BloodWind

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  "For awhile now. Why?"

  He bent over, scooped up his uniform shirt, and dragged it over his shoulders.

  "We resent it, you know," she told him as she watched him button his shirt.

  "Resent what?" he asked, his eyes still on the occasional lightning.

  "Being brought here and enslaved to you men," she said. "Many of us are trying to find ways to stop the Retrievals."

  "Us?" he queried, tucking the shirt into his leather uniform pants. He put his hands on his hips. "You mean the Resistance is trying to find ways to stop the Retrievals?" He did not want to entertain the notion— such as the one Lares Taborn had put into his mind— that his woman could belong to the infamous group that was intent on driving him crazy and destroying the world as he knew it.

  "You say the word `Resistance' like it's evil. They are only trying to help their own."

  "They play a deadly game." He cast another worried look toward the lightning in the distance.

  "In what way?"

  "In many ways, Bridget," he said with exasperation. "They think they can overturn a system of government that has been established for thousands of years. Under the Empire, not only Rysalia, but also its neighbors, have flourished. After the Disruption, the Tribes were scattered all over the galaxy." He swept his arm toward the forest. "There was no organized effort to get food, provide shelter, to defend themselves. There were no towns, no law; crime was rampant; murder and thievery, a way of life. Until a few men of clear purpose banded together and formed the Tribunal."

  She shook her head. "I know Rysalian history, Kam. The Brotherhood re-organized the Tribunal from before the Disruption. Brotherhood by its own definition excludes women, now, doesn't it?"

  "Women have to be protected," he explained. "They are weaker than men; unable to defend themselves from harm and invading marauders."

  "Saying that to a woman of Celtic ancestry will get you a swift kick in the family jewels, Reaper. The Celts had women warriors far more savage than their men were. And American Indian braves turned over their captives to the women of the tribe because the women were better at torture. Even during the Afghanistan war, the tribesmen let their women have Russian prisoners to torment."

  "I know how well women can torture a man, Bridget," he said quietly. "I have experienced it first hand."

  Bridget looked away. "That is not what I meant."

  "The Brotherhood brought law and order to the tribes, Bridget. At least give them credit for that. They made provisions for their womenfolk, too, and established schools for the children. Civilization was re-born from the ashes of the Disruption."

  "So they've only done good in your world?"

  He shook his head. "No, it hasn't always been good, but you should know what absolute power left unchecked can do. Your world learned that during your Gulf War."

  "I won't argue that with you." She came to her knees before him. "Kamerone, your world is much worse than mine has ever been. Even in 1968 when it looked as though the entire planet would explode! Here, at the same time, Jarl was designing that insidious little retrovirus so that those few men of clear purpose could rule their little corner of the universe. Not improve it, mind you, or bring civilization to it, but to dominate it. Isn't that what they are called: The Brotherhood of the Domination? Is that not government run amok, Kam? Government left unchecked?"

  "Aye, I see your point."

  "And when the women of your world became sterile, when your scientists threw up their hands and said they guessed they'd made a terrible mistake, where were the next generation of Rysalian warmongers going to come from? Not Chale. Not Ionary. Not Serenia or Chrystallus or Virago or Diabolusia. Nor from Necroman or Oceania." She shook her head. "That damned virus made sure of that!"

  "I know, but— "

  "So you came to my little corner of the universe: a place you had no goddamned right to be!" she said bitterly. "You stole from my world. You took from my world and you brought our women here against their will. You bought and sold them and used them like breeding sows. You kidnapped our brightest, prettiest scientists and physicians, regardless of whether or not that woman had a husband, a family she left behind to always wonder what terrible fate had befallen her. You took our best to re-populate your world and those you could not breed or who had no skills, you used as domestic help or as common trollops for your lower caste warriors!"

  "All that is true," he agreed, "but that is the way life is here. I have no more say in how things are done here than you do."

  "What happens when a half-Terran, half-Rysalian female is created? It is vacuumed out of its mother's womb and tossed in the incinerator because some faceless male bureaucrat deemed it useless!"

  "That is enough," he said, uneasy with her argument. It sounded too much like Resistance babble. "I don't want to hear anymore about this."

  "Can't you understand how terrible a thing it is to be used like that, Kam?" she asked quietly. "How terrified I felt when I looked up and saw that cybot leaning over me. How degraded and humiliated I felt when I was paraded naked before a committee of Breeders who decided the Empire would best be served if I was handed over to the Ministry of Behavioral Modification instead of going to the pens?"

  "I said that's enough, Bridget." He turned to stare at the lightning that had crept closer as they spoke. A dark scowl formed on his face. "There is a storm coming."

  "You'd better believe there is," Bridget agreed. "The Resistance— "

  "I mean weather-wise," he snapped.

  "What if I should conceive, Kamerone?" The quiet question gained his full attention. "Have you thought of that?"

  He looked at her for a moment then turned away. "You must not allow that to happen."

  "That's easier said than done. I am fertile. Tests were done when Kon— "

  His head jerked around and his hand came up to keep her from finishing her sentence. "Don't you dare," he warned, his eyes flashing,

  Bridget bit her lip, watching him as he turned back to the study the increasing flashes of lightning on the horizon.

  "You know that I love you," she said softly.

  "I know."

  "Don't you want me to have your child?"

  "You can't."

  "Why not?"

  He sighed deeply, put his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently. "Because I am a Reaper, Bridget. My seed is tainted; virulent with the spores of a parasite that makes others of my kind. Every child conceived of my sperm is infected with it. Any egg carrying female DNA is automatically devoured by the parasite." He searched her eyes. "Do you want your child to be born a monster like his father?"

  "You are not a monster."

  "I am the closest thing to it on my world or yours." He looked over his shoulder as the wind kicked up and blew his hair across his eyes. "The winds have shifted and we have to go. Rysalian windstorms can be deadly." He reached for the mini Vid-Com on his utility jacket. "Cree to engineering."

  There was only a crackle of static.

  "Cree to engineering. Two to transport to FSK-14."

  Once more the crackle of static was the only sound from the Vid-Com.

  "We've waited too long." He looked about them and looked for the dense darkness beyond the trees he had discovered earlier. "There is a cave beyond the oaks. We'll shelter there until the storm passes."

  "I don't like storms," Bridget said soberly as they began their trek toward the cave. "Thunder and lightning terrify me."

  "You'd better learn to like them because we've got a serious one on the way."

  Chapter 18

  FIRE SNAPPED in the dried twigs he had found. Outside, the wind howled fiercely against the cave's entrance. Murderous cracks of lightning and the ominous reverberation of thunder shook the cave walls and rumbled beneath their feet as Cree and Bridget sat huddled around the meager light of the small fire.

  "How long do you think it will last?"

  Cree was watching the last flickering afterglow from a lightning hit close by. H
is gaze was uneasy, worried, and he shrugged his answer without speaking.

  Bridget pulled his utility jacket closer around her shoulders. "Will we have to spend another night here?"

  She saw him shudder. "I pray to the gods we do not. One night was enough."

  "Do you really do that?"

  The Reaper turned his attention from the cave's entrance to her. "Do what?"

  "Pray?"

  He grunted and looked away again. "It is just an expression. If any gods exist, they exist only in your little corner of the Universe." He shuddered again.

  "Are you cold?"

  "Not at all," he stressed. "If anything, I am too warm." He swung his head around and fixed her with a demanding look. "Move away from me."

  "You don't want me to sit next to you?" she asked, hurt.

  "No, I do not." He fanned her way. "Go on; move."

  Bridget pursed her lips tightly, but did as he ordered. Ever since they had entered the cave the afternoon before, he had been getting more and more sharp with her; less and less civil. He had lain down beside her the first night, holding her in his arms, but she knew he had not slept; had not closed his eyes. When she had awakened that morning— aching from a night on the hard ground and hungry— he had been watching her.

  As he was watching her now, his eyes haunted and his mouth tight.

  "If I didn't know any better," she said, "I'd think you didn't even want me in the cave with you."

  "I wish to every deity in the megaverse that you were nowhere near me right now!" he hissed as he came to his feet.

  His harsh words shocked Bridget. What had she done to anger him?

  "I have never taken leave," he was mumbling to himself. "There was a reason I had never taken leave." He paced the small area in front of the fire, repeatedly running his hands through his dark curls. "I never should have taken leave!"

  "Then why did you?" she asked in a defensive voice.

  "Because I wanted to please you!" His voice turned waspish. "I wanted to give you the sunshine. I wanted to give you the flowers and the grass and the trees and the gods-be-damned butterflies!"

  Bridget blinked. "And now you regret bringing me here?"

  "Aye, I regret it!" he thundered.

  "Why?"

  "Why?" he repeated with a snarl. "Why?! Not only am I AWOL now and will more than likely pay for that with another session with your beloved Be-Mod 9 Unit, and I am— " He stopped, shivered, then walked as far away from her as he could. "Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!"

  "What is wrong with you, Cree?" she asked, getting to her feet.

  A brittle laugh escaped Kamerone Cree. "Wrong?" he questioned, snorting with apparent disgust. "Everything is wrong, woman!"

  She watched him wrap his arms around himself as though he were in terrible pain. He was sweating profusely, his face slick with perspiration. Even as she watched, he put up an arm to wipe away the sweat. He shuddered violently, then groaned deep in his throat.

  "Are you sick?" She went to him and reached out a hand. She was stunned when he batted it away.

  "The gods-be-damned Healer took out one of my kidneys!" he answered through clenched teeth.

  Bridget stared at him. "What Healer? When?"

  "On Helios Twelve," he snarled. "There was a fight; I was stabbed and the bitch took out my kidney." As he said the last word, he doubled over, hunkering down on the cave floor.

  "Oh, Kam! Tell me what I can do!"

  "You can get the hell away from me!" he yelled, looking up at her with a wild look in his eyes.

  "Let me help you." She put a hand on his shoulder and was shocked when he sprang to his feet, his lips drawn back over his gleaming teeth.

  "Don't touch me, woman, unless you are prepared to feed me from your veins!" He took a step toward her, grinning malevolently as she stumbled out of his reach.

  Cree's feral eyes narrowed and his voice was a husky growl. "I didn't think so." He turned away, pacing the restrictive confines of the small cave like a caged beast. Now and again, he looked past Bridget to the lethal lightning still spearing the ground beyond the cave's entrance and growled with frustration.

  "How soon?" She understood what was going to happen. Being well versed in Reaper anatomy, she knew the loss of an organ could alter the Transition cycles.

  "An hour," he spat. "Maybe two. No more than that." He raked his fingers through his hair, armed the sweat from his brow, and then bent over the growing pain in his abdomen.

  "You need a transfusion," she said quietly and saw his head come up.

  "And just where the hell do you think I'll get it out here?"

  "Kamerone, you can— "

  "They did this to me."

  "Who?"

  "The gods-be-damned Resistance, woman!" he shouted. He bent forward, his gut on fire, and a small groan of growing frustration pushed from between his tightly clenched teeth. "It's always them!"

  "The storm stranded us, Kamerone."

  He turned on her. "Don't you think the weather station on FSK-9 knew we were going to have a storm today? Don't you think they would have alerted my own station to warn me to get my ass back to FSK-14 before it was too late?"

  "I don't understand."

  "There are female weather techs on FSK-9," he seethed. "Females who belong to the Resistance!"

  "No," Bridget said before she thought. "We haven't been able to convince them to join us. We— " She stopped, eyes flaring, as she realized what she had said.

  Cree nodded as though he had been expecting her to admit her connection to the infernal witches who had been tormenting him for more than a year. "By the gods," he said quietly, fiercely, "I had hoped Taborn was wrong. I should have known better."

  "It isn't what you think," she said, starting toward him only to have his hand shoot out to point a rigid, denying finger at her.

  "Stay the hell away from me, Bridget!"

  "Let me help you," she pleaded.

  "You have done enough! It was a trap, wasn't it?" He looked at her, his face filled with hurt. "They used you to get to me. They— " He slumped against the cave wall, his body arching with the excruciating pain ripping through it. "Oh, god!"

  "Kamerone, please," she said, going to him. "At least let me hold you."

  A part of him wanted desperately to be held, to feel the gentle comfort only she could give him. In her arms, perhaps the pain would not be so great; but the danger of him hurting her would increase tenfold so he shook his head, denying them both.

  "I am not afraid of you," she insisted and reached out but he put up a stiff arm to keep her at bay.

  "You should be!" he spat. He started to tell her why but his words were cut off by a sudden surge of torment that made him hide his face against the stone. "Sweet Merciful Alel!" he whimpered and dropped to the ground, his body jackknifing.

  "I can't stand to see you like this!" Despite his warning growl, she came to him, knelt down only a foot away. "Kam, please let me help you!"

  He lifted his head and looked at her. A slow, menacing grin creased his face when he watched hers lose its coloring. Her lips parted in shock and began to tremble.

  "What's wrong, Bridget?" he growled, holding her in the grip of his savage gaze.

  Bridget felt the cold shudder go down her body as she stared at the altered condition of his face. She knew the wetness that appeared between her legs was not sweat from being too close to the small fire.

  Gone was the dark brown of his eyes; gone was the bold, clean line of his nose; the handsome planes of his face; the white gleam of his teeth.

  "Like what you see?"

  His eyes were glowing red behind the wrinkled advance of his snout. His cheekbones had flared, become elevated, and swept back to sharp, pointed ears. The yellowed fangs protruding from his leathery lips and dripping thick streams of saliva were like needles as he grinned at her.

  "Want what you see?" he taunted.

  It took every ounce of Bridget Dunne's courage and compassion to hold her arms out to
him. "I love you, Kamerone Cree," she whispered.

  Like the bloodbeast he was rapidly becoming, the Reaper cocked his head to one side in question, looking up at her through the dark brush of his hair.

  "Let me hold you." She put a trembling hand to his rough cheek. "Let me hold you, sweetheart."

  A moan of despair came from the very depths of his being and he ducked his head in abject shame. "How can you bear to touch me?" he whimpered and his voice was barely recognizable as human.

  Bridget could feel her fury rising. She knew who was to blame for this. Kam had been right: the Resistance had set this evil plan into motion. They had known full well what terrible pain— both physical and mental— having her see him like this would do to Cree.

  "Come here!" she bit out, drawing him into her arms and holding him even when he tried to break free. "You are my heart. Do you think I care what is on the outside of the man? It is what is inside that matters!"

  "There is a beast inside me, Bridget!"

  "Be quiet," she insisted. It wasn't her words, but the descent of her lips with protective fierceness on his savage brow that finally calmed his struggles.

  "Do not look at me," he pleaded, his heavy claw of a hand wrapped around her wrist as she held him to her. "I can not bear you to see this!"

  "I am watching the lightning," she answered and resolutely looked toward the cave entrance.

  Bridget became lost in her raging thoughts of vengeance against the Resistance for the deliberate torment of this man yet again. Cree was sunk as low into the quagmire of beasthood as he could go and was completely unable to comprehend time or space in his pain. She whispered words she doubted he could understand, but knew the sound of her voice soothed him. He held on to her, his face pressed tightly against her bosom so she could not see the full transition that had taken place. She hummed to him, trying with all her might to ignore the rank odor of his body and the sharp nails grazing her wrists as he gripped her. He panted with his pain, trying with all his might to ignore the smell of sweet, rich blood flowing through her arteries and the warm flesh so close to his jaws. It wasn't until his need became an undeniable agony that he tore loose from her hold and rolled away, drawing his knees up to his chest. His netherworldly howl of frustration and pain brought tears to her eyes.