My Reaper's Daughter (8 page)

he’d haggle for.

He had to get away from what he was beginning to realize could change him

forever.

“No,” he said. “No, no, no, no,
no
!”

Flicking the remaining contents from the blue enamel cup, he went back inside,

refusing to cut his eyes toward the trestle table where every nerve in his body screamed

at him was where Mystery and Valda were watching him. He strode up to DePalmer.

“How much for that buck in the corral?” he asked.

It didn’t matter if the horse was a prized animal or not, or who it belonged to. When

a Reaper took interest in something, it would be his. The station manager didn’t

hesitate.

“It’s yours, milord,” DePalmer said. He shifted from one foot to the other.

“Consider it my gift to you.”

Glyn nodded, thrust a hand into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a wad of

folding script. He plunked it down on the counter. “Thanks, but I pay my way.” With

that, he spun around, went to the cot where he had passed an uncomfortable night and

retrieved his gun from beneath the pillow, the holster from the chair. He resolutely

ignored the two females across the room as he swung the gun belt around his lean waist

and buckled it, bent over to tie the leather thong around his thigh.

“Are you leaving, Glynnie?” Valda asked.

“Aye, dearling,” he said, refusing to look her way. He jammed his hat atop his head

and tugged it into place low over his forehead. “I’ve a job to do before I make the

Citadel.”

“What’s a city dell?” she queried her mother.

“It’s the fortress where he works, sweetie,” her mother replied.

Valda looked back at Glyn. “Will you come see us when we get to Charlestown?”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Every fiber of his being screamed at him to say yes but he pushed that answer

aside.

“I don’t patrol that territory,” he said, and then hurried to the door.

“But you can come see us, can’t you?” the child questioned, and he could hear the

hurt in her tiny voice.

“No,” he said, his heart breaking. He was out the door and off the porch before he

took another breath—one he was finding hard to drag into his lungs. He made it to the

corral before a hand snagged at his shirtsleeve and he spun around, his hand going to

the handle of the obsidian dagger that lay in the dual sheath beside his laser whip.

“You didn’t have to make her cry,” Mystery said, her dark eyes blazing. “She’s

already lost one man she loves and then you treat her like she’s dirt beneath your boot.”

“No,” he said. “That’s not…”

“You didn’t even say goodbye to her,” she accused.

“I couldn’t…”

“It’s good that she won’t be seeing you again,” the young woman interrupted.

“Good neither of us will! You’re not the kind of man I want around my child!”

She pivoted on her heel and started back across the yard, her boots slapping into

the puddles, the hem of her long skirt dragging through the mud.

He caught up with her, shot out a hand to seize her by the arm just as she had

grabbed him. “You wait just a gods-be-damned minute, wench,” he snapped. “You

don’t know enough about me to make that kind of judgment.”

She tried to shake free of his hold but his fingers tightened around her arm.

“Let go,” she hissed from between clenched teeth, and tried to pry him away with

her other hand. His grip didn’t budge.

“Not until you know…”

“What I know is that you’re a cold, heartless bastard who didn’t hesitate to step on

a little girl’s heart and finish breaking it!” She lifted her chin. “Does that make you feel

more like a Reaper doing that kind of thing or more of the man you pretend to be?”

No one outside the Shadowlords and Arawn Gehdrin had ever spoken to him in

that manner and it surprised him more than it angered him. He stared into her enraged

eyes and saw himself mirrored there—a small man whose carelessness had hurt an

innocent child.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t tell me that,” she grated. “Tell Valda.”

“I can’t,” he said, and slowly released his hard grip on her arm. His need for tenerse

was becoming overpowering—making his flesh itch and burn—and his hellion was

bunching in his back, demanding the relief only Sustenance could give it. Those

discomforts only added intensity to the moment.

She snatched free. “Why not?”

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My Reaper’s Daughter

“Because she doesn’t need something like me in her life,” he answered.

“You’ve got that right,” she hissed, leaving him feeling like a worthless prick.

* * * * *

With every mile he rode, his depression deepened until he thought he’d break

down and bawl like a baby. As the horse galloped along, Glyn kept an eye on his

surroundings, his right hand on the top of his thigh—close to his gun—and his alert

ears to any sound that might have given away an enemy tracking him. What he

couldn’t do was keep his mind off Mystery Butler and her daughter.

The buckskin proved to be a good mount and he was more than satisfied with his

purchase. The beast had been well trained by a gentle hand and seemed to anticipate

what its rider required. When he stopped at a stream to let the horse drink and to rest

his own cramping legs, he thought perhaps he might keep the animal instead of finding

one at the Citadel.

“What am I gonna name you, fellow?” he asked, stroking the horse’s sleek neck. He

patted the stallion. “We need something that is fitting for a fine steed like you.”

He racked his brain to find a suitable name for the beast. As one of the infernal

horse flies buzzed past his face, he batted it away, touching the side of his face. A slow

smile tugged at his lips.

“Stannair,” he told the horse. “It means hawk in the language of my homeworld.”

The horse twisted its neck and gave him a long assessing look then bobbed its head

as though the name suited it just fine. A soft derisive breath sealed the deal.

“If I could only make up my mind as easily about other things,” Glyn said on a long

sigh. He led the horse from the stream.

Vaulting into the saddle, he swung Stannair north, away from the coach road.

By the time evening fell, he was many miles from the place where he had left the

young woman and her child. He was squatting down before a campfire, listlessly

stirring a skillet of beans, wishing he had anything else to fill his belly. Coffee bubbled

in a pot over the fire and filled the night air with its pleasant aroma. He nibbled on a

dry biscuit from time to time—not wanting it but not wanting the beans either. What he

truly wanted he knew he couldn’t have.

Releasing an irritated breath, he dropped his spoon into the skillet then removed it

from the fire, set it aside. The partially eaten biscuit he tossed into the bushes with a

flick of his wrist. He stared for a long time at the coffee pot but he didn’t want that any

more than he did the beans. Removing it, he lay down on his bedroll, propped his head

in his hand and stared into the flames. Before too long he was nodding off, jerking

awake at the least night sound, opening his eyes wide to keep himself from going

under, then finally defeated by weariness sinking down into the arms of
Cadley Trome
,

the Breathnóir god of deep sleep.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Her breasts cushioned his head, her soft hand stroked his bare shoulder as he lay atop her, his

lower body wedged between her silken legs. He toyed with a long strand of her hair, curling it

around and around his finger.

“Was that what you wanted, wench?” he asked.

Mystery smiled. “Aye, warrior. It was what I’d waited a lifetime for.”

“Happy I could oblige you,” he quipped, and tickled his nose with the feathery tips of her

hair.

“Teach me, Glyn.”

He raised his head and looked up at her. “What would you like to learn?”

She did not hesitate. “How to pleasure you.”

His cock throbbed, pulsed against her thigh. “Milady…” he began, but she put her fingertips

to his lips.

“I am not a delicate creature you have to protect. I will not break if you’re a bit rough with

me.” She grinned. “As a matter of fact, I would like for you to be a bit rougher, if you please.”

He cocked a dark eyebrow. “Rougher, huh?”

She nodded. “Forceful,” she stated emphatically. She lowered her voice. “Make me feel like

your captive, your spoils of war.”

Glyn released her hair and sat up, hunkered down between the spread of her silky thighs. “Is

that what you truly want?” he asked.

“It is what I believe I need,” she answered truthfully.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Myst.”

“You won’t.” She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his cock for it was flexing,

begging for attention. “Teach me how to suckle him as the whores do.”

Glyn sprang up from his bedroll as though someone had prodded him in the ass

with a sharp stick. He was sweating, his skin was clammy, and from nervous habit, shot

his hand through his hair to tug at it brutally.

“What the
fuck
was that?” he barked loud enough to startled Stannair who

whinnied in protest and stamped an irritated hoof, tossing its head for good measure.

Hands on his hips, head down, the Reaper began pacing, his eyes shifting back and

forth as he turned the dream over and over in his mind. So he had borrowed from the

scenes he had unwittingly plucked from Mystery’s subconscious but he was gods-bedamned sure she would never want him to teach her how to blow him!

“By the gods,” he whimpered, and stopped in his tracks, squeezing his eyes tightly

shut.

Did she even know what whores did? he asked himself. Hell no was the obvious

answer. She was naïve, as innocent in some ways as her little girl, and she would have

no idea what wicked, depraved things men and women could do in bed—or on the

bare-fucking-ground for that matter—together.

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My Reaper’s Daughter

“Not my Mystery,” he said then groaned.

She wasn’t his and wasn’t likely to be.

He opened his eyes and stared unseeingly across the campsite and into the bushes

beyond. The weight of his loneliness was suddenly crushing him, wearing him down,

but all he had to do was open his hand and let a beautiful woman of color slip hers onto

his palm and life would be so much easier to bear. He wouldn’t be lonely. He wouldn’t

be alone. Things would be perfect.

“Maybe for me,” he said aloud. “But what about her? What about Valda?”

For over an hour he continued to pace until he was so tired, his feet so sore, he took

to his bedroll again. Flinging an arm over his face, his mind continued to worry the

problem, to look at it from every conceivable angle until he had expanded the last of his

reserve of endurance and he plunged gently back into sleep…

“Are you sure?”

She nodded shyly.

He took a deep breath. “All right, then kneel between my legs.”

Her breasts swayed as she twisted around in the bed and positioned herself between his

spread thighs. He had to resist the urge to reach out and take hold of those beautiful globes,

digging his fingers into the sheet beneath him instead.

“Now scoot down and lean forward over me.”

She did as he instructed, flinging her long hair over her shoulder when it fell across his

thighs. Her head was tilted back so she could look at him. “What now, warrior?” she asked. “Do

I put my mouth on him and…”

“No!” he said, and his cock leapt like a fish out of water. “No, baby. Just hold on.”

Her words had gone straight to his shaft and it was making demands he had to rein in if he

wasn’t to frighten her away.

“I’m aroused,” he said stupidly—as if she couldn’t see that already. “But a man likes to be

touched before the action heats up.”

“Like this?” she said, and put her hand on his thigh to gently rub it. The pads of her fingers

ran lightly over the hair and he sighed.

“Aye, that’s nice.”

She ran her palm along the outside of his thigh, on the inside, under his knee, over his shin.

She arched her hand and used her fingers to graze his flesh, pulling upward, making the hairs

stand up, and when he sucked in a breath, she lingered in that sensitive area behind his knees,

stroking the soft flesh gently.

“How about that?” she inquired as she leaned to the side to support her head on the curled

fist of her other hand.

“Aye,” he sighed, closing his eyes to the pleasure.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

As though she’d done it a thousand times, she worked her way closer to his cock in spiraling

little forays with her nails—dragging them upward over his skin, making lazy figure eights.

Goose bumps broke out on his legs and he shivered as sensation wriggled up his sides.

“You like that?” she asked.

“I truly do,” he said, swallowing.

Closer and closer her fingers came to his cock and as the tips of her nails came into contact

with his sac, he quivered like a leaf in a storm and his eyes popped open.