Ardor's Leveche (5 page)

It had been a long time since the Reaper had indulged himself with a pleasure ‘bot and perhaps that was why he desired this one woman. Rarely did the man seem to need sexual gratification, and when he did, he handled it efficiently and as clinically as possible by calling for one of the synthetics that serviced the troops.

But Breva worried nonetheless for something told him once his overlord lay with Ardor Kahn, nothing between heaven or hell could take her from him.

25

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Smirking at the four heavily armed guards who had escorted her to a cell onboard the
Sangunar
, Ardor waited while one wary man unchained the shackles on her wrists and a second got quickly to his feet after freeing her ankles from the chains that had made it hard for her to walk. She feigned an attack move at them and the two jumped as though spurred, fleeing back to the safety of their fellow guards who were standing just outside the door to the cell, stun wands pointed at her.

The contemptuous laugh that peeled from her grinning lips as she turned her back on the men should have made it clear she did not consider them a threat. Walking over to the bunk lashed to the wall on a platform jutting out from the titanium panel, she sat down, stretched out, crossed her ankles and stuck her laced fingers beneath her head.

Completely ignoring the guards, she gave her attention to the soundproof panels on the ceiling, beginning to count the holes in the first panel.

“Are you one of those strange Riezellians who don’t eat meat?” the head guard inquired around a tight jaw.

Not bothering to turn her face to her interrogator, Ardor replied, “Nope.”

“Do you have any special dietary needs?”

Surprised by the question, she ceased her counting and looked over at the guard.

“Why do you ask?”

“Major Breva wishes to know in case there is something you need provided for you.”

Her mind calculating at an incredible speed, she shrugged. “Is that something you ask all your prisoners, Lieutenant?”

The guard rolled his eyes. “Only those who interest the overlord or his 2-I-C,” he replied as though the answer had to be dragged from him.

“I see,” she said then returned her gaze to the ceiling. “No, I have no special need save the one to escape.”

“Huh,” the guard said with a grunt. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“We’ll see,” she whispered as the cell door shushed to a close.

Almost immediately, the bright light overhead began to dim. At first Ardor thought it was out of courtesy, but as the light continued to lower, she felt a stirring of uneasiness. Uncrossing her ankles, she drew her knees up, lifted herself on her elbows and turned to watch the door. She could feel the beat of her heart increasing with each dimming of the lights and when the cell was cast into complete darkness, she scooted up on the bunk, her knees encircled into the perimeter of her arms.

26

Ardor’s Leveche

She would never know how long she sat that way—her head turned toward the door—before she felt the presence beyond the closed portal. Though she had heard no sound, been given no indication that there was someone lurking outside her cell, she could feel the strange emanations flowing forth, seemingly radiating through the thick panel. When the door slowly slid open and light poured in from the corridor, she was momentarily blinded and once more put an arm up to block the piercing pain.

“My apologies, wench,” she heard someone say and recognized the voice of Major Breva. “I didn’t think.”

The door shushed to behind him and as it did, darkness settled upon the cell. Ardor became aware of him moving toward her through the gloom. She tensed, ready to spring at him if he made a threatening move.

“I am not afraid of him, you know,” he stated.

She felt the lower end of the bunk’s pad compress and knew he had taken a seat there, although he made no attempt to touch her.

“I have learned to block my thoughts from him and I can teach you to do the same.”

“And you’re telling me this because…?”

“I can help you,” he replied.

“Help me how?”

There was a slight pause then he said, “To escape.”

Ardor knew the answer before she asked the question but wanted the situation clarified. “In exchange for what?”

“You.” He said it boldly, almost smugly, and the one word was deafening in the still room.

“What makes you think I am negotiable?” she asked, and nearly screamed when she felt his hand on her ankle.

For a long moment, his hand spanned her flesh then she heard a low growl that widened her eyes and took away her breath.

“You were not to be shackled,” he said.

She exhaled the air from her lungs. “I think they fear me, warrior,” she told him.

“They should, but no orders were given to restrain you in that manner.”

His fingers touched a sore spot on the inside of her ankle where the shackle band had rubbed as she walked. He caressed it, massaging away the pain until she could no longer feel the discomfort.

“My ancestors were healers,
médicacios
,” he said. “The power to cure is in our blood.”

His hand moved up her leg, his fingers stroking beneath the loose pants leg of her prison jumpsuit, his thumb making tiny circles on the side of her.

Ardor had lost her virginity at the ripe old age of sixteen and had never looked back. Not having regretted the supposed loss of her innocence to the blue-eyed Serenian 27

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

who had professed undying devotion to her, but who had run off the very next week with a sloe-eyed Oceanian girl, the Riezell Guardian took her gratification where she found it. Uninhibited, she thoroughly enjoyed the sexual act. Nevertheless, she was careful with whom she indulged her pleasures and was not given to acting either rashly or imprudently. Though a lover of the sensuous, she maintained a strict moral code that had served her well over the last twelve years since being separated from her maidenhead.

Then again, she thought as she made a conscious effort to allow her leg muscles to relax, she’d never been one to overlook any opportunity that might work to her advantage. Prudery had no place in her life when her life—and freedom—were at stake.

“If I give myself to you,” she said, striving to see his face through the darkness,

“will he still force himself on me?”

The hand caressing her calf stilled and he said nothing for a moment, then when he spoke, his voice was low and gravelly. “Do you fear him that much?”

“I don’t fear him at all,” she was quick to answer. “I just don’t want his cadaverous hands on me.”

She thought she heard a soft chuckle a fraction of a second before his hand resumed its gentle rubbing.

“Wench, his hands are no different from mine.”

“Those are gloves he wears?” she asked. “Is that why I felt flesh touch my face?”

“It’s all part of the illusion,” he said, moving his hand up her leg until it could go no further, stopping at the back of her knee where he eased his fingers back and forth across the very soft skin there.

“And that hellish red glow in his eyes?”

“Ah, well, that, I’m afraid, happens when he’s upset. He doesn’t have any control over the sanguinity of his gaze. Some say it reflects the flames that consumed him long ago.”

Ardor could not suppress the shudder that ran from her shoulders down her back.

She envisioned the hulk of the reaper standing amidst burning faggots, the flesh from his face melting into the leaping conflagration as his cape went up in fiery sparks.

“Imagination can be a troublesome thing,” the man sitting at the foot of her bunk said softly. “What we see in our mind’s eye isn’t necessarily the true reflection of what really happened.”

“Are you saying he wasn’t burned?”

“He was, but time and destiny healed him. Why does that concern you?”

“I was burned a long time ago,” Ardor said. “I remember all too well what it felt like.”

He eased his hand from beneath her pants leg. “Burned how, wench? Where?”

Ardor shook her head. “It is something I do not discuss nor do I like to think on it.”

28

Ardor’s Leveche

The bunk mattress shifted beneath her rump and she realized he had moved closer to her. She could feel the touch of his hip against the side of her foot.

“Then you should have a measure of compassion for those who have known the kiss of fire,” he reminded her.

Although she could not see him—not even his outline—she knew when he braced his hand on the wall beside her, effectively pinning her in, his arm spanned over her waist. He was so close she could feel the heat of his body and smell the crispness of his khaki uniform.

“Do you?” he asked.

She dragged her mind away from the picture of him she had stored in her mind.

“Do I what?”

“Have a measure of compassion for the Reaper?”

“Why should I?” she asked.

He sighed deeply, then she felt his free hand on her upper arm, slowly running from elbow to shoulder to elbow and back again beneath the wide short sleeve of the jumpsuit. His palm was callused like his overlord’s and she sensed strength in that gentle touch from which she knew it would be hard to break away.

“Perhaps,” he said, “because he suffered greatly from the kiss of the flames that touched him?”

“Is that what made him a monster or was he one before the fire claimed his hateful face?” she inquired.

His fingers slid around her biceps, shackling her, the pressure giving her a gauge of his power. “If you are asking if he was a beast before he knew the inferno into which he was pushed, I can honestly say he was more creature than man. When he came out of that pit, he was something far less than human and filled with a vengeance that made him what he is today.”

“His enemies tried to kill him?”

“Aye,” he said and she could hear dark bitterness in his tone. “They attempted to burn him alive but they didn’t count on his parasite saving him.”

“Parasite?” she repeated.

“It is what lives inside him and makes him what he is.”

“By the gods!” she exclaimed. “You’re talking about a Reaper!”

“Isn’t that what I’ve been calling him?” he asked in an amused tone.

“I thought you were trying to frighten me. I read a portion of the Intel report and couldn’t believe such beings really exist. Was he one of the research subjects at the med facility?” she asked, fear shifting through her like hot magma.

“He didn’t know there were Reapers there until just recently. If he’d known sooner, believe me, he would have freed them.”

29

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“Then where did he come from if not the med facility?” she asked. “Are there more Reapers other than those that were on R-9?”

“I have been told there are many of them scattered across the megaverse.”

“You mean other than the ones who were liberated from the med facility?” she asked with a gasp. “How many are you talking about?”

She felt him shrug. “Who knows?”

Ardor realized she was shivering uncontrollably. Something that had been said before was coming back to push at her mind—
unless you exchange blood with him
.
That thought filled her with horror. The red glow of his demonic stare, the powerful vibrations he gave off, his ability to read her mind and to send his thoughts to Breva—it all added up, the sum of which brought dismay to the stalwart Riezell Guardian.

“He’s going to turn me,” she said, her voice quivering.

“Not if you don’t wish it,” her companion replied.

“I don’t want to be a bloodsucker!” she said and slammed her hands over her face.

“Nor will you be unless it is what you desire,” he said, amusement in his tone, and slipped his arms around her. He pulled her into his embrace, resting his chin on the top of her head. “I will make sure of it, wench.”

“Please keep him away from me,” she pleaded, hating the begging in her voice, but the thought of becoming one of the undead filled her with such terror she would do anything to avoid it.

“Give yourself to me and I will see the beast stays away from you,” he swore.

“You swear it?”

“On my honor, I swear it.”

His hands were gentle on her back, soothing away her fears, calming her. Her arms were trapped between them but she wriggled them free until she could wrap them around his waist. Laying her head on his chest, she could hear the steady beat of his heart beneath the uniform tunic and was reassured by the sound.

“I thought it was nothing more than a tale told to frighten children before I read the Intel report,” she said. “I had no idea there really were such atrocities.”

Strong, powerful arms tightened around her almost painfully at those words but Ardor was lost in her own misery—too unnerved to notice. She clung to him—sensing his willingness to help her. She could feel his warm breath fanning her hair, smell the clean scent of him, the potency of his rugged maleness pressing against her.

He was a handsome man, she thought. His dark good looks and brawny body would have garnered her notice if she was out trolling in a bar for an evening’s entertainment. His hands were gentle, his voice low and sensuous. There was nothing about him that was repulsive or that generated unease within her.

Not like his vile overlord.

30

Ardor’s Leveche

He tucked his finger under her chin and lifted her face. The moment his lips closed over hers, Ardor felt a deep clenching in her belly. She groaned at the pleasurable feeling.

“You like that?” he asked.

Ardor knew she needed this man and the best way she knew to ensure his loyalty to her was to get intimate. She’d used sex before on an assignment and had had no qualms about it. It was something that had to be done and it rarely turned personal.

“Aye,” she said running the palm of her hand up his chest. “I like it very much.”

His kisses were slow but held a vast volume of heat within them that set Ardor’s blood to boiling. The tongue he thrust into her mouth tasted of lemons.

She plucked at the buttons of his tunic, opening the khaki garment halfway down his chest so she could insinuate her hand into the crisp hairs adorning his chest. She slid her fingers over one taut male nipple and smiled as he drew in a sharp breath.