"How willshe be better for him? He knows me!"

"My dear child," the woman stressed in a bored voice, "Conar and I are well acquainted. I have known him, far better, and far more intimately, than you ever will. I have known him longer thanyou have been alive!"

"Do you not want what is best for Conar?" Occultus repeated.

Se Huan lowered her eyes. "You know I do, Master."

"Then what does it matterwho relieves him of the burden of his dreams? This lady has no designs on him. If she did, I would not allow her access to him." He sat in his chair, dismissing the whole sordid conversation. He knew the blond woman would fail, as well. "You may go, Se Huan."

Se Huan stood uncertainly. She returned the woman's icy blue stare with leaping brown fire. When the woman turned her face, dismissing Se Huan, the Chrystallusian girl's face glowed with fury. Bowing slightly, she left the room, her heart thudding fast.

Occultus sighed with distaste as the door closed. "You will sleep in his bed tonight."

"Have no fear, Occultus," the woman a.s.sured him. "I will succeed. I have before." She smiled, hoping her feigned respect for him covered her true loathing.

Nothing could prevent her from accomplishing her goal. She had come thousands of miles because she had sensed a rift in the veil over Chrystallus. When she had arrived, she had been stunned to learn Conar was alive. Immediately, a plan had formulated in her mind.

"I'll make him mine," she whispered as she walked to the room allotted her. "Iwill!"

* * * He was flat on his back again, his lips clamped shut with frustration. He could feel Pearl bending over him, could even see that taunting smile through his closed eyelids. His head ached miserably, pounding so furiously he thought he'd pa.s.s out.

Pearl was on his knees, sitting on his heels. He gazed at his pupil. "You dorealize you have a problem, don't you?"

"You're my biggest problem, Allegria."

"Do you know what it is?"

"No, but you're going to tell me, aren't you?" Conar snapped, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "G.o.d, my head hurts!"

"Well,of course, I'm going to tell you!" One slim hand fluttered in the air. Pearl made a face at Conar's groan of annoyance. "You're just such a meany, aren't you?"

Conar snarled at Pearl's deliberate attempt at sounding "f.a.ggoty," as Conar had termed it. His aching head was making his teeth hurt. He ma.s.saged his right temple. The nausea was starting in his throat and his right eye felt like someone was poking a red hot stick into it.

Pearl continued to kneel beside him, waiting.

"What, dammit?" Conar shouted and wished he hadn't ,for his brain slammed into his skull with enough force to bring a sour belch to his lips.

"So this is the way it is," Pearl began, ignoring the look of intense agony on Conar's face. "Wrestling is a state of mind, my young Princey-Poo. Naturally it takes brawn." He puffed out his flat, thin chest, twisting his shoulders back and forth, raising his arms, flexing them, to show non-existent muscles. He looked at his slightly mounded biceps and shrugged.

"Is there a point to your rambling?" Conar managed to croak.

"You have to use strategies in wrestling." He thought for a moment. His eyes brightened as an idea struck. "Look at it as a conquest. Like the conquest of a beautiful woman." His lips twitched. "Or in my case, a beautiful man." He frowned when Conar made a rude snort. "Anyway, what's the first thing you do when you're trying to seduce a would-be partner? You compliment him, right?"

"I complimenther!"

Pearl clucked his tongue. "You showerher with attention; you lookher over; you slide a little closer and maybe finger a curl of hair, smooth a ruby red lip. Then, you lether thinkshe's the one doing the catching. Lether think it'sher idea."

Conar held up his hand. "Stop being Kehoe."

"Beg pardon?" Pearl asked.

"Stop stressing the word her!"

"Right. You let him think it's his idea that the two of you are going to get together and make wild, pa.s.sionate love somewhere, sometime soon. Then, you move in for the attack! You let him see some of your weaknesses, then you pounce. Youpounce, Princey-Poo! Overtake him with your-"

"Her!"Conar corrected and gagged on bile.

"Sucha meany! You overtake her with your brawny arms, crush her willing body to yours and take her to heavenly bliss!" Pearl sighed dramatically, caught up in his vision of romantic love. "Do you see what you've done?"

"I came; I saw; I pounced." Conar frowned. "Typical McGregor male reaction."

"Yes, your body is what you use to conquer her with, but it is another part of your anatomy that does the actual winning far in advance. Brains are far more important that brawn."

"Is this leading anywhere? If so, get on with it!" Conar snapped, annoyed. In the last five weeks of their acquaintance, he had learned that Pearl had a most convoluted way of speaking. Often he went off on wild tangents of thought that left Conar staring with confusion.

"You're such a bore!" Pearl pouted. "Whatis your problem today?"

"My brain actually hurts."

"See! That's what I'm talking about!" Pearl said in a jubilant voice. "You have to wrestle here!" He put a cool hand on Conar's brow, "before you can wrestle here!" The hand moved to Conar's hard biceps.

Conar gazed into Pearl's excited face. He narrowed his eyes. "What you're telling me is that I'm not concentrating."

"Precisely!"Pearl folded his arms across his chest. "You're not as obtuse as I thought."

"It's hard to concentrate when your head feels like the insides of a ceremonial drum!"

"Do you have a headache?" Pearl asked impatiently. "Why didn't you just say so?"

"I did!"Conar shouted and winced, nausea nearly making him throw up.

"Oh, for the love of Jon!" Pearl positioned himself at Conar's head, putting his fingers on Conar's temples.

"What? More torture?" Conar grumbled.

"Shutyour eyes. And your big mouth!" Pearl made tiny, circular motions on Conar's throbbing temples.

"You know what you need, Pearl?"

"Shut up."

"You need a husband."

"I offered; you refused."

"Someone you can mother."

"One child at a time is enough, thank you."

"Be serious!"

"Iam being serious! You're such a child sometimes, Conar!"

The headache began lessening in intensity. Pearl's fingers were cool, soothing, lulling Conar into a light doze.

"Do you have a lover, Pearl?" Conar had come to accept the man's friendship and his companionship and it wasn't unusual to see them deep in conversation during those times Conar was allowed respite from his instructions. The two played chess and a card game ofDowns together, almost every Sat.u.r.day, after Conar's last lesson of the day. They discussed philosophy and books and tried to outdo the other with as dirty a joke as they could remember.

"Not now." Pearl's hands stilled. "There is a cute Diabolusian who's been hanging about lately, but he doesn't seem particularly interested inme. He likes blondes, I think." He ran his fingers through the yellow glory of Conar's silky hair and reveled at the feel of the thick mane.

"We'll just have to find you one, I suppose."

"What?"

"A lover," Conar mumbled, feeling more drowsy as Pearl's fingers worked their magic.

"I know!" Pearl teased, gently tugging on Conar's hair. "Why don'tyou volunteer until someone suitable comes along?" He giggled as Conar glowered up at him. Pearl had learned over the years that to lapse into what he often termed his "character a.s.sa.s.sinations" put straight men in a better frame of mind, less threatened by his bent, when they were talking with him. Conar usually ignored the way Pearl minced about the, instinctively recognizing it for it was-a silly act meant to hide Pearl's fear of being ridiculed.

"I thought you said I was a bore?" Conar reminded him.

"But a cute bore!" Pearl teased, making his fish mouth kisses at Conar.

Conar grunted. Pearl was an ultra-sensitive man with a keen intellect bordering on genius. He had a marvelous sense of humor and a mouth that could spout some of the dirtiest jokes Conar had ever heard.

By deliberately swishing and swaying like a brazen bar maid, by batting his long eyelashes in exaggerated fashion and making his little fishy mouth kisses, flirting outrageously, Pearl had brought down all the stumbling blocks. All the pent up emotions, fears, phobias, and prejudices Conar had had concerning h.o.m.os.e.xual men had dissolved with Pearl's blatant over-exaggeration of the habits most straight people a.s.sociated with h.o.m.os.e.xuals. He made such habits seem comical. Besides, Conar thought with a grin, Pearl knew he truly enjoyed the put-on act. He knew Pearl could tell by the way he tried to cast a jaundiced eye on the mimicry, while striving to keep his lips straight, that he was intrigued by Pearl's act of self-preservation.

"Why do you degrade yourself like that?" he'd once asked.

Pearl had looked at him with huge cow eyes. "To get your attention!"

He had.

He had also garnered Conar's friendship.

"Why don't you be my lover until someone better comes along?" Pearl sighed. "Although I doubt anyone better than you ever will!"

When there was no answer to his outrageous proposition, he realized Conar was sound asleep. A tender smile touched Pearl's lips. He took his hands away from the shining gold hair. Just sitting here looking at the innocent beauty of Conar's face made Pearl want to cry.

He erased the terrible twin scars that ravaged the tanned left cheek, wondered what the other scars had looked like that Occultus had vanquished only a week before he'd met Conar. He would have liked nothing better than to kiss this precious man on the forehead, to show him just how much he respected him.

Conar's sleep didn't last long. Ten, maybe twenty minutes at most. He woke, crying out with terror, finding himself in Pearl's arms, being cradled to the man with fierce protectiveness.

"You were dreaming, Conar. Just dreaming."

With the security of friendship, Conar pressed his cheek against Pearl's chest. "Oh, G.o.d! I can't take much more!" He clung to Pearl, striving hard not to cry with hopelessness and frustration.

Wyn followed his father and uncles to the practice range and sat on a large boulder, patiently waiting. His father strung one of the long bows, nocked an arrow, sighted a target far down the field, and aimed. Wyn put up his hand to shield his eyes and watched with awe as the arrow flew unerringly to the center of the target.

"Not bad," Chase Montyne remarked, slipping Wyn a sly wink behind Conar's back. "You could have hit a little more to dead center, but I can live with that."

Conar let loose another arrow, which split the previous arrow in twain. Without a word, he withdrew another arrow, sighted it and hit the target dead center. "Good enough?"

"Fair," Chase answered. "You should have hit it in the center the first time."

Wyn whistled. Coron and Dyllon stared at Conar with open-mouthed wonder. Feeling someone watching him, Wyn turned and looked into the Necroman's unsmiling face.

"What time did you come in last night, young Wynland?" Shalu asked, one brow slashed upward in challenge.

Wyn swallowed, looked at the others, then slowly returned his attention to the black man. "It wasn't late, sir." He cringed, hearing his childish, immature voice cracking.

"That's not what he asked, Wyn," came Conar's soft voice.

Wyn saw his father studying him as he leaned on his bow. Why he felt like a ten-year-old caught with his hand in the cookie jar Wynland didn't know, but he knew he was blushing. He was being taken to task for something. What, however, he didn't know. "I was in by twelve, Papa."

"Isn't that a coincidence?" Shalu rumbled. "That's about the same time Kyminda arrived at our apartments." The hawk-like gaze pierced Wyn. "Might she have been with you until then?"

If there was one thing Wyn had learned over the years from his father's many mistresses-who had been more than willing to teach Wyn a thing or two-was that you didn't compromise a lady's reputation. If punishment was needed, you took it on yourself. Despite the fact that he was afraid of Shalu with his gruff, rough voice, and that he didn't like the blank look on his father's face, Wyn took a deep breath and spoke as succinctly as his trembling knees would allow. "No, Highness. She wasn't with me, but I heard her say she was planning on walking down by the ponds. Perhaps she might have done so and fallen asleep there?"

"Fallen asleep, you say?" Shalu commented. "Alone?"

"Aye! Most a.s.suredly alone!"

"You left a lady sleeping alone by the pond?" Dyllon asked, his face expressionless. "That was most ungentlemanly. Anything could have happened to her."

"I didn't leave her..." Wyn stopped, looking at his father. No help there. He looked at his Uncle Coron and saw only polite attention on his face. Wyn didn't want to look at Shalu, but when he did, he saw storm clouds gathering on the face. He wanted to groan.

"I thought you said she was alone," Shalu said.

"Well, what I meant to say was...well, shewas alone... I sort of watched over her."

"You spied on the lady?" Dyllon asked with indignation.

"No!I sort of... I kind of... I..." He looked at the ground. "I kind of followed her to make sure she'd be all right and I, well, I guess I fell asleep, too."

"While you were watching out for the lady?" Coron inquired.

"Aye."

"The two of you slept together?" Shalu thundered.

"No!"Wyn nearly yelped. "We...were..."

"The two of you were sleeping," Dyllon said.

"But not together!"

"She was sleeping; you were sleeping." Shalu's face turned as hard as rock. "Even if you were miles apart, you two were sleeping together, weren't you?"