Rapture's Etesian (5 page)

“Aye, I believe she is. There was a crossbow and a quiver of quarrels beside her saddle and her horse was a Rysalian stallion well-suited for a High Warrior than a mere woman.”

Speculation turned Kratos’ dark brown eyes almost black. “Was? Are you telling me the stallion you now ride belonged to her?” Kratos asked with a growl.

“Well, aye. The beast was hers,” Leksi admitted with a wince.

“You stole it from her, didn’t you?” Kratos accused.

“I escaped on it,” Leksi replied.

“Oh, this gets better and better,” Kratos snapped. “Escaped? When? From where? From who?”

Leksi buried his head in his hands. “Just tell me how to keep from being bothered by her, old man,” he said. “I can think of nothing else! I can’t keep thinking about her if I can’t have her. It will drive me crazy!”

“Well, you can start by returning her horse,” Kratos told him. “To steal a warrior’s horse—female warrior or not—is not a good thing. I thought you found that beast.” He lowered his voice. “You told me you did! Leksi Helios, you lied to me!”

“I did find him…” Leksi defended himself. “…when I was fleeing her aunt’s villa.”

“Fleeing her…?” The older warrior held up a hand. “Return the beast and then we’ll talk,” Kratos ordered. He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “I taught you better than to steal horses.”

“I didn’t know where mine was!” Leksi snapped. “He wasn’t in the damned stable and I didn’t have time to—”

“Return the woman’s horse then we’ll talk!” Tossing the price of his meal upon the plank table, the older warrior turned on his heel and exited the tavern, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Interfering old bastard,” Leksi complained. “Meddling old prick.”

“He’d make a good companion to my aunt, wouldn’t he?” whispered a silky voice right behind him.

Leksi felt the point of the dagger pressing between his shoulder blades. He could also smell the scent of gardenia that had stayed with him long after he had fled the room where Kynthia had found him.

“Get up and let’s walk outside, warrior,” she said. “Make one false move, sound the first syllable of alarm and I’ll run this blade through your black heart.”

“How long were you listening to my conversation, wench?” Leksi growled, feeling the heat invading his cheeks.

“Long enough to hear that I bother you,” she said, and he could hear the amusement in her voice. “And that you would like to woo me.”

Gritting his teeth in humiliation, he told her he needed to push his chair back in order to rise.

“I am as quick as an asp, warrior,” she warned. “No sudden moves.” She removed the blade from his flesh.

Leksi eased the chair back and stood. He glanced down at the table to see if Kratos had paid for his meal, and upon seeing the warrior hadn’t, told her he needed to reach into his pocket for his purse.

“Slowly,” she agreed.

He fished into his pocket, took out the purse and counted out the change. Slowly, he placed the coins on the table and returned the purse to his pocket.

She placed her hand to the center of his back and stepped to his side so he could move away from the table. The tip of the dagger was now pressed to his rib cage but no one could see it for the hilt was hidden in the folds of her voluminous robe.

They walked out of the tavern at a leisurely pace, Leksi returning the greetings of many of his men. Few glanced at what they must have assumed was a slender lad walking beside their Captain. Those who did nodded knowingly for since Leksi Helios had no woman, they suspected his tastes might run elsewhere.

“Your men think you are a pleasure hole,” Kynthia commented as he preceded her out the tavern door.

“They do not!” Leksi denied almost turning around to confront her but the light jab of her dagger against his rib cage warned him not to do so.

“Doesn’t matter,” Kynthia snorted. “Where is Aeolus?”

“Who?”

“My damned horse, fool!” Kynthia snapped.

Leksi had walked to the tavern from the barracks where he had been for most of the afternoon. The stallion was safely stabled within the grounds of the keep. In order to get there, they would need to pass the sentries at the gates of the palace as well as the guards who presided over the mounts of the higher-ranking warriors. Destriers were a valuable asset to the Venturian Guard and the mounts of the High Warriors were closely protected.

“He is within the palace grounds,” Leki told her with a touch of smugness. “Well-guarded as befits a prime beast like him.”

“Shit!” she exploded.

“Did you think you could just saunter in here and pick him up?” Leksi asked, turning his head to look at her. Within the hood of her metal-gray wool robe, her facial features were little more than a blur in the darkness. He was intrigued to see how pale her flesh was.

“I want my horse!” she stated between clenched teeth. “The handsome one ordered you to return him to me!”

Leksi stiffened. “You think Kratos is handsome? You need your eyes checked, woman!”

“That one has the face of a wise and experienced man,” she told him. “Not the insipid appearance of a pretty boy like you!” She pressed the tip of her dagger a little more firmly against his ribs until the point penetrated the wool material of his uniform tunic. “Go get my horse and bring him to me.”

Leksi Helios had been promoted to a High Warrior soon after his thirtieth birth month. As such, he was an experienced, skilled and highly accomplished soldier whose kills in combat numbered in the hundreds. In hand-to-hand battles, the count was well over two dozen. He was a brave man with little care for his personal safety when in the throes of war. During peacetime, he trained just as intensely as during times of hostilities. He was deeply respected by his men, feared by his enemies and held in high esteem by both the High Commander of the Venturian Forces, as well as the king. No one questioned the bravery or the capability of Leksi Helios and only three people dared give him orders.

The woman at his side was most assuredly not one of those three. Once before she had dared to issue him an order, and he had obeyed it simply to escape the clutches of the Mad Rapists, but now, there was no reason to do so.

Kynthia intuited the warrior’s move before he made it, but so quick was his action she had no time to counter it. One moment she was holding a dangerous blade to her enemy’s side and the next, her arm was stinging from the vicious hit that knocked the blade from her grip. Before she could retaliate, she was wrapped so tightly in a bear hug she could barely breathe. Her back to the warrior, her wrists clamped in a hand that felt like a steel band, she was lifted free of the ground and swung around so she dangled on his hip like a sack of salt. Arching her back, trying to kick her captor, she felt the bones in her wrists grate as he ground them together.

“Give me any trouble, wench, and I’ll turn your shapely backside over my knee and wallop the hell out of you right here and now!” Leksi snapped.

Enraged beyond endurance, Kynthia let out a yowl of fury and bucked in his hold. In the doing, he dropped her to the ground and placed a hard boot in the center of her back, pushing in with enough pressure to cause her real pain, the heel of his boot bruising the area over her right kidney.

Leksi had no way of knowing the woman beneath his foot had suffered severe damage to her back many years earlier. The spot upon which his boot heel was pressing was causing her intense, excruciating agony that turned her into a quivering, sobbing mass.

“Warrior, no! Please don’t!” she begged. “Let up! Let up!”

Stunned by the obvious pain in the woman’s voice, Leksi jerked his foot from her back and dropped down beside her. He tried to gather her into his arms, but her howl of agony stayed his hand as she arched her back and flipped to her side, writhing on the ground like a dog crippled beneath the wheels of a carriage.

Then something happened that would forever haunt Leksi Helios. This brave, skillful warrior with nerves of steel and a head for quickly formulating the most complex of strategies became the unwitting observer of a scene so bizarre, so totally beyond his realm of understanding, he could do no more than hunker there—eyes wide, mouth open in silent denial, hands trembling as the very soul within his body quivered. The sights he was taking in would have unbalanced a lesser man for before his very eyes the beautiful woman at his feet was changing.

No longer did the pale flesh of her face intrigue him for it was now coarse and covered with layers of thick silver fur. The lovely gray eyes were blood red, glowing with chatoyant hues of green then white as light from the moon struck them. The lips like lush, sweet cherries were now leathery and skinned back from lethal-looking fangs. The pert, upturned nose had become an elongated snout with flaring, dripping nostrils. Delicate hands were being replaced with paws equipped with thick talons that scratched at the cobblestones as the woman tried to rise.

“My god,” Leksi whispered, feeling his innards turning watery.

It was the sounds that stayed with him for the rest of his life, the least of which were the harsh rending sounds of fabric bursting its seams and material ripping apart. The resonance of joints becoming unhinged, bones cracking and sinews popping, flesh stretching like leather being pulled over the poles of a travois, organs making slurping noises as they rearranged themselves, squishing sounds as fangs—sharp and yellow as aged parchment—pushed from bleeding gums.

Kynthia Ancaeus arched her transformed back and stood there wobbling on four legs as she shook her large, lupine head from side-to-side. Staggering a bit, she sidled back from the human male staring at her. Her great bushy tail was low, curled beneath her belly, her pointed ears flat back against her head. Saliva dripped unchecked from her muzzle as she bared her teeth and growled low in her throat.

Understanding he was seeing something few men had ever witnessed and lived to tell of it, Leksi held out his hand. Within snapping distance of those dangerous jaws, he kept it there as he spoke.

“I did not mean to hurt you, little one,” he said. “I was only trying to subdue you.”

The growl was menacing and it meant business as the wolf moved closer to him.

“Forgive me,” Leksi said, and his hand shook as he reached out to touch the wolf’s head.

She snapped at him, the fangs clicking together and it was all the warrior could do not to snatch his hand back. He was breathing so quickly he felt lightheaded and his breath was harsh as he sucked it in through his nose, but he held his ground.

“Forgive me,” he said again, and marveled that the wolf allowed him to touch her head.

The fur was coarse beneath his fingers and the bony protrusion of the head brought a feeling of sympathetic pain to his heart. This transition that had turned a human woman to a silver wolf must have hurt her tremendously.

She endured his touch though her low growl was a reminder that she had no trust for the male. As his hand smoothed over her fur and ran lightly over her shoulder, she wrinkled her nose with distaste but allowed it.

Leksi removed his hand and knelt there on his knees watching her. There was no doubt in his mind that should she wish to, this dangerous beastess could leap upon him and tear out his throat before he could utter a single cry. As she stood there in the rent remains of her gray wool robe, she looked every inch the predator.

“I will bring your horse to the stream that borders Ventura and your aunt’s lands in the morning and—” he began but the wolf shook her head fiercely in denial.

Understanding fell upon Leksi Helios like a war banner over a fallen bearer—this was a creature of the night. Each time he had seen her it had been after the rise of the moon.

“At sunset tomorrow eve?” he corrected. “You promise you will meet with me?”

The great head bobbed up and down then the wolf turned and raced away so quickly, she was soon lost in the darkened shadows of the town courtyard.

Leksi knelt where he was until the howl of the wolf came from far away.

* * * * *

Kynthia huddled beneath the spreading branches of an olive tree. She was miserable and cold, her bones aching. Naked and defenseless, she kept watch on the hut behind which clothing hung on a clothesline. No one stirred so she crept closer to the slowly moving garments wafted on the evening breeze. Sniffing the air about her, searching for anything that might harm her, she approached the clothesline stealthily until she closed a hand upon a woman’s gown and jerked it from its pins. Quickly, she turned and sprinted across the hillside, her upper body low, the garment clutched possessively to her bare breasts. Once she reached a spot she considered safe, she put on the gown, frowning at the rough feel of the peasant fabric as it touched her sensitive skin. Clothed, she continued on over the hills and down into the valley to her aunt’s villa.

The sentries snapped to attention at the low whistle issuing from the darkness. The men recognized the lady’s signal but were surprised when she came toward them, limping on bare feet. Though they offered assistance, they were rebuffed and stood scratching their heads as their employee’s niece continued on to the villa.

“She hasn’t been right since they brought her home from Uaigneas,” Demodocus commented to his fellow sentry.

“Aye, well she ain’t human no more,” his companion whispered.