Shield's Lady

explaining a dead man to the authorities. Her palms were still damp from the anxiety she had been hiding.
    “Might be better for all of us if he were dead,” Bryer Avylyn said gloomily. “He’s going to be very angry when he wakes up.”
    Sariana glared at the striking scion of the Avylyn Clan. “Don’t be ridiculous. What happened was an accident. I’m sure this Shield person, or whatever it is you call him, will understand that when we explain what happened. How could we know that your Aunt Perla’s recipe for a mild hypnotic drug would have this reaction on him? It should have done nothing more than put him into a light trance. It was supposed to make him friendly and amenable. It wasn’t supposed to make him pass out.”
    Bryer lifted his head to meet Sariana’s eyes. A lock of his brilliantly blond hair fell across his brow. Sariana knew that the charmingly sexy style in which Bryer’s hair arranged itself had been precisely calculated by a very fashionable hairdresser. The style highlighted Bryer’s dark eyes, making the contrast to his gilded hair that much stronger.
    “Sariana, you don’t understand,” Bryer informed her with deep foreboding. “Shields are not known for their understanding and patience. You don’t seem to grasp the fact that this man is potentially very dangerous. He was raised on the frontier. He makes his living fighting the border bandits. He is not going to take kindly to what we have done. I’m telling you we should never have tried this trick. We should never have listened to you in the first place.”
    Bryer’s mother, who was sitting at the other end of the glistening black stone table spoke firmly. “That’s enough, Bryer. This was a family decision. We all agreed with Sariana that getting a Shield to help us was our only chance.”
    Indina Avylyn glanced at her husband who sat at the opposite end of the semicircular table. “Isn’t that right, Jasso? You yourself said it. We’re all in this together. We had no choice. We must go through with this wild plan for the sake of the Clan of Avylyn.”
    Sariana couldn’t help but admire the stirring quality Lady Avylyn had infused into those last words. Lady Avylyn had descended from a clan of dramatists. Even though she had married into a jewelsmith clan, she had never quite abandoned her origins.
    Lord Jasso Avylyn shook his graying blond head uncertainly as he stared down at the man sprawled on the floor. “I fear we have no choice now but to go forward with Sariana’s plan. We can only hope this Shield doesn’t wake up in such a towering rage that he decides to kill us all before he even listens to our proposal.”
    “Father, he wouldn’t do that!” Mara, the Avylyns’ only daughter, sprang to her feet in an impassioned movement. She had inherited some of her mother’s talent. The skirts of her long, deep blue gown swirled around her delicate high-heeled slippers. Her chest, a great deal of which was exposed by the elegant gown, heaved dramatically. The motion of her chest caused the beautiful jeweled collar around her neck to shimmer. “I spoke to him last night, remember? I had a chance to talk to him in the tavern before I put Aunt Perla’s medicine into his ale. Admittedly he was somewhat drunk, but he certainly didn’t seem violently inclined.”
    Bryer gave his sister a disgusted look. “Of course he didn’t seem violently inclined. He was trying to seduce you. And you were enjoying playing the role of loose woman, weren’t you? I’ll wager the only thing you talked about with him was sex. The last thing he was likely to do was show you his violent side when he was trying to talk you into bed. But he’s a Shield, Mara, never forget that. You have heard the legends about Shields. Violence is bred in their bones.”
    “So is honor!” Mara was incensed. She whirled to confront her brother, her dark eyes flashing. “By the blood of the Ship’s Captain, Bryer Avylyn, don’t you dare call me names. I was playing the role I was assigned to play. No more, no less. This was all Sariana’s idea, remember? She’s the one who suggested I portray a tavern wench looking for a good time.”
    “Children, please,” Jasso said anxiously. “This is no time to quarrel. Our goal is to regain the prisma cutter from the hands of those thieving Nosorians. We’ve gone too far to back out now.”
    “But, Father…”
    Sariana decided to intervene before the situation got completely out of hand. A family