Children of Destiny Books 1-3 (Texas: Children of Destiny Book 9) Read online

  She had always hated men who stripped women with devouring glances. She especially hated this one. There was something about his eyes, something dreadfully familiar that she didn’t dare dwell upon because if she did, it would stir that vague, unnamable terror that came with those blinding white flashes and headaches.

  “You look like hell,” he murmured, bringing her back to the present with a torrent of abusive gibes, “but at least you’re still in one piece. When you’ve had a bath, you won’t be half-bad—for a skinny, flat-chested runt.”

  Flat-chested! Runt! Normally she would have bristled from such insults, but she was hopeful that maybe his thinking her less than perfectly endowed was what had thus far kept him from physically attacking her.

  This hope was instantly dashed when the bloodied hand she had bitten moved toward her forehead. He meant only to smooth the limp black snarls out of her eyes, but she cringed, afraid of what any gentleness from a man like him might mean.

  He read her terror and snapped his hand back as if burned, his expression grim. “I’m not going to hurt you, princess,” he growled. “And as for wanting you in that way—” His voice lowered to a sneer. “You’re not my type.”

  He spoke English! This fact finally penetrated. He spoke English! With some sort of twangy Southern drawl! He was an American! A despicable, insulting one, but an American.

  He wasn’t one of them! But if he wasn’t, who was he?

  She lifted her chin and studied him warily through lowered lashes. What she saw rekindled all her chilling fears.

  He seemed half-tamed, his large, lethal body coiled with savage inner tension. Smooth, sun-bronzed flesh stretched tightly across his prominent cheekbones, giving him the ruthless aura of a Native-American warrior. There were hollows beneath his eyes and grooves etched into his cheeks. His hawklike nose had been broken once and never set.

  He was older than she, by at least ten years. She could see the fine lines beneath his eyes as well as the deeper ones bracketing his mouth. A jagged white scar winged from his left black brow and disappeared inside his kaffiyeh. Someone hadn’t liked him any better than she did and had split that bitter, arrogant face open.

  He had lived a hard life, and it showed in the implacable set of his square jaw, in the thin determined line of his mouth, in the world-weary cynicism of his eyes. Not a trace of boyish softness lingered in his harsh features. He was all man, virile and terrifyingly masculine to the core. Obviously, he was an uncooperative, domineering sort. He hadn’t shaved in days, and the shadow of thick black bristles intensified his thoroughly disreputable look.

  She had always liked elegant, sophisticated men, not he-men, brute male chauvinists without an ounce of culture like this gorilla.

  Her eyes glittered with disdain. He read her mind. When she frowned in distaste, his magnificent knowing eyes sparked with the faintest trace of insolence before he deliberately obliterated it.

  She forced herself to look away as though she had grown bored with him when in reality, awareness of his tightly-coiled, awesome maleness consumed every pulsating sense in her body.

  “I guess I don’t look any better to you than you do to me,” he drawled dryly. “Like it or not, we’re stuck with each other. Believe me, I don’t like spending my time with some sissy-girl in toe shoes any better than you like being with me.”

  She struggled, fought against her bonds, chewed on her gag in rage.

  “Hey, hey,” he whispered, grabbing her arms and holding her still. “When you think you can control your urge to scream like a shrew or attack me like a spoiled brat—” Her eyes riveted guiltily to his bitten hand. “I’ll untie you go. You damn near chomped off my thumb back there.”

  She hesitated, glaring at him sulkily, hating having to strike any bargain with such an odious individual, especially one who was responsible for her helplessness and gloating over the power he held over her.

  “Look, lady, I’ve come through hell to try to get you out of this jam you so stupidly got yourself into.”

  Stupidly! What did this Neanderthal know of charitable deeds, of the sacrifices civilized people and entertainers made to help those less fortunate? She’d come here as part of an international goodwill troupe. The proceeds of the ballets she had danced were to be given to feed hungry children in the Middle East and Africa.

  “Princess, do you have any idea of the danger you’ve put us in? We’re right smack in the center of Aslam Nouri’s terrorist camp in a remote village he controls. Worse, we’re slap-dab in the middle of one of the world’s most inhospitable deserts. I just beat the hell out of your abductor and took his prime hostage. He’s the most vengeful revolutionary fanatic this hellish country possesses. He would love nothing better than to rip out our hearts with his dagger and cook them over one of those wretched camel-dung fires that are stinking up this luxury suite. The only thing keeping us alive right now is an avaricious malcontent I bribed into lending us this stable until daylight. If we get out, I’ve promised to make him a rich man until he dies. I’m your only hope, honey. Do I make myself clear?”

  She stared at him in wide-eyed horror.

  “Now, if I take off your gag and you make the slightest suspicious sound, we’re both dead. And believe me, honey, these people have vengeful natures. They know how to make the most of a woman, even a skinny one, before they stone her or behead her.”

  He traced a callused fingertip from her lips, down the length of her throat, to the crest of her breast, his sensuous male touch saying more than ten thousand words.

  His finger had burned a blazing trail down her skin. She shuddered, aware of him in a way she had no desire to be.

  And he knew it!

  His hand lingered for an infinitesimal second, near her nipple, heating her flesh, making her tremble. Something hot and dark and possessive flashed in his eyes. At last he pulled his hand away.

  “So if you think you can squelch those murderous urges you feel toward me and keep quiet, I’ll untie you,” he muttered grimly. “Otherwise, I’ll leave you like you are. Nod your head if you plan to behave.”

  She twisted her head up and down urgently.

  When he hesitated, obviously reluctant to untie her, she bobbed it back and forth even more frantically. His eyes were skeptical, but at last he leaned over her and very gently untied her hands, her feet. Then her mouth.

  She ran a bone-dry tongue across her crusted lips. “I’ll despise you forever for the way you treated me, you...you, macho-man Neanderthal,” she whispered, her low, ragged voice filled with loathing.

  “If I’m so lucky,” came his sardonic snort.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just hope I’ve got—a forever. Then suit yourself, your highness.” He shot her a leering grin. “Hate me.”

  All he was interested in was saving his own despicable hide.

  She tried again to lick her lips with her dry tongue. “I’m thirsty,” she whispered.

  Casually he handed her his jug. She took one drink, wrinkled her nose, and wrenched the jug away from her lips with a grimace. “What is this stuff? I want water. Not this hot, putrid...”

  “It’s camel’s milk, my high and mighty princess,” he said with a smirk. “I sprinkled in a tad of bourbon to improve its flavor.”

  “I hate bourbon.”

  “I hate camel’s milk. Drink it. The water here is even worse.”

  He got up and went back to the window. Satisfied that there was nothing to be alarmed about outside, he rummaged in his pack, pulled out a can, carefully peeled back the top and handed it to her.

  Vienna sausage!

  After the nauseous alien stuff she’d been fed, the mere scent was heavenly. She pulled a sausage out and sank her teeth into it. She had eaten at the best restaurants in New York, but nothing had ever tasted as luscious as that first tender pink sausage dissolving between tongue and teeth. She stared up at him, her dislike lessening, a fierce gratitude shining in her enormous eyes as she licked her fingers.
She ate the rest of the sausages greedily.

  “Drink the juice, too,” he advised. When she had finished he squashed the empty can with his heel and put it back in his pack. Then he took out a sack and shook some dates into her palm. “Eat them slowly.”

  “Who are you?” she asked, when she’d finished the dates. “What are you doing here?”

  He was holding his gun again, looking out the window, trying to ignore her.

  “I asked you a question.”

  Something flared in his eyes, then vanished into the dark silence, and he said nothing.

  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you any manners, Mr. he-man?”

  He turned, his expression so dark and forbidding she cringed. “I never had much of a mother.”

  Unwittingly she had touched some ancient pain, one she understood too well. “I’m sorry,” she murmured in a low, muffled tone.

  “Do you think I give a damn for your apologies?” He stopped, clenched his jaw. “I liked you better gagged. Like most women, you talk too much.”

  His harsh words stung, as did his harsh demeanor. She lifted her head angrily. “If we’re going to be stuck with each other, I just thought I ought to know something about you.”

  “There’s no need,” he replied.

  “Do you always get your way?”

  “Most of the time.”

  “I feel sorry for your wife then.”

  His mouth twisted cynically. “I’m not married, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I can see why. For the record—I wasn’t asking.”

  “Good.” He practically threw his gun down and came toward her. His gaze was so hard and unfriendly, her bottom lip began to quiver. “Look, I need to concentrate on keeping us alive. If you’d just shut up, things would be a whole lot easier—for both of us.”

  “Maybe for you. Not for me,” she whispered forlornly.

  She needed to talk now that she was with someone, who, for all his obvious shortcomings, was actually on her side. It didn’t matter on what subjects. For dozens of days and nights she’d been locked in that burning dark cell, with the terrifying Aslam her only companion, his constant threats of her imminent rape and murder her only conversation. She was half-starved, and she’d endured it all without a trace of hysteria. But now for some reason, now that she felt a bit safer with this man, her emotions were rising to the surface. She needed him to at least act like a human being instead of some macho-tough mercenary soldier.

  “I bet you’ve never been scared in your whole life,” she whispered.

  He knelt beside her and took her raw wrists in his, turned them over and studied the bruises. Though he didn’t say anything, she could feel his concern. With a finger he tilted her delicate chin to the light. He studied her smudged white face, the dark circles under her too-brilliant eyes. Briefly he touched her necklace. Then the black marks on her throat.

  “Sure I’ve been scared,” he admitted grimly. He knew all about being scared, all about growing up young and weak, fending for himself most of the time, all about people not thinking he or any MacKay was as good as other folks, all about being locked up in a reform-school cell, hated by everyone, accused of kidnapping the child he’d nearly died trying to save. This girl was at the center of his life going wrong, but he didn’t talk about those things, ever, to anyone. He’d learned a long time ago that people like this woman just wanted to pick and probe at him until they found out all the details and then despised him.

  When he dropped her wrists abruptly, she caught one of his big tanned hands in hers and pulled him back, liking the hot warmth that emanated from his skin to hers. His eyes reluctantly met hers again.

  “At least tell me your name,” she begged.

  She wanted to know about him. She had to know about him to stave off some terrifying loneliness. He seemed locked up inside himself, remote, determined to be indifferent to her.

  “I—I don’t usually talk so much,” she pleaded. “Really I don’t. It’s just that I was alone...so long...and so scared. Please tell me your name.”

  Her gaze fell to the silver identification bracelet he wore. Oddly there was no name. Just a figure of an Irish wolfhound engraved deeply into the metal. With a broken fingernail she traced the outline. She had the uncanny feeling she’d seen that bracelet somewhere before. Once she’d studied it with the same fascination she felt now. Her hand began to tremble.

  Kirk hesitated, his expression stern as his stubborn will warred with the strange emotions she aroused in him. She seemed so young, so terrified, so vulnerable. Once he’d been like her.

  Her hands squeezed his fingers. “Please... Oh, please… Don’t shut me out.”

  His eyes were steady as they probed hers. He saw her terror, her desperation, and something inside him softened.

  He grimaced. He had a job to do. Any distraction could cost them their lives. He did not want to be moved by her, but he was.

  “Kirk MacKay,” he muttered in a grim low tone, “for what it’s worth.”

  “K-Kirk...” Her voice was a thready whisper. “Kirk...”

  She was aware of his eyes on her face, as though he were watching her intently to determine her reaction. When there was none, he relaxed.

  The name made him less the mercenary, more human somehow. Her grip tightened on his work-toughened hand, the one she had bitten.

  “I’m sorry I bit you,” she said weakly. “I didn’t realize...”

  “I know.”

  She felt the cold metal of his bracelet pressing into her, the strength of him flowing from his flesh into hers, his awesome power, and as she held onto him, the hard masculine features of his face blurred in a blaze of white that filled the room.

  She knew his face, the bracelet. From some nameless time and place—long ago when she’d been a child. She knew his eyes. But where? How? Why had she forgotten these things? Why did it hurt so much to remember them now?

  There was a splintering spasm of pain at the base of her neck.

  She recalled her earlier vision in the cell. She had been running toward a boy with green eyes and straight black hair.

  She knew, though she didn’t know how she knew, that this man, though he was older and harder, was the person she’d seen. Just as she knew—he was not her enemy. She had loved him.

  What did it mean?

  Why had he come for her?

  She bit her cracked lips to keep from screaming. The world seemed to spin in a diamond-white caldron, and his haggard face was at the center of that whirl.

  When the awful sensation passed, and she came back to the reality of a dark table and camel-dung smoke, she was shivering and weak with queasiness, drenched in her own perspiration. Kirk was holding her shaking body tightly in his arms.

  Though the comfort he gave her was wordless, she had never felt so safe anywhere as she did wrapped in his silence, cradled close against his powerful, muscled body. It was as if she had come home after a long journey, as if she had been dead and miraculously brought back to life. The world seemed new, her senses sharper.

  Her cheek rested against his shoulder. He was blistering hot, but she welcomed his heat. His rough hand was gently stroking her hair, loosening the matted tangles.

  She didn’t move or say anything because she was afraid if she did, he might let her go. And she never wanted him to let her go. She never wanted his fingers to stop combing through her hair.

  He had come to this hellish place for one reason only—to save her.

  Once they had belonged together. There would be time later, if they lived, to examine that. If she dared.

  All of her adult life, she had lived without the touch of a man. She had lived only to dance, and her career had been meteoric. Dazzling and bewitching on stage, she had been worshipped by every girl in the dance corps. It was as if a special magic was breathed into her soul when the stage lights were turned on, and only then could she truly live. Offstage, she was remote and withdrawn, her heart and soul empty of emotion.


  Frederick, her last boyfriend, had complained. “You have nothing to give to a man. You are like a beautiful doll that’s hollow inside! All your fire and passion is for the stage and an audience of strangers.” So many men had been disappointed in her, and she had not cared.

  Only Lincoln had been pleased. “You are lucky. You’re meant for one thing only. Most artists live without this clear vision of who they are. If you work hard, I will make you the greatest dancer in the world.” And he had. She had become a star, rushed through the night glimmer of crowded New York streets in white stretch limousines, feted at gala affairs.

  For a woman like Dawn, there had been no suffering because there were no temptations. Other girls wanted to live, to have friends, to go to parties, to eat sumptuous meals at elegant restaurants, to fall in love. They had boyfriends, husbands, babies that meant the end of brilliant careers. Never Dawn. She had lived solely for the brilliant ballets Lincoln created for her.

  Kirk’s heat, his passion flowed into her slender body and transformed her.

  It seemed she was awakening from a long dream.

  Her mind wandered with a vague sense of deja vu. She had danced this part a thousand times as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, and she knew every nuance of the role by heart.

  In the ballet Aurora lay in a deep sleep on her canopied bed, her palace smothered with dark clouds and a tangle of undergrowth and weeds. Suddenly something hot and warm and alive pressed down upon her cold lips and breathed life into her. As she awakened in her Prince Charming’s arms, the gloomy palace slowly filled with light. To the crash of cymbals and the rising tempo of Tchaikovsky’s romantic music, the silent, motionless figures of court officials and servants began stirring to life after their hundred years’ sleep. The overgrown weeds enveloping the room died down. Draperies of dusty cobwebs fell away, vanishing forever.

  A prince’s kiss, and the spell had been broken.

  But this man and this moment were real and more wonderful than any finale to Act Two of The Sleeping Beauty could ever be.