Prince of Swords Read Online Free PDF

wasted a motion or a word. If an artist were to draw the perfect male form, it would likely be just like his, strong and yet somehow beautiful—except for the hard eyes, which were much too piercing to be beautiful.
    And yet those eyes were alive and real and she could almost see the soul resting there. In that way, he was very much unlike the man who claimed her as his own, and unlike her own father. She could entrust him with the dagger her mother had fashioned…couldn’t she?
    Certain that the men above wouldn’t find the dagger, Rayne attempted to relax. Silent once again, she studied Lyr, Prince of Swords, from his short dark hair down to the tips of his dusty and very large boots. She had been sequestered in this house all her life, and had not known any men of this particular type. Her father’s infrequent guests were usually older and more scholarly. In her latter days of freedom she had seen more armed men about the place, but they still had not been quite like this. Ciro had arrived young and handsome and fit, but he had never struck Rayne as being reliable and steady. Instead he was like the plants which grew wild and choked out the flowers, like a vine which sucked the very life from the tree it wrapped itself about. She shuddered at the picture of the face that came to her mind. No, young as he was, Ciro was not of this sort, not at all.
    Lyr was a soldier through and through, a fighter, a champion. Her champion, perhaps? Was he truly a good man? Was he capable of protecting her from whatever Ciro had become?
    What had Ciro become? He was no longer of the natural world, of that she was certain. His promises to eat Jiri’s soul and drink his blood remained with her, as if he had just uttered the words in her ears. And Jiri’s insistence that she must remain pure so Ciro could give her a special child on their wedding night was just as chilling. Most women might be pleased to know that a handsome prince wished to wed and impregnate them, but they had not looked into Ciro’s eyes and seen the darkness there.
    If she were not so pure, would Ciro still want her? Could she somehow make herself unattractive to him, and in doing so save herself from his intentions? Surely there were other women in Columbyana and beyond who possessed the pure soul Ciro seemed to need, women who would welcome his attentions.
    No. Rayne shuddered. No decent woman would welcome those attentions, not from one such as Ciro had become.
    She did wish to marry and have children someday, but she did not wish for them to be Ciro’s children. She certainly did not wish to share a bed with him.
    Though she was a quiet and well-behaved woman, Rayne had always kept her eyes and ears open. In the past there had been many female servants living in this house. Her father had even kept a mistress here for a short while, but that odd woman had left in the middle of the night and never returned. In listening to the other women in the house as they spoke of personal matters, Rayne had discerned that lovemaking could be nice enough if the man was gentle and thoughtful.
    Ciro would be neither, she suspected.
    The man she studied now, the man who held her life in his hands…she wasn’t yet certain about him, but she did not believe him to be evil, as Ciro was.
    Hours passed, and Lyr Hern did not move from his chair, did not seem anxious about whether or not his men would find what they sought above stairs. The light outside Rayne’s tiny window died as night fell. Gradually, the sounds from above lessened, as the men from Tryfyn ran out of places to destroy and search.
    Segyn, the stocky bald man, finally came downstairs. The failure was easy to read on his face. “Nothing, my lord.” His eyes flickered to her. “Should I pry the truth from her?”
    It was a fear Rayne had not yet thought to suffer, that they might try to force the information from her through torture or intimidation. Fortunately she