WINDDREAMER Read Free

that time?" Liza asked Conar. "When it rained like this?"
    "I recall," he answered, lowering his gaze to his plate. Other memories from that time many years before he remembered all too well. "Harry burned some of his furniture to keep us warm."
    "Harry Ruck?" Legion inquired. Though his brother smiled, Conar knew the time he had shared with Liza, a time that excluded Legion, poked at the man's vitals. "As stingy as he is, I'm surprised he didn't let you freeze."
    "He didn't know who Conar was." Liza giggled, smiling as Conar looked at her. "He didn't know until the next day, and that's when Conar found some of the chairs and a table missing from the inn." She winked at Legion. "Being the true monarch he was, your brother was his most imperious self, as I remember."
    "How so?" Tyne Brell asked, digging his fork into a healthy mound of creamed potatoes.
    "His usual high-handedness, I would think," Chase Montyne said and chuckled. "Back then, he was rather full of himself."
    "I paid them for the chairs and table," Conar said, cocking a brow when Liza laughed. "I did, and you know it."
    Legion cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention. "Did it storm like this, then?"
    Conar nodded, cutting into his steak. He speared a chunk and brought it to his lips, then plopped the juicy morsel into his mouth before pointing his fork toward Liza. "What she's reminding me about is the weather. It poured for--what? Three days?" When Liza nodded, he shrugged. "We couldn't get out of the inn because there were no roads. When it stopped raining, there was so much mud, you couldn't get far without having to dismount and pull your nag out of the mire."
    "I don't fancy helping Heil pry his horses out of this muck," Storm said.
    "What did you do cooped up in that inn for three days?" Teal asked.
    "As I remember," Conar said, concentrating intently on the green beans on his plate, "we played whist."
    " 'Zelle caught cold and she was in bed most of the time," Liza said. "Conar and I stayed downstairs. When he wasn't flirting with Dorrie--"
    "Dorrie?" Legion gasped, a wide grin on his bearded face. "As I recall, she could suck the gilding off..." He stopped, his face infusing with color.
    A fine black brow shot up on Liza's forehead. "And how would you know Dorrie Burkhart's talents, Milord?"
    "I...ah...I..."
    "You got yourself into that one, big brother." Conar chuckled. "You'd best answer your lady."
    "And it had better be good!" Liza snapped.

    * * * *
    Corbin and Regan were in their room...arguing.
    The downpour continued, working into its second week. Those in the keep were on short ends from being pent up inside the damp and chill walls. The gray, lackluster days put the inhabitants into a dismal, dank mood that brought tempers close to fraying and nerves close to mayhem.
    The boys had been playing a game of chess, and Regan began to cheat.
    Corbin caught him. "That isn't a gentlemanly thing to do," the older boy admonished.
    "I ain't no gentleman," Regan mocked. "I am what I am and nothing more. I don't pretend to be Heir-Apparent to the throne."
    Corbin shot back with equal rancor. "You never could be, anyway. Your mother is not a queen!"
    Regan hated his mother almost as much as he hated his father, Conar MacGregor, but he despised, or so he told himself, Elizabeth A'Lex even more. "My mother may not be a queen, but a least she doesn't spread her legs for every man in her husband's family!"
    Corbin lashed out with a hard fist, bloodying Regan's nose.

    * * * *
    Conar heard grunts and vulgar words coming from the boys' room. He stopped, opened the door, and entered.
    Shocked, Conar saw his sons locked in a ball, scrambling on the floor, trying desperately to pommel one another with fists and knees.
    " Enough! "
    He grabbed Corbin by the seat of his pants, lifting him off Regan's smaller, bruised, and battered body. Corbin tried to get away, tried kicking Regan as the little boy came to his feet. But Conar swung his older son behind him and