time. She needs to know who her master is, Enda. Look at how proudly the bitch stands. Soon, very soon, she will beg for our mercy!”
“Greet the prince, brother!” Enda hissed. The sight of Lara, more beautiful than he recalled, set his pulses racing. He could scarcely wait to put his manroot into her again. He wanted to punish her, too, but in a far different fashion than his brother.
“Hail, Kaliq, Prince of the Shadows,” Durga said.
Kaliq nodded in acknowledgement, but did not speak.
“You have my property, and I want it back,” Durga spoke boldly.
Kaliq now stood up from his chair which had been set upon a raised dais. “Lara has been gone from your tender care more than a year and a day, Head Forester. She is free now under Hetarian law.”
“I have gone to the courts,” Durga responded angrily. “The magistrate has ordered that such a law cannot apply to a slave of such great value. The giant is free, but Lara belongs to us.” He waved a parchment at the prince.
Kaliq laughed scornfully. “And how can I be certain the paper you waggle before me is genuine, Durga of the Forest?”
“Do you doubt my word?” The Head Forester’s face grew florid.
“Why should I believe a man who would attempt to circumvent our Hetarian laws?” the prince demanded. “The law says a slave free for a year and a day remains free. Yet you come with your paper to tell me otherwise? Do you take me for a fool, Durga of the Forest? I know you paid a small fortune for Lara. I think you seek to regain her in a most unlawful manner.”
Durga glanced at the Shadow Prince, his slow wits digesting his words. Finally he said, “Look at the paper yourself, my lord.” He shoved the parchment toward Kaliq. “Look and see if I lie. I will restrain my outrage at your questions, for I can understand you but wish to retain this valuable slave for yourself, and I cannot blame you.”
The prince’s elegant hand reached out to take the proffered deed. He glanced at it in a bored, cursory fashion, and then let it drop from his fingers. “If there is an actual magistrate of this name, and he actually signed such a breach of our laws, I can but wonder how much you paid him, Durga of the Forest,” Kaliq murmured insultingly.
“Do you…do you…dare to accuse us of bribery?” Durga spluttered, his face bright red now with his anger.
“Aye,” the prince replied, “but mostly I accuse you of stupidity in believing that you could invade our kingdom, attempt to thwart our laws and believe we would let you do it.”
Durga’s hand went to his dagger. He was almost foaming at the mouth, and shook off Enda’s restraining hand.
“I know your secret,” Og’s deep voice suddenly spoke.
Durga paled. Then he said, “I do not know to what you refer, Og.”
“Aye, you do,” Og said descending from the dais where he had been standing. “I know of the curse Maeve placed upon your people.”
“You cannot!” Durga replied. “You were not even born then.”
“Giant memory is exchanged in the womb, Durga of the Forest. Our memories were our history, and my mother passed them all on to me before my birth. I know!”
“It makes no difference,” Durga cried. “Lara will change all that. That is why we must have her back. She will help us regain ourselves.”
“Nay, I will not.” Now it was Lara who spoke. “The daughters of faerie women inherit certain traits from their mothers. Like faeries, they give no children to those they do not love. Since I despise you both, I will never give either of you a child. Any of you, my lord Durga. And my grandmother swore on her fading that she would never remove the curse from you, nor could anyone else.”
Durga looked stunned. It was his brother who now spoke.
“Your grandmother?”
“Maeve was my grandmother, although until recently I did not know it,” Lara said.
Durga began to moan. “We had Maeve’s own kin beneath us in our beds, and yet we could get no child on her, brother.” Then his small eyes turned on Lara. “Come back with us, and we will make you a queen,” he pleaded, all thoughts of violence against her gone from his head. “Give us sons to free us from your grandmother’s curse, faerie girl!”
“Even if I were willing, and I am not, it could not be. Maeve said it before her fading. The curse can never be lifted. Your purity is gone, my lords. Your father was but half Forester, and your blood is thinned by a quarter more. You live a lie, and no faerie will ever help you, could not help you. And it is all your own fault. If your grandfather had but punished those who killed the faerie woman, Nixa, if he had returned her torque willingly thereby preventing his own pregnant wife’s death, Maeve would have forgiven the sin, angry as she was. But your grandfather’s pride was overwhelming. He is responsible for the destruction of your race.”
Durga, whose head had fallen to his chest with her first words, now looked up. His eyes had become enflamed with his desperation and madness. “You will return with us, faerie girl. And you will give us the children we need to restore our race,” he snarled, reaching out for her. “You will come back!”
A deep feral sound arose from Og’s throat. He would have moved forward but that Lara stayed him with her hand.
“The girl is ours,” Enda said, attempting to sound reasonable. “Surely you can understand that, my lord prince. We have the magistrate’s order. And the Shadow Princes are men who respect the law, and keep order themselves among the Desert folk.”
“You bribed the magistrate, I have not a doubt,” Kaliq replied in amused tones. “What did you promise him in return? Lara, when you had finished with her? Your brother would not allow Lara to live, or do you not understand that, my lord Enda?”
At that Durga leapt forward, his big clumsy hands stretching out for Lara. The girl stepped back but a pace, her arm reaching up to draw her broadsword from the scabbard on her back. She found herself filled to bursting with a ferocious anger. This beast of a man would not have her. She would never again be victimized by the Head Forester Durga, or any of his clan. Then, to even her own surprise, she jumped forward and with a single stroke decapitated the Head Forester as the sword sang loudly.
Durga’s head rolled across the marble floor, his eyes wide, his mouth open in complete and utter shock. Crimson blood spurted from his severed neck and flowed over the marble floors. The head settled at Enda’s booted feet. He looked down, and then up again. His eyes were filled with fear as he stared at Lara. A hesitant hand went to his own weapon, but Kaliq quickly spoke.
“Lara tells me you paid thirty thousand pieces of gold for her. I will give it to you, and ten thousand more in blood money for your brother’s death. Under the law Lara was legally free of you several days ago. You have attempted to regain her by fraudulent means. We both know it, my lord Enda. Take the gold, and leave Shunnar. If I must bring this unfortunate matter to the attention of the High Council, how do you think they would rule? Lara’s destiny is not with you. Nor is it even with me, I regret to say. And it occurs to me that if your brother had no son, then it is you who are now the Head Forester. Did Durga have a son?” A small smile played about the prince’s mouth.
“No. Just daughters.” Enda had now found his voice again, and lied easily to the Shadow Prince. The bitch Truda had whelped a boy, but he was weak, and had been sickly since his birth. His brother had beaten Truda badly for it, as he blamed the woman. No one would consider it odd if the boy died suddenly. And no one would be sorry to have Truda gone from their midst. She had been a troublemaker from the very beginning. Durga was dead of his own stupidity. Enda would tell no one how his brother died. He would say Durga had a fit when he could not regain Lara. Of course there was the matter of his brother’s head and body being separated.
“Then we shall consider this matter settled between us? And between Lara, and your family?” the prince purred. “If you would like we will bury your brother. His body would decay too badly if you attempted to take it with you back to your Forest realm.”
Enda nodded. Had the prince read his mind, he wondered uncomfortably? “When I have the gold in my possession,” he said, and then his eyes went to Lara. If only he could have gotten a son on her, he thought regretfully, but he had understood her words.
