Wyndmaster 1 - The Wyndmaster's Lady Read online

  The Wyndmaster’s Lady

  Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Dedication

  To my precious Buddha Belly, who has always been the wind beneath my wings.

  Prologue

  Lord Charles Henry Allen of Dragonmoor was considered to be the pinnacle of evil in his day. Since he was a member of the Justonian Royalty—brother to King Edmond—his peculiarities were rarely discussed even though his strange predilections for murder, mayhem, and mutilation were well documented. Few people knew he was so well-connected to the royalty and the ones who did kept that information to themselves.

  For those aspiring to be classified a human monster, his was the pattern from which the wretched garment was cut. Possessing not one shred of compassion in his cold black heart or even a single drop of consideration in his malevolent marrow, his pale white hands—long fingers tapered elegantly—were often coated with the blood of his enemies. Beneath his immaculately groomed fingernails, a tell-tale crimson stain was left under the index finger of his right hand to remind him of the pleasures of his day past.

  Just as the sight of that fleck of red soothed him; likewise were the bloodcurdling screams of his victims' sweet music to Lord Charles’ ears. Upon viewing a broken spirit, a lacerated soul, the pitiful wretchedness of a man and—in the odd moment, woman—cast forever into the bowels of Dragonmoor Keep, the Dungeon Master would sigh with utter contentment. In his element amidst the various ghastly instruments of torture, he preferred to be hands-on with his prisoners, taking an active part in their prolonged anguish. Those who had foolishly opposed his iron will, who rebelliously had gained his undivided attention or garnered his unceasing ire, were given special care in the dungeon beneath Dragonmoor Castle.

  Only one avenue of escape was offered the forgotten prisoners buried within the craggy walls of Dragonmoor and that was at the skeletal hands of the Grim Reaper who came to call on a regular basis.

  Situated far beneath the rocky soil of the Allen ancestral estate, the dungeon had never been breached nor had a prisoner ever escaped the dank, dismal cells whose walls sweated rank water and were as frigid as a tomb concealed under the northernmost tundra. No light ever shone within the cells of Lord Charles’ internees. His captives were consigned to the dark, the only sounds penetrating their wretched four foot by four foot cubicle being the squeal of rats, the constant drip-drip-drip of the foul water oozing from the privies above them, and the occasional moan—perhaps even a horrific scream—torn from the inmates’ throats.

  Tall, lanky and with a cadaverous face that was as pale as buttermilk, Lord Charles could often be seen walking the battlements of Dragonmoor in the evening. Dressed all in red with a voluminous scarlet wool cape thrown over his thin shoulders for warmth, he would pace the wall walk, stopping to peer over the parapet to the moat far below where beasts snapped and splashed in the teeming water. Occasionally he would toss down a meal to the beasts, smiling gleefully as a helpless body crashed into the water and reverberating screams broke the country stillness as giant jaws crunched flailing limbs and turned the murky water crimson, whipping the waves to pink foam.

  No one came to call at Dragonmoor and none of its servants ever left. Their own lives nearing their ends either by advancing age or having gotten on the wrong side of Lord Charles’ temper, the inhabitants of the keep knew there would be no decent burial for them, no gentle retirement in a cottage by the winding stream on the east side of the estate. They—like the hapless victims who rotted away in the dungeon—would end up in the bellies of the beasts that guarded the moat.

  There was but one thing Lord Charles held more precious than his ability to break a strong man’s will or to send a haughty woman screeching into madness. Only one treasure was held dear by him and it was guarded as zealously and as obsessively as the Dungeon Master applied red-hot pinchers to a victim’s testicles. Only a select few ever looked upon Lord Charles’ priceless possession and not a single one of those carefully chosen, keenly watched guardians was allowed to touch that one thing held by the lord to be more sacred than life itself. Under penalty of the most excruciating agony, the most exacting anguish applied vigorously would a protector allow harm to come to the Allen crown jewel.

  That prized jewel was Lady Anna Celeste Allen, Lord Charles’ only child and the one weakness that made him even remotely human. The sun rose and set upon her golden head and the light of his world shone from her pale blue eyes. In her frail, soft hand she wielded a power far greater than that of any king or queen for she could command the most powerful man in Aravar and bring him to his knees with love.

  As evil as Charles Henry Allen was, as wickedly malevolent, he was putty beneath the gentle smile that turned his daughter’s lovely face from beautiful to exquisite. Save her freedom to venture beyond the walls of Dragonmoor, he could deny her nothing for he had wrapped himself around her little finger and there bound himself for as long as he lived. She was his precious child, his heir, his every wavering breath and he loved her as he had never loved even the woman who had brought her into his world. To him, she was everything and a wealth to be kept pure and unsullied, as innocent as on the day she had been born.

  Let no man ever dare lay hands to Anna Celeste for in the doing, the Dungeon Master, the Keeper of the Gallows, the Lord of Agony, would descend like the Hound of Hell upon the poacher and the Abyss would open up to spew forth a fury and retribution the likes the world had never known.

  Woe be unto he who might cast a seductive glance upon the Lady of Dragonmoor.

  Chapter One

  Pain was something Sierran Morgan knew all too well. He’d endured more than what he considered was his due over the last twenty-nine years. From his mother’s cherry laurel switch applied to his bare legs to the grouchy slaps of his sisters, from his father’s razor strap laid heavily on a bare ass to the enraged fists of his brothers, he knew what hurt meant. But no matter how many times his mother had cut the blood from his legs or his father’s leather had come down unsparingly on his backside, nothing could have prepared him for the cat-o-nine that striped his back from left shoulder to right hip then from right shoulder to left hip in a perfect X. When the third lash came to bisect him from ribcage to ribcage, he could not stop the grunt that tore from his throat. The fourth through the seventh blows slammed him brutally against the wooden beam to which he was shackled. It was all he could do not to cry out, so he buried his forehead against the splintery wood and clamped his jaw tightly shut, unwilling to let another tell-tale sound of agony escape him.

  He was vaguely aware of the other soldiers behind him as his sentence continued. His men were shuffling their feet but not a one of them dared to open his mouth to protest their commander’s punishment. They had been assembled to watch his disgrace but he knew there wasn’t a one among them who agreed with the penalty.

  Having lost count after the twelfth blow, Sierran dug his nails into the wood and, with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, silently endured. His back felt as though a caldron of fire had been tossed upon it and the muscles of his arms were quivering, sweat pouring down his face. The nine knotted cords with the brass barbs at the end sliced deeply into his muscles with each pass of the cat. When he was barely conscious, his blood dripping to the ground at his feet, the blows finally stopped.

  Sierran sagged against the manacles that held his wrists tight to the whipping post. He sensed someone coming to stand beside him and cringed, praying whoever it was would not touch his ravaged back.

  “Perhaps now you will think twice before disobeying me, boy!” General Thurston hissed in his ear.

  The general stepped back. “Take him down and slap his ornery ass
in a cell. I’ll deal with his insubordination later.”

  Stamping down the urge to groan at the general’s words, Sierran wondered what other punishment the madman intended to mete out.

  “Keep your mouth shut, lad,” the executioner cautioned as he and his helper came quickly forward to unlock the shackles holding their prisoner’s wrists. “Don’t you make a peep or he’ll have you back up here again tomorrow.”

  The shackles off his wrists, excruciating pain lanced through Sierran’s back as his legs gave way and the two men had to fumble to hold him up. The muscles in his back screamed in protest as they pulled him away from the whipping post. He couldn’t stand on his own and as they started toward the prison with him, his feet dragging along the ground, he passed out, unable to take the agony pulsing in his body.

  When he came to late that evening, he was lying on a smelly blanket on the rock hard, cold stone floor of Wardsgate Prison in the capitol city of Placida. His cheek was pressed to the rough wool of the blanket, his arms above his head. He could smell the harsh odor of astringent and thanked the gods he hadn’t been awake when it had been applied to his back. He had first-hand knowledge of how badly the brew stung when applied to lacerated flesh.

  Trying to lift himself up just enough to test the level of pain in his back, he drew in a quick breath and lay perfectly still, striving hard not to groan. The level was intense but he knew he had to sit up for the longer he lay there, the weaker he would get. With his jaw firmly set, he tried again as tears formed in his eyes. It took every ounce of his concentration, his willpower, and strength to push to his knees and when he managed that, paused with his forehead on the cold stone floor and his ass in the air for several minutes before gathering the courage to heave his upper body to a kneeling position.

  “Gods!” he couldn’t stop himself from gasping. Liquid fire was running down his back and he began to shudder, his teeth clicking together.

  On his knees with his hands planted firmly on his thighs, he stayed that way for a long time, breathing quickly though shallowly, his head lowered, eyes tightly shut against the ungodly agony pulling at his flesh.

  By the time the guards came to bring his meal of brackish water and moldy bread, he was sitting in the middle of the floor, his legs crossed beneath him, soles touching.

  “Blimey, you’re a tough one, Commander,” one of the guards remarked as his partner unlocked the cell. “Most men wouldn’t be sitting up so soon after such a beating.”

  Sierran ignored the man. Sweat was running down his face as he concentrated on a spot on the wall across from him. His hands were cupped loosely in his lap—thumbs and first three fingers pressed together. With the pain engulfing his body, he had not been able to assume the full meditation position his instructor had taught him many years before but what he had been able to do was cut the pain in half then in half again as he contemplated the blemish on the wall.

  “Your men send their support, sir,” the guard whispered as he bent over to place the cup of water and hunk of bread on the blanket. “We all do.”

  Tearing his attention from the wall, Sierran looked up as the guard straightened up. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  “My pleasure, sir,” the guard mumbled as he shuffled out of the cell.

  The cell door squeaked as it was closed behind the guard’s departure and the hollow clunk of the lock engaging sounded loud as it echoed through the long stone corridor outside the cells.

  “You’re a good man, sir,” the other guard said as he and his partner left.

  Alone once more in the semi-darkness of his cell, Sierran looked down at the pitiful sustenance he’d been given then returned his gaze to the wall. Although his mouth was cotton-dry and he felt feverish, he had no intention of drinking the water in this vile place. He knew without doubt it would make him sicker than he already was.

  “A good man,” Sierran said to himself. He lifted his head a bit higher.

  And where had that gotten him? Fighting with the Ibydosian Forces against a people who had long since been subjugated beneath the iron boot of Ibydosia and who no longer had the will to fight back.

  For almost fifty years, the two warring factors in Emardia had fought for control of the country. The Ibydosians lived in the southern portion of the lands. They were under the leadership of the Federation which was loyal to King Edmond and Queen Tatiana of the Justonian Throne. The Emardian Guards living in the northern portion of the country fought for a democratic government ruled entirely by the people and without the yoke of a monarchy.

  Many of Sierran's own family—staunch loyalists of the king—had been slain at the hands of the Emardian Guard. He was the last of his bloodline left in Emardia—his parents, brothers, and three sisters having long ago fled the war-torn country to settle in Argonne, an island country held by the Justonian throne. When he died, there would be no one to mourn him and he courted that death with every breath he took for he knew he was living on borrowed time. It was just a matter of the when and how of his death that he didn’t know.

  Letting his rigid shoulders relax, he winced at the fiery pull on his torn flesh. His hatred of Felix Thurston became a burning coal in the pit of his gut.

  He had good reason to despise Thurston and to wish for him the same fate the insane man had decreed upon one of the northernmost Emardian villages.

  “Take a battalion of men and eliminate the whole of Quintain,” Thurston had ordered. “I don’t want anything living in that village when you are finished!”

  It had been a reprehensible order given by a man who had lost all reason over the course of the last five years. Sierran was convinced Thurston—having witnessed the savage destruction of the general’s own family—had become unhinged, a snarling, foaming-at-the-mouth incompetent. Most of his orders were outrageous and many of his junior officers found ways to circumvent them while striving to bring the matter to the attention of the governing members of the Ibydosian Federation, the governing body who now controlled Emardia as well as its own lands. Sierran knew it wouldn’t be long before someone—and now he thought it might well be him—would put a dagger into the general’s evil heart.

  “No, sir,” Sierran had told Thurston with an emphatic shake of his head. “There are no rebels in Quintain. They are nothing more than a village of women, children, and the aged. To kill them would be sinful. I won’t do it.”

  "That is beside the point. They are Emardian! They must die!"

  "No, sir. I will not commit such a crime against the innocent."

  "You are a WyndMaster!" Thurston bellowed. "You must obey me without question!"

  "A WyndMaster does not war on those unable to protect themselves, sir."

  Thurston’s face had turned crimson at Sierran’s refusal to carry out the order and he had drawn back a doubled fist to strike his subordinate. That the intended object of that hit caught the general’s fist in a steely grip and had stared levelly into the general’s eyes without flinching had infuriated Thurston even more than had Sierran’s rejection of his order.

  “Twenty lashes!” Thurston had screamed.

  And thus Sierran had ended up with his uniform shirt ripped from his back and his body stretched to the whipping post at the mercy of Thurston’s own ta’zeer or whips man.

  As he sat there the remainder of the night, Sierran could not stop himself from wondering what further punishment Thurston had planned for him. That it would be brutal and unjust he had no doubt. He only hoped he’d be man enough to take it.

  Chapter Two

  Anna Celeste Allen sighed loudly as she watched the scullery maid and her lover as they met beneath the oak tree just beyond the kitchen gardens. She was sitting in her window seat with her chin resting on the backs of her crossed hands, doing what her father would no doubt chastise her for were he to find out.

  It had been by chance that Celeste spied the lovers as she glanced out the opened window and her attention had been caught and held as the lad pulled the maid into his ar
ms. Such a thing was unknown to her so she had stopped to watch, ashamed at her illicit spying but unable to look away. The sight of the handsome young man embracing his lady then placing his lips to hers had made Celeste’s heart beat faster and she—like any impressionable teenager—had begun to daydream. But then the lad had put a hand to the doxie’s breast to caress her through the coarse material of her woolen gown.

  “Oh, my!” Celeste said, feeling her face burning. She was shocked into utter stillness—her eyes nearly as wide as her mouth—and when the lad’s hand had delved down the maid’s bodice, she had nearly choked as she gasped.

  Unable to step back from the window for she was rooted to the spot with shock, Celeste watched as the maid and her lover sank to the ground. The maid lay sprawled on her back as her lover tossed her skirts up to reveal long legs bare of stocking, garter or…

  “Oh!” Celeste gasped. The maid wore no underthings at all and the juncture of her legs was thrown wide for her lover to caress—and caress he did with a feverish intensity that stunned Celeste.

  Tearing her eyes from the vulgar display of the maid’s near nudity, Celeste stared at the woman’s face as her lover continued to knead her busily between the legs. The woman’s lips were parted, her eyes closed, her hands buried in her lover’s dark blond hair. With the bodice of her gown pulled down over one breast and the fiery triangle practically gleaming in the morning sun, surely the woman was headed straight for the fires of hell!

  Though she did not see what the young man pulled from his pants as he fumbled at the front of them, Celeste nearly cried out with mortification as the woman threw her legs around her lover’s hips and arched up to meet him, her ankles crossed over his waist.

  Thrusting his lower body hard between the maid’s thighs, the young man slid his hands under the maid and lifted her higher. Only then did Celeste look away, hurriedly getting up and moving away from the window, putting distance between her and the temptation to see what else the brazen lad would do.