by Unknown
“Talk to Tariq,” Bahiya said, not looking up from the pot. “A man’s Transition is different from a woman’s.”
Sometimes Shanee forgot that Bahiya was a female Reaper even though—like now—the older woman could read her mind so easily. Bahiya was so quiet, so shy and so gentle with everyone around her it was hard to imagine she could turn into a raging beast.
“I nibble things,” Bahiya said with a giggle, and glanced around at Shanee. “I don’t gobble like my man.” She laughed at her joke and waved Shanee toward Tariq who was working at his forge.
It was only when the Prime Reaper fashioned jewelry and art pieces that he wore clothing of any kind. A thick leather apron hung from his neck to cover his body from chest to knee.
“A spark on your dangly hurts like the very demon,” he had explained to her. “Doesn’t feel good on your nipples either.”
Tariq was hammering a small strip of red-hot gold on the anvil when she joined him. He smiled. “He’s in full Transition and not in any kind of pain.”
She sat down on a stump that was used as a stool. “Will you tell me what it is like for him?”
“You read the file on Reapers,” he said. “Did they not show you a vid-com? I know they made one of each man’s first Transition.”
“I saw Damian’s but General Strom said he couldn’t find Ailyn’s.”
“He lied,” Tariq said.
“Why would he?”
“I am sure he had his reasons.” He was holding the gold strip with long-handled tongs as he worked it. Stopping his hammering, he lifted the strip and plunged it into a bucket of water.
“So tell me what Ailyn is going through. Make me understand what happened to him that day.”
“What has he said to you about it?”
Shanee looked out over the village. “He said when the Transition began he didn’t know what was happening. No one had told him what to expect.”
“They didn’t tell anyone,” Tariq stated.
She went on to tell him the other things Ailyn had revealed to her about that hideous day.
“You spoke to him when he was undergoing the change,” she said.
“I tried but he didn’t really hear me. That wasn’t important. It was the sound of my voice reassuring him that he wasn’t alone in this that was meant to allay his fears.”
“He thought he was going insane.”
“They all did,” Tariq said. “When he began listening to me, he was no longer so despondent though he constantly begged to be allowed to die.”
“Thank the gods he wasn’t put down like the rogues,” she said. “As hard as it was for him, at least he didn’t go insane with it.”
Tariq took up another gold strip from a small brazier and laid it on his anvil. “The stronger the man, the better, and Ailyn is a strong man. That first Transition is always the hardest,” he told her. “Most especially for a male Reaper. Females handle acute pain far better than we do so their first Transitions aren’t as hard on them as ours are on us.” He began hammering the gold strip. “The pain won’t ever be as severe after that initial conversion. It is bad, it hurts, but it doesn’t last as long and comes quicker and easier with each Transition. After twenty years, Ailyn’s Transitions are more annoying to him than painful.”
“So he isn’t suffering,” she wanted clarified.
“Not physically, no.” He shrugged. “Mentally? That’s another story.”
“For all Reapers?”
“For Ailyn,” he replied softly. He lifted the gold strip with the tongs and dropped it beside the other one in the bucket.
“What about our children?” she asked.
“Your sons,” he stated.
She knew the hellion would never allow female zygotes to live. “My sons,” she agreed.
“In Ailyn’s sub-generation of Reapers, his sperm is rife with the spores of the revenant worm but when a child is born—unless both parents are Reapers—that child is not Reaper until he is given his own Transference.”
Shanee sucked in a surprised breath. “He won’t automatically become like his father?”
“Not in Ailyn’s sub-generation or the sub-generation of any of the men from R-9,” he replied. “Sons born of my race however, are born Reaper. They are born with a single parasite imbedded in their kidneys. That is the way the goddess created our next generation of true Reapers.”
“See, now that’s something else I’m curious about because it wasn’t in the file on Reapers,” she said. “Ailyn told me you said Reapers came about because Morrigunia and a demon were at war.”
“Raphian,” Tariq said. “The Evil of Evils. It was His tainted seed that birthed the first Reaper and Morrigunia’s wisdom and compassion that gave us humanity.”
“How?” she asked.
“Raphian is a vile thing,” the Prime Reaper said. “He is loathsome and depraved and for reasons that are His own. He despised the creation of the first human. He set about to destroy humanity, to wipe it out of the megaverse by transforming it into creatures like Himself. To do that, He ejaculated His contaminated seed into the Winds and those abhorrent kernels of evil traveled to wherever there was life. They fell upon many lands across the megaverse, attracted by an irresistible chemical compound contained within a certain plant that drew the kernel like a magnet. The kernel and the plant bonded in an obscene parody of human fertilization and from that union a spore was created. When the spore was taken into a living body—human or otherwise—it became a parasite and the parasite, which is called an obligate, grew into a revenant worm queen, infecting the body that had absorbed it.” He met her gaze. “Have you seen a hellion?”
“Aye,” she admitted. “It is disgusting.”
“Then you know what Raphian looks like. The revenant is a miniature mirror image of the demon.”
Shanee grimaced at the thought.
“It is said the goddess had heard the voice of a revenant worm, a hellion calling out to Raphian, and followed that call to a planet where a deranged woman was trying to kill a very handsome warrior. The hellion was inside the woman. Being the all-knowing goddess that She is, Morrigunia could tell the hellion had great power—the power to make a warrior invincible. Morrigunia took the woman’s life and allowed the hellion to enter the warrior’s body, thus granting him the power and the abilities hinted at by the hellion.”
“Surely the warrior used his powers on the side of good,” Shanee said.
“It is said he made many Reapers before Morrigunia allowed him to rest. Whether that is good or not, who is to say? My people would not be here had he not created the first Reaper.”
“So while Morrigunia was using the Reapers for good, Raphian was making them for evil?”
“She realized Raphian had deliberately laid plans to exterminate the human race by infecting them with His sperm. When Morrigunia saw what Raphian had done, She set out to undo His evil. She could not keep those infected with the parasite from changing but She could instill human traits in them to hold at bay the evil Raphian had unleashed. It was my people She granted Her benevolence. Our tribe is spread throughout the megaverse on planets such as Theristes and we are not allowed to leave those worlds. Morrigunia made it a law, a Greas, an obligation with which we must abide.”
“Something else bothers me, Tariq. When you were captured, people like the Burgon before Ryden Bakari saw the advantage in having nearly invincible warriors and set out to make more like you.” She frowned. “How did they know how to do that? Surely you didn’t tell them. I read where you were tortured horribly but I can’t believe you would have given them the means to make more Reapers.”
Tariq shook his head. “No, I did not. I could not have told them because I didn’t know such a thing was possible until the first prisoners were brought to the complex. Remember, children of my race are born Reaper. We do not make them. When they took the first hellion from me, when I realized what they were going to do, I cried for the first time in my life. The only explanation I can
give you for what happened on R-9 is that Raphian was involved. He influenced the Alliance to create the hell that was Riezell-Nine.”
“Why didn’t Morrigunia intercede?” she asked. “Why didn’t She stop what was happening there?”
“I don’t know, Shanee, but there is a legend that says She has a place somewhere in the megaverse where She breeds Her own very special Reapers, sons of Her body called the guirt. We also know She creates them in Her guise as the Triune Goddess coming to a dying warrior on the battlefield.” He shook his head. “Why She does this, no one knows, but I do know there are men like Gabriel Leveche who are Her creations. If She is making men like him elsewhere in the megaverse, Her purpose cannot be evil.”
Shanee let out a long breath. She was reeling from the information Tariq had given her—far more than she had expected him to impart. “No, I suppose not.”
“That is enough for you to think on for one day,” he told her, taking one of the gold strips out of the bucket and over to his workbench. He sat down. “Your man is well and he is relatively calm—at least as calm as his Transition will allow him to be. When it is over, he will be back in the beat of a heart. I would not put it past him to fly here on wings his mind will create.”
“He can really do that?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“If he so desires,” Tariq said with a smile. “And it is a sight to behold.”
Chapter Six
Ailyn stared up at the smooth glasslike wall of the lava tube. He was bone-tired, hungry for Sustenance and his body was itching, on fire, for want of the tenerse waiting for him. He had chosen this dark place, this makeshift containment cell, because when he was in Transition, he could not scale the sheer walls nor could he spring up to the top rim that was at least two hundred feet above him. He could—however—shift into a raven at will and fly out of his self-imposed prison when the Transition had run its course. At that moment though, he was too weary to rearrange his molecules and make the change. He had to wait until he had a bit more energy before he could shift.
He sat down on a low ledge and reached out to touch the silica-rich lava flow from centuries earlier that constituted the slick walls of the cone-shaped hole that was his prison cell. The solid sheet of obsidian glass that encircled the room that was rich in iron and magnesium had been formed when the molten lava had cooled too quickly to crystallize and had created this mysterious chamber, the floor of which had bubbled up to form little ledges around the base.
“I want you to see this chamber one day, ionúin,” he said as he trailed his fingers over the smooth surface.
Though the chamber was pitch-black with no light casting upon the chill walls, he could see well enough with his enhanced vision. The only illumination came from the top of the chamber and that was a mere glow from farther back in the cave.
A half-hour passed and his addictive need for the tenerse pushed everything else out of his mind. He knew he had to have both the blood and the tenerse as quickly as possible, and the longer he waited, the harder it would be to push aside the craving. He got up, closed his eyes and willed his body into the form of a raven, taking flight as easily as taking a breath, and when he landed, shifted once more into human form.
As always, the vac-syringe of tenerse was a fiery agony as he injected the thick drug into a vein in his neck. Even after all this time he had not grown accustomed to that stinging, burning pain and knew he never would. With trembling hands he reached for the first bottle of Sustenance and drained it in three gulps before reaching for the next one.
His addiction assuaged, his hunger fed, he fanned his hand over his hips to settle a new breechclout in place then headed back to the chamber he called his home.
* * * * *
Shanee saw the raven sitting in the mango tree looking down at her and she smiled. “Hello, little thief,” she greeted it. To the Amazeen, ravens were sacred and a symbol of wisdom. It was also a legendary shape-shifter.
As that thought flitted through her mind she stared at the bird, glanced around her then whispered, “Ailyn, is that you?”
The bird turned its head to one side inquisitively then made the cur-rak sound that was its trademark call. It took flight and disappeared behind the hut the villagers had helped Shanee build.
Sighing with disappointment, Shanee turned away from the tree.
“Where are you going, ionúin?”
He was there behind her, walking toward her from the rear of the hut. He smiled when she whooped and rushed him, throwing herself into his arms and wrapping her lovely long legs around his waist before she plastered her lips to his. She was holding his face between her hands as she devoured his mouth, totally oblivious to the villagers watching them.
“Whoa, wench!” he said, pulling his lips from hers. He was supporting her shapely ass in his hands. “Much more of that and I’ll be tempted to take you up against the gods-be-damned tree I was sitting in.”
Shanee grinned. “That was you!” she said. “You were a gorgeous little fella!”
“I am an engorged big fella,” he said, and pushed her bottom down on his hard erection. “Is that our hut?”
“Can you thrust into me now?” she countered as she gazed intently into his amber eyes.
“With as much power and speed as you desire, little Amazeen,” he replied.
“It’s our hut,” she stated.
He carried her over to it, ducked down with her still clinging to him and carried her over to the pallet some of the other women had helped her stuff. Practically falling atop her, he took her to the soft surface—pulling one hand free of her ass to fan away her clothing in the blink of an eye.
“A damned fine ability you have there,” she said, aware his breechclout had also disappeared.
He lay paused above her, his eyebrows drawn together. “Seeing me as a raven did not disturb you?”
She wriggled beneath him. “Hell, no! And I want to see you as a wolf,” she said. “Are you as handsome as a lupine as you are as a corvine?”
“You amaze me,” he said in a near whisper, his eyes roaming over her beautiful face.
“Why?” she asked. “Because I accept you as you are?”
“You have not seen me in Transition nor will you but…”
“But I will see you as a wolf,” she said, “and anything else you care to show me.” She nipped at his lips. “But for now, you will show me how much you missed me, ehemann.”
For the first time in over a week Ailyn Harmattan felt at peace. There in the arms of his woman with their Ceangal—their Joining—on the horizon. He knew tranquility, a harmony with his nature that he had never experienced.
Her breasts were pressed flat against his bare chest, her swollen nipples burning his flesh. Those long, silky legs were still wrapped around him and she was rubbing the cleft of his rump with her heel. She held him to her, arched her hips up in invitation to his plunder and ground herself against him.
“Ah, wench,” he said, unable to hold off any longer.
For the first time in Ailyn’s life, he thrust his aching, stiff cock into the warm, wet channel of a woman. But it was not just any woman whose body he impaled with that hard shaft but his woman, his companion, his life-mate.
The sensation rocking his lower body was glorious as he withdrew and thrust into her again. The silky moistness that enveloped him, the feel of her sheath, the heat that flowed along his rod was a heady awareness that made him shudder with delight. He shoved his hand back under her hip and lifted her to him to better penetrate that luscious heaven that tightened around his turgid flesh.
He slammed his mouth down over her, thrust his tongue deep between her lips and began pumping his cock in and out of her willing body so fast and with such power, the sound of their bodies slapping together made him that much lustier.
Shanee was digging her fingernails into his bare back and her arms were so tight around him he was having difficulty breathing. Her mouth was fastened to his, her thighs squeezing his waist. She was
as attached to him as any of the moles that peppered his back.
The itch was beginning high up in his belly and fingering its way down through his cock. Her honeyed warmth was milking him, drawing upon his rigid length, and he could feel the first faint wave that started somewhere near her womb then rippled down.
She cried out—her voice lost in the recesses of his mouth. She tensed—her body pushing up to meet his.
He grunted as the first spasm shook him and he felt her climax begin. It was such an intense, overpowering feeling wrapped around his cock that increased the speed of his thrusting.
The moment the release washed over her, she felt the first spurt of his juices spilling into her, the jerk of his cock, the hard power in his thighs as he strained against her. As wave after wave of pure, concentrated pleasure undulated through her, she felt his shaft pulsing hard.
Ailyn tore his mouth from hers and threw back his head, howling as he pulsated one last time within her. Pushing hard against her, stabbing his cock as far inside her as it would go, he held still as the last faint jerk signaled the end of his release.
Breathing hard, sweat glistening on his body, he rolled with her until he lay on his back with her blanketing him. She had released her hold on his waist and shoulders so that her legs and arms stretched out alongside his, his hands clasped together at the small of her back.
“By the gods, I’ll never walk again,” he gasped. His heart was pounding so violently, he feared it would burst.
“You’ll never walk again?” she countered. She too was heaving in breath. Lowering her head to his chest, she could hear the thunderous beat beneath her ear. “You’ve crippled me, Harmattan.” She heard him snort.
He had not slept in days and he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open. He was drained—milked dry—and so weary he simply could no longer stay awake. He didn’t try. Two more deep breaths and he was sound asleep.
Shanee lifted her head and realized he was sleeping. Tariq had told her he would not have had much sleep—if any at all—and so she gently lay her head down again and there wrapped in the safe, protected, loving embrace of his arms, fell asleep atop him.