The Devil's Concubine Read Online Free PDF Page B

or
    speak.

    He felt ill.

    His impulsiveness had very likely cost him all he had sought to gain.

    He should have wooed her as she deserved. He knew he was not nearly as
    handsome a man, as graceful, or as noble in bearing as when he took the form of a great, golden falcon, but he was certain he was not appallingly ugly. If he’d proven his strength and skill as a warrior, she would have admired that. She would have been pleased by the thought that her off spring would also be superior in every way--far superior to what she could have expected if she had been wed to some weakling man child!

    Instead, she’d been so repulsed by the thought that she’d tried to fling herself off
    his balcony.

    That angered him more than all the rest and he finally realized it did because it
    wounded him soul deep, that it was a blow to his ego he wouldn’t easily recover from.

    He felt even more ill when he recalled that he’d been so stunned by her sudden
    dash for freedom that it had taken him several moments to realize that she couldn’t
    morph as he so easily did, that she had no wings to soar, that she would fall to her death.

    And she knew it.

    That was the hardest thing of all to swallow.

    Scrubbing a hand over his face, he focused on the view once more and finally
    hopped onto the ledge and dove out, transforming himself as he dropped. Too restless to remain in his castle, he decided to go to the kingdom of Anduloosa and see what he’d
    unleashed.
    THE DEVIL’S CONCUBINE
    Jaide Fox
    18

Chapter Four
    Talin discovered he didn’t have to fly low over the castle of King Andor to see
    what he’d expected to see. Below him, the man children were dashing about frantically, like ants in a stirred anthill. Without difficulty, his keen sight easily picked out the purpose within the apparent pandemonium.

    The man children were preparing for war.

    And King Andor was not the only one readying for battle.

    That was an unanticipated development.

    He had given it little thought, but he supposed if he had he would have realized
    that the men who had traveled so far to vie for the fair maiden presently residing in his dungeon might not take their defeat well when they realized the prize had been snatched from their grasp.

    Vaguely disconcerted, he saw that those households that had gathered for the
    tournament were now also preparing for war.

    Still more in his beast mind than the more rational human side, he realized after a
    moment’s consideration that he was more pleased by the results of his theft than
    disturbed. He had not left his lands intending to start a war between his kingdom and the kingdoms of the man children, but he did not feel a great deal of regret that he had
    succeeded in doing just that.

    After a little further thought, he realized that he was actually grimly pleased that
    he had.

    He would prove his right to the princess by might--not in a child’s test of skills, in a tournament meant mostly for show, but on a true battlefield.

    When he and his army had crushed the armies of the man children, Princess Aliya
    would see that he was far better suited to her as mate than any of the so called warriors that had gathered to claim her.

    Satisfied with his observations, he caught an air current and drifted lower, low
    enough he caught the attention of those on the ground below him. When they began to
    shout excitedly and commenced to lobbing arrows and spears at him, he chuckled, adding insult to injury by dropping low enough he was almost within their range.

    Resisting the temptation to drop lower still, and allow them a better target, just so he could demonstrate to them how impotent their efforts were, he caught an updraft and headed back to his own kingdom, Goldone.

    It would be a month, at the very least, before they could move their clumsy army
    within reach of his own--for he had no intention of charging out to meet them like some green youth eager to fling himself upon a sword. He had time in plenty