THE CONQUEROR
Raven reached out and her fingertips brushed his mailed forearm. “Don’t go yet. Please.”
And like that, deep inside of Griffyn, something that hadn’t moved for a very long time suddenly shifted.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the night air, propelling her behind Noir, using the horse as a shield between them and the huts. His intention was clear and he barely dared breathe, waiting for her refusal. Let her pull back the slightest bit and he would step away, forget the whole thing, interpret her unsteady breathing as fear, her trembles as exhaustion.
But God, he prayed silently, please let her move not so much as an eyelash.
Why was his blood hammering so? Why was it hard to draw breath? He had barely touched her on two occasions, touches so innocent he could have performed them in a crowded room and barely brought a gasp. Why?
Because something about this small, courageous wisp of a woman was plunging into recesses of a desire he’d never known existed and his arousal pulsed hot and hard.
She let her breath out slowly. Her hand came up, brushed his armour and stopped.
“Raven…” he said, his words low-pitched.
“Aye,” she whispered back, her eyes locked in his.
Without a thought for custom or destiny or anything other than the green-eyed angel before him, he bent his head to taste her trembling lips…
THE CONQUEROR
KRIS KENNEDY
ZEBRA BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
To my husband.
Through all our trials, a man who “gets it.”
Who cared more if I was happy
than if I cooked or cleaned or did laundry
on days the Muse was hot.
Or the days She was cold.
Because he loves me.
No swords or swinging from chandeliers necessary.
You can be my hero.
Contents
Book One
The Sowing
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Interlude
A Fallow Year
Book Two
The Reaping
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Prologue
Barfleur docks, Normandy, France
1 April 1152
“How much?”
The ship’s captain looked suspiciously at the rough-hewn man before him. Rain slanted sideways on the empty Barfleur docks and it was dark, filled with echoing silence. Eerier still, though, was the way the man’s dark hood was drawn forward over his head, his grey eyes glowing like banked coals.
“More’n the likes of ye can afford,” the captain muttered and started to turn away.
A hand closed around his forearm. “I can afford more than the likes of you have ever dreamed of.” A bag of coin was shoved into his calloused hand. “Is that sufficient?”
The captain lifted a bushy eyebrow, then dumped open the bag. Gold and copper coins spilled out, clinking loudly in the wet silence of the docks. He glanced towards the tilting, swaying sign of a pub several yards down the quay, then shoved the coins back in the bag and lashed it shut. “It’ll do.”
A low-pitched, mocking laugh met this.
He slid the pouch under his mantle and squinted against the glare of torchlight reflecting on the slippery docks. The man’s cape blew in the misting rain; he was hard to make out as a figure of substance—he looked like black wind.
The captain fingered his grizzled beard. “How many did ye say there were of ye?”
“Thirteen.”
He leaned closer, trying to discern a face amid the darkness of night and the hood the man wore. Even the man’s horse, standing a few feet back, was so pitch black he could have coated a torch. “Aye. A right unlucky number, to be doing unlucky things, no doubt.”
Bunched muscles lifted as the man—surely a knight—crossed his arms over his chest. “No doubt. But not as unlucky as you will be if you speak of this to anyone.”
The captain touched the lump under his mantle. “Aye, well, when my mouth is spilling with good food and wet ale—and wet women,” he barked in laughter, “it don’t feel no need to be spilling tales.”
The banked grey eyes regarded him levelly. The captain stopped laughing and cleared his throat. “Where to?”
“Half