Ardor's Leveche (15 page)

The Reaper shook his head. “It is only as evil as the men who visit it and there is nothing evil in you,
chanto
.”

Long after his brother had left him alone in the beautiful cavern, Raoul kept his eyes open, staring at the mirror-like sheen of the water as though he expected some hideous sea serpent to rear its scaly head and devour him. He kept well back from the unmoving surface, ready to flee up the stairs at the slightest provocation. After twenty minutes of jumping at every sound, he could take it no longer and fled the cavern, hoping nothing would jump at him as he ran.

* * * * *

“You are sure you want me to do this,” Healer Talil wanted clarified. He held the bottle up to the light and frowned at the creature inside.

“It is the only chance she has to lead a normal life,” Lord Savidos said and winced at his own description. There would be nothing normal about the life Ardor Kahn would live after the revenant worm had been inserted into her.

“All right,” Talil said. It was obvious he wasn’t going to try to either change the Reaper’s mind or argue against the warrior’s plan. He told his assistants to prepare the woman for the surgical procedure then asked what else needed to be done.

“You will need to leave as soon as you insert the parasite,” the Reaper said. “Lock the lab doors behind you for she will Transition within a matter of minutes.”

Talil winced but he nodded his agreement. “Am I to assume you will need Sustenance for her right away as well as tenerse?”

“Aye. If she was awake, I’d give her some of my blood, but that will have to wait.”

“She doesn’t have to be awake for the procedure?” Talil asked for the Riezell Guardian had yet to open her eyes.

Lord Savidos cocked his head to one side. “I don’t think so. I believe it would be easier on her if she was unconscious, but I think the pain of the transference will wake her anyway. It is hard to sleep through something so agonizing.”

“Well, we can at least try,” Talil suggested. “If she wakes, she wakes. If not, it will spare her some of the pain.”

“Can you put her under even deeper?”

“Aye, we can.”

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The Reaper thought it over for a moment—remembering the horrendous pain he had suffered as the parasite gnawed into his kidney—and he agreed it was worth a shot to keep Ardor from having to experience the agony.

“Three milligrams of tenerse, if you will, Healer Idpa,” Talil asked the man who was the regular healer assigned to the Reaper.

Standing with his arms crossed over his chest, his legs braced apart, Lord Savidos watched the healers as they worked. He was close enough to Ardor to spring to her aid if she needed it. His eyes were locked on the unconscious woman and as soon as the tenerse was injected into the muscles of her neck, he watched her flinch then seemingly sink down into the gurney, completely under the powerful narcotic’s influence.

“Okay, here we go,” Talil said.

They turned Ardor over to her stomach and pulled the lightweight medical gown up to the midway point of her back. Both physicians smiled at the lacy underwear she wore beneath the utilitarian gown and exchanged a knowing look.

“Get on with it!” the Reaper snapped, furious at the men seeing his woman’s private wear.

Idpa swabbed the area over Ardor’s kidney with a disinfectant then Talil did the actual incision as Idpa stood by holding the bottle with the revenant worm inside.

“How do we insert it?” Idpa asked and he turned to the Reaper.

“Just shake the thing out on her back. It will do the rest.”

Idpa turned the bottle upside down and shook it.

The beastlet slid out of the bottle and onto the smooth flesh of the Riezell Guardian’s back. It wriggled from side to side for a brief moment then lifted its ugly little head as though it was sniffing the air. As Idpa and Talil watched in stunned silence, the creature darted toward the wound and dropped into it, disappearing beneath the young woman’s skin.

“Sweet Merciful Alel,” Idpa said and made the Sign of the Slain One. He backed away from the table for the creature was burrowing under the first layer of skin and the sight made him ill.

“Get out,” the Reaper said. “Now!”

He had seen what the two fascinated healers had not—Ardor’s eyes flying open and staring in undisguised horror.

Not needing to be told twice, the healers scrambled for the lab door, shooing assistants ahead of them. The door shushed to and the sound of the pneumatic lock snicking closed was loud in the laboratory.

The Reaper moved with lightning speed, gathering Ardor up as she began to buck with the pain rippling through her body. She was screaming in his ear, her fingernails raking down his silk shirt sleeves, gouging into his flesh. He was intent on making her first Transition as easy as he could, therefore, he paid no heed to his own discomfort.

Her body was shape shifting in his arms—fur sprouting where once only fine, pale 84

Ardor’s Leveche

brown hair grew, bones cracking, sinews stretching, organs making squishing sounds as they changed.

Her screams went on and on as the gnawing, tearing misery the creature was exacting on her body grew in volume. Her verdant eyes became scarlet red and she hissed at him, leathery lips skinned back from sharp, glistening fangs. The medical gown and panties came apart from her body and fell to the floor.

Soon her screams became howls then vicious growls, and at last she lay limp in his arms, her lupine body quivering from wet nose to drooping tail.

“Never again will it hurt so badly,” the Reaper crooned to her, sitting down on the floor to cradle her against him. “Never again, Sweeting.”

The animal in his arms whimpered then seemed to fall asleep for it didn’t move for a long, long time.

Rationalizing the tenerse had taken effect, Lord Savidos kept hold of his lady until the fur began to recede back into skin that was no longer leathery but soft and flawless.

He stroked her head, running his fingers down the long mane of chestnut hair, feeling the texture change from wiry fur to silky strands. She snuggled against him, her face on his chest and slept on, gently breathing, completely trusting of the man who held her.

It was Talil who braved the Reaper’s ire by unlocking the door and sticking his head in about an hour later. His smile wavered as the dark amber eyes of his overlord fell on him.

“Do you wish the injection now, Lord Savidos?”

“Prince Gabriel,” the Reaper corrected. “There is no need for subterfuge now.” He covered Ardor’s nakedness with a sheet.

“As you wish, Your Grace,” Talil agreed. He came into the room. “I have the lady’s Sustenance and tenerse.”

Ardor stirred in his arms and turned so she was looking up at his face. “What happened?” she asked, her eyes fearful.

“I did what I thought best for you, wench,” Gabriel said softly.

“You turned me,” she stated, tears gathering in her eyes.

“You would have been left blind and deaf,” he told her. “Would you have wanted that?”

She shook her head. “No, but I would rather you had given me the choice.”

He stroked her hair back from her face. “I did what I could so we would be together.”

“Aye, well, I guess I can’t complain under the circumstances,” she said then locked her eyes with his. “But next time, Reaper, you ask before you go making life-altering decisions for me.”

He smiled. “I swear it.”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

She glanced at the beaker in the healer’s hand. “Do I have to drink it, now?” she asked.

“Aye, wench, you do,” he replied.

Grimacing, Ardor sat up with his help and looked across at the healer. She made a face as he came toward her with the beaker. Tucking the sheet around the upper part of her body, she tucked one end into the V at her bustline.

“What does it taste like?” she asked.

“It’s hard to describe,” he answered. “You won’t find it unpalatable since the parasite requires it. You will need to take a bit of my blood, but we can hold off on that.”

She nodded and accepted the beaker from the healer. Drawing in a long breath, she put the glass rim to her lips and drained the contents, gagging only a little as she swallowed the thick liquid. When she was finished, she handed the beaker back and thanked the man before settling down once more into the Reaper’s strong arms.

“Leave us,” she ordered and her voice held great authority.

One thick brown brow cocked upward but Gabriel Leveche did not countermand her order. He simply increased his hold on his lady and waited until the healer had once more retreated, leaving behind the syringe of tenerse.

“Do you want the drug?”

“Not yet,” she answered. Her fingers were on the buttons of his shirt. “I want you.”

The Reaper looked down at her. “You want what?” he managed to ask before she pushed him down and began ripping at his clothing.

It was not the gentle lovemaking he had envisioned. It was a wild, thrilling frenzy of ripping clothing and questing hands. This was no virgin lying atop him, her mouth fastened to his. This was a woman who had known many men—more than he wanted to know how many—and she knew what it was she wanted.

Buttons flew from his black silk shirt and he lay there as she ripped it open and ducked her head down to claim his right nipple with a strong suction that made his cock leap with attention.

She had him pinned down, her strong legs straddling his hips, her feet arched over his lower thighs to hold him still. Her hands were on his shoulders, her fingers kneading his muscles as her teeth grazed over his nipple and bit just hard enough to draw blood.

“Damn woman!” he yelped.

She lapped at the pinpricks of blood that welled up around his nipple then latched her lips onto it and sucked hard.

Gabriel was becoming so aroused he thought his cock would rip right through his leather britches. She was like someone starving, her hands roaming over him at will.

Her mouth moved against his nipple—drawing, suckling, lapping at the rigid flesh—

and she took what she wanted from the contact.

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Ardor’s Leveche

It had been a long time since Gabriel had known a woman’s hot caress. Many years earlier he had lost himself in the fevered bucking of Morrigunia’s wild hips, but before that, he’d known only willing servants and horny ladies-in-waiting—none of whom were as eager as the beautiful woman sitting astride him. Though he had been no stranger to the ways of men and women, he had not known such frenzied sex until that moment. Since becoming a Reaper, he’d known only oral relief from faceless pleasure

‘bots and wasn’t prepared for what he was experiencing.

Ardor was like an out-of-control machine. Her—well,
ardor
—stunned him and he felt a bit uneasy at her passionate response to him. He tried to remember if he had felt such zeal when he had become a Reaper then remembered he had not, for once a Reaper mated, he did so for life. He’d not been inside a woman in fifteen years.

“Hold on!” he said, trying to bat her hands out of the way gently. They were all over him and his flesh where she touched was on fire. “Wait a minute!”

But Ardor was not to be deterred. She slid up him and leaned over, slanting her mouth across his and probing his surprised mouth with a hot, wet tongue that caused a clenching spasm in his lower abdomen. Her breasts pressed into his naked chest and he squirmed beneath her, feeling those delicious little points even under the sheet that covered her…

“Lady, no,” he breathed as he tore his mouth free but she was raining kisses on his cheeks, his eyelids, to the cleft of his chin, along his forehead.

There was strength in those slender little hands, he thought, as she grabbed his wrists in tight fingers and pressed his hands to the floor. She was writhing on him, her sex just over his so that he could smell her excitement and the treasonous old cock was bucking to get in on the action.

“Damn it, woman, stop!” he pleaded but she was not to be deterred. Before he could stop her, she released his left wrist, wedged her arm down between them and slid her hand beneath the waistband of his britches.

Gabriel’s eyes widened as her seeking hand closed around his meaty weapon. She was pulling him—not ungently—and manipulating his flesh in such a way his shaft was singing hosannas to the heavens, its head oozing with delight. Her fingers slid to his balls and he thought he’d levitate from the floor.

“Nice,” she said, kneading him. “Nice and full.”

He tried to protest again but her mouth closed over his, her tongue went down his throat and he trembled. With her wriggling atop him, her hand on his cock, her tongue in his mouth, he cursed and with waning strength jerked his right wrist free of her taut grip, pulled her other hand from his cock and then flipped her over, pinning her wrists to the floor now, him straddling her.

“No!” he said, dodging her demanding mouth. He glared at her, staring down into lust-filled eyes that were gazing at him as though he was a banquet waiting devouring.

He watched her run a pink little tongue over her parted lips and that was the last straw for him. “You want me?” he asked, glaring at her, his heart thundering in his chest.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“Aye, warrior,” she said in a breathless voice. “I want you.”

“Okay, then,” he said, nodding. “Let’s do this the right way.”

He let go of her wrists and she would have made a grab for him but he tilted his head slightly to one side, a warning in his glowing amber eyes and she laid the backs of her hands back on the floor.

“Lay still, wench.”

“Will you hurry it up a bit, warrior?” she prodded.

A sinister smile dragged across Gabriel Leveche’s full lips and he hooked his hands into the sheet, his knuckles grazing her bare skin.

“You know,” he said, “that when a Reaper mates, it’s for life.”

“Whatever,” she said, her hands clenching and unclenching as though she itched to put her hands on him.

“No ‘whatever’, wench,” he said in a stern voice. “When we mate, we mate for life.