A Reaper's Love (WindWorld) (10 page)

“Aye.”

“And that disturbs you.”

“It scares the fucking shit out of me!”
Taylor said and watched the Supervisor’s brows lift.

“Enough that you use vulgarities I have
rarely heard you use,” the older man stated.

Taylor ducked his head. “I apologize, sir,”
he said then raked a hand through his hair. “This whole situation has left me
confused and angry and…”

“Worried,” the Supervisor finished for me.
“I get that, but you must realize Albright has a job to do for the Exchange.
That was her mission in life long before she was teamed with you. As much as
she loves you, respects you, she knows she has obligations that come before
anything else. She dedicated her life to her country when she was no more than
a young girl and her commitment to the ideals and beliefs she has are as
important to her as the air she breathes.”

“I know that,” Taylor said. “But it doesn’t
make this any easier for me.” He sat up straight in the chair and leaned
forward, bracing his arms on the table in a mirror image of the Supervisor’s
pose. “I am her Extension. I am a part of her as she is a part of me. We are
bonded. To know I can’t help her, can’t be there for her, and can’t protect her
is driving me crazy!”

“Understandable. You feel as any Reaper
does about his mate and you fear this bizarre situation between you and her and
Keenan McCullough is a permanent thing.”

“I am not mated to Keenan and despite what
the hellion whispered to me while it was still inside me, I have absolutely no
desire for the woman.”

“Which is a good thing since Fallon at this
point would attempt to rip your throat out if you so much as smiled at her,”
the Supervisor said drily.

“I thought I proved to Fallon after his
queen was removed that I had no interest in his mate nor she in me when we
stood in the same room together. She had no pull toward me nor me toward her.
His hellion queen is out of me so I don’t understand how this new one could
still be telling me I have another mate!”

“That is puzzling. The fledgling we gave
you belonged to a Reaper whose mate was tragically killed before he could make
her a Lady-Reaper. Unlike Fallon when Fallon thought Keenan was dead, that
Reaper ended his own life. I believe the only reason Fallon didn’t follow suit
is because his hellion wouldn’t let him. It knew their mate was still alive.”

“Fallon thinks that too,” Taylor said.

“At least he is capable of thought,” the
Supervisor mumbled. “There was a time I questioned that aptitude in him.”

Taylor smiled despite the foreboding pushing
at his mind and the ache in his heart for the woman who—at that very moment—was
getting ready to board the Gulfstream for the flight to Africa. Something
occurred to him and he looked up from the table.

“Do you know if he’s still in Somalia?” he
asked.

“Sorn can sense him there yet has not been
able to locate him. That is suspicious. I suspect this
balgair
may be
something more than that. A common Rogue does not have the abilities this one
seems to possess.”

“You mean a hybrid?”

The Supervisor nodded. “Which begs the
question—how is that possible?”

“
Balgairs
are made, are they not?”
Taylor asked. “They aren’t born to Terran women as Sorn, Fallon and the rest of
us were. Well, with the exception of Viraiden Cree who crash landed here. How
does Sorn
know
the man isn’t full-blooded Reaper?”

“He smelled entirely human according to
Sorn. You’re Panthera too. Would you not be able to tell the dissimilarity
between Reaper born males and human males who have been given hellions?”

“Yes,” Taylor said. “There is a different
scent.”

“What concerns me are these powers Sorn is
sensing. Greater psychic abilities and being able to shield himself from a
Prime Reaper is both mystifying and unsettling.”

“And potentially a major problem should he
prove to be a villain,” Taylor said.

Sighing deeply, the Supervisor stood and
went to the bank of bulletproof windows that looked out across the rooftop of
the exchange to the helo pad. “If you are going to bid her a safe mission, now
would be the time to do it. She’s on her way out to the helicopter.”

“I’ll pass,” Taylor said. “If I went out
there I’d be tempted to fling her over my shoulder and take her back to our
quarters again.”

The older man turned to him. “Are you sure?
She’s looking this way.”

“Yeah, well…” Taylor said. He rested his
forehead on his crossed arms. “It’s best I stay here.”

“Probably so,” the Supervisor agreed, faced
the window again and gave the signal to the pilot to take off. His eyes met
Laci’s and even from that distance he could see the tears reflected in her
eyes.

* * * * *

Laci fastened the seatbelt then laid her
head on the backrest and closed her eyes. It wasn’t that she had expected
Taylor to see her off. She knew he wasn’t happy she was leaving without him.
What upset her the most was the look of fear that had shifted through his eyes
when the Supervisor told them there was a situation. She had seen his hand
tremble though she doubted anyone else had. It was the PTSD that had settled
over him like an oily sludge. The stalwart, fearless Reaper who had been her
partner, her Extension, was now a man plagued by demons that lurked deep in his
subconscious.

“He’s not sleeping,” she’d told Dr. Judson,
the Exchange’s primary physician. “He’s not eating enough to keep a bird alive.
I catch him staring into space and the least sound makes him jump.”

“That’s natural, Laci,” he said. “His body
has healed but his mind hasn’t.” He’d put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“Give him time. Let him mend on his own schedule.”

“I’m terrified that he won’t be the man he once
was,” she said.

“He won’t be, Laci. You don’t go through
what he did and remain the same. There will always be shadows in his eyes.
There will be times when the memories of the torture will come out of nowhere
to cripple him. Those things are givens. A Reaper’s recall never fades. It
never dies. The memories will always be there.”

Twice in the last five days he had woken
from a restless sleep to sit bolt upright in the bed—eyes wide, body
shuddering, covered in sweat. He hadn’t made a sound and when she put her arms
around him he had sagged against her. When she’d asked if he wanted to talk
about it, he’d said nothing. On Dr. Judson’s advice she would not ask again.

“He may never be able to talk about it,
Laci. If he wouldn’t discuss it with the Supervisor or Agent Fallon, he most
certainly won’t discuss it with you. Don’t press. That’s the very worst thing
you can do.”

The helo lifted into the air and she turned
her attention to the window where the man who controlled her life stood with
his hands behind his back watching her. There were times she hated John Doe
more than anything or anyone in the world.

* * * * *

Taylor took the monorail back to the
apartment he shared with Laci. He still had his own place because the Powers
Who Were at the Exchange insisted each agent have a separate residence from his
Extension. He assumed it was because they knew there would be times when a
Reaper needed space, needed solitude. At that moment in his life space and
solitude were the last things he needed.

He needed his woman. He needed to
be
with his woman. That the Supervisor had given her an assignment on her own both
angered and terrified him. While he knew there would be agents watching her at
all times—ready to jump in to protect her back—they weren’t Reapers. Each of
them had psi powers but nowhere as potent as his. Only he or one like him could
adequately protect her against whatever it was she was going to meet.

“He singlehandedly destroyed an entire
encampment of Taliban,” the Supervisor said. “Butchered them like cattle in a
slaughterhouse. There were men who were literally torn in half. I cannot begin
to imagine the strength that took.”

As he stared out the window of the monorail
something Viraiden Cree had once told him pricked at his mind.

“The only thing a Shadowlord fears is a
Deathlord. The only thing a Deathlord fears is a Ridge Lord. I’ve never met one
but I’ve heard they have even more powers than we do. The Supervisor at
Tearmann is a Ridge Lord and I get the fucking creeps every time I have to deal
with him.”

Could the Rogue be a Reaper-Ridge Lord
hybrid? He wondered. Or was he something even more powerful than that?

He shot out his leg and dug into his pocket
for his cell phone. He thumbed through the numbers until he came to Fallon’s
personal cell.

“How you doing?” Fallon asked.

“Okay,” he replied. “Listen. Is there
anything higher up in the food chain than a Ridge Lord?”

Fallon didn’t reply for a second or two.
“Why?”

“Have you heard about the vigilante taking
out terrorists in the Middle East?”

“Yeah. The Exchange sending someone to look
into it?”

“Laci.”

“Fuck,” Fallon said. “And you?”

“I’m in Iowa.”

“And that asshole prick sent her by
herself?” Fallon snarled.

“She’s got backup,” he said. “Is there
anything higher than a Ridge Lord?”

“I don’t think so but I can ask Coim. He’d
know.”

Taylor nodded to himself. The Big Gray Man
knew most everything there was to know and he wished he had a way to directly
contact the supernatural being as Fallon did.

“I’ll have him watch out for Laci,” Fallon
said, reading his mind. “If there are mountains near where she is, he will be
there. That’s the best I can do. I assume there was a reason the bastard sent
her alone.”

“The Supervisor thought the
balgair
—if
that’s what he is—would get spooked if he sent a Reaper with her. Darkyn Sorn
discovered him and the Rogue completely closed his mind off to him. Apparently
he erased even his scent.”

On the other end of the phone Fallon
whistled. “That’s not good.”

“No,” Taylor agreed. “And Laci is going up
against whatever this man is.”

“I’ll contact Coim,” Fallon said. “Hang
tight.” He ended the call.

It was nearly two hours before Fallon
called. Taylor had paced a pathway into the carpet by then.

“What did he say?” he demanded when he
answered.

“Here’s the thing,” Fallon said. “When I
told Coim about the Rogue he started cursing in whatever the fuck his native
language is. He said he’d been getting odd jibes all week and should have
already looked into it.”

“Jibes?”

Fallon sighed. “Sorry. I meant vibes. His
mishearing is starting to rub off on me. At any rate he says until now there
have been only three kinds of what he calls Superlords—Shadowlords, Deathlords
and Ridge Lords.”

“Until now,” Taylor echoed and sat down
heavily on the sofa. “What does that mean?”

“Hold on. I’ll get to that. If there’s one
thing I learned early on in my association with Coim it’s that he is one of the
most inquisitive creatures you will ever meet. He absorbs information like a
sponge and whatever intrigues him, catches his imagination, he will scour every
available source until he learns all there is to know about that subject. The
existence of this new Rogue not only intrigued him, it set a fire under his
big, hairy ass. He doesn’t like anything preternatural coming into this world
without his knowledge.”

“And?” Taylor said, spinning his hand
around and around in a mental effort to get Fallon to hurry up.

“He jumped on the Rogue with both feet.”

“He found him?”

“In the Galgala region of Somalia,” Fallon
said. “He’d just massacred a group of Al Shabab. When I say massacre, I mean
completely annihilated. There wasn’t one of the fighters left intact. The Rogue
had squashed them like bugs. Squashed, Reynaud. Like bugs.”

“I get the picture,” Taylor said.

“Coim caught the whiff of the bloodbath
before he saw the Rogue. The bastard was so engrossed in what he was doing he
didn’t sense Coim until it was too late and the
Vainshtyr
slipped under
his guard and straight into his mind.”

“And?” Taylor demanded.

“And spoke directly to the hellion.” Fallon
paused. “You sitting down?”

“Just get on with it, will you?”

“All right, already! Hold your water. The
good news is he is only going after those who would destroy the Earth with
war.”

“The hellion said this? And of course a
hellion wouldn’t lie,” Taylor scoffed.

“Not to
Vainshtyr
An Fear Liath Mor
,” Fallon reminded him.

“No, I guess not,” Taylor said, a bit
relieved. “What’s the bad news then?”

“The bad news is there’s a new boss in
town,” Fallon said. “A new kind of Superlord. The first of his kind. Part
Superlord and part Panthera.”

Taylor got slowly to his feet. “So he
really is a hybrid?”

“Aye, and with all the power and lethality
that implies. He thinks of himself as a god. How fucking pretentious is that?”

Dixon slammed his fist into the wall. His
introduction to
Vainshtyr
An Fear Liath Mor
had been horrifying.
The Big Gray Man—whom he had no idea existed—had literally scared the shit out
of him when he suddenly appeared amidst the wreckage of the Al Shabab camp. The
overwhelming fear with which the presence covered him had put a serious dent in
his belief he was the most powerful entity in the neighborhood.

“You are nothing compared to me,” the
giant creature had snarled, looming over him like a mountain. “You are a flea.
No, lower than a flea. You are flea
shit
!”

The huge face pressed so close to his he
could feel the rasp of the creature’s whiskers started an avalanche of feces
trekking down his pant leg.

“You stink,” the monster said with a
growl. “What to call you? What to call you?” It put its muzzle against Dixon’s
nose. “What do you call yourself?”

“I am a Gr-Gravelord,” Dixon stammered.

“So your hellion says. I want your name,
flea shit!”

“D-Dixon C-Coulter,” he said and felt
another trickle of offal plop from the cuff of his pant.

“You’re a pussy boy too,” the hairy
beast said with disgust. “What is this world coming to? It is being overrun by
pussy boys!”

The creature pulled back and unrolled
its immense body to its full height. It stared down at Dixon with its black
lips peeled back over long fangs.

“Toe the line, pussy boy,” it commanded.
“I will be watching you!”

The last thing Dixon remembered, heard
before he collapsed to the ground in a trembling heap, was what he thought was
the creature singing the old Queen song
We Will Rock
You
but the lyrics were skewed.

“You’ve got mud on your face, front disc
brakes…” the creature sang off-key.

He hit the wall again, welcoming the pain
of his knuckles breaking, the flesh splitting, blood welling. He looked down at
his hand and watched it repair itself before he could take another breath.

Instant healing was another blessing of
being a Gravelord.

“That thing knows me,” he said aloud. “It
can track me.”

“An Fear Liath Mor poses no threat to
you, Gravelord,”
the hellion whispered
. “As long
as you do only good, he will leave you be.”

“But it knows me! He could derail my
plans.”

“It does not know your intent. I hid
that from him. He was looking only for your motive in relieving the world of
bad men. He had no reason to look deeper into your personal agenda.”

“So it knows nothing of my woman?”

“There was no reason for him to seek
such information.”

“And I can find her now?”

“She will find you,”
the hellion said.

“When?”

“Two days hence.”

“And the other?”

“He will not be with her. She will be
alone.”

“Good,” Dixon said. He felt as though a
heavy weight had been lifted from him. He rolled his shoulders, took a deep
breath, and then went over to retrieve his duffle bag. He slung it over his
arm. “She will find me, you say?”

“She will.”

He looked around the room to make sure he
had left nothing in the seedy Yemen rat trap that passed for a hotel. He wanted
to be somewhere nice, picturesque for his first face-to-face meeting with his
mate and not in a piece-of-shit room that smelled of things he didn’t want to
consider.

Exiting the hotel, his psi senses picked up
on two women who had a modicum of psychic ability but ignored them. He saw them
glance his way then scurry out of sight. They had just enough aptitude to sense
true power when they felt it.

He smiled.

It was good to be omnipotent.

* * * * *

The Big Gray Man was about to contact
Fallon to tell him what he’d learned when an urgent call came from one of his
wives. He sighed. The pretty one was about to deliver another child—her
thirty-first—and
An Fear Liath Mor
wanted to be there for the delivery.
He weighed the choices and decided a mate came before the Hound. Shrugging, he
willed himself to his home world without another thought of the trouble brewing
on Terra.

* * * * *

“Greece?” Laci repeated. The Gulfstream was
on route to the Aden Abdulle International Airport in Mogadishu when the
copilot came back to tell her there had been a change in the flight plan.

“We were told that’s where the target has
surfaced,” the pilot said.

She sighed. “Okay. Greece is a helluva
sight better than Somalia.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” he asked.

“Do they know where he showed up?”

“Santorini. We’ll be there in three hours.”
He put a finger to the bill of his cap and headed back for the cockpit.

She liked Greece. Greece was one of her
favorite places. She and Taylor had spent some quality time on the Greek island
of Santorini in the safe house owned by the Exchange. When she closed her eyes
she could see the windmills, the houses built on the edge of the caldera, the
beautiful beach where Taylor had once asked her to marry him.

Now she wished she had said yes for she
doubted he would ask her again.

Going back to the last place they had
visited before their world had been torn apart by the bomb would not be easy.
The memories would be there to underscore the heartache.

A slight headache pushed at the spot over
her right eye where most of her migraines began. She put her fingers there to
rub it and wondered if she should take a Vistaril before it got any worse.
Deciding that would be the best course of action, she reached across to the
empty seat across the aisle and grabbed her purse. She laid it in her lap and
unzipped it, fished around inside for the little amber bottle of pills.

Her fingers touched cold metal and she
plucked a small picture frame from the purse. It was a plain bronze frame with
a half-inch satin metal finish. Covering the photograph inside the frame was a
piece of plexigon shielding instead of glass. The plexigon material would not
scratch or crack like the thermoplastic of Plexiglas.

She trailed her fingers over the smiling
face in the photograph. Taylor’s beautiful green eyes were sparkling, crinkling
at the corners for he’d been laughing when she took the picture with her cell
phone. He had such an engaging smile and it lit up his entire face.

“You are such a handsome man, my love,” she
whispered and ran her fingers over that smile.

Her eyes locked with those in the
photograph and she frowned. His eyes were no longer green. They were amber now
like Fallon’s. Like Viraiden Cree’s. Lupine and Hell-hound eyes were amber.
Panthera Reapers had green eyes though all three Reaper species’ eyes turned
blood red when they were angry.

She liked her mate better with the emerald
green eyes that had stared lovingly into hers. The amber eyes that looked back
at her now were filled with terrible sadness and insecurity. They were a
stranger’s eyes.

Her headache suddenly intensified and she
winced. That was never a good sign and especially not when she was flying. She
laid the photograph on the seat beside her, found the bottle of medicine and
opened it to shake three capsules into her palm. She took them with a swig of
cherry Pepsi then returned the re-capped bottle to her purse. She zipped her
bag and tossed it back to the other seat, picked up Taylor’s photograph and
pressed it to her heart as she closed her eyes and rested her head on the back
of the seat.

It didn’t take long for the Vistaril to
lull her enough for the headache to begin to fade. As it always did, it gave
her a slight buzz that she had never found enjoyable. She hated the feeling it
gave her but it was an evil byproduct of the med. It was better to let it take
over than try to fight it so she allowed the effective sedative and analgesic
properties of the drug to do its thing. Within ten minutes she was sleeping.

And dreaming vividly and in detail as she
always did after taking the med.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He was lying on his back on the beach towel
with his knees drawn up, his arms crossed beneath his head. The dark Ray-Bans
that covered his eyes reflected the bright sun overhead. He was the darkest
she’d ever seen him and there were sun streaks in his dark brown hair. The
suntan oil he’d slathered over his chest had matted the hair and left two very
intriguing swirls over his pecs. The swirls were fascinating for one curled
clockwise and the other counterclockwise. The tiger line dipping down to the
low-riding waist of his black swim trunks fanned out like a tree trunk—the
roots seemingly disappearing beneath the waistband.

“Are you letching on me, woman?” he asked,
his lips twitching.

“I was just thinking.”

“The gods help us,” he said.

She was on her back, her upper body raised
on her elbows as she observed the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“I was thinking if I were to slide onto
you, I’d slide right off,” she said. “You’ve got enough oil on you to sink the
Exxon Valdez.”

He smiled and his bright white teeth
flashed in the sunlight. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

“Maybe later,” she said, stretching out
beside him on her belly. She lifted her legs and crossed them at the ankles as
she stared at the dunes behind them where sea oats swayed in a light breeze.

He turned his shades-shielded face toward
her. “Want me to rub some oil on your back, babe? You’re getting a bit pink
there.”

“Sure,” she said and lowered her legs.

He sat up, reached for the bottle of suntan
oil, flung one of his legs over then sat down gently on her rump.

“Sweet Morrigunia, you’re getting heavy
there, Tater,” she complained as he untied the string of her bikini top.

“Too much baklava,” he replied. She could
hear the squishing sound of his palms rubbing together as he coated his palms
with the oil.

“How come you tan so easy?” she asked,
sighing when he began rubbing the oil over her back.

“Simple male superiority,” he said.

“I’ll buy the simple male part of that
explanation and reserve judgment on the superiority part.”

“Takes a simple mind to think of simple
things,” he countered.

“I guess that’s why you thought of it,
huh?” When he snorted she smiled.

“You know what I want to do when we get
back to the beach house?” he asked, expertly working the muscles of her
shoulders as he applied the oil.

“With you, there’s no telling,” she
replied. “It could be anything from clipping your toe claws to painting my
toenails. Which will it be today?”

“I’m going to fuck your brains out,” he
told her.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m gonna make you eat
your insults, baby.”

“Okay,” she said with a yawn for his
fingers were working magic on her body and between them, the warm sun and the
hypnotic rush of the incoming tide, she was getting sleepy. “So whatcha gonna
do, stud?”

He was silent for a moment as he worked his
way across her shoulder blades.

“First off, we’ll shower.”

“We’re only gonna get sweaty again,” she
reminded him.

“Oil mixed with sweat and fish stink,” he
said. “Turnoffs and therefore not conducive to keeping my head in the game.”

“Which head?”

“Either,” he replied. He splayed his
fingers under her ribcage.

“Go on.”

“First the shower. You’ll bathe me…”

“Oh I will, will I?” she countered.

“Then I’ll bathe you,” he said as though
she hadn’t interrupted him. “Very slowly and very thoroughly. I want you
squeaky clean.” He paused for a beat. “Inside and out.”

“Oooh,” she said. “Intriguing possibility.”

“I’ll dry you off then carry you to the
bed.”

“Don’t want to get the sheets wet,” she
acknowledged.

“I’ll lay you down on your back then tie
you spread-eagle to the bed.”

“Huh,” she said. His fingers were gliding
along the small of her back, making slow circles there.

“I’ll start with your toes.”

“Oh goody,” she said. “They don’t get as
much as attention as they need.”

“I’ll suckle each one, lick between them
then run my tongue slowly from the ball to the heel.”

“Instep lick! Instep lick! I love instep
licks!” she said.

“Then I’ll go back up the sole, through the
valley of your big toe, along the top of your foot to your ankle.”

“Ankle licks? Not so much,” she said. “Too
bony.”

“Agreed,” he said. “So I won’t linger
there.”

“Good boy,” she replied.

He lifted his leg and moved off her to lie
down beside her. He insinuated his hand under the material of her bikini bottom
to caress her ass.

“I’ll kiss my way up your shin, over your
knee, along your thigh then change direction.”

“You’re gonna leave my hoo-haw wanting?”
she asked.

“Not for long. Patience, woman. Patience.”
He squeezed her left cheek firmly. “It’s a virtue, you know.”

“Never was one for either patience or
virtue,” she stated.

“I’ll continue with your right ear.”

“Love me some ear licking,” she told him.

“I’ve noticed,” he said as he moved his
hand to her right cheek. “So I’ll spend a little time there.”

“Works for me.”

“Then I’ll move on to the edge of your jaw
to that precious little indention under your bottom lip.” He ran his thumb down
the crack of her ass then curled his fingers between her legs to cup her.

She squirmed. “Ooh, sensitive spot that,”
leaving him to wonder which spot she meant—her lip or her crotch.

“A slow lick upward there at your chin then
onto your bottom lip. Another slow lick across the crease between your lips, a
gentle little nibble on the top lip then I’ll settle my mouth over yours,
thrust my tongue past your lips into the heat beyond.”