Free WindBeliever by Charlotte Boyett-Compo Page A

luscious, moist flesh. Her silky black hair hung free to her small hips and her dusky complexion glowed with vitality and health.
    “Do you know how much I have missed you, my lady?” he asked as he put out his hands to WINDBELIEVER
    Charlotte Boyett-Compo
    Page 36
    draw her to him. “How often I dreamed of holding you in just this way?” He molded her to his huge frame and rested his chin on the top of her head. “I ache with want of you.”
    Beneath the coarse material of his uniform blouse, Raina could hear the slow, steady beat of her husband’s heart, a heart so tender and gentle for a warrior of his size, she had feared for his safety every day he was away.
    Her arms encircled his lean waist and she nuzzled her cheek against his chest. Tears of love and gratitude for his safe return filled her.
    “The clothes can wait,” she murmured and felt his heart thud with a leap of passion. She craned her head back and looked up into his smoldering eyes. “When do you have to be at the palace?”
    He grinned. “After I make love to you.”

    Conar looked up to see Yuri standing in the doorway. There was a smug, satisfied grin on the warrior’s beefy face, and a cocky strut to his walk as he came to the bed.
    “How are you, Your Grace?” Yuri asked.
    A snort pushed its way from Conar’s mouth. “Obviously not as well as you,” he answered.
    “You look like a fox who’s been set free in a hen house.”
    “Or a husband well sated from an afternoon of lusty tumbling about the sheets,” came an amused voice from the direction of the bathing chamber.
    Yuri glanced around, saw the Tzarevna Catherine, and his face lost its smile. His look went to Conar. He wondered at the bland expression on the Prince’s face, wondered even more when the young man’s words came out in a bored drawl.
    “The cow was here when I woke up.”
    “At my mother’s command,” Catherine qualified. She flung the wet washcloth that she had been told to obtain at Yuri. “Here, you cater to his perverse whims from now on, Andreanova.”
    Her glower raked Conar. “My duty is done with your arrival.”
    “And here I was just beginning to enjoy your subservience,” Conar yawned.
    “Bastard,”
    she
    snarled.
    “Bitch,” he said in a pleasant voice.
    Catherine glared at Yuri. “Did you have to bring him here?” she grumbled under her breath.
    “Couldn’t you have left him at the Sinisters?”
    “He didn’t want to deny me the unique experience of seeing the bovine population in the Outer Kingdom,” Conar said sweetly.
    “Bastard!” she gasped.
    “Bitch!” he breathed out in a sweet sigh.
    Yuri looked to the ceiling, flinching as the door slammed shut behind his Tzarevna. When he looked down at the Serenian prince, he found Conar McGregor grinning maliciously.
    “She doesn’t like me very much, does she?” Conar chuckled.
    “Like you?” Yuri snorted. “Your Grace, she can’t stand the sight of you. I’ve never seen her take such a disliking to anyone as she has you.”
    “Wait ‘til she really gets to know me,” came the enigmatic reply.
    Yuri’s
    brow
    lowered.
    “What does that mean?”
    “You love her, don’t you?” Conar asked, changing the subject.
    “The Tzarevna?” Yuri smiled. “Everyone loves her.”
    “Not everyone,” Conar reminded him.
    A blush stole over Yuri’s broad face. “Can’t you at least TRY to get along with her, Your WINDBELIEVER
    Charlotte Boyett-Compo
    Page 37
    Grace? You’ve already made it clear you don’t wish to marry her ....”
    “I’d rather marry a hedgehog!” Conar snorted.
    Yuri ignored the remark. “Trading insults is rather childish, don’t you think?”
    Conar’s face narrowed. “Are you calling me ‘childish’, Andreanova?”
    “If such behavior is not child-like, what would you call it?”
    “Self-preservation,” was the immediate reply.
    A gleam entered Yuri’s eye. “So the two of you try to outdo the other?”
    Conar sniffed. “I give as good as I