Authors: Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“Is there anything you wish Cynyr to tell your husband?” he asked as he reached the door.
“Tell him to let Ari know I think you’re a bastard,” she replied, and swiveled her head around to pierce him with a steely glower. “Are you man enough to do that, BenAlkazar?”
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The High Lord raised his chin. “If that is your message, I will convey it.”
“It is,” she said, and dismissed him by turning back to face the wall.
* * * * *
Lewisville was a bustling rail town with several trains sidetracked as they were loaded with goods from the Exasla Territory. The noise was earsplitting as jingling horse trappings, thumping wagon wheels, hawking vendors, lowing cattle, whinnying horses and squealing pigs lent their sounds to the fray. The streets were wide, unpaved and dusty since rain hadn’t fallen on that area of the country for several months. Just walking from the train car to the hotel for a meal not eaten to the accompaniment of singing rails, the Reapers’ black uniforms were coated with a thin powder of red dust.
“Don’t you just love being stared at?” Iden asked Phelan as they followed their fellow Reapers to the Hotel Atkinson.
Phelan glanced around them. People gawked until caught then lowered their heads and hurried off. “It isn’t every day seven Reapers get off the train in your town,” he said.
“And don’t go by how the folks of Haines City treated us,” Cynyr said, turning to look back at Iden. “These people think we’re demons.”
“That means you mind your manners while you’re here, Glyn,” Arawn said. “Keep a low profile.”
“Me?” Glyn asked. “Why single me out?”
“I heard how you and Owen expected the folks of Haines City to wait on you hand and foot,” the Prime Reaper replied. “I don’t want to have anyone tell me that again. You are there to protect and to serve, not be catered to.”
Owen and Glyn looked at one another. “When did we do that?” Owen asked.
“The first time you two went sauntering through Haines City,” Cynyr said.
“Before the seven of us were there together as a team,” Arawn clarified. “My fatherin-law told me how you two acted up.”
“I heard all about it from my lady who heard about it from Moira,” Cynyr added.
“
An áit a mbíonn mná bíonn caint agus an áit a mbíonn géanna bíonn callán
,” Glyn stated.
Phelan turned to Jaborn. “Glyn said where there are women, there is talk and where there are geese, there is cackling.”
“Damned interfering old biddy,” Owen muttered of Moira.
“But she bakes a mean blueberry pie,” Iden said wistfully.
“Aye, as long as your back holds out chopping wood for that gods-be-damned pie,”
Arawn growled.
The Hotel Atkinson was serving lunch when the Reapers strolled in, taking off their hats politely to the three women who were leaving the establishment, their faces pale as 69
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they recognized the warriors for what they were. Owen held the door open for them and they were quick to draw their skirts aside lest the material come into contact with his leg.
“I don’t bite, you know,” he called after them. “Unless you want me to.”
“Tohre, what did I tell you?” Arawn snapped, his eyes blazing with anger. Owen snapped his hat against his leg. “They acted like I had cooties or something,”
he complained.
“And you wonder why I don’t want a woman?” Phelan asked.
The proprietor of the hotel came bustling toward them, bowing as though they were royalty. “A table for seven, milords?” he asked.
“Nine,” Arawn corrected. “We have a healer and our steward with us.”
If the hotelman was surprised the Reapers would condescend to eat with anyone other than their own kind, he hid it well. He took their order for coffee and iced water and left them with menus.
“It’s going to be a hot trip down to the border,” Cynyr observed. “I’ll bet its ninetyfive degrees out there already.”
“Are you planning on us staying here today or riding out as soon as the horses are offloaded?” Phelan asked.
“We’ll ride out and camp down near the border tonight,” Arawn informed them.
“I’ve had enough confinement for a while.”
The other Reapers nodded. None of them liked to be inside buildings at too long a stretch and being on the train had been just as confining as any building.
“What looks good to you men?” Owen asked.
“Everything on here,” Iden replied. “Ah! Blueberry pie!”
When the healer and Ash joined them, the men ordered a large breakfast and delved right into it the moment it arrived. No one spoke as they ate and the other patrons were equally as silent out of fear and respect for the warriors. By the time the Reapers had finished eating, the room was bare of diners.
“There’s going to be a whole lot of indigestion in Lewisville this afternoon,” Glyn remarked with a snide grin.
“I’ve never seen people shoving food into their mouths so fast,” Phelan commented. He looked at Owen. “Thanks to you and your cooties.”
Owen shot him an irritated look. “
Póg ma thoin
,” he purred. Phelan grinned. “Bend over and I’ll fuck it, but I won’t kiss it, Tohre.”
Arawn gave them a warning growl that wiped the humor off the men’s faces. After paying for their meal, the Reapers, their healer and Ash set off to the stables where the warriors’ mounts had been taken.
“I’ll need a pack mule for our supplies,” Ash told them, and one was purchased. 70
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Picking two sturdy, calm-looking horses for the healer and Ash from the stableman, the men mounted up and headed out of town.
“You can almost hear the collective sigh of relief that we aren’t staying,” Glyn complained.
“They don’t want cooties,” Cynyr said sweetly. “They’re hard to get rid of.”
“Actually cooties—or rather body lice—are easily cured,” Healer Sorrel piped up.
“First you shave the infected area and then slather—”
“We don’t want to know,” Owen cut in. “I don’t have cooties.”
By the time the sun set, the men had crossed the Big River and were trailing along the border between Serenia and Diabolusia. The desert had been stifling hot all day and waterholes few and far between. Sweaty and tired, the Reapers had ceased speaking to one another and simply concentrated on making the best time they could. The healer and Ash—unaccustomed to riding—were sore and sunburned, wincing with every jolting step of their mounts.
Iden had ridden ahead looking for a good place to camp and was cantering back toward them.
Arawn held up his hand and the others stopped behind him. He took off his hat and armed the sweat from the side of his face.
“There’s a good spot about a mile ahead,” Iden told them. “There’s a river and it was calling my name.”
“Fresh, cool water,” Owen said. “What are we waiting for?”
The spot to which Iden led them was more than adequate. Shaded by tall, twisted cottonwood trees, a tributary of the Big River meandered by their campsite. The ground was soft enough around the stand of trees to cushion their bedrolls. Since supper was going to consist of jerky, biscuits and beans washed down with trail coffee, the men set up camp slowly and as Ash started the coffee to brewing, the men wandered over to the stream. Owen, Glyn and Phelan were already stripping out of their uniforms as quickly as they could. Iden was already in the water, his bare ass gleaming in the light from the setting sun.
“My hellion is tearing into my kidney,” Cynyr said. “Are you sure we can do this?”
He and Arawn were standing at the river’s edge, the water barely lapping at their boots.
“Mine is bunching up under my skin, that’s for sure,” Arawn replied. He was watching Owen, Glyn and Phelan running out in the river and diving into the very heart of it.
“I too feel my hellion punishing me,” Jaborn said.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out if we’re going to be able to swim from that boat to the seawall of the Ceannus camp,” Arawn said, and put his hands to the buttons of his shirt.
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Cynyr sighed deeply and began to undress as well. “Don’t know that I care to be bare-assed in that water with Phelan Keil,” he said.
Jaborn cast Cree a puzzled look. “Is he of that bent?” he inquired. Arawn frowned. “We don’t know because we’ve never asked and besides, that’s Phelan’s business, now isn’t it?”
“Get hopping, Jaborn,” Cynyr said. “You ain’t going in that water with your uniform on.”
Reluctantly Jaborn did as ordered though he continually winced as his hellion buckled and prodded at him, once nearly taking him to his knees.
“You coming in or you just enjoying watching our danglies flopping in the water?”
Owen called out.
“My hellion is chewing its way through my kidney,” Arawn complained as he reluctantly unbuttoned his shirt.
Iden came out of the water, totally unconcerned with his nudity and came up to the Prime Reaper. “Here, feel.”
Arawn jumped back as though he’d been scalded. “Get that thing the hell away from me!” he snapped.
Iden rolled his eyes. “My hellion, Ari. I want you to feel my hellion. It’s purring,”
he said, turning his back to his leader. “Put your hand on my side and you can feel it.”
“Get…the…hell…away…from…me,” Arawn stressed, each word coming through his clenched teeth. He shrugged out of his shirt and threw it to the ground. Jaborn went over and laid his hand on Iden’s back even though the youngest Reaper appeared to not be happy about him doing so.
“I can feel it,” Jaborn said. “It is like touching a contented cat.”
“Touching pussy I can handle,” Cynyr said, and stepped up to Iden and placed his hand where Jaborn’s darker one had been. “Aye. I can feel it. It is purring.”
“Well, if the two of you are finished
feeling
it, get the hell in the water and swim over to the other side,” Arawn snapped.
Finishing undressing, Cynyr and Jaborn followed Iden to the water. Both men were shivering and Arawn could see their hellions bunching up under the flesh of their backs and knew it had to be excruciating. When Iden dove into the water, Cynyr followed with Jaborn only a heartbeat behind him.
Arawn breathed a long sigh of relief when he saw the two men surface in the middle of the river and race one another across. Although he was in agony, he kicked off his boots, stepped out of his pants, took off his socks and with his jaw clamped tight ran to the bank and dove in.
Almost as soon as his body hit the water and went under, the godawful pain in his back ceased and he could feel the creature within him uncoiling, relaxing. He could even hear it purring in his mind. Stroking his way under the water for as long as he could hold his breath, he knew a peacefulness he hadn’t felt in centuries. He shot to the 72
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surface and with strong strokes reached the other side of the river then jackknifed in the water and started back, swimming as fast as he could under the surface, enjoying the freedom and the delicious feel of the waves rolling over him.
“He’s like a dolphin,” Ash said. “I’ve never seen such a strong swimmer.”
“Arawn is good at everything he does,” Owen said as he came out of the water and took the towel the steward had waiting for each of them. “That’s why he’s the Prime.”
Long after the coffee had brewed, the beans heated and biscuits baked, all the Reapers save Owen continued to frolic in the water until they wore themselves out. By the time they stumbled onto shore and wrapped themselves in the towels, the desert air was chill and they were trembling, fumbling with their clothing to get warm.
“I had forgotten how wonderful that was,” Cynyr said, hurrying on with his clothes. He took a tin cup of coffee from Ash and wrapped his cold hands around it. His dark hair was dripping water down his face and he flung his head to get the tendrils out of his eyes, spraying water over Owen in the process.
“Watch it, Cree,” Owen grumbled.
“I don’t think any of us will have any trouble swimming from the boat,” Arawn said. He was putting his uniform back on, lips quivering from the cool night air.
“
Lord Cynyr, walk away from the camp.
”
Cynyr recognized the voice speaking to him and frowned. Apparently no one else had heard the High Lord and that concerned the Reaper.
“
Do as I say and do it now
,” Lord Kheelan ordered.
“I gotta piss,” Cynyr said, getting up.
“Like anyone cares,” Owen snorted.
“Maybe he needs someone to hold it for him,” Phelan joked. Cynyr slapped Phelan on the back of his head as he passed the younger Reaper and walked out into the darker shadows beyond the campfire. When he came back, he was paler than anyone had ever seen him—even when he’d almost succumbed to multiple ghoret bites—and his eyes were bleak as he met Arawn’s gaze.
“What’s wrong?” Arawn asked, his hellion writhing beneath his skin.
“I need to talk to you,” Cynyr said. “Alone.”
Arawn felt keenly the Rift in the Veil and slowly got to his feet. “Anything you have to say you can say in front of my men,” he said. His heart was trip-hammering in his chest.
Cynyr’s face crinkled with pain. “It’s about your lady.”
The Prime Reaper stumbled back, putting up a hand to ward off whatever Cree was about to say.
“Arawn, she’s alive but—”
“No,” Arawn said, reading the knowledge in Cynyr’s mind. “No.”
“There wasn’t anything else they could do.”
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“No,” Arawn repeated, shaking his head. “I don’t want to hear this.”
“Ari, listen to me. She was very sick and she didn’t want you to know. She—”
“Shut up!” Arawn yelled. “Just shut the fuck up!”
“Would you rather she had died?” Cynyr challenged.
Horror filled Arawn’s expression and his knees buckled. He went to the sand with a grunt, his hands on his thighs. He looked up at Cynyr like a little lost child and when he spoke his voice broke. “I promised her. I swore to her I’d not allow her to be tainted by what I am!”
“They gave her a fledgling?” Jaborn asked softly.