JADE STAR by Catherine Coulter

Jules felt her blood run cold at Wilkes’s

emotionless voice. She kept her eyes on the cave floor. The dirt was soft and very black, she thought vaguely. She tried not to think of Byrony in agony, tried not to think of Michael and Brent.

‘Hell,’ Hawkins muttered finally, the toe of his dirty boot kicking at the fire’s embers, ‘a man can always get hisself some tail.’

‘Tell Grabbler the same thing,’Wilkes said coldly. ‘With what you two will earn, you’ll be able to buy all the whores you want.’

There was no more talk until Hawkins had left the cave. Wilkes said calmly to Jules, ‘A pity, my dear, that I can’t offer you a bath

– or a bed, for that matter. I do apologize. I don’t believe, however, that we will have to remain here much longer. Since it’s dark, we’ll be staying here the night. I suggest you get some sleep.’

Spend the long night with this man and those other two villains? ‘Why are we remaining here at all?’

Wilkes studied her pale face in the soft glow of the fire. Her riding hat was long gone, and her beautiful hair was in riotous curls and tangles over her shoulders and down her back. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek.

He was proud of her cold voice because he knew how afraid she was.

‘I don’t think you need to know that just yet,’ he said. No, he thought, if he told her, she’d become a wild thing, he knew.

‘What are you going to do to me?’

He laughed softly. ‘Not fuck you, my dear, as Hawkins so crudely phrased it. Not yet, in any case. Not until we’re away from here and safe.’

Safc! ‘Not ever,’ Jules said. ‘No, not ever.’ ‘I know,’ he said easily. ‘Your huge husband would kill me, is that right?’

‘No,’ Jules said, ‘I would kill you.’

He swooped down and kissed her hard on the mouth, then moved before she could react. ‘Get some sleep, Juliana.’ He gave her a smile that made her shudder. ‘If you need to relieve yourself, I suggest you ask me to be your companion.’

Saint sat beside Byrony, his chin resting on his folded hands. The bedroom was in darkness save for the one lamp that cast dim shadows on Byrony’s pale face. He’d finally given her some chloroform and she was in a stuporous sleep. He prayed she would regain some strength, because there were still hours before the child would birth itself.

At least he’d managed to turn the baby. He

could still feel Byrony’s pain, the dreadful stretching of her small body as he’d eased his hand into her. But the child was now head-down, as it should be.

He finally slept himself, fitfully, his thoughts of his wife. What had happened to her? It was twelve o’clock, midnight.

When Byrony awoke she lay for a moment in a painless, vague realm. She saw Saint’s face above her, gentle, kind, yes, so very kind. She ran her tongue over her dry lips.

‘Some water, Byrony,’ he said, and helped her sip from the glass.

The pain was nearer now, bringing her to full awareness.

‘Chauncey told me you’d tell me where you got your nickname, Saint,’ she said, striving desperately for reason, for control over her pain-racked body.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you. You breathe deeply now, and when that contraction builds, I want you to push with all your strength.’

‘I don’t think I have much more strength,’ Byrony said.

‘Don’t you talk like that,’ Saint said, his voice hard and cold. ‘You’re young and strong. You’re going to birth that baby soon, yes, very soon. Do you hear me, Byrony?’

‘I hear you,’ she said, her voice so hoarse

and raw that she wondered he could even understand her. The contraction built, and she wanted to die, to do anything to escape the pain. But she heard his voice telling her to push, and she did, with all her might.

‘Now,’ Saint said when the pain eased a bit, ‘let me tell you about my nickname. Look at my face, Byrony. Don’t fight the pain. You know what you have to do and you will do it. Now, it was when I was a young man, at Harvard Medical School. Various folk would provide the students with corpses to dissect. Breathe sharp, shallow breaths, Byrony! Yes, that’s it.’

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *