Dancing on the Wind (27 page)

his own. Plans had been set into motion, an agreement made, and if everything worked

as Matty hoped, the woman sitting across from him would be his—and his alone—

before too many months passed.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

He took the slap without saying a word. Took still another stinging slap, but when

she drew back to hit him a third time, he’d reached his limit and caught her wrist,

gripping it tightly as he jerked it to one side.

“Woman, I’m in no fucking mood for your shit,” he said, shoving her away from

him.

“Where the hell have you been?” Bolivar shouted.

Fallon ran a dirty hand through his dirt-streaked hair. He so wanted to tell her he’d

been in a burrow underground hiding, riding out a particularly brutal Transition that

had left him weak and itching to kill something. He hadn’t slept in three days, he was

hungry and his blood-lust was overbearing. The rabbit he’d caught earlier that morning

hadn’t satisfied the need for Sustenance nor had the mellow-eyed milk cow that had

stood docilely while he sank his fangs into her neck and fed. He needed human blood

to assuage the craving that was making him itch as though he were having a bad

allergic reaction.

He also needed the vial of tenerse that would make him look—if not feel—more

human. At the moment he knew he looked gaunt and hollow-eyed, pale and his hands

were shaking.

“Answer me, Robbie. Where have you been?” Bolivar screeched, and doubled her

fist to slam it into his back as he walked past her.

That was all he could take. The killer inside him, the savage beast that was almost

always close to the surface came roaring out and he grabbed her, threw her across the

room. Luckily she landed on the sofa, her eyes wide, lips parted, fear turning her

caramel skin lighter still.

“Don’t you fucking ever hit me again, bitch!” he warned her, stalking to the sofa

and leaning over her, his lips drawn back, hands clenched in the front of her dressing

gown. “I’ll fucking strangle you if you do!”

He had gone to ground for his Transition with violent thoughts of beating the shit

out of Bolivar crowding his head. The night after the motorcycle ride, she had scratched

him so savagely he had to knock her out with a punishing psychic push to her

subconscious so she wouldn’t remember her attack on him or the fact his injuries healed

within seconds of her delivering them. She had slapped him the moment they were

alone in her motor home that evening. She’d pulled his hair, kicked and kneed him,

slammed her balled fist into the side of his head and—adding insult to injury—had spat

on him.

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Dancing on the Wind

Storming out of her trailer, he had vanished in the deluge that was part of the

hurricane crawling up the peninsula. He knew he was close to Transition, but the fury

lightning through him had brought the cycle on earlier than it should have come. Lying

naked in the ground after tearing off his clothing with only violent thoughts of sinking

his fangs into Bolivar’s slender throat, he had rode out the pain and the overwhelming

sense of despair that always accompanied Transition. When at last he’d come back to

what little humanity he had, he had crawled out of the burrow, dragging his torn and

muddy clothes with him, and stood in the dying sunlight with tears running down his

cheeks.

“
Keenan
!” he had screamed, dropping to his knees, burying his face in the clothing.

His keening and the predatory scent of him had scared away all the nearby animals so

when he was forced to hunt, only the one rabbit had not been quick enough.

And the sweet-faced cow who had wrapped her long tongue around his arm as he

drank for her neck.

Now he was hovering over Bolivar and wanting nothing more than to smash her

lovely face and feed from her corpse, drain her as dry as a husk, root through her

organs to pilfer every last drop of blood. He could see the realization in her fearful eyes

that he might well kill her then and there. He barely felt her trembling hand as she put

it on his forearm.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry, Robbie.” She stroked his arms, her lips

quivering as she tried to smile at him. “I was just so worried about you.”

The killing rage that had claimed him began to settle to a low simmer and he let go

of her dressing gown, straightened. He desperately needed a bath for he stank to high

heaven, but he needed the tenerse even more. He stumbled away from her and

snatched open a drawer, pulled out a vial and a vac-syringe.

Bolivar sat up, watching him as he loaded the vac-syringe then plunged the needle

into his neck. He saw her wince at the same time he did for the drug burned like liquid

fire through his jugular and spread down his shoulder and chest with raking claws that

made him twitch with the pain of it.

“W-What was that you took?” she asked.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” he mumbled—still clutching the vial and the vac-

syringe—and went lurching down the short hallway to the bedroom then into the

bathroom at the rear of the motor home.

“Was it heroin?” she persisted, foolish enough to come after him. “Cocaine?” She

stood framed in the doorway as he stripped out of his torn and filthy clothing. “Was it

some kind of steroid?”

He reached into the large corner shower and turned the water on as hot as he could

get it, steam beginning to build behind the glass door before he jerked it open and

stepped inside, carrying the tenerse with him. He knew he didn’t dare leave it where

she could get her hands on it. He would need to hide it securely when he got out of the

shower.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“Damn it, Robbie! What did you take?” she shouted.

“None of your fucking business!” he screamed at her so loud the glass door shook.

Bolivar backed away from the shower. For a long time she stood watching him

bathing then walked out of the bathroom—kicking his dirty clothes aside—and started

rummaging through his drawers for clean ones.

“Son of a whoring bitch,” she muttered to herself. “You’d better not have been with

another woman!”

She was sitting on his bed when he came out of the bath, dripping wet. Ignoring

her, he flopped facedown on the silk coverlet with his hands to either side of his head

and closed his eyes.

“If I find out you…” she began

“Don’t accuse me of anything or I swear I’ll walk out that door right now,” he

hissed.

Bolivar stared at his back as she always did when it was bare. There were deep

crisscrossed lines marring the broad expanse and extending down onto his buttocks and

upper thighs.

“Love taps from my stepfather,” he’d told her when she’d demanded to know who

had hurt him so badly.

Knowing all too well the abuses a stepfather could dish out, Bolivar moved up the

bed and lay down beside him, for once keeping her hands to herself.

“What was that you took?”

“It was a painkiller.” He sighed deeply. “Just let me sleep, will ya?”

“We’re going to talk when you wake up,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“I had to postpone the revival for tonight. Everyone has been out looking for you.”

He sighed again and lifted his head so he could turn to look at her. “One more

word out of you and I’m going to throw you out of this trailer.”

She clamped her mouth shut and shot from the bed, stomping down the hall and

out of the motor home with a vile, unladylike curse.

“
Hound?
”

Fallon groaned. All he needed was Coim intruding at that moment. The tenerse was

beginning to work and the itching was subsiding, but he still felt terrible. “Not now,

please?” he pleaded.

“Your mate is worried about you. Do you wish me to contact her and let her know you are

well?”

As he had driven his bike at breakneck speed down the interstate with Bolivar

clinging like a parasitic vine to his back,
An Fear Liath Mor
had used the same quiet

voice it was using now to speak to Fallon.

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Dancing on the Wind

“There is one among those with you who has powers, pup,”
Coim had warned
. “He is a

powerful mind-shielder but I scented him as I searched for the creature you tell me the woman is

using to kill her foes. This man knows you are not what you seem so be very careful. Do not use

your powers to communicate with your mate for he may intercept them. This is why I have not

contacted you before now.”

Fallon turned over, flinging an arm over his eyes. “Why are you now breaking the

silence you imposed?” he questioned.

“The one who has the powers is among those she sent out to look for you. I will know when

he returns.”

“Which one is he?”

“The one with the red hair and beard.”

There was only one man among the ministry who fit that description. He was

Bolivar’s manager of operations, a man named Mizhak Roland.

“Is Keenan okay?”

“Tired but well,”
Coim reported.
“She will join you next week, but I think you will not be

happy when you see her.”

Fallon’s eyes opened. “Why not?”

“She has lost weight worrying about you.”
The beast lowered its voice even more
. “Just

as you have lost weight worrying about her.”

“I miss her, Coim.”

“
I know, pup
.” The voice was sad and filled with commiseration.

“Tell her…” Fallon squeezed his eyes shut again. “Tell her I love her and miss her,

and tell her why I haven’t contacted her. Let her know I just came out of Transition.”

“
I will do this
,”
An Fear Liath Mor
stated then slowly withdrew.

Fallon heard the door to the motor home open and groaned. He knew who it was

for she was broadcasting her thoughts as she came toward the bedroom. Knowing she’d

give him no peace until he’d explained things to her satisfaction, he reminded himself

he was there to be her right-hand man, to get as close to her as her skin so he could

bring her down. Snarling, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up.

She stopped in the doorway when she saw him sitting up. “I demand to know what

you took,” she said.

He didn’t bother to look around. “It was a painkiller.”

“For a real pain or recreation?”

He snorted then twisted his head to give her a steady glower. “Do I look like I’m

having fun?”

Her chin came up. “You look like shit.”

“Well, that’s exactly how I feel.”

Perhaps encouraged by his softer tone, she ventured farther into the bedroom.

“What kind of pain?”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

He scrubbed his hands over his face, wincing as his palms encountered the prickle

of a three-day growth of beard. Also feeling the sweat dripping from his brow, he

armed it away then flung a carelessly hand toward a chair in the corner of the room.

Bolivar’s lips pursed but she sat down, crossing her long legs and curling her hands

over the padded arms of the chair.

“I have bad headaches,” he said without preamble as he stared down at the floor.

“Vicious, brutal headaches.” That was true for all Reapers did.

“You mean migraines.”

He shook his head. “Worse. Mine don’t just cause pain, they cause personality

changes.”

Bolivar’s eyebrows drew together. “What kind of changes?”

“I get mean, and when I get mean, I get dangerous.”

“And that’s why you threatened me the other night?” she demanded.

“I get them like clockwork about four times a year but stress or anger can bring one

on early. When that happens, I have to get as far away from other people as I can.”

“Why?”

He looked up. “Because if I don’t, I’ll hurt them.” He held her stare. “Or kill them.”

Bolivar blinked, opened her mouth no doubt to scoff at his words, but she must

have seen something in his eyes for she only said, “Go on.”

“I wasn’t due to have a bout until a week or so from now, but when you jumped on

my ass and started hitting me, when you slammed your fist into my skull, you brought

the damned thing on early. I knew if I didn’t get away from you right then and stay

away until the cycle passed, I’d most likely cripple you.” He lowered his head again.

“Or worse.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw her leg jump and could feel her agitation. He

slipped gently into her mind to read her thoughts, careful to direct the psi energy only

to her and to shield it so no one else could detect the retrieval. He wasn’t surprised to

learn she was reconsidering their relationship and though she was keenly attracted to

the sexual part, she had a healthy fear of him. He intended to deepen that fear.

“I’ve killed people when they pushed me too far,” he said. “Most of the time I

wasn’t even aware I’d done it until I found myself covered in their blood.”

Bolivar shuddered and tore her gaze from his.

Fallon grinned inwardly. There had been a reason to get physical with her—both

sexually and violently—and both had served his purpose. Though he could have

implanted the idea that they’d had mind-blowing sex in her brain, the chemicals in her