Storm turned over in the bed, scowling at the scratchy feel of the rough muslin beneath his cheek. The room was like an inferno and the smells of garlic and curry was thick in the air. His stomach was on fire with indigestion from the spicy foods he had consumed and he had a slight headache. Jale knew sleep would be a long time in coming.

  “The things I do for you, Conar,” he growled, lifting up to punch the pillow and regretting it for the dust from the feathers rose up to make him sneeze.

  He sneezed again. And again, exasperated by the allergy he’d had since childhood. It was as another sneeze exploded from him that he felt something heavy crash down on his skull and he ceased to sneeze.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Conar and Sajin leaned over the battlements and stared unabashedly at the staggered group of riders entering the palace gates. Now and then Sajin would either sneer with disgust or laugh outright, pointing to men who would glance up at him from the roadway and then away.

  “That fool there is Rupert Von Schlesendorf.” Sajin shook his head. “He doesn’t know one end of a lance from another but he’s a fair archer.”

  “He’s already been here,” Conar exclaimed. “Why would he humiliate himself again by trying for Cat’s hand?”

  “He needs the large dowry that comes with that pretty little hand,” Sajin mocked. “The man took the throne less than two years ago and has already drained his country’s treasury to copper coin. By allying himself with the Tzar, he can pull himself out of the muck of his finances.”

  Conar pointed. “Who’s that?”

  Sajin shook his head. “Alexi Barishnokov. He’s no threat.” He nodded politely at the man who waved cheerfully up to him. “He’s gay.”

  A snort of humor escaped from Conar. “What does he want with Cat?”

  “He probably wants to write sonnets and sing them to her.” Sajin clamped his companion’s shoulder with a friendly squeeze. “DON’T, I beg you, ask the man to sing, Conar. He sounds like a rusty barn door squealing.”

  “I’ve had experience with that.” Conar chuckled. “You should hear my brother Legion!”

  “Cat would go insane having to listen to Alexi. I think the man believes a wife would have to listen to him.”

  “I take it he thinks he’s good?” Conar asked.

  Sajin shrugged. “He’s godawful.” The Kensetti’s hand tightened on Conar’s shoulder. “Now, there is competition.”

  Conar looked down at the man whose black stallion was prancing toward the gate house. By the set of his shoulders and the arrogance of his face, the Serenian prince understood the man thought himself someone of importance.

  “That’s Prince Guil Ben-Shanar Gehdrin. He’s the crown prince of the Rysalian southern sector at Basaraba. That jackal riding beside him is his right-hand man, Rasheed Falkar.”

  From the look on his new friend’s face, Conar could tell the Kensetti wasn’t pleased to see the Rysalian. “Is there bad blood between the two of you?”

  Sajin pushed away from the wall and turned his back to the procession of men arriving for the tourney. He stared out across the battlements, his body rigid.

  “Sajin?” Conar questioned.

  “Do you know who Sager El-Balidar was?”

  A cold shaft of intense foreboding scraped down Conar’s spine and he stared at the man beside him. The blast of a trumpet going off in his ear could not have made him move.

  The Kensetti prince turned his head and looked at Conar. “Do you?”

  Conar nodded slowly, searching the eyes of the man beside him.

  Something dark moved across Sajin’s face and then he looked away again. “How well did you know the bastard?”

  It took Conar a long time to answer. “Better than I wanted to.” He thought of the old man who had been the Domination’s Arch-Prelate during his internment at the Abbey as a boy and shivered. He let out a heavy breath. “Is he the one?”

  Sajin’s steady gaze lifted to the heavens as a hawk circled lazily overhead. “It was before he became Arch-Prelate and left the Inner Kingdom to take up his duties in Serenia.” He squinted as though in great pain. “My mother had taken me to Basaraba for the festival of the harvest. She was Rysalian, a distant cousin of the Gehdrin family, and they had invited her to attend a wedding of another cousin that was to take place that week.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I was nine.”

  Bad memories of his own of the old man kept Conar from asking what he wanted of the Kensetti. If Sager had done to Ben-Alkazar what he had done to Conar, there was no need to ask.

  “I never told my mother what happened at the court at Basaraba, but when I returned to Kensett, Sybelle somehow guessed what the old bastard did to me and it was soon after that that she began to talk of joining the witches in the hills.”

  “To avenge you?”

  Sajin smiled grimly. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Was Sager kin to this Guil?”

  “Guil is Sager’s grandson.”

  Conar turned back around and looked down at the meandering group of tourney participants. “But your dislike of him goes beyond his relationship to Sager El-Balidar.”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he know what his grandfather did to you when you were a child?”

  Sajin shook his head. “I don’t believe he does.” He turned around and braced his hands on the half-wall. “If he did, he’d have brought it up to me before now.” A crooked, evil smile touched the Kensetti’s full lips. “He is in love with his half-sister, Jasmine, and Jasmine is in love with me.”

  Conar looked at his companion and crooked a questioning brow. “His own sister?”

  “Incest is best when kept in the family,” Sajin quipped. “Jasmine hates his guts.”

  “Has he …?”

  Sajin snorted with contempt. “With Jasmine? She’d geld him and laugh the entire time! No, the girl is a virgin despite her attempts to alleviate that situation.”

  “How old is she?” Conar asked.

  “Sixteen.” He glanced at Conar. “She met a man from your Wind Force a few years ago and thought sure she’d get him to relieve her of her burden but her father put a stop to that.”

  Conar’s face showed his surprise. “Who?”

  “I forget his name but he is of royal lineage. He captains his own boat out of Virago.” Sajin looked around at the hearty laugh that came from his friend.

  “Paegan Hesar.” Conar chuckled. “I remember now that he couldn’t stop talking about the Rysalian wench he had ….” He stopped, blushing.

  Sajin’s face paled. “He didn’t!” A slow nod was the Kensetti’s answer. “Would he lie?” the nomad asked with a look of hope.

  “Paegan, lie?” Conar shook his head. “No.”

  The Kensetti groaned. “By the Prophetess, if that little conniving bitch had conceived, there would have been war between Rysalia and Virago!”

  “He wants to marry her, if that’s any consolation,” Conar told him. “The Hesar’s are good men and Virago is a very rich Principality.” He frowned. “But they’re cousins of mine.”

  Sajin shrugged. “That wouldn’t matter to Sadaam Gehdrin as long as the Prince gave Jasmine everything she wanted.” He shook his head. “But if Guil ever finds out his sister was compromised, there will be hell to pay.” He sighed. “The bastard wanted to be the first, and only one, to take her.”

  “Sorry about that,” Conar remarked. “Do they have the same father?”

  “The same mother,” Sajin answered. “Guil is older than me by two years. He courted Sybelle until Jasmine was around ten and then he turned his lecherous attentions to her. She’s a beautiful woman.”

  “So Paegan said.” He nudged Sajin with his foot. “Why haven’t you courted her if she’s so pretty.”

  “She’s too young. I’m old enough to be her father.”

  “So you think this Guil will give us some competition, huh?” Conar asked, wanting to take the heavy scowl from the Kensetti’s face.

  “Yes, but we’ll have to watch that snake in the grass, Rasheed, while the other of us is jousting with the man.”

  “You expect cheating from the man?”

  “I both expect it and anticipate it,” Sajin snarled. “He’s a fair enough fighter, but when he feels he’s losing, he doesn’t let something like honor and chivalry stand in his way.”

  “I take it you’ve fought him before,” Conar quipped.

  “Yes, and it was only by the luck of the Prophetess that I didn’t have my head struck from my body.” He narrowed his eyes. “Hasdus are a vicious breed of desert rat.”

  Conar nodded. “I know from experience that they are.” A memory stirred, surfaced, and he put a hand out to grip Sajin’s arm. “Do you know of a man named Jaleel Jaborn?”

  Sajin turned, his face showing his curiosity. “Where have you heard of him?”

  “Do you know of him?” Conar asked. He wasn’t at that moment prepared to explain how he knew of the man.

  “He’s a Rysalian from the middle province of Dahrenia. Why?”

  “Do you think he will come?” Conar’s eyes bored into the other man.

  “No. He already has more wives than he knows what to do with.” Sajin grinned. “As a matter of fact, he stays gone from his fortress at Abbadon as much as his uncle, the Sheik Ali Jaborn, will allow. I am told he travels outside our own part of the world whenever the mood strikes him and has women from nearly every country in his harem.”

  Conar scowled. “That’s a lot of women.”

  Sajin laughed. “He thinks he can handle them.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Jaleel? As close to a scorpion as any man can come. They say he murdered his own father and talked his mother’s sister into murdering her husband.”

  “Using Maiden’s Briar,” Conar mumbled.

  “You’ve heard the tale?” Sajin shivered. “A horrible way to die having a woman you trust slather poison on your cock, I’d think.”

  “Do you know why he would have done that?”

  Sajin glanced up as a hawk spiraled toward the flapping pennants of the Steffensberg family and then arched away, cawing out its greeting to him.

  “It is rumored Jaleel was engaged to marry a Venturian Princess, his first cousin, actually, but before the contracts could be signed between them, her father contracted her to another, more powerful man. I understand her mother was furious and Jaleel was at his uncle’s feet begging Rysalia to declare war on Ventura.” Sajin shrugged. “Which the Sheik was more than willing to do. The two provinces have been at war ever since.”

  Conar tightened his grip on Sajin’s arm. “Who was the woman he wanted to marry?”

  Sajin shook his head. “I don’t remember much of it, but I can find out.” He looked closely at

  his companion. “Why is it so important to you?” Conar let go of Sajin’s arm. “Let’s just say I have my reasons.” “I’ll see what I can find out.” The Serenian prince stared blindly down at the dwindling parade of tourney warriors. He wished with his entire being Jaleel Jaborn was among them.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  His tongue flicked lightly over her nipple and then spiraled around the dusky tip. He laughed deep in his throat when her hands tightened in his hair and pushed his questing lips closer to her breast. Drawing back his lips, he caught the erection of her nipple between his teeth and gently worked it, smiling to himself as she writhed beneath him, her back arching slightly from the mattress. Her fingers tugged at his hair, her nails grazing his scalp and his bite increased just enough to still her hands. He pulled his head up and looked at her.

  “Don’t stop,” she gasped, dragging an excited breath into her heaving lungs. “Please, don’t stop!”

  He shifted atop her, settling himself closer against the apex of her legs, his manhood stiff and probing at the core of her. Her groan brought another low chuckle and he swooped down to claim the pulsing flesh at the base of her neck with his mouth.

  “Ah …” he heard her groan as she ground herself against him. He could almost feel the moisture invading her vagina as he wriggled his hips against her.

  Once more her hands threaded their strength through his lush mane and pulled.

  “You were told not to do that,” he warned her as he sank his teeth none-too gently into the column of her throat.

  “Don’t!” she hissed, feeling the pain. Withdrawing her hands from his scalp, she encircled his shoulders with her arms and pressed herself tighter to her lover. “Lick me,” she ordered.

  He pushed himself away from her and stared down into her love-dampened face. One thick brow crooked and then he slid down her body until his face was at the triangular thatch of dark hair between her legs. Like a diving hawk, he pressed his mouth to her nether lips and swept his hot tongue over her pulsing flesh.

  “Yes!” she moaned, bringing her hips up. She felt his hands slide beneath her buttocks to lift her higher and she drew in a quick breath, the tremors of passion settling like a heavy twist in her lower belly.

  She tasted sweet to him and the musky, lusty scent of her filled his nostrils and he breathed deep, aroused by the smell. His tongue slid across her, into her, along the rough edges of her vaginal lips and then flicked with unerring aim at the very center of her passion.

  “Oh!” she gasped as she began to lift her hips in a rhythmic upward lunge. His fingers dug into the tender flesh of her rump and she gloried in the slight pain the grip brought.

  The bud of her sexual pleasure was a hard little nub of pulsing awareness to him. Even as he swathed her slit with his tongue, his teeth nibbled delicately on the stiff protrusion. He knew the feeling was driving her mad with desire for he could hear her panting, cast his eyes upward to see her gripping her pillow to either side of her head.

  She groaned as he slipped one hand from beneath her and insinuated it between her thighs. Holding her breath, expecting his next move, she nearly swooned as he deftly parted her and drove his questing fingers deep inside, pushing them so painfully tight up inside her she flinched. When he began to move his fingers apart, twist them inside her, she brought the edges of the pillow over her head to shut out her cries of ecstasy. Between the press of his finger, the flick of his tongue and the bite of his teeth, she came in a bright burst of soul-shattering pleasure that brought her hips off the bed and her hot womanhood hard against his conquering mouth.

  Deep inside her heat, he felt the contractions that signaled her release. He drove his fingers deeper, grinning as he heard her moan with the pain of it, and laughed as one final spasm ended and she dropped her hips back to the bed with a grunt of fatigue, all passion drained from her.

  Without giving her time to think, to react, to deny him, he was up on his knees and flipped her over to her belly, dragging her hips up until she was poised on her knees on the bed. Even as she cried out in denial, he rammed his fully erect and pulsing sword into her from behind and rammed home with enough force to make her strike the top of her head on the hard surface of the head board. It took him five strokes, hard and unrelenting jabs into her soft body, until the seed shot from him in a thick, pulsing stream. With one final thrust, one last arching of his hips toward her, he pulled out, laughing at her gasp of both pain and disappointment, and rolled over to his back, panting.

  “You bastard,” she said.

  “After all these years you know how I like my women, Sybelle,” he answered in a bored voice.

  “What you do hurts me,” she grumbled.

  “It is meant to.”

  Sybelle turned over and pushed herself up in the bed, leaned back against the head board and turned to look at him. His face was sweaty and the vein along the side of his neck was still throbbing heavily, but other than those two tell-tale signs, the man might have just been lying there in bed resting.

  “Do you not receive pleasure from the act of love making, Jaleel?” she asked him, suspecting that he did not.

  Prince Jaleel Jaborn blew out a long breath to let her know her question annoyed him. “Sex relieves tension, Sybelle. I do not engage in it for any other reason except to impregnate one or more of my wives.” He yawned.

  “Besides, what are you complaining about? You derive pleasure from what I do to you. I don’t ever send you from my bed wanting, do I?”

  “Would you care if I were satisfied or not?” she snapped.

  “No.”

  “It is the control, isn’t it?” she asked, watching his eyes close as he began to drift off. “You enjoy controlling people.”

  “True,” he answered looking up at her, “but you enjoy me controlling you, don’t you?”

  She jerked her gaze from his handsome face. This has been going on for far too long, she thought for not the first time. From somewhere she had to gather the strength to break off her affair with the Dahrenian prince. It was a destructive affair, one whose intimate bouts such as had just happened, more often left her disgusted with herself than satisfied. Idly, she wondered what was wrong with her, what part of her had mutated in childhood that would cause her to need the abuse Jaleel heaped upon her.

  “They tell me the Serenian King is here,” Jaleel remarked, drawing her immediate attention.

  “Conar McGregor,” she answered. “But I am told he has abolished the monarchy in his homeland.”

  A snort of derision came from the man beside her. “You may discard the crown of King, but that does not make you any the less the one meant to wear it. McGregor knows that. He may have his people call him what they will, but he intends to sit the throne as monarch just the same.”

  Sybelle shook her head. “He isn’t like what we have been told, Jaleel.”

  He turned to stare at her. “How is he different?”

  “He’s of the Power,” she whispered.

  Jaleel’s lips twisted. “I know that.” He fanned a dismissive hand. “But that power was largely channeled through his late wife and with her passing, he can do minimal damage.”

  “I don’t know,” Sybelle answered. “He had no problem reading my thoughts.”

  “Parlor tricks,” Jaleel scoffed. “I can read your thoughts, wench.”

 

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