Her Reaper's Arms (28 page)

she had not brought it up.

“Milord?” she questioned, sitting up, afraid of his reaction. “Did you not think it

could happen?”

“It never crossed my mind. I didn’t want to think about it,” he said, and lowered his

arm behind his head, looking up at her now with fear. “By the gods, Lea, women die

giving birth.”

“Aye, some do but the majority don’t.

“I can’t lose you,” he said, and his eyes filled with tears. “Lea, I couldn’t live

without you! I wouldn’t want to!”

She put her arms around him and drew him to her, his head to her shoulder and

she comforted him, shushing him as he cried, his reaction so much more alarming than

she could have ever imagined. She tried to calm him, but he would not be consoled. His

hot tears ran down her breast and down her rib cage.

“You aren’t going to lose me, Bevyn,” she said. “The goddess did not give me to

you for you to lose me.”

“She’s right, Reaper.”

Bevyn’s eyes popped open at the sound of the voice only he had heard.
“You

swear?”
he asked.

“There will be no children for you, my Reaper. Not by her.”

A part of him rejoiced at hearing that but another part was wounded beyond belief.

He gently probed Lea’s mind to see how she felt about children and was relieved to

know she had no great desire to become a mother. He somewhat relaxed, though her

next words raked at him with steely claws.

“Were I to conceive, we would be good parents to our child, milord,” she said.

“I know you would be,” he said, not so sure of his own ability to parent a child,

Reaper son or not.

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Her Reaper’s Arms

His eyes went to the clock and he saw he had only ten minutes left to be with his

lady. Where had the time gone? It did not seem half an hour had passed. He would

have to be up and dressed and gone far too soon. There were things he had to say to her

before then and he had to get her mind off the subject of conceiving.

“Arawn will come fetch you for lunch and supper,” he told her, lifting his head to

rake a hand through his hair. “You’ll be dining with him and the Gatekeepers each

night.”

“And Penthe?” she asked.

“I doubt the Gatekeepers would countenance that,” he said. “They’ve no love for

Amazeens.”

“So I’ve noticed,” she said.

“Arawn will give you a tour of the Citadel, if you’d like, and will show you the

solarium. It’s in the same section of the ground floor where the High Council has its

facilities. There are some of the most exotic plants in the world in the solarium.”

“That sounds nice,” she said, and had to bite her lip when he eased out of her arms

and sat up on the edge of the bed.

“Anything you want or need, just ask Giles. He’ll provide it,” he said, and stood.

She stared at the myriad scars that ranged down his back and cursed the woman

who had been responsible for marring his perfect body.

“I’ll be back in a week and then we’ll be allowed to return to Orson,” he said, and

waved his hand, his black uniform settling in a flash over his tall frame.

“I like it here,” she said.

He turned around to face her and she realized something new had been added to

his uniform. He was now wearing a tie and collar insignia.

“We’ll come here as often as we can then,” he said, “but we’ll also have our home in

the Armistenky Territory.”

“All right,” she said, digging her fingers into the coverlet to keep from crying at his

leaving.

“We’ll have our own private railroad cars now with a steward who will be assigned

to us, if you’d like,” he said.

“I don’t think I would, but whatever you decide is fine with me,” she said, and

could feel the moisture striving to break free behind her eyes.

“I don’t care one way or the other so if you don’t want it, we won’t have it. We can

ask for something else,” he said.

“Like what?” she asked, although at that moment she didn’t care about having

anything except him in her arms, which were already feeling the emptiness of his

leaving.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll talk about it when I come back.”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“All right,” she agreed, and drew in a breath as he turned to walk out of her life for

a week that she knew would be sheer hell for the both of them.

“I love you,” he said, his back to her, aching to rush back to her, hold her, but if he

did, he knew it would be difficult to break free again.

“I love you too, milord.”

“Take care.”

“I’ll be with you in your heart,” she whispered.

Bevyn squeezed his eyes shut and left the bedroom. Every step he took away from

her was an agony that ripped at his very soul. The coming week would be a torment far

worse than anything Kennocha’s torturers had practiced on his body. When he opened

the door to find two brown-clad guards awaiting him, his shoulders slumped. The

Shadowlords had not trusted him to come on his own and he wasn’t sure he could

have.

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Her Reaper’s Arms

Bevyn took the bandana from around his head and dipped it into the bucket of

water, wrung it out then retied it around his hair, pulling the ends behind his head and

tucking them up. He was stripped to the waist and sweating, his face burning from the

furnace blast of the sun’s heat.

“You reckon it could get any hotter?” Burt Gilbert, one of the men helping the

Reaper paint, asked.

“Only in the Abyss, my friend,” Bevyn agreed. His chest was streaking with white

paint and he had a smudge of it on his cheek.

“We didn’t pick the best day to be slinging paint,” Buford Gilchrist mumbled. The

sheriff had been complaining all morning.

“He don’t look none the worse for wear,” Cornelia observed as she rocked in her

chair and plied a battered wicker fan.

“He says it wasn’t bad, but he would say that anyway,” Lea said as she sewed a

button on one of his shirts.

“Suppose so,” Cornelia agreed.

“There was this look in his eyes when he came back,” Lea said, pausing with the

needle in the air. She studied her man. “It was bad. I could tell, but he didn’t want me to

know.”

“Don’t dwell on it, girl,” Cornelia told her. “It’s over and done with.”

“It hurts me that I was the cause of him suffering,” Lea said.

Bevyn turned and gave his lady a comical look, crossing his eyes to make her laugh.

Lea giggled and looked down at the shirt.

“He reads minds, don’t he?” Cornelia asked.

“Aye, he does,” Lea said with a sigh.

“Not a good thing in a husband,” Cornelia said.

Lea shook her head. Although they had made no formal vows, were not legally

Joined, she thought of him as her husband and when he introduced her to people who

did not know them, he introduced her as Lea Coure, a name she was very proud to

bear.

“What about that Amazing woman?” Cornelia inquired.

“The Amazeen?” Lea corrected. “She stayed behind at the Citadel. The last I heard

of her—the last I
ever
hope to hear of her—was that she would be helping train the

marshals and sheriffs, the lawmen who help the Reapers in the territories. Lord Kheelan

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

made her a captain in the security section and she is also in charge of punishments for

the lawmen. She seemed content enough with her lot.”

“She looks the sort to enjoy punishing a man,” Cornelia stated. “Reckon her people

will ever come after her?”

“If they do, they won’t get her,” Lea said. “Not out of the Citadel. The Shadowlords

have some kind of defense thing that doesn’t allow entry by outsiders.” She looked up

from the shirt to watch Bevyn as he swept his arm up and down over the boards, the

muscles in his broad back flexing with each circuit. “Not unless the goddess allows it, I

suppose.”

Bevyn stooped over to put his paintbrush in the can then lifted his arm to wipe his

forehead.

“Your man looks hot,” Cornelia told her. “Best go take him some lemonade, I

reckon.”

Lea laid the shirt down on the table between the two rockers and got up. She went

to the frosty pitcher of lemonade and stepped off Cornelia’s porch to the garden shed

her Reaper and his friends had built for the black woman and were now painting.

“The gods bless you, milady!” Burt said as he saw her coming.

Bevyn turned around and smiled. “I’ve got her well trained, men.”

“Humpf,” Lea snorted as she poured first Burt then Buford a glass, leaving her

sweaty, grinning lover the last to receive the cold lemonade.

“Remind me not to volunteer to build anything else,” Bevyn told her as he took the

glass and rubbed it over his forehead.

“Does your head hurt?” she asked, frowning. “Are you having one of your

migraines?”

“Nope,” he said. “Just hot.” He took a big swig of the lemonade, a bit of it trickling

down his chin, and he tipped his head back to drink.

“You sure?” she queried. He was prone to vicious headaches that sometimes

resulted in her having to give him an extra dose of tenerse.

“The only aching head I’ve got, wench, is between my legs,” he said with a feisty

grin.

“Way too much information,” Burt grumbled. “Didn’t need that image in my mind,

Reaper.”

Bevyn cracked ice between his strong white teeth, grinning like a little boy at Burt

and the sheriff, wagging his brows at them.

“Behave,” Lea told him as she turned to go back up to the porch and relative cool,

but she gasped as her man snaked an arm around her waist and drew her to him,

slamming her against his sweaty chest. “Bevyn!” she shrieked.

The Reaper lowered his head and nuzzled her neck, whispered something in her

ear before she slapped at his naked chest and pushed him away, him laughing

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Her Reaper’s Arms

uproariously at her red face. She took off as though the hounds of hell were nipping at

her heels, looking over her shoulder at him as she hurried away.

“What did you say to make her run off like that, Bev?” Buford asked.

“And what’s she running over to your house for in such an all-fired hurry,

Reaper?” Burt inquired.

“I just reminded her how much sugar was in that pitcher of lemonade,” Bevyn said,

pulling off his bandana and striding purposefully after his lady, a wide, wicked grin on

his handsome face.

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About the Author

Charlee is the author of over thirty books. Married 40 years to her high school

sweetheart, Tom, she is the mother of two grown sons, Pete and Mike, and the proud

grandmother of Preston Alexander and Victoria Ashley. She is the willing house slave

to five demanding felines who are holding her hostage in her home and only allowing

her to leave in order to purchase food for them. A native of Sarasota, Florida, she grew

up in Colquitt and Albany, Georgia and now lives in the Midwest.

Charlee welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email

address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

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Also by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Ellora’s Cavemen: Dreams of the Oasis IV
anthology

Ellora’s Cavemen: Legendary Tails I
anthology

Ellora’s Cavemen: Seasons of Seduction II
anthology

Fated Mates
anthology

Ghost Wind

HardWind

Journey of the Wind

Passion’s Mistral

Shades of the Wind

WesternWind 1: WyndRiver Sinner

WesternWind 2: Reaper’s Revenge

WesternWind 3: Prime Reaper

WesternWind 4: Tears of the Reaper

WindVerse: Ardor’s Leveche

WindVerse: Hunger’s Harmattan

WindVerse: Phantom of the Wind

WindVerse: Pleasure’s Foehn

WindVerse: Prisoners of the Wind

WindWorld: Desire’s Sirocco

WindWorld: Longing’s Levant

WindWorld: Lucien’s Khamsin

WindWorld: Rapture’s Etesian

And see Charlotte Boyett-Compo’s stories at Cerridwen Press

(www.cerridwenpress.com):

BlackWind: Sean and Bronwyn

BlackWind: Viraiden and Bronwyn

Desert Wind

In the Wind’s Eye

Taken By the Wind

Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning