his face bone-tired and his shoulders stooped beneath his weariness.

  Catherine stood at the door, watching the Outlander sleep. When he turned to his side, mumbling, she called out softly to him. “Milord?”

  Conar opened his eyes, wondering who they’d let in to see him. For what had seemed like an eternity he saw only two faces he recognized—the Healer’s and Yuri’s. When he saw it was Catherine who was standing at the closed door, he moaned.

  “Have you come to finish me off, milady?” he asked in a tired, resigned voice.

  Catherine stared at him, at the pallor of his face, the tired droop of his expressive mouth, the dark band of bruises around each of his wrists where they had tied him to his bed. She could see the effort it was taking him just to stay awake and her heart went out to him.

  “What’s the matter, Cat,” he asked, sighing, “have you run out of insults?”

  For the first time in her life, Catherine became aware of what every woman, sooner or later, comes to realize. There is scant difference, a fine line, between hate and love. Both emotions come from the soul and both emotions are governed not only by how a woman reacts to a man, but how that man, in turn, reacts to her. Her feelings toward the man staring back at her from the bed had changed. When, she didn’t know, but she suspected it had begun that very first day at the Palace when he had insulted her and enjoyed doing it. When she had insulted him back and had felt bad for doing so.

  She gradually came to understand the sexual tension that stretched out between the two of them whenever they were close to one another. It was that electric lapping along her nerve endings that had brought him to her attention in the first place and refused to let her ignore him. She now understood the aching hunger, the ever-present and highly erotic need that began each time she saw him. It wasn’t anger or dislike, it was intense sexual excitement. The man set off warning signals in her gut every time he got within ten feet of her—warning signals she tried to ignore, but knew she’d better not. Not if she wished to hold on to her independence.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he queried, frowning at the way she continued to just stand there and stare at him, her face bleak and filled with something he had not seen before.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, taking a step toward him.

  “I ain’t dying,” he snapped. He arched one brow. “Disappointed?”

  She clenched her hands together in front of her and took another step. “Is there anything I can get you?”

  A warning signal of his own went off in Conar’s head and he looked at her askance. “Somebody must have told you I was on my last leg or you wouldn’t be standing there asking to do something for me. That ain’t like you, Catherine.”

  She came closer to the bed. “A cool drink of watered wine, perhaps? Another pillow?” She stepped forward and bent over to adjust the pillow at his back, tucked his covers more securely around his waist and, without thinking, reached up to push back a stray lock of damp hair from his forehead.

  He blinked. What the hell was happening here? The woman was looking at him as though she would throw herself into his arms and bawl her damned eyes out! He was further amazed when she pulled a chair up to sit in and reached for his left hand, holding it as though they were lovers.

  “Cook is making apple dumplings for you,” she told him, smiling with a jerky twist of her pretty lips. She massaged his hand. “How does that sound?”

  “Apple dumplings?” he asked, totally bewildered by the woman. Why was she looking at him like that?

  Catherine ducked her head. “When you were so ill, you kept calling me ‘Meggie’ and you pleaded with me to make you some of my apple dumplings.” She glanced up. “I can’t cook so I don’t think you would have liked my effort at making dumplings, so I asked Natasha to make you the dish.” She laughed uneasily. “Is Meggie the cook at Boreas Keep?”

  The warning that had gone off in his head rang again and from some vast storehouse of knowledge inside his inner self, he understood what must have happened. He looked down at his naked chest, squinted and then returned his gaze to hers. He saw the answer in the quick way she avoided his look.

  “You saw my back, didn’t you?” he accused.

  She bit her lip, flinching at the sharpness of his tone and released his hand. “No one will tell me what happened to you.”

  He shrugged. “I was whipped.” It annoyed the hell out of him that they had allowed her any where near him to see the carnage of his flesh.

  Her voice was a tiny whisper of sound. “By whom?”

  “What difference does it make?” For some reason her question only served to make him ever more annoyed.

  Catherine turned back to face him. “What did you do to deserve such a thing?”

  He could see it was not everyday female curiosity that prompted her question. She asked because she truly wanted to know. He could also see his answer meant something to her.

  “They called it sedition. They claimed I coerced some of my personal guard into trying to kill my father so I could ascend the throne.”

  She shook her head fiercely. “You would not do such a thing.”

  His gaze narrowed. “And just how would you know?”

  She met his look squarely. “It is not in you to have someone else do your dirty work for you.” She glanced away. “I learned that much the day you helped my people fight the fire. If you had wanted the throne, you’d have simply tried to take it.”

  “You wanted to know why my father disinherited me?” he asked, wanting to destroy the role of hero he saw forming in her eyes.

  She looked up, expecting the truth from him, and getting it.

  “I did something he thought evil. Something he could not forgive me for doing. That I had a very good reason for doing, but it didn’t matter to him. As far as he was concerned, I betrayed him and my people and he took away my birthright as punishment.”

  “What you did,” she asked, “was it done because you thought it the right thing to do?”

  He nodded. “At the time.”

  “And would you do it again if need be?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Aye, I would.”

  “Even knowing you would be hurt as you were?”

  He sighed, closing his eyes to the sympathy in hers. “Even knowing my next four years would be spent in a hell I could not get out of.”

  “Prison?” she whispered.

  “Aye. Prison.”

  She lowered her head. “It must have been a terrible time for you.”

  “I endured it,” he snapped, not knowing why he felt the need to make her sorry she had brought up the subject.

  Catherine heard the pique in his tone and stood up, her face full of shame. She put out her hand. “I am sorry, milord Conar,” she told him.

  He looked down at her hand, then reached up to take it. “For what?”

  “For having sorely misjudged you,” she said. Her knees threatened to buckle beneath her as his warm flesh covered her fingers.

  “I don’t think you misjudged me, lady.” He shrugged. “I am what I appear to be.”

  She shook her head. “No. You are far more complicated than that.”

  For a reason he could not explain, before he even knew what he was doing, he brought her fingers to his lips and planted the softest of kisses on the back of her hand. Looking up into her face, he could see the kiss meant as much to her as it had to him.

  He unwillingly released her hand and laid his own back on the bed covers. They stared at each other for a long moment and then Catherine turned to go, looking back over her shoulder at him for another lingering moment before she closed the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “You don’t play fair!” Sajin accused as he plopped down into the chair beside Conar’s bed.

  “Good eve to you, too, nomad,” Conar snapped, but happy to see the Kensetti.

  Sajin ignored the cold tone. “If I thought you’d win simply by getting yourself flogged, I’d have tried to think up something to tell her that had been equally agonizing to me.”

  Conar’s lips twitched despite his concentrated effort to dislike the man. “Such as?”

  The Kensetti threw out a negligent hand. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I could have told her someone branded me.”

  “Aye, that hurts.”

  The nomad looked up. “Yeah?”

  The Serenian crossed his arms over his naked chest. “Yeah.”

  Sajin stuck out his hand, palm up. “Crucifixion?”

  Conar glanced down and shrugged. “Just a little less painful than branding.”

  Sajin thought a moment and then he smiled. “Shot!”

  “Crossbow quarrel in my hip. The tip’s still in the bone.”

  The nomad’s face fell. “Stabbed?”

  “Three times.” He grinned. “And cut twice by a nomad’s blade that nearly gelded me.”

  Immediate interest lit the man’s dark face. “Hasdu?”

  “Aye. How’d you know?”

  “They don’t like you,” Sajin laughingly replied.

  The humor left Conar’s face. “I know.”

  The Kensetti exhaled. “Is there nothing that hasn’t befallen you? Something I can impress her with?”

  Conar held up his hand and counted off his fingers. “I haven’t been drowned, unless you consider my brother Legion’s less-than-tender moments holding me under the water in the horse trough. I haven’t been suffocated, unless you count the three times I’ve been locked in tight places and couldn’t get out and nearly died from it. I haven’t been poisoned, unless you count the tenerse I was given unknowingly over a period of years by an old woman who I didn’t even know hated my guts. I haven’t ….”

  “Enough!” Sajin snapped. “By the Prophetess, McGregor, you’re a walking disaster waiting to happen!”

  The first genuine laugh in over two years exploded from Conar McGregor’s lips and he looked at the nomad with a sincere smile.

  “We’ll have to see what we can do to you that will attract Cat’s interest.”

  Sajin chuckled. “I’m afraid her interest has already been caught and held, my friend.”

  There was another genuine, unreserved smile. “You think so?”

  The Kensetti snorted. “You know so, you despicable cur.” He shook a finger at Conar. “How can I compete with scars like you have for both our women to grieve over.”

  Conar’s forehead crinkled. “Both?”

  “Yes, as if you didn’t know you’d caused my sister a tear or two when she saw your back.”

  “Sybelle?” the Serenian questioned.

  “By the Prophetess, I hope I don’t have but one sister!”

  “It bothered her?” Conar couldn’t imagine the woman being upset over something that caused him pain.

  Sajin grimaced. “All my life, ever since I was old enough to know the meaning of the word, Sybelle has sworn to me she was a witch.” He didn’t notice Conar’s raised eyebrow as he continued. “She swears she can do spells and such, but I’ve never seen anything she’s accomplished.”

  “Is she of the Multitude?”

  “The what?” Sajin asked, mistaking the glimmer he saw in the sapphire gaze with humor.

  “The Multitude. It’s a sect of sorceresses who owe their allegiance to the Great Lady.”

  Sajin shrugged away the question. “Sybelle says she owes her allegiance to a goddess named Sirene. She says the goddess appears in the form of a ….”

  “Mermaid,” Conar finished for him. “A woman of the sea.” His voice was very quiet, very hushed.

  “I think.” Sajin didn’t seem to care one way or the other and he hadn’t heard the strange quality of Conar’s voice. “Anyway, she came rushing to my room that night when she’d seen your back. You do know she and Cat were bathing you?” At Conar’s look of surprise, Sajin wagged his brows. “Only the Prophetess knows just how much of you they saw that night!”

  “There isn’t much to see.”

  “I wouldn’t think so, either,” Sajin chortled, glancing down at Conar’s lap.

  “Bastard,” Conar said affectionately.

  “As I was saying, Sybelle came running to me, crying that I shouldn’t fight you. Pleading with me to swear I wouldn’t try taking Cat away from you.”

  Conar’s face showed his astonishment.

  “Yes,” Sajin acknowledged. “Can you believe it? Then she broke down and cried, babbling something about how I should not make an enemy of you because you are a dangerous man.”

  “I am a dangerous man.”

  “And a conceited buffoon,” Sajin grumbled. “She said you were a sorcerer, do you believe that? And that I wouldn’t stand a chance if I went up against you.”

  “She didn’t take into account the little altercation you and I had the other day?” Conar asked.

  Sajin shook his head. “She told me that morning that she put some kind of spell on me and I wouldn’t be hurt all that bad.” He rubbed his ribs. “I don’t know what the lady calls ‘bad,’ but I thought you were going to kill me.”

  Conar smiled. “Wouldn’t have happened.”

  “So are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “A sorcerer?”

  The smile widened. “Of the First Order.”

  Sajin rolled his eyes. “You’re as bad as her. She tells me she’s a ninth degree Adept, whatever that means.”

  The smile left and Conar took a moment before he commented. “It means she’s good at her craft.”

  “Yeah, right,” Sajin growled. “Anyway, I just came to tell you I’m wise to you. If you’re gonna be making the women sob over you, I’m just gonna have to come up with something to outdo you.”

  Conar’s smile returned. “You do that, Ben-Alkazar. I look forward to whipping your nomad ass.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Major Storm Jale stepped from the Inner Kingdom jinriksha and frowned up at the minaret from which a very loud, very eerie-sounding voice was calling. With brows arched in wonder, he watched as the people around him headed for what the driver called a mosque and began to unroll little rolls to spread on the ground.

  “It is their prayer time.”

  Storm turned and looked at dark man who came up behind him. “I was born in Jabol, but this is not the religion I practice.”

  “Once a child of the Prophetess, always a child of the Prophetess,” the man quoted. “You are the gentleman from Serenia?”

  “How …?

  “The good captain of the East Wind pointed you out to me. He said you needed a guide to take you to St. Steffensberg.” He held out his hand. “I am Azalon Ben-Hasheed. I have a caravan leaving for the Outer Kingdom at the end of the month.”

  A heavy sigh escaped Jale’s lips. “Do you know of one leaving any sooner?”

  Azalon shook his head. “There only a few of us merchants allowed across the border. Only one caravan a month may travel into the Tzar’s domain and this month it is my privilege to make that trip.”

  Storm looked away, staring out across the sea of men who were bending and bowing toward the mosque. He had hoped to be in the Outer Kingdom before the end of the month, but if there was no other way, there was no other way. He looked back at the dark man.

  “Where do you suggest I take lodgings until then?”

  Azalon smiled, showing heavily-stained teeth where there were not gaping holes in his mouth. “There is a small inn owned by one of my relatives where you may acquire a clean bed and excellent meals. If you would allow me, I will escort you there.” He held up his hands. “The streets of Asaraba are twisting and there are no signs to point you in the right direction.”

  Storm smiled. “Then I would greatly appreciate any assistance you can give.” He put out a hand to stop the man. “Would you be insulted if I try to find someone to take me across the border sooner?”

  Azalon shrugged. “You may try, friend, but I doubt you will find anyone.”

  “There is a Serenian staying at the Moon and Scimitar Inn,” the spy informed his master. “He looks to be strong and healthy.”

  “How old?”

  “Thirty-five, thirty-six.” The spy glanced around him. “He has the look of our people, but does not answer the calls for prayer.”

  “Is he alone?”

  The spy nodded.

  “Then, do what needs be done, Achmed.”

 

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