Authors: Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“By all that is holy,” Moira said as Morrigunia dropped the dying creature into the bucket she held. The old woman stared down at the feebly moving thing until it lay still.
“I need that queen, Bevyn Coure!” Morrigunia snapped.
Arawn did not move as his back was cut open and his fellow Reaper’s shaking hand drove down into his back. His eyes barely flickered when Bevyn cried out—the queen sending a burning shock up his arm when he gripped her spiny body—and jerked the thing out of him.
“Poor baby,” Moira whispered.
“He won’t feel the pain when I release him,” Morrigunia told Moira. 57
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With the thrashing revenant clasped in his hand, his forearm and shoulder throbbing with pain, Bevyn passed the wriggling hellion through the bars between the two cells, relieved when Morrigunia took it out of his hand. He slumped against the bars, sweat glistening on his ashen face.
“Be still!” the goddess hissed at the whipping creature, and it became immobile in her tight grasp.
Moira looked up from the ebon-stained mass of revenants lying in the bottom of the bucket and drew in a harsh breath as Morrigunia dropped a live version of the hideous queen onto Cynyr’s back. Before the old woman could blink her horrified eyes, the thing dove down through the wound on the Reaper’s back and disappeared, bunching up under his skin. The flesh along the small of his back rose up as the creature coiled and uncoiled around his spinal column. Everyone in the jail—including Morrigunia—
jumped when Cynyr Cree let out a piercing scream of agony that reverberated off the stone walls.
“It has attached itself to his kidney,” the goddess said with a breath of obvious relief. “It has accepted its new host and will begin to repair the damage to Cynyr’s organs and nervous system.”
Cynyr was whimpering, his fingers plucking at the leather restraints holding his wrists. Tears were streaming down his eyes but he laid still save for the constant movement of his fingers.
“Sleep now, Reaper,” Morrigunia said, placing her hand on her patient’s cheek.
“Sleep and let the parasite heal you.”
Closing his eyes, Cynyr fell into a deep slumber and the goddess asked Brady to bring a blanket to cover his nakedness. Tiredly, she left Cree’s cell and went into Arawn’s, bidding that Reaper to wake.
Bevyn remained slumped against the bars. He could not look up at Morrigunia as she came to stand in front of him.
“You have questions, young one?” she asked.
“I am worried about Cree’s lady,” he said.
“She is not being hurt.”
Reluctantly, he lifted his gaze to hers. “Will she not have felt Cree’s agony? She has one of his fledglings.”
Morrigunia shook her head. “The moment his queen and fledglings ceased life, hers would have been cut off from Cree. There are no more of that breed left save what it hosted within Aingeal’s body.”
“It is a rogue who has her,
mo regina
,” Bevyn said.
“I know this,” the goddess replied.
“The rogue vowed to kill her. He—”
“He has inadvertently hurt her, but he will never again.”
Bevyn winced at the terrible news. “The baby?”
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Morrigunia shook her head. “The babe is no more, but there will be future sons of her union with Cynyr Cree. You have no need to worry on that account.”
“Arawn and I need to go after her,” Bevyn persisted. “We—”
“It is for Cynyr to right the wrong done to his mate,” Morrigunia cut him off. “The revenge is to be his and it will be a brutal revenge, Bevyn Coure.”
Bevyn looked over at Cynyr. “But you said he will be ill for a week or more. We can’t leave Aingeal in Otaktay’s hands.”
“Have no fear for Cynyr’s mate. The red man will care for her in the same way Cree would or you would care for your Lea. Leave the vengeance in the hands of the man who will execute it with a savagery you could never imagine.”
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Chapter Seven
Aingeal awoke to cool water dribbling gently onto her parched lips. Her head ached horribly and her body itched as though a million ants were crawling upon it. She moved her face, feeling the water trickling over her chin and onto her throat.
“Can you sit up?” he asked gently, further surprised at the softness of his tone. Aingeal tried to nod but the pain in her head splintered into a hundred fiery shards that nearly pitched her back into unconsciousness. She gagged, whimpering as she was gently propped up so she was half reclining against a warm, solid body.
“I am here, my love,” Otaktay whispered to her. “I will care for you.”
She recognized the voice of the man and although she could recall her own name, his escaped her. She clung to him, wrapping her hands around his muscled forearm as he held her. She knew she belonged to him, but beyond that, much of her mind was blank. Her whereabouts were a mystery. She saw gray stone walls with strange columns spearing down from overhead. The sound of water came to her but she had no idea what place this could be.
“Where am I?” she whispered, her throat raw, her mouth filled with a coppery taste.
“In the Cave of the Winds,” Otaktay replied. “It is safe for us here.”
She looked up into black eyes that were gazing down at her with gentleness. The skin of the man holding her was much darker than her own. His long black hair was parted in the middle and woven into two thick braids that hung over his bare chest.
“I hurt,” she said.
Otaktay had not learned that much about being a rogue from Silus Gibbs but he knew enough to delve into his woman’s thoughts. He was surprised she had no memories to search and that her mind was filled with shadows and confusion. Guiltily he knew the blow he had administered to her head had caused the situation, for one of his cousins had suffered just such a condition when he’d hit his head in a fall.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked her.
“No,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
Realizing the gods had given him a reprieve with this woman, Otaktay lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed the back of her hand. “You are,” he said, his chin raised,
“my wife and I am your husband, Otaktay.”
Her pretty gray eyes narrowed with confusion. “Have I been sick?”
The brave drew in a breath then exhaled slowly. “You lost our child,” he said, pressing her hand to his heart. “Our baby.”
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Aingeal moaned and squeezed her eyes shut. A part of her felt the loss of her child so keenly it made her entire body ache. She began to cry, her body racked with sobs. The Jakotai brought his woman to his chest and held her as she cried. How often—
he thought to himself—had he heard her cry and ignored her? How many times had he slapped her? Beaten her? Handed her over to the greedy hands of his friends? Shame rocketed through the brave and his heart ached for the injustices he had heaped upon this woman in the past. No wonder his father had all but disowned him.
“We will go home,” he told her, clumsily stroking her hair, the silky strands catching on his calloused palm. “I will take you home to my People. There will be other sons. This I swear to you, Aingeal.”
She clung to him in her misery, though she felt as though she barely knew him. She was afraid of him yet he was comforting her, shushing her tears and gently rubbing her back to calm her.
“We will go home,” he said again. “When I know the Reaper has stopped searching for us.”
“The Reaper?” she questioned, the name sending a spasm of fresh pain through her heart.
“I gutted the man who stole you from me, but I did not kill him,” Otaktay said, thinking it had been Cynyr Cree whose belly he had ripped open with his knife. Aingeal shivered. “Someone took me from you?”
“He stole you and raped you,” Otaktay replied, believing what he was saying. “He raped you many times, my beloved, but never again will he lay hands to you! This I swear!”
“He caused my baby’s death?” she asked in a low voice.
“He did,” Otaktay lied.
Though she had no idea what manner of man a Reaper was and though her husband said the Reaper was the reason she’d lost her child, Aingeal could not find it in her heart to either hate or fear the man. The word Reaper soothed her while at the same time causing unbearable sadness in her soul. Had she fallen in love with the man who had abducted her? Forced himself upon her time and time again? Had he stolen her because he loved her? Had he taken her—not with anger or in lust—but because he cared for her? Was that why she did not fear the one called Reaper?
“What is his name?” she asked her husband.
“Cree,” Otaktay said, spitting the word out as though it were a curse. “Cynyr Cree.”
The name meant nothing to her but the sound of it deepened the sense of loss swirling in her heart. She clung to that name, buried it deeply within her very soul. No face came as she whispered the name silently to herself but it made her heart sing in a way that confused her even more.
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“The ones called the Ceannus will rid the land of the Reapers,” her husband was saying, his words tight. “We will wait until they have sent their rogues to the white camp and slain those who would oppose the Gray Gods. Then we can return to our home and live in peace.”
Why the word rogue sent a shaft of alarm through her Aingeal did not know. At the mention of the white camp, she had a fleeting image of an old woman—stooped with a thick hump upon her upper back, of a smiling red-haired man with laughing green eyes, of a thin woman who did nothing but complain.
“Rest now,” Otaktay said. “I will go hunting when the sun sets and we will have bellies full of fresh meat.”
Aingeal slipped her hand from her husband’s and touched the silk of the garment she wore. She lifted her head and looked down, puzzled by the torn and dirty nightgown.
“I will provide you with something clean to wear, beloved,” Otaktay said. “I will bring something back after I hunt.”
Frowning, Aingeal settled back in her husband’s arms, but her mind was swarming with questions to which she could find no answers. Impressions came to her—
undulating out of the strange darkness that had infiltrated her mind. She caught a glimpse of amber eyes, dark brown hair tied back with a leather thong, a knowing grin that made her blood sing with hunger. She followed a wolf running across the prairie, his powerful haunches rippling with muscles, his silky fur rippling in the wind. As she stared at the carved walls of the cave, she thought she heard a soft voice calling to her, bidding her come. Heat infused her body along with an organ-deep ache that told her someone, somewhere, was in terrible pain and reaching out to her for her help.
“Rest,” Otaktay said. He tried slipping into his woman’s thoughts once more but all he found was a wretched heat and throbbing pain that made him hastily withdraw. He tightened his grip around Aingeal. “Forgive me, beloved.”
Pulled back from whatever memories were trying to surface, Aingeal looked up at him. “For what?”
Otaktay stared into her eyes and felt like crying—something he had not done since he was but a boy of three winters. “For not caring for you as was my duty,” he replied.
“Never again will such be so.”
Aingeal found she had no feelings at all for the man holding her. She felt dirty in his arms, unsure of him, perhaps a bit afraid. She wished he would take his hands from her, remove his body from so close to her own.
Something shifted along Aingeal’s back and she drew in a breath, wondering at the slight pain that seemed to gnaw at her vitals. Her back itched as she felt a churning sensation deep within her.
Otaktay felt the movement against his thigh as he braced his woman against him. He knew that movement well, for he felt it every day. Sliding his hand down Aingeal’s 62
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back, he pressed at a spot over her right kidney and when her flesh bunched up at the touch, he snatched his hand away.
“No!” he shouted, and scrambled quickly to his feet.
Aingeal was so weak she collapsed without the support of her husband’s arms and lay there looking up at him. His eyes were wide, his mouth open as he stared down at her. His fists were clenched at his side, the knuckles white.
“No,” Otaktay said, shaking his head in denial. “It cannot be!”
Once more something moved under her skin and Aingeal grunted for a dull pain was clamping down on her insides. She reached beneath her to rub at the pain and felt her flesh shift under her questing fingers.
“What is inside me?” she asked, her face pale. “What is it?”
“He gave you one of his parasites,” the brave accused, backing away from Aingeal.
“He gave you a parasite!”
She watched her husband turn away from her and stride hurriedly toward the rear of the cave. For the first time she noticed the horse lying beside what appeared to be a large underground lake. It got to its feet at a piercing whistle from the brave. Otaktay snatched up a bridle and quickly slipped it over the steed’s head.
“Where are you going?” she asked, trying to sit up.
Otaktay began leading the horse past where Aingeal lay. She could see fury clenching his dark face. “I will return,” he bit out through clenched teeth.
“Don’t leave me here alone,” she pleaded, but her husband was moving farther away from her, disappearing into the blackness of a tunnel off to her right. “Otaktay, don’t leave me alone!”
Shutting out the sound of his woman’s voice, all the brave could think of was finding the Reaper and finishing what he had started. He wanted to spill the white man’s guts upon the ground and stomp on them. He wanted to burn every inch of his pale body and revel in the screams that could be torn from the Reaper’s throat.
“You desecrated my woman. You soiled her!” Otaktay said as he led his horse out into the bright sun of the early afternoon. “For that you will suffer as no man ever has before you!”
The rogue inside the Jakotai roared for vengeance as the brave swung himself up upon the horse’s back and drummed his heels brutally into the animal’s ribs. Bloodlust throbbed through his veins and his hands itched to kill. His eyes gleamed scarlet red and fangs had dropped down through his gums. At that moment he was as close to being a beast without Transitioning as he would ever come.