WINDREAPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  "It isn't my unreasonableness that's at question!" He put his hands on the tiny pearl buttons, undoing them with little care. "I am your husband and you will obey me!"

  * * *

  Liza sighed again, hating her husband's arrogant, proprietary tone, biting her bottom lip to keep her anger from erupting. She let the gown fall in a graceful heap at her bare feet. She stepped out of it and stooped to pick it up. As she did, Legion grabbed her upper arms and dragged her to him, crushing the gown between them.

  "Did you hear me?" he shouted. "You will do as I say, woman!"

  His hard fingers dug into the soft flesh of her arms, bruising her. "You are hurting me."

  "I'll do more than hold you roughly if you don't do as I say! I will not have you going near him!"

  His mouth came down over hers with a brutal, searing assault that took her breath away. He molded her slim body to his and ground his hips into her. She felt the hard erection that was blinding him to everything else around him. He lifted her from the floor by her upper arms and took the few steps that led to the bed in which Conar McGregor had been conceived. He pushed her down on the soft fur coverlet and lay on top of her, pinning her beneath him, writhing against her as his hands went to the silk and lace of her chemise.

  "Legion, don't!" she protested as he rent the fragile material and dragged it away from her.

  "You are mine! Not his!"

  Liza pushed ineffectually at his broad shoulders, trying to dislodge him. His hands fumbled with the closure of his breeches. She gasped as he freed himself and the hard rigidity of his manhood pressed against her quivering thighs.

  "You belong to me! To me, damn you! He'll never touch you again as long as I draw breath!" He guided himself to her, stabbing at her shrinking flesh with the steel of his penis. He found the opening of her vagina and began to push himself into the tight, dry opening.

  "Legion, please, don't!" She gripped his hair, her fingers tangling in the thick mane of salt and pepper, pulling with all her might to get his attention, but he was obviously beyond sight or sound or denial.

  Legion drove deeply into her with an insanity likely born of jealous rage and a life-long belief that he was not as good a man as his brother, that he would never be equal to the man no matter how hard he tried nor how much he accomplished. He rode Liza like a madman, pummeling her with his flesh, slapping against her with quick, pulsing jabs.

  "Legion," she begged, "you are hurting me!"

  When he climaxed, he jammed his hands beneath her buttocks and raised her up so his penetration could go deeper, painfully so. He laughed at her cry of pain as he pressed himself to the hilt. "Feel me! Feel me, Liza!"

  She felt the almost immediate shrinking of his member as he pulled free of her flesh. The wet essence of him dripped down her thigh when he turned to lie on his back, one arm thrown over his face.

  "Did you lie so passively beneath him?" came his bitter intrusion into the silence.

  She had no answer. They were so much alike, these two brothers. What they did, they did passionately; whom they loved, they loved with a single-minded pursuit; what they hated, they hated with the same intensity.

  "Aye, Legion," she finally said. "When he raped me, I laid just as still."

  His head turned. He stared at her for a long moment, then a single, muffled cry came from him. He turned his face into her shoulder, putting his arm around her waist to hold her. "Oh, God, see what you've done to me?" he sobbed. "What loving you has made of me?"

  Bringing up her arms, she enclosed him within their protective embrace and cushioned his racking sobs with her body. Crooning softly, she tried to hush his crying, telling him it was of little matter.

  "I am no better than he was!"

  "And no worse." She felt her husband's tears falling down her side. "Have you no faith in me, Legion?"

  When he looked up at her, his face was pinched in pain. "It isn't you I mistrust."

  "You think he would betray you after all you have done for him? Do you think I would let him?"

  He searched her face. "Can you tell me that you do not love him still?" When she remained silent, her eyes drifting away from the sharp intensity of his own, he nodded. "I thought as much. You are still in love with him."

  Liza let him move out of her embrace and watched as he stood, readjusting his manhood into his breeches. She said nothing until he pulled his discarded shirt over his head. "Where are you going?"

  "Does it matter?" he asked, one dark brow raised.

  "Aye, Legion, it does."

  "No," he said, shaking his head in denial. "He matters to you, Liza. He always has and he always will." There was a hopeless, helpless look on his bearded face. "I was merely a substitute for him."

  "Legion!" she gasped, coming to her knees on the bed. "That's not true!"

  "You may not think so, but I know better. I mattered until Conar McGregor came home. Now that he is back, you want to be with him."

  "Not in the way you mean!" she said angrily. "It is you who is pushing me into his arms, Legion A'Lex!"

  "Liza, if you truly believe you can be with him and not let him touch you, nor you touch him, you are deluding yourself, love. I can't compete with him. I've never been able to. What he has wanted, he has always gotten, and he wants you as much as you want him."

  "And I tell you he will never be the one to betray you!"

  "No, I would imagine not." He smiled at her. "It will be you who does the betraying."

  * * *

  Regan looked out the door of the room he and Corbin shared. He didn't see his half-brother anywhere, and was pleased. Interference of any kind was exactly what he didn't need.

  He eased the door shut and bolted it. Making his way to the bag of clothing on his bed, he rummaged through the contents until his fist closed around the thing he was looking for. He pulled out the black crystal dagger. He held it to the light, marveling at the shine of its black blade, feeling the power coursing through the deadly edge. Unconsciously, he licked his lips.

  Here was the tool to his father's final and ultimate destruction as Kaileel had sworn so long ago—a weapon that could sever the life thread connecting Conar McGregor to this world, sending him plummeting into the Abyss.

  He looked at the blade from every angle before he was satisfied. Pulling up his tunic, he stuck the dagger into the waistband of his breeches.

  "Soon…very, very soon."

  * * *

  Conar looked up as the door opened. He had expected Legion, who now stood in the dim light from the corridor. A deafening silence filled the room as they faced one another, the air heavy and expectant. Time dragged on like a widow's weeds.

  Legion finally spoke. "I wish to the gods you had never returned."

  "I know."

  "Why did you?"

  Conar carefully watched his brother. "It wasn't necessary for me to have come back to Boreas Keep. I could have carried on my business with Kaileel from here or Eurus or a dozen other places. It was you who sent for me."

  "And you know why, too!"

  "I also know you might never have sent for the Darkwind had you known who it was." He got up from the mattress and leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his bare chest. A light sheen of sweat glistened on the fine hair between his breastbone, despite the chill. "You didn't ever want to see me again."

  "That isn't true! I would have gladly welcomed Conar McGregor home. If you had to come back to us when you were released from the Labyrinth, you would have been—"

  "I would have been welcomed with loving, brotherly arms if I had come back the broken man I was then," Conar interrupted in a bitter voice.

  "We would have cared for you! You could have come to us and we would have seen to you because—"

  "Because I would have been so pitiful and so docile that I could have been led around like a cripple?" He nodded. "And then you could have cosseted me like a pet dog, patted my obedient head, draped your supportive arms around me to help me walk, feed me,
clothe me, cleaned up my shit." Conar pushed away from the wall. "Aye, you would have done that while you shook your head at how submissive I had become. Aye, you would have welcomed me had I come home like that because I would have posed no threat. No woman would have wanted me like that."

  "You came back for her! My sending for you played right into your hands, didn't it?"

  Conar vigorously shook his head. "No. I didn't want to come back here."

  "Then why did you?"

  "Corbin."

  "You thought he was Galen's son. Don't tell me you felt some pull toward Corbin. I won't believe it!'

  "I felt no pull, but I wasn't about to let another McGregor male suffer the torture and abuse this McGregor male did at Kaileel Tohre's hands!"

  "But even after you rescued the boy, you stayed at Boreas! Why?" Legion's face was livid.

  "I think you know."

  "You won't have her!" A'Lex's furious bellow rattled the windows. "I won't let you take her away from me!"

  "Have I tried?"

  "Aye, you have!"

  Conar locked his own angry gaze with Legion's. The demon inside him thrust words from his lips he had never intended to say. "If I had, do you believe she would still be with you?"

  Legion's lip curled. "You have that much faith in your ability to take her away from me?"

  "She belongs to me."

  A deadly quiet sank over the room, like sod over an open grave. The air turned colder, and wind moaned at the windows.

  At last, Legion spoke, his voice hard and hateful. "Brelan reminded me this morning that he and I owe you a debt."

  "You owe me nothing."

  "You're right." Legion glared at him. "That debt was paid in full when we saved your life. We failed to save you from Tohre, but we did save you from yourself!"

  "I never blamed either of you for what was done to me back then."

  "You never had the chance."

  "Only a fool would have blamed you or Brelan."

  "But we blamed ourselves!"

  "There was no need."

  "Don't tell me there was no need! We watched you being flogged like a common criminal and did nothing to stop it! We watched the flesh being stripped from your back and didn't raise a hand to stay the whip! We watched you being carried out to sea in that damnable coffin and didn't have the courage to take it away from Tohre and bury you somewhere safe!"

  A wry smile touched Conar's lips. "It was a good thing you didn't."

  "Don't joke about this! We thought you were dead!"

  "And in a way, I was. Are you blaming me because I didn't die?"

  Legion took a step forward, obviously enraged. "I loved you!"

  Conar began to feel weak. Perspiration coated him like a second skin. "But you no longer do."

  "What of Liza?"

  The sudden change of thought put Conar off guard. "What of her?"

  "What are your intentions toward her? I will know, here and now, what you plan!"

  Suddenly the room lurched, bright glares of light bursting from the far corners of the room, spiraling out to wash over Conar, stagger him. Vomit surged up his throat. He tried to swallow, only to find his throat closing against the hot metallic taste of it.

  He thought he was over the withdrawal, but he fleetingly remembered Marsh warning him about flashbacks, adrenaline surges that could flood his system with the last vestiges of the drug. The fight with his brother, the emotional upheaval it caused his system, was spreading dregs of the high-powered narcotic throughout his entire body.

  "Again?" Legion asked, concern washing over his face.

  Conar nodded as he bent over, his hands on his knees, gasping air in an effort to quell the nausea.

  Legion leapt forward in time to catch Conar when he pitched to his knees. Conar crumbled in his arms.

  The pain wasn't as bad as before. Now, it felt more like a burning bellyache than the godawful cramps. He felt himself being laid on his mattress, covered with a thin blanket. Putting his clasped hands between his raised knees, he bent his head toward his chest, closing his lids to the pain, shivering with uncontrollable spasms of teeth-chattering cold.

  Legion sat beside him. "Is it bad?"

  "N—not too b—bad."

  * * *

  Now, as Legion watched his brother tremble, words came into his memory from all directions. Conar's pleading during the worst moments of his withdrawal; Marsh's warnings about being too lenient on the man; Sern's hateful scorn soon after Conar had lapsed into the coma that almost killed him.

  "Think you I made him take the drugs?" Sern had screamed at Legion. "Did I provide him with the liquor before we met?"

  Legion had grabbed the nomad by the throat, fully intending to rid the world of a worthless desert-dweller.

  "Ask yourself," Sern hissed, his face red. "Ask yourself why he needs to drug his mind so he can sleep! Ask yourself why he needs a drug to ease the aching in his heart and soul! Ask yourself why he craves a drug to still the heat in his loins so he can take a woman he cares nothing about! Then ask yourself why he has done what he has done this night! Was it because he had no more desire to live? Or was it because he knew he could never be with the woman he was destined to be with? The woman he loves?"

  Brelan tore Legion's hands from Sern's neck, but the nomad's last words clung to Legion's flesh.

  "Finally, my fine Serenian warrior—ask yourself why he can not be with the woman he loves!" The nomad's ugly, dark face twisted into a grimace of retaliation as he rubbed his throat. "It was not I who took his woman away from him!"

  Legion hit him. And hit him again and again until Brelan and Jah-Ma-El dragged him away, kicking and screaming, his anger hot and spewing.

  Now, watching Conar battling the demons wracking his body, Legion A'Lex finally understood why Conar had done all the things he had since coming back to Serenia.

  "Sweet Alel," Conar moaned, gritting his teeth.

  "Hang on," Legion said from habit. "Maybe it won't be long."

  "Legion?"

  He looked into Conar's sweating face. "I did this to you."

  Conar shook his head. "I did it to myself."

  "I was the cause!"

  "You were the excuse."

  Legion felt his guilt for the very first time, and it staggered him. Though it had been there all along, he had refused to see it because he had not wanted to. He was the reason, the only reason, the only obstacle, standing in the way of Conar and Liza being together. Something twisted deep in his soul. He wanted to deny the truth, but couldn't. Liza would love Conar McGregor for as long as she drew breath, and Conar would go to his grave loving her. They had been destined to be together and, if not for him, they would be.

  The truth was ugly, and he could not handle it.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?" Conar asked, his teeth chattering.

  "She is mine," Legion said, a muscle working in his jaw.

  "I know."

  "You will not take her from me."

  "I'm not trying to. If I did, she would never forgive me, and she wouldn't leave you anyway. She'll honor your marriage contract."

  Those last five words stung more than a nest of angry wasps. It was not a matter of Liza loving him. Legion knew she did. But it was not the same all-encompassing, eternal love she had for Conar. It was a debt she owed him, a legal obligation, and he felt the weight of it like a crushing boulder to his ego.

  Absolute fury engulfed Legion A'Lex. He shot up from the mattress as though red-hot liquid had been poured over him. "Stay away from her, Conar!" he shouted, running for the door. "I mean it!"

  "Legion, wait!" came the panting plea.

  "Just stay the hell away from my wife!" He yanked open the door and fled down the hall, his boot heels rumbling over the floorboards.

  * * *

  Tears squeezed from Conar's tightly shut eyes. He clutched his arms around himself and buried his face into the mattress. He had read his brother's thoughts, and though he pitied Legion, there was not
hing he could do to help him.

  "I can't," he whispered to the empty room. "By the gods, Legion, I can't stay away from her—and I won't."

  Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Charlotte Boyett-Compo is the author of more than two dozen novels, the first ten of which are the WindLegends Saga. For nearly three full years, Charlee has remained—first with Dark Star Publications, and now with Amber Quill Press—the company's most popular and best-selling author. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America, the HTML Writer's Guild, and Beta Sigma Phi Sorority. Married thirty-two years to her high school sweetheart, Tom, she is the mother of two grown sons, Pete and Mike, and the proud grandmother of Preston Alexander and Victoria Ashlee. A native of Sarasota, Florida, she grew up in Colquitt and Albany, Georgia, and now lives in the Midwest.

  Most any fan of electronic books—or fans of dark fantasy and suspense—has at least heard her name mentioned, if not purchased at least one of her many offerings. This prolific author has not only managed to gain multiple nominations and awards for her work, but better still, has built a fan base whose members border on the "fanatical."

  Currently, Charlee is at work on at least several books in her various series and trilogies.

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