Shades of the Wind (22 page)

for her. There were only two places set at the long, elegant table. On a pristine white

lace tablecloth, the exquisite china, heavy silverware and fragile-looking crystal

sparkled in the bright sunlight slashing through the tall casement windows.

“I really don’t think I’m going to be able to eat,” Catherine said.

A servant came in carrying a silver tray upon which sat two ornate goblets. Placing

a goblet before Catherine, he then set one before his prince.

Catherine frowned. “What is this?”

“Sustenance,” Rhada answered. “Your husband made arrangements before he left

last evening.”

Lifting the goblet, Catherine looked down into it and realized it was filled with

blood. Her eyes widened as her head snapped up as she stared at her host. “I can’t!” she

denied.

“Milady, you can,” he said firmly. “And you must. I promise you, it will restore

you.”

“But…”

“Being fully in our world means living as we live, milady,” he stated. “Once a day

is all that is necessary unless…” He blushed. “Well, unless in the act of passion you feel

the need to…” He shrugged. “I believe you understand what I am bumbling to say.”

She lowered her gaze to the crimson liquid. A part of her wanted to drop the goblet

and run, but another part made her mouth water. Torn between horror and need, she

just sat there until she saw Rhada lift his goblet and drain it. For a moment she feared

she’d throw up, but after a deep, strengthening breath, she brought the goblet to her

lips, closed her eyes and began to drink.

Rhada smiled to himself. Such had been the way with his wife ‘Mena. To this day,

she did the same thing as Ben-Alkazar’s wife was doing although by now he thought

perhaps it was more habit than need on her part. When Catherine had finished and set

the goblet down with a shaking hand, he arched a brow at her. “How do you feel?” he

asked.

Catherine was amazed that as she drank the headache vanished almost instantly

and her sense of illness had left her. She felt good actually, with a great deal of energy

flooding her system. With a dip of her head, she admitted she believed she could eat a

horse she was so hungry.

Throwing back his head, Rhada laughed then clapped his hands for his servant and

the man returned with a tray of wonderful-smelling food that brought delight to

Catherine’s eyes.

“Eat up, milady,” Rhada said.

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* * * * *

Hands thrust into the pockets of his trousers, Rhada hurried along the brick

walkway that led from the front steps of his home to the guardhouse. The gates were

closed though the portcullis had been raised for the day.

“Any sign of Prince Khenty?” he asked the chief guard.

“No, Your Grace,” the man replied. “We have been watching as you ordered.”

“I don’t like this,” Rhada said. It was well past noon and the man he had sent to

destroy the vrykolakas should have been back long before now. He stood there for a

moment then told the guard he would be leaving for a while. “If his lady should come

to ask, tell her I had business in the village.”

“Aye, Your Grace,” the chief guard replied.

Rhada turned and walked to the far side of the courtyard to an alcove and stepped

inside.

The chief guard looked up as the Imperial eagle’s wings flapped loudly in the still

air. He saluted the raptor as it winged its way over the guardhouse with a sonorous

bark of farewell.

Taking to the sky with a powerful snap of his wings, Rhada sailed over the forest at

the base of Mount Inferno. His sharp eyes were locked on the ground below, searching

for movement.

Soaring over a tall sweeping pine, he caught movement and banked, diving down

through the glistening pine needles until he found what he’d been seeking.

Khenty stopped, looked up at the majestic raptor as it settled to a sturdy branch. He

smiled tiredly. “Came searching for me, did you, Rhada?”

Taking his human shape as he crouched on the branch, Rhada cocked his head to

one side. “Where’d you get the clothes?”

The Kensetti prince looked down at the ragged clothes he wore. “I snatched them

from a villager’s shed last eve. A bad fit, eh?”

Rhada grinned. “You look like a scarecrow,” he teased.

“I feel like one and I strongly suspect that is what these rags were intended to

dress,” Khenty observed, plucking at the offending garments. He shrugged. “Is my lady

well?”

“She is, and has had her first goblet of Sustenance.”

Khenty narrowed his eyes. “How did she take to it?”

“Fair enough, I suppose. She ate a hardy meal afterwards.”

Staring up at the naked man perched on the branch, Khenty had to chuckle. “Your

dangly is dangling down below the branch, brother. Perhaps you should shift back to

your more modest shape. That bark has to be rough on your balls.”

Rhada sniffed. “When you tell me what took you so long,” he replied, completely

unconcerned with his nudity.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“I had an errand to run after I dispatched your vrykolakas
,
” Khenty told him. “She

had a child with her, a toddler, and I had to return the baby to its family.”

“Alive?” Rhada asked.

“And well. I don’t believe she meant the boy any harm but who knows? She might

have been saving him for a late-night snack.”

The Oceanian shuddered. “She didn’t taint him then.”

“No,” Khenty said then pushed back the sleeve on his left forearm, “but the bitch

took a bite out of me.”

Letting out a long sigh, Rhada pushed off the branch and landed easily on his bare

feet, striding forward to take a look at the vicious wound. He took Khenty’s arm, peered

closely at it and then shook his head. “This will need draining then cauterizing.”

“Aye, I figured as much.”

Rhada met the other psychopomp’s eye as he released Khenty’s arm. “Did my

villagers see you?”

“I doubt it. I had a helluva time finding the child’s parents. It was the mother’s

wailing that led me to them.” He lowered the sleeve over the bite mark. “I put the child

in front of their door, knocked then got out of there as fast as I could. I can’t wait to get

out of these foul clothes.”

“You can’t shift?”

“I’m too weak from this fucking poison spreading up my arm,” Khenty said. “I’m

barely able to walk.”

“Want me to bring a horse back for you?”

“I’d appreciate that.”

Rhada nodded then turned to go. “You’re on Ocaleae land now so I won’t worry

about Xolotl attacking you. Wait here,” he ordered. Within the space of a breath, he had

shifted to his avian form and taken to the sky.

Khenty sat down beneath the pine tree, drew his legs up and laid his head on his

knees. His arm was aching miserably, his head hurt and he knew he was feverish.

Heavy bronze-colored streaks had formed under the flesh around his wound and were

radiating toward his shoulder. A foul-smelling discharge seeped from the bite and the

area around it was swelling. His only consolation was the vrykolakas would never hurt

another human.

Half an hour later, he woke to men lifting him into the back of a wagon. “I thought

you were bringing me a horse,” he mumbled, closing his eyes to the light piercing his

vision.

“It’s a good thing I didn’t,” Rhada said. “I don’t think you’re capable of sitting

one.”

A soft padding had been laid on the back of the wagon and Khenty was

appreciative of the comfort. As soon as the cool fingers touched his brow, he knew to

whom they belonged and forced his eyes open. He smiled. “Hello, wench.”

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Shades of the Wind

“Are you going to forever be making me worry about you, milord?” Catherine

asked as she smoothed the hair back from his forehead.

“That’s a wife’s duty,” he reminded her.

“Aye, and scolding her husband for walking in harm’s way is right at the top of that

list of duties,” she countered.

“I suppose you’re right,” he agreed as she eased his head onto her lap.

“And we will talk about your choice of garments later,” she said, wrinkling her

nose. “You positively reek, milord.”

Rhada exchanged a look with the guard who was driving the wagon. They both

knew it was the smell of the necrotic tissue of the Kensetti’s wound that was causing the

foul odor.

“Make haste,” Rhada said quietly to his man. “I’d rather he not suffer any longer

than he must.”

Khenty closed his eyes again as his lady stroked his face. He did not want to see the

worry in her face as she watched him. Knowing she could feel the heat blistering his

skin concerned him, but there was nothing he could do about it. Once the wound was

opened, his veins drained of the
vrykolakas
poison and the wound cauterized, he would

feel better.

“Is he sleeping?” Rhada asked, twisting around on the wagon seat to look down at

his passengers.

“No. His flesh is so hot,” Catherine said.

“He’ll be fine, milady. It will take more than a vrykolakas bite to take the life of one

of his kind.” He smiled at her. “It’ll make him sick as a dog—” He stopped, shrugged at

his pun and then turned back around.

* * * * *

Rhada and his healer would not allow Catherine in the room as Khenty was being

attended to despite her explaining that she was a trained nurse. The men staunchly

refused, stationing a guard outside the bedchamber to keep her out.

“Thank you,” Khenty said after relieving his stomach of the fluids making him so

desperately ill. “She doesn’t need to see this.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Rhada agreed.

The healer was preparing to open Khenty’s veins as his prince heated a cautery iron

in a small brazier. “I am ready, Your Grace,” the man said.

Two burly guards stood at the head of the bed to hold Khenty’s shoulders and arms

down while another two were positioned at the foot of the bed to restrain his legs. The

wound was fiercely painful and the laceration would cause great discomfort. No one

wanted the Kensetti to buck while the operation was in progress and make matters

worse.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“Here,” Rhada said, rolling up a small rag. “Clamp your teeth down on this.”

Khenty obeyed, grateful his host was providing something with which to muffle the

cry he was damned sure would come when the wound was debriefed.

Outside the bedchamber, Catherine paced up one side of the hallway and down the

other, straining to hear anything that might be happening in the room. She knew he was

somehow shielding her from knowing just how bad the situation was and had every

intention of taking him to task for it. She had witnessed the treatment of patients

suffering from gangrene and the wound on her husband’s arm bore a strong similarity

to the mortified and necrotic tissues she’d seen in patients during her training.

“It is not the same,” Rhada had explained to her. “This is an infection, true, but one

that is not deadly to one of our kind. As I said, it will make him very ill but as soon as

the wound has been properly cared for, he will mend quickly. Try not to worry.”

That was easier said than done, Catherine thought as she stopped in front of the

door once more. The guard smiled encouragingly at her but did not speak as she

commenced to pacing again.

“Milady?” the same beautiful young woman who Catherine had seen the day

before was standing near the stairs.

“Yes?”

“There is a man at the gate asking for His Grace. He says it is very important.”

Catherine glanced back at the door then started toward the woman. “Show me,”

she asked.

The man who waited at the guardhouse bowed deeply to Catherine as she

approached. He was dressed in flowing black robes with a black keffiyah nearly

obscuring his dark face.

“Your pardon, Your Grace,” he said to Catherine. “I am seeking the prince.”

“Prince Khenty is indisposed,” Catherine said. “May I ask who you are?”

“Again, I ask your pardon, Wife of the Majestic One,” the man said. “I am Captain

Rajab Bin Talal of the Medjai, the prince’s private army.”

“Is there trouble at Anubeion, Captain?” she asked.

Rajab bowed his head. “I do not know how much His Grace knows of what has

happened in his home. If I may speak with him…”

“I am his right hand, Captain,” Catherine said. “You may be assured that whatever

you say to me will be reported directly to him when he is available.”

The Medjai looked up. “It is good His Grace has you to care for him, milady.”

“It is my good fortune, Captain,” she said. “Has there been trouble at Anubeion?”

“We only found out this morning that His Grace was at Ocaleae. I would have come

earlier had I known where to look for him. When we found him gone, the tribunalist,

the servants and Lord Hasani slain, Lord Bahru and Nyria missing…”

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“Holly, Silus, Jacob and Hasani are dead?” Catherine gasped, her hand going to her

throat. “And the tribunalist?”

Rajab inclined his head. “There were puncture wounds on their necks. It looks to be

a form of poison that was administered to them. We have taken care of the bodies as is

fitting but they must be embalmed and with Lord Hasani lost to us…” He held his