WyndRiver Sinner

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  “Walker!” Matthew shouted. “Samuels!”

  Men came running from the livery. Others had seen the horse trotting into town and were spilling out from the saloon, the café, and Mick Brady was hurrying from the barbershop.

  “Is he alive?” Mick called.

  “I think so,” Matthew replied. He was standing beside the horse, peering up into the pale face of the Reaper. “Bleeding pretty badly.”

  “Let’s get him to the saloon. It’s the closest,” Mick ordered. “Brent, go get the healer.”

  Very carefully the men eased Cynyr from his horse. Samuels and Schumann took him beneath the shoulders and knees and began carrying him across the street. Brady picked up the Reaper’s hat, which had fallen to the ground, and fanned away the mud against his leg.

  “Looks to me to be an arrow slit in his shirt,” John Denning, the saloonkeeper, said.

  “Damned Jakotai must have got him,” Mick grumbled.

  “If he did, odds are there be one less Jakotai sliming the earth this afternoon,” Denning commented.

  “I hope you’re right,” Mick replied.

  As they reached the saloon, Healer Murphy came running, his black bag clutched in his hand. “Put him down on the billiards table!” the healer ordered.

  Denning hurried forward, sweeping aside the balls scattered across the table, shoving them into the pockets before stepping back to allow the men to lay the Reaper down.

  “Where’s he bleeding from?” the healer inquired.

  “There’s blood all down the side of his britches,” Denning replied. “Looks like he got hit in the right side of his back.”

  Easing his patient over to his left side, he saw the slit in the silk shirt. “Arrow,” he said. “Turn him all the way over, men.”

  With care, Samuels and Schumann eased the Reaper to his stomach, gently pulling his arms out from under him.

  The healer took hold of the cut in Cynyr’s shirt and ripped it open. As he did, he jumped back, shouting with fear. Every man there put as much distance as they could between them and the billiards table for something sickly green in color—triangular head weaving from side to side—had come up from the wound in the Reaper’s back. With red eyes glaring from a warty head, the creature hissed and spit, spraying acid onto the felt tabletop, acid that burned holes through the table and plopped to the floor with a sizzling hiss.

  “What in the name of Alel is that?” Samuels whispered.

  “His parasite,” Aingeal said.

  The men turned, seeing the Reaper’s woman walking slowly toward them, supported on both sides by Moira McDermott and her daughter-in-law Annie.

  “The thing’s nearly slit in two,” Mick said, watching the weaving revenant. He pointed to the deep cut in the parasite’s scaly body.

  The healer crept forward a ways, too afraid to get that close to the beastess. “What can we do, ma’am?” he asked Aingeal.

  Aingeal came forward, assisted by the women. Instinctively she knew the creature was in pain but she had no knowledge of how to help it. It had drawn its head back as though ready to strike her if she got any closer. Its mouth was opening and closing, showing sharp fangs that dripped with acid and splashed onto Cynyr’s back, burning the flesh.

  “You are hurting him,” Aingeal told the creature, and she pulled free of Moira and Annie’s grips.

  “Ma’am, don’t get no closer!” the healer warned.

  “He accepted You and protected You as best he could, now You would hurt him?” She moved almost to the edge of the table. “Did You not promise to protect him?”

  The creature weaved from the wound in Cynyr’s back. Its fiery eyes were flashing a warning, but it closed its mouth, preventing the acid from falling to its host’s body.

  “By the gods there are more of them inside him!” Samuels shrieked, pointing at the multitude of little green triangular heads that poked up through the wound. No larger than a man’s little fingernail, they writhed around the larger revenant worm then disappeared back into the Reaper’s body.

  “Tell me what to do for You,” Aingeal said. “How do I help You to help him?”

  Suddenly something buzzed through Aingeal’s head and she slammed her palms over her ears. The sound was like a million angry bees and so loud it brought tears to her eyes. She nearly fainted from the volume and staggered back, feeling Moira’s arms going around her.

  The parasite stopped moving. It was staring straight at Aingeal. It had retracted back down into the Reaper’s back until only the red, elliptical eyes were showing from the wound.

  “I think,” Aingeal said, “she just wants us to leave her alone.”

  “But the cut needs suturing,” the healer said. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “Sustenance!”‘ The one word cut through Aingeal’s brain like a hot knife and her knees buckled. “Feed me!”

  Mick had leapt forward, catching Aingeal before she collapsed. He would have picked her up but the creature lashed out from the wound—all twelve inches of it—and spat at the barber, spraying the back of his arm with acid. It weaved on its forked tail for a moment then sunk back into the Reaper’s wound.

  “Damn it, don’t touch his woman!” Denning warned unnecessarily.

  The barber was waving his arm, the stinging almost more than he could bear. He was holding on to Aingeal but never again would he attempt to lift the woman into his arms.

  Aingeal pushed away from Mick. She had heard the creature’s sickening voice in her ears and knew now what it needed. She turned her attention to the healer. “We need blood,” she said. “As much as you can get.”

  “A transfusion?” he asked.

  “Feed me!” the creature demanded again, its voice less severe but no less sickening in Aingeal’s ears. “Male blood!”

  Aingeal shook her head. “Fill as large a bowl as you can find. Put in on the table and let the beastess drink. She only wants male blood.”

  Every man and woman there gagged at the order but Samuels was the first to offer his veins to the healer. “If it will help, I’m willing,” he said, pushing up the sleeve of his shirt.

  It took but a few moments for the healer to set up the tubing and needles needed to draw the required blood. The men already in the saloon rolled up their sleeves and waited their turn while Annie went in search of more volunteers.

  “I can only draw two men at once,” the healer said.

  Moira had hobbled behind the bar and came back carrying a large washbasin Denning’s bartender used to clean up. Seeing how weak Aingeal appeared, she told the young woman to sit down.

  Mick pulled up a chair but Aingeal declined the offer to sit. She moved closer to the table—to her husband’s left side—and reached down for his hand. The creature hissed at her but did not strike out, though everyone there was holding their breath.

  “Will You heal Yourself?” she asked the creature.

  The evil thing did not reply, but turned its beady red eyes to the bowl into which the healer was allowing Samuel’s and Schumann’s blood to flow. As soon as their blood was taken, the healer moved the bowl to the table, holding his breath as he set it down.

  The beastess hissed, warning the healer back, then dipped her maw into the bowl and began slurping up the red liquid.

  “By Alel’s toes,” Moira said, her face pale.

  “We need a lot more than that,” Aingeal said, stroking Cynyr’s still face. He was far too pale, the veins in his eyelids lighter than usual. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  Townspeople who were too afraid to come into the saloon were clustered around the batwing doors of its entrance, silently watching what was going on inside. Now and again, a man would push his way through—encouraged by his wife or daughter—to add his help to the men already giving. As soon as his blood was taken the man hurried out, glancing back over his shoulder in fear at the parasite perched on the Reaper’s back, its forked tongue lapping up the blood into the slit of a mouth, fiery red eyes tracking every man in
the room.

  Cynyr groaned and his eyes opened slowly. His back was on fire. He hurt worse than he could ever remember hurting and could feel the moisture gathering in his eyes.

  “It’s all right, mo tiarna,” Aingeal whispered to him, squatting down until they were eye to eye.

  “The Queen,” he said, fearing for the revenant worm. “My parasite?”

  “She’s feeding,” Aingeal told him. “Will she heal herself?”

  He could feel the movement on his back, could hear the slurp of the parasite’s tongue, and breathed a sigh of relief. He feared the thing had been killed by the Jakotai’s arrow and a new fledging would have to take its place. He knew he’d be weak for a long time until the nestling could come to full maturity.

  “Aye, she’ll survive. How are you, my lady?” he asked, his gaze roaming over her flushed face.

  “Better than my husband, I think,” Aingeal said with a smile. She felt something brush the back of her legs and looked around. Mick had brought her a chair and had eased it beneath her. She sat down, her hand still clutching Cynyr’s.

  He moved his hand so that his fingers covered hers instead of the other way around. He needed the comfort of her touch, the feel of her safe. He ached to take her into his arms, to hold her, to lie beside, their bodies pressed together.

  “He’s dead,” the Reaper whispered.

  “Figured as much,” Denning said, watching as his blood was poured into the basin. “Only good Jakotai is a dead Jakotai.”

  Aingeal was relieved but knowing the man who had been tracking her had nearly cost Cynyr his life made her angrier than anything else. If she could, she’d bring the bastard back to life so she could kill him herself.

  “Evil little wench,” Cynyr said, his eyelids drooping.

  “Your evil little wench,” she told him, reaching up to stroke the hair from his temple.

  “Damned right,” he said, then slipped into a healing sleep.

  * * * * *

  The sun was coming in brightly through the window when Cynyr next awoke. He turned his head away from the bright light, realizing they were not in the same room in which he’d left his bride. Aingeal was lying beside him, her hands tucked under the right side of her face, her pretty eyes closed. He lay still, watching her for the longest time until the nagging pain in his back made him shift. He realized he was naked beneath the covers as his rump slid over the crisp cotton sheets.

  Aingeal opened her eyes and smiled. “Hey there,” she said.

  “Hey yourself.”

  She could see the strain on his face and knew what was wrong. “Do you need your tenerse?”

  He nodded, grinding his teeth against the fire burning through his lower back.

  Aingeal threw the covers back and got up. She walked to the dresser and picked up the syringe and ampoule she had placed there the night before. Loading the syringe, she came back to the bed. “You don’t have much tenerse left.”

  “Where are we?” he asked through a tightly clenched jaw.

  “Miss Moira invited us to stay with her.” She sat down beside him. “Do you want it in your neck again?”

  “Best place,” he managed to say, turning his head away from her.

  It hurt Aingeal to plunge the needle into the column of his neck. The agony flowed quickly over his handsome face and he squeezed his eyes shut against the sting. Removing the needle, she leaned down and kissed the place she had hurt him.

  Cynyr raised his hand to cup her head. It was the sweetest of her kiss, the tender way she tried to comfort him that made his heart swell with love. Her lips were on his neck and he flinched as she swiped at his flesh with her tongue, knowing what she had done.

  “Aingeal, don’t,” he said, pulling away from her. The pain had subsided enough that he could push himself up in the bed. He was looking at her sternly. “I don’t want you to ever taste my blood again.”

  “Why not?” she asked. Her tongue was tingling where that one drop of black blood had touched it.

  “Because it’s tainted!” he said, his face mirroring his shame. “It’s filled with parasite spores.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “Wouldn’t your cum be filled with it too?” she asked innocently.

  His eyes widened. He’d never thought of that, but more than likely it was true. The parasitic waste had to be everywhere in his body—in every bodily fluid. She was already contaminated with the spores.

  “What have I done?” he groaned, burying his face in his hands. “What have I done to you?”

  She laid the syringe aside and wrapped her hands around his, tugging gently for him to lower them. “Loved me?” she asked softly.

  He met her tender gaze and lost himself in the sweetness of her face. She was looking back at him with nothing but love and he felt like crying for the first time since he was a small boy.

  “Oh, wench,” he said, slipping his arms around her. “The things you do to me.”

  “Oh, Reaper,” she returned. “The things I’d like to do to you!”

  He couldn’t keep from laughing. The wicked gleam in her gray eyes, the smirk on her beckoning lips and the arch of an expectant brow got the best of him.

  “You’re going to have to give me time, wench,” he said. “I’m not up to having you rape me just yet.”

  She wagged her brows at him. “I can wait.” She smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “Are you hungry?”

  He was starving but not for food. He ached for her, hungering after her glorious body, but it was the deeper need rumbling in his gut that required attention. That need must have passed across his face for she held her arm out to him. He looked down at it then up at her, his forehead wrinkled.

  “I am your wife,” she said, looking him in the eye. “It is my right and my duty to provide for you.”

  Understanding hit him like a sledgehammer and he shook his head so hard he thought he could hear his brain rattling. “No!” he said forcefully. “I will not—”

  “Why not?” she demanded. “Do you prefer a stranger’s blood to mine?”

  “You don’t know what you are offering,” he said stubbornly.

  “I don’t? Do you think I stick my arm under every Reaper’s fangs, Cynyr Cree?”

  “You’d damned well better not!” he snarled.

  “Then drink,” she said.

  “No.”

  She lowered her arm. “Why not?” she asked again, this time with hurt in her voice.

  “Aingeal,” he said, plowing a hand through his hair, “if I take your blood I can track you wherever you go. It is through the DNA that—” At her look of confusion, he waved away what he’d been about to say. “Look, I don’t want to take your blood because I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You’re hurting me now by refusing what I am freely offering,” she said, looking down at her lap.

  He knew there would come a day when he would need to take her blood so he could protect her, find her if he ever needed to, but he wasn’t ready for such a thing yet. He didn’t want to cause her a moment’s discomfort and he was afraid that once he tasted the sweetness of her, he might take too much. She’d been ill and was only now talking without sounding like she was in a tunnel. Her cheeks were no longer flushed, her flesh no longer hot to the touch, her nose red.

  “Aingeal,” he began, but she cut him off, flouncing from the bed and reaching for her wrapper.

  “Will Moira do or is she too old?” she asked, belting the wrapper around her.

  “Aye, she’s too close to…” He stopped. “I need someone young and strong. A man.”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll get Mick.”

  The man’s name rolled off her tongue far too easily for the Reaper’s comfort. His eyes narrowed. “You’re on a first name basis with him now, are you?”

  She was thrusting her feet into the slippers Moira had given her. “I’m on a first-name basis with the whole town,” she snapped, and jerked open the door.

  “Come back here,�
�� he ordered.

  Aingeal turned to glare at him. “Why?” she demanded.

  He sighed. Her face bore the unmistakable stamp of militancy and her nose was in the air. The set of her shoulders shouted her anger, as did the purse of her lips.

  “Wench, just come here,” he said.

  She came a few steps closer. “I thought you needed blood.”

  He winced at the way she said the word. “We call it Sustenance,” he corrected her.

  “Then would you like some bacon and eggs with your Sustenance?” she snapped. “Toast, jam, fried potatoes and grits?”

  “Grits?” he repeated. “Hell, no! No grits.”

  “Everything but grits,” she said, turning around to head back to the door. “Got it.”

  “Aingeal,” he said, and the word was a drawl of warning.

  She stopped, throwing her hands up. “What now, Reaper?” she asked as she faced him. “What else do you want?”

  He held out his hand. “You.”

  Her nose went up and she sniffed. “I’m not on the menu,” she told him.

  He dropped his arm. “All right,” he said. “You win.”

  “I didn’t realize we were playing a game,” she said, folding her arms over her chest.

  “Would you please come here?” he asked.

  Aingeal contemplated him for a moment longer then stomped to the bed. She stood there glaring at him, her body posture tight and unapproachable.

  “Will you sit down beside me?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  “Because I love you?”

  Aingeal rolled her eyes. “When it suits your purposes,” she accused, but sat down on the bed with him, her back partially to him.

  “Give me your arm,” he said.

  She looked around. His face bore no expression, but the look in his amber depths tugged at her heart. Her shoulders lost their stiffness and her stare its brittleness. “You’re going to feed from me?”

  He winced again. “I am going to allow you to provide for me,” he said.

  “That’s damned white of you, Reaper,” she sniffed, but thrust her right arm out, fist clenched.