whore. In retaliation, Spiosyn swore vengeance on his friend, summoned
Yn Drogh
Spyrryd
and sold his soul to him in exchange for settling the score on the man who had
cuckolded him.”
“That’s what destroyed Rysalia Prime?” Phelan asked. “A woman two men
wanted? If the other warrior needed to stray, why couldn’t he have picked some other
man’s wife and not his best friend’s?”
“And that was back when Rysalia Prime had more women than men, long before
their scientists accidentally murdered every female on the planet so he would have had
his pick of the litter,” Cynyr said.
“Precisely,” Phelan said. He deliberated over what Cree had said then thought he
understood the reason his friend had brought it up. “Cyn, if you’re worried about
Aingeal falling under the High Lord’s spell…”
“The other man?” Cynyr interrupted him. “That other warrior whose name escaped
us?”
“Aye?” Phelan said, drawing out the word.
“Was Kheelan Ben-Alkazar.”
It took a moment for that news to settle in and when it did, Phelan’s eyebrows shot
up and his lips parted.
“Aye, that Kheelan Ben-Alkazar,” Cynyr said, a muscle bunching in his cheek.
“You don’t think he would…”
“I know the son of a bitch better not,” Cynyr snapped. “By the gods I’d do my
gods-be-damned best to tear him apart piece by piece if he so much as laid a finger to
my woman!”
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“Cynyr, think about it,” Phelan said, pushing up in the bed. “Lord Kheelan is our
lawmaker, the man who wields those laws. He’s such a stickler for making us toe the
line and observe the laws he wouldn’t dare break them himself.”
“
Mo Regina
stood before us all a few days ago and told everyone in the room what
that bastard had done on Rysalia Prime, what a prick he’d been. She made it clear She
wouldn’t allow him to step over the line, but if he did it once he could do it again,
goddess be damned!”
“No, I don’t think so. If he had been going to seduce Aingeal, he’d have tried it
before now and she would have told you.”
“He’s a fucking Shadowlord, Kiel!” Cynyr yelled. He lowered his hands, doubled
them into fists. “Who would know what he did? Who could stop him? Would she even
be aware he was using her?”
Two healers came running at the loud words but neither came any closer when
Cynyr whipped around to shoot a heated glare their way. They backed away but
remained nearby.
“Calm down, my friend,” Phelan said. “Let’s talk about this. We…”
“I’m telling you right now, Kiel,” Cynyr said. “If he goes after my woman, I’ll bring
the fucking Citadel down around his gods-be-damned ears!”
“Don’t you trust Aingeal?” Phelan asked.
“Aye, I trust her. It’s him I don’t trust!”
Phelan opened his mouth to say something else but Cree spun around to storm off,
shoving the healers aside as he made his way for the vestibule door.
“Is everything all right, Lord Phelan?” one of the healers asked.
“Aye,” Phelan said. “I hope so.” He closed his eyes. “I pray so.”
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No one had seen the High Lord for several days. Lord Kheelan was keeping to his
quarters, leaving instructions he was not to be bothered unless it was a dire emergency.
There were two other Shadowlords who could handle things in his absence.
Cynyr and Aingeal likewise had made themselves scarce. No one dared speculate
why.
On the day Phelan was released from quarantine—twenty pounds lighter—
Fontabeau showed up to fetch him. Lucy was a bit under the weather, had stayed in
Phelan’s quarters.
“She’s pregnant,” the gunman said as they took the stairs to the Reapers’ floor. “I
know gods-be-damned well she’s pregnant. She puked.”
“She couldn’t be. Not this soon,” Phelan said, stunned by the suggestion. “Must
have been something she ate.”
“It only takes one load of shot to hit the target, Kiel,” Fontabeau said.
“It could be yours,” Phelan said, and the thought made his heart ache.
“I can’t father children, son,” the gunman told him. “They saw to that long ago
when I was working on the pleasure planet. They snipped me.”
Raking an unsteady hand through his thick hair, Phelan tugged at the tousled
strands. “I’m not ready for this,” he said.
“What man ever is?” Fontabeau asked. “I was talking to Eanan Tohre. Now that
man is in deep shit. He’s got three women and all three are pregnant with twins!”
“Poor bastard,” Phelan agreed.
“Poor bastard, nothing,” Fontabeau scoffed. “He’s having the time of his life
screwing those three little beauties, and they can’t keep their hands off him. By the time
this lockdown is over, they’ll have worn his pecker to a nubbin!”
“What a way to go though, eh?” Phelan laughed.
“Aye, well, he’s starting to walk funny, but that’s to be expected I guess,”
Fontabeau observed.
“I suppose,” his mate agreed.
Lucy was feeling better when the two Reapers entered Phelan’s room. She’d
brushed her teeth and hair, dressed demurely and was seated on the loveseat with a
book of poetry in her lap.
“My handsome man,” she said. She laid the book aside, rushing to Phelan to throw
her arms around him. “I missed you!”
“I missed you too, sweeting,” he said, squeezing her. He kissed her.
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“Lady Aingeal and Lady Danielle are planning the Joining for us. It will be at the
end of the week,” Lucy said, her eyes bright. “We’re becoming good friends and Lea is
a real sweetheart!”
Phelan looked to Fontabeau. “Did you get permission for the Joining as I asked
you?” he asked.
“Aye, I did,” Fontabeau said. “From Lord Dunham since the High Lord seems to be
incommunicado at the moment.”
“Hiding is more like it,” Lucy said then when her lover shushed her, she turned to
him. “Everyone is talking about it, warrior. They all know how he feels about Lord
Cynyr’s lady, but everyone is also in accord that he’d never do anything about it. Not
just because Lord Cynyr would retaliate, but because the High Lord has suffered a long
time for the mistake he made. He’ll not make that same mistake again.”
“Even if he thought he could get away with it?” Phelan inquired.
“The people of the Citadel feel pity for him,” Lucy spoke up.
“That’s the last gods-be-damned thing he wants,” Phelan said. “A proud man like
him?”
“The women feel sorry for him. I’ll wager there are more than a few who’ll be after
him now. Tortured hero stuff,” Lucy stated with a nod. “Gets women every time.”
“So the people aren’t blaming him as the goddess no doubt intended?” Phelan
asked.
“I saw it as Her way of warning him to leave you-know-who alone,” Fontabeau
said, “and I didn’t even know the lady in question at the time.”
“You may be right,” Phelan said. He looked down at Lucy. “There’s something we
need to discuss, sweeting.”
Lucy curled her arm around him. “I’m all ears.”
“That’s my cue to depart,” Fontabeau said. He winked at Lucy before strolling
away.
“Well?” she prompted.
He swallowed hard then asked if she had anything she needed to tell him.
“Like what?” she countered, her eyes sparkling.
Phelan ran a finger under his collar, which felt much too tight for his neck. “You
know,” he said.
“I’m not a mind reader, Phe,” she said with exasperation. “Spit it out.”
“Are you pregnant?” he asked in a rush of breath.
“Aye.”
Phelan Kiel paled, staggered from the answer. All he could say was, “Oh.”
“And if you’re worried who the father is, I can tell you for a fact that it is you
because like I told you, I only slept with one man in the last three months and that was
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Beau. I imagine he told you he’s sterile,” she said, and at his nod started forward,
leading him toward the bed. “Now no more talking.”
He balked, digging in his heels. “Won’t that hurt the baby?” he asked.
“No, silly.” She tugged him forward, put her hands in the center of his chest and
pushed him to the bed.
She was over him before he could protest anything else and when she rolled with
him, bringing him atop her, he stared down at her with wonder.
“I dreamed of you every night I was in quarantine,” he said. His gaze wandered
over her face. “In my dreams there wasn’t a part of me you didn’t touch. Now I want to
return the favor.”
He lifted her hand to his mouth, turned her wrist so he could place a soft kiss on the
underside, his eyes never leaving hers, and lowered his head. His lips pressed against
her flesh, his tongue darted out to sweep fleetingly along the vein pulsing in her wrist,
and then he raised his head.
“I want you with every breath I take, every beat of my heart. All I think of is you.
My entire being ached to be with you when we were apart.”
“Do you know why?” she asked softly.
“Aye, wench. Your man has fallen so hard in love with you he is completely lost.”
His words made her groan, brought tears to her eyes. She reached up to return his
lips to hers. Her breasts were pushing against his chest as she clung to him. His kiss
deepened and he slid one hand to her rump to mold her tight to him, grinding his
swollen cock against her belly.
He shifted down her so he could clasp her breast through the bodice of her gown.
The fullness of it in the palm of his hand made his head swim. He pulled back and
lowered his head, arched his body almost painfully so he could plant hot, fevered kisses
down her neck and onto the plain of her chest, tugging the bodice down as he went. He
strained to get his mouth on her nipple, but he couldn’t jackknife his body that sharply.
Frustrated, he pushed himself up, grabbed the bodice with both hands and ripped it
open to reveal her lush breasts.
Lucy writhed beneath him, the wiggling doing spectacular things to the bold
erection that was straining so desperately between his legs.
“Bad Reaper!” she accused, and shoved him off her, straddling him before he could
stop her. “Gowns don’t grow on trees, Phelan Kiel!”
“I’ll buy you a thousand gowns, wench!” he countered with a growl, and reached
for her but she batted his hands away.
“Behave!” she warned, the cleft of her ass directly over his shaft. She jerked the
ruined gown over her head and tossed it aside.
Full with dark areolas and taut nipples he longed to suckle, her breasts were made
for a man’s hands. He covered them gently—feeling the hard little nubs pressing into
his palms—and massaged them. Her head fell back and her chest pushed toward him
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as she offered herself to him like a virgin sacrifice. He wanted the taste of her in his
mouth.
Lucy squealed as he reared up and flipped them over, sprawling beneath him as he
poised over her, his hands still upon her breasts as he switched positions with her. But
instead of sitting astride her as she had him, he slid his long legs down hers until he
was reclining atop her, his head at her chest. When his lips closed around one aching
nipple, she writhed beneath him and he moved a leg to wedge it between hers and push
her thighs apart.
“Phelan,” she sighed, and threaded her fingers through his thick brown hair.
For the longest time he worshipped at the altar of her breasts—moving from one
nipple to the other. He laved those dusky tips, plucked at them with his teeth, licked
them, and suckled hard then gently then hard again as he molded her breast in his
hand. All the while he kept his heaviness from completely crushing her, putting most of
his weight on his left hip. His knee had crept up to press firmly between her legs and
she was unconsciously rubbing herself against him even as her hands tugged at his
brown locks.
He knew it was time to move on.
His hand inched lower until the tips of his fingers touched the springy curls at the
juncture of her thighs. Her loud groan sent chills down his spine and he had to force
himself not to thrust into her. He moved his hand onto her belly. He was aching, his
cock a burning brand in his pants as it pressed against her but he took his time, rubbing
her abdomen, fanning his fingertips over the top of the wiry thatch. With each lift of her
hips he moved a tad lower until he was almost to the area between her legs he knew
touching would drive her wild.
He took possession of her mouth again to distract her, thrusting his tongue deep,
allowing the weight of his chest to press her down. He dueled with her tongue—
breaching her defenses on two levels at once, not giving her a chance to enjoy one
before he alternated to the other.
He moved lower still until the very tip of his middle finger touched that tight little
bud.
Lucy gasped and groaned and her hips shot up as he touched her. She clawed at his
shoulders in an attempt to drag him over him. He took that moment to slide one finger
down the soft crease of her folds and into her hot, wet heat. He flinched for her
fingernails raked down his arms but he moved his finger inside her, going as deep as he
could.
She pulled her mouth from his and stared up at him with eyes wide as saucers.