A Reaper's Love (WindWorld) (14 page)

“I-I—”

“Speak up. I don’t have all day to listen
to you stammer!”

“Give him a chance to answer, Sandu,” Neal
said quietly. He had always been the peacemaker between his volatile brothers.

Alexandru folded his arms. “I’m waiting!”

“I have an agent with the Rogue. She will
be bringing him to the Exchange.”

“No,” the elder Hesar brother said. “
He
will be bringing
her
to the Exchange. Obviously he is the one in charge
and not Albright.”

“We will question him and if it is decided
he is a threat, we will…”

“You will what?” Alexandru demanded. “How
will you handle him, Constantine?”

“We will control him.”

Alexandru’s upper lip quirked. “How do you
propose to do that when the man is a Superlord?”

Constantine swallowed hard. “A Ridge Lord?”
he inquired. If anyone would know, it would be Sandu.

“No,” his eldest brother replied.
“Something entirely different. His hellion has given him the designation of
Gravelord—for whatever conceited purpose. He has very powerful abilities that
rival my own. You will have great difficulty controlling him, Costin. If you
think Fallon was a problem, you have yet to experience real trouble.”

“All right,” Constantine said. “Tell me
what I should do. Obviously you have the answer where I don’t.”

“Of course I do,” Alexandru replied. “Not
of my own accord, I must admit. We have
Mo Regina
to thank for the
solution.”

“Which is?”

“As soon as Reynaud’s hellion has reached
full maturity, we will exchange it with his rightful one—the one nestled inside
Coulter.”

“I’d already planned to do that,”
Constantine acknowledged.

“Here’s something I wonder if you have
considered,” Alexandru snapped. “A Panthera hellion is ten times more potent
than either Lupine or Hell-hound.”

“Yes, I know this, but do you think it will
be an easy task to make such an exchange?”

“We will be able to utilize Albright to
remedy the situation,” Alexandru told him.

“She has great command over him,” Neal put
in. “He considers her his life-mate and for the moment we are sure he has
convinced—”

“Influenced,” Alexandru corrected. “He is
mentally taken her over, using her body against her.”

“Women are so easily swayed by the use of
sexual pleasure,” Neal said. “At least I have found that to be the case with
mine.”

“Who has no psi powers,” Constantine said.
“Women with such abilities are harder to influence, Nealson.”

“True,” their elder brother agreed.
“Coulter will use up vast amounts of his power to keep Albright under his
control. Her heart—and mind—belongs to and with Reynaud so manipulating her
will not be as easy as he thinks. He is obsessed with her, is trying hard to
make her forget her true life-mate. He doesn’t realize that keeping her under
his influence is going to be a drain on his psi powers and that is to our advantage.
Thankfully he will lose a tenth of his powers once the hellion is removed. When
the time comes, the goddess will intercede.”

“Why is She allowing this in the first
place?” Neal asked. “Why not put a stop to it before it happens? If Coulter
compromises Albright…”

“He won’t.
Mo Regina
is keeping a
careful eye on the situation and will prevent anything untoward happening,”
Alexandru told him. “She’s giving Coulter false hope that he will eventually
make Albright his own. I suspect it is all in Her plan to bring Coulter to his
knees and keep him there at Her command.”

“Surely the hellion knows it cannot win in
a battle with Morrigunia,” Neal said.

“The hellion inside Coulter is male and
arrogant as all Panthera hellions are but you must remember, it is being
influenced by Raphian and that one has always thought He could best
Mo
Regina
.”

“Ah,” Neal said. “I hadn’t considered that
into the equation.”

“Raphian has offered Albright to Coulter as
a reward. You believe women are easily swayed by sexual pleasure. Men are
controlled by it,” Constantine said. “It is a driving force that makes even the
strongest and most intelligent men vulnerable. When a man is rutting, he isn’t
thinking of protecting himself or commanding a situation. All he is thinking is
to satisfy the itch in his cock.”

“And
that
is when we will overpower
him,” Alexandru stated. “When his mind is on the woman.”

Dixon opened the hotel door and ushered her
inside. He had her physical body completely under his control but she was
fighting him mentally. He had to put a stop to that as soon as possible.

Closing the door behind them, he engaged
the lock and deadbolt then turned to her. She had her back to him and he went
to her, put his hands up to cup her shoulders. His touch put a dent in the
shield she’d thrown up around her mind. The moment he placed his lips to that
sensitive plane where neck met shoulder, she let her head fall to one side. As
he nibbled at her neck, he ran his palms up and down her slender arms, pressed
his heavy erection against her sweet little ass.

“I want you,” he whispered.

He felt the surge of resistance flow
through her. She was fighting him hard. Though she trembled at his touch, she
kept that wall firmly in place though it was beginning to buckle.

“You want me too.”

“No,” she mumbled.

His voice was more breath than sound. “Yes,
you do.”

He turned her to face him, crooked a finger
under her chin to tilt her face up to him.

“You want me as desperately as I want you.”

“Please,” she whimpered.

He smiled. He had her eyes locked on
him—unable to look away—and he watched them flare in desperation as he lowered
his mouth to hers.

“Give in, little one,” he said against her
lips. “You know you want to.”

“No,” she said but he could feel her
struggle dwindling.

He tilted his head to one side. “Do you see
his face?”

“Yes,” she said and swallowed hard, tears
forming in her eyes.

“Then let’s do this,” he said. He encircled
her with his free arm though he kept possession of her chin. “I want you to
picture his hair. Can you see it?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Now, I want you to replace that straight
dark-brown hair with curly black hair.”

“I—”

“Curly black hair,” he repeated, nodding to
make her do as he willed. “Do you see that curly black hair now?”

“Yes.”

“Now let the features beneath that hair
fade completely so what you see is just a soft blurry oval.”

In his mind he willed the face of Taylor
Reynaud to vanish.

“Are the features gone?”

A single tear eased down her cheek. “Yes,”
she murmured.

“Okay, let’s give that soft blurry oval a
harder edge,” he instructed. “Make the parameters of that face square-jawed
with a bold, defined chin.”

Her brow furrowed.

“Do it, Laci,” he insisted, using the power
of his voice to drive the command deep into her subconscious. “Change the structure
of that face.”

The moment the image congealed in her mind
he saw her chin quiver and wasted no time.

“Eyes are beginning to form in that blank
face now. Do you see them?”

She nodded.

“Deep-set dark-brown eyes beneath a strong
slash of eyebrow and above a strong aquiline nose. Do you see the brows and
eyes and nose?” He wanted her to see him as he had been, his eyes the color he
preferred.

“Yes.” The word was a reluctant sigh.

“And the lips? Those lips are full and
smiling. Can you see the smile? Can you feel it?”

Once more she nodded and another tear
tracked down her face.

“That smile creates twin dimples in the
cheeks and when you look harder, you will see a deep cleft is beginning to
appear in the chin.” He waited a few ticks of the clock. “Is the cleft there?”

“Yes.” Her gaze was on his chin.

“Can you see the entire face now?”

Her eyes lifted and once more melded with
his. She was losing the hold she had on her mind. He could feel it, sense it in
the way her shoulders drooped and her eyelids flickered.

“Yes, I see it,” she whispered and tears
fell from each eye.

“Whose face is it you see, Laci?” he asked
softly.

Her lips trembled. “Yours.”

“That face is the face of your life-mate,
isn’t it, Laci?” he questioned.

There was only a slight hesitation. “Yes.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. She had
capitulated, given in to his mental persuasion.

“Good,” he said. “Good.” He enfolded her in
his arms, pressed her head to his chest. “Do you feel my heart beating?”

“Yes.”

“It is beating for you, Laci. For you and
you alone. You own that heart, my love. It belongs entirely to you. Do you know
that?”

“Yes.”

“There is nothing that heart, this body
would not do for you. Do you know that as well?”

“Yes.”

“That’s my girl,” he said. “That’s my
sweet, sweet girl.”

He swept her up into his arms and carried
her to the bed, laid her down gently on the counterpane. She looked up at him
with a trace of fear.

“I will never hurt you, sweeting,” he said.
He put his fingers to the buttons of his white shirt and began running them,
tugging the tail from his black slacks as he neared the bottom. He unbuttoned
the cuffs of the soft silk shirt as he toed off his black loafers and pushed
them away with his sockless foot. “You do know that, don’t you?”

She nodded as he peeled the shirt from his
chest and her lips parted, her tongue pressed between them then curled over her
bottom lip before drawing slowly back into her mouth.

His cock leapt and his hands trembled as he
reached for his buckle.

“You belong to me,” he said, drawing the belt
from its leather keeper, releasing it from the tang. “You are my life.” The
belt came free and he unbuttoned his slacks, tugged down the zipper. “I would
give my life for you.”

He watched her draw in a deep, shuddering
breath and could see the vein at the side of her neck throbbing wildly.

He pushed the slacks over his hips, his
thighs, down his legs and stepped out of them. He held his hand out to her.

* * * * *

He sat bolt upright on his bunk and howled.
Jealousy and unbridled fury lashed at him as heart-rending agony filled his
mind and his body. Before he took another breath he Converted into Panthera
form and leapt from the bunk. With fangs bared and claws extended, he raked
viciously at the titanium walls as savage snarl after snarl ripped from his
throat.

“Get the Supervisor on the horn!” the man
watching him yelled. “Now!”

Unleashing the pent-up ferocity and rage,
he clawed deep grooves down the walls and the sound his claws made as he
dragged them down the titanium panels barely masked his piercing yowls. He
continued to tear brutally at the wall for over twenty minutes. By the time the
Supervisor arrived in the video room to see for himself what was happening,
blood was coursing from his paws.

“Spray him before he hurts himself,” the
Supervisor said as he stared at the vid-com screen.

The beast that had been Taylor Reynaud did
not see the mist floating down from the four jets hidden in the ceiling. There
was no odor to the tranquilizing gas but the moment it touched his fur, his
head came up and he twisted it to the side to look up. The mist fell into his
eyes and the sound he made raised the hair on the Supervisor’s arms.

“Coulter is with his woman.”

The Supervisor turned to see Viraiden Cree
and Darkyn Sorn standing behind him. His brothers had informed him they were
sending their Alphas to the Exchange and now he knew why.

“You should keep him out until we can
exchange the hellions,” Viraiden advised. “Otherwise he’s going to wind up
doing damage to himself.”

“And the goddess help you if he ever gets
loose,” Sorn warned.

“This is wrong on so many levels,” Cree
said. “There is no reason to make him suffer like this.”

“As if he hadn’t suffered enough already,”
Sorn agreed.

“Sometimes I wonder why She allows fucking
shit like this to happen,” Cree stated. “She put me through hell when my
life-mate was taken from me. She did the same thing with Fallon. For what?” He
snarled. “What possible purpose could this torture have other than to amuse
her?”

“With Fallon, I could see it,” Sorn said.
“He’s an arrogant prick at the best of times but Reynaud doesn’t deserve this.”

“Perhaps to make each of you appreciate
your woman even more?” the Supervisor queried.

Cree shook his head. “No, that’s not it.
She knows we love our mates. We would lay down our lives for our mates. This…”
He pointed at the screen. “This is just plain hateful.”

“And mean,” Sorn added.

“Be careful of the things you say,” the
Supervisor warned. “She is always listening.”

“Let her,” Cree said. “There should be
accountability for Her as there is for Her Reapers.”

The black jaguar violently shook its head,
gave one last roar and its legs gave way beneath it. It dropped to the floor
with a grunt. Though the large green eyes were open, they were unseeing. The
beast was under the strong influence of
státúil,
the most powerful
take-down drug in the Exchange’s arsenal.

* * * * *

Dixon Coulter had lain with many women in
his lifetime but none had been more than a moment’s pleasure, a passing fancy,
a way to while away the time between assignments. He had been—as his sperm
donor before him—a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy. A flash of his smile, a
flex of his biceps and an audacious wink could earn him a bed partner any night
of the week. Just a knowing look had been enough to have a broad take him into
a storage room, a toilet stall—anywhere private and sometimes not—and screw him
hard enough to make him walk funny for a few minutes. He’d had more than his
share of handjobs and blowjobs over the years. Had once wrecked a perfectly
good Jeep because a captain’s pretty little mouth had been wrapped around his
cock. But once fucked, he made it a point to never see that woman again, much
less think of her.

All that was in the past. What he
wanted—no, what he
craved
—was lying on his bed looking up at him, her
soft hand in his.

“You are mine,” he said and he saw a shadow
track through her eyes.

“
Take her
,” the hellion directed. “
Make
her yours
.
Do it now!”

For all the power that had been given to
Dixon Coulter he could not detect the evil whispering in his mind. That evil
was deeply hidden and suppurating in his mind like a gaping wound. He was open
to the suggestions that were coming—not from the hellion—but the One directing
them. He did not realize his actions were being dictated by the Destroyer of
Men’s Souls and that he was losing his to the Storm God Raphian.

“
Plant your seed within her, Gravelord
,”
the hellion cooed.

His body aching, his cock burning for her,
he eased himself gently atop her. The moment his flesh touched hers, a wave of
blackness descended over him and he sank beneath it like a rock.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Laci was running. As fast as she could.
Around her was a dark forest of withered and dying trees with spectral limbs
that arched over her, branches reaching down like claws, moss dangling like the
wispy hair of a dead woman as she passed beneath them. The wind keened like a
banshee to set her teeth on edge, the hairs to stirring on her arms. Her legs
felt like lead and when she paused to catch her breath—putting out a hand to
brace herself on one of the slick trees—the moss covering the ground began
curling over her feet. With a cry of horror, she shook free of the greedy,
grasping tendrils and pushed away from the tree. She ran her palm down the
skirt of her nightgown for it was coated with some noxious, clinging mold that
was arctic cold at the same time it burned like flame.

Behind her she knew he was gaining on her.
He was calling to her and his voice was mesmerizing, audible even above the
skirling wind for he was driving his commands deep into her mind.

“Laci….”

She sobbed as she ran. The stygian darkness
surrounding her held no haven. Decomposition and rot filled her nostrils, the
stench making her eyes burn. There was no life in this terrible place, only
corruption and she was lost inside it, unable to find her way out.

Hair whipping wildly around her head, she
came to a low hill and scrambled up it. Upon gaining the top she paused
again—panting, her chest heaving—and looked out over oily black water that
seemed to go on forever and ever. She whimpered. There was no escape in that
direction. She turned to descend the hill but her bare feet slipped in the muck
beneath them and she began to slide down the slick embankment.

“Taylor!” she screamed, his name the only
talisman to keep her sane and rooted to her world.

But he was not there. He could not help her
and she fell facedown in the sludge and though she dug her fingers deep into
the debris matting the bank, she slipped rapidly down the slope. The moment her
toes entered the water, she yelped for it was so cold it took her breath away.
The icy liquid crawled across her foot, over her ankle and began to slither up
her calf to freeze her, paralyze her. The pain was excruciating.

She slipped farther down the ooze and the
water clawed at her thighs.

She screamed again then felt a hand slap
around her wrist to halt her downward slide.

She arched her head back, looked up—hoping
to see the one face that could save her—but it was his face hovering above her.
Her heart sank and her body shuddered hard. She was in his grasp once more.

“Accept me,” he shouted at her over the
shrieking wind. He thrust his free hand down to her. “Accept me and I will save
you!”

She looked down at the water that was
halfway up her thighs. In the glistening oil that swirled within the water were
living things that were gnawing at her flesh, ripping at it. She knew if she
became fully emerged within that dark, sinister liquid, she would stay there
for eternity. It was the sludge of the Abyss that was trying to claim her.