WINDREAPER (40 page)

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 nothing 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 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.