Mystic Warrior by Patricia Rice

Author:Patricia Rice
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US

“Amelie is sound asleep in the nursery. How does your friend fare?” Lis stopped in the doorway of the bathing room, looking to Murdoch like an ethereal goddess.

The scene at the inn had certainly proved she wasn’t delicate. His heart had almost stopped in his chest when he’d seen the size of her assailant. And she had brought the man down with no more than a supercilious lift of an eyebrow and a flick of her wrist.

Murdoch could tell when she was annoyed with him. Lis thought Healing was her territory, but he’d been in this world long enough to know men here did not accept female physicians. Her temper aggravated his, sparking flares inside him just by her existence. He was equally annoyed that she had been right—she could have healed Durand faster. And they’d lost the opportunity to leave tonight.

“Pierre is breathing easier,” was all he said.

“Can you tell if the infection is gone?” She stayed in the shadows, not reacting to his irritation. He’d lit only one candle, so she was nearly invisible to his eyes, but not to his other senses. She smelled of lavender, and the air hummed with her feminine desire—another reason his nerves were on edge. He reacted like a tomcat to a female in heat.

He growled under his breath but tried not to disturb the shoemaker, who had drifted into sleep. “I sense a hot spot on the left side.”

“Maybe if he is stronger tomorrow night, you can cure him then.”

“We are not staying another night.” He placed his hands on Durand’s shoulders and tried to focus his mind again on the sensation he only dimly recognized. He’d learned to use the spin of his sword to gather his energies. Without it, his scattered abilities were of little more use than pebbles flung into a pond. He was afraid that if he heaved a stone, he’d inundate them all.

“Concentrate your energy on your thumbs,” she suggested. “Perhaps just the left one. Pour all your strength through that point and see if you can direct it better.”

“Go to bed,” he ordered. “I can do this.”

“It is not what you’re trained to do.”

“I wasn’t trained to cook, but I’d starve if I didn’t. Now go away; you’re distracting me.”

To his intense annoyance, she obeyed, slipping silently away as she often did when confronted with his damnable temper, leaving him alone with his ugly thoughts and frustrations. He could conceal his anger from the rest of the world, but not Lis. He jammed his thumb against the pressure point above Durand’s shoulder blades, focused all his energy into it, and nearly sizzled his patient’s lungs.

Durand woke, coughing and gulping the incense-laden air.

“With due respect, monsieur, you’re no physician,” Durand told him.

“True, but you’ll feel better shortly. It is time you got some sleep. Let me help you out.”

Their patient was recovered sufficiently to don a robe and limp from the cellar up to the servant’s room behind the kitchen. To ask him to climb another flight of stairs to the guest chambers would have meant trying his strength.

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