A Reaper's Love (WindWorld) (13 page)

On Santorini

He took her hand as they left the
restaurant and she was incapable of preventing him. His fingers were warm
wrapped around her own as he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.

“You shouldn’t do that,” she protested.

“I shouldn’t do a lot of things,” he said.

“My life-mate wouldn’t like it,” she told
him but he just smiled.

“It is lovely here,” he said. “I can see
why you like it so much. I’m looking forward to moving into the beach house for
the remainder of the week.”

“The beach house is taken,” she said.

“Agent Kerns will be vacating the premises
come morning. She’s had it two days and that’s long enough.”

“And just how do you…?” She stopped. She
knew he’d somehow arranged for Nellis Kerns to leave the beach house without so
much as lifting a finger.

“Yes,” he said. “I am that good at what I
do.”

“If you’re trying to make me uneasy, you
are doing a bang-up job of it,” she mumbled.

“Put your mind at ease, sweeting,” he said.
“You are as safe with me as you were in your mother’s womb.”

“You know nothing about my mother,” she
said.

“
Au contraire
, my love,” he said.
“There isn’t anything I don’t know about you. Test me and you’ll see.”

“And my life-mate?” she asked to knock him
off his game. “Do you know everything there is to know about him?”

“Better than anyone alive,” he said softly.

That frightened her more than she was
willing to admit. Taylor was in danger from this man. She could sense it.

“No harm will come to Taylor Reynaud,” he
said. He stopped, tugging on her hand to keep her beside him. His face was stern,
his eyes hard as emeralds. “He may not be happy about losing you as his
life-mate but, hey, shit happens to the best of men,” he stressed—each word
dropping like acid on her soul.

“You are not my life-mate,” she said,
horrified that that was what he was suggesting.

“Hassan took his hellion,” he said in a
low, hard voice. “That hellion is now inside
me
.
I
am your
life-mate, sweeting. Me. Not Reynaud.
Me
.”

She stared at him, horrified by what he’d
said. She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Taylor and I are bonded. We are
bonded!”

“A bond I will sever,” he said.

Slamming her hands to his chest, she tried
to push him away but he held tight. His clench was like iron around her and she
could feel his body against hers so intensely it brought on panic.

“Let go!” she said, shoving at him.

“Never.”

Though she struggled against him she could
not break his hold nor could she move as he lowered his head to claim her lips
in a kiss that sent waves of unadulterated lust racing through her treacherous
body.

“No…” she mumbled against his lips but she
could feel the fight draining out of her. He deepened the kiss, she experienced
something wild moving inside her and then she was clutching at his shoulders,
returning the kiss with desperation. As her mind began to fall under his spell
she heard his low chuckle of triumph.

Dixon put everything he had into the kiss.
Every ounce of power that was now housed within him came roaring to the surface
with one clear intent—to make the woman in his arms forget any other man existed
in her world.

“
Take her
,” the hellion whispered
slyly. “
She is yours
.”

He ended the kiss and looking deep into her
glazed eyes, he lifted his hand to her chin. “We’re going home how, sweeting,”
he told her.

“Yes,” she said, the word slightly slurred
as though she were intoxicated.

He brushed his lips across hers lightly
then released her, hooking an arm around her waist to pull her against his
side. With her firmly under his complete control, he escorted her to his hotel.

* * * * *

The Exchange

Taylor had never been so enraged in his
entire thirty-four years. His mind was seething with brutal, vicious things
he’d like to do to Cree and Sorn but the worst punishment he reserved for the
man he knew was the one responsible for his predicament.

“Fucking asshole,” he said through clenched
teeth.

He was locked inside a containment cell at
the Exchange. The titanium-steel bed upon which he lay was hard beneath his
back but he had ripped the mattress from it and the stuffing now lay scattered
over the titanium-steel floor. What remained of the food they had passed
through to him was splattered on the titanium walls dented with his repeated
punches.

“
Let me out of here
!” he shouted.

He knew someone was watching him. There was
a camera in the corner of the cell but he couldn’t get to it. He glared at it
then lifted his hand to salute the watcher in the time-honored greeting in
which men engaged.

Doubling his fists, he pressed them
savagely to his eyes and slammed his heels against the bed. To the watcher he
knew his actions were childish but the frustration he was feeling had to be
vented in some fashion else he’d go mad.

“Let your mind be at ease, Reaper.”

The soft voice that broke into his
self-pitying startled him and he sat up as though he were a marionette whose
strings had been jerked.

She was sitting suspended midway up the
wall with Her long legs crossed, slender white hands resting on Her knees. Her
long red hair flowed down to Her hips and the bodice of her pale-green gown
clung to Her bosoms like a second skin.

“
Mo Regina
!” he said, shooting to
his feet. He went to one knee before Her, his right fist doubled against his
heart, his head bowed.

“Get up, My Reaper,” She said.

He raised his head. She was so incredibly
beautiful with her piercing blue eyes and lush lips that he was suddenly as
hard as a rock. He didn’t dare get to his feet for She would see the evidence
of what She was doing to him.

“I have seen erections many times,” She
said with a lilting laugh. “I have enjoyed them more times than that.” She
lifted a hand and waved him to his feet.

Slowly he pushed up from the floor,
covering the painful bulge in his black cotton pants with his cupped hands.

“Sit,” She ordered.

“My apologies if I offend you,
Mo Regina
,”
he mumbled as he returned to the bunk.

“The day a Reaper’s stalwart erection
offends Me will never come, Taylor,” She told him.

It was painful to look at Her, and as long
as he did, the erection remained. It was only by lowering his eyes to the floor
that the hardness began to leave him.

“How may I serve you,
Mo Regina
?” he
asked.

Morrigunia—the Triune Goddess—sighed
deeply. “It is how I may serve you, sweet Taylor,” She replied.

“I have no right to ask Your help, Your
Grace,” he said. “I am not one of Yours.”

“No, but I am extending My protection and
help to you. You have every right to be angry that your life-mate has been
taken from you.”

He flinched. The agony of Her words was
like a burning brand thrust against his heart. “She is lost to me?” he
whispered.

“I will set it to rights.”

He looked up and instantly the erection
returned as strong as before but he ignored it. “You will give her back to me?”

“I did not take her from you in the first
place,” She stated. “That was—as Viraiden Cree surmised—the doing of the Storm
God Raphian. It was His plan to begin making Rogues for My enemies to use.” Her
smile was vindictive. “But His plan did not go as He wished for it to. There is
a problem with transferring Panthera hellions into human males.”

Taylor frowned. “I am not following, Your
Grace.”

“There is a reason female life-mates who
are given their mate’s fledgling have psi powers. It is imperative. The women
may not know they have the powers, the Reaper may not sense them—though that is
rare—but they are there nevertheless. Lupine and Hell-hound hellions are vastly
different from a Panthera’s. They can be transferred to a human male without
consequence. Not so the Panthera hellion. When a Panthera hellion is
transferred into a human male madness ensues. Unless there are psychic
abilities within the male the creature cannot communicate with the host. It
tries and it is in the trying that the human male loses his mind. The abilities
with which he was born kept that from happening to Coulter.”

“They hear a voice and can’t understand
where that voice is coming from,” he said.

“Precisely so. It drives them insane.”

“Hassan didn’t know that.”

“Nor did Raphian. Unfortunately He does
now,” She said. “The next time He will direct his minions to look for males
with psi powers. When that happens, the new Alpha Reaper at the Exchange will
be there to put a cog in Raphian’s wheel.”

“Coulter will be the new Alpha?” he asked.

“He will and you will work closely with him
to see the job done.” She held up Her hand when he started to protest. “The
hellion inside you will be transferred to him and you will get your own back. I
intend to see that happen. Regrettably, it won’t be for a while yet.”

“He has my woman now!” he protested.

“He does but he will not be allowed to keep
her. Until the fledgling inside you comes to maturity, the Transference cannot
take place. You must wait—”

“He has my woman!” he repeated.

“And she will be returned to you. I will
erase all memory of him from her mind when the time comes. Have no fear of
that.”

“But he’s with her now,” he said.

“Do not belabor the point, Reaper,” She
chastised him. “When the time comes, I will take your life-mate from him. The
Gravelord will do as I bid. Have no fear of that. Let him have his moment of
freedom before I rein him in.”

When he would have argued again about his
life-mate, the goddess shot out Her hand to silence him. His eyes rolled back
in his head and he slumped on the bed in deep slumber.

“Your woman will be safe with the
Gravelord. I will see to it, Reaper,” She said softly as She floated down to
the floor and walked over to look down at him.

Among all the Reapers Taylor was perhaps
the most handsome in Her eyes. Not the sexiest—that designation lay with a man
as yet to be brought to Terra—but the sleeping Reaper ran a close second to
Owen Tohre.

She reached down to smooth a lock of hair
from his forehead. “I will take care of you, sweet Taylor. Sleep easy and
deep.”

She took one last look at Taylor Reynaud
and slowly faded away.

* * * * *

“He was talking to someone,” the guard
reported to the Supervisor. “I couldn’t see who but at one point, he got off
the bunk and knelt with his fist to his heart.”

The Supervisor nodded. “So he had company.
That is not surprising. Thank you, Carlson. You may go.”

When the guard left, the Supervisor got up
from his desk and turned to the windows. He liked looking out over the grounds
of the Exchange. It calmed him, reinforced the position he held there for he
viewed what he surveyed as his realm. It had been entrusted into his care and
he had dedicated his life to it. It was the wife and child—the family—he had
never had nor would have. It was everything to him and he watched over it as a
father.

“You were here,
Mo Regina
,” he said.
“I did not sense You but You were here. Did You get what You came for from our
young Reaper?”

He wasn’t surprised when the goddess did
not reply. She rarely did. Her words were generally reserved for Her beloved
Reapers. She merely tolerated Her Shadowlords. When She interacted with them,
it was generally to cast a punishment of some kind upon them.

“So are You sending me a new Alpha? Perhaps
one with strings attached? One with powers to rival my own?”

That thought did not sit well with him. He
had enough trouble trying to keep Misha Fallon in line.

The phone rang and he turned. He knew it
was his brother at Tearmann. He’d been expecting the call and dreaded having to
answer. He picked it up and put it to his ear as though it were a rattlesnake.
“Aye?” he said.

“Neal is here with me,” his eldest brother
said without preamble. “Get your ass over here. Now!”

The phone went dead with a loud click.

He had always been afraid of his older
brother. That brother was a Ridge Lord—had to be in order to be in charge of
Tearmann—and though he could be a charming, funny man, he was also a lethal
weapon in his own right. He had terrorized the childhoods of his younger
siblings although Neal got less of the punishment since he did not have the psi
powers of his older brothers.

“Neal is entirely human,” the elder had
once said. “We must be careful not to damage him too greatly.”

But that compassion did not extend to the
middle child. He might be the Supervisor of the Exchange and wield tremendous
authority in his own right but his eldest brother considered him gum stuck to
the bottom of his shoe at times and treated him with almost the same regard.

The Supervisor informed Cobb he would be
out of the office for a while then willed himself to the facility at Tearmann.

The Supervisor of Tearmann snarled as his
brother appeared at the end of the room. There had never been any love to be
lost between the two and the elder had little patience with a man he considered
one step above a bully.

“Sit down, Constantine,” he commanded.

Pursing his lips tightly together to keep
from saying something he knew he’d regret, the man most people knew as John Doe
took a seat beside his youngest brother—giving Neal Hesar a faint smile.

“He’s in a very bad mood. Tread carefully,
Costin,” he said, using his brother’s Romanian nickname as had the Rogue.

“You have a problem,” Alexandru Hesar told
his middle brother. “What do you intend to do about it?”