WindLegends Saga 9: WindRetriever Read Online Free PDF Page B

nearly forty minutes in the hopes the Serenian would appear. Now, he had to admit Prince Chase had been right: the man would not come.
    "You might as well hoist anchor, Serge," Holm advised him. "If the lad was gonna show, he'd have done so by now."
    Serge nodded and reluctantly gave the order to cast off. His blue eyes were disappointed for he had wanted to try one more time to talk Conar McGregor into letting him leave a large company of warriors behind.
    "And I told you no," the Outlander had said in a stern voice. "Take them home with you, Serge. All of them."
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    Two other Outer Kingdom ships lay in the harbor, awaiting the sailing of the Anna Katrine before tacking north. Their captains were no less concerned than Serge was with leaving the Tzarevna and her husband behind.
    "The Tzar will most displeased," Serge had informed the Serenian.
    "Let him be," McGregor had answered. "Tell him I will protect his daughter. If he had worries about my ability to do that, he should never have desired the union between us."
    "Will we be sailing up to St. Steffensburg?" Chase asked.
    Serge glanced at Holm and then shook his head. "The Ravenwind is docked in Odess. We will drop you off there and then the rest of us will travel on to St. Steffensburg."
    "Once they're assured we have hoisted anchor and are beyond the reef," Holm grumbled.
    "Once we're committed into the North Boreal sea lane, we can't turn around. I've no charts for that part of the ocean."
    "A precaution, Captain," Serge told him. "His Grace asked that I make sure you did not attempt to …."
    "Foil his bloody plans!" Holm snapped.
    Chase looked up as the shrouds filled and the winds grasped the Anna Katrine. He turned his attention back to the docks where a steady stream of humanity was hawking its wares and thieving and insulting one another. His gaze traveled over the shiny bulbous roofs of the Rysalian towers and slid past the warehouse where his life had changed so drastically.
    "It is best to think of the future, not dwell on the past," Sabrina told him as she joined him at the rail.
    "Aye," he answered. "I know." He drew her to his side and cradled her against him. "What will be, will be, eh?"
    "Yes," she agreed. Resting her head on his shoulder, she looked out over the city where she had spent most of her life and was not unhappy to be leaving. She was with the man she loved, who loved her, and she was traveling to a new part of the world she had only glimpsed in Liza's letters.
    "Do you see the man in black standing by the basket maker's stall?" Chase asked her quietly.
    Sabrina narrowed her vision and finally saw the man he was referring to. "McGregor?" she asked.
    "Aye."
    "So he came to bid you farewell, after all," she said.
    "When he knew we couldn't do a damned thing about it," Chase grumbled.
    She looked up at her lover. "Will you wave to him or pretend you don't see him?"
    "He knows I see him," Chase answered.
    Looking back to the wharf, Sabrina watched the man in black turn his back on the ship and then disappear into the bustling crowd around him. No one seemed to notice his passing.
    "May the Wind be favorable to you, Lord Khamsin," she heard Montyne whisper.
    From the porthole of his cabin, Shalu followed the man in black until he could no longer see him among the crowd. The Necroman laid his head on the cool porthole glass and cried.

Balizar handed the reins of the magnificent black stallion to his new owner. "I paid a goodly price for this beast, Khamsin," Arbra groused. "He'd better be worth every goddamned Ryal!"
    Conar ran his hand down the steed's front legs, lifted his hoof to inspect it, then patted the Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 21
    horse's neck. He moved back to flanks, running his hand along the sleek ebony side, then patted the horse's rump.
    "He'll fly, Arbra," Conar prophesied. "Like the wind."
    "The thought of that bastard Belial selling Mistral makes me so damned mad I wish the