Kinley MacGregor
RETURN OF THE WARRIOR
To my fans, who have been so incredibly wonderful and supportive. You guys are the best! For the RBL women, who are always there when I need a pick-me-up. To my loop members, who fill my life with laughter and caring. God bless you all.
For May, Lyssa and Nancy, who work so tirelessly to make every book the best it can be. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys and I never want to find out. To my husband and boys, for filling my life with love and for making it complete.
But most of all for my mother, who really wanted to read Christian’s story. I’m only sorry I didn’t get it done sooner, Mom. I miss you more than I would have ever thought possible and I hope that you were right and that heaven is filled to the brim with all the books you loved so much.
Contents
EPIGRAPH
PROLOUGUE
“Well?” Queen Adara asked in nervous anticipation as her senior…
ONE
Christian of Acre sat in the aleroom of the town’s…
TWO
The men paused in the doorway as they surveyed her…
THREE
Adara stared at the man who held her. “I’m not…
FOUR
Adara’s heart returned to its frantic beating while she scanned…
FIVE
Phantom choked on the porridge. Brother Thomas pounded him on…
SIX
Christian woke up to the harsh morning light. For an…
SEVEN
The marriage was now consummated. Adara should feel elated and…
EIGHT
It was late when Adara went to find Phantom in…
NINE
Christian sat in his wooden chair, staring at Adara, who…
TEN
Adara sat alone at a table eating her supper of…
ELEVEN
While Christian and Dagger settled Agbert, Adara returned to the…
TWELVE
By the time they reached Venice, the weather was freezing,…
THIRTEEN
“Adara?”
FOURTEEN
Her miracle didn’t come right away. Adara wasn’t sure how…
FIFTEEN
With Phantom’s words ringing in his head, Christian paused as…
SIXTEEN
Adara and Christian settled into an easy camaraderie as they…
SEVENTEEN
“Something’s amiss,” Christian said as he surveyed the rising mountains…
EIGHTEEN
“The imposter’s dead.”
EPILOGUE
The last two months had moved far too swiftly for…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BOOKS BY KINLEY MACGREGOR
COVER
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
There are three acts in a man’s life which no one should advise him either to do or not to do. The first is to get married, the second is to go to the wars and the third is to go to the Holy Land. These things are all good in themselves, but they may turn out ill, in which case he who gave the advice will be blamed as if he were the cause of it.
—EBERHARD OF WÜRTTEMBERG
BROTHERHOOD OF THE SWORD
Prologue
Taagaria
A small kingdom adjoining Byzantium
“Well?” Queen Adara asked in nervous anticipation as her senior advisor drew near her throne.
Xerus had been her father’s most trusted man. At almost three score years in age, he still held the sharpness of a man in the prime of his life. His once-black hair was now streaked with gray and his beard was whiter than the stone walls that surrounded their capital city, Garzi.
Since her father’s death two years past, Adara had turned to Xerus for everything. There was no one alive she trusted more, which didn’t say much, since, as a queen, her first lesson had been that spies and traitors abounded in her court. Most thought that a woman had no business as the leader of their small kingdom.
Adara had other thoughts on that matter. As her father’s only surviving child, she refused to see anyone not of their royal bloodline on this throne. Her family had held the royal seat since before the time of Moses.
No one would take her precious Taagaria from her. Not so long as she breathed.
Xerus shook his head and sighed wearily. “Nay, my queen, they refuse to allow you to divorce their prince. In their minds you are married and should you try to sever ties to their throne by divorce or annulment they will attack with the sanction of the Church. After all, in their eyes they already own our kingdom. In fact, Selwyn thinks it best that you move into his custody for your own welfare so that they can protect you…as their queen.”
Adara clenched her fists in frustration.
Xerus glanced over his shoulder toward her two guards who flanked her door before he drew closer to her throne so that he could whisper privately into her ear.
Lutian, her fool, crept nearer to them as well and angled his head so that he wouldn’t miss a single word. He even cupped his ear forward.
Xerus glared at the fool.
Dropping his hand, Lutian glared back. A short, lean man, Lutian had straight brown hair and wore a well-trimmed beard. Possessed of average looks, his face was pleasant enough, but it was his kind brown eyes that endeared him to her.
“Speak openly,” she said to her advisor. “There is no one I trust more than Lutian.”
“He’s a half-wit, my queen.”
Lutian snorted. “Half-wit, whole-wit, I have enough of them to know to keep silent. So speak, good counselor, and let the queen judge which of the two of us is the greater fool present.”
Adara pressed her lips together to keep from smiling at Lutian. Two years younger than she, Lutian had been seriously injured as a youth when he’d tumbled from their walls and landed on his head. Ever since that day, she had watched over him and kept him close lest anyone make his life even more difficult.
She placed a hand on his shoulder to silence him. Xerus couldn’t abide being made fun of. Unlike her, he didn’t value Lutian’s friendship and service.
With a warning glare to the fool, Xerus finally spoke. “Their prince-regent said that if you would finally like to declare Prince Christian dead, then he might be persuaded toward your cause…at a price.”
Closing her eyes, she ground her teeth furiously. The Elgederion regent had made his position on that matter more than clear. Selwyn wanted her in his son’s bed as his bride to secure their tenuous claim to the throne, and the devil would freeze solid before she ever gave herself over to him and allowed those soulless men to rule her people.
How she wished she commanded a larger nation with enough soldiers to pound the arrogant prince-regent into nothing more than a bad memory. Unfortunately, a war would be far too costly to her people and her kingdom. They couldn’t fight the Elgederions alone and none of their other allies would help, since to them it was a family squabble between her and her husband’s kingdom.
If only her husband would return home and claim his throne, but every time they had sent a man for him, the messenger was slain. To her knowledge none of them had ever reached Christian and she was tired of sending men to their deaths.
Nay, ’twas time to see this matter closed once and for all.
“Send for Thera,” she whispered to Xerus.
He scowled at her. “For what purpose?”
“I intend to take a lengthy trip and I can’t afford to let anyone know that I am not here to guard my throne.”
“Your cousin is not you, Your Grace. Should anyone learn—”
“I trust you alone to keep her and my crown safe until I return. Have her confined to my quarters and tel
l everyone that I am ill.”
Xerus looked even more confused by her orders. “Where are you going?”
“To find my wayward husband and bring him home.”
One
Withernsea, England
Christian of Acre sat in the aleroom of the town’s only inn, finishing his supper in solitude while the rest of the inn’s occupants ate and drank noisily around him. It was dark inside, with most of the light coming from the fireplace, on the hearth, where a portly stout woman roasted venison and pork.
He’d been here for the last four days, waiting for Pagan and Lochlan MacAllister to meet him. The plan was for them to join forces.
They were all on the trail of a friend’s murderer who was said to have headed this way with his brothers. If Lysander’s killer was anywhere nearby, Christian would find him and make him pay for what he had taken from them. And if Lochlan happened to learn anything helpful about his missing brother Kieran MacAllister, then Christian would rejoice even more.
But at the end of the day, the only thing that mattered to him was putting Lysander’s soul to rest. The man had been a good one, and as a member of the Brotherhood he had been invaluable. His murder sat ill with all of them. The Brotherhood members hadn’t survived hell to return home and be slain over nothing more than sheer meanness.
Drinking the last of his ale, Christian left money on the table, then got up to go to his rented room.
Times like this, he almost hated that he traveled alone. Especially since Nassir and Zenobia were newly departed from his company. They had left just the day before, on their way back to Outremer.
But then, Christian had chosen of his own free will to live his life alone.
It was better this way.
He had lived for almost six years sequestered in a monastery cell where the brothers forbade any chatter at all. They had used their hands to speak to each other. Never their mouths. So silence and solitude were nothing new to him.
After living with the monks, Christian had spent another six years imprisoned in the squalid twenty-foot cell of his enemies. He had no desire to ever again be chained down by anyone or anything.
For the first time in his life he was free, and he fully intended to stay that way.
If solitude and loneliness were the price of his freedom, so be it. It was only a trifle compared to the blood and bone he’d paid for far lesser things.
Christian reached his room at the end of the hallway and pushed open the door. He pulled up short as he caught sight of the lone figure waiting there beside a small table where an oil lamp flickered brightly.
Slight of stature, the unknown person was robed in a long black cloak that gave him no indication of gender or nationality.
“Did you perchance enter the wrong room?” he asked, thinking maybe it was another traveler who had lost his way.
The figure turned toward him.
“That depends,” she said, her voice smooth and erotic, and tinged with an accent he couldn’t place. “Are you Christian of Acre?”
He stiffened at the question, especially since he had recently come from Hexham, where assassins looking for him and his brothers-in-arms had abounded.
And some of those assassins had been female…
“Who seeks him?”
The woman moved forward and boldly pulled at the thin gold chain around Christian’s neck where his mother’s royal emblem had rested since the hour of his birth. She turned it over to see on the back another engraving of a crest of a kingdom he’d only visited once as a small child.
“Aye,” she said, letting it fall back to his chest on the outside of his black monk’s robes. “You are indeed the one I seek.”
“And you are?”
Her elegant hands came out of the dark folds of her cloak to unclasp the catch. Before he could even draw a breath, she let the whole of it fall to the floor with a rush of wind and a heavy thud.
Christian’s jaw went slack as he saw her standing there with not a single stitch adorning her dark beauty. Long black hair cascaded over her shoulders, obscuring her breasts as the ends of it tickled the dark triangle at the juncture of her thighs.
She was beautiful and his body reacted wildly to her brash nudity.
“Who am I?” she asked in that wickedly erotic voice. “I’m your wife and I’m here to claim you.”
Completely stunned by the unexpected words, Christian felt his jaw go slack as she reached for him.
He stepped back immediately. “I beg your pardon. I have no wife.”
She stared up at him with dark soulful eyes from under her long black lashes. “How I wish it true, but alas, my lord, you most certainly do, and I have no intention of leaving your side.”
Christian forced himself to close his gaping mouth. ’Twas obvious the woman was mad. He retrieved her cloak from the floor and quickly wrapped it around her nude body, even though part of him screamed out that he was an utter fool to turn her away.
How often did a man find a woman like this offering herself to him in such a bold manner?
It definitely wasn’t often enough.
“My lady, you ap—”
”Adara,” she said, interrupting him. “Remember me now?”
Christian opened his mouth to deny it, but before he could, an image went through his mind of a young girl from his childhood. All he remembered of her were two large brown eyes that had reminded him of a gentle fawn as they studied him with great curiosity. She’d been shy and quiet, certainly not the type who as a woman would bare herself to a complete stranger.
But those large brown eyes…
They were the same and every bit as enchanting now as they had been then. More so, point of fact.
“I can see that you do.” Her exotic voice whipped through him with power. “And I remember you as well.”
Adara grew quiet as the memory of the boy Christian went through her. The first time she had seen him, she had been entranced by his fair coloring. In her kingdom, blondes were exceedingly rare. Handsome ones even more so.
He’d come to their palace on their wedding day wearing the finest of silk, which had floated around his body like a dark blue cloud. Barely seven years of age, she had stared at him from her window, curious about the fairness of the eight-year-old boy who was to be her husband.
Now she was enthralled by the man before her. Extremely tall and handsome, he was well muscled and had the bearing of a man well used to commanding everyone around him. He was exactly what she sought. A man who could send his usurper scurrying away from their kingdoms with his tail tucked firmly between his legs.
Not to mention he was far kinder on her eyes than she had ever dared to hope.
His long golden hair hung just past his shoulders and he had a small, well-trimmed goatee that added a fierce air of masculinity to him. His blue eyes were searing and intelligent. He held the kind of face that was compelling in its manly beauty, the kind of face that a woman couldn’t help but stare at in awe and with desire.
“We were only betrothed,” he said in a deep, resonating voice that somehow managed to send a small shiver through her every time he spoke.
“Nay, Christian, we were married that day. I have the papers to prove it.”
“Show me.”
Ignoring the challenge of his tone, Adara refastened her cloak to her before she moved to the corner where she had left her small parcel that contained two simple gowns and enough gold to see her safely home again. In the bottom was the leather pouch that held the proof she needed.
She pulled it out, then handed it to the doubting man whose regal presence seemed to fill the entire room. This was not going the way she’d planned at all. Lutian had assured her that the instant she bared herself to her husband he would fall down on his knees in gratitude, then consummate their marriage immediately.
As she watched Christian, she doubted anything on this earth could make a man this proud fall down onto his knees.
It would certainly take more than a me
re woman’s nudity.
Christian’s eyes narrowed as he opened, then read the document he could barely recall from his childhood. It had been a warm summer day not long before his parents’ deaths. Adara hadn’t spoken a single word to him as her father had led her into the throne room so that the two of them could meet before they signed the betrothal contract.
She had merely glanced up at him, blushed, then signed the vellum document and ran away, not to be seen again during his two-day stay at her palace.
Now, as he scanned the Latin words and their childish handwriting, his vision turned dark. Deadly. The queen was right. This was no betrothal. It was indeed a contract for marriage.
“I was duped,” he snarled. Nay, not entirely true. Had he studied Latin more strenuously as a child and been more attentive, he would have been able to read it then and protest its contents.
Even as a child, he should have known better than to trust another human being with his future.
No one could ever be trusted.
Sadness and confusion mixed on her brow, gifting her face with a somber expression that was somehow no less lovely. “I see,” she said quietly. “But that changes nothing. We are legally married and I need you to come home with me and be crowned king.”
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