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An Excerpt From: THE WYNDMASTER'S SON
 CHARLOTTE BOYETT-COMPO, 2007.
All Rights Reserved, New Concepts Publishing
Lanelle had never liked bad weather. The boom of thunder made her uneasy but the shriek and flare of lightning set her to trembling and she was burrowed beneath the covers, hiding from the onslaught of the storm. It was raining so hard that it drowned out all other sound, the plink of it hitting her windows with unrestrained fury as the wind pushed violently against the panes. Lying on her right side in a fetal position with her knees drawn up, toes curled and her hands holding the pillow over her head for added protection, she felt she was cocooned in safety. When the mattress dipped beside her, she thought it was Morgan coming to calm her as he usually did.
“Hold me, Milord,” she asked, happy Morgan had come to ease her fears and felt a heavy arm drape over her shoulder. In the darkness, she tossed the pillow aside and started to turn into the comfort of that strong embrace when a wet, cold hand shot up to her mouth and slapped across it, a hard thumb digging into the softness beneath her chin.
“Surprise!” The single word was a nasty explosion as her eyes flew open and in the sudden flash of lightning saw the face of her worst nightmare leaning over her. His hair was dripping wet—dangling over his high forehead—his stony face pebbled with water, and she became aware of the sodden state of his clothing as he pressed against her. She clawed at the hand over her mouth, gouging the flesh with her fingernails, but there was superior strength battling hers and her wrists were grabbed and pushed down, quickly wound up into the voluminous sweep of her nightgown’s skirt. Kicking furiously, she was frustrated when her legs became entangled in the sheets and she couldn’t get free.
She was like a lioness as she fought him but Thiessen managed to wrap her up in the sheet and coverlet from her bed using sheer brute strength, clamping her limbs together with a leg thrown over hers, tying the bundle with drapery cords he’d cut from the window. Thankfully her curses and shouts were muffled by not only being rolled up like a carpet but by the violence of the storm outside that seemed to have grown in power. He pulled her from the bed and tossed her upon his shoulder, not even hearing the oomph of breath leaving her lungs as her belly slammed hard into the bony ridge. She squirmed like a beached eel but he held on to her, one arm clamped tightly around her legs.
Carrying her quickly out of the bedroom it had taken him over an hour to locate, he hurried down the hall and to the room that contained the window he’d jimmied open after having scaled the rain-slick wall. It took some doing and a few near misses but he was able to keep hold of her thrashing body with one hand while lowering them down the rope he’d tied off around the footboard of the same bed where he’d been raped. That it had been the window to that particular room to which he’d been drawn had not slipped his notice. It was as though fate had led him where it wanted him to go.
By the time his booted feet squished into the mud at the base of the keep’s wall, the burden he carried was as soaked through as he was. The smell of wet satin from the coverlet was not all that pleasant as he jogged to the place where he’d easily scaled the walls of Ambergast’s battlements despite carrying to coils of rope. He was relieved to see the first rope he’d used to gain entrance to the keep still dangling where he’d left it.
Going back up the wall—especially carrying a struggling woman—was harder than having come down it and he would have the blisters to prove it as his toes dug into the grout between the stones and pulled them up the wall. The back of his left hand was stinging from where Lanelle had so viciously scratched him and that only added to his discomfort. He was grunting, his sweat mixing with the water streaming down his face, the salt of it stinging his eyes, blurring his vision. His arms felt as thought they were being pulled out of the sockets, still wrenched from earlier in the night when he’d fought the ropes that had bound him to the bed. Struggling to reach the top, gasping for breath, every muscle in his body, every bone aching with fiery protest, he flung a leg over the high wall and straddled it, hauling the rope up to fling it down the outside wall.
While it had been extremely difficult climbing up the outside wall in the pouring rain and with the coils of heavy rope slung over his shoulder at that, he knew it was going to be sheer hell going back down. But he was a WyndMaster and part of his complex warrior training had been in learning to scale nearly impassable walls and he had the scars on his knees and shins to prove it. Already he could feel the blood slick in his palms where the flesh was now raw and he almost lost his balance with the fatigue that was setting in as Lanelle bucked violently against him.
“I’m sitting on the top of the outer wall and if you do that again, we’re gonna fall to our deaths, wench!” he hissed at her, hoping no one had heard. He was relieved when she instantly stilled in his grasp.
After several long intakes of breath, Thiessen clamped his teeth together and swung over the wall, snarling with pain as the rope dug into his ravaged flesh. Repelling was easy unless you were carrying dead weight on your shoulder and the skin in your palms was peeling off layer by layer. It was all he could do to keep as steady a grip on the rope as he could, every fiber of his being screaming in agony as he dropped foot by foot down the slippery stone wall. When he reached the bottom, he sagged against the wall—his head to the wet stone—and endured the burning that throbbed in his palms, barely able to flex his fingers.
Sensing they were on solid ground, Lanelle began her violent wiggling again and was rewarded with a hard jolt that nearly drove the wind from her as he bounced her on his shoulder. She felt him spinning around and then he was apparently running with her being jiggled brutally with each step he took. She knew her belly would curt for days to come.
Staying close to the deep shadow cast by the high wall, Thiessen thought it unlikely any guard would be out and about on the battlements to see him but he was taking no chances. He had tied his horse in the forest that led up into the mountains behind the keep and a ways to go to reach it. Shifting her weight on his aching shoulder, he felt the burn of exhaustion stabbing into his thighs, his every step made more difficult by the sucking grab of his boots by the pulpy mud through which he ran.
Wheezing by the time he got to his mount, his clothing sticking to him, his teeth chattering from the cold, he almost dropped Lanelle when he slid her from his shoulder to the ground so he could change his grip on her and toss her over the saddle. Her curses were very inventive and made him laugh at the brutal things she was going to do to him once she was free.
It took the last of his waning energy to pull himself up into the saddle and kick the horse into motion, sawing on the reins to direct the animal toward the roadway. With every jolt of the stallion’s hooves, the Prince’s body felt it down to the very marrow of his bones.
* * * * *
Cloaked in a hooded oil skin duster that covered him from head to ankle, Lord Morgan Summerall watched the roadway that curved past the base of the mountain and ran along the coastline, spiraling south to the Emardian border. Though the rain had lessened to a degree, it was still dark as pitch and he had to strain during the frequent flashes of lightning to make out the rider racing his mount recklessly through the night.
A slow, satisfied smile crept over Morgan’s face. The trap had been laid and twice now Thiessen had blundered into it.
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