Authors: Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“You ain’t gonna die,” the white man had laughed. “You got one of my hellions in you now, boy.”
The Transition when it came was much worse than the initial pain in Otaktay’s back. His body had elongated in some places, shrank in others. Musky fur had rippled over his limbs and chest. Talons arched out of his fingers and toes with agonizing tearing of his flesh. His face had altered—his nose becoming a black snout, his jaw jutting forth with fangs exploding from his gums. Fire ate at his insides, licked at his organs until life was nothing more than a series of unending torment. Then as quickly as the Transition occurred it left him, and Otaktay lay shivering on the hard-packed ground, naked as the day he’d come squalling from his mother’s womb.
Only later did he learn the white man had cut open his own flesh and extracted the creature he had dropped onto Otaktay’s wound.
“You’ll thank me, boy,” Gibbs had growled as Otaktay lay in a fetal position at the white man’s feet.
Otaktay would never thank Silus Gibbs for what he had done to him. Hating the man with every fiber of his being, he longed to slice the rogue’s head from his body and carry it about on his lance. No amount of torture would ever satisfy the bloodlust in the brave’s seething mind.
7
Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“You’ll have to have Sustenance,” Gibbs had told him. “You can take it wherever you find it. Me, I like human blood better than animal. It’s more potent.”
Having to consume what the white man called Sustenance turned Otaktay’s stomach, but he found if he did not drink, the agony in his back was more than he could bear.
“And this,” Gibbs had said, holding up a strange-looking weapon, “you will need every morning.”
It had been the day after Otaktay’s first Transition—when he lay shivering with agony blazing in his back—that Gibbs had plunged the sharp end of the weapon into the brave’s neck. Horrible fire sped through Otaktay’s veins and he heard himself moan. The shame of that sound would haunt him until the day he drew his last breath, but whatever the white man had done to him had stopped the pain eating away at his back.
“It’s called tenerse and the Ceannus makes sure we’ve always got all we need,”
Gibbs had announced. “Can’t live without it. The drug keeps us from Transitioning out of cycle.” He’d looked at the weapon. “Thing is though, you get addicted to the shit. I’ll show you how to inject yourself.”
While Otaktay had lain as quietly as he could, Gibbs had then explained how their combined strengths could defeat Cynyr Cree. He had warned the brave Cree was a powerful warrior who would stop at nothing to dispatch them if given the chance.
“We gotta strike first,” Gibbs stated. “We find him, kill him and you can do whatever you want with the woman.” He’d smiled brutally. “Long as I get to watch.”
That was two weeks ago, and with each passing day Otaktay’s hatred of Gibbs grew. He had come to understand the one called Cree would not be easily taken, that he was a powerful warrior with many kills. He did not, however, believe it would take the two of them to bring Cree down.
“I ain’t trying to tell you your business, boy,” Gibbs said, “but if’n I was you, I wouldn’t stick my wick in that woman of yours before you carve her up. Seems to me Jaborn was unbending on that. There’s some reason he warned against it.”
“She belongs to me and I will do with her what I wish!” Otaktay hissed.
“Aye, well, it’s your pecker,” Gibbs said with a shrug. “And it’ll be you to pay for what you do with it, I reckon.”
Believing there was nothing left he had to learn from the man who had changed him into a creature ten times stronger than any of his Jakotai brothers, Otaktay made the decision at that moment to cut off the white man’s head before the night was through. There was no reason to keep the unclean one alive and every reason to rid the world of his despicable presence. He would go up against the Reaper alone. 8
Reaper’s Revenge
Chapter One
Aingeal turned over to find her husband lying with his head propped in his hand, watching her. She smiled. “Good morning,” she said with a sigh.
“Good morning,” Cynyr answered. He leaned over his lady and kissed her lips softly, placing his hand gently on her belly. Deep hunger dwelled in his eyes but Aingeal knew it wasn’t from either the Sustenance or the tenerse his body was craving. The train in which they were traveling rattled on toward its destination—Haines City in the Oklaks Territory—less than fifty miles away. At the bottom of the window shade, a sliver of early morning was showing itself. The smell of coffee and frying bacon came from the direction of the dining room area of the private railcar that had been provided for the lovers by the High Council.
“You have no right to look so beautiful this early in the morn, wench,” Cynyr told his wife.
Stretching her arms over her head, Aingeal felt the sheet slip from her naked breasts. “Oops,” she said, staring into her mate’s smoldering amber eyes. Cynyr slid his hand up to cover the creamy globe of his lady’s breast, molding the warm mound to his palm. “You are a wanton woman, Aingeal Cree,” he accused her as he tossed the sheet to the foot of their bed.
His fingers were gently massaging her and Aingeal felt the stirring of heat low in her belly. Among the many talents Cynyr possessed, she regarded his skill at lovemaking as being one of the best. He had come late in life to pleasuring a woman but was making up for lost time every chance he got.
“I have done nothing you didn’t want me to, Reaper,” she told him, and laced her arms around his neck to draw him down to her.
Slanting his mouth across Aingeal’s tempting lips, Cynyr’s manhood stirred against her thigh. Hot and velvety smooth, his cock oozed interest as the Reaper’s woman arched her shapely hips up in an invitation for him to slip between her legs. Cree’s body was a demanding weight that sent shivers of delight down Aingeal’s flesh as he moved over her and positioned his cock at the core of her heat. His hands were to either side of her as he lay stretched out atop her, grinding his need against her.
“My, my, my,
mo shearc
,” she whispered. “What is that knocking at my door?”
“’Tis just my stalwart messenger with an invitation to join me for an early morning ride,
a stór mo chroi
,” he replied.
“He’s a persistent little fella, ain’t he?” she asked.
“Aye, wench,” Cynyr agreed, his voice husky. “He’s cold and wishing to come inside to get warm.”
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“Well, never let it be known that Aingeal Cree was not accommodating to her mate’s messenger,” she said, and lifted her legs to capture her husband’s lean hips. She locked her ankles around him. “Poor little fella must be cared for.”
Like silk, her hot sheath closed around him as he slowly thrust his cock into her waiting cavern. Her inner muscles gripped him—welcoming the messenger—and the good man went in as far as he could and seated himself.
“Ah, Reaper,” Aingeal said with a sigh. “He is a most welcome visitor.” She arched her hips upward until her husband’s staff was pressed against a barrier that increased her pleasure at having him inside her.
“But he can be a restless wagtally,” he told her, and began to move in and out of her with sure strokes.
“Aye, well, that he can,” she said, tightening her legs around her lover. “Just look at him coming and going and—”
“Didn’t I tell you he was restless?” Cynyr quipped.
His naked body was warm upon hers, a light sheen of perspiration forming where her breasts touched his broad chest. Her hips fit perfectly against his, as though they had been cast from the same mold.
Aingeal slipped her arms from around her husband’s neck and slid them under his arms until she could wrap them around his back. Her palms slid over the brutal scars that puckered the expanse of his flesh and not for the first time did her heart ache for the torture her man had undergone so long ago.
Catching the sad thought that tugged at his lady’s mind, Cynyr wedged his hands under her tight little derriere and lifted her to him, effectively wiping out all thought save the carnal pleasure he was thrusting into her. His rod began pistoning in and out of her with a rhythm.
“
Mo shearc
,” she named him, her voice a breathless purr. “My love.”
“
A-chaoidh
,” he said. At her look, he translated, “Forever.”
Heat was building in their loins and with it came an intense itch that only passion could sate. He ground against her after each full stroke and she writhed beneath him, squeezing him with her inner muscles, milking him with tight warmth. His speed increased until his balls were slapping against her. She dug her fingernails into his back, urging him on.
Cynyr swept down to claim her lips, slipping his tongue between her lips. Lust had come full-blown within him but his parasite was also stirring, pressing its sharp teeth into his kidney to spur him on.
The Reaper had often thought the hellish thing inside him was more like a mistress than a leech. It was a jealous entity who often required his full attention and, when he was in the throes of passion with his chosen mate, would rear its savage head to remind him it was there.
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Reaper’s Revenge
Aingeal felt her husband’s parasite bunch up under his skin and reached down to press her fingertips against it. Her own parasite—the hellion who now resided within her to give her strength equal to that of ten women—was lying dormant, rarely causing her the pain Cynyr’s caused him. Only in the mornings when her parasite needed fresh Sustenance and the lulling effects of the tenerse did it make its presence felt.
“I don’t know, wench,” Cynyr had said when she’d asked him about it. “I’ve never known another female Reaper. Perhaps it’s a sisterhood thing.”
“Stop hurting him, you bitch,”
Aingeal sent to her lover’s parasite, for she could sense Cynyr’s pain.
Intercepting his wife’s order to the revenant worm writhing inside him, the Reaper was surprised when it went still at Aingeal’s command. His body no longer torn between pain and pleasure, the pleasure took over completely and he could feel his cock hardening even more. He was sliding in and out of his lady with fierce strokes that brought heat spiraling through his groin.
Aingeal gripped her husband tightly to her and arched her hips up, meeting him thrust for thrust. Spasms of delight were paused at the threshold of her climax and with one hard press of Cynyr’s steely cock, sent the pulses of passion trickling through her cunt to clutch and release, clutch and release Cynyr until he threw back his head and groaned. He stilled deep inside her—his staff pulsing thick jets of cum—and held himself there until the last throb drained him.
Cynyr collapsed beside her, sliding from her molten sweetness to lie panting on his back, dragging harsh breaths into his depleted lungs. His neck was arched, his eyes shut, a light sheen of sweat covered his upper torso and dotted the creases of his loins.
“You have a damned good little messenger there, Reaper,” Aingeal teased.
“He lives to serve,” Cynyr managed to say. He turned so his head was in the crook of his lady’s shoulder and laid a palm across her breast.
Reaching out to lovingly stroke her husband’s mane of thick brown hair, Aingeal knew a contentment for which she had longed. For the first time in her life she was wanted and needed and cherished. The man lying beside her was the love she had prayed for so desperately but had never had faith in finding. He was her all and she would give her life for him.
“As I would for you,” he said, plucking her thoughts from the ether. His hand returned to her belly. “For both of you.”
Covering her husband’s hand with her own, she laced her fingers through his. “I can’t wait for our child to kick for the first time.”
Cynyr sighed deeply. “Neither can I.” He rubbed her stomach gently, at peace with himself and the world.
They were silent for a long time as they listened to the click-clack of the train’s wheels on the rail. The car was slowly rocking them and that would have lulled them back into sleep had there not come an authoritative knock at their sleeping quarter’s door.
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“Breakfast is ready,” Harold Warrington, the servant provided for them by the High Council, announced. “I will be laying out your plates momentarily. Please be on time for once!”
That said, the snippy little man left, his heavy footsteps sounding on the carpet.
“How can a man not even five feet tall and weighing less than my saddle make so much noise when he walks?” Cynyr asked.
“Attitude,” Aingeal suggested. She prodded her husband into moving so she could get up. “I don’t suppose we have time for a bath.”
“Not when His Majesty has decreed we be on time,” Cynyr grumbled. He swung his long legs from the bed and with a wave of his hand was dressed in a fresh black silk shirt and leather britches.
“Show-off,” Aingeal accused. She was up and slipping into the black denim jeans her husband had provided for her. He had yet to show her how to fashion her own clothing from thin air and she doubted he ever would. It seemed to be a matter of pride to him to be able to provide for her.
Cynyr was watching his lady and trying to hide the smile that was tugging at his lips. Like her Reaper brethren, Aingeal had long since dispensed with wearing underwear. As she was buttoning the black cotton blouse over her ample bosom he was reminded of the disagreement they’d had concerning his choice of clothing.
“I prefer a white shirt,” she’d argued but her husband had been adamant.
“Your nipples can clearly be seen in a white blouse, wench,” he’d said. “It’s black for you!”
Admitting he was right didn’t take away the sting of disappointment of not getting her way, although she had admitted that wearing an outfit so close to the uniform he wore wasn’t so bad. When they had been at the Citadel—the headquarters of the High Council—she had been required to dress in womanly fashion with all the accoutrements she now found restricting. She was glad Cynyr didn’t require her to dress in gown, camisole and bloomers.