Free A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind) by Guy Stanton III Page A

ways and rejecting the ways of the Creator, who I was just now learning to serve. I said a silent prayer for the futures of all those around me, in that I prayed that they would wake up to the reality that I was even now beginning to see as plain as day. Who knew perhaps it had been someone’s prayer for me that had steered me back onto the right path in life.
    We at last came to a pair of double doors at the end of one of the long halls. One of my guards stepped forward and knocked on the door.
    “Enter.”
    Came the muted reply from within the room. The guards swung the double doors open and I entered the room, which was shrouded in darkness. A single candle on an end table near a shuttered window cast its glow feebly out into the room.
    “Leave us!” Came a sharply spoken command from a darkened corner of the room.
    The guards shifted hesitantly as they glanced at each oth er uncertainly, “Go now!”
    The guards hastily exited the room closing the heavy doors behind them as they left. Many a man, who had defied a temple priestess or even just displeased one had found himself dead or wishing that he was. My own family had fallen prey to such a vindictive action by a priestess once.
     
    I stared into the darkened corner of the room where the voice had come from hoping to discern who or what resided there.
    As if in answer to my probing gaze a voice softer and more feminine than it had sounded before replied, “You have your father’s way about you that is of a certainty.”
    A shadow separated away from the darkness of the corner of the room and became clearer as it came into the dim light of the candle and was revealed as a beautiful woman. She carried herself with grace, and dignity, which was hard to imagine in a place like this. She was resplendently dressed in a scarlet colored gown that echoed the temple’s opulent embellishments. Her choice of clothing, while provocative was not what I had expected of a high temple priestess. She was more covered up rather than less, which puzzled me considering the attire or lack of it by the other women I had seen so far. I was puzzled about it, until I gazed into her eyes and face.
    Her face was evenly proportioned, with clean straight lines and skin that showed no signs of wrinkling or the effects of a hard life spent surviving in the elements. Deep blue intelligent eyes gleamed like faceted sapphires from her face. It was her eyes that hinted at what made this woman more formidable than any other woman in the place. I felt the impact of her gaze on me like fire! A man could easily loose himself in a pair of eyes like that. Panicking some what, I broke eye contact with her and made to step back but the door was there. I pressed back against it wanting out of the room.
    The priestess said even softer than before, “And his self control too.”
    I looked at her again quickly and saw that her face had changed. Her face was now filled with a look of sorrow and remorse I would never have expected to see in a place like this.
    The realization of what her words hinted at flooded me with anger, and in two steps I was across the space between us with my chained hands wrapped around her throat. She made no move to resist as my hands tightened on her throat.
    “It was you that destroyed my family! Everything that’s gone forever and that has happened since is because of you, isn’t it?” I cried out, giving her a violent shake.
    She nodded even as a single tear welled out of the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek. As the tear touched the skin of my hand and dissipated across it so did some of my anger. ‘She deserves to die, and pay for what she has done!’ Came the angry thought coursing through me as I suddenly felt resistance to killing her.
    My hands tightened further around her throat as I asked, “Tell me why I shouldn’t end your worthless life here and now?”
    “The children!” She responded half choking, which caused me to see that I was practically