Journey of the Searching Star - Exerpt

"Jaecyn, wake up!  Wake up!" He shook her again, a little harder.  Finally, her green eyes blinked open.

" Arien?" She murmured, still disoriented, and are eyes filled with hope.

" No - -Brandt McKell…  Are you all right?"

" Y-yes…  No!  He's dead.  He's really dead.  My father killed him." Jaecyn's eyes filled with new tears and Brandt lowered her gently against the padding of the bunk.  "God, I wish it was just a dream." She sniffed and brushed away her tears with her fingers.  " I loved him since we were children.  We were going away together to live in one of the plains villages.  But Father killed him right in front of me, then beat me within an inch of my life because I loved him.  Father is a mean and twisted man who doesn't deserve to rule our Clan.  I hate him, and I'm never going back."

Brandt watched tight lipped, fighting back the urge to pull her into his arms and hold her close.  Something in the bleakness of her eyes twisted at his insides in a way that made him uneasy.  But that vulnerable side of this fierce warrior woman was hidden almost as quickly as it had been revealed.

"What are you going to do with me now, mountain man?" Her voice was cool and steady but he saw a flicker of apprehension in her eyes.

"I'm taking you two Blue Summit as a hostage.  If your father won't ransom you, your fate as mine to decide."

Her laugh was bitter and derisive.  " Then, you better decide, McKell.  I have no father, and Zekan Rode has no daughter." She grated.  " He will give you and nothing for me.  But he will kill you for taking me and beat me for letting you."

" He can try," Brandt shrugged.  "He has tried to kill me twice in battle already, but here I am.  If he won't pay for you, I'll just keep you.  That is my right."

" You can try.  I'll kill you the first chance I get.  I won't be owned the by any man---not you, not my father…  Not even Arien…  But he never would have tried to own me."

" He's the one you were crying for?"

" I mourn for him, yes.  Who will mourn for you and Brandt McKell when I kill you?"

" Good question." He shrugged again and turned his back to her.  Another circumstances it might have been a careless move, but he knew she was in no condition to carry out her threat at that point.

The gesture angered Jaecyn, and she tried to get up.  The abrupt movement made her head throb, and the tiny room spun crazily around her.  She fell back onto the bunk with a groan, squeezing her eyes shut against the waves of vertigo.  He was in control now, but the time would come when he would think twice about turning his back on her.  Jaecyn swore to that under her breath.

Later, when she opened her eyes again, he was standing over her.  "Are you hungry, Jaecyn?  I have some beef strips and roasted grain to share if you are."

She wanted to spit in his face rather than eat his food, but she hadn't eaten in more than 24 hours.  "Yes, I am hungry, but I'm not sure I can eat a yet.  My head is spinning and I feel queasy."

"I'll leave you some where you can reach it.  You can eat when you are ready."

"All right," she murmured.  She needed water, too.  Only there was the more pressing matter of her full bladder to attend to first.  "McKell, does this place have a sanitary closet?"

"Out that doorway to the right." He paused from pouring a measure of grain into a small gourd and pointed.  "Just a minute, and I'll help you."

" I'd don't want your help!" She snapped then thought better of it.  As soon as she tried to stand, the room began racing around her again.  She would have fallen backward and hit her head on the upper bunk if he hadn't grabbed her arm to steady her.

" Maybe you don't want help, but you need it," he said quietly.  "Your cut wasn't too bad, but I think you were concussed by the blow.  It's going to take a few days for the world to stay put so you can move around on your own."

" Why didn't you just let them kill me?"

" I honestly don't know.  The odds just didn't seem fair.  You and the horse we're magnificent together.  He moved as though he were part of you.  Your death at their hands would have been quite unpleasant.  No warrior shouldn't die like that."

He took a step forward and waited for her to make the next more.  "Why were you riding in the desert alone in the first place?"

"None of your business!" She retorted and took two steps more, relying on him to steady her.

"Okay, don't tell me."

Jaecyn glanced at him and muttered an expletive.  For some reason she found it irksome that he would drop the subject so easily.  In spite of the fact he was a mountain man and she didn't trust him as far as she could see him, it had been a long time since she had seen another human face. She decided to talk.

" No, it really doesn't matter.  I'll tell you in a minute." She went into the cubicle alone and took care of her needs.  When she came out again, Brandt took her arm to help her back to the bunk.  "I doubt there is anyone who hates my father more than I do.  He is truly mad," she began.  "I learned to fight as a warrior just like my brothers.  They never let me go on the mountain raids, but I fought the nomads many times.  In all ways, I was treated as an equal with my brothers until men began to look at me with lust in their eyes.  Then, Father turned on me as if I had become the enemy.  He killed the man I loved and then he nearly killed me.  He was making plans to sell me to Tallis Falkner…"

For the whore that you are.  She heard the words in her mind, but she refused to relate that to Brandt McKell.  "Leaving was the only way I could be free."

" Free to die?"

" Damn your sarcasm!  You don't know what it was like.  To my father sons are allies and daughters are pawns.  In his eyes, I have disgraced him because I dared to choose my own paths.  I won't be any man's whore.  You can all go to hell for all I care…"

"I have been there already," Brandt murmured.  " it was a damn rough trip."

" Then, I never dreamed he would kill Arien.  I was always the one he punished before.  Arien never had a chance…" Jaecyn gasped as a new wave of vertigo gripped her and she felt herself being sucked into its vortex.  She slumped helplessly against Brandt, and he helped are back to her bunk.  There she lay with their eyes closed, massaging her forehead with long slim fingers.

" Where is this place you have brought me?" She asked quietly.

"This is one of the space shuttle's that brought our clans from the starship Mari-Sanna before she fell into the sun.  We thought it was well hidden, but you found it and so did the nomads.  I came to reactivate the emergency signal beacon.  Why did you come?"

" I remember stories we were told as children, the stories of a how are people came from the stars in ships to escape a great war.  We've known about the shuttle for a long time, but were never able to get inside."

Brandt was relieved to hear that.  Perhaps the beacon would be safe if he simply changed the access code after all.  "So you just came all this way to have a look?"

Jaecyn nodded.  "It gave me a purpose when I wanted nothing better than to die when Arien did.  As it was, my father beat me half to death.  He might have finished it, too, had my brother Nathan not intervened."

"He beat you?"  Brandt frowned.

"That's putting it mildly.  I never even had a chance to defend myself.  It took me more than a month to recover this time.  I didn't stay to worry about the next time," she admitted ruefully.  "I can't call Diamond Bay my home any longer.  My father is a madman, and Arien's mother blames me for his death.  I came first to see the shuttle, then I planned to go to Blake's Meadow."

"Two of my brothers have already gone to live with the plains' clans," she continued.  "I wanted to find them and live there with them if they are still even alive.  They could have died in the desert as I would have if you had come to help.  I thank you for that, Brandt McKell, but that's all I thank you for.  If you think I'll let you take me to Blue Summit without a fight, you're crazy!  I'm not going to be your slave!"

"And you're crazy if you think Tallis Falkner would let you live free among his clans alone.  He buys and sells women like we do horses.  You wouldn't have a chance there." He took the opportunity to study her face while she wasn't watching him. Brandt didn't wonder why men found her attractive.  He felt the attraction himself.  What her father did to her and her lover was unconscionable. A man should be proud to have a daughter of her mettle... and beauty.

"My brothers would stand with me…" she said after a moment.

"But you don't even know if they're there.  You wouldn't even get a chance to look.  Tallis Falkner would take you captive and think the stars for his good luck," Brandt asserted.

She opened her eyes and glared up at him, hating him for the truth he spoke.  She was a fighter, but even she knew she couldn't face Falkner's warriors alone.  What was she going to do?  Where could she go?

Jaecyn closed her eyes again and sighed.  At twenty-four, she felt suddenly old and empty.

"You could come with me," said Brandt and a strangely gentle tone almost as though he'd read her mind.  "I will treat you fairly."

"You must think I'm crazy if you think I would come willingly to Blue Summit to be your slave.  Yes, I heard what you said.  I just don't believe you."

"Making you a slave is not what I have in mind.  I've heard rumors of how your father has treated you from the plains' traders.  If Zekan Rode won't pay for you, you're worth little to me as a hostage…  And you are too much a warrior to make a good slave.  Come with me, and I swear you will be free to stay or go as you please." He sounded earnest, but Jaecyn could only believe that it must be some kind of a trick.

"Why the hell should I believe you?" Her eyes sparkled defiance.

"Why the hell not?  I haven't given you any reason to doubt me yet." He gave her a faint smile, relishing their verbal sparring.

"Then what do you get out of it?"

"It would raise my father's esteem for me if I came back to Blue Summit with the daughter of Zekan Rode in my company.  I could use his favor right now.  Do that for me, and I'll keep my word.  You will be free to stay or go as you please."

"I'll think about it," she murmured dubiously.  Even if he wasn't lying, the fire in his eyes told her more clearly than words that he wanted far more than what he asked.  She had been expecting that.  What she wasn't expecting was the way her body came alive at the thought.

Good grief!  He was the son of the mountain clan’s chieftain; their clans were sworn enemies.  Had she really sunk so low as two fancy him as a lover?  But she possibly owed him her life.  In his madness, her father hated her…  And Arien was dead.  Whatever Nathan cared, it was only enough to stop her father for beating her to death.  Arien was the only man who ever cared for her, and Zekan killed him for it.

Her father's wrath would know no bounds if she were to bed the son of Garth McKell.  Something sparked inside her.  The prospect of such an act of utter defiance and contempt seemed tantalizing.  Then she groaned aloud as she realized what she was actually contemplating.  She had indeed it sunk low.  She could justify her reasoning any way she wanted to, but the truth remained.  She felt the primitive attraction between them, and she knew only one way to quell it.

"Are you hurting, Jaecyn?" Brandt asked at the sound of her despair.  "I have some powder that would help."

"No powder will help the way I feel.  I just need some water and some rest.  I need to be alone."

"All right," he agreed.  "I'll give you some water and leave you alone.  I have work to do." He brought her a cup of tepid water and helped her sit up to drink it.  "Just think on what I said."

"I am," she murmured when she had finished drinking.  "Fool that I am.  It doesn't seem that I really have much to lose."

Brandt nodded without comment.  He arose and turned to get the small gourd of grain and dried beef strips he'd laid out for her.  He set it on a small shelf at the head of her bunk within her reach.  Then he turned and left her alone in the tiny cubicle without another word.  As the door swished closed behind him, Jaecyn frowned at the loss she felt with his departure.  This son of Garth McKell wasn't what she expected at all.

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