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her brother’s tent in which you lie.” He held out his hand and the young woman took it. “She has been caring for you.”
    She smiled down at him. “You are feeling better?” He could not have explained the irrational fury that gripped him as he glared up into those emerald green eyes, inhaled the sweet fragrance of lavender, and found his gaze glued to the sleek, glossy black mane of hip length black hair that hung down the woman’s slim back. As let down as he had been to find it was not Hern that was before him, he was that enraged that it was not Liza, his beloved wife, who hovered over him now, looking down at him with confusion as he tore his gaze from her.
    “Get her out of here,” he said, refusing to look up at the woman again.
    Balizar’s eyebrow shot upward. What kind of reaction was this? he thought. He glanced up at Rachel and saw the hurt on her face. “Will you wait outside, sweeting?” he asked and saw the man on the bed flinch as though hot embers had been applied to his chest.
    Rachel looked at Balizar and then turned to leave. She had not been prepared for the hot look of hate that had shone her way when only the day before the stranger had looked at her with something akin to love. In his delirium as she and Asher had applied cooling balm to his sunburned flesh, he had held onto to her hand and kissed it, begging her not to leave him.
    WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 14
    “Does Rachel remind you of someone, too?” Balizar asked. That could be the only explanation for the hurt that had now settled on their visitor’s face
    “Keep her away from me,” Conar ground out.
    “It is her tent in which--“
    “Keep her the hell away from me, Balizar!” Conar yelled, drawing everyone’s attention in the camp and causing heads to turn toward Asher’s tent. “You owe me that much!”
    “All right,” Balizar said in a reasonable voice. He searched the enraged eyes of the man on the bed. “If that is your wish.”
    “It
    is!”
    Later that evening, Balizar shrugged in answer to Asher’s query of concern. “I have no idea why he reacted as he did. It was almost as though he despised your sister.”
    “Who is he, Balizar?” Rupine, the physician asked. “Did you find out?”
    Balizar poked a stick into the campfire. “I have my suspicions, but I would rather not say until I am sure.”
    “Is he a danger to us?” one of the other men asked.
    “I think not,” Balizar answered. “He may even be the answer to all our prayers.”
    Rachel sat quietly in the shadows and listened to the men talking. Now and then she turned to look at the tent where the man named Khamsin slept.
    “Why do you hate me, Khamsin?” she asked, feeling the depth of that dislike to her very soul.
    Her heart, so carefully kept to herself, had gone out to the one called Khamsin. His scarred cheek and ravaged back had touched her deeply in a place she had thought never to feel again. As he had gripped her hand, pressing his cracked lips to them, she had felt a longing that she had feared never to experience again. That he had obviously rejected her when coming to his full senses, made Rachel’s soul ache.
    “Who hurt you so, milord?” she asked the darkened tent. “What woman caused you such terrible pain?”

    He could still smell the lavender and it made him sick. If he had been able, he would have gotten up and walked out of the tent where everything in it reminded him of the green-eyed vixen that had been placed on earth to torment him.
    How could you, Alel? he seethed.
    He turned over, burying his face in the coolness of his pillow. His fingers dug into the softness of the fabric and he growled, the muffled sound doing nothing to relieve his anger.
    Punishment, he thought. It was another punishment from the gods. Just one more torment to drive him mad.
    And you aren’t far from it, Conar, he heard that inner voice telling him.
    He flung himself over and threw the pillow as hard as he could across the