Tears of the Reaper

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  “He needs to be alone, dearling,” Arawn told her.

  Rachel met his gaze unflinchingly then shook her head. “No, milord. He’s been alone too much as it is,” she replied, and continued on past him to venture out on the observation platform.

  Arawn stared after her, a slight smile easing over his chiseled lips. The woman the fates had chosen for Owen was indeed strong and ideally suited for the Reaper.

  “How many months did he get?” Cynyr asked, knowing that was what their boss had gone out to impart to Owen in private.

  Arawn raked a hand through his dark curls. “One year.”

  A gasp ran through the other Reapers—male and female.

  “Arawn!” Aingeal growled, but he held up a hand to stay her complaint.

  “I did everything I could to get the sentence reduced, Aingeal, but Lord Kheelan was adamant. He wants to make an object lesson of Owen and…”

  “You can’t let him stay that long in the con cell,” Aingeal interrupted him. “His wife is expecting a baby!”

  “I know that,” Arawn told her. “But my hands are tied. There is nothing I can do.”

  “Well, there’s something I can do!” Aingeal snapped. She threw herself into the seat beside her husband, her arms crossed angrily over her breasts.

  “Now, Aingeal…” Cynyr began, but when she turned a militant, warning look to him, he snapped his lips shut. There was no arguing with his she-wolf when she got that spark in her eyes.

  Arawn sat down beside Danielle and heaved a long sigh. “I wish to the gods they’d let me retire,” he complained.

  Danielle put a soothing hand on his thigh. “You are the best man for the job, mo shearc,” she reminded him.

  Arawn closed his eyes and laid his head along the seat’s plush back. “Sometimes I wish I weren’t,” he mumbled.

  “She’ll handle it,” Danielle said.

  Opening his eyes, he turned his head to look at her. “How, Danni?” he asked. “If I can’t budge Lord Kheelan, how do you think she can?”

  Danielle patted his thigh. “He doesn’t love you,” she said, and at his stunned blink, she nodded. “She’ll handle it. Don’t worry.”

  * * * * *

  Owen fussed at Rachel for coming out on the platform without a coat until she arched a brow and swept her gaze down his coatless body. He simply snorted then wrapped her in his arms. They stood there gazing at the scenery flitting by past the rear of the train and said nothing.

  “Tell me the truth of it, my Owen,” she asked at last. “How long will it last and how bad will the jailing be?”

  He hated to tell her but he wanted no lies between them. “One year and it will be bad.”

  It wasn’t the cold wind blowing across her face that brought moisture to Rachel’s violet eyes. “They will torture you?”

  “No, mo filliu bwoirryn,” he said, loving the sound of the words “my she-wolf” on his lips. “The pain will come from my withdrawal from the tenerse and Sustenance.”

  Though she’d had only a couple of doses of the stinging drug, she was already coming to rely on it and the Sustenance she’d been given that morning at breakfast had eased a hunger she hadn’t even known she possessed. If only a few hours could cause such discomfort, what would an entire year do to her husband?

  “What can I do?” she asked, a solitary tear tracking down her cold cheek.

  “Be there for me,” he said. “And the baby.”

  When he had told her she was seeded with her child, part of her had rejoiced at the news while another part worried that the babe would be healthy. They had made love then so she could wipe out all thought of the goddess and her vile demands on Owen. She had not wanted to discuss the impending birth though the thought of having her Reaper’s child had thrilled her. It was the babe’s safety that concerned her.

  Finally voicing that worry to Owen after they’d made love once more—some time in the wee hours of the morning—he had assured her no Reaper boy would ever be born unhealthy for the parasite would not allow it.

  “But what if it’s a girl?” she’d asked.

  “It won’t be, y chree,” he’d replied. “You can only have male children.” He told her why. “The parasite will not allow a female embryo to survive for It is a jealous thing.”

  For a reason she could not express to him, that erased her worries for the child. She had not wanted to bring another female into a world where men treated them as possessions.

  “I will always be here for you, my Owen,” she told him. She reached for his hand. “Come inside. I have a great need to lie in your arms for a while.”

  Owen hesitated for just a second. He knew when they walked back through his fellow Reapers they would know what Rachel and he would be doing when they went to their private car.

  “No more than they would do if they were in our boots,” she said softly, and tightened her grip on his hand.

  The walk back through the observation car did not draw one flicker of the eyes of those sitting there talking. Not one person looked up at them as Rachel and he walked down the aisle. It was almost as though they were invisible.

  “Are you thinking again, my Owen?” she challenged him as they reached the door to their compartment.

  “It’s a habit I guess I need to break, my Rachel,” he told her as he reached around her to open the door.

  “Indeed you do,” she insisted as she preceded him into the car.

  He shut the door behind them but barely had time to turn around before he felt his clothing vanish. He looked down at himself with shock then at Rachel who was grinning broadly at him.

  “Danni and Aingeal told me how to do it,” she said, and waved her hand again to vanquish her own clothing in the blink of an eye.

  “Those two are a menace,” Owen mumbled.

  She pressed against him, her soft flesh to his hard, unyielding tautness of muscle. “Would you like to know what else they told me how to do?” she asked in a throaty tone. She swiveled her hips back and forth against his swelling cock.

  He stared down at her, stunned to the very fiber of his being. This shy, Colony-bred girl who had once been afraid of her own shadow was slithering against him like a serpent in heat and where her body touched his, he was aching with desire.

  “When did those two…?”

  “We talked,” Rachel admitted. “Mind to mind.” She smiled. “It is very useful, as Danni says, and a mind-picture is worth a thousand words.” She turned so she leaned against the door. Then ran the sole of her bare foot along his calf muscle. “Now lift my legs and…”

  She got no further for his hands went to her thighs and he grabbed her up, slinging her legs around his hips as he drove into her tight sheath with one mighty plunge, pushing her up the panel as he began to snap his hips back and forth, plunging into her with force that made the door rattle, his buttock muscles flexing tightly.

  “They’ll hear us!” she cautioned.

  “I don’t give a warthog’s pecker if they do. Let them!” he growled through tightly clenched teeth. He was ramming into her as hard as he could, taking charge of the moment she had started and intent on keeping the upper hand with this brazen little piece of heaven.

  “You wish,” she whispered in his ear, her fingers threaded through his thick hair as she slanted her mouth over his to take the kiss he gladly offered.

  Their tongues dueled as he thrust into her with wild abandon. His thigh muscles contracted and released, contracted and released and his cock was like a trip hammer pounding into her hot wetness. Her inner muscles were squeezing him and when he felt the beginning of her climax, he shoved hard and deep inside her and held it as he experienced the ripple after ripple of delight that wove through her channel.

  “Owen!” she hissed, her fingernails grazing his scalp as she took his mouth more to smother his own wild cry when he came.

  It felt as though he would explode as he shot into her velvet warmth. The cum was thick and copious and it left him drained far w
orse than on that last night in the hotel. He barely had the strength and energy to turn with her and fall to the bunk, rolling so she was beside him, encaged in arms that refused to allow her to leave them.

  “My Owen?” she questioned, smoothing the damp hair from his forehead.

  “Aye, love?” he replied. His eyelids were growing heavy with contentment.

  “I want you to eat me,” she said out of the blue as they lay there heaving.

  His eyes flew open. “Rachel!” he said on a gasp of breath. Staring down at her with utter disbelief. “Where did you…?”

  “Aingeal says…”

  “Shush, wench!” he ordered, his eyes narrowing. “I see I need to have a talk with Cynyr and Arawn!”

  She snuggled against him. “That’s okay. I’ll be talking to Aingeal and Danni when you do.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  When the train pulled into the station at the base of the fortified mountain upon which sat the imposing five-sided building of the Citadel at the end of the week, a light misting rain was falling and the waves of the ocean beyond were dark gunmetal gray.

  Coaches were lined up at the station to take the passengers up the twisting roadway to the Citadel and the first one to leave carried the Gehdrins and the Crees. The second to leave carried the Tohres, Glyn and Iden, the third for the rest of their group. The silence in the coaches was palpable. Owen sat with his fingers entwined with Rachel’s, his gaze out the window at the destruction that had been wrought during the Burning War.

  “Why do they not clean that up?” Rachel asked Glyn. “The Shadowlords, I mean.”

  “I don’t think it’s as much them as it is Morrigunia,” Glyn replied. “She wants to keep it there as a reminder of what happens when man oversteps himself and ventures into the realms of the gods.”

  Rachel glanced at her husband but he seemed to be lost in thought and she hated to intrude. His fingers were gripping hers so tightly it was almost painful but she would not complain. He seemed to need the comfort of touching her.

  There were guards with laser rifles ringing the portico as the coaches pulled up to discharge the passengers. The Gehdrins and Crees ran beneath the sweeping concrete porch for the mist had suddenly become a drenching downpour.

  “Even the heavens are crying for him,” Aingeal remarked to Danielle.

  The four of them stood there as first Iden then Glyn scampered from the coach, leaving the door open for Owen and Rachel.

  Owen turned away from the window and used his free hand to cup her cheek. “As soon as I’m in the building, they’ll arrest me,” Owen told his lady. “I won’t see you again until the sentence is over.”

  She knew she had to be brave for him. She could not allow him to leave her with tears streaming down her cheek or fear lurking in her eyes. As Aingeal had reminded her only that morning, she was not just a Reaper’s woman, she was a Reaper in her own right and she had to be strong for her mate.

  “I will be here waiting with our son when you return,” she said, and leaned toward him, briefly touching his lips with hers. Though she ached to deepen the kiss, she knew it would only make it harder on the both of them. She pulled back, smiled and then made to get out of the coach.

  “Rachel?” he said, keeping hold of her hand.

  She turned back to him. “Aye, my Owen.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “You’d better, milord Reaper,” she replied, “because I love you right back.”

  Before he could stop her, she used her budding strength to pull free of his grip and was out of the coach, streaking up the steps to the porch. Only Aingeal caught a glimpse of the devastating pain lurking in Rachel’s violet eyes.

  “Take me to our quarters, Lord Arawn,” Rachel said, her voice breaking. “Now, please!”

  Arawn understood and took hold of her arm, leading her into the Citadel before Owen was out of the coach. He stood in the downpour and looked up at the boiling heavens for a long time, mindless of the drenching rain soaking him. It would be his last glimpse of freedom for a long time. At last, he walked slowly up the steps, past the two female and three male Reapers and into the Citadel where guards flanked him immediately and led him into the bowels of the mighty stronghold.

  “Son of a bitch,” Aingeal snapped as she stood there bouncing her baby son. She turned to Danielle and handed her the child then jerked away from Cynyr who tried to grab her and stop her from marching toward the place she knew the High Lord would be.

  “Don’t,” Danielle said, reaching out to keep Cynyr from following his wife. She thrust his son into his arms. “Stay out of it, Cyn.”

  Cynyr’s jaw was rigid. “You really think she can change Lord Kheelan’s mind?”

  “I know she can,” Danielle said. She hooked her arm through his. “Come on. From the smell of your bairn, he needs his diaper changed.”

  Cynyr moaned, glancing down at his infant. “Ah, Danni, I’m not good at…”

  “Then it’s high time you learned,” she insisted.

  * * * * *

  Lord Kheelan Ben-Alkazar of Rysalia was the High Lord, the High Commissioner of the Shadowlords and by right the most influential of the three men. He was feared by his fellow Shadowlords because he had far more power than did they and he was more ruthless, more determined. His word was law and no one dared to question his words. It was said the man had ice water flowing through his veins and a soul forged in hell, a heart as black as pitch and twice as hard as obsidian.

  That was until Aingeal Cree had bulldozed her way into the High Lord’s carefully kept, orderly life.

  Argent, the gatekeeper, looked up from her desk and smiled. “How are things in Haines City, Lady Aingeal?” she asked politely, her two sisters—Aureolin, the blonde, and Corallin, the redhead—pausing in their tasks to greet the female Reaper.

  “Where is that cold-blooded bastard?” Aingeal demanded, nodding at the three women to let them know her fury did not extend to them.

  “I believe the High Lord is in the solarium,” Argent replied. “Through there.”

  Aingeal nodded again and stormed over to the door, flinging it open with no care for the noise or the distraction she caused.

  Lord Kheelan jumped, unprepared for the sudden intrusion though his expression said he’d been expecting it. “Now, Lady Aingeal…” he began, holding up a hand to ward off her anger.

  “Don’t ‘Lady Aingeal’ me! Who the hell do you think you are, Ben-Alkazar?” she demanded, slamming the door shut in her wake. “Who died and made you a god?”

  A muscle working in his jaw, the look he had used to quell hundreds of lesser men settled on his finely honed features and his eyes glared into hers. “You know, wench, I am getting a bit fed up with you insulting me,” he snapped. His gaze flicked to the door. She never heard the lock snick closed.

  “Live with it,” she threw back at him. “Are you aware Rachel Tohre is with child?”

  He lifted his head. “I am aware of a lot of things.” He narrowed his gaze. “That included.”

  “And you really expect to keep that poor man in the con cell while his wife gives birth to their firstborn?” she questioned, coming to stand toe to toe with him.

  “He knew there would be consequences to his actions and…”

  “Get over yourself, Ben-Alkazar,” she interrupted. “You might be able to intimidate men who don’t know you’re nothing but a scared little boy who wishes he were still at home in the arms of his nanny on Serenia, but I know better.”

  His eyes became thin slits of fury. “Be careful of how you speak to me, wench.”

  “You are a man,” she said.

  “I am a Shadowlord,” he stated. “And the most powerful of my kind.”

  Aingeal flung out a dismissive hand. “That and twenty coppers might get you a cup of coffee but it cuts no marble with me!”

  “Ice,” he said, his jaw clenched, teeth grinding. “The term is ‘cuts no ice’.”

  “Whatever,” she snapped. “A
re you going to do what’s right or am I going to have to make you do it?”

  Lord Kheelan growled like a wounded bear. “You backed me into a corner once before, wench, and I stupidly allowed it because Reaper honor was involved,” he told her. “I don’t think you want to back me into another corner again. I might come out of that corner in a way you wouldn’t enjoy.”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “I’ve been beaten and sold to a raping bastard for a brace of horses and raped repeatedly by men that bastard loaned me to for a drink or two of firewater. I’ve been kidnapped, thrown over a horse—the outcome of which was a miscarriage—and raped again.” She glared at him. “Do you really think you hold any threat for me?”

  Lord Kheelan stared down into her angry eyes—seeing the images she meant for him to see flittering through her mind—and he dug his fingernails into his palms. “Don’t, Aingeal,” he said, his heart aching at those images.

  “Cut his sentence in half,” she said.

  “I can’t,” he told her. “I won’t. If I did that, the men would lose respect for me and…”

  “If you don’t, I’ll lose respect for you,” she warned.

  He snorted to cover up the pain that caused him. “You say that as though you have respect for me now! I know better.”

  She searched his eyes. “You are not the son of a bitch you want people to believe you are. Your heart may be as black as a Reaper’s but there has to be some warmth inside it.”

  “It’s as cold as the far reaches of the megaverse,” he insisted.

  “I don’t believe that,” she said, lowering her voice.

  “It doesn’t matter what you believe. It’s true.”

  She shook her head. “What can I do to help change your mind about this, Kheelan?”

  His name on her lips made his body ache with feelings he knew he should not be having, feelings that were more dangerous for her than they were for him.

  “Don’t put this on a personal level unless you are willing to deal with the results, Aingeal,” he cautioned her.