Charlotte Boyett-Compo - Phantom of the Wind

AnElloras Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Phantom of the Wind

ISBN # 1-4199-0514-7

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Phantom of the Wind Copyright 2006 CharlotteBoyett-Compo

Edited by Mary Moran.

Cover art by Syneca.

Electronic book Publication: August 2006

This book may not be reproduced or used in wholeor in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher,Elloras Cave Publishing, Inc. 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

This book is a work of fiction and anyresemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purelycoincidental. The characters are productions of the authors imagination andused fictitiously.

Warning:

The following material contains graphic sexual content meant formature readers. This story hasbeen rated S-ensuous by a minimum of three independentreviewers.

Elloras Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romanticareading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing tothe imagination.

E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to theimagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition,some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers findobjectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forcedseductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphictitles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such asfucking, cock, pussy, and such within their work of literature.

X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plotpremise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles,stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subjectmatter not for the faint of heart.

WindVerse:

Phantom of the Wind

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Prologue

Ryden Bakari, the Emperor of the Aduaidh Alliancealsoknown as the Burgonwas a newly commissioned ensign the year war had broken outbetween the Aduaidh and the Coalition of Federated Worlds. The dispute hadbegun at the borderland of small planetoids between the Aduaidh Quadrant andAmhantar, that green world from which had come greedy warriors intent ongrabbing Aduaidh land at all costs. The hostilities had begun with a violentskirmish or two then had escalated rapidly to all-out warfare, bringing otherworlds into the fray. No sane voices arguing for a settlement could be heardfor the conflict had become a brutal contest for supremacy waged by both sides.The Burgon before Ryden had been a savage man intent on winning no matter howmany casualties or how vast the destruction of lands it would take a hundredyears or more to bring back to use. By the time Ryden took the throne, hundredsof thousands of men, women and children had died on both sides of the war.Thousands of acres of land would never be fertile again and plant and animallife had long since disappeared from those war-ravaged regions.

Tired in spirit and weary of body, Rydenhad long since given up all hope of there being a decisive victory on eitherside of the coin. He had lost ten of his brothers and three times that manysisters. Numerous friends and even more numerous acquaintances had lost theirlives to a war that had ceased to have meaning for those planetoids that hadbeen the cause of the war had been destroyedblasted into so much spacedustlong ago. The reason for the war was no more, yet the hostilitiescontinued for thirty long, terrible years.

Until the Burgon took it upon himself tosue for peace between the Alliance and the Coalition.

There was only one place in the entiremegaverse that would be suitable for the warring factions to meet. It was therewhere only three humanoid life forms are allowed access to that region at anyone given time, where non-humanoid forms such as cybots and the like areexpressly forbidden, to which no weapons of any kind may be taken, that theBurgon and two representatives of the Coalition met to discuss an end to thehostilities.

The Plaines of Geschft ranged in a vastsemicircle along a cold desert north of the capitol city of Fhren on AduaidhPrime. There was no vegetation amidst the bright rose sands of the barren landfor it never warmed enough for plants to grow. Star dunes lined theplainindicating the fierce winds that created them had blown from manydirections across the sand seas. As devoid of water as it was plant life, noanimal made its habitat in the shifting, desolate landthe only break in thebleak vastness were large boulder-size meteorites scattered about thelandscape.

Three Fiach runabouts landed that day onthe ice field of the Plaines of Geschft. The first ship to land was the Sekkeenbelonging to Ryden Bakari. The next to land was the Saoirse, a sleekblack ship personally designed by its captain Prince Cair Ghrian of Amhantar.The last ship to landthe Turasbelonged to King Ruan Cosaint ofGaelach. As ice crystals swirled around the warriors they made for Goath Pluaisthe Wind Cave where they would try to put an end to the killing and destructionthat had been theirs for as long as each had drawn breath.

Over a roaring campfire, the men hashed outthe details of a formal agreement whereby those who were of a like mind to endthe war could live peacefully, their children and their childrens childrennever having to know the atrocities those gathered there that day on thePlaines of Geschft had endured since birth. When the warriors left that barrenice plain they took with them the fledgling hope that the war between theAlliance and the Coalition of Federated Worlds would be put to an end.

Two months later on the neutral world of antSualainn where all the leaders involved in the peace process met at theUnited Court of Justice, the Burgon Ryden Bakari of Aduaidh Prime, King Ruan ofGaelach, and Prince Cair of Amhantar as well as Prince Gabriel Leveche of Storiput their hands and seals to an agreement to end the Border Wars. These men notonly formed a strong confederation of their own but began friendships thatwould last them a lifetime.

But there were those among the Coalition ofFederated Worlds who did not want peace. They did not want there to be an end toa war that had brought them power and prosperity. It was not to their advantagethat men such as the Burgon and King Ruan become allies.

Knowing there werethose who would work diligently against peace even though they had pledgedthemselves to it, the Burgon and those who felt as he could do but onethingfind a way to bring down those men who would continue the war and thelosses of life. To accomplish that end, they involved a man named Rory Quinn intheir plans

Chapter One

1143 CMT (Coalition Mean Time)

Kendall Bryne thought she had cried herlast tear over Rory Quinn. Two years before, the swashbuckling thief had brokenher heart into a thousand pieces and left her to a misery it took months to getunder control. Just when she thought she had it beat, just when she thought shecould pick up the pieces of her shattered dreams, tuck them away and move on,the Riezell Guardians announced they had arrested Quinn. The buccaneer who hadbeen evading them for years had finally made a serious mistake and they werebringing him back to face the justice hed thumbed his nose at for so long.

Sitting in the lounge of the MedivacTransport the Slinte, staring out at the passing stars, Kendall liftedher cup of Jabolian coffee only to realize her hand was shaking. She put thecup down, put her hands in her lap, twisted her fingers together and felt hotmoistness prickling at her eyes at her show of weakness.