BlackWind (37 page)

“It must be hell for him,” Brian said gently.

“You know she will be coming to see you. She will ask you questions about him.”

“And I'll answer her questions in a way I think appropriate. But it would serve no good purpose for her to know the man she loved—”

“Loves. The man she
still
loves.” Cree dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “The man she will
always
love.”

“You don't think she will find someone to eventually take his place?”

Cree nudged his chin toward his desk. “The report the major sent left no facet of her life unexamined when they investigated her background. She hasn't been with a man since that night with Cullen. Hell, she's never been kissed by anyone other than him!”

“Why do you think that is?”

Cree narrowed his eyes. “Why do
you
think that is, Brian?”

Brian smiled, but didn't respond.

“Oh, go to hell, O'Shea!” Cree grumbled, turning away.

“I believe she'll eventually meet someone she'll want to share her life with, but it might be a long time, way off in the future.”

A harsh exhalation of breath was Cree's comment. He tore the clip from his ponytail and threw it as hard as he could across the room, then shook his mane of dark hair. He plowed his hands through the thick mass and tugged viciously as though he could pull his tormented thoughts free.

“I have his heart intact within my breast,” he said. “I have his brain caged inside my skull, harboring his thoughts, his memories, his fears.” He locked gazes with Brian. “The rest is me. The rest is me!”

Brian nodded. “I understand.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, Viraidan. When she healed Sean's destroyed body, the Queen replaced the memories you had before you were driven into the bog. She put back everything she knew of you, the things that made you Viraidan Cree. Your own thoughts and memories are warring with Sean's. You believe those thoughts and memories make you weak. They—”

“They hurt me,” Cree grated.

“I'm sure they do and you don't know how to deal with them.”

Cree shook his head. “I have tried to push them out, but they return. Now with her here, the feelings are stronger. These thoughts are eating me alive!”

“What thoughts?”

“Memories of his time with her!” Cree shouted. “The way she felt in his arms. They way she smelled, the taste of her, the pleasure he took in lying with her! All those things that made him love her—her smile, her laughter, the way she treated him.” He slammed a palm against the wall. “I ache with the need he has for her!”

Brian drew in a quick breath. “You can't act on that need, Viraidan.”

“Don't you think I know that?” Cree bellowed, the force of his outburst rattling the windowpane.

“Stay away from her, then. No more midnight excursions into her apartment to—”

“I went to see what kind of threat the old Nightwind—”

“You went to see
her
,” Brian snapped. “You know it and I know it.”

Cree snarled, his lips peeling back from his teeth. But he did not deny Brian's assertion.

“You wanted to see her as much as Sean wanted to see her again. Neither of you, I suspect, was satisfied.”

“Satisfied with what?”

“With not being able to touch her,” Brian replied. “To hold her, to taste her, to lie with her.”

“I have no such cravings for the woman!” Cree denied, but he could not look at Brian when he said it. “It is this weakling inside me who desires her still, despite what she did to him! It is he who makes me hurt like this!”

“You've always told me you were stronger than Sean. Prove it,” Brian demanded. “Stay away from her.”

“I intend to.” Cree rubbed at his temples.

“Do you need something for the pain?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you should lie down and rest. You look tired.”

“I am tired,” Cree admitted harshly.

“Then take a nap. If you wake in time for supper, perhaps we can eat together.”

Cree heard the door close behind Sean's father and squeezed his eyelids together. He put the heels of his hands to his eyes and pushed, wishing the horrendous throbbing in his head would cease.

“Leave me alone, Cullen,” he hissed, bending over with the pain. “Stop laying these mind pictures out for me to see!”

He stumbled into the bedroom and flung himself on the bed. Curling into a fetal position, he dragged his pillow to him and lay there with his hot face pressed into the coolness of the cotton.

But he could not blot out the memories plaguing him. That part of him that had lived the remembrances nudged them to the forefront of his mind, and left them there for him to endure.

“Can you tell me anything about the being who came to call on the Reaper?” Danyon asked the Bugul Noz.

Ordin Gver was nearly as old as Cedric. Danyon knew that Ordin's solitary existence for so many thousands of years had made him cautious in his dealings with humans. With other entities that existed outside the laws of humanity, he had only rare and fleeting connections, and was even more reticent. But because Danyon had befriended the Bugul Noz, Ordin was comfortable with him.

“I have no frame of reference for such a one as you have described, Friend,” the Bugul Noz replied “I do not believe her from our realm of existence.”

“I sensed great evil in his visitor,” Danyon commented. “There was tremendous power and exacting authority within that vile fog.”

“The Reaper was afraid?”

“The Reaper nearly soiled his britches!” Danyon chuckled. “He was terrified of her.”

“You sensed it was female?”

“That was my feeling.”

“Something to ponder, wouldn't you say, Friend?” Ordin Gver queried. “Something that would frighten a beast of such ferocity as a Reaper is a force with which to reckon, would not you imagine?”

“Aye, you have a point there. What do you suggest I do?”

The Bugul Noz leaned back against the trunk of a black walnut tree and took a deep pull on his clay pipe. He thought for a moment as the smoke left his lungs through his misshapen nose, then he pointed the long pipe stem at Danyon. “If I were you, I would converse with this being. Ask her what it is she wants with the Reaper. Remind her that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Perhaps you can help her in some way.”

“Or she can help me,” Danyon replied.

Ordin nodded as he chewed on the pipe stem. He inhaled the acrid smoke, held it deep in his barrel chest, then blew smoke rings in the night air.

“That is a filthy habit, Gver,” Danyon said.

“We all have our little addictions,” the Bugul Noz quipped. “Mine is a fine skein of tobacco unraveling within me, and yours is the twitch of a shapely behind.” He laughed, his loud braying an unpleasant sound even to Danyon's ears.

“I have but one addiction, my friend, and that is the lovely Bronwyn.”

“A woman you can not have.”

“I
will
have her.”

Ordin shrugged. “Whatever I can do to help in that regard, you have but to ask, as you know.”

A companionable silence settled as both creatures watched a star fall from the heavens. Ordin traced its lonely pathway to earth.

“You would conjure the thing that came for the Reaper, eh?” Danyon finally asked.

“What have you to lose?” Ordin raised a jagged brow. “Your soul?”

Danyon rolled his eyes. “I lost that long, long ago.”

“Then seek out that one. Ask what it is that sets the Reaper's knees to trembling when she comes to call. My guess will be, whatever she has to tell you, will be to your advantage—and against the Reaper.”

“But where will I find her? How will I contact her?”

The Bugul Noz considered the question, then tapped the stem of his pipe against his bottom fangs. “Take something that belongs to him—something that has his scent on it.”

Danyon threw another log on the fire that kept them warm. He stared into the flames, consigning the Reaper to the conflagration. In the dancing sparks that rose to the night sky, he thought he could see blood-red eyes staring back at him.

“Something tells me I will not need to make a trip to the Abyss,” he said. “All I may have to do is say his vile name and she will come to me.”

The Bugul Noz snorted. He got clumsily to his feet, dusting off his rough tweed britches. “Call her if you like, but wait until I am well away. I have no desire to truck with beings any more powerful than a tipsy leprechaun.”

“Deserting me?” Danyon teased. “Leaving me to beard the ogress alone?”

Ordin shrugged. “You're a big boy, Nightwind. I have faith in your ability to handle the situation.”

As Danyon watched, the Bugul Noz's outline wavered, then vanished, drawing in on itself until it became a spark of light that wafted away with the sparks of the fire.

Minutes passed with only the sounds of the popping fire to keep Danyon company. He liked the smell of the burning wood, the warmth it extended. Sitting with his knees drawn up into the perimeter of his arms, he was content to be alone in the cool, clear, Iowa night and stare into the leaping flames. Overhead, millions of stars twinkled and the moon, a week away from its fullness, shone a soft light upon the rolling hills of the countryside.

When ground fog began to creep toward him from across the meadow, he felt his heartbeat accelerate. As the vile stench reached his sensitive nostrils, he grimaced, using his expert powers to block out the smell; but even as great as his powers were, he could not entirely eliminate that god-awful stink. His eyes watering, he put a hand to his nose and mouth to filter the scent.

The hideous dampness settling over him bothered the Nightwind more than anything else. It was a moistness that saturated his clothing and oozed over him, dragging across his flesh like the tongue of a slobbering beast. He could feel its slime, experiencing the reek of its malevolence as it spread over his body. Its touch left him unclean, defiled, and it was all he could do not to run to the nearest stream and plunge beneath the waters.

“What are you?” he asked, getting to his feet. The stick of his clothing to his chest and back made him nauseous.

“What are
you
?” came the seductive purr.

Danyon looked around, but saw nothing save the insidious fog that was now waist-high about him. “I am Danyon. I am a Nightwind.”

The fog swirled upward in a column taller than Danyon's six-foot four-inch height and began to take humanoid form. It glistened a sickening blue color that gave Danyon a brutal headache.

“I am Ski'Ah,” the being informed him. “I am a Blackwind, the Vengeance of the Amazeen.”

Danyon did not know the term. He was about to say as much when he felt groping at his genitals. He jumped, pushing aside the unseen hands.

“Do not!” he ordered. His fangs extended and his talons arched from the pads of his fingers.

An eerie laugh rang out over the meadow. The fire flared, shooting hundreds of sparks into the air.

A spectral finger smoothed over Danyon's lips. He snapped, his jaws closing on air. Another peal of laughter echoed about him. He turned as a hand caressed his backside and quick fingers trailed down his legs.

“Stop!” He backed away from the fire and, in his fury, changed into the beast he was.

“Ah,” the phantom whispered as though pleased with what it was seeing. “Another of his kind. I suspected as much.”

“I am nothing like Cree!” he growled.

“But close enough.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“It is of little matter. Let me take you, little one,” Ski'Ah whispered in his ear. “I will be gentle.”

Danyon brushed angrily at his ear, sickened by the feel of her evil spittle clinging inside. “I am taken!” he bellowed. “I have a mistress!”

With a sudden blast of frigid wind, the stench intensified, then vanished. The form of a woman slowly materialized out of the blue fog.

At first Danyon was shocked by the being that appeared. Her long black hair fell in thick waves to her ankles and the diaphanous gown that clung to her like a second skin left nothing to the imagination. She was dark-skinned and tall, her lips a rich burgundy. Vibrant blue eyes—the color of dark sapphires—watched him from beneath long sooty lashes. With shapely limbs, voluptuous breasts, and a waist Danyon knew he could span with his hands, the female was exquisitely beautiful.

“Is your mistress as desirable as I, Nightwind?”

“You do not look as you smell!”

“The smell is my protection. It is only one of the preternatural powers given to me as a high-ranking Daughter of the Multitude. I can do many things outside the realm of possibility.”

He watched her roam about the clearing. She sniffed, then arched a brow at him.

“Bugul Noz,” he explained.

“A rancid smell with an ugly name.”

“You're a fine one to talk about stench, woman!” Danyon scoffed.

A foot taller than he, she leaned over him and her sharp white teeth flashed. “What do you want of me, Nightwind?”

“I want to know about the Reaper,” he muttered, stepping back.

A horrible frown marred the perfection of the Blackwind's face. “What of that Rysalian jackal?”

“What is he to you?”

“I own him.”

Danyon's eyebrows rose. “Own him?”

“Through Rights of Possession.”

“I don't—”

“My ancestor paid eight-hundred-thousand credits to the Warlord of Dahrenia Province for Viraidan Cree when the Reaper was but a bantling of two cycles. It was her intention to breed many Reapers from his staff when he came of age. But Cree managed to escape. He fled our world in a stolen starjet and we have been searching for him ever since!”

“We?”

“Those of my clan,” she snapped. “I am the forty-ninth generation of my family to seek him and, praise to the Great Lady, I have found him! Under Amazeen law, he is mine to do with as I please. He will sorely regret having caused us so much trouble.”

Danyon chuckled. “Your clan doesn't give up.”

“Not when our honor is at stake. He owes us and he will pay a dear price, I assure you!”

“I almost feel sorry for the bastard.”

“You should. He will be punished in ways you can
not
imagine!”