Her Reaper's Arms (18 page)

makes sure they survive from one generation to the next, one world to the next. They

are not all in one universe but spread out in what She calls the megaverse. She calls

them WindWorlds. From those twelve clans, She chooses those She will make Reapers

and those whom She will make Shadowlords. Some clans have both Reapers and

Shadowlords and some have only one or the other.

“Ben-Alkazar, Belvoir and Tarnes are always Shadowlords while Gehdrin, Kiel,

Cree, Tohre, Kullen, Belial and Coure are always Reapers. The Jaborn and Sorn clans

can have both. There are other clans She has given Reaper powers but they are not as

important to Her as what She calls the
Dháréag
, the Twelve.”

“
Dháréag
,” Lea repeated.

“It is not spoken of, wench,” he warned her. “That is to be kept between us.”

She nodded. “I understand, milord.”

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Her Reaper’s Arms

“I don’t know how my fellow Reapers met their fate, if they knew they were of the

Dháréag
before or after their Transitions by having the tribal tat placed on their faces.

For all I know, I may be the only one who was marked during my rebirth. What I know

of the man who sired me was that he was a prick of the highest order and I was a

product of rape.” He rubbed his fingers over his right eye. “When I asked the goddess

why my mother did not attempt to expel me from her womb, She said She would not

have permitted that to happen. She said She knew I was the one She would want from

the moment of my conception and that She had kept me safe.”

“So it was not truly by chance the priests came by where you had been abandoned,”

Lea said.

“I guess not,” he said, not having thought of that.

“Were they good to you, milord?” she asked.

“The priests?” He shook his head. “No, wench, they were not. The Brotherhood of

the Domination is not known for being good to its members. Pain and humiliation is

beaten into the novices in order to make them strong or to break them. Either way, the

brothers gain.”

“What did…?”

“I won’t speak of my time at the monastery,” he said. “Not now and not ever. Let it

suffice to say I was glad to have been sent from there to Rathlin until I found myself in

hands nearly as evil as the brothers.”

He was silent for a long time after that. Lea said nothing, giving him the time he

needed to come to terms with whatever memories their talk had dredged up for him.

When at last his body relaxed and his desperate hold upon her eased, he placed a gentle

kiss on the top of her head.

“I am grateful I have you, sweeting,” he said. “That is all that matters to me.”

“A lot was done on the house today,” she said, her palm flat on his chest, feeling his

stalwart heart beating strongly against it. “I think you’ll be pleased.”

“It can’t be finished quickly enough for me,” he said. “I like sleeping beside you

and if our taskmistress won’t allow it beneath her roof, I’d just as soon move back over

to Mable’s until our place is finished.”

Lea tucked her lower lip between her teeth, wondering why he had not mentioned

the surest way to remedy Cornelia’s restriction. Perhaps, she thought, he did not want

to tie himself down to her with a Joining.

“It isn’t that,” he said, easily reading her mind.

She craned her neck to look up at him. “Can I ask why then?”

“Two reasons,” he said. “One, I’m already in deep enough trouble with the High

Council for having taken you to mate without first garnering their permission.”

“Bevyn!” she gasped. “You didn’t tell me that!”

He shrugged. “It’s not all that bad. The punishment should be miniscule but—”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“Punishment?” she echoed. “What are you talking about? What kind of

punishment?”

The Reaper sighed. “Sweeting, don’t concern yourself about it,” he said. “It will be

negligible. Trust me.”

“Bevyn…” she said, her eyes clouding with fear.

“I’ll no doubt spend a week in one of the containment cells,” he said. “Solitary

confinement. That’s all it means.”

“No pain?” she asked.

“No pain,” he lied, knowing full well that week would be spent without tenerse or

Sustenance. It would be a minor hell but well worth it in his estimation.

If he was allowed to keep her.

He refused to consider otherwise.

“You promise?” she whispered.

“They are not going to torture me, wench,” he said with a laugh. “Just punish me

for acting rashly. Now had I compounded the issue with taking you to legal wife or

transferring one of my hellions to—”

“No!” Lea snapped, pushing away from him. “That you will never do!”

“I have said I wouldn’t and I won’t,” he said. He soothed her, running his hand

down her arm.

“Swear to me, Bevyn,” she said, and he realized she was trembling.

“I will not give you one of my fledglings, sweeting,” he vowed. “On my love for

you, I swear I will never do that.”

And without doing so, he knew he could never legally Join with her. He would not

take the chance of leaving her his widow without the protection of a parasite to keep

her safe. A leman, a mistress, was one thing. A wife was something entirely different in

his world.

Lea calmed and returned her cheek to his shoulder—twirling a strand of his chest

hair around and around her index finger. “Just the thought of having one of those

beasties inside me scares me to death, milord,” she mumbled.

“I know,” he acknowledged.

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Her Reaper’s Arms

Chapter Seven

Hiding in the stable loft, Penthe watched the men going to work on the shell of a

house being built nearby. She crunched a couple of apples she’d found in a bin for her

breakfast, wishing she had a cool dipper of water to wash it down with.

The Reaper had been up at dawn—his paltry human female alongside him—and

Penthe could not help but admire the pure male beauty that was his as he began work.

He had come out without his shirt and in denim jeans instead of the black leather that

was part of his uniform. She thought his ass fit the jeans exceedingly well, the material

lovingly cupping the strong muscles. Sweat was already glistening down his heavily

muscled chest and she wondered what it would taste like to run her tongue over that

trickling stream.

Though she knew he was off limits as far as breeding material went—Reapers only

begat males since their tainted seed would not allow them to create females—she

regaled herself with fantasies of chaining him to a breeding bed and raping his

magnificent body over and over again, drawing that very substantial seed from a cock

she knew would be just as glorious as the rest of him. Oh the sons they would make!

But that was indeed a fantasy—and a forbidden one at that—for to bring more

Reaper males into the world would be a sin against her Amazeen heritage.

While it seemed as if the entire town had gathered around the house Penthe

overheard was going to be the Reaper’s abode, the Blackwind climbed down from the

loft and went in search of something more substantial to fill her belly. She managed to

gather quite an assortment of foodstuffs in a basket—along with several bottles of

water—before slinking back to her hiding place, stretching out to watch the building

construction.

Off to one side, the human female was sitting with several like herself but Penthe

noticed her gaze was never far from the Reaper. The one called Lea was giving off a

scent the Blackwind could not miss and apparently it did not miss Coure’s attention

either for he kept sending the female heated looks that no one else seemed to catch.

“She is your world, isn’t she, Reaper?” Penthe quietly questioned as she swung her

attention back and forth between Coure and Lea. “I wonder what you’d do if you lost

her?”

That thought bore some speculation, Penthe thought as she munched happily on a

pie she had swiped from some female’s kitchen window where it had been left to cool.

* * * * *

89

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Sitting on a spread quilt beside her man, Lea slathered mustard on still another two

slices of bread as her Reaper lounged beside her on his side, one leg crooked at the

knee, his bare foot planted on the quilt. His head was braced on one fist as he happily

devoured the sixth sandwich she’d made him while impatiently awaiting the seventh.

“You realize this is the entire loaf of bread I brought, don’t you?” she asked him as

she slapped a big wedge of ham and another of sharp cheese between the bread slices.

“I’m a growing boy,” he muttered, popping the last of his sandwich into his mouth

and holding out his hand for the next one.

“You’re going to be an obese man if you keep eating like this,” she warned as he

took a massive bite out of the fresh sandwich, licking away a dollop of mustard that

oozed to the side of his mouth.

“Reaper metabolisms are different,” he said around the glob of food in his mouth.

“We require a lot of energy to maintain.”

“Uh-huh,” Lea agreed. She cut a small piece of chocolate cake for him, careful of

how much sugar she was going to allow him.

He picked up his fork and shoveled several loads of potato salad into his mouth,

gobbling the food as though he were a starved man and someone would snatch away

his nourishment before he could eat it.

“It’s a wonder you don’t get indigestion,” Lea told him.

“Won’t happen,” he said, munching away. He eyed the cake. “Is that all I get?”

“I see celery and carrot sticks, radishes, tomatoes and green onions still on your

plate,” she said. “If you eat all that…”

“Rabbit food,” he called it, “and aye, I will eat it.”

“Then you can have the cake,” she said.

“But that’s such a small piece,” he complained. “There’s not that much sugar…”

She just arched a brow at him.

“Oh all right,” he mumbled, knowing where her mind had gone.

Sheriff Gilchrist came walking over to inform their Reaper that word had come

from Clewiston that the train would be leaving in three days for the Citadel.

“I booked you and Lea passage as you asked, milord,” Buford told him.

“My thanks,” Bevyn said. “You eaten?”

“Had a bite or two,” Buford said, “although I could go for some of that cake.”

Bevyn frowned. He wanted the cake entirely to himself but Lea was already cutting

a piece—and a gods-be-damned
big
piece at that!—for the sheriff.

“Much obliged, Lea,” the sheriff said, taking a seat on their quilt.

Bevyn glared at the older man as Buford inhaled the creamy chocolate confection

and held his plate out for more at Lea’s offering.

“I don’t mind if I do,” Buford said. “That’s right good cake.”

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Her Reaper’s Arms

Crunching a stalk of celery, Bevyn deliberately tore his stare from that second

helping of cake and caught a glimmer of movement in the stable loft. Though he stared

long and hard at the opening door, nothing else stirred.

“What do you see, milord?” Buford asked, glancing that way.

“The door’s open on the loft,” Bevyn said. “Must have been the wind swinging it.”

“Want me to go check?”

“Nah,” Bevyn said. “It’s all right.”

Now and again for the rest of the day, he would turn his gaze to the loft, but

nothing else moved up there.

Penthe had scooted back when the Reaper’s gaze shifted to the loft. She knew she’d

been lax in giving herself away and was careful now to keep well out of sight.

Lying down, she decided to take a nap. Heat was shifting through the stable and

wafting up from the hay in the stable below and she was sweating profusely. She’d

consumed all her water and was thirsty for more but didn’t want to risk being seen or

heard climbing back down the ladder since the stableman and his helper had been in

and out several times already.

Instead she thought of her trip on the
Ostria
, the Long Range Cruiser that had

brought Asteria and her to Terra.

She missed her lover terribly but their relationship had just about run its course.

Asteria had been flirting outrageously with one of the yeomen on the LRC so it was but

a matter of time before she and Penthe had parted company.

Sighing deeply, Penthe’s thoughts went to Captain Antimache and Lieutenant

Myrine who had joined her in searching for Asteria’s attacker. When they had come

across the three rogues who were also hunting Roy English, there had been one helluva

fight—one in which neither the three
balgairs
nor the three Amazeen had come out the

victors. It had taken them all several days to recuperate from the vicious brawl.

“Join up with us and we’ll help you find the Reaper,” Eton Reece, the leader of the

rogues, had suggested. “Six to one is good odds. He won’t get away.”

At the time, Antimache had thought it a good notion and though she did not

outrank Penthe, she was in charge of the expedition. Her fellow Amazeens were

angered at the gruesome death dealt to Artesia, and seeing the Reaper pay for a rogue’s

brutality seemed like a fair exchange.

It hadn’t been clear why Reece, Bartlett and Dempsey had been looking for English,

but the three rogues definitely had murder in their minds when they found him.