Powerful Magic Read Free

the intruder.   No wild beast, but a human, a young female near death from cold.   She'd wrapped her arms around her for warmth, but he could see from the pale gleam of her skin that they were bare, her long, pale legs too.  
               For a heartbeat he simply stared.   He, warrior supreme and fighter of armies, did not know what to do.   The tattered blanket did not cover much, nor did what little clothing she wore.   In his experience, a naked female served only one purpose, and he'd had done with that along with everything else when the hated Faeries had brutally ended his other life.  
               This female, with her milky skin ashen and her lips blue, looked near death.   She moved, shivering, again making that piteous mewling sound.   Now he recognized it as a feeble cry for help, like that of a small child torn from its mother's arms in the heat of battle.  
               He thought perhaps he should cover her and attempt to return her to the keep.   No doubt that was where she was from; yet another foolish girl sneaking off to meet a lover.  
               The howling storm told him that would be a foolish idea.   He'd never make it, not in this blizzard.  
               Too, she'd found his cave.   That made her a threat.
               Again Kenric regarded her, noting again her blue tinged lips and uncontrollable shivering.   She was near death from the frigid cold. The easiest thing to do would be to turn his back and walk away.   If he did not help her, she would not live.  
     
               Yet he, hardened warrior, bitter loner, found he could not simply let the girl die.   His younger sister had been about the size of this one.   He hadn't been there to protect her when the invaders had brutally used her, something for which he'd never forgive himself.   He, with his own capacity for great magic, dangerous magic, the only thing that would work against Black Faeries, had been unable to help her.   Her death, along with the death of all the others, would lay forever like a thousand stones upon his conscience.   He needed no more such deaths to blot his soul.
               He had no choice but to help her, like it or not.  
               Decision made, he bent down and scooped her slight form into his arms.   She weighed next to nothing and, as the thin blanket fell away, he saw that she was clothed, though barely.   She wore some form of lightweight shirt, of a finer material than he'd ever seen, with a more coarse fabric over it hooked together with some sort of metal fastenings.   The coarse material, unfortunately for her, ended at mid thigh, exposing her long, creamy legs to the elements.   On her feet she wore a sort of leather sandal, open in the toe.  
               No wonder she lay near death.   Only a fool would dress thus in the winter.   Though, he reflected with a rueful shake of his head, only a harlot would dress so in any season.
               As he brought her near the fire she stirred, but made no sound other than the harsh rasp of her breathing.   Again her unusual scent drifted to him.   Odd that her scent brought to mind Spring, when the first stubborn flowers would poke their heads through the melting snow.
               Spring was a long way off.
               Studying her face, he thought she might be beautiful, were her lips not so bloodless and her skin so pale and sallow.   She sighed, parting her mouth slightly - enough for him to see she still had all her teeth and that they were white and strong.  
               Her age he could not guess at, nor the circumstances that had brought her to his secret cave, dressed in such a strange and inappropriate manner.  
               Answers he would have later.   For now, all that mattered was keeping her alive.  
               Gently, he placed her on a recent acquisition,