Paladin's Prize (Age of Heroes, Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

you’re really doing, shall we?” With that, she lifted his shirt and cautiously touched his skin.
    She held her breath as she inspected his side where the arrow had pierced him. Nothing. Pushing his shirt higher, exposing his sculpted abdomen and powerful chest to the morning air, she marveled. How many broken ribs and injured organs had he sustained last night? And yet now there was no more sign of damage than some light bruising around his ribcage.
    She rested her hand on his muscled stomach and gazed in wonder at his face, wishing he would wake up so she could tell him what a miracle this was.
    That handsome face arrested her for a moment. Tilting her head, she granted herself the indulgence of a moment to study the comely specimen that he was. He had a rectangular face, clean-shaven, with strong, gentlemanly features; deep-set eyes under thick, tawny eyebrows; a crooked nose that alone kept him from being too pretty, having been broken a few times; sculpted lips that bespoke an unexpected softness; and rather a large chin that gave his face an air of implacable determination.
    It was a very nice face, she decided. And a quite impressive body to go with it. But she shoved off that wayward thought, merely glad he was in one piece and on the mend. What a shame it would have been to lose him.
    She cupped his cheek with a fond, thoughtful smile. “You are really lucky I was there,” she murmured, but on second thought, recalling the Urmugoths’ killing spree, she added, “And we’re all really lucky you were there. Thank you, Sir Thaydor.”
    She bent and pressed a light kiss to his forehead, wondering how she could already feel so close to a man she barely knew. It must be the result of all they had been through together last night—or that mysterious, bonding side effect of the Kiss of Life spell that she’d heard about. Even so, she anticipated his waking with a certain degree of shyness. He was the Golden Knight, for pity’s sake. Scores of women fainted when he smiled.
    As she slowly sat down on the stool beside the bed, she wondered how long the Urmugoths’ orgy of destruction would have lasted if Thaydor had not shown up. Why was he the only one who’d come to the aid of their province, though?
    Why had the king not sent troops?
    Everyone around here had just assumed that help was on the way, though, obviously, there was some sort of delay. Maybe word of their plight had not yet reached Veraidel’s capital city of Pleiburg.
    No one had dared ask whether King Baynard was purposely letting the barbarians run rampant through their midst.
    Why would he?
    But when she recalled the dream from which she had just awoken, a dark hypothesis began forming in the back of her mind. The man in her dream had not moved like some ordinary brigand, but with the expertise of long military training.
    Was it a dream, just some random concoction of her brain, or something more? Premonitions were not her main gift, but what if Ilios had sent along her first official vision, revealing to her actual events that had taken place?
    But why would someone, especially the king, purposely allow the Urmugoths in through the gates? Who would do such a thing?
    She looked at Thaydor, wishing he would wake up so she could ask him. He knew a lot more about dealing with evil than she did. Including evil in high places.
    Thanks to regular letters from her mother reporting on all the society gossip from the capital, Wrynne had heard something about how Sir Thaydor had fallen out of favor with the court. According to Mother’s letter, the king’s longtime champion had been sent off from the palace and back out into the world again on various quests as a wandering knight-errant, for the great crime of speaking the truth in these dark times.
    Word had it he had looked King Baynard right in the eyes and rebuked him for his recent lawless behavior. Putting his wife, Queen Engelise, aside and taking his new mistress under the very roof of Lionsclaw