by Unknown
Ailyn cupped her head between his hands and lifted his hips so she didn’t have to bend over too far. He bent his knees and pressed them against her shoulders, widening his legs even farther for her.
He tasted salty and spicy at the same time and she wondered what he had eaten to give his juice that piquant flavor. It was not in the least offensive but rather aphrodisiacal and it was playing hell with her need to have him inside her.
“Easy, sweeting,” he whispered. “It has been a long time since I’ve had a woman pleasure me and I am ripe to bursting.”
She pulled away from him and looked up. “Then come, my warrior,” she said. “Come hard and come long. I am ready for you.”
Ailyn’s body shuddered at her words and as soon as her mouth closed over him again, he spilled his seed into her waiting mouth, flowing down her relaxed throat, and shivering as though with the ague as she swallowed his essence—her tongue and the roof of her mouth milking him of every last spurt. He experienced such a strong climax, such a thoroughly exhilarating fulfillment, he doubted it could have been any better.
It had been over twenty years since Ailyn Harmattan had lain with a woman. The last time had been on his father’s ship in a stolen moment with a yeoman whose name he could no longer remember. He had been young, virtually inexperienced, and the only memory of that quick, clandestine foray into carnality had been the young woman’s eagerness to suck his cock though she hadn’t wanted it inside her. He had yet to know the pleasure of sliding between a woman’s thighs and he looked forward to the moment he could claim Shanee Iphito as his mate.
He shuddered again as she straightened up between his legs and licked her lips, her eyes locked on his.
“You are more man than this woman has ever seen,” she told him.
He held his arms out to her and she stretched out atop him, turning her head so her cheek rested on his muscular chest.
“And you are all I have dreamed of for two decades, little Amazeen.”
“I want you inside me,” she whispered.
“And you will have me there,” he said, caressing her shoulder, stroking her hair. “Give us a few more days and I’ll be pouring myself into you.”
His words sent tremors through Shanee. Her hand was on his pectoral, her fingers twirling the hair that grew thickly over his taut muscles. “I don’t know if I can wait a few more days,” she said.
His arms tightened around her. “I can pleasure you with my hands and my mouth, ionúin, until I can pleasure you with my cock. Be patient. Anything worth having is worth waiting for.”
She fell asleep there on top of him with his strong, powerful arms wrapped around her, her lower body securely positioned between his long legs. His chin rested atop her head and as their breaths became one in unison and rhythm, the waterfall gently lulled him into slumber beneath her.
Chapter Three
“I have no intention of ever seeing my mother again,” Ailyn told her two days later when she’d finally dredged up the courage to ask him. They were reclining on a large flat boulder behind the cascade of the waterfall. The bright light spearing down from the ceiling was waning and he had lit several torches that were ranged along the walls.
“General Strom believed that might be the case,” Shanee told him.
“Is he better than Morrison?” he inquired.
She nodded. “A good man, I think.”
“If she really is dying,” he said, his gaze clouding, “it makes sense why she would want me home.”
“For the money in the an Éilvéiseach bank account?”
His head swiveled toward her, his brow furrowed. “I’d forgotten about that,” he said. “No, I doubt she gave that a moment’s thought. Felix might have but not our mother.”
“Then why?” she asked.
He held her gaze for a moment. “Think about it, ionúin. What one thing can she get from me that no one else would or could give her?”
Shanee shrugged. “I can’t imagine. I didn’t believe for a minute that she was being sincere with her crying,” she said. “I got the feeling that was simply for show.”
“My mother never loved any of her children,” he stated. “She was always too self-centered to care for anyone other than herself. We all grew up with wet nurses and nannies and myriad servants. I spent most of my life with my father’s parents before being sent to military school when I was seven. We all went to Soraniline Military Academy as soon as we were old enough and then on to the Fleet Academy. It was rare we were allowed home even on high holidays. My holidays and summers were always at my grandparents’.” He wiped a hand over his face. “That was why I was so excited to be assigned to my father’s ship when I got my commission. I was able to spend two months with him without my mother demanding his attention before it went down in flames.”
“You were the only survivor,” she said.
“Aye and I’ve prayed many a night that I had died with the rest of the crew.”
“Your time on R-9 must have been hell,” she said softly.
“Hell doesn’t even begin to describe it,” he told her. “But it’s the reason my mother wants me after forty-four years of not giving a damn if I lived or died.”
She looked at him. He didn’t look at day over twenty-five and she said as much.
“And I won’t,” he said, before sliding off the boulder and into the depths of the pool.
She watched him swim across the milky green water then leave the coolness of the pool for his pallet. She pushed away from the boulder and swam underwater to the point where he’d left the pool then stood up, shaking her long white hair behind her. She waded to the shore then knelt down beside him. He was sitting with his knees drawn up, his arms encircling them.
“Reapers don’t age as you know it,” he told her as she took up a towel he’d given her earlier and began drying her hair. “For every year you age, I will age less than an hour.”
Shanee had not read that in the report she’d been given on the Reapers. She knew they could live well past two hundred and even beyond but it had not occurred to her that a Reaper’s physical appearance would change so little over time.
“If you cut me, I’ll heal instantly. Stab me and the wound will close right before your eyes. If you burn me, the flesh will rejuvenate and my body will re-form itself to look as I did before the flames touched it. The only true way for me to die is to have my head severed from my body and the queen destroyed.”
“At that rate, you could live forever,” she said.
“Now do you see what it is she wants from me?” he asked.
The knowledge came like a sharp blow to her solar plexus and she stared at him. “One of your revenant worms!”
He nodded. “She may think she does but she has no idea what it is she is asking, what having a hellion inside her will do to her. All she cares about is not dying, living for as long as she can and having people cater to her every whim. She craves attention, thrives on wielding power over those she considers lesser beings. She is not a good woman.”
“That was my impression,” Shanee admitted. She reached out to run a hand along his bare shoulders. “Do you want to talk about what happened to you on R-9?”
He lowered his head. “There are only two people I’ve ever discussed it with and one of them is Tariq. When we spoke of it, we weren’t face-to-face. He has such power within him, ionúin, it is hard to fathom it. In our minds, he would speak to us all without our guards knowing. Without him encouraging us to hold on, most of us would have gone insane.” He closed his eyes. “Some of us did and had to be put down.”
Shanee flinched. He spoke of those poor men as though they were animals.
“They were,” he said, easily reading her mind. He opened his eyes and turned to look at her. “I am.”
“I can’t begin to imagine how you felt when they gave you…” she frowned. “What did they call it?”
“Transference,” he said. “They cut you open and drop the revenant worm on the cut
. The fledgling wiggles down inside you and takes hold. It hurts like hell, believe me.”
She thought of General Strom and his comment that it was not pleasant. “What did you feel when you Transitioned for the first time?”
He drew in a long breath and looked away from her, centering his gaze across the chamber to the far wall. “I don’t like talking about it.”
“At least tell me how you reacted to it, Ailyn. How you…”
“I had no idea what they were going to do to me that day,” he said. “They came to my cell, shackled me and took me to one of their laboratories. They shoved me facedown on a stainless steel table, lashed my hands and legs to the corners. Since I was naked to begin with—we weren’t allowed clothing—all I remember was shivering violently because that damned stainless steel was cold as ice on my bare flesh. When they came in with this jar, I couldn’t see what was in it. Someone grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head up. Someone else poured a thick fluid down my throat. I remember gagging, realizing it was blood, and the next thing I knew, they were slicing my back open. I felt the blood running down my hip and then hell opened up and swallowed me whole.”
“There was a revenant worm in the jar.”
“Aye,” he said, “and the pain was so intense all I could do was lie there and scream as she ate her way through my kidney. You can’t imagine the agony, Shanee. No one can.”
Shanee shuddered at the image.
“Everyone hurried out of the room. It seemed to take forever but I know it was only a matter of moments before I began to change. When the Transition was complete, I broke free of the restraints as though they’d been made from paper. I rolled off the table and slammed myself against the wall, snarling and spitting. The only thought that kept going through my mind was that I was going to stay that way. That I would be a beast for the rest of my life. All I could do was crouch there and howl with despair.”
“You must have felt so alone,” she whispered.
“At the height of the agony I heard Tariq speaking to me but I thought I was going insane. I was hearing voices, I was no longer human. I just wanted to curl up and die.” His shoulders flexed as though he were reliving that horrible time. “Eventually I wore myself out and just collapsed on the floor, foaming at the mouth, whimpering. At some point I slept and when I awoke, I had reverted back to being human. I heard Tariq speaking to me and he explained what had happened to me, what would continue to happen to me every three months for the rest of a very long, unnatural life.”
“Did his speaking to you help?” she asked.
“Not at first,” he replied. “At first I was sickened and enraged that this had been done to me against my will. I never knew such creatures as Reapers even existed and here was this strange, disembodied voice telling me that the entire race came about because a goddess and demon were at war with one another. I just couldn’t get my head around that, but he didn’t give up. He talked to me until I really started listening. If it had not been for Tariq, I could not have survived close to twenty years of being locked in that containment cell every moment of my life without companionship or anything else for that matter. It has taken me two years in this paradise to begin to feel human again.”
“By the gods, Ailyn,” she said, feeling tears building in her eyes. She had not cried since she was a babe in arms but his pain touched her as nothing ever had. “How awful for you.”
“And now you know why some men’s minds were ripped apart by the experience and they had to be destroyed. A man with the powers of a Reaper who cannot reason or know right from wrong is not fit to walk among humanity. He is a living, breathing danger to everyone with whom he comes into contact. They called them rogues and simply terminated them.”
“How long did you remain in Transition?” she asked, aching for him.
“A week,” he said. “A little longer. I have no idea. When I reverted, I just lay curled up in a fetal position and cried with relief until they told me that such changes would be mine for the rest of my life and that I had the goddess to thank for my predicament.”
“Morrigunia is the goddess,” she said. “Who is the demon?”
“Raphian, the Destroyer of Men’s Souls,” he said. “Tariq has told us very little about him. I believe the demon is the only thing in the megaverse the Prime Reaper fears.”
“I can’t believe your mother knows what being turned into a Reaper would be like,” Shanee said.
“No doubt she has read the file on R-9,” he said. “The gods only know how she managed that but if she’s married to a vice-counselor, perhaps he had contacts. No doubt she would have heard about Regis.”
“Regis?” she inquired.
Once more his shoulders flexed as if he were in pain. “Regis was a Chalean who was brought to R-9 after I’d been there about ten years. He had been a communications specialist on a ship that had been boarded by Alliance troopers. There was a firefight and only a few of the crew survived. Regis was the only male and he was sent to us. The scientists did all the tests on him and were enraged to learn he had a terminal illness and only a few months left to live.” He shrugged. “They gave him a hellion anyway, curious to see if the revenant worm would cure him.”
“And it did.”
“He was the only man among us who I have heard was truly happy about being turned into a Reaper.”
“I wonder if your mother knows she’ll have powers as well as longevity,” Shanee said.
“Oh I know she does. She’ll have learned all she could about Reapers. She’ll know the Transference will be painful and that she will Transition, she’ll need to take tenerse and Sustenance every day of her life. To her, that would be worth any amount of pain and suffering, but knowing what happens to you and feeling what happens to you are two entirely different animals.” He laughed bitterly at his unintended pun.
“I wonder how the Burgon is handling his transformation,” Shanee commented.
“Unlike my mother, Bakari has seen Reapers in full Transition,” Ailyn said. “It was he who stopped the making of new ones when he became Burgon because he didn’t want that evil foisted off on men who did not ask for or want it. Vengeance was his motive for becoming one of us and I am sure he is dealing with the change as he has dealt with everything in his life.”
“Like the powerful man he is,” she said.
“Aye.” He released a long breath. “Enough of such talk.” He got to his feet and reached for the breechclout he had discarded earlier. “I want to go out to the stream and dive in.” He strapped on the abbreviated strip of material. “I want to go over Mount Korak to the village and dive off that gods-be-damned waterfall that taunts me in my dreams. I want to pit myself against Tariq and see which one of us can swim the fastest and the longest underwater.”
Shanee grinned. “Men are such simple creatures,” she said, holding her hand out for him to help her up. “It is the truly important things in life that they contemplate.”
“It is important to me,” he said with a sniff. He raked his eyes down her, his gaze hot and possessive. “Despite the fact I prefer you bare to my gaze, ionúin, I would rather no other man does until our Joining. I believe we should cover you so I can begin contemplating other important matters.”
Shaking her head, she walked over to the rock where she had left her tunic and trousers. As she reached for them, she felt a strange sensation flitter across her body, and when she looked down, was amazed to see she was wearing a black blouse and matching short skirt. She gasped, swung her head toward Ailyn. “How did you do that?” she whispered.
“Reapers can rearrange molecules,” he said with a shrug. “It is an easy thing though it takes energy.”
She fingered the material that was soft and pliable. “That is a handy trick, Reaper,” she laughed.
“Don’t call me that,” he asked, and when she met his gaze, she could see he meant it.
“All right, ehemann,” she said.
Ailyn asked her what that meant.
<
br /> “It means ‘husband’ in the Amazeen language,” she said, “and since Joinings are very rare on my world—almost non-existent—it is a term of honor whereby a warrioress relinquishes some of her freedom to mate with a male.”
His smile was as bright as the sun and he strode to her, lifted her into his arms and swung her around. “How do you say ‘wife’ in Amazeen?” he asked.
“Oh no,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s an ugly-sounding word and I much prefer ionúin.”
He lowered his head to claim her lips and the kiss he gave her made her toes curl again. It was a promise of things to come and her entire body practically melted into his arms. When he released her mouth, he winked at her like a little boy.
“Let’s go play,” he said, and started toward the chamber entrance with her.
“Are you going to carry me all the way to the village?” she asked.
“All the way to the stream perhaps,” he said. “It’s a long way to the village, ionúin, and you are no lightweight.” He shifted her against him—tossing her up in the air as though she weighed no more than a feather.
Her arms were laced around his neck. “Now you insult me, ehemann,” she said. “I might decide to flirt with the men in the village.”
“You do so at their peril, wench,” he growled as he carried her out of the cave and into the moonlight.
The jungle was still but insects were making noises she’d never heard before. There was a sweet scent in the air, which he told her was jasmine. As he strode purposefully toward the meandering stream with its waters silver-shot from the full moon overhead, he told her about his desire to swim the length of the stream one day.
“It winds down past the village and into what the people of Theristes call the painted desert where it empties into a wadi at the base. I’ve walked there but next time, I’d like to swim.”