sister was lying on the floor, her body bruised, her head twisted at a strange angle.”
Another tear fell. “He was sprawled on the bed—drunk as a jester.” She tugged at the
twisted garment in her hand. “I went into the kitchen, got a knife and then I stabbed
him.” She took a hitching breath. “Then I stabbed him again and again and again until
he stopped breathing.”
Phelan went to her, hunkered down in front of her, drawing her surprised attention
back to him. For just a flicker of a moment she looked as though she didn’t recognize
him then she tried to smile.
“I killed a man, Phelan,” she said. “I killed him and I knew the law would be after
me. I knew if they caught me I’d hang so I ran. I took every bit of money I could find in
his pockets and I ran. I kept running. When I ran out of money, I whored for it, I stole, I
cheated, I did whatever it took to get me to the Exasla Territory. I changed my name so
no one would know who I was. I worked the seediest brothels between here and
Calizonia until I had enough money to hire my own stable of girls.”
“You did what you had to,” he said, placing his hands over hers to still their
agitated twisting.
“The law is after me, Phelan. The law will always be after me,” she said.
He caressed her hands with one of his and reached up to push a stray wisp of hair
from her face with the other. “Lucy, I
am
the law,” he said.
“I killed a man,” she protested.
“Where did this happen?” he asked. “In what territory?”
“Wismin.”
“That’s Owen Tohre’s jurisdiction. As I see it, you carried out a sentence he would
have had he known what Barker had done. I’ll talk to him. We’ll see you’re cleared of
any murder charges.”
Hope entered her eyes. “You can do that?” she asked.
“I can and I will,” he said. “Barker didn’t deserve to live. I want you to give me the
name of that brothel, and if it’s still being run, if they are still selling little girls to
pedophiles, Owen will shut them down and bring the owners and johns to justice.” He
reached up to cup her chin. “I’ll make it right for you, dearling.”
Lucy slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his shoulder. She
was trembling with the emotions rippling through her.
“Are you ready to go back to the room?” he asked, knowing she needed to be
around other people to get her mind from the past.
She hiccupped. “I haven’t peed yet,” she admitted.
He laughed, getting to his feet, her arms slipping from his body. “Then hop to,
wench.”
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BlackMoon Reaper
Lucy was sniffling as he walked to the door and opened it. “You’ll be right
outside?” she asked, wrestling with her gown.
“Aye,” he said, closing the door behind him. He stood outside in the corridor,
wishing he could resurrect Silus Barker and tear the guts out of the bastard. When the
door opened a crack, he glanced around.
“Phelan?” she whispered.
“Aye?”
He could smell her heady arousal and the only thought that went through his mind
at that moment was she was picking a piss-poor time to want to get amorous.
The door opened fully and he saw her standing there—as naked as the day she’d
been born.
“I’ve got a problem,” she said, running her tongue over her lips.
“And what’s that, milady?” he asked.
She opened the door a bit wider, her slender hand caressing its edge. One bare
thigh crooked between the jamb and the portal.
“I think you know, Reaper.”
He pushed away from the wall and turned to face her. “Don’t you think this is a
bad time to be—”
Her hand shot to his shirt and her fingers—stronger than he could have imagined—
gripped his arm. She flung the door open, pulling him into the room with her before
releasing him, slamming the door shut and putting her back to it with her hands behind
her.
“Humor me,” she said, arching her back so her lush breasts rose in invitation.
“Lucy…” he drawled, her name a warning.
“Phelan,” she replied with a twist of sultry lips.
He heard the snick of the lock as she sealed them in the room.
“I want you,” she said then shook her head. “No, I need you.”
“Now?” he questioned, although his cock was throbbing so hard it was out-
pounding his headache.
“I need you,” she repeated, and he could see the desire in her eyes mixing with
something that—should he deny it—might crush her gentle spirit.
He had allowed the magistrate’s son and daughter to lead him into experimenting
with sex and to set the tone for what would come. Truian would not allow him to take
her as a lad takes his lady for she dared not lose her virginity before Joining with
whatever suitable male her parents chose for her. Oral sex to her was something she
delighted in receiving and giving so their lovemaking pleasured them both. Her brother
Tylan, on the other hand, had preferred the giving rather than the receiving, wanting
only Phelan’s hands on his shaft but never the younger man’s mouth—engaging in
some kind of morbid fear that his cock would be bitten off during the act or some such
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
rubbish. Nor would Tylan allow Phelan to thrust inside him because Ty had felt it
wasn’t sanitary.
So it was that over the years, Phelan tended to continue being rather passive with
his sexual encounters. He could take or leave them, though joking about such things
gave him a great deal of pleasure. He very rarely initiated the act and though he never
left a partner frustrated or wanting, the only oral sex he’d given had been to the women
whose mouths returned the favor. The men with whom he’d spent passionate times had
used their mouths and hands on him, but he had not returned the favor.
“Don’t you want me?” she asked, hurt entering her gaze.
“Aye, wench, I do.”
She lowered one hand to rub at the rise her nearness was eliciting. She arched a
brow. “What do we have here, Reaper?”
At that moment, something wild shot through the Reaper. He wanted her—no—he
needed
her too. He grabbed Lucy, molding his palm to her firm, plump breast. He was
frantic to have her, to be inside her. Something strange was happening to him,
overwhelming him, taking complete charge of him. But it felt right. It
was
right! he
thought.
“Lucy-Lou, I need you,”
he heard the goddess whisper in his ear.
“I need you!” he hissed. “Merciful Alel, I need you, Lucy!”
“Aye,” Lucy breathed. He was fumbling with the buttons of his pants, huffing in
frustration, but then he cursed and flung out his hand to render himself naked.
“That is such a useful talent!” she said with a giggle.
Jamming his hands under her luscious rump, he lifted her higher against the door
and she wrapped her legs around his as though she were a vine. She wriggled against
his jutting cock, jockeying for a better position from which to impale her moist sheath
on his shaft.
His fingers digging into her buttocks, he shifted her a bit higher then rammed her
down on his erection, going into her heated channel as deep as his shaft would reach.
He heard her grunt from the pleasure-pain of his penetration. He dipped his head and
his lips circled her nipple to draw hard upon it.
Her hands were buried in his thick hair. His hips were rhythmically rocking
forward and back against her—not hurriedly but with firm determination. He was
thrusting into her slick tunnel, forcing her up the door with each firm stroke.
“Aye, my Reaper,” she whispered, squeezing the muscles of her cunt around his
shaft. “Harder. Do it harder!”
He arched his back and drove into her with all his strength. The feel of her hot, wet
cunt around him was making his head spin. He’d never known such wondrous delight
from the mouths of the whores and men who had serviced him over the years. Plunging
into her slick, heated channel, having her tightening her cunt around his hard shaft,
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BlackMoon Reaper
inhaling the combined scent of his pre-cum and her vaginal juices were all combined to
do things to him he had never dreamed of feeling.
“Lucy,” he growled, his lips against her soft breast. “I love this.” He looked up at
her, shocked by the realization that had seized him. “By the gods, I love it!”
Lucy smiled. “Then come for me, stud,” she said. “Come hard and long for your
woman!”
Her words were like a prod goading him on and he increased the speed of his
thrusts, grunting with each forward movement of his hips. He adjusted his stance and
the muscles of his taut ass tightened as he slammed into her. The sound of their flesh
meeting made him growl again.
“Come for me,” she said again as her own need soared higher and higher.
He could feel the release building in his loins. It was a burning, itching, frenzied
pain he knew would become an overwhelming pleasure the moment it came to fruition.
He was pounding against her. Her grip on his hair was almost painful as she held onto
him. He widened his stance once more then the climax came—powerful and strong—so
potent he saw black stars skittering across his vision. The ejaculation was thick and full,
and when it shot out of him, he thought he’d pass out. The sound that came from the
very core of him was filled with acute, intense pleasure and he continued to thrust into
her until the very last drop of semen oozed from his cock.
At some point he had felt her own climax gripping him—pulsing, rippling,
undulating over his flesh—so he knew he had pleasured her, but it was his own
immense satisfaction that made his knees weak. He gripped her ass tight and turned,
going over to the edge of the claw foot tub to sit down on the rim with her cunt still
clinging to his withering cock. He sat, dropped his head to her shoulder—breathing
hard, heart pumping, sweat glistening on his chest and upper arms.
“I’d say you enjoyed that,” Lucy said, stroking his hair.
“You gods-be-damned near killed me, wench,” he panted.
“Aye, but you claimed me, Reaper. I am your mate now and we will never be apart,
one from the other.”
He lifted his head and looked into her smiling eyes. There was enormous
satisfaction glittering there and he wasn’t altogether sure she hadn’t laid a silken trap
for him, but there was something else he was stunned to recognize. She was gazing
back at him with affection.
“You’re my mate,” he whispered, awe rife in his husky voice.
“That I am.” She toyed with a curl of his chest hair. “I will make you a loyal, loving
mate. I swear it, Phelan.”
“I have a house in Vircars,” he said, and winced at how stupid that sounded.
“Where you are, I will be,” she said.
“You won’t mind leaving the life you’ve been living?” he asked.
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
She pivoted her head so she could gaze up at him through her lashes. “Will you
miss the occasional bawd and lusty male?”
He shook his head. “No, I will not.”
“Then you have your answer,” she said with a sigh.
He held her for another moment or two then rose to his feet, letting her slide down
his body. He waved his hand and they were dressed again—this time he had adorned
himself in the black clothing of his station. She was clothed in a somewhat more demure
count that covered much of her spectacular bosom.
“We’d best get down to the kitchen,” he said, going to the door and undoing the
lock. “They’re going to wonder what’s keeping us.”
“They’ll know,” she said with a wink.
Phelan felt a faint tinge of heat creep onto his cheeks. He poked his head out the
door just to be on the safe side, saw no trouble lurking, and reached back to take her
hand. Together they went downstairs, their fingers locked.
Aye, he thought, they would know for he felt himself walking as though he were
ten feet tall.
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BlackMoon Reaper
The sleeping arrangements had proven very satisfactory. Deal had kept one of the
mattresses for himself since no one was inclined to share the stench that rolled off the
old man in waves. Although Lucy would have preferred to sleep beside Phelan, she had
shared a mattress with Nellie. Phelan and Fontabeau had taken turns keeping watch,
catching a few winks on the mattress occupied by Brell when they could.
It rained all night long and the air turned frigid. When the first rosy fingers of dawn
scratched at the windows, there was a decided nip in the air and frost rimming the
rooftops.
“Hopefully Deputy Redfield will be along shortly,” Phelan told Fontabeau. They
had gone downstairs to light the stove and make a pot of coffee. He shoved a cord of
wood into the potbellied stove.
“I’ve been pondering the question of what the hell the turned townspeople are
doing up at the mine,” Fontabeau said. “It makes no sense. Why not either leave them
here or send them out to other towns?”
“Something is going on up there,” Phelan said. “Maybe the Ceannus are further
enhancing them in some way.”
“By the goddess, that’s a frightening thought,” Fontabeau allowed.
“What is?”
Both men turned to see Lucy standing in the door.
“Wench, why aren’t you upstairs where we left you?” Phelan snapped. He strode