Authors: Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“He will sleep for a while, and when he awakens, he will need more Sustenance. Each of you must provide it,” that perfect voice said. “My work here is done but should he need me, I will return.”
There were no answering words from the harsher voice Cynyr had heard upon first awakening. He had the impression that the owner of that voice was angry, barely holding in check raging words that should never be released. 85
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“Within five, perhaps six days, he will be able to stand. Another day after and he will be able to walk. By the end of the week, he will be ready to begin training for what lies ahead.”
“He’ll want to be up and about long before that!”
“Do not let him, Gehdrin, but even if he should try, he will find himself far too weak to go up against the rogues. He will know himself incapable of doing what must be done. Remind him he must be at full strength before he goes up against Jaborn and the savage.”
“Bevyn and I could go after—”
“You will stay out of this!” The words were spoken with such a stern reprimand Cynyr winced, though those words had not been thrown at him. “It is his duty to perform, not yours!”
There was a flare of bright, bright light and the room suddenly seemed to be sucked clean of its atmosphere. A dull roaring sound enveloped the space to make the ears pop and ache.
“Bitch.” The word was a curse that came from the very soul of the one who spoke it. Forcing his eyes open, Cynyr looked up to see Arawn Gehdrin staring across the room but there was nothing there as far as Cree could tell. He knew it had been Morrigunia who had been speaking to the Prime Reaper and that she had fled back to whatever realm it was from whence she had come.
Arawn sighed harshly then shifted his gaze to Cynyr, blinking when he noticed Cree looking at him. “Are you aware, Reaper?” Arawn asked.
“As I can be,” Cynyr replied, and was surprised at how weak and raspy his voice sounded.
Plowing a hand through his thick black hair, Arawn pulled up a chair, spun it around, straddled it and sat down, his arms crossed over the chair’s back. “How do you feel?”
“As though I’ve been pickled in acid,” Cynyr answered. “My insides hurt.”
“Do you remember what happened to you?”
“Ghorets.” It was all the explanation needed.
Arawn nodded. “You’ve been deathly sick for over a week. She says you’ll be too ill to be out of bed for at least another few days.”
“Sounds about right,” Cynyr agreed. He felt as weak as a kitten but not even equipped with the sharp claws that little animal possessed.
“How close to Transition are you?”
Cynyr couldn’t remember. He felt it was weeks away—perhaps as much as a month—but he wasn’t sure. It could be closer or farther away. His thought patterns seemed dulled and he was incapable of holding any one particular image in his mind for any length of time.
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“I would imagine the punishment at the Citadel has thrown your cycle off anyway,” Arawn commented, referring to the month of enforced denial of both Sustenance and tenerse the High Council had ordered as punishment for Cree Transferring one of his parasites to his mate.
“Aye,” was all Cree could reply. He felt so drained, all he wanted to do was close his eyes and sleep, but there was a look on the Prime Reaper’s face that set off alarm bells in Cynyr’s brain. “What troubles you, Arawn?”
Arawn braced his chin on his crossed arms and locked eyes with his subordinate.
“How much of what happened after you took Reaper blood do you remember, Cree?”
Cynyr’s forehead crinkled as he tried to grasp the image of taking Sustenance from his fellow Reapers but it kept slipping away, folding in upon itself. He shook his head and wished he hadn’t, for the headache from hell was still pounding over his right eye.
“Do you remember taking blood from the goddess?”
Amber eyes widened in shock. “Did I?”
Arawn nodded slowly. “That you did, brother.”
Pain undulated through Cynyr’s temples for a moment and the room spun crazily. His heartbeat increased so rapidly he had to suck in a quick breath, gripping the sheet beneath him for fear he’d tumble from the bed. When he could get his stampeding heart under control, he felt nausea hovering in his chest and swallowed convulsively to keep it down.
“I don’t believe she thought about the connection between us, you and I,” Arawn said quietly. “I don’t think it ever crossed her mind.”
“Connection?” Cynyr repeated, striving to bring his hand up to rub at the debilitating pain ripping at his skull.
“The copious amount of venom from the ghorets did you a lot of damage, Cree,”
Arawn told him. “It was too much, too potent for your parasite to handle. It killed your queen and wiped out the entire nest of fledglings.”
Cynyr’s lips parted in disbelief. “My parasite is dead?” he questioned. “No wonder I can’t control this hellish pain.”
“That’s what’s left of the venom still plaguing you I imagine. Your parasite had to be removed, the nest as well, but another was transferred to you. It will get a handle on the pain and stop it.”
There was a gnawing, tearing discomfort that suddenly manifested itself in Cynyr’s back—just over his right kidney—and he sucked in a breath. It felt to him as though the new queen were introducing herself to him. He locked eyes with Arawn. “One of yours?” he asked.
“You were dying,” Arawn said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You needed more than a nestling to save you. You needed the power of a full-grown queen.”
“I have your queen?” Cynyr whispered.
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Arawn shrugged. “As Prime Reaper, mine was the most potent, my nest older than any of the others. It didn’t take a new alpha revenant worm long to take control of the nest and assert herself. I was back to full strength within a few days.”
“You have my thanks, Arawn,” Cynyr said, wishing he had the strength to offer his hand to his leader.
“We will always be connected now,” Arawn reminded him. “It was a connection Morrigunia overlooked.”
Cynyr studied the Prime Reaper’s face and could see deeply troubled lines crinkling beside Gehdrin’s steady eyes. “Just spit it out,” he asked. “I’ve a feeling I’m not going to like what you’re about to tell me.”
Gehdrin lifted his chin from his arms and drew in a deep breath, seemingly fortifying himself for what he needed to say. He uncrossed his arms and gripped the sides of the chair almost as though he needed to anchor himself to something then he began.
“We were all there—Bevyn, Phelan, Iden, Owen, Glyn, myself. We had given you our blood at Morrigunia’s command and then she stepped up to you and offered her own wrist. There wasn’t a man there who didn’t feel his balls drawing up inside him when she did that, but not a one of us let it show. I had a talk with each of them after it was all over and none of the others saw or heard what I did. None of them experienced what I felt and that puzzled me at first until I realized it was the connection, the sharing of the parasite that made it possible for me to have been a witness to what happened to you when you took the goddess’ blood.”
Cynyr listened as Arawn described in detail the carnal scene that unfolded before him while the rest of the room went dark as pitch, while everyone else—the Reapers as well as the old lady—simply faded into nothingness, and time ceased to move. When he was finished, Cree lay there with a stricken look upon his handsome face, the vein in the hollow of his throat pulsing rapidly.
“Think back, Cree, “Arawn said, “to the day you died. To the day when she made you one of us.”
“That’s so long ago—”
“She took you from the place you died and carried you into the heavens,” Arawn interrupted. “She did that with each of us. We remember that. We remember the agony of the revenant entering out bodies, but none of us remember her feeding us her blood.”
“I don’t think she did.”
“No, but she had to have done so,” Arawn stated. “When you transferred one of your nestlings to Aingeal, did you not share your blood with her?”
“Aye, but—”
“Morrigunia fed each of us, Cree. She had to have done that. It is part of the ritual, either before the parasite is given or soon after. It bonds the giver and recipient together.”
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“That’s true, Arawn, but what you are describing couldn’t have happened. You are forgetting—a Reaper can mate only once.”
“You weren’t mating with her, Cree, and it didn’t happen yesterday. What I witnessed was a scene from long ago, something the queen was remembering as she absorbed Morrigunia’s blood. It happened when the goddess made us! She took our sperm. She took our sons!”
Horror flitted across Cynyr’s tired face and he struggled to sit up although far too weak to accomplish the task. He slumped on the cot, his eyes bearing the same revulsion Arawn’s did. “But why? For what purpose, Arawn?” he asked.
“Only she knows,” the Prime Reaper replied. “Somewhere, we have children by that demoness.”
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Chapter Ten
Jaborn could not look away from the woman. She was sitting by herself near the bubbling waters of the underground pool, staring into the steaming vapors that skipped across the still surface.
“She is a beauty, is she not?” Otaktay inquired as he sharpened the blade of his lance.
“She is a Reaper,” Jaborn replied. His thoughts were not on the loveliness of the woman’s face—although he had to admit she possessed that in abundance—but in the fact she was not that unlike himself. She had needed Sustenance and begrudgingly he had allowed the savage to take a cup of his to feed her. She also needed tenerse but he would not share his supply with her. He had watched as the red man handed her a flask that contained his and the Jakotai’s combined blood, and for some reason had been deeply disturbed.
“I am not sure that was wise,” he had complained to Otaktay.
“She had to be fed,” the brave had insisted.
Jaborn kept staring at her. If she did not get tenerse soon, she could Transition just as he had on the way to the cave. His race had little respect for women in general but a woman who wielded the power of a Reaper unnerved Jaborn and he was wary of her. He did not want to be near her when she went into Transition. Otaktay lowered his voice. “She does not remember that she is such,” he informed his fellow rogue. “She believes Cree raped her and was responsible for the loss of her child.”
Jaborn narrowed his eyes. “She has no love for the Reaper, then?”
The Jakotai puffed out his chest. “She only has love for me, her husband.”
“I thought she had joined with Cree,” Jaborn said, his forehead creased.
“Hush!” the brave warned. “Do not speak so loudly. I do not wish her to hear!”
Aingeal gave no sign that she had heard the men’s words but she had taken in everything they had said since Otaktay had led the stranger into the cave with them several days earlier. Though her profile was to the men, she was careful to keep any emotion from showing on her face and to remain relaxed, though her heart was pounding so furiously she was amazed the men did not hear.
“She belongs to me,” Otaktay was saying. “This she believes and this is the way it will be.”
“Why does she not remember Cree?” the one called Jaborn asked. 90
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From the corner of her eye, Aingeal saw the red man shrug carelessly. “I hit her alongside her head and she has lost her memory.”
“All women need to be beaten regularly,” Jaborn pronounced. “It keeps them in line.”
“This is so,” Otaktay agreed, though he glanced at Aingeal to make sure she had not heard the remark.
Anger boiled in Aingeal’s veins. While it was true there were bits and pieces of her memory still hiding behind shifting darkness in her mind, some things had surfaced clearly enough for her to know that Otaktay was not her husband, but her enemy. Since he admitted to striking her, he was not the loving, caring man he pretended to be when Jaborn was out of hearing. She already knew the babe she lost had been the Reaper’s and not the brave’s. She suspected Otaktay had caused the miscarriage that had left her womb feeling barren and her heart aching.
“How will you explain to her what is happening when she Transitions?” Jaborn was asking.
“I do not know but I believe that is a long way off. Perhaps we will have slain the Reaper by then.”
Then I will slay you.
Aingeal jumped, realizing she had heard the thought in Jaborn’s mind. She stared at him and saw the way he intended to take Otaktay’s life. She swung her gaze to the Jakotai and found she could intercept his thoughts as well. Otaktay was thinking of peeling the flesh from the Reaper’s body and she shivered. Stunned to realize she could hear the men’s thoughts, she sat there pondering it for quite some time—looking for the good things and bad things about her newfound ability. At last she decided the good outweighed the bad and it was a very useful thing she could do, for it was possible to stop bad things from happening before they did. Clenching her teeth together so tightly she was getting a headache, Aingeal was digging her nails into her palms. There was no way she would allow the men to harm the one called Cree. If her suspicions were correct, he was her true mate and it had been Otaktay who had stolen her from her rightful home. Why, she had no idea and didn’t care to know. That she was his captive was evident in the way he kept watch over her and though he had provided a long skirt and blouse for her to wear—stolen he had told her from a white man’s clothesline—he had taken her thin slippers and burned them in the campfire. Barefoot, she would not get far in the broiling desert sun of the day or the freezing cold of its evenings.
Tearing his stare from the woman, Jaborn got up to stretch. He was unaccustomed to being underground and it rattled his nerves. The cave walls tended to close in around him and he made many trips to the cave entrance to assure himself he was not buried alive under tons of rock and sand. Without a word, he began the trip again, his hands thrust into the pockets of his britches.