He smiled and took her arm in his hand. “Look at me,” he said.
She turned her head but the moment her gaze met his, she could feel the pull on her senses and knew he was doing something. “What,” she ground out, “are you up to, Reaper?”
Without speaking, he opened his mouth to reveal his distended fangs. They were needle-sharp, about half the width of her little finger and she shivered.
“I will be piercing your flesh, Aingeal,” he said, forcing her gaze back to his eyes. “There is pain involved and I would take as much of it from you as I can.”
Involuntarily her stare dipped to those wicked teeth, but once more he pulled her attention back to his and held it there, not allowing her to look away. He lifted her arm to his mouth and very gently sank his fangs into her upturned wrist.
In a dim portion of Aingeal’s mind she felt the dual stings. They were nothing more painful than briar pricks. She fancied she could see flames leaping in his golden gaze and lost herself in the warmth and comfort of the blaze, feeling lazy and melting as she sat there.
Cynyr suckled from her wrist and found the taste of her as exotic and addicting as he knew it would be. Her blood flowed into his mouth with such sweetness, such purity, he felt transported by it. This was his mate’s blood, her Sustenance flooding his mouth, trickling down his throat, insinuating itself through his body. It was a heady bloodwine that filled his senses with such rapturous delight he felt as though he could drink from that font forever.
That thought shook him to the core and he realized he had taken more than he knew was safe. He immediately withdrew his fangs, lapping at the pricks, sealing with his saliva the twin punctures. He kissed the wound and pulled her into his arms, cradling her against him.
“Is it over?” she asked, her voice tired.
“Aye, wench,” he said. He silently berated himself for being so careless. He had weakened her and that he could never forgive. “Just sleep, baby.”
Aingeal pulled her legs up on the bed and snuggled against him. In the blink of an eye, she was asleep.
“Gods-be-damned fool!” he called himself as he eased out of the bed. He hated what he was more than ever as he stood looking down at his lady. She was paler than she should have been and he let out a string of curses that turned the air blue. Furious with himself, he swiped a negligent hand down his naked body and fashioned a black shirt and black denim jeans. Not even bothering to button the shirt or the top button of his jeans, he stalked barefoot to the door and jerked it open.
Moira was bent over a long worktable, kneading biscuits when the Reaper came prowling into her kitchen. Her gaze went from his head to his toes of its own accord. One look at his dark tousled hair, the thick mat of fur on his broad chest and his bare feet made the old woman’s shriveled womb leap for the first time in twenty years. Heat crept to her wrinkled cheeks and she drew in a shaky breath.
“Faith, boy, don’t ye be going about undressed in that fashion,” she said, her fingers squeezing the dough in a tight grip. “That is unseemly, it is.”
The kitchen was bright and cheerful like Moira McDermott. Cabinets were a pristine white with blue glass pulls. Blue and white gingham-check curtains hung at the window over the sink. A small table with four chairs was set off to one side and it was laid with three place settings upon the same gingham fabric as on the windows. Underfoot, a dark blue rag rug kept the oak floor from being cold.
“How much time did Mick Brady spend with my wife while I was gone?” Cynyr demanded.
Moira’s nearly non-existent left eyebrow crooked upward. “Why ye asking?”
The Reaper’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
Her aged lips puckering with humor, Moira recommenced punching down the dough. “Well, now, as I recall, it was every waking minute he could afford away from his shop.”
“Was he alone with my lady?”
Moira paused and put one flour-coated finger to her chin. “Define alone, lad.”
“Moira,” Cynyr warned with a low growl.
The old woman laughed and it looked like that laugh did her a world of good. Her face lost ten years of age from it. “Oh, lad, if you could see that handsome face of your’n all pinched up and bristling!” She shook her finger at him and flour fell to the table. “Have faith in your woman, son, and reliance on your friends.”
“Reapers don’t have friends,” he snapped.
“No?” she asked. “So what was all them folks what donated their blood to you last eve?”
“They were afraid I might harm them so they—”
“The hell you say,” Moira interrupted him. “They was aiming to help, lad. I didn’t hear a single one bemoaning saving your life.”
Cynyr started to tell her he was in no danger of dying from either the wound or his massive loss of blood, but he kept it to himself. He folded his arms over his chest and glared at the old woman.
“Stop giving me that demonic look and sit your ass down to the table,” Moira ordered. “If’n you don’t lighten up, I’ll serve you gruel instead of the delicious ham steak I got frying in the griddle.”
Cynyr had inhaled that beckoning aroma from the moment he’d come down the stairs and his stomach was rumbling. Other delightful smells wafting about the kitchen were assailing his senses to make his mouth water with anticipation.
“Are those apples I smell in the oven?” he asked, unfolding his arms and pulling a chair out from the table.
Moira was attacking the dough with her rolling pin but she glanced up at him in time to see him swing one long leg over the chair and straddle it. Once more that long-lost feeling pooled in the lower part of her belly and she shook her head. “Potent little bastard, he is.”
“Beg pardon?” Cynyr asked.
“Aye, it’s baked apples,” she told him. “Also got fried spuds and the filly’s god-awful grits.”
“You can keep the god-awful grits,” he said.
“My birds won’t even eat that shite,” Moira said, her Gaelach pronunciation of the word making Cynyr grin. She expertly cut her biscuits from the dough, placed them on a baking sheet, opened the oven and slid them in beside the baking apples. “Gotta add wood to this stove,” she commented.
“You need some chopped?” he asked.
“Could do with a cord or two,” she replied.
“I’ll see to it.”
Wiping her hands on her apron, Moira went to her stove, cracked two eggs into the pan with the ham, and then looked around. “Poked or not poked?”
“You got toast?” he countered.
“I do.”
“Unpoked,” he replied, and his mouth flooded with saliva at the thought of a nice runny egg yolk being wiped up with a crisp piece of toast.
She flipped the eggs once—just enough to form a skin across the bright yellow yolk—then ran the spatula under them and slid them onto a plate that had been warming on the back of the stove. Adding the ham steak, a goodly portion of fried potatoes with onions and green peppers and a stack of toast, she placed the food before her guest.
“Aren’t you eating?” he asked.
Moira shrugged. “Don’t take much to fill up an old biddy like me,” she said, pouring coffee into a tin cup. “I need roughage more than anything else.” She poured herself a cup and sat down by him, her arthritic hands wrapped around the warmth of the cup. The hump on her back broke his heart.
“Does it bother you much?” he asked, dunking a corner of his toast into one of the yolks. He looked pointedly at her crippled hands.
“Now and again,” she said, then shrugged. “‘Tis something you get used to, son.”
“I could help,” he said, then crammed the saturated toast into his mouth.
“You gonna bite me, boy?” she asked, her eyes dancing with laughter.
“You want me to?” he countered.
“Well, now,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “There was a time when I’d have told ye to take your best shot.” Her gaze roamed over him—lingering o
n the thick pelt of hair on his chest. “Aye, I would’ve jumped ye bones in a heartbeat, I would’ve.”
He grinned at her. “I bet you were something in your day, Moira McDermott.”
She nodded. “I was. When Noel McDermott met up with me, I was the highest-priced fancy woman at The Bare Bones,” she said.
Cynyr paused in cutting the ham steak. “The Bare Bones?” he repeated.
“A bawdy house back east, son. The most costliest and debauched place going. We had the hottest women to be found on this side of the pond.” She stuck her thumb to her chest. “I was the madam there. I ran the place.”
The Reaper stared at her for a moment—his mind melding with hers and he could see her as she’d been in her heyday. Stunningly beautiful with a pile of red hair that shone like the sun, Moira had no doubt led them all on a merry chase.
“Did you regret marrying Noel?” he asked.
Moira snorted. “Hell, boy, we never tied the knot! Not legally no ways. That ring I gave ye was his mama’s and as far as he was concerned, the moment he put it on me finger, we was man and wife, didn’t need no mumbo jumbo spoken over us by no mincing woman-hater like old O’Malley to make it proper.” She shook her head. “No, I never regretted marrying my man and I don’t believe he regretted marrying me.”
He was walking through her memories and the things he saw made it clear there had been great love between Noel and Moira. Gently he withdrew, pleased the old woman had such comforting recollections.
“I love my lady,” he said, and felt the heat rising up his neck.
“I know ye do,” Moira said, and reached out to put a trembling hand on his arm. She stroked him—feeling the powerful muscles in his forearm—and sighed. She withdrew her hand then began massaging it with the other.
“I really can help the pain in your hands,” he said.
“Without biting me?” she teased.
“No,” he said. He felt she wanted to experience his bite more than she wanted her pain eased. All he needed to do was share with her his very potent, healing blood.
Moira shivered and pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders. “Let me think on it, boy,” she said. She got up—her bent frame struggling to stand.
He nodded. Watching her toddling her way across the kitchen made his heart hurt. Moira didn’t have all that many years left. He decided whether or not she agreed, he was going to help relieve her pain.
“You reckon your lady is ready for her breakfast?”
“I’ll go up and check,” he said. He finished the rest of his potatoes.
“How long you two gonna be here?” she asked.
“Anxious to get rid of us?” he countered.
“I told Aingeal I’d like to have ye two stay with me for as long as ye would,” the old woman replied, her back to the Reaper.
He paused with the coffee cup at his lips. “What did she say?”
“Said she’d love to live here, she did,” Moira replied. “People like her, lad.” She glanced around. “She ain’t had much of life as far as I can tell.”
He took a sip of the wonderful coffee. “You think she’d really like to stay here?”
“Said as much,” Moira responded.
Cynyr took another sip of coffee and stared off into space. He had a ranch in Eurus, but it was simply a place to lay his head. He didn’t care much for the house and it wasn’t particularly comfortable.
“I’ve got one more rogue to take out before heading home,” he said, and realized it wasn’t home where he lived but simply a house. “If Aingeal likes it here in Haines City, we can give it a try.” He looked down at the table. “If the people would accept me.”
Moira snorted. “Seems to me since ye got most all the men’s blood in town rolling around in your veins, they done accepted you, boy.”
Cynyr had no illusions about what people thought of him. He was feared. Men hid when he rode into town. Women fainted at the sight of him. No one wanted to garner his attention so they shied away from him at every chance. He’d never had a friend, never been close to anyone—not in his entire life. He was about as wanted as a toothache and he knew it.
“Ye know, lad,” Moira said as she checked on her biscuits. “When I first came to this town, I feared what the folk would think of me.” She turned the pan around inside the oven. “Thought they’d shun me, but you know what?” She straightened up as best she could. “Me being a fancy woman didn’t mean a hill of beans to them. All they wanted to know was what kind of person I was going to be in Haines City.”
“It’s different for me,” he said softly.
“Why? ‘Cause you’re a cold-blooded killer?” she asked, stomping over to the table. “‘Cause you fry up little children for breakfast and chomp them down with a virgin’s blood?”
“I eat them with custard,” he said with a perfectly straight face.
“Heard tell ye bay at the moon.” She narrowed her eyes. “Is there truth to that?”
“On occasion I’ve been known to howl at the moon,” he answered.
“Prancing around in a wolf skin, frightening innocent folk?”
“I change into a real wolf, Moira,” he said. “However, prancing around isn’t my style. I lope. I don’t prance.”
“Turning into a bat and draining poor people’s pets?”
He shook his head. “Never changed into a bat. An eagle, sometimes a raven, but never a bat and I don’t drain anything.” His lips twitched. “Not even mean-mouthed old women.”
“Humpf,” Moira snorted. She took down a bowl and uncorked a bottle of syrup then dropped a few dollops of butter in it and began mixing it up. “She likes her biscuits southern-style.”
His face softened. “You made the biscuits for my lady?”
“Didn’t make them for that no good daughter-in-law of mine!” she snapped. She glanced at the watch pinned to her bodice. “Here it is way after the sun is up and that lazy one is still abed.” She shook her head. “Never did understand what Jamie saw in that one.”
“Jamie is your son?”
“Was,” Moira said, and he could hear the hitch in her throat. “Been gone since the war.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it.
“Well, he went and stuck me with that good-for-nothing Annie. I’ll have a thing or two to say to him when I see him up yonder,” she said, pointing to the heavens.
“I bet he can’t wait,” Cynyr mumbled. He wiped his mouth on the napkin beside his plate and stood up.
“Goes in your lap, by the by,” Moira complained.
“What?” he asked.
“The goldarn napkin, boy!” she snapped. “Now, get the heck outta my kitchen and let me get back to work.” She shooed him with her crippled hands.
“I’m going!” he said, but stopped, turned around and surprised the both of them by pecking her on the cheek. They stared at one another—shock on their faces—then each turned and went about their business.
Aingeal was still sleeping when the Reaper came back to their room. She looked so peaceful he hated to wake her so looked around the room for his gun belt and boots, and upon spying them, put them on, took up his hat and quietly left.
He poked his head in the kitchen. “She’s still sleeping.”
Moira waved at him. “I’ll see to her, lad. Do what ye have to, but make sure you’re back for dinner or you’ll get nothing but cold grits.”
Cynyr grinned and headed for the door. Annie was coming down the stairs and she stopped like a deer in lantern light and stared at him. He cast her a stern look.
“Clean the kitchen up for Moira,” he ordered. “Don’t pay any attention to her complaining. You do it. You understand?”
“Y-yes, sir,” Annie said, her face as pale as freshly drawn milk.
Snapping his hat into place, the Reaper left Moira McDermott’s comfortable little house, his heart lighter than it had ever been.
Chapter Eight
“We’ll be riding out later today,” Cynyr told
Mick Brady two days later. The two men were walking together across the main street.
“She’s feeling up to it?” Mick asked, and thought he heard the Reaper growl but when he glanced at him, Cynyr just nodded.
“Seems the wench likes it here.”
They had reached the boardwalk in front of the hotel. “Glad to hear it. You coming back?”
Cynyr looked out over the town. Not once since he’d gone to the barbershop to speak to Brady had a single soul stepped out of his way. They’d simply passed by, tipped their hat—or in the case of a few ladies he’d come into contact with who hadn’t fainted at the sight of him—nodded their heads politely. No one had gone running inside, shutting and locking doors, window shades drawn down as he ventured by. No animals had snarled or barked at him. No children had run screaming to their mamas.
“You know you’re welcome here,” Mick said. When Cynyr looked at him, he smiled. “The both of you.”
The Reaper shoved his hands into the pockets of his black denim jeans. “It would seem so,” he said.
“Well, anything we can do to help move you in to Haines City, we’ll be right proud to do.” He put out his hand.
Cynyr had never shaken a man’s hand in his life. The only times he’d ever felt a man’s hands on him had been in the administering of pain. He wasn’t sure he wanted to grasp the barber’s hand, but reluctantly he pulled his hand from his jeans and gripped Brady’s, feeling slightly uneasy by the contact.
“You be careful and hurry on back to us,” Brady said as he let go of Cynyr’s hand. He slapped the Reaper’s shoulder in parting, smiled and continued on down the sidewalk toward the café.
“Brady?” Cynyr called out. When the barber turned, he asked him why they had so readily accepted him.
“That’s simple,” Mick said. “That first night you came to town, right after the tornado, you asked if there was anything you could do. That was a neighborly thing to offer. Don’t know any other Reaper who would have done that. And you made sure Guthrie didn’t gouge us. That was another plus by your name.” His eyes turned misty. “But the topper was when you trusted us to protect your lady. That said a lot about you right there.”
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