A Reaper's Love (WindWorld) (16 page)

“Not always,” Morrigunia said to the child
with hair so like Her own. She sat down and folded Her legs beneath Her tailor
fashion.

“Garnet isn’t as good a player as me,”
Pearl said. She shook her long white hair behind her.

“Did You come to play with us,
Grandmother?” Garnet inquired with her little face tilted to one side.

“Not today, love,” Morrigunia said. “I came
to tell you there will soon be an addition to our little family.”

“Another girl?” Garnet asked, excitement
lighting her green eyes.

Morrigunia nodded. “Aye. Her name will be
Topaz.”

“Is her daddy a Reaper, too?” Garnet
inquired.

The goddess smiled. “No, her father is
something different but she will be a sister to you just as Pearl is sister to
you.”

“Is her mother Amazeen?” Garnet asked,
proud that her mother was a female warrior.

“Banshee like my mother?” Pearl queried.

Morrigunia looked at the child of Wyndom
Coure and tried not to shudder. “No, her mother is of the lineage of the
Witches of Bandar.”

“A hell-hag,” Pearl said with a twist of
her cupid-bow lips.

“You will welcome her as Garnet welcomed
you, Pearl,” the goddess said sternly. “You will not hold her heritage against
her.”

Pearl shrugged. “I’ll try,” she said, her
lower lip thrust out in a pout.

“You will do more than try, young lady,”
Morrigunia told her in a tone that left no room for disagreement. “Do you
understand?”

“Aye,
Mo Regina
,” Pearl said. Fear
flashed through her silver eyes and she lowered them.

“You will be sisters,” the goddess
stressed. “You will love one another for each of you is an entity unlike any
other. Do you understand?”

“Aye
, Mo Regina
,” the little girls
said in unison.

“Splendid. Now play nicely,” Morrigunia
said, getting to her feet. “I will bring your little sister to you soon.” She
leaned over to kiss each of them goodbye.

Winging Her way back to
Jeeoil
, She
breathed a sigh of relief. The way had been paved for the new addition to Her
arsenal of warrioresses. The little girls She had visited on
Guirrlan
were the ancestors of a woman to be named Aurora who would give birth to three
other little girls named Aureolin, Argent, and Corallin by three different,
very powerful Ridge Lords.

“All is good,” She said as She alighted on
the balcony of Her palace on
Jeeoil
. “All is very, very good.”

She had the female in mind who would birth
Topaz. Now all She had to do was put her together with the Gravelord and
convince him to accept her as his life-mate instead of Laci Albright.

She liked manipulating human lives.

* * * * *

The hellion was making him dream but he
didn’t think the beast realized the dream was not of the woman who had been
life-mate to its host. He was dreaming of Laci, could actually feel her in his
arms.

He had the
tenerse
to thank for
that.

His headache had become so intense he began
to throw up and the moment he did that, the watcher sent a healer to his cell
with a dosage of the powerful drug.

“I can’t take that,” he mumbled when he
asked what was in the vac-syringe the healer placed in the compartment inside
the door. “All it does is make me high.”

“The
triso
does not have the same
effect on you now as it would have if you still had your Panthera hellion,” the
healer said. “It will work, will do its job because you have a Lupine hellion
inside you.” He shut the compartment door. “Take the med, Lord Taylor.”

Agonizing pain was ripping through his head
from temple to temple and the nausea only made the pain worse. He heaved a sigh
and left the bunk, stumbling to the cell door to retrieve the vac-syringe. He
pulled down the door on his side of the compartment and plucked the med from
the drawer. Not giving himself time to think, he put the bore of the
vac-syringe to the side of his neck and released the plunger.

“Mother of Alel!” he gasped. The burning
sensation traveling through his jugular vein was worse than the pain
ricocheting through his head.

Mercifully, the drug took immediate effect
and his pain vanished to be replaced by rapid disorientation.

“Whoa!” he mumbled. The vac-syringe dropped
from his hand. He turned and zigzagged his way back to the mattress-less bunk
before he went to his knees. Falling onto the bunk, he managed to get his numb
legs onto the platform before his world began to shut down.

“Sleep well, Lord Taylor,” the healer said
with a soft laugh.

The dream came as rapidly as had the onset
of the drug. As he sank into it, he realized it wasn’t a dream but a memory
from his very first interlude with the woman he knew was his life-mate. The
beast within him had no control over his memories and it was the memory that
flooded him with the sweetest relief he had experienced in weeks.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“N’orleans, huh?” she asked.

“Metairie, actually,” he said. “But I was
raised in the bayou.”

“I like your accent.”

“I like yours,” he replied.

“I think we’re gonna get along just fine.”

“Me too, but do you know why?”

She nodded. “Yeah. You’re my other half,”
she said. “Knew it the minute I laid eyes on you.”

“Smart woman,” he said and put his arm
around her shoulder. “So, grits. Cheese or not?”

“Not,” she said as they began walking
toward the cafeteria. “Why ruin a perfectly good thing with mold?”

“A gal after my own heart,” he agreed.
“Pattie or link?”

“Pattie,” she replied. “Scrambled?”

“Indeed. Hash browns or cottage fries?”

“Fries, naturally. White or wheat?”

“Wheat,” he answered. “Apple or grape?”

“Grape but if they got it, mayhaw jelly
would be better.”

“They got it,” he said. “I found them a
place in Georgia where they can order cases.”

“Kewl beans,” she said.

Breakfast in the cafeteria then a stroll to
the monorail. Sitting hand in hand in the railcar then walking hand in hand to
the door to her apartment.

“He knew,” he said as she punched in the
security code.

“Oh yeah,” she agreed. “He always does.”

Once inside, he had taken her into his arms
and kissed her for the first time. The kiss had gone on and on—lasting longer
than any kiss he’d ever bestowed or been given—and then she’d looked up at him
with that look. It would become the look that had sealed the bargain between
them.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

She led him into the bedroom as
unselfconsciously as though they’d been lovers for years. Her cheeks were not
flushed—not then at any rate—and her smile had not been hesitant. It was a
thousand watts of pure pleasure as she put her hands to the bottom of his polo
shirt. He raised his arms and she pulled the garment over his head.

“Oh yeah,” she said of his chest and put
her palms on his pecs, smoothing them over his chest hair.

“Not into manscaping, huh?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I like a nice field
for my girls to romp through,” she said with a sniff.

“I prefer a nice thatch for my boys to play
in, too,” he said with an arch of his brow.

She took one hand from his chest and
measured about an inch between thumb and index finger. “Is that enough thatch?”

“We’ll see, won’t we?” he asked, putting
his fingers to the buttons of her white blouse.

He’d unbuttoned her blouse and peeled it
from her slowly.

She had unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his
fly and tugged down the zipper. She lifted her gaze. “Commando?”

“You betcha,” he said. “I’m Reaper.”

Her smile was slow and oh so seductive as
he unbuttoned the waistband of her skirt, unzipped it and let it fall to the
floor.

“Oh, mama,” he whispered when all that
stood between her and where he wanted to be was a miniscule thong.

“Boots?” she queried, glancing down. She
kicked off her sandals.

“Huh? Oh yeah.” He’d sat down on the edge
of her bed and tugged off the scuffed cowboy boots that were badly in need of
polishing. He tossed them aside then stood, wiggling out of his tight jeans as
she watched him.

He almost laughed when he saw her eyes
widen then gradually raise to his.

“It’ll fit,” he said with pride.

“Might be a tight fit,” she said. “But I’m
good in tight places.”

“Me too,” he’d bragged and made a circling
motion with his index finger.

She turned obediently and he unhooked her
bra, pushed it over her shoulders and down her arms. Insinuating his hands
under her arms, he molded her bare flesh with his hands, pulling her back
against his chest.

“I could spend a lifetime caressing these,”
he said of her lush breasts. He thumbed her nipples and grinned when she
wriggled her ass against his groin.

“Do whatever you like with them,” she
replied, her voice husky and so sultry he almost dropped to his knees behind
her.

He slid his hands from her breasts to her
hips to ease the straps of her thong down her thighs though he wanted to rip
the slip of a garment off with his teeth.

“Next time,” she said as she read his
thoughts.

“Count on it,” he stated then turned her
around in his arms. He cupped her cheeks then slanted his mouth gently over
hers, drawing from her a kiss as gossamer soft and sweet as it was
intoxicating.

“Is it true what they say about Cajun men?”
she asked as he walked her backward toward the bed, her face still pressed
tenderly between his palms.

“What is it you’ve heard?” he asked.

“They make the best lovers.”

“
Chere
, you’re about to find out.”

“Oh goody,” she giggled.

And he had shown her what she’d heard had
been the truth. He had learned early from an older Creole cousin how to use his
body to pleasure a woman, to keep her on the edge of satiation for a long time
before finally allowing her release. He did things to Laci’s body that made her
toes curl and her heart stutter. Her fingernails had raked furrows down his
back and over his ass but the pain—and blood—had been worth it. The orgasm he
gave her had been so strong he flinched from the tight constriction of the
ripples milking him. But as he withdrew—when the soft barbs at the end of his
penis raked across her still enflamed clit—she screamed with ultimate pleasure.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” she cried out as
wave after wave of intense enjoyment undulated through her body.

He left no doubt in her mind who she needed
to be with or to whom it was she belonged. He had staked his claim on her body
as well as her heart.

“You really know how to show a girl a good
time, don’t you, Tater Tot?”

He had grinned at her nickname for him.
“Baby, I ain’t no tot. What you just got was all man.”

“Indeed it was,” she said. “Tater.”

From that moment on they had been
inseparable. They had bonded in mind, body and soul. She was no longer just his
Extension. She was his life-mate.

“Marry me,” he had asked two weeks later
but the proposal had not gone as he planned.

“No,” she’s said and refused to give him a
reason for her denial.

“Cree and Fallon are married,” he reminded
her.

“That’s Cree and Fallon,” she said. “Not
me.”

“You don’t want to marry me,” he said, his
heart aching, his pride shattered.

“I don’t want to be married,” she told him.
“And I don’t want to talk about it ever again.”

She rolled away from him and left the bed,
went into the bathroom and closed the door. The snick of the lock engaging said
more than words could have.

As much as it hurt, as confused by her
reaction as he was, he let the matter drop though every fiber in his being
screamed at him to pursue it. Instinct told him there was more to her refusal
to marry than met the eye.

He got up, dressed and left—giving her the
time for which she had silently asked.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He woke with the numbing, otherworldly
lethargy that the
tenerse
had left behind and a heart that was broken.
At some point keepers had come into the room to pick him up and place him on a
new mattress and pillow. A bottle of Sustenance sat on the little L-shaped
table that was welded to the wall. Beside it were several bottles of water and
another vac-syringe. He lay there staring at the bottles then turned his back
on them, drew his legs up, thrust his clasped hands between them and faced the
wall. Dimly in the titanium panel he could see his face. Unblinking, he stared
into his own eyes and willed himself back to sleep.

No one was smiling as Coulter escorted Laci
into the conference room. He swept his curious gaze around him, evaluated the
six men who sat at the table—lingering on Darkyn Sorn—before moving on to
Alexandru Hesar.

“Three Reapers and two Superlords,” he said
pleasantly. “Quite the welcome.”

“I am sure you know who each of us is,” the
Supervisor of the Exchange told him.

“I do and I would offer my hand to every
one of you if I thought you would accept it,” he said, pulling the chair out
for Laci.

“Then it is good you refrain from doing
so,” Neal Hesar said.

Coulter ignored him as he took a seat
beside Laci.

“How are you, milady?” Fallon asked her
softly.

She could not meet his gaze. “I am well, Misha,”
she replied just as softly.

“Did you think I would harm her, Lord
Mikhail?” Coulter inquired.

Fallon gave him a hard, steady look. “We
know what is in your mind, Coulter,” he snapped.

“And you’ve no friends here,” Sorn stated.

Coulter swung his gaze to Sorn.
“Understood,” he acknowledged. He looked past Sorn to Cree. “It is an honor to
be in the same room with you, milord.”

Cree’s upper lip twitched but he made no
comment to the compliment. His stony glower was as intense as the other men’s.

“In my defense, the hellion given to me in
the Dhaween camp has dictated what has transpired between myself and Laci,”
Coulter said. “My bonding with Laci—”

“One-sided as it is,” Fallon interrupted.

“Could not be ignored,” Coulter finished.
“I did not ask to become a Reaper nor did I ask for a life-mate. I had no
choice in the matter.”

“Oh yes you did. You had a choice to leave
another man’s woman alone,” Fallon snapped. “You chose to ignore that choice.”
He leaned over the table. “Look me in the eye and tell me you did not
deliberately set out to seduce her.”

“I can’t do that, Lord Mikhail,” Coulter
said. “Because I did, indeed, set out to seduce her.”

Laci winced. She was sitting with her hands
clasped in her lap, eyes down, shoulders sagging.

“You fucking dickwad! You would dare to
admit it?” Fallon growled. He shoved his chair back and would have risen had
Cree not reached over to lay a restraining hand on his fellow Reaper’s arm to
prevent him.

“Stand down,” Cree ordered, and when Fallon
would have jerked his arm away, the Alpha Prime clamped his hand tighter on the
Hell-hound’s arm. “Stand down or I’ll eject you from the room.”

Fallon pressed his lips tightly together
and glared at Coulter.

“She is my life-mate,” Coulter said.

“The fuck she is!” Sorn spoke up. “She is
Taylor Reynaud’s
bonded
life-mate!”

“Not any longer,” Coulter said. “You are
Panthera, Lord Darkyn. You understand the imperative of this hellion better
than any of the others gathered here even though you have no life-mate.”

When his words were met with silence, Laci
raised her head and looked to the Supervisor. “What does he mean?” she asked.

Alexandru exchanged a look with his middle
brother then cleared his throat, drawing her attention. “Milady, Panthera
hellions are not the same as those of their Lupine and Hell-hound brethren.
They are governed by a different set of
geasa,
taboos,” he told her.

“Taylor is Panthera,” she stated, looking
from Alexandru to Constantine. “It is his hellion, not Dixon’s. It was stolen
from him.”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,”
Coulter said with a grin that slipped quickly from his face when each man there
turned a lethal glower on him.

“Reynaud has never sworn allegiance to the
Triune Goddess,” Alexandru said. “Though he respects and reveres Her, he is not
answerable to Her.”

“Nor is his hellion,” Constantine
reluctantly added.

“I don’t understand what it is you’re
trying to tell me,” Laci said. “What has any of this to do with Dixon stealing
what is rightfully Taylor’s?”

“The hellion taken from Reynaud now belongs
to Coulter,” her boss said. “It is wrong on so many levels but it is what it
is.”

“And because the hellion is now Coulter’s,”
Alexandru said. “So are you.”

“
Fuck that
!” Fallon shouted and shot
to his feet. His chair skidded behind him to hit the wall.

“Sit down, Fallon,” Cree ordered.

“The hell I will!” Fallon snarled. “I’m
going to reach inside that cocksucker and pull Tay’s hellion out of him!” He
started around the table.

“
I said sit your ass down, Fallon
!”
Cree bellowed, getting to his feet.

“Your Alpha Prime has spoken,” Constantine
said. “I suggest you do as he orders.”

“Let him come at me,” Coulter said with a
hard smile. “I’d like nothing better than to put him in his place.”

Fallon’s head whipped around and he leveled
an infuriated glare at Coulter. “Good luck with that, you thieving bastard.”

“If you don’t sit down I am going to
put
you down myself,” Cree said softly but with enough menace that everyone
there—especially Fallon—felt the lethal vibrations rippling through the air.

Fists opening and closing, fangs out,
Fallon’s chest was heaving.

“Please, Misha,” Laci said. “I don’t want
to be the cause of problems for you.”

“You aren’t,” Fallon mumbled but he
returned to his seat—casting Cree a murderous look.

“Well, now that we’ve got that out of the
way,” Coulter said. “Let’s get down to the business at hand.”

“It isn’t over,” Fallon said.

Coulter sighed heavily. “No, I fear it
isn’t but our private
talk
must be postponed until a bit later on.”

“Count on it,” Fallon stated.

Turning his eyes to Alexandru, Coulter
threaded his hands together, placed them on the table and leaned forward. “I am
officially asking for the designation of Alpha at the Exchange.”

“I am the Supervisor of the Exchange,”
Constantine stated.

Coulter shifted his regard. “Yes, you are,
sir, but with all due respect, you are only a Shadowlord. Your brother is a
Ridge Lord and thus has the authority in this room.”

“My brother is in charge of the Exchange,”
Alexandru said. “The final decision of who he will assign as Alpha rests solely
in his hands.”

Coulter smiled in such a way it left no
doubt in anyone’s mind that he wasn’t buying that for a second but would go
along with it. He nodded. “All righty then.” He turned to Constantine. “I am
asking for the job.”

“Why?” Constantine demanded.

“Because I know I will be an asset. I love
my country. I am loyal to my country and I have dedicated my life to
serving
my country. I have strong powers no other Reaper has and I can use those powers
to aid in keeping the next world war from taking place. I believe I have shown
that with the obstacles I have removed for you in the Middle East.”

“You are also being influenced by—”
Constantine began.

“Something evil,” Coulter said with a nod.
“I am aware, though
it
doesn’t think I know.”

“You
know
it is influencing you?”
Constantine questioned.

“I know it’s
trying
,” Coulter
replied. “I don’t know what or who it is but I want to.”

“Raphian,” Alexandru said. “That is the
name of the evil whispering through your hellion.”

“Raphian,” Coulter repeated, trying out the
word. “Sounds nasty.”

“He
is
nasty,” Cree said. “He is
known as the Storm God, the Destroyer of Men’s Souls. He isn’t the evilest
thing in the Megaverse but He is the most prevalent.”

“What is the evilest?” Coulter asked.

“The Nikkeson,” Sorn said. “It resides in
the muck below the Abyss and when it is let loose on mankind, it butchers
everything in its path. No living thing is left standing once it has gone. It
is the most virulent evil there is.”

“Running a close second is the Martiya,”
Fallon added and could not stop the shudder than ran through him.

“Satan is a Hardy boy compared to Raphian,”
Neal Hesar said.

“And His agenda is?” Coulter queried.

“To annihilate mankind,” Neal said.

“Not entirely,” his eldest brother
corrected. “It wants to enslave mankind, make it an evil extension of himself.
Basically that’s why He released the spores that made the first Reaper.”

“Okay, I want to know all that history but
right now, I want to explain something to you men,” Coulter said. He gave each
of them a brief look before settling his gaze on Alexandru. “I have no
intention of allowing this Raphian, or anyone or anything else to corrupt me. I
will know the very moment evil tries to sway my actions. My intention is to use
these powers to better our world, to save it from mass destruction. That’s why
I joined the SEALs and that’s why I have come here to ask for the job as
Alpha.”

“All right,” Alexandru said. “Let’s say we
buy that.”

“For now,” Constantine amended.

“If you are sincere in wanting to do what
is right, you will agree to give up Reynaud’s hellion,” Alexandru said. “We
will replace it with…”

“No,” Coulter said. There was no expression
on his face, in his eyes. He didn’t clench the clasped hands resting on the
table, didn’t move a muscle, and didn’t blink. His attention was solely on the
Ridge Lord.

“You realize that, in itself, is suspect to
us,” Constantine stated.

Coulter switched his attention to the
Supervisor of the Exchange. “What is mine, stays mine,” he said softly.

“But it
isn’t
yours,” Laci said,
looking up. She wasn’t looking at Coulter but rather at Fallon who was sitting
across from her.

Every man in the room could sense the
despair tumbling through Laci’s mind, the confusion, the inability to relax.
She was wound as tight as a watch spring and giving off vibes that brought out
the protective instincts of each of them.

Even the man sitting beside her slowly
turned his head to look at her.

“You know you have no reason to fear me,
Laci,” he said. “I’ve done nothing to hurt you.”

“You don’t consider mind-raping her
harmful?” Cree asked. A muscle was working in his jaw as he sat there with his
arms crossed over his chest, staring daggers at Coulter.

“I admit to compelling her when we first
met,” Coulter replied. “But the moment we landed here at the Exchange, I
removed my hold.”

Cree swung his stare to Laci. “Is this
true, milady?”

Laci shrugged. “I don’t know, Viraiden. I
honestly don’t.”

“Do you want him as your life-mate?” Fallon
demanded.

“You know I don’t. I want Taylor,” she
answered. “Only Taylor.”

Fallon leveled his narrowed eyes on
Coulter. “You heard her. She wants Reynaud, not you.”

“What can I say? The heart wants what the
heart wants,” Coulter said. He wasn’t looking at Fallon. He was looking at
Laci.

“So you’ll bow to her wishes and leave her
the hell alone,” Fallon said.

“No, he won’t. That’s a Panthera hellion
inside him,” Sorn spoke up. “There is nothing stronger than a jaguar’s sense of
territory. He may have released his hold on her but he still considers her
his.”

“Coulter?” Constantine questioned. “What do
you say to that?”

“I’m not a difficult man. I’m willing to
share.”

“
Share
?” Fallon exploded and once
more shot to his feet. “The fuck Tay will share his woman with you!”

Coulter finally turned to face Fallon. He
smiled. “He’ll have no choice. Mikhail. If you hire me as Alpha—which we all
know you are going to do—I demand the Extension between Laci and Reynaud be
severed.”

“What?” Laci whispered. Her eyes snapped to
the Supervisor. “You can’t do that.”

“Reynaud no longer wants to work in the
field,” Coulter said. “That’s why you are looking for a new Alpha. Laci is a
very talented, powerful empath and I will need her when I start working for
you.” He shrugged. “It is a logical conclusion, gentlemen, since I now possess
the former Alpha’s hellion, which is bonded with Laci.”

* * * * *

Taylor looked up as Fallon appeared. He got
off the bunk and walked over to stand at the thick plexigon panel.

“She’s here?” he asked.

Fallon nodded.

“Is she okay?”

“As well as can be expected,” Fallon
replied.

Taylor stopped breathing. “What does that
mean, Misha?”

“I’m not going to beat around the bush,
Tay,” Fallon said. “He asked your Extension with her be severed and the
Shadowlords agreed.”

The room around him turned dark at its
edges and Taylor staggered back. He’d known something was wrong the moment he’d
seen Fallon’s face but the news his fellow Reaper just delivered was worse than
he’d expected.

“As soon as he dropped that bombshell on
us, the Supervisor sent her back to her quarters. She was a fucking mess and
you can imagine how upset she was,” Fallon told him. “Now you have a decision
to make.”

“Decision?”

Fallon dug his hands into the pockets of
his jeans. “Can you work in the field again?”

“No, Misha. I can’t. I wouldn’t trust myself
out there.”

“Well, that answered that,” Fallon said on
a long sigh. “I gotta ask, bro. Can you live with another man working that
closely with your woman?”

“I’ll have to, won’t I?” Taylor said, his
voice breaking. He cleared his throat. “The bastard hasn’t given us any choice
in the matter.”

“No,” Fallon agreed. “He hasn’t, and on top
of all that, the fucktwits have taken him on as Alpha.”

“You knew that was going to happen,” Taylor
said.

“Better to keep a close eye on him,” Fallon
replied, “but I’m glad I don’t have to work with the prick.”

“I want to see her.”

“They’re not going to allow that just yet,”
Fallon told him.