Reaper's Revenge (5 page)

Cynyr was listening to the Prime Reaper’s report on the Sheenan murders but he was watching his wife and Brady. It bothered him that the barber seemed to have an easy relationship with Aingeal. They were walking together, their heads down, and he wanted to grab Brady by the neck and strangle him.

“I went out reconnoitering and found their trail,” Arawn said. “It led up into the mountains.”

“We’ve been taking turns having a look around the area,” Bevyn said.

“We thought about going after them together but then the town would have been left defenseless,” the Prime Reaper put in.

Cynyr narrowed his eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“A day or two after we got here, one of the local boys came in to tell us he’d seen something falling out of the sky,” Arawn said. “He said it crashed into the mountain but there wasn’t any noise when it hit.”

“A ship?”

“Looks that way,” Arawn agreed.

“I went out that time but the closer I came to the pass where Arawn had followed the rogues’ trail, the darker I felt. Something was up there and if I’d continued on, I knew I’d be riding into a trap.”

“It’s the Ceannus,” Arawn stated.

Cynyr exhaled a long breath. The thought of the mad scientists working for Raphian, the Destroyer of Men’s Souls and the originator of the revenant worm, being once more upon Terra sent chills down his spine. “Have you informed Lord Kheelan?”

he asked.

“He knows of it, but he and the other members of the High Council haven’t been able to pinpoint where the ship landed. Something is blocking their efforts.”

“It would stand to reason that in all the time Reapers have been on Terra,” Cynyr said, “the Ceannus have been working on how to remain undetected once they came back.”

“At last count, there were three rogues scattered about the western territories. We’d all but wiped them out.”

“Why do you suppose they come out here?” Bevyn asked.

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Reaper’s Revenge

“Why they congregate here is obvious,” Arawn said. “The vastness of the landscape keeps them well hidden.”

“You think the Ceannus have brought more rogues,” Cynyr said.

“I’d be willing to bet next month’s salary they have,” Bevyn said with a snort.

“And I’d be willing to bet these rogues are much worse than the ones brought here in the first place,” Arawn agreed.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Chapter Three

Aingeal found her husband sitting on a bench in Moira McDermott’s backyard. He was staring toward the dark pyramids of the mountains to the west. She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned down to kiss his cheek. “Too much noise for you?” she asked.

A few of the friends they had made in Haines City and the other two Reapers were in Moira’s immaculate little house after having shared a wonderful supper prepared by the old woman and her moody daughter-in-law.

“A bit,” he answered, and reached up to cover her hands with his. He held onto her soft flesh and continued to stare at the mountains.

“What’s bothering you,
mo shearc
?”

Cynyr didn’t want to worry her, but he knew he had to prepare her for what was coming. “Arawn sent for the others,” he said, knowing she’d understand who he meant.

“Why?”

“From all indications, the Ceannus have come back to Terra,” he answered.

“The Ceannus?” she questioned.

“You’re slipping, wench,” he teased her. “Don’t you remember me telling you of the Ceannus? They are scientists from beyond this galaxy who brought the first rogues here mostly from the Cairghrian and Diamhair galaxies before the Burning Wars. When Morrigunia brought the first Reapers back, the Ceannus fled, leaving behind instructions for the rogues on performing Transferences of their parasites.”

“Oh yes. I remember now.” She frowned. “What do you mean when Morrigunia brought the Reapers back? Had they been here before?”

“Before the Burning Wars, there were several. Morrigunia snatched them, their families and friends up and took them away before the destruction of Terra began. She looks after her own.”

“Arawn told me that. I
am
slipping! What happened to the rogues who were here?

Obviously some survived,” she commented.

“Unless I miss my guess the rogues were in positions of power and helped cause the destruction of Terra in the first place. Raphian would have had a hand in such evil. Once the Reapers came back, we began hunting down the rogues, decimating their ranks. We had almost wiped them out and now this.”

His wife slid her hands from his shoulder and skirted the bench to sit down beside him. Nestling under the protection of his arm, she settled against his side and weaved her fingers through his. “You think the Ceannus are back to make more rogues?”

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Reaper’s Revenge

“Arawn and Bevyn believe they brought rogues with them.
Balgairs
—rogues—more dangerous than the first batch.”

“What do you think?”

“I can sense them, wench,” he said. “Just as Bevyn and Arawn do but there is something else I’m picking up on and whatever that something is, it is causing me great unease.”

She turned to look toward the mountains. “You think they’re up there?”

He nodded. “We’ll go after them in the next day or two.”

At his words Aingeal felt her parasite shifting and though it caused her no pain, she knew it was a warning of sorts. “You could be riding into a trap,” she said quietly.

“The Shadowlords will be with us,” he said. At her surprised look, he shook his head. “Not in physical form but with the full force of their powers directed at the
balgairs
and the Ceannus. I’ve no doubt we’ll wipe them out this time.”

“Yet you are still worried,” she said.

“Aye,” he whispered.

She lightly delved into her mate’s mind and could see a spreading blackness that concerned her. “You fear you won’t survive,” she said, her fingers tensing around his.

“I don’t know what it is, wench,” he admitted. “Something just doesn’t seem right.”

She could not allow him to go into battle thinking he might not return. “You are the strongest man I know,” she said softly. “And you are the man I love.”

He smiled at her and leaned in to claim her lips. His kiss was whisper-soft yet as searing as a bolt of lightning. It took her breath away.

“You can overcome anything they throw at you,
mo shearc.
I know you can.”

Cynyr laid his head against hers and returned his gaze to the forbidding mountains. His woman was in his arms, her soft body pressed along his side, and she was the dearest thing he’d ever held. In his life, no one had ever loved him. No one had ever feared for his safety nor cared if he lived or died. He knew should anything happen to him, he would be subjecting Aingeal to a lonely life for—because of his selfishness—she was a Reaper and Reapers mated for all eternity.

“It’s getting late,” Aingeal said, “and your woman has designs on you.”

He lifted his head and looked down at her. “Designs, eh?”

“Wicked designs,” she said, sliding her hand across the juncture of his thighs. “Hot, thrusting designs.” She cupped him, massaging the growing erection that met her fingers.

Cynyr caught her hand and pushed it away from him, getting up from the bench to pull her into his arms. His hands went to her shapely butt and molded her tightly to his tall frame. “You are shameless, wench.”

“Aye,” she said, grinding herself against him. “Best make hay while the brattling is nestled inside me and not wailing his lungs out to be changed or fed.”

27

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

At the mention of their child growing within Aingeal’s womb, Cynyr’s unease deepened. His parasite buckled beneath his skin, sending a shaft of agony through his back. It was all he could do not to gasp, not to show his lady the pain invading his body.

She moved back, pulling his hand from her rear and tugging him toward the house. Her eyes were bright, her smile pure delight as she walked backward, drawing him with her.

Whatever evil lurked about them turned Cynyr Cree’s blood cold. He dawdled in his mate’s wake, casting his eyes from side to side, searching for whatever it was that caused such deep alarm to send shivers down his spine. There was nothing and no one nearby, but the apprehension followed them into Moira McDermott’s house and stealthily climbed the stairs right alongside them. Even when he shut the door behind them, malevolence hung in the air like a wet, heavy curtain.

* * * * *

Otaktay lowered the field glasses from his eyes for just a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. As soon as a light blazed in an upstairs room of the white clapboard house, he swung the binoculars up and zeroed in on the white lace curtain behind which the silhouette of his woman appeared. Fury drove deep in the Jakotai brave. Another man was standing in front of Aingeal and she was pressing her body to his. The white man’s hands were on her breasts, his lips upon her shoulder.

“Faithless bitch,” Otaktay swore. His cock grew hard as he watched the white man unbuttoning Aingeal’s garment. He reached down to unconsciously rub his erection. When Aingeal’s covering was peeled from her shoulders, the brave growled low in his throat, his bloodlust rising.

Unable to continue watching, Otaktay threw the field glasses down and buried his face in his hands. Since his father had given the white woman to him, he had been unable to take another. No other enticed him as Aingeal did. No other held appeal for him. Though he had treated her shamelessly—as his father kept reminding him—by allowing other men to mate with her, Otaktay had strong feelings for the woman.

“Why do you permit your friends to abuse her?” his father had asked.

“To teach her a lesson!” Otaktay had defended himself. “She belongs to me to do with as I please, yet she persists in running away.”

“You have made a whore of your woman,” Chief Akecheta, Otaktay’s father, said with sad eyes. “You are to blame for her running away. Had you treated her with care, she would have had no reason to leave you.”

Guilt nipped at Otaktay’s heels with every step he took away from his watching place. With the acute hearing he now possessed and the strange powers his Transition had granted him, he knew the moment the Reaper took what by right belonged to the Jakotai brave. He barely noticed the tears easing down his hot cheeks as he swung onto 28

Reaper’s Revenge

the back of his pony. Drumming his moccasin-clad heels into the beast’s side, he sped back toward the mountains.

* * * * *

Kasid Jaborn looked up as the red man appeared out of the night. In the glow from the campfire, dark shadows flitted across the Jakotai’s face and turned it even more savage than normal. There was a brutal cast to Otaktay’s features that had not been there when he’d ridden out to spy on the Reapers camped below. “You found your woman?” Kasid asked.

“She is with the one called Cree,” Otaktay reported. He withdrew his knife and hunkered down before the fire. He stabbed the blade into the sand repeatedly, seeming to release the fury bunched in his brawny body with each thrust. Beyond the campfire the Ceannus were talking quietly amongst themselves. He—

like his twin brother Khnum—hailed from Akhkharu and even though he spoke many languages, did not understand Ceannusian. Neither could he delve into the Ceannus’

mind to discover what it was they were plotting.

Otaktay turned his head and looked to where Jaborn was staring. He snorted.

“They fashion their plans and it is up to us to see those plans to completion.” His mouth twisted into an ugly line. “They will not put themselves into danger.”

Kasid nodded his agreement. He hated the Ceannus almost as much as he hated the Reapers. He had borne no love for his twin—the man Cynyr Cree had killed—but he was honor-bound to take the life of the bounty hunter who had murdered Khnum. He tore his attention from the Ceannus and leveled it upon the brave. “You delivered the shipment?”

A sneer lifted Otaktay’s upper lip. “I did as I was instructed. What good such things will do is—”

“You have no notion of how deadly that shipment is,” Kasid interrupted. “If you had not handled it carefully, believe me when I tell you, you would now have more respect for what you delivered.”

Otaktay shrugged away the other man’s words. There was nothing he feared and the twenty-four strange black ovals he had placed near the edge of the white man’s settlement had held no threat to him.

“No,” Kasid said quietly, holding Otaktay’s stare, “but had one of the ovals broken open, you would not be sitting there glaring back at me. You would know what
evil
truly is.”

Otaktay snorted his contempt of Jaborn’s words and continued to stab his weapon into the sand. The muscles in his naked chest glistened from the sweat that ran over his flesh as he knelt before the roaring fire.

Kasid studied the Jakotai carefully. Their skin was the same shade of burnished sienna and their hair of a similar texture and blackness. Even their eyes bore the 29

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

unmistakable shape of a common ancestor. They were both desert dwellers and carried within their breasts an identical hatred for white men and their ways. Both were cruel hunters and savage opponents, and neither had it within him to show consideration to an enemy. In another time, under different circumstances, they might well have been friends—though neither had ever wanted or sought out such an alliance.

“How did you manage to kill Gibbs?” Jaborn asked the brave. Otaktay’s smile was brutal. “I had no desire to be in the same world with one such as he. The gods steadied my hand as I took the foul one’s head.” He looked over to his grisly prize perched upon a sharpened stave.

“It’s not an easy thing to do to dispatch a fellow
balgair
,” Kasid observed. “He must have let down his guard.”

“He was no warrior,” Otaktay stated. “It was an easy thing I did.”

“What of his parasite?”

A shadow passed over the brave’s stony face. “What of it?”

“Did you destroy it when you hacked off Gibbs’ head?”