A Reaper's Love (WindWorld) (3 page)

“I left my breakfast in there too,” Fallon
told him.

Shaking, heaving, the older man clung to
the safety bar beside the toilet and barely felt the cold washcloth that Fallon
pressed to his forehead. He squeezed his eyes shut and his knees buckled. Had
it not been for the Reaper, he would have hit the floor. Instead, Fallon helped
him to sit on the bench inside the tiled shower.

“My God,” the Supervisor whispered, sagging
forward.

“Yeah,” Fallon agreed. He hunkered down in
front of the Supervisor and once more placed the wet cloth to the older man’s
head.

They remained there until the orderlies
came in to wheel Reynaud to one of the operatories for the Transference. It
wasn’t until all sound had left the room that the Supervisor raised his head
and the Reaper tossed the washcloth into the sink. The Supervisor looked into
the amber eyes of Mikhail Fallon.

“You were right,” he said in a choking
voice.

“About what?” Fallon asked.

“I’ll never be able to unsee that.” He
looked down at the floor.

“And that is why I didn’t want his
Extension to see him.” At the older man’s nod, Fallon put a hand on the
Supervisor’s knee. “The hellion will heal his body. He’ll look no different
than he did three years ago when they bring him back here to his room.”

“Heal his body,” the Supervisor repeated.
“What of his soul, Misha?”

“Aye, well,” Fallon said on a long breath.
“That’s another story now ain’t it?”

Pain. So much pain. His mind was steeped in
it. Not his body, but his mind, he thought. The pain of his flesh had ceased
long ago when the nerve endings had died. Not for the first time could he not
move but this time was different. This time he sensed—though he could not
feel—gentle hands touching him, lifting him, keeping him immobile on a much
softer platform than the one to which he had grown accustomed. He dared not
hope he had been rescued from hell. He could only pray he had finally succumbed
to the torment that had been heaped upon him and had finally shuffled off his
mortal coil. He would not miss his god-awful life but there was one thing he
would miss with all his broken heart.

“Laci,” his mind whispered.

Her name was a talisman to him. It had
become the single-word litany that had kept him alive, had sustained him, kept
him halfway sane, and had given him a slim margin of comfort in the long hours
when physical pain had all but destroyed his mind. As he had done for years, he
pictured her smiling face in his mind’s eye and stood there basking in its
warmth. Only in his dreams could he touch her, hold her, breathe in the sweet
scent of her perfumed body. Only in his dreams could he hear her soft voice and
feel the gentle sweep of her fingertips gliding over his body.

“Laci,” he silently sighed. It was a prayer
that had kept him going.

Then physical agony came rushing over him
so unexpectedly, he screamed, and for the first time in the gods only knew how
long, he heard the sound of that scream. He snapped his eyes open, drew his lips
back over fangs that had suddenly exploded from his gums, and he began to feel
the muscles in his body stretching, the bones cracking and elongating, the fur
rippling over his body.

“Conversion!” his mind screamed at him.
“You are Converting!”

For just a second or two he knew the surge
of immense, deadly power from the Conversion before his mind shut down
completely.

Dr. Dupree appeared in the doorway of the
surgical waiting room. The Supervisor got up from his chair and Fallon pushed
away from the wall where he’d been leaning.

“Well?” the Supervisor asked.

“His body accepted the hellion and he
Converted,” the surgeon told him. “It was a particularly violent
Conversion—very painful for him I believe—yet he survived it.”

“But?” Fallon demanded.

“He is in stasis.”

“He’s shut down his mind,” Fallon said.

The surgeon nodded. “That would be my
guess. I think the pain was too great for him.”

“I can relate to that,” Fallon said.

“He’s most likely been without his hellion
for quite some time,” Dr. Dupree said. “Suddenly going into Conversion would
have come as a shock to him.”

“And he couldn’t deal with it,” the
Supervisor suggested.

“Sensory overload,” Fallon put in.

“Precisely,” the surgeon agreed. “The
sensations that suddenly appeared after so long simply pushed him over the edge
and in order to cope with what he was feeling, he shut down.”

“Has the Conversion subsided?” the
Supervisor asked.

Dr. Dupree nodded. “Yes, and you will be
happy to know the damage done to Agent Reynaud’s body is fast being healed by
Misha’s hellion.”

The Supervisor slowly closed his eyes.
“Thank God,” he whispered.

“Physically healed,” Fallon said.

“What of mentally?” The Supervisor’s voice
was filled with strain.

“We won’t know that until he wakes and we
can talk to him,” the surgeon replied. “You should know that all too well,
Misha.”

“Aye,” Fallon said. “I do.”

“Can we see him?” the Supervisor inquired.

“Of course.”

“I think you should send for his Extension
now,” Fallon said. “Let her sit with him, talk to him, reassure him. Hearing
her might bring him out of stasis.”

“After I’ve seen him,” the Supervisor
insisted.

“Suit yourself,” Fallon mumbled. “You
always do.” That said, he walked out of the waiting room and down the
hall—stopping only long enough for the locked doors to open for him.

“He’s been there, sir,” the surgeon said.
“He—”

“Take me to Reynaud,” the older man
interrupted. “I’ve no desire to discuss Fallon or what he went through. My
concern is with our present Alpha.”

Striding angrily down the corridor Fallon
clenched his jaw to keep from growling. He had been assigned by the Network—not
John Doe or whatever his real name was—to the medical facility. Because of the
ordeal he himself had lived through after the
Martiya
all but destroyed
him, he was in a unique position to help other agents who had been traumatized
while on assignment. He knew he could help Taylor Reynaud but the best medicine
to heal the man lay in the hands of his Extension. The first face the Panthera
needed to see when he opened his eyes was Laci Albright’s. He hoped that would
be the case and the Supervisor wouldn’t park his wrinkled ass in Tay’s room
until the Alpha came out of his self-imposed exile from reality.

“The bastard will do more harm than good,”
he muttered.

Laci put a hand to her forehead and rubbed.
The physician had given her a mild dose of
tenerse
to ease the crushing
pain between her temples and a heftier dose of an anti-nausea drug. He’d wanted
to give her more but she didn’t want to take a chance of being under the
influence of the powerful drug when word came she could see Tay. As it was, she
was slightly numb, her thought processes somewhat dulled.

She stared out the bulletproof glass window
and thought about what had happened on the Island when Mikhail Fallon had been
a patient there ten years earlier.

Security was tight back then but nowhere
near the level of today. There was a reason for the overabundance of guards,
dogs, watchtowers, flight line cameras and security protocols that were now in
place.

Ten years before, nine mercenaries had
infiltrated the Island with aerosol containers of a virus that killed most of
the inhabitants. What the virus did not kill, hollow-point bullets did. One
merc had died in a firefight but eight survived. When they left, they took
Mikhail Fallon’s woman with them.

Fallon had believed her dead. A body—with
the back of its head blown away—had been found in the room Fallon and Keenan
had shared. As far as he and the Supervisor knew forty-nine people from the
Island and one merc had died that day on the Island. Forty-five died from
inhalation of a toxic airborne poison and five others from gunshot wounds. The
woman Fallon thought his Extension had instead been a clone, an exact duplicate
of the woman he loved—right down to the Celtic tattoo on the small of her back.
The real Keenan had been spirited away.

Laci had read the report of the massacre.
Every new agent who came to the Exchange was required to know the history of
that horrible day. One quote stood out in her memory for it had brought tears
to her eyes at the time.

“
I should have felt it
,” Fallon had
said of his lady’s death.

Thinking back now on their last mission,
Laci realized she hadn’t felt Tay’s death when the bomb detonated. All she’d
felt was numbness and horror and a deep sense of guilt that she hadn’t died
alongside him. But the god-awful pain of losing him had not struck her.
Depression had. Despair, misery, loneliness and helpless had but not the
soul-crushing hopelessness of never seeing him again that should have permeated
her entire being.

“Because a part of you knew he wasn’t
gone,” she said aloud.

And she hadn’t followed him into death as
had been expected of her. Her survival had perplexed the doctors at the
Exchange. Never had an Extension survived the death of her mate. That, in itself,
should have been a red flag alerting them that Taylor Reynaud was still alive
yet no one picked up on the fact.

Taylor had been universally loved at the
Exchange. His endearing Cajun personality had won over even the most caustic of
operatives. Where the staff had feared—or at the very least been wary of
Mikhail Fallon—they had nothing but affection for Tay. His death had devastated
everyone but most of all the two people who cared the deepest for him—the
Supervisor and her.

“
I need to assign a new man but I keep
hesitating
,” the Supervisor had said.

Laci wondered if he had known all along Tay
was alive or suspected as much.

The knock on her door made her jump and she
spun around, her heart in her throat.

There was a tall, handsome man with black
hair and amber eyes standing in the hall. She frowned.

“Yes?” she questioned, her voice sounding
hoarse to her own ears.

“Laci? I’m Mikhail Fallon.”

“Oh, of course. I’m sorry,” she said,
stepping back. “I should have recognized you, Agent Fallon. Please. Come in.”

He moved past her with the lithe grace of a
Prime Reaper, an Alpha with supreme confidence in himself and his abilities. Up
close, he was even more intimidating than the photos she had seen of him.

“It’s nice to meet you,” he said and shook
hands with her.

“Please, sit down,” she said as she closed
the door then joined him in the great room. “May I get you something to drink?”

“No thank you,” he said, taking the chair
in front of the window. His voice was soft, sensually modulated and his direct
gaze gave her tingling feelings in her lower body. The man was sex on two legs
and—what was more—he knew it.

“Are you sure? I could get you—”

“Sit down, Laci,” he said quietly. “I don’t
bite.” He grinned, his white teeth flashing with just a hint of the fangs
hidden behind his upper lip. “Well, I do, but I won’t.”

She smiled. She perched nervously on the
edge of the sofa. “Is it that obvious?” she asked.

“That you’re scared shitless of me?” he
asked with a chuckle. “Aye, it is.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She clenched her
fingers together in her lap. “I’ve met only one other Reaper and that was…” Her
chin quivered. “Is Taylor.”

“As I’m sure you realize Tay is why I’m
here,” he told her.

“Is he…?” Her eyes filled with moisture and
she lowered her head, unable to look at him.

“Tay was given a hellion about an hour ago
and had a successful Conversion,” he said. “The surgeon assured the Supervisor
that he is well on the road to recovery.”

Laci took a hitching breath. “They couldn’t
wait until tomorrow,” she whispered.

“I’m sure you understand why,” he replied.

“How bad was it?” When he hesitated, she
lifted her chin. “I need to know and I suspect the Supervisor won’t tell me,
Agent—”

“Misha,” he corrected.

“I need to know, Misha.”

The Reaper locked eyes with her. “You need
to understand that what was done has been healed by the hellion. An hour from
now all traces of his physical injuries will have vanished.”

“All right,” she said. She was trembling.

“I won’t beat around the bush with you.
Prolonging bad news is never good,” he said then drew in a long breath. “Laci,
Tay was tortured repeatedly over the years. The surgeon believes they immersed
him in some kind of caustic liquid up to his neck then poured the same stuff
over his face. Whatever they used severely disfigured him.”

She ceased to breathe. Her eyes widened and
she put a hand to her mouth.

“They were careful not to get it into his
eyes,” he told her. “My guess is they wanted him to see the destruction of his
body more than just experiencing the agony of having his flesh…” His brow
furrowed. “You know.”

“Why?” she asked and realized the tone of
her voice struck a chord in him.

“Only the gods know,” he said softly. “Some
men—and a few women—are truly evil. Maybe they were punishing him or maybe…” He
looked away from her. “Maybe they were experimenting on him. The surgeon
doesn’t know how long ago he was subjected to whatever burned him.”

She flinched. Even without his hellion, the
only true ways to kill a Reaper were to decapitate him or burn him to ashes.
Since Tay had been in such bad shape they feared for his survival, there was
only one reason for it.

Fallon turned to face her, intercepting her
thoughts. “My guess is he finally gave up and began to will himself to die. The
body and soul can take only so much abuse before they start to shut down.
Perhaps he felt he no longer had a reason to live and wanted the pain to end.”

“He gave up on us finding him,” she said.
“Rescuing him.”

The Reaper nodded. “Aye, that could have
been the case.”

Closing her eyes slowly, she hung her head.
“What now, Misha?” she asked quietly.

“Yours should be the first face he sees
when he wakes,” he told her. “I don’t know how long that will take but you
should be there when it does. Not the Supervisor. You.”

“Has he seen Tay?”

“He has,” Fallon said. “Hopefully now that
Tay is most likely whole in appearance again, he’ll give you permission to see
him. I hope to the goddess the bastard doesn’t think he’s the most important
thing in Tay’s life and park himself in a chair at his bedside. That would be a
major miscalculation on his part.”

She opened her eyes and gave him a pleading
look. “Will you talk to him?”

“Sweeting, I intend to,” he assured her. He
got to his feet. “I’m sorry I made your headache worse.”

Not bothering to question how he knew she
had a migraine, she shrugged. “I’m used to them.”

“Me too,” he said. “Reaper-Extension
occupational hazards.” He put out his hand. “If you need anything, need to talk
and don’t feel comfortable doing it with me, my lady is available to you 24/7.
Just pick up the phone and ask for her or me. Okay?”

She nodded. “Thank you, Misha.”

“You are very welcome, dearling,” he said
and walked to the door. He stopped with it half open and turned back to her.
“One last thing. He’ll not be in a good frame of mind, Laci. I’m sure you know
that. Don’t question him about what happened. Just let him talk. Let him tell
it in his own way, in his own time.”