“That’s twice what they normally allot me,” he said, swinging up on the steed. “At least they’ll provide for you despite my crime.”
“What crime was that, mo tiarna?” she asked, knowing full well to what he was referring.
Cynyr didn’t answer her. He knew she was more than aware of what crime he had committed. Reapers were prohibited from making others like themselves and he understood there would be punishment of some kind from the High Council.
“And there will be.” The four words sent a shiver down the Reaper’s back.
Aingeal had not heard those words. She settled back against her husband, reveling in the feel of his arms to either side of her as he controlled Storm’s reins. “Are we going to ride to the Citadel?” she asked.
“That is my plan.”
“Think again, Cree,” Lord Kheelan snapped in his mind. “You will go back to Haines City, stable your mounts and then take the train here.”
That statement made Cynyr frown sharply. It seemed the HC was in a hurry for him to make the journey to the Citadel. Such haste didn’t bode well for him, and the situation put him in a fouler mood than he was already in.
The niggling pain in his back was growing worse and he could tell Aingeal was uncomfortable, for she kept shifting against him so he reined in their horse, walked him over to a stand of trees and dismounted.
“Give me that,” he said, reaching for the box in her hands.
Aingeal handed him the box, which he set down on the ground then held his arms up to her. She threw her leg over Storm’s head and went into her lover’s arms, a bit disappointed when he deliberately kept her from sliding down him. As soon as her feet touched the ground, he let go of her, picked up the box and tore it open.
Cynyr snorted when he saw the two vac-syringes lying in the box. Each was filled with a week’s supply of tenerse. He knew the vac-syringes would be regulated so only one dose of tenerse could be administered daily. He hated that type of contraption but knew it would be easier on Aingeal than the one he normally used.
“Want me to give you your injection?” she asked.
He nodded and instructed her on how to use the vac-syringe. He hunkered down so she could reach his neck.
Despite the sophistication of the vac-syringe, the payload housed within its unbreakable glass barrel was just as potent as it always was and he couldn’t stop from cringing as the med entered the vein in his neck. If anything, it hurt worse than usual. The thought of Aingeal enduring such pain drove it home again to what a selfish thing he had done in turning her.
“Now me,” she said, handing him her own vac-syringe and then dropped gracefully to the ground in front of him.
Guilt was slamming into him with such force he felt tears gathering in his eyes. She was so trusting of him, so willing to suffer whatever was necessary, that he wanted to howl with remorse.
“Cynyr?” she questioned as he just stood there. She was looking up at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, then administered the drug before he lost his nerve.
Aingeal winced only a little as the drug went into her flesh but then, as quickly as the needle was withdrawn, she smiled. “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It barely stung at all.”
“Don’t pretend, wench,” he said. “I know—”
“She neither deserved what you did to her nor asked for it. Do you think we would make her suffer needlessly for your brazen selfishness?”
And Cynyr understood that part of his punishment had been mixed with the med in his vac-syringe. In his misery he took no notice that his wife was still on her knees and her hands were on his thighs. When he realized she was unbuttoning his britches he stared at her. “Aingeal, what are you doing?”
She grinned at him and reached her hand inside his britches to pull his shaft free.
“Wench, we shouldn’t…” He glanced around them. Truth be told, he was a bit embarrassed by her actions, yet at the same time his blood was pumping heatedly through his veins, making him as hard as stone.
Aingeal didn’t give him time to finish his denial before she drew him into her mouth. She wanted to take away the anger on his face, the guilt from his amber eyes. She wanted to show him how much she loved and needed him.
Her mouth was a hot chamber that undulated sweetly around his rigid flesh. She was suckling him, her eyes locked with his, and in those beautiful gray orbs he could see both amusement and passion. When he delved lightly into her mind, he realized she felt no shame or disgust at what she was doing. She was enjoying pleasuring him.
“Ah, wench,” he sighed, threading his fingers through her hair. Unconsciously he began pumping his hips slowly with the rhythm of her lips.
His climax, when it came, was so strong, so potent, he had to clamp his lips together to keep from shouting his release. His hands tensed against her scalp and he let his head fall back, squeezing his eyes shut to the powerful sensation that rocked him. It felt to him as though his cock had been primed—waiting for her sweet, warm mouth to draw upon it. With the discharge of his cum, he felt his tension dissolve and, with it, his anger.
“You don’t deserve a woman like her,” Lord Kheelan stated.
The inner voice snapped Cynyr’s eyes open and he reached down for Aingeal, drawing her up against him and pulling her to him as though she was about to be wrenched away from him.
“At least let me put you back in your britches, mo tiarna,” she joked, trying to push away from him to do just that.
“No,” he said, and felt himself trembling. He was terrified that someone, some thing would spring out at them and jerk her out of his grip. He was glaring around them, attentive to every tree, every bush and every place from which an enemy might leap.
“Cynyr,” she said. “You’re squishing me.”
Fear was a cruel master raking sharp spurs down the Reaper’s back. He could feel the metal cutting into his flesh as the whip had so long ago. So lost in his own alarm, he was unaware that Aingeal had slipped beneath his guard and was reading his thoughts.
“No one is going to take me away from you,” she said, shoving against him until there space between them. His hands were fierce on her upper arms. “No one, Cyn. Do you hear me?”
He wasn’t so sure. He feared that was the reason the HC had demanded he bring her with him to the Citadel. His belly roiled at the thought of them taking her away from him.
“It isn’t going to happen,” she said firmly. “Not now—not ever.” She reached up to take his face between her palms. “Don’t you know by now I’d fight for you, Reaper?”
He knew she would try, but she had no idea how powerful the HC was. The Shadowlords were a force with which to reckon and not even the Reapers dared go against them. The trio held a power so formidable, so exacting no one had ever stood up against them and won.
“This is one time someone will,” Aingeal stated. “I’m not about to let them part us.”
Looking down into her stormy eyes, he realized she meant it. She would, indeed, fight for them to be together. That knowledge filled him with the first hope he’d had in the last two days. He barely noticed she was stuffing him back into his britches and buttoning them.
“We can’t have your wagtally flopping around, now can we?” she asked, winking at him.
“Wagtally?” he questioned, his lips twitching.
“Well, I could call it something else,” she said, “but I always thought the Southern term for it was truly vulgar.”
“Which is?” he prompted.
She lowered her voice. “Tallywhacker,” she whispered.
Cynyr couldn’t help laughing. The word did seem more vulgar than anything he’d ever heard a penis called. He pulled her close to him again, his mood lightened considerably.
“Wench, you are good for my soul,” he said, then put a finger under her chin to lift her face to his so he could kiss her tenderly. He was very careful not to make that kiss even a single degree hot. “Let’s get going,” he tol
d her.
Swinging her up in his arms, he sat her on Storm then mounted behind her.
The closer they got to the camp where they’d left Brownie, the lighter Cynyr’s heart felt.
Chapter Nine
Moira had made them some sandwiches for the train. She sent along a jug of lemonade and half a dozen apples. Mick Brady had insisted they take along a jar of jawbreakers he kept for his younger customers. Brett Samuels assured them he and his brother-in-law Verlin Walker would take good care of the two horses. Matthew Schumann offered to re-shoe the mounts at no charge.
It seemed the entire town turned out to see them off on their journey east.
“Did it seem to you as though the good folks of Haines City wished us well?” Aingeal asked her husband.
Cynyr grunted. He wasn’t ready yet to admit the townsfolk had accepted them. Everyone had been friendly when they’d returned. A few—like Moira and Mick—had actually seemed relieved he was all right. Mick had even made the comment that he hadn’t feared for Aingeal’s safety, for he knew she’d be taken care of.
Aingeal looked at her husband. He was sitting on the aisle seat, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his ankles and arms crossed, his hat tipped down over his eyes as he rested. She dug him in the ribs with her elbow.
“Well, didn’t they?”
“If you say so,” he mumbled.
The Reaper’s wife sniffed and turned her attention back to the passing countryside. She and her first husband had traveled to the plains in a covered wagon, their meager belongings packed like sardines beneath the canvas topper. The scenery from Flagala Territory to the Moilia Territory had been entirely different. As the train entered the Armistenky Territory and the sign welcoming them to the territory slipped past, she laughed.
“What?” her husband asked.
“Arm is stinky,” she answered.
Cynyr lifted his arm and sniffed. “No, it isn’t.”
She punched him on his shoulder. “No, silly. The territory sign. It read like it was ‘arm is stinky’.”
“Stin,” he corrected her, sitting up and pushing his hat back. “Arm is stin key, wench. Not arm is stinky.”
“Whoever named the territories after the floods and the War had a good time doing it,’ she said. “Wonder what the true names of the states were? Especially those that sheared off into the ocean out west.”
He shrugged. “Only the HC knows,” he told her. “You’ll have to ask them.”
Her eyes flared. “Do you think they’ll want to speak with me?”
“I don’t know if they will or not,” he said, and reached down to thread his fingers through hers.
Aingeal tucked her bottom lip between her teeth. She was more than willing to take on the High Council if it meant staying with her husband, but the thought of standing before the Shadowlords was daunting.
“Don’t concern yourself over it.”
Easy for him to say, she thought.
“We’ll have to be discreet about it, wench, but I’ll need to call one of the porters or a few passengers in to provide us with Sustenance,” Cynyr told her.
Aingeal swallowed hard. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“If you’d prefer, I can take the blood and you can feed from me.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “I’d prefer that.” She glanced at his neck then away.
“From here, wench,” he said, holding out his arm to her.
“Oh,” she said, and sighed.
They were quiet for a few moments then both stared out the window at what remained of a large city, the buildings lying like a child’s abandoned blocks along the rails.
“You have to wonder how many people died when that city was hit,” she said softly. “And why haven’t they rebuilt around it.”
“Most likely the ground is still contaminated,” he said.
“There was a big city down south they haven’t touched yet, either.”
“Do you ever wish you had been around back then?” he asked in an attempt to take her mind from the thoughts of death.
“Before the War or the floods?”
“The War,” he said, since that had come first.
“Sometimes, but then I think of how awful the war must have been and I’m glad I didn’t have to live through it.”
“Aye,” Cynyr said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to either.”
“When did you come to Terra?” she asked, laying her head on his shoulder.
He leaned his head to hers. “About two decades ago,” he said. “Not long after the Shadowlords arrived.”
“Do you like it here?”
“It’s a helluva better place than I spent in the damned quarry,” he answered.
“How long were you in the quarry?”
“About twenty years.”
“And you’ve been on Terra about twenty?”
“Aye, why?”
“I remember you saying you were fourteen when you were sent to the quarry so that would make you…” She counted on her fingers. “Fifty-four years old!” She lifted her head and stared at him. “You’re fifty-four years old!”
“So?”
She shook her head. “You don’t look a day over…”
“Thirty-six,” he informed her. “I was three days past my thirty-fourth birthday when Morrigunia did the Transference.” He cocked one shoulder. “For every Terran ten-year period, my face will age one year.”
She stared at him. “I am twenty-nine,” she said. “Will I look like this for another ten years?”
“For another hundred or so, wench,” he said, and smiled when she hooted with laughter.
“I’m going to have to look Donal up in about twenty years and rub my youth in his wrinkled old face! He’ll be fifty-two then!”
At the mention of her first husband, Cynyr’s smiled slipped from his face. He had every intention of meeting up with that bastard and paying him back for trading Aingeal for a brace of horses.
“If he hadn’t, you would never have met her,” Lord Kheelan’s voice intruded. “You will leave the man alone, Reaper.”
Aingeal had not been privy to the stern words. She had put her head back on her husband’s shoulder, yawning as the lulling motion of the railroad car rocked her.
Cynyr made no comment to the Shadowlord’s demand. He too was finding the clickety-clack of the iron wheels soothing and closed his eyes as he laid his head against his wife’s. Within a few moments, he was asleep.
* * * * *
Aingeal was driven awake by the violent memories swirling through her lover’s mind. She gasped as his dream passed through her own subconscious and she reached out to grab it, wanting to know what demons rode her man so viciously when he slept.
The lash hit him across his back and drove him to his knees. His young mind could not tolerate the agony and shut down, rendering him almost immediately unconscious. Repeated blows fell upon his bare back to tear open his flesh but, although his body flinched, he did not feel the whip’s sting. When he woke—groaning in pain—he was lying on his belly, stripped of his clothing, his wrists and ankles tied to the wooden bench upon which he’d been placed.
“You’ll learn to do as you’re told, boy,” a man’s voice said at his ear.
Hands dragged over Cynyr’s rump. The touch was sweaty, clammy and when his cheeks were spread apart, something warm and dry probed at his buttocks then penetrated with a brutal drive that made him scream in agony.
“Atone for your sins, boy,” the man whispered as he stretched out atop Cynyr. “Beg Alel for your immortal soul.”
Cynyr barely felt the agony burning across his back as a body pressed onto him, for nothing could compare to the impaling evil that claimed his innocence. A piteous scream was drawn from the very depths of his being.
Cynyr jerked awake, his eyes wide, his face peppered with sweat. He was dragging in harsh breaths—panting from being lost in the nightmare still again. His hand was gripping Aingeal’s so hard he could feel her b
ones grating together.
“Who was he?” Aingeal asked, drawing her husband’s frightened eyes to hers.
Seeing the woman he loved sitting beside him, the Reaper let out a long breath and shuddered.
“Who did that to you, mo tiarna?” she asked.
“I am not your lord,” he said, wiping his free hand over his face.
“You are what you are to me,” she replied. “My love. My husband. My life. If I prefer to call you my lord, then that is exactly what you are.”
He willed his heart to slow down, his blood to stop throbbing so violently through his body. He strove to calm his breath.
“Was it one of the quarrymen?”
He shook his head. He’d never spoken of it to another living soul and never had intended to, but the worry in his wife’s voice, the concern on her lovely face, the encouraging way she rubbed his hand in an effort to loosen the vicious clench with which he held it, encouraged him.
“It was the priest,” he said so softly she had to strain to hear. “The camp priest who came once a week to hear our confessions.”
The face of the perverted clergyman who had violated her husband flashed through Aingeal’s mind and she knew a fury unlike anything she’d ever felt.
“How long did that go on?” she asked.
“Every time I was given the lash.” He laid his head back along the seat. “I learned not to do anything that would make it necessary to be whipped.”
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. I hope some man managed to gut him. There were enough who wanted to.”
“That was on Cairéal?”
He turned his head and looked at her. “Do you ever forget anything I say to you, wench?”
“What can I say? I’m cursed with a good memory,” she said.
He snorted. “Well, whatever you were good at before the Transference, you’ll be a master at now,” he complained. “Aye, it was Cairéal.”
“So if the bastard is still alive, he’d be there?”
“He’d be close to one hundred years old if he’s alive, wench. I seriously doubt he is still drawing breath.”
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