Free Lady of Conquest by Teresa Medeiros Page B

color and light, Rodney’s hands the only solid things in a treacherously changing landscape. A rush of vertigo attacked her, and her eyes found the floor in a silent prayer to stop the spinning of her stomach.
    The sweet-smelling floor rushes had vanished. Human bones, bleached and ancient, carpeted the floor from wall to wall, the brittle fragments cutting her feet to bloody ribbons.
    A scream was ripped from her throat as bone rose and joined bone in a creaking, macabre dance of death until an army of skeletal warriors faced her, swords dripping blood held in clattering fingers. Her eyes traced the path from her arms to Rodney’s fingers but found the hands she clasped to be bony appendages devoid of flesh. Her brother’s jawbone dropped open and shrill laughter rolled forth, raising the gooseflesh on her arms. Dark blue eyes glistened from deep within the void of his eye sockets and she screamed and screamed and could not stop.
     
    Conn was strolling toward his chambers, laughing at the jests of the two soldiers who flanked him, when the terrified screams reached his ears. He paused, then broke into a run. His men followed, swords drawn.
    He burst into the room, his eyes searching the shadows. The dim glow of the half moon through the open window revealed an empty bed, a twisted coverlet. His eyes found Gelina, and he thought briefly that he would give his kingdom never to see that look on her face again.
    She crouched in the farthest corner, eyes wide but unseeing, long tallow candle gripped in both hands like the hilt of a sword.
    “Leave us,” he curtly commanded his men.
    They exchanged a look, sheathed their swords with some reluctance, and backed out of the room. Conn did not spare them a second glance. He knew they would obey.
    “Gelina,” he said softly, approaching with one hand outstretched.
    Her eyes focused on him with all the desperation of a trapped animal. Her fear was a palpable, terrible thing and he flinched at the intensity of it.
    She hurled the candle with both hands, and he thought with a chill that if it had been a sword, it would have gone right through the arm he raised to ward it away. In two strides he covered the distance between them and caught her wrists in his hands, gently but with strength. He wanted to avoid a full-fledged brawl at all costs. His men had withdrawn from the chamber, but he knew they waited in the corridor outside, speculating on the girl’s curious behavior.
    The flatness in her eyes warned him that she saw him but did not see him. Before she could open her mouth to scream again, he pulled her face into his shoulder and rocked back and forth on his knees until he felt the resistance leave her body. The breath left his own body when her arms crept up to encircle his neck. He stroked her shoulders, feeling the tensed muscles relax beneath his fingertips.
    Her words were muffled into his chest. “I was afraid.”
    “Nightmares again?” he murmured.
    She nodded. He scooped her up in his arms and deposited her on the feather mattress, the lightness of her body compared to its length surprising him anew. She pulled away from him as soon as her body touched the bed. The last traces of the nightmare left her eyes, and a look of annoyance passed over her brow only to be replaced by a poorly concealed look of dread. An unfamiliar desire to protect mingled with exasperation as he saw that the dress she had worn for the evening had been replaced by a faded jerkin and well-worn breeches.
    “I feel better. Thank you. You may go,” she said, her polite smile stopping just short of her eyes.
    Conn raised an eyebrow. “Am I being dismissed?”
    She shrugged. “Can one dismiss a king without the risk of execution?”
    He suppressed a sigh. “If I was going to execute you for dismissing me or avoiding me, I would have had a multitude of opportunities in the past few weeks.”
    “I swore my allegiance, sire, not my affection,” she said, her voice sounding childish and