WyndRiver Sinner

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Aingeal opened her eyes and sniffed. Turning to the nightstand, she looked at the steaming mug whose fragrance of cinnamon and ginger had beckoned her. She had a vague memory of the hotelman bringing in the toddy but could not for the life of her remember him leaving.

  “Drink your toddy,” Cynyr instructed. “It’ll make your throat feel better.”

  Frowning, Aingeal sat up and reached for the mug. She took a sip and almost instantly her throat felt better. She suspected her lover had something to do with that, but it didn’t matter. The cold had settled over her with a vengeance.

  “Thank you for the gown,” she said.

  Cynyr smiled, for her voice sounded like she was down in a well. “You are welcome, wench.”

  “And the Joining.”

  “It wasn’t in a grand cathedral as you’d dreamt of, but we’re just as legally married,” he said, lying down. He propped his head on his fist and looked at her. He could not seem to get enough of doing that, he thought.

  “That was sweet of Mrs. McDermott to give me her ring,” she said, and held out her hand to look at the band. She frowned. “You didn’t make her do that, did you?”

  “No, wench,” he said. “That was something she offered of her own accord.” He sent her a light sublim and she took a few swallows of the toddy.

  Lightning flashed across the window and Aingeal flinched.

  “Finish the brew, Aingeal, and don’t think about the weather,” he said, his voice like black velvet being tucked around her.

  Despite the heat of the drink, Aingeal took a few more swallows. Her eyes were drooping and her features slack. The liquor combined with Cynyr’s silent messages to her were beginning to take their toll. By the time she finished with the toddy, she was nodding.

  “Put the mug on the table, sweeting,” he said, “and come here.”

  She did as he told her then came to nestle in his arms, her hand pressed over his heart, her head on his brawny shoulder. With him holding her tightly to him, she closed her eyes and slept.

  For a long time Cynyr lay there staring up at the ceiling. The weather had worsened again—as he felt it would—and lightning was flaring almost constantly, its fiery voice piercing the heavens, thunder rumbling loudly. Hail struck at the window. Downstairs, he could hear people milling about and could smell their fright.

  “Go to sleep,” he said, blanketing everyone within the building with a strong command. “You are safe in my hands.”

  He listened until there were no more rumblings, no more fearful gasps as the lightning cracked, then closed his own eyes.

  Chapter Six

  He sat bolt upright in the bed, his heart pounding, his body gleaming with sweat. He was trembling so violently his teeth were chattering, his blood thumping wildly through his veins. Dragging in great gulps of air, he felt as though he’d been running as fast as his legs could carry him. Pain was clawing its way across his lower back with a vengeance.

  “Cynyr?” Aingeal asked quietly.

  The sound of a voice so close to him snapped the Reaper’s head around and, for a moment, he didn’t seem to know his lady. His eyes were glowing a desperate crimson. He snarled at her, his fangs sharp and glistening.

  “I love you,” she said, unafraid of his startling appearance as she laid a hand on his forearm.

  Cynyr shook off her hand and sprang from the bed. He was in so much pain he could barely move, but his keen sense of smell directed him to the saddlebag and he pounced on it, tearing into the leather to get to the syringe and ampoule of tenerse that was his lifeline. With hands shaking, he filled the syringe but dropped it.

  “No!” he yelled so loudly the panes in the window shook. He went down on one knee from the vicious pain exploding in his kidney and pounded the floor with his fist.

  Aingeal was out of the bed and picked up the syringe. She squatted down beside him. “Where does this need to go?” she asked.

  He swiveled his head around to glare at her, hissing like a cornered animal. He was in so much pain, he didn’t recognize her. “Lady, please!” he begged. “Don’t torment me like this again!” He tilted his neck.

  Many years before, Aingeal’s father had required daily injections of a medicine that controlled his disease. Although she had never given the injection to her father, she’d watched her mother do so and thought she could administer her husband’s.

  “In your neck?” she asked, watching the vein throbbing brutally in the column of his throat.

  “Do it, lady. Please!”

  Aingeal took a deep breath and plunged the needle into the side of her lover’s neck. She pulled up on the syringe until a drop of his blood entered the shaft then pushed the plunger down. The sight of black blood bubbling up into the syringe was an unsettling sight.

  The tenerse spread through Cynyr’s neck and shoulder like fire and he bent double over the agony, his hands gripping his thighs. Sweat was pouring from his face and his chest was wet with it. His entire body was quivering as he knelt there.

  Aingeal laid the syringe aside and put her arm around his shoulder, crooning to him as she pulled him against her. He fell to his side, his knees drawn up, and he laid his head in her lap. Small whimpers of sound seemed to be coming from the very core of him.

  “It’s all right, my love,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

  Her gaze went to the lavender-colored liquid left in the ampoule and wondered what the drug was. It was calming her husband, apparently lulling him, so that his breathing returned to normal and the sweat began drying on his upper body.

  “Tenerse,” he managed to tell her. “It’s called tenerse.”

  She’d never heard of the drug and wasn’t sure it was good for her man. She suspected it was addictive and that concerned her.

  “I have to have it,” he said, wrapping his hand around her hip. “I can’t live without it.”

  “Can you get off it?” she asked, smoothing his damp hair.

  “No. Never.”

  He laid where he was for nearly fifteen minutes. The pain and the dream had taken every ounce of his energy. He needed Sustenance but until he left the hotel, he knew he’d have to tamper down that need.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked. “Whatever the dream was that had you crying out in your sleep?”

  He now knew who the angel was who was holding him. It was his angel, his Aingeal. She was his lady, his wife, his love. Her gentle touch was a balm to the madness that had ridden him a few minutes before. She was his to protect and shield, and he knew she had a right to know what demons lurked in his mind.

  “It was the priest,” he said, opening his eyes to stare blindly across the room. “He hurt me when I was a child and that hurt always comes back in my dreams.”

  “Hurt you how, my love?”

  He turned over so that he was looking up at the ceiling. “What he did doesn’t matter.” He closed his eyes. “It just won’t go away.”

  “Perhaps if you talk about it, it will,” she encouraged.

  He took her hand and brought it to his lips, placing a gently kiss on her palm before laying it over his heart. “Not now,” he said, and looked up at her. “One day I will tell you, but not now.”

  She nodded, unwilling to push him, for she could see great pain in his amber depths. Something evil had claimed her husband and a portion of it was still hidden in his soul.

  For a moment longer he lay there then got to his feet, reaching down a hand to help her up. He pulled her into the safety of his arms then kissed the top of her head. “You’re still hot,” he said.

  “This damned cold is getting the best of me,” she admitted.

  Cynyr knew his wife’s constitution had been run down long before he met her. The lack of food, the fear of the Jakotai brave tracking her, the inadequate clothing she had been forced to wear had taken a toll on her health.

  “Get back in bed and I’ll go have Guthrie bring you up some breakfast,” he said.

  Aingeal walked toward
the bed, hearing a now familiar rush of air behind her. She smiled, turning to see her husband fully dressed in his Reaper’s uniform. “Can I have a clean gown?” she asked. When he obliged her, she giggled then climbed into the bed. “Sure is going to save on washing.”

  Cynyr grinned at her. He had every intention of making sure her life from that day on would be as easy as he could make it for her. She deserved nothing but the best and he intended to see she got it.

  “What do you feel like eating?”

  “Everything,” she said, settling the covers around her legs. “Toast, bacon, eggs, grits—”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Grits,” she said with a sigh. “I guess that’s too much to ask way out here on the plains but they’d sure be nice for a change.”

  He slipped easily into her mind to find out to what she was referring. He shrugged. “Looks nasty,” he pronounced.

  “Don’t knock what you haven’t tried, Reaper,” she told him.

  He left her sitting up, staring out the window where sunlight was trying desperately to peek through sodden gray clouds. Most of the people were gone from the hotel lobby but one man remained behind. He smiled timidly at Cynyr.

  “What can I do for you?” Cynyr asked. He knew the man had been delegated by the others and was only mildly interested in what he had to say.

  The man ducked his head then looked up. “We’re grateful for your help with Guthrie, sir.” He rolled the brim of his hat around and around in his hands. “Anything we can do for you in return, just ask.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mick Brady,” the man said. “I’m the town barber.”

  “My lady is sick,” Cynyr said. “She’s got a roaring cold and I’ve got business down in Exasla Territory. I can’t take her with me.”

  “We’ll watch over her for you, sir,” Mick said. “We won’t let nothing happen to her.”

  “There’s a man after her,” the Reaper said, staring the barber in the eye. “A Jakotai brave.”

  “Bad men those Jakotai,” Mick said. “We’ll keep her safe for you, sir. You don’t have to worry.”

  “It shouldn’t take me more than a couple of days to finish my business in Exasla. I’ll get back as quickly as I can.” As he spoke, he was sending a silent command to Mick Brady, winding a strong desire to protect Aingeal in the man’s mind.

  “I’ll see to it personally, sir. Your lady will be safe. I pledge that to you.”

  The Reaper gave the man’s shoulder a camaraderie slap. “Good man. I’ll be counting on you. Put your best townsmen to watching her.”

  Brady nodded and left to assign just such men to the task.

  Guthrie was sitting in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in his meaty hands. He looked up as Cynyr came through the door then hopped to his feet, spilling the coffee as he did. “Yes, sir?” he said. “What can—?”

  “The lady wants breakfast,” Cynyr said. From where he stood, he could see the puncture wounds on Guthrie’s neck and sighed. He’d meant to close those up the evening before. Now it was too late, for he knew Guthrie had found them by now. The look of terror on his face said as much. “It won’t turn you.”

  A loud sigh of relief exploded from Guthrie and he reached up a trembling hand to the twin wounds. “I was afraid—”

  “Bacon, toast with jam, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs and coffee,” the Reaper cut him off, waving a hand to dismiss the memory from Guthrie. He frowned. “Do you know what grits are?”

  Guthrie bobbed his head. “I’m from the South, sir. I never cared for—”

  “Do you have them?”

  “No, sir, but I know where I can get ‘em.”

  “Then get them for her. She likes them with lots of butter.” Cynyr shuddered. The thought of the mushy food swimming in greasy butter made his stomach roil.

  All the time the men had been talking, the cook was standing with her back to the stove, quivering. Her eyes went wide as saucers when the Reaper’s stare flicked to her, quickly erasing from her mind any mention of the wounds on Guthrie’s neck.

  “Make sure my lady has a hearty dinner and supper today, as well. She needs to eat as much as she can.”

  “Yes, s-sir,” the cook stammered.

  “The same breakfast for her tomorrow and, if I haven’t returned, the day after. Hot toddies every night before she goes to sleep.”

  “I’ll see to it, sir,” the cook agreed.

  Satisfied he’d seen to Aingeal’s needs and itching to find Sustenance, Cynyr left the kitchen and walked out into the sodden morning. He squinted up at the sun’s feeble attempt to break through the clouds. The wind had died down but there was a slight chill in the air. The main street was nothing more than a muddy quagmire that sucked at his boots as he headed toward the livery.

  Storm was munching contently on a mound of hay when his master entered the stable. The horse nickered a greeting then went back to feeding. Cynyr looked around for the liveryman and when he didn’t see him, sent out a silent call. He needed Sustenance badly, for the pain was returning to his back and the parasite was demanding to be fed.

  “Yes, sir?”

  The liveryman came in from the back entrance of the stable and came forward, wiping his dirty hands on a rag. His eyes were glazed.

  When Cynyr had provided for the revenant worm slithering inside him, he walked back to the hotel and went up the stairs. He knew Aingeal would give him grief if he told her he was leaving, so he decided not to mention it, but to delve lightly into her mind and leave behind a message that all would be well and he would return as quickly as he could. As soon as he entered their room, he was overcome with the beauty of the woman he had taken to bride.

  She rushed to him, throwing her arms around his neck and planting fervent kisses on his face. “Where did you find them?” she asked, breathlessly.

  He knew she meant the grits and laughed. “If that’s all it takes to garner such notice from you, wench, what other Southern treats have you missed?”

  She was pressed to him, her head cocked to one side. “Hushpuppies, fried okra, lace bread, turnip greens…”

  As she rattled off all the things she had missed over the years and he plucked a picture of each from her excited mind, he was appalled at the greasiness and saturated fat lurking in her favorite dishes. Such things were not good for the body—even if they were required by the soul—and he shook his head. “Moderation, wench,” he advised. “All things in moderation.”

  “I could eat my weight in lace bread with baked ham and fresh sliced tomatoes hot from the garden and corn dodgers swimming in turnip green liquor, all of it washed down by sweet tea and—”

  “Enough!” he begged her, the mind thoughts making him queasy. He wrapped his hands around her wrists and pulled her arms down, holding her hands together between them. “You’d be as big as a barn if you ate like that.”

  “There’d be more of me to love,” she said, grinning at him.

  Cynyr sighed. It wasn’t just her beautiful face and shapely body he loved. It was her irreverent treatment of him and the total lack of fear lurking in her pretty eyes. “You aren’t afraid of me, are you?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Perhaps that first early evening when you dispatched my attacker, but by the time I tracked you to your camp, all I wanted was your food. I could smell it a mile away.”

  “So it’s my ability to provide your belly with grub that has earned me your love, eh, wench?” he teased.

  “That,” she said, tugging one hand free to run it down the front of his britches, “and this.” She caressed him through the leather.

  Cynyr felt himself harden to steel beneath her touch, but he knew he couldn’t allow something to begin he didn’t have time to finish. He stepped back from her, putting himself out of her reach. “Behave,” he said.

  A pout on her pretty lips, Aingeal started to protest but she began sneezing again, so he swept her up in his arms and took her back to the bed.

  “Y
ou stay put, woman,” he said, laying her down and tugging the covers over her.

  “Come back to bed with me then,” she said.

  He was tempted—by the gods he was tempted—but he stamped down the urge and sat besides her, reaching out to lay his palm against her cheek. “I want you to listen to me, Aingeal,” he said in his mesmerizing voice. “I want you to do exactly as I tell you.”

  She became lost in his amber gaze. Little pinpoints of scarlet flames were dancing behind the golden stare and she could not look away. He was speaking to her in a low voice she barely heard, but every word he spoke wound through her brain and planted itself there. His hand was warm against her cheek, soothing her flesh, stroking her as he spoke so that everything he said to her became a part of her.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Cynyr was reluctant to leave her. Despite having provided for her protection and safety, he did not want to be apart from her for even an hour, much less the span of a couple of days.

  Gently, he claimed her mouth, tasting her, flicking his tongue across her teeth then he stood, gazing down at her with a hunger that would have frightened the bravest man.

  “Do not leave this room until I return, Aingeal,” he commanded.

  She nodded, unable to break eye contact with him. Unconsciously she put out her tongue and licked her upper lip, unmindful of the surge of lust that shot through her lover’s intense stare.

  “The gods help me,” he said, raking a hand through his hair. He knew if he didn’t get out of that room right then, he was going to pounce on her and take her.

  With one last longing look, he resolutely turned his back and fled the room, his heart growing lonelier with every step he took.

  * * * * *

  Balgairs they were called in the Gaelach tongue. Rogues they’d been labeled by the High Council. Most had made their way to Terra before the Burning War, hiding in out-of-the-way places in the barren plains and in the higher elevations of the mountains, venturing forth to murder and ravage their way through humankind. The majority of them had come from either the Cairghrian or Diamhair galaxies, brought by the shadowy network that answered only to Raphian Himself. Sent to destroy the inhabitants of Terra, neither the rogues nor their masters had counted upon the arrival of Reapers.