Title

Chapter One

Owen Tohre screamed as he was propelled from his nightmare. He shot up to a sitting position, his amber eyes wide, sweat glistening on his pale face, his black silk shirt plastered to his back. He was trembling so violently, panting so heavily, he thought his heart would burst from the strain. For a long moment he sat there staring unseeingly into the darkness before he found the strength to plow a shaky hand through his wet black hair. Swallowing convulsively, he tugged brutally at the thick strands in an effort to pull his mind from the horror that had invaded it. When the savage vision remained, he groaned with frustration. He knew there would be no more rest for him that night so he pushed to his feet and just stood there with his head bowed, his hands on his hips, his eyes closed, listening to his heart pounding brutally.

It had been this way for three weeks now and every night’s rest had been disturbed by the same horrific dream. No matter how much rotgut he guzzled during the daylight hours, no matter how long he forced himself to stay awake each night, as soon as he went to sleep, the nightmare came galloping full speed out of the murky recesses of his memories and ran him to ground, pounding him into the depths of a despair so dark, he doubted he would ever be able to pull himself out.

And then there was the headache. He’d had it without letup for as long as he’d been having the debilitating dream and the pain was starting to get to him. Extra doses of tenerse hadn’t helped. If anything, the highly addictive neuroleptic drug his kind had to have in order to exist in even a halfway human manner was starting to make him sick. He was beginning to see things he knew gods-be-damned well weren’t there, hear strange voices whispering to him, and was starting to lose feeling in his hands and feet. Adding to that, he had—on at least two occasions—experienced what he was fairly sure were convulsions. Since he was alone at the time these episodes occurred, he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure they actually had. As if all that wasn’t enough, he had become so nervous, so confused much of the time, he felt as though he were about to jump out of his skin. The least unrecognizable sound would slap his hand to the holster at his hip, his gun would be out and tracking right to left though nothing was ever there at which he needed to shoot. The phantoms were locked in his ever-increasing spooked mind.

Aye, he thought as he began pacing, reason told him it was the drug causing most of his current problems and he knew he had to cut back on the amount of tenerse with which he was dosing himself. He also knew that was easier said than done. Tenerse was an insidious drug that whispered its siren song to those unwise enough to listen and it took those fools into realms no sane man should ever visit.

Involuntarily, his gaze went to his saddlebags where the vials of tenerse and the vac-syringe lay. He licked his lips, thinking of the calming effect the drug had on his system, and more than anything he believed he needed that right now.

“Just one more injection,” he mumbled, wiping his sweaty palms down the leather of his pants. “Just one more to make the dream go away.”

Wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve, ignoring the tremor in his hand, he leaned over and picked up the saddlebag. The pain between his temples flared to white-hot agony and he staggered, his handsome face creasing into a mask of suffering. He went back to his blanket and plopped down on the rough wool and fumbled the tie open on the saddlebag. Taking out the kit that contained the vac-syringe and the last vial of tenerse, he filled the chamber and without giving himself time to think about it, plunged the needle into his neck.

The drug stung like a hive of enraged wasps attacking his veins. It spread rapidly through his system as though it were acid but almost instantly the dream faded into the background and he began to feel a modicum of relief from the crushing pounding in his head.

Sitting there on the blanket with the saddlebag in his lap, his fingers still clutching the vac-syringe as he watched the sun come up, he knew he should get on his horse and head back to the Citadel. He needed help and he knew it. The sooner he got back to his own kind, the better off he’d be. The trouble was getting there. The increased dosages of the tenerse had thrown his Transition cycle off and prevented him from shifting at will though he wished he could. If he could take on his blackbird form, he could wing his way back within a few hours. Going by horseback would take nearly a week and that was a week he wasn’t so sure he had.

“Every journey begins with a single step, Tohre,” he muttered to himself. “You won’t get home just by wishing it.”

Wearily, his head throbbing so violently he was getting nauseous, he forced his aching body to its feet, the saddlebag still in his hand. He stood there wavering for a moment, looking down at the blanket and saddle, his gun belt, and knew there was no way in hell he had either the strength or the energy to saddle his stallion. The gun belt he needed for it holstered his six-shooter and his laser whip and knife. Those were three things a Reaper had to have. Gritting his teeth, he walked over and bent down to retrieve his weapons, groaning as pain lanced all the way down his back. He staggered back and turned quickly to throw up, nothing but dry heaves increasing the agony between his temples and the burning pain in his gut.

“Sustenance,” he thought as he stumbled toward his horse. He needed that more than anything else right then and the only source he had was the hobbled animal waiting for him. The beast’s blood wasn’t as strong as a human’s or as nourishing but it was the best he had out there in the harsh far northern wilderness of the Wismin Territory. It wasn’t the first time he’d been forced to take the horse’s blood—he just didn’t like doing so.

He walked over to his mount and patted the beast’s muscular black neck, rubbing his hand down its withers. He laid his forehead on the sleek neck.

“I’m sorry, Céierseach,” he said as his horse watched him. He slung the saddlebag over his mount’s back. “I’ll find something else, I promise you.”

The horse whinnied and nodded its head up and down as though it understood the necessity but craned its neck around to give the Reaper a slight nudge as though asking him to hurry up with it. It barely flinched when the sharp fangs pierced flesh where a heavy vein traveled to the beast’s great heart.

Over the years, Owen Tohre had learned to embrace what he had become though he had never truly accepted that he was more creature than man. His Transition from human to Reaper had come to him only months shy of his thirtieth birthday and he would never grow any older. He no longer knew just how old he was and really didn’t care. The Triune Goddess Morrigunia had swept down from the skies on copper wings to snatch him up where he lay dying and She had carried him to a place he could never have imagined. There She did the unthinkable to him—She had brought him back to life—and in the doing had condemned him to centuries of Reaperhood. He would never know why She chose him except that he had been young and handsome and muscular with the skills of a warrior in his blood. He had fit the mold She had chosen for Her soldiers, Her intergalactic assassins who could shift into animal form, had the strength of ten men and the ability to track their targets through a single drop of their target’s blood on the tongue.

“You are Mine, boy,” She had cooed to him as She’d lain him on his belly and cut an opening into his back. “And you always will be!”

The pain had been horrendous as the revenant worm—that insidious parasite who now controlled him—burrowed down into the cut and sank its fangs into his kidney. Not even the first Transition from human to beast had been as excruciating as that initial bite of the hellion, though many years later Owen would endure an even worse pain.

Grabbing a handful of mane, the Reaper swung himself onto the beast, landing with a wince as the jarring reverberated through his aching head. He cast one last longing look at the saddle then shrugged. He hoped someone who could use it would find it. Kicking his heels against Céierseach’s ribs, he set the beast into movement.

With every yard the horse trotted, Owen felt the punishment. Every bounce, every step that landed in a small indention in the earth sent fiery stabs of agony between his temples. Although the November day was much warmer than it should have been, he was cold and the bright sunlight created a discomfort of its own as he squinted to avoid the piercing glare. Nausea returned and with it the hot bile that kept gurgling up his gullet.

“Think of something save the pain, you stupid shit,” he muttered to himself.

He thought of his fellow Reapers and wondered what they were doing at that moment. He supposed Cynyr and Aingeal would be back in Haines City. Arawn and Danielle would no doubt have returned with them to see Danni’s family. Bevyn and Lea? Who knew where those two battling lovebirds would be at that moment. Glyn, Phelan and Iden? Most likely back in their territories keeping the peace and making sure no rogues had survived the purging.

The thought of rogues took him back to his first day on Terra. He had been the fourth to arrive on this alien world. Ahead of him had come Arawn Gehdrin then Bevyn Coure and after him Cynyr Cree. The next youngest was Phelan Keil and he’d come a year later. The last two to arrive—Glyn Kullen and Iden Belial—had shown up within a week of one another. They were seven Reapers brought to a world in a galaxy far from their own to kill rogue Reapers being created by scientists called the Ceannus who wanted nothing more than to destroy humankind on Terra.

A month earlier they had all been together in the Calizonia Territory along with an eighth Reaper—Kasid Jaborn, a former balgair, or rogue Reaper, created by the Ceannus—who now worked for the Shadowlords. Bevyn had come late to the party, having been brought on the dragon-demon back of the goddess, but he’d been there in time to see the horrific damage done to Owen.

Shuddering, Owen jerked his mind away from that hideous time and gagged, bending over, but there was nothing to come up. Struggling through the nightmares every night of his life was bad enough. He didn’t need to think about it during the light of day or add to the misery he was already enduring with the damned headache.

“Think of home,” he said. “Think of the green, green hills of Draíoct and the fairy folk prancing on the shamrocks, and the smell of corned beef cooking in Ma’s pot and Da playing his fiddle while Siobhan danced the jig and,” the Reaper’s face twisted with grief as his voice cracked, “and your brother Eanan coming up behind you and dragging a blade across your fucking throat.”

It had been many a year since he’d thought of Eanan, longer still since he’d said his brother’s name. Because they had been mirror images of one another, whom no one could tell apart, there had been no love lost between them. Each always wanted what the other had and it was Eanan’s want of his brother’s betrothed that had led to Owen’s murder.

Had they been happy together? Owen wondered. Morrigunia had told him Eanan had taken on his twin’s identity, claiming Eanan had left to go a’pirating—a fanciful dream of his since childhood. Did anyone ever find out the truth of it? Did someone suspect Eanan was not Owen? Surely Siobhan had guessed that the man she married was not the man to whom she’d given her love. To think otherwise crippled the very heart inside Owen’s chest. On his deathbed, had Eanan at last confessed to his crime in order to go to Neamh—to heaven? Did anyone mourn the loss of the real Owen Tohre? Was there a grave marker somewhere on Draíoct with his name chiseled upon it? Did Siobhan lie beside Eanan in death, believing him her beloved Owen?

So many questions to which he would never have an answer, he thought as he reached up to rub at the pain over his right eye. Perhaps that was a good thing. Perhaps it wasn’t. Who knew for sure? Morrigunia knew but She refused to tell him. Some things, She’d insisted, were best left alone.

Riding close to the international border between the Wismin Territory of Serenia and the Manontaque Province of the Northmen Cadre, Owen tugged on his horse’s mane. He had skirted the larger settlement of Saint Marie, eschewing the company of those he was assigned to protect in the territory. He stared out across the shoreline of the fierce lake that separated the two countries.

Reapers weren’t allowed to chase targets into the Northmen’s Provinces and had no jurisdiction there. As far as the Shadowlords knew, no balgairs, or rogues, had ever ventured across the border and even if they had, the Northmen employed their own police force to protect them.

He’d never been this close to the boundary of his adopted country and the ruin of the large metropolitan Manontaque city that lay on the plains like toy blocks scattered by the hand of an angry child saddened him. In the archives at the Citadel he’d seen pictures of the devastated city before the bombing of the land, the shifting of the tectonic plates and the sweep of the massive tsunami from the west had caused after the Burning War. What he viewed now was nothing more than tumbled debris. Tent cities had sprung up on the dryer ground around the big lake but even those were now deserted, the land continuing to shift and break apart year after year, making the area inhospitable. Now there was but a buckled strip of land that served as a bridge between the two countries. The manmade bridge that had once spanned the lake now lay in the water like the mangled bones of some strange gigantic animal. Shaking his head at the waste, he clucked his tongue at Céierseach and pulled lightly on its mane to start it moving again, away from the border.

Then he heard a child scream and when it came a second time he didn’t stop to think but kicked the horse forward and crossed the border into Manontaque Province, galloping toward the jumbled docks where rotting hulks peppered the lake. Riding full out, bent low over Céierseach’s neck, he drummed his boot heels against the horse’s flanks to urge it to increase its speed. He barely heard the third scream but his acute eyesight had already spied the child—little hands in the air—flailing to keep from going under the rough oil-slicked waters of the bay.

There had been a time when Owen Tohre would have hesitated even stepping close to the water. He had been told his parasite would not allow it. Now the thought of drowning never entered his mind. He yanked off his boots, snatched off his hat to fling it aside and arced through the air, hitting the water cleanly and coming up well away from the dock. With sure, strong strokes, he set out for the child who had disappeared beneath the choppy waves. Knifing his body in the water, he dove down, swimming furiously under the murky surface. He came up with the boy’s shirt clutched in his hand, the little head braced on his shoulder as he sidestroked for the crumbled pier.

Three more little boys were standing on the pier, their fishing poles ignored as the Reaper struggled with lifting the unconscious child onto the shaky dock. The pain in his head had intensified and he knew what was oozing from his nostrils wasn’t lake water but blood, but he managed to shove the boy to safety. Wide-eyed, the other children moved back as he hefted himself up on the wood planking and hovered over the child he’d pulled from the water.

The boy wasn’t breathing.

As one of the child’s playmates would later tell the elders, the man in black lay Jonas on the dock, turned their friend’s head to one side then began pushing his big hands against Jonas’ belly.

“Water came pouring out of Jonas’ mouth! Lots and lots of water!”

“Then the man put his fingers on Jonas’ nose and kissed him!”

“He kissed him three times then pushed on his belly some more.”

The Reaper saved the child’s life—bringing him back from the edge of death—but at the cost of his own health. As Jonas Dayton took his first gasping breath after almost drowning, the man who had saved him fell to one side and began seizing.

Luckily one of the elders had heard the boy’s screams and had come running. He arrived in time to keep the outsider from swallowing his tongue as the convulsions claimed him.

“What is he, Elder Carlton?” one of the boys asked. “What manner of man is he?”

Elder Carlton stared down at the man and swallowed hard. “He’s a killer.”

* * * * *

The buckboard pulled into the compound’s main courtyard and stopped before the infirmary. Two men hopped up into the buckboard’s bed. They were strong, burly men and they needed to be for the man they carried into the infirmary was struggling violently to get free of them.

His eyes wild, teeth gnashing at those who carried him, his attention fell on a young woman and held as firm but confident hands assessed what was wrong with him. With every step the woman took in the infirmary, his fevered gaze followed her until a tall man with a forbidding frown leaned in to his line of vision.

“What’s your name?”

He lashed out at the man for he wanted to see the woman. He wanted to face the threat she posed to him head on.

“Can you tell us your name?”

He bellowed his rage and fought the hands holding him down.

“He’s going to hurt himself like this,” he heard the tall man say.

The brew they forced down his throat choked him and he bucked beneath the hard hand that held his jaw clamped shut until he swallowed the vile brew. In a matter of moments, his eyes rolled back in his head and his body relaxed, pulling him down into a pleasant darkness where soft hands caressed his cheek and a beautiful face journeyed along beside him.

* * * * *

He came to the crest of the hill and stopped to admire the spectacular beauty that stretched out below him. Miles and miles of verdant green grass swayed in the cool spring breeze upon the rolling hills. To the south, sparkles of light glittered on the water of the bay like gemstones on a bed of blue velvet. The scent of saltwater and clover mingled together and the sun reached down with warm fingers to caress his face. When he spied what he had come there to find, he started down the hill, heading for the lone figure who sat with legs tucked to one side on a pale green blanket spread upon the crimson clover.

Her eyes were the color of lilacs in the spring and her pale hair draped in long, lush waves to her tiny waist. The smile that hovered on her full lips made his heart beat faster when she gazed up at him through her thick blonde lashes. She was so incredibly beautiful it took his breath away to gaze at her.

“For you, my Owen,” she said in a voice that sent ripples of desire undulating through him. She held up a long stalk of lemongrass to him and he hunkered down beside her and plucked it from her slender fingers, bringing its fragrant bulb portion of the stem to his nose. “It will help reduce your fever.”

“Nothing will reduce this fever, milady,” he said, sitting down on the blanket with her and stretching out his long legs. He turned so he lay on his back, his head in her lap. “It is one born of raging desire. It is a blaze only you can quench.”

“For shame, Reaper,” she chastised him. “You should not say such things.”

“It’s true,” he said, reaching up to tug at a lock of her soft blonde hair. He wound the thick strand around and around his finger. “My body aches for need of you.”

She threaded her fingers through his dark hair, sweeping it back from his forehead for a single wavy lock was forever striving to hang over his left eye. Her violet eyes stared into his with such love, with such trust, he found it hard to draw breath.

“When will you be leaving?” she asked.

“Not for a while yet,” he said, and let go of her hair to snake his palm behind her neck and bring her lips to his.

She tasted of the lemongrass and of sweet, sun-warmed honey. Her lips were as soft as the petals of a rose and the heat of her mouth sent tremors of passion trickling through his system.

It had been many months since last he’d had a woman’s hands on his willing body. Her soft hand pressed over his heart as he plied her lips made him long for her touch to go lower—lower still—until she could touch that part of him that needed her so desperately. He released her, trying to quell the tremors that went through his body at breaking the contact.

He knew she was untouched by life. No man had ever lain beside her as he was doing at that moment. Her flesh was virginal, her body never having known the things he yearned to do to it. She was naïve, pure, and she belonged to him. It was his right, his privilege, to initiate her into the mysteries of womanhood but he wasn’t sure the time was right.

“Tell me of our wedding night,” she said shyly as he returned his head to her lap. “I want to hear of it again.”

He smiled. “There will be musicians to play,” he said. “Chalean jigs that bring the dancers to their feet, for who can sit still when the fiddles and bodhrán are going strong?”

“No one,” she said, and began plaiting the hair at his temple into a thin braid.

“And the food!” he said, putting a hand to his belly. “The food will be fit for the goddess Herself! Roast beef, chicken smothered in gravy, pork swimming in a tangy sauce, crisply fried catfish and venison sausage. We’ll have all the vegetables we each like and rice and buttered noodles. Breads and muffins and biscuits. Fruits of every kind and cakes and pastries loading down the table ’til it is nigh to bursting.” He grinned. “And plenty of Moira’s blueberry pies.”

“Are they really that good?” she countered, plaiting a similar braid down his left temple.

“They are heaven,” he told her. “Nothing like them in all the world.”

“Do you really think your friends from Haines City will come?”

“We’ll send the train! I know they’ll come because there will be ale and whiskey for the men and hard cider for you women,” he said. “Lemonade for the young ones and tall, cold glasses of sweet milk.”

“What about afterward?” she asked shyly. “Before the shivaree begins?”

He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. “When I pick you up and carry you to our cottage?”

She nodded shyly, her face tinting a pretty pink.

“I will kick open the door to our cottage and carry you inside…”

“To protect me from the evil spirits lying in wait under the threshold,” she said.

“Aye,” he agreed. “Nothing will ever harm my lady.”

“Then what?” she asked, caressing the material of his black silk shirt.

“Then I’ll carry you into our bedroom and set your feet to the floor,” he said, his voice turning husky. “I’ll take the veil from your hair and lay it aside.”

“And I’ll turn so you can unhook the buttons of my gown.”

“Not until I’ve held you in my arms and kissed you as I have wanted to kiss you since the first moment I laid eyes on you,” he insisted.

“Then I’ll turn and you will undo the back of my dress,” she said, her chin raised.

“Aye, that I will, milady,” he agreed, and he sat up, coming to his knees beside her. He pulled her to a sitting position. “Shall I show you how that will feel?”

She put a gentle hand to his cheek. “Aye, my Owen,” she said. “Show me.”

His legs felt weak as he got to his feet and held out a hand to her, pulling her to stand beside him. His arms went around her and he held her with her cheek pressed against the thundering beat of his heart.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his breathing coming in short pants of need.

She pulled back and looked up at him. “Aye, I am sure. I would have you truly make me your woman before you leave this time.”

He cupped her chin and held her face for another kiss that was as heady as a fine, expensive wine. For the first time he nibbled on her lower lip until she opened her mouth to him and he slipped his tongue inside, thrilling to the little groan that escaped her sweet throat. He bracketed her face with his palms and held her as he deepened the kiss, swirled his tongue inside her honeyed mouth. His cock leapt against her belly and she pressed closer to him.

“Ah, milady,” he groaned, tearing his mouth from hers.

Easing out of his arms, she turned her back to him, gazing over her shoulder with eyes so trusting, so innocent.

Her gown was of the softest gingham and it fit her back as though it had been molded upon her. The gentle ridge of her shoulder blades tempted him, the precious nape of her neck called to him to place a gentle kiss there. Sweeping aside her long hair, he put his lips to that delicate flesh.

“I love you,” he whispered, his breath stirring the small hairs at her nape.

“As I love you,” she replied.

With hands that shook, he trailed his fingers from button to button, unhooking them, his blood pounding fiercely as more and more of her unblemished, satiny flesh was revealed to him. By the time he had undone the last button in the long row that ended at her waist, he was nigh to bursting with a need that had grown hard and engorged.

She pivoted around to face him again, standing there waiting for him to push the bodice from her shoulders. Her gaze was tender as she smiled at him.

“Are you sure?” he asked again.

“Aye,” she whispered.

“If I do this, there will be no turning back. I’ll not be able to keep from claiming you.”

She took his hand and laid it on her breast and Owen thought he would go up in flames. His palm itched to feel her bare flesh, his palm to graze the peak of her breast. He squeezed her lightly then began to tug the bodice down her slender arms.

The sight of the pristine white lace of her camisole made him swallow hard. It was all he could do to keep pushing the gown down over the flare of her hips and let it drop to a blue-and-white-check pool at her feet.

“Now my petticoat,” she said, and held her arms out from her sides to give him access to the elastic waist of her garment.

Owen Tohre—warrior and killer, drinker of blood and slayer of rogues—sank to his knees on the blanket like a crusader before the Holy Chalice. In silent supplication, he eased the petticoat over her hips and down her stocking-clad legs. He could only stare at the dark triangle framed within the straps of her garter belt.

“Milady,” he said. “I hurt for want of you.”

She stepped out of the circle of gown and petticoat and kicked them aside. All the while his gaze was locked on the wiry curls at the apex of her thighs though he made no move to touch her there. And yet the heat of his gaze sent waves of warmth flooding her nether regions and a light ooze of juices flooded her sex.

“My slippers,” she said. She put a hand to his shoulder and lifted one foot.

With infinite care he took the heel of her slipper in his palm and removed the satin footwear. He laid the slipper aside and gently massaged her toes before she pulled her foot out of his reach and lifted the other for him to bear.

A sensual scent was wafting to him from between her legs and he was on fire with a lust so great it was all he could do not to fall upon her and ravish her like the berserkers of his race from so long before. His entire body clenched with wanting to taste her, to thrust his tongue, his fingers and his cock inside her heated moistness. The pounding of his heart now rushed blood through his ears and he was finding it harder and harder to draw a decent breath.

“My stockings?” she suggested.

If he thought his hands shook before, he had been completely mistaken. They shook so badly as he reached for the clips that held the silk stocking to her garter belt—that wispy piece of sleek white lace that set his imagination on fire—he had to bite his lower lip to keep from moaning aloud. The first clip came undone and he slid his hands behind her thigh to unhook the other one. The backs of his fingers touching her sleek flesh, his wrists coming into contact with the soft hairs on her thighs made his cock as rigid as petrified wood. It stabbed at his leather pants in an effort to break free.

He gently rolled the stocking down her leg and when she lifted her foot, he peeled it off, laying it aside. Swallowing like a green youth, he moved to the other garter, dragging breath into his lungs in ragged gasps. By the time he had that stocking off and had lifted it to his face to inhale the scent of her body he was in acute pain between his legs. When he felt her fingers raking through his hair, he could not stop the whimper from escaping his throat.

“I have dreamed of this day for so long,” she said.

“Milady,” was all he could reply. He dared say no more for fear he would begin to jabber like a fool and start reciting sonnets to her toes or something equally as embarrassing.

It took very little effort to peel the garter belt from her body and she was bare from the waist down, the sleek pale hair at her thighs beckoning him to touch it. He would have if she had not tightened her grip in his hair and pulled his head back tenderly.

“My camisole?” she reminded him.

“Aye,” he said, and shot to his feet so quickly he startled a laugh from her. She was looking at him as an overly fond mother would her recalcitrant child and it rocked him to his very core. It had been so long since anyone had looked at him in that way that it tore through him like molten lava.

“I love you, my Owen,” she said on a breath of sound.

He slipped his fingers under the lacy straps of her camisole and slipped them over her shoulders. The lace-edged silk slid from her body like perfumed oil and fell to her feet, laying her bare for his hot gaze.

“Touch me,” she said in a throaty voice.

With reverent care he laid his hands to her lush breasts and closed his eyes to the feel of them nestled in his palms. Her nipples were swollen and poked eagerly against his fervent clasp. He kneaded those sweet globes oh-so tenderly, pressed ever so gently against their engorged peaks, pulled his fingers down the circumference until he could pluck at those sweet nubs, could twist them lovingly as her head fell back, her long blonde hair swinging down below the cusp of her ass.

He wanted to taste that sun-kissed flesh, draw her nipples deep into his mouth and suckle like a babe would its mother. He wanted to drag his tongue across those turgid peaks, lap at her, lick her and fondle her until he was as satiated as any man could be, but there was a scent calling to him that was so much more potent than the allure of her beautiful breasts. He could not ignore that siren’s call and he sank to his knees once more and buried his face against the crisp hairs between her legs.

“Owen!” she cried out, and clutched his head with both her hands as he pressed hard kisses to her curls.

He was lost in that tangy scent, his mind reeling with the heat that pulsed from her silken folds. Unable to resist, he pulled back and put his fingers to her nether lips, spreading her apart so he could gaze upon the promise that awaited him. He looked his fill then moved his fingers up to softly push aside the hood that covered her clitoris. With even more infinite care, he placed his lips to that swollen protrusion and suckled.

Her hands tensed in his hair and he could hear her gasping for breath. His worship of her was instilling the same lustful needs within her that were blazing through his taut body. His cock was so hard he could barely stand the burning pain of it but he had no intention of ending his self-imposed torture so soon. He had yet to taste the essence of her, to bring her to climax, to make her come for him and that was a goal he would defy the very gods to see done.

Flicking his tongue all around her clit then stabbing it down one silky fold and up the other, he smiled as she ground her hips against him. She wanted what he would give but she had no idea what that was yet. She knew he was playing her like a fine instrument but she wanted the music to burst forth, needed to hear those sweet sounds roaring in her ears. She was pressing her sex to him in such need he could not keep on tormenting her.

He slipped one finger slowly inside her wet sheath and she drew in a harsh, ragged breath.

He slipped another finger into that sweet moistness and began to move his fingers in and out of her, going deeper, staying in longer with each slow thrust.

“Owen!” she protested, and writhed against his invasion. Her hips lurched against his face.

He knew the itch was starting high up inside her. He could feel the pulsing of her tender flesh around his invading fingers. He knew she was so close—so close—to ecstasy and he reveled in the knowledge that it would be he who took her to that wondrous place for the first time.

With his tongue making little spirals on her clit, he increased the rhythm of his plunges into her silken channel. He pushed harder insider her.

She was panting now and the very first tremor rippled through her cunt.

“Owen!” she screamed.

He pulled his lips from her clit. “Come for me, baby,” he said. “Come for your Reaper.”

Before she could make another sound, he latched his lips onto her clit and suckled hard.

Her climax was so intense, so powerful, he had to wrap his free arm around her hips and brace her plump little ass to keep her knees from buckling beneath her. With strength only one of his kind possessed, he lifted her—her legs splayed to either side of his neck, and lay her down, pushing his fingers deep inside her as the last of the little squeezes milked his flesh. Even as the last wave rippled away, he continued to suckle her, to lick and lap at her so-sensitive flesh until she begged him to stop, dragging on his hair in an effort to pull his mouth from her sex.

“No more,” she pleaded. “No more.”

His cock so hard he could barely kneel on the ground, he straightened up and began ripping away his clothing. The silk shirt tore easily. He shredded it and shrugged it from his shoulders. Fumbling at the buttons of his leather pants, he finally grabbed both sides of the opened waistband and ripped the gods-be-damned thing open to free his burning, throbbing shaft.

He braced himself on his knees between her legs, one hand planted by her shoulder as he bent forward to finally taste those wondrous globes that beckoned him to ply his tongue and teeth and lips across them. He greedily suckled her, licked her, swirled his tongue over her nipples, drew them between his teeth and then, when he could stand no more of the temptation, slid his hand to the base of his cock to position himself at her entrance.

Just as he thrust toward her, the hardness in his hand disappeared. His eyes flew wide and he snapped his head down to see what was wrong only to find there was nothing there between his legs but spurting blood where his cock had once hung.

Chapter Two

Those gathered in the barracks room were quiet as another pitiful burst of whimpering came from the patient on the bed. Here in the Colony it was unheard of for a man to make such wretched cries. Illness was not something with which the people had to deal and it deeply bothered those who viewed it. The sounds tore at the nerves and the pathetic pleading that made no sense to them worried the mind.

For a week Owen Tohre lay naked on his belly chained to a bed as the convulsions racking his body came and went. He was without clothing for he complained they itched and burned his flesh. He had to be restrained for the hallucinations that had taken hold of him were so strong, it was feared he would do harm to himself. In his besieged mind, his captors were torturing him, driving sharp needles into his flesh and causing his hands and feet to go numb. He shivered with cold then sweated profusely, soaking the mattress with perspiration and urine. The headaches caused him to groan and moan continually, thus leading those caring for him to remark that the pain had to be nearly unbearable. He cried out at images only he could see and cringed away from helpful hands trying to soothe him. He seemed to be getting worse.

On the seventh day, he managed to stay calm long enough to sip tepid broth through a hollow reed though the bland liquid fared no better at staying down than had the cool water upon which he’d been subsisting.

“What manner of man is he that his wounds close so quickly?” Elder Vaughn asked. He had been observing the abrasions on the patient’s wrists fading as he slept.

“He is a Reaper,” High Elder Chamberlain said to the other three men in the room.

“We do not know that for a surety,” Elder Vaughn stated.

“The dark blue marking on the left side of his face is a Reaper clan tattoo,” Elder Barrow put in. “I saw it on the Reaper who is the law in the Michinoh Territory.”

“Similar but not the same,” Elder Dayton remarked. “I too saw that tattoo on the Reaper in Michinoh. Each Reaper clan has a different tribal marking.”

“If he is a Reaper, he may be near to Transitioning!” Elder Vaughn gasped. He glanced fearfully at the bed. “Will the shackles hold him?”

“Nay, they will not hold him when the time comes but he is too weak now for that to be a problem,” High Elder Chamberlain told them. “He has not eaten since Elder Carlton brought him to us. He has been too ill to even hold down water and you saw what happened with the broth. He has no more strength than that of the child whose life he saved. I doubt he is capable of harming anyone.”

“Aye, but ill from what?” Elder Dayton asked. “From all I have heard of their race, the evil within them cures all sickness. What has befallen this one that his parasite can not heal him?”

“You need not worry about his illness being contagious. The healer says not. Tell me again what you found in his saddlebags,” High Elder Chamberlain asked.

“You are asking after the elixir and the needle?” Elder Barrow wanted clarified. At High Elder Chamberlain’s nod, Elder Barrow shrugged. “Our healer could not identify what was in the glass bottles. He has never seen its like.”

“And there were many such empty bottles?”

“Aye, there were over a dozen,” Elder Barrow replied.

“Which most likely means it is an elixir he must take often. If that is the case, perhaps he is ill from lack of having it,” Elder Vaughn suggested. He cast another fearful glance at the Reaper. “Should we perhaps give him a portion of the drug and see if it will help his condition?”

“But how much is a portion, Elder Vaughn?” Elder Dayton inquired. “An entire bottle? A few drops? How much?”

High Elder Chamberlain exhaled a long breath. “We should send word to the Bastion that we have one of the Citadel’s men in our Colony. They will know what to do with him. It is a certainty we do not.”

“A wise idea yet it will take several days to make the trek to the Bastion,” Elder Barrow said. “Who should we send?”

“I will go in the morning,” Elder Dayton volunteered. “I have not left the Colony for some time and it was my grandson he saved from death’s door. It is my duty to go.”

“What do we do with him until then?” Elder Vaughn asked. “The man is in agony.”

“All we can do is care for him as best we can until we know what else may be done,” High Elder Chamberlain replied. “I have asked Sister Rachel to give him a bath this day. Perhaps that will help.”

“I cannot see where it would do any harm,” Elder Dayton responded.

“Where are his weapons?” Elder Barrow queried.

“Locked away in a safe place,” High Elder Chamberlain answered.

“That is a relief,” Elder Barrow declared. “I would not want such wicked things to find their way into impressionable hands.”

“They will not and we will continue to be circumspect in who knows the Reaper is here. He may have enemies lurking about who caused this illness. We can not know for sure until he is cognizant and can perhaps tell us what ails him,” High Elder Chamberlain said.

There was a light knock on the door and Elder Dayton went over to open it. He stepped aside as a young woman in a long, shapeless black dress that covered her from beneath her chin to the tops of her black boots came in carrying a basin of water and a towel draped over her black-clad arm. She nodded respectfully at the men.

“I will warn you, Sister Rachel, your patient has the use of many foul words in his vocabulary. Pay no attention to his ravings. I am sure he would not speak so if he were in his right mind,” High Elder Chamberlain told her.

The young woman nodded, the long side strings of the black opaque head covering that fit over her ears and hid nearly all of her pale hair swaying lightly against the front of her shapeless gown.

“Stay and unbind him when ’tis necessary, Elder Barrow, and turn him so she may cleanse his chest and vitals,” High Elder Chamberlain instructed as he motioned for the other men to precede him from the room.

Elder Barrow glanced at the young woman and saw heat infusing her high cheeks as she sat the basin on a table beside the bed. “I will see to it, your honor. Though he is weak, I would ask that I have an extra pair of hands should he become unruly.”

“I will send in my son,” Elder Dayton said. “He is much obliged to the outsider for saving Jonas’ life. Bathe your patient as best you can, Sister Rachel, until Brother Edward joins you.”

Once again the young woman nodded. It was not her place to speak before the elders and had she so much as uttered a single word, would have been severely beaten for her thoughtlessness.

Rachel Lawrence barely glanced at the sweaty man lying on the bed. With his arms and legs securely lashed to the iron uprights of the bed, he could do no more than writhe on the mattress. Because his was the first naked male body she had ever seen, she felt a nervousness that made her hands tremble as she dipped a rag into the warm water, slathered it with a bar of the lye soap she took from the voluminous pocket of her gown and then wrung it out. Very gently she ran the rag from the bound man’s right wrist to his elbow.

The door opened quietly and a tall, very muscular man came into the room. The front of his dark blue shirt was plastered to his chest and his face was sweaty. He closed the door just as quietly behind him and stood with his arms folded over his broad chest. He nodded respectfully at the elder, unable to speak to him until the elder spoke.

“How goes the ironwork today, Brother Edward?” Elder Barrow inquired.

“It goes well, thank you,” the tall man replied. Being the Colony’s chief blacksmith, his was a dirty, tiring job and he welcomed the respite coming into the sick room afforded him.

“Don’t!”

Rachel jumped as she ran the washrag over her patient’s shoulder and he jerked, his head coming up, eyes snapping open. He turned a furious face toward her and she was stunned that he wore no beard at his age. In that initial moment of staring into his enraged amber eyes, Rachel felt something inside her give way, melt, break free, and she began to hear the blood pounding through her ears.

“Don’t put your hands on me, wench!” he yelled at her. He pulled mightily against his bonds, his wrists already bleeding from the constant tugging.

“Continue with your task, Sister Rachel,” Elder Barrow said calmly. “He can not do harm to you. Ignore his statements.”

It was more than just the fact that the outsider had no hair on his face but that his face was by far the most handsome she had ever seen. His dark hair—streaked with sweat—was falling in waves over eyes the color of rich amber. She wanted to push it from his eye, run her fingers through it, to stroke his sweaty cheek. She wanted him to put those muscular arms around her and hold her.

Her lower lip tucked between her teeth, Rachel rinsed the rag out again and soaped it, wrung it out and laid it carefully on the man’s back. Such feelings for a man were forbidden, sinful, yet she wanted desperately to lie down beside him and take him into her arms.

“Don’t touch me, you bitch!” he screamed at her. “Don’t put your filthy hands on me again!”

No one in the room had any way of knowing that the hallucinations plaguing the patient were far more sinister than a mere woman bathing his fevered flesh. In his mind, he was seeing a spindly thin pale gray creature with large eyes the color of pitch leaning over him. He was jerking madly at the shackles and causing his skin to split farther apart at the wrists and ankles.

Elder Barrow walked over to the bed. “Be calm, Lord Reaper.” He gave the young woman a stern look. “Finish bathing him.” He hunkered down by the bed, placing a gentle hand on the Reaper’s shoulder.

Owen snapped his head around, his teeth bared, his breath coming in gasps. He frowned at seeing a man kneeling there.

“Listen to me, milord,” Elder Barrow said. “We are merely trying to help you. No one is attempting to harm you or molest you in any way.” He reached up to smooth the hair back from the patient’s eyes. “You have been very ill and you must be bathed. It will make you feel much better. Try to lie still until it is done.”

“Don’t let her cut me,” Owen pleaded, his eyes welling with tears, his lower lip trembling. “Please don’t let her do that to me again.”

Elder Barrow glanced at Brother Edward, who went immediately to the other side of the bed. The blacksmith braced one hand on the tall iron headboard, keeping well out of Rachel’s way.

“No one is going to hurt you, milord,” Elder Barrow assured him, distracting him from the task at hand. He continued to stroke the patient’s hair and talk softly to him as Sister Rachel made quick work of bathing his back and legs. When she was finished, she looked up at Edward. “Unlock the shackles on his ankles. I will see to this wrist.” He caught Rachel’s eyes. “See to the other, Sister.”

Rachel’s heart went out to the patient as she saw the damage he’d already done to his wrist. It was chafed raw all the way around it and the flesh was broken open in places, oozing blood. As gently as she could, she unbound him.

“Help me to ease him over, Brother Edward,” Elder Barrow asked.

Owen whimpered as the two men put hands to his shoulder and hip and rolled him to his back. The moment the younger of the two moved to the foot of the bed and the older lifted the Reaper’s arm, he knew they were about to shackle him again.

“No!” Owen bellowed, and lashed out, trying to kick the man at the foot of the bed and keep the one at the head from locking the shackle into place on his wrist. “Don’t!”

Rachel had stepped back to allow the men to do what needed to be done. Her face was pressed into a horrified expression as he fought them, striving to break free of their hold. The language he threw at them made her gasp for the cursing was not only vulgar but murderously so and took the name of the Great God in vain.

Elder Barrow could not bear hearing the Great God’s name spoken with such disrespect even if the man doing so was out of his mind with fever and illness. He clamped his hand over Owen’s mouth and held his lips shut though the patient continued to grunt beneath the obstruction and writhe furiously on the mattress.

“He is a strong one even with such a fever,” he said to Brother Edward.

“I have heard of the Reaper insignia but never thought to see one,” Edward remarked, nudging his chin toward the crimson brand of a stylized Grim Reaper that had been laser burned into the patient’s left pectoral.

“An evil thing it is,” Elder Barrow said. “It must have been excruciatingly painful when applied.” He was struggling to keep the Reaper’s mouth shut as Rachel hurried back to the bed and began bathing the squirming man’s arms and chest. She moved as fast as she could yet do as thorough a job as possible under the circumstances. She came around the other side of the bed and did that arm and portion of his chest, trying to keep her wandering eyes from the thick muscles of his chest and the thick mat of hair covering it and dipped in a long straight line to the triangle of wiry curls at the apex of his thighs.

Though she had seen her little brothers when they were small children, she had not seen the staff of a male once he had reached maturity. This was the first time she had been asked to care for an injured male and she knew it would not be her last, but the sight of what lay between his thighs and knowing she had to touch it sent chills down her spine. It wasn’t right. It was blasphemous but she wanted to stroke his vital. She wanted to feel it between her fingers. She began to tremble from the force of the need welling up forbidden inside her.

“Get on with it, Sister Rachel,” Elder Barrow said, scowling as he saw where her attention had gone. “If you are to be a Daughter of Mercy for the healer, such you will see and touch on occasion. There is no disgrace in it.”

Her cheeks flaming, Rachel sloshed water all over her as she rewet the fleece rag and slicked it with the lye soap. When she turned with her eyes locked on the Reaper’s staff, her patient howled behind the restriction of Elder Barrow’s hand.

“By Jehovah’s beard!” Elder Barrow shrieked, snatching his hand away. His palm was bleeding where the Reaper had sunk his fangs into the tender flesh.

“Don’t touch me!” Owen screamed. “Gods be damn it, don’t you dare touch me, you fucking slut! Keep your hands off me! If you touch me, I’ll kill you, bitch!”

Brother Edward’s jaw tightened and he snatched up another clean cloth and came purposefully to the head of the bed. He grabbed Owen’s jaw and forced the cloth between his lips, being careful not to allow the fangs to snare him then cupped the Reaper’s chin. Pressing his jaw closed to hold the gag in place.

The entire bed shook beneath the wild thrashing of the Reaper. He was screaming behind the gag and jerking so forcefully on his bonds she was afraid he would snap a wrist or ankle.

“Sister Rachel!” Elder Barrow snapped. “Do what needs to be done.”

Those words set the Reaper off even more and the elder had to put his hands to the man’s chest and belly to keep him on the mattress. Edward’s face showed the strain of trying to keep the patient’s head still.

The moment Rachel laid the rag on the Reaper’s cock, he shrieked behind the gag, bucking like a mad man in his attempts to break free. She was as gentle with him as she could be but the very thought of touching his naked flesh, seeing that long, thick member up close, made it nearly impossible for her to draw a decent breath. Not for the first time did she curse her lot in life at having been born a woman. Men of the Colony were not allowed to touch other men—outsider or not—where she was touching this one—and it mortified her very soul.

Owen was gasping for breath, having sucked a portion of the gag down his throat to block his airway. His face was turning red with the effort but he was lost in a brutal place, irrational fear raking him with sharp spurs. He had been snapped back to Calizonia and to the Ceannus bitch who had taken a blade to his manhood, preparing to slice it off in one savage swipe, ripping it away instead. The pain had been worse than any Transference or Transition could ever be and though his parasite had healed the wound, had regenerated his flesh, he still bore the terror that he had been unmanned and believed he would be forever. The terror of seeing the alien hag with knife in hand still visited his nightmares. In that terror, he could feel the nick of the blade across his shrinking flesh.

“He is choking, Brother Edward,” Elder Barrow said. “Remove the gag. We will have to contend with his vulgarities.”

Edward nodded and released his hold on the patient’s chin. He snatched away the gag, his face puckered with concern when the man on the bed drew in a harsh, ragged breath, gulping in the air. “I humbly beg your pardon, milord,” he apologized.

Rachel ran the washrag over the outsider’s sac gently but thoroughly then with her face crimson red, stepped back, dropped the cloth into the basin and stood there trembling from head to toe with mortification.

“You did well, sister,” Elder Barrow said. “You may leave now.”

She couldn’t get out of the room quickly enough and when Edward moved to the door and opened it for her, she glanced up at him with relieved thanks before hurrying out into the hallway. Once outside, she slumped against the wall, panting, the sight of the outsider entrenched firmly in her mind.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” Daphne, her father’s maid, had once asked.

“Nay,” Rachel had declared. “There is no such thing.”

Rachel knew now that she had inadvertently lied. There was such a thing and she had stared it in the face.

Owen was shivering uncontrollably, lost in whatever hell in which he’d tumbled. There was blood on his lips and when Elder Barrow asked Edward to wipe away the blood, the Reaper flinched and moaned piteously.

Edward glanced at the elder with concern. “Someone has tortured this man in the past,” he observed. “In a vile, vile way.”

Elder Barrow bent over the bed and gently took the outsider’s chin in his hand and turned the bound man’s face toward him. “Who hurt you, milord?” he asked in a soft, caring voice as he caressed Owen’s cheek. “Was it a woman?”

“Aye,” Owen whispered. He could barely breathe for the fear he would be emasculated again was still lancing through his chest.

The elder nodded knowingly. “I thought as much.” He smoothed the tumbled hair back from the Reaper’s brow. “Here at the Colony you have no need to worry of such things happening to you. The elders and brothers have firm control of our women. Here, you are safe from those who would hurt you. Sister Rachel was bathing you, nothing more, and we were right here with you.”

Closing his eyes, Owen squeezed them tightly shut, dragging deep breaths into his depleted lungs.

“The elixir in your saddlebags, do you need it?” Elder Barrow asked.

It took Owen a moment to realize what the older man was asking him. “The tenerse?” he inquired, licking his lips.

Elder Barrow straightened up, disapproval falling over his craggy face. “Is that what it is?”

“It keeps me from Transitioning out of cycle,” Owen said, striving to calm his breathing. Sweat was dripping into his eyes, stinging him, and blinked away the discomfort.

The elder’s eyes widened. “When was your last change?” he asked, his voice barely audible.

The Reaper’s head thrashed back and forth on the pillow. “I don’t remember,” he admitted. “I don’t even know how I came to be here.”

“You saved my son’s life,” Edward spoke up. “And I will forever be in your debt.”

A fleeting memory of diving into filthy, oily water drifted through Owen’s mind. “He should not have been fishing in that shit.”

Elder Barrow winced at the vulgarity but smiled. “And his backside and the backsides of his friends were sufficiently heated to remind them of that,” he told the Reaper. “Luckily no fish was caught.”

“I believe it was more the act of fishing than the act of catching that drew them to the Forbidden Zone,” Brother Edward said.

“It was more the act of sneaking away to the Forbidden Zone is my guess,” Elder Barrow said with a snort.

“I am sure you are right,” Edward agreed.

“May we ask your name, brother?” Elder Barrow inquired.

Owen was breathing slower though his head was a tight band of sheer agony. He was cold and still shivering and was grateful when the younger man pulled the blanket up over his nakedness.

“Tohre,” he replied. “Owen Tohre.”

“It is an honor, Brother Owen. I am Elder Barrow Graves and this is Brother Edward Dayton.” He hastily put a hand to his chest. “I am sorry. Forgive me. I should address you as Lord Owen, should I not?”

“It’s just Owen,” he said then frowned. “Where’s my horse?”

“Your mount is being cared for,” Edward told him. “He is in my stable.”

“Thank you,” Owen said.

“If you will tell us how to draw up your elixir and how much to give you, we will have the healer do so,” Elder Barrow told Owen.

The Reaper tugged against the restraints holding his wrists. “Unchain me,” he asked. “I can’t stand being bound like this.”

Elder Barrow’s forehead creased with worry. “Are you sure it is safe to do so?”

“I’m not going to shift any time soon,” he replied. “If you’ll bring me the saddlebags, I can inject myself.”

Elder Barrow looked up at Edward. “Do as he asks, brother.”

Edward turned and left, quietly closing the door behind him as the elder began unlocking the shackles.

“We would not have confined you so if you had not been hallucinating,” Elder Barrow explained.

“It was the tenerse,” Owen said. “I took too much of it.”

The elder had moved to the foot of the bed. “Then should you take more?”

“How long have I been here?”

“Tomorrow will begin your second week.”

Owen sighed, amazed he’d been out of it for so long. “It’s a good thing I had so much tenerse in my system or I would have Transitioned by now. Even going a day without the tenerse has consequences for my kind.”

“Then it is something you must take daily?” Elder Barrow asked.

“Aye. I don’t have any choice in the matter.”

His right wrist and both ankles were free and the older man was moving to the head of the bed to unlock his left wrist.

“We do not believe in taking elixirs that addict the user to them,” Elder Barrow stated, “but I can see where this particular elixir would have benefit to you.”

Owen knew he’d been abusing the drug and needed to taper off but he couldn’t remember how much he’d taken the last time. He guessed he’d find out if the dose he injected didn’t calm the raging pain pounding between his temples.

“One of our elders brought up the question of what we should do with you if you do Transition,” Elder Barrow said.

“I will need to be locked away where I can’t harm anyone,” Owen said honestly. “Hopefully I’ll be gone from here before that happens.”

“You are welcome to stay as long as you like,” the older man said.

There was a light tap at the door then Edward came into the room with Owen’s saddlebags. He brought them over to the bed. “You are feeling better?” he inquired.

“My head feels like it’s on an anvil,” Owen answered. He held up his hand. “But I’m not shaking like I was.”

“I have had headaches such as that,” Edward admitted. “A cold cloth and a dark room seem to help.”

“Aye,” Owen agreed. “They do.”

Opening the saddlebags, Owen took out a vial of tenerse and the vac-syringe. He loaded the syringe quickly and efficiently.

“We do not have manufactured elixirs here,” Elder Barrow said. “Our elixirs are prepared as needed from natural things.”

“I guess you could call this natural,” Owen said as he thumped down an air bubble in the syringe. “It is made from a fungus that grows on stalks of rye.”

“Ah,” Elder Barrow said. “So it is not artificially created.”

“No,” Owen said. He swallowed then reached up to plunge the needle into his neck. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw both men wince.

“Does that hurt?” Edward asked with awe in his voice.

“Like a motherfu…” Owen’s face turned red and he dipped his eye. “Aye, it hurts.” He put the syringe down and rubbed the injection site to help disperse the burning pain lodged there.

“Would you like something to eat?” Edward asked. “You must be…”

“No,” Owen said. His mouth and lips had gone numb and that wasn’t a good sign. “Not right now.”

“Then we will let you rest,” Elder Barrow said. “Sister Rachel will be on duty outside your door. Should you need anything, do not hesitate to ask.” He put a hand on the Reaper’s calf and squeezed lightly. “Anything you desire of her, simply ask. She is obliged to provide it.”

When the men left, Owen threw back the covers. He had difficulty pushing himself to a sitting position but he was burning up, sour sweat pouring off him in waves that made him sick to his stomach to smell. He leaned against the ironwork headboard of the bed with his hands braced on the mattress, panting with the simple effort of sitting up. Though his mouth and lips were numb, his hands and feet tingling as though they’d been asleep, his head was a crushing, roaring torment that made him want to bang it against the iron. With hands trembling violently, he put his fingertips to his temples and rubbed, pressing hard against the violating agony.

“Merciful Morrigunia, make it stop!” he whispered, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. “Please make it stop!”

His parasite shifted brutally within his back and he cried out, falling over to his side, drawing his knees up as the hellion raked Her spiny barbs along the inner muscles of his back. He dug his fingers into his scalp, his palms plastered over his ears.

“Make it stop,” he pleaded, tears welling in his eyes.

He did not hear the door open nor the soft footsteps that approached the bed but the sweet smell of lemongrass drifted under his nostrils and he opened his eyes. He saw a young woman placing a large porcelain basin on the table beside the bed and lay there shuddering as she took a washcloth from the pocket of her black gown and laid it in the water.

Rachel had been ordered to listen for any signs of distress from the patient. As soon as she’d heard the outsider cry out, she hastened to do the elder’s bidding. She wanted to care for this man. She wanted no other to touch him—to ever touch him. She wanted it to be her hands that healed him, her body to which he clung when he was well. Such thoughts were not only forbidden, they were hopeless for he was an outsider and to lay hands to him in any encouraging way would be a wicked transgression.

“A cool cloth upon his brow would be of help, sister,” Elder Barrow had instructed. “Stay with him until he falls asleep. You may speak with him only if he desires it but do not instigate conversation. Do not touch any portion of his body save his brow. Is that understood?”

She had nodded in agreement, too afraid of the elder to speak.

Rachel wrung out the washcloth, folded it and turned to her patient. His amber eyes were narrowed in obvious pain, his handsome face showing the strain. Trying not to think about what she was going to do, she put a gentle hand over his and pressed lightly to make him move his fingers so she could lay the cloth on his forehead.

Owen hurt too badly to protest. He slid his hands from his head, clasped them and stuck them between his thighs, shivering so badly his teeth were clicking together.

With the cool cloth in place, Rachel reached for the sheet to cover him.

“Don’t,” he said, swallowing hard. He wasn’t cold although he realized she must think he was considering he was trembling so forcefully. “Burning up.” Once more he squeezed his eyes shut.

His plight touched her tender heart. He seemed to be in such agony. His flesh was hot to the touch and sweat glistened on his upper lip, ran in slow rivulets down his broad chest to trickle through the thick mat of hair there. Knowing the cloth was already warm to the touch, she took it from his brow—frowning at the heat coming from the material—and rewet it. Placing it on his head, she sinned again by putting her fingertips to his temples to begin a slow, gentle circuit as her mother used to do for her when she was a child.

Owen’s eyelids fluttered open. The scent of her flesh so close to him and her tender touch soothed him. “That feels good, wench,” he told her.

She massaged his temples until he closed his eyes then removed the cloth to wet it again.

“What’s your name?” he asked. She took so long to answer, he thought she might be mute, but at last she spoke.

“I am Sister Rachel,” she said, and her voice was as comforting as her touch.

“Rachel,” he repeated. He drew her womanly scent deep into his lungs. “I am Owen, Rachel.”

“It is an honor, Lord Owen,” she said. She liked the name, thought it very masculine and it fit the man who owned it.

“Just Owen,” he told her, beginning to be very aware of her but it wasn’t an awareness that he should be having at that moment and he knew it.

“I may not call you just by your given name, Lord Owen,” she said. “It is not permitted for a woman to show such disrespect for a man.”

The awareness was increasing at an alarming rate and that portion of him he feared would never again rise to the occasion was hardening, becoming engorged, actually beginning to throb. Though it should have been a welcome relief to know his cock still worked, now wasn’t the time to find it out.

“Is this helping, Lord Owen?” Her fingertips were still making tiny circles on his pounding temples.

Owen caught himself before he told her it was helping but not in the way she meant. Her help was doing things to him he hadn’t felt in several months and—a month ago—never thought to feel again.

“Ah, aye, it does,” he managed to respond.

“If you want anything, all you have to do is ask,” she said, remembering what Elder Barrow had instructed.

Under normal circumstances, Owen Tohre was a very considerate man and polite to females to a fault. His mother had raised him to protect and cherish the women in his life and his love for Siobhan had only reinforced those teachings. Though he had lost the woman he loved long ago and had never considered taking a mate, the Reaper was suddenly experiencing urges that he knew were wrong. Before he could stop, he heard himself say…

“I want you, wench.”

Chapter Three

Rachel’s hands stilled and her eyes grew as big as saucers in her pale face. She stood like a statue—afraid to look down at the gleaming eyes that were staring up at her. Barely even breathing, she slowly closed the lips that had fallen apart with astonishment at his words and tried to swallow past the thick lump in her throat. Slowly, very, very slowly, her gaze lowered to the man on the bed.

By all that was holy—and a lot that wasn’t—he had to be the most handsome man she’d ever had the pleasure to look upon. She knew as surely as she drew breath that she had already lost her heart to this stranger. Through magic or mischance, he had slithered into her soul and taken up residence there. With his coal black hair and those remarkable golden brown eyes spiked with indecently long eyelashes, those full lips and a muscular body that seem to beckon her roaming hands, to her inexperienced mind he was near perfection. How it could be she’d fallen so quickly and so deeply in love, she did not know, but instinct—and her treacherous body—assured her she had.

He was looking up at her through those wicked lashes with the spark of fever making his eyes sparkle and she felt as though she were being drawn down into an amber whirlpool. She felt warm all over and her knees were actually weak.

“Do you belong to someone?” she heard him ask, and could only shake her head. When he asked if she was betrothed, she drew in a long, harsh gasp and shook her head again and when he asked why not she blinked.

“Pardon?” she whispered, pulling her hands from his temples and stepping back.

“Why don’t you belong to a man, wench?” he repeated. “A fine-looking woman like you shouldn’t be about unclaimed.”

His words sent shivers down her sides and made her very womb tighten. She squeezed her butt cheeks together for a sudden rush of something hot seemed to ooze from the core of her. She took another few steps back.

Some perverse little imp deep inside Owen Tohre that he didn’t even know he possessed reared its hateful little head—or perhaps it was the hellion’s doing—but no matter what caused it, he turned over to his back, stretching his legs out, and a faint, knowing smile slowly tugged at his face when he saw Rachel’s gaze automatically lower to his crotch. He saw her eyes widen and her lips part for he was fully erect.

“It can be yours,” he said, and could have bitten off his tongue. Where the hell had such a vulgar statement come from? He felt his ears burning.

Rachel’s attention snapped back to his face and hers turned so deep a shade of red he thought she’d explode. She stumbled backward until her back pressed up against the door. She reached behind her, fumbling for the handle, but her eyes were still on his cock and that part of him was standing at attention.

“All of it can be yours,” he said with a deep, throaty growl. “Down to the last drop.”

Damn! he thought, his own eyes wide. Why the hell couldn’t he shut up? What had gotten into him? He ought to be horsewhipped!

Rachel lifted her chin. “I…I am v-virgin, Lord Owen!” she protested.

“I can take care of that, wench,” he growled, and with the practiced ease of his kind, silently commanded her to come to him. When she didn’t move, he narrowed his eyes. “Come here.”

Enthrallment was something he would not normally have used, had never used—never needed to use—before but Owen Tohre was acting under a strange enthrallment of his own. One he did not understand and could not stop even had he desired to do so. Pushing aside any feelings of guilt or remorse, he issued the call again in a low, throaty growl that brooked no resistance.

“Come here, wench.”

The demand in his tone and the allurement in his eyes was more than an innocent country girl could ignore. Her gaze locked on his, she came toward him like a dream walker.

In the corner of the room, invisible to the two humans, flame-haired Morrigunia, the Triune Goddess, sat perched in midair, Her shapely legs crossed at the knee, Her arms folded over Her lush breasts, She observed what She had set into motion. It had been such an easy thing to spread the budding seed of passion in a young woman starved for affection and attention, and easier still to make that seed bloom into the deep abiding love Rachel Lawrence had been all too willing to give.

The goddess’s sharp eyes never strayed from Her Reaper for he among the seven males of his kind She had brought to Terra was Her favorite. He had died for love and that made him very special in Her eyes. He needed what was happening here and She meant to see it done. The female meant nothing to Her—was little more than a means to an end—so She ignored the trembling creature.

Rachel came to the bed and stood there demurely, her hands clasped fiercely in front of her.

“Let me touch you,” Owen said in a gruff voice.

From some wellspring deep within her psyche, Rachel listened to the soft, insistent voice that told her to sit on the edge of the bed and turn so her body faced the man lying there.

Owen put his hand on her breast and kneaded it gently. He was surprised she wore no garment to restrain her breast and could feel the stab of her nipple beneath the coarse gown that covered her. He eased his thumb over her nipple until it was a hard little pebble beneath the pad of his flesh.

“Touch me,” he commanded, and caught his breath in, shocked at his daring.

Rachel turned a bit more on the bed until she could reach behind her to place the flat of her hand on his broad chest. Her eyes were glazed as of their own accord her fingers threaded through the wiry mat of curls covering his hard muscles.

“Say my name,” he said, his breath heavy as her fingers continued to caress him.

“Lord Owen.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Only Owen.”

“Owen.” His name on her tongue was the sweetest thing he had ever heard. It rivaled the soft soughing of the wind on a cool autumn day.

“Put your hand around my cock.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he squeezed his eyes shut. This was wrong! What the hell was the matter with him? How could he be so crude? He started to ask her pardon for his behavior but it was too late. Her fingers curled gently around his shaft and he was lost.

A trembling, shuddery breath left the Reaper’s lungs and his fever soared but it was not from the illness that his temperature climbed but from the intense pleasure her soft hand spread through his burning, aching groin. He couldn’t have spoken then if their lives depended upon him doing so. Her fingers flexed around him and he went perfectly still.

Rachel cocked her head to one side as words slithered like a nest of snakes through her mind.

“Ease your hand up and down his staff.”

Gently, she did as the voice bid, lightly squeezing his flesh as she was bade to do. She increased the rhythm, her hold, until the organ sheathed in her hand was as hard as stone.

“Put your thumb over the head of his staff and spread the moisture you will find there.”

He lifted his head as her thumb moved over him. The edge of her fingernail was trailing along the slit and another bead of pre-cum oozed up.

“Taste it.”

Owen was so amazed when her tongue flicked across the heard of his swollen shaft that he had to forcefully stamp down the urge to arch his hips up in invitation.

“Take him into your mouth.”

He could not hear the carnal instructions being sent to Rachel so all he could do was lie there in astonishment as her lips closed around him.

Rachel shifted her eyes to the Reaper’s face for he had groaned so loudly, so forcefully, she thought perhaps she had hurt him but the voice inside her head told her she hadn’t.

“Suckle him. Draw upon his shaft with your mouth as you sweep your tongue over the tip. Cup his sac with your free hand and massage it gently in counter-time.”

Blood was pounding in his temples but the pain of the headache was forgotten by the hot, moist sensations as she slid her lips to the base of him and his shaft eased slowly down her throat. He feared she would gag but her mouth was relaxed around him, pulling on the essence that ached to spurt forth.

Rachel knew she had control over this man. He was lying there with his hands gripping the sheet as though his life depended upon it. His neck was arched back, his dark hair tousled on the pillow. Though his eyes were wide open, she knew he was staring unseeingly at the ceiling as she gently palmed his scrotum and swirled her tongue around his staff. It was a heady feeling that she had such power over him for the females of her acquaintance had no authority in their male-dominated society.

“Release him and stand. Remove your garment that he may touch you as he wishes.”

Unaware the beautiful woman sitting there beside him was receiving subliminal messages from the amused entity sitting unseen in the corner of the room, Owen gasped as Rachel removed her mouth from him, stood and jerked the shapeless black gown from her body in one fell swoop. He stared at her lush, perfectly crafted female shape and felt his cock harden to the point of bursting.

Obeying the commands only she could hear, Rachel put one knee on the mattress and pushed her hips toward him, giving him a good view of the patch of pale hair at the apex of her thighs.

“You are beautiful,” he sighed, and put a hand to her soft flesh.

His fingers trailed along her inner thigh and then he turned his palm to cup her sex, tenderly rubbing his hand back and forth between her legs, abrading her soft folds.

Rachel felt moisture seeping from her body and let her head fall back, her eyes close, to the exquisite awareness she had never known existed.

“By the gods you smell so sweet,” he said, the scent of her womanly folds drifting to him in intoxicating waves. He gently stroked her sensitive nub, spiraling two fingers like rasps over her clit.

“Ah…” Rachel said with a hiss. She rotated her hips in entreaty.

Owen slid his hand farther between her legs, spreading her cunt lips apart as he V-ed his fingers. His warm, calloused fingers found her wet for him and when he slipped them inside her channel, he heard her suck in a harsh breath.

Bright light seemed to be dancing behind her closed eyes and every sensation, every emotion, was centered in a heated pool low in her belly. Her womb flexed and her juices flowed and she clamped her inner muscles around his questing fingers.

“That’s it, baby,” he growled. “Grip your man. Let him know you want him.”

As though her mind had a will of its own outside her ability to control it, Rachel found herself rotating her hips, pushing them then withdrawing them from the hard fingers impaling her. When he slipped a third finger insider her, curled them upward and touched something residing in that virginal territory, she cried out, slamming both her hands down on his wrist to hold him still with her.

Owen’s eyes flared as the muscles of her sheath vibrated around his fingers. Her body was shivering as she came and she pushed down so hard on him—seemingly wanting every inch of his flesh within her—his hand began to cramp. The climax went on and on in sharp little waves then began to ripple away in long spasms that had her gasping for breath when the last one undulated away.

Rachel jerked as the last of the pleasure drained from between her legs. She shuddered when his free hand molded around her breast and he lightly stroked her nipple.

“Did you enjoy that?” he asked, feeling his shaft so hard he thought it well might break away from his groin.

“Aye,” she whispered.

“Take yourself from him and put on your dress.”

Owen groaned when she pulled free of him and bent down to retrieve her gown. He was disappointed when she covered the beautiful breasts and heated sex. He ached with need and wanted that sweet cunt wrapped around his engorged cock.

“Turn, clasp his rod and jerk it gently upward several times. He will then know the satisfaction he gave you.”

“Would you…” he began, but she stunned him when she reached for his rod and began pulling forcefully yet gently upon it. Her touch was so firm, so—just right—that after three such expert tugs, his seed burst forth to ooze like an erupting volcano over her hand. Digging his heels into the mattress, he rode out the pleasure until the final pulse and then collapsed, more spent than he could ever remember being.

“Clean your hand.”

Rachel let go of his flaccid shaft and took up the washcloth. She removed the cum from her flesh then dropped the cloth into the basin.

“Awake and remember what you did to him.”

Rachel blinked, blinked again, and then stared down at the naked man with horror stamped over her lovely features. Her mouth dropped open. Her eyes squinted with disbelief. Her cheeks bloomed with scarlet color and she slapped a hand over her face, uttering a cry of shame.

But Owen didn’t recognize that look as one of utter mortification. He saw it as a half-lidded look of satiation. He smiled. “Any time you want it, it’s here for you, baby,” he said, and could have bitten off his tongue when she gasped and ran for the door, snatched it open and ran from the room.

“You idiotic bastard!” Owen labeled himself, and slammed his palms over his eyes. “What in the name of all that is holy is wrong with you, Tohre?”

It had to be the tenerse and the fever, he decided. Never in his life had he ever said such things even to the whores he’d paid to service him, whose sultry lips had caressed his shaft so thoroughly. Never had he forced a woman to his bed and taken such brazen liberties without her knowing consent. It fair boggled the mind for him to believe himself capable of doing what he’d just done. Lucky for him he had stopped in time.

Groaning, he scrunched down in the bed and once more clasped his hands to push them between his raised knees. In that fetal position, he felt less vulnerable but it didn’t help the raging pain—and now the overpowering shame—that was gnawing away at him. He was fairly sure he’d never see Rachel again but no doubt a male member of her family would be visiting him soon enough to beat the shit out of him and deservedly so.

As he lay there, it began to hit him that he couldn’t get the woman out of his mind. It almost felt as though he’d met her before, that he had known her and known her intimately, that she had willingly shared her body with him. Despite the blinding pain, all he could think about was her lovely face and the hint of ash blonde hair hiding behind the ugly head covering. Her eyes were a wondrous shade of violet that had mesmerized him and her lips so full he ached to taste them.

Shifting uncomfortably for his cock was throbbing and as hard as an iron rod, he cursed beneath his breath. Now was no time for the gods-be-damned treacherous thing to remind him it was there. The knowledge that he could get erect again was a relief but it was totally inappropriate and had not only embarrassed Rachel, it had frightened her.

“I am a virgin, Lord Owen,” she had told him.

And no doubt had never seen a man’s shaft with an erection.

“Bastard,” he named himself again, but why did he have the feeling he had once tasted her sweet flesh?

When the door opened, he stiffened, opening his eyes to see Elder Barrow standing at the foot of his bed.

“Lord Owen, it seems we have a problem,” the elder said, his face devoid of the friendliness that had been there before.

“I know,” the Reaper said on a groan, and reached down for the blanket to cover his nakedness.

Elder Barrow blinked. “You do? Who came to tell you?”

“Who?” Owen repeated, his forehead crinkling.

“About the balgair,” the older man said. “Who told you about him?”

At the mention of a rogue Reaper, Owen sat up, striving to push aside the stabbing pain that flashed through his head. “What balgair? I thought you meant Rachel.”

Elder Barrow’s face filled with confusion. “Rachel?” He shook his head. “The woman has nothing to do with this but if she has caused you a problem…”

“No,” Owen said with a sense of relief that the man wasn’t there about Owen’s disrespectful treatment of Rachel. “What about the balgair?”

“Elder Carlton—he was the one who brought you to us from the Forbidden Zone—was found murdered in his field this morn. He had been drained of his blood. It was his eldest son who found him and Matthew came in to the village to tell us.”

“Drained of blood?” Owen echoed. “How do you know?”

“There were two puncture wounds on his neck, here,” Elder Barrow said, pointing to his jugular. “He was as white as parchment when Matthew discovered him and Elder Carlton was a man born with a dark complexion.”

Owen narrowed his eyes. “Balgairs usually don’t kill in that manner unless they have turned rabid and that’s rare.”

“What else could it be if not a balgair?” the Elder asked. “One of your kind would not do such a thing.”

“No, they wouldn’t, but our kind isn’t the only one who drinks blood to survive,” Owen said. He looked around the room. “Where are my clothes?”

Elder Barrow rushed to the side of the Reaper’s bed. “You are in no condition to be up and dressed, Lord Owen. You…”

“If you’ve got someone or something out there killing your people, I need to go after it.”

“Elder Dayton was leaving for the Bastion in the morning. He can ask that a member of the Míliste accompany him back to the Colony.”

“And how long will that take? A week to go and come?” Owen asked. “How many more of your people will be attacked while you wait for help?”

Chewing on his lower lip, Elder Barrow’s face puckered with apology. “We can not ask for you to leave your sickbed to give us aid.”

Owen wanted to ask why the man had even told him then, if that was the case, but he could see—and feel—the older man’s fear. “Get me my clothes and my weapons.”

At the mention of the weapons, Elder Barrow winced. “I had hoped you could give us instruction on what to do to protect ourselves until help arrives. I did not mean for you to involve yourself in our troubles, especially with you so ill.”

“It’s my duty to help,” Owen said. “Are your people spread out in the countryside?”

“Aye, we are a farming community,” was the reply.

Owen swung his legs off the side of the bed and sat there fighting a sudden dizziness that disturbed him more than the headache. “Then send word for everyone to come into town until I can find whoever killed your man. I’ll need to see the body.”

“The body?” Elder Barrow echoed. “May I ask why?”

“I need to see what kind of puncture wounds there are and hopefully get a sample of the killer’s DNA from the bite.” He held up his hands. “Where the hell are my clothes, Barrow? I don’t have the energy or strength to fashion new ones for myself right now.”

“Fashion new ones?” Elder Barrow repeated.

“Just get me my clothes!”

The elder went quickly to a large armoire and opened it, taking out the freshly laundered black silk shirt and the black leather pants that was the Reaper’s uniform. He brought it over to Owen. “We found no underwear except for your socks.”

“I don’t wear any,” Owen said. “What about my boots?”

“You don’t wear…” Elder Barrow blushed and turned away, going back to the armoire to fetch Owen’s boots.

Though he was having trouble sitting—the room kept wanting to canter off to one side—Owen managed to lift his legs high enough to thread his feet into the leather pants then stand up to drag them over his nakedness.

“What is DNA?” the elder asked.

“For lack of a better explanation, it is what makes up the life force of all living things. Reapers can track their targets through taking a sample of their DNA, sort of like a scout can track from signs. In this case, hopefully there will be a trace of saliva on Elder Carlton’s flesh that I can taste.”

Elder Barrow looked sick at that statement and had to sit down in the room’s only chair. “Such things are beyond my ability to understand,” he confessed.

Owen was buttoning his shirt. “About Rachel…” he began.

“If she offended you in any way, she will be chastised,” the older man stated firmly. “Our womenfolk are not permitted…”

“It was I who offended her,” Owen interrupted him. “I would be grateful if you would apologize to her for me. I can only think it was illness that made me do what I did.”

A strange look entered the Elder’s eyes. “What was it you did?”

“Ask her. If she wants to tell you, that’s up to her,” Owen said, tucking his shirt into his pants. “I need my weapons.”

Staring at the tall man in black, Elder Barrow could not suppress the shudder that ran through his lanky body. Reapers were killers, men bred for violence, but in the Lower Lands they were the law. “Come with me,” he said, and led the way out of the room.

Owen felt awful and nausea was lurking in the back of his throat. It had been days since he’d had Sustenance—his caretakers had not thought to offer him such—and he was so hungry he could feel his belly grumbling. But it was the hellion in his back who was buckling beneath his flesh to punish him for not feeding Her and Her nest. He staggered beneath the brutal onslaught of her wrath.

“Lord Owen?” Elder Barrow said, reaching out to steady the Reaper. “You should not be doing this. We will make do until the Míliste comes.”

“I’ll be all right. I just need Sustenance,” Owen told him, and could have kicked himself for his stupidity.

Elder Barrow let go of Owen’s arm as though he’d been burnt and jumped back, face pale and eyes huge in his craggy face. “I… We…”

“I can get it from my horse,” Owen said, although human blood would be best and it would go a long way in making him feel better.

Searching the Reaper’s eyes, there was no way Elder Barrow could miss the crimson spark in the amber depths. “Will that be enough?” he asked quietly, trembling.

“It would be better if it was human blood but I’ll not ask that of you or your people,” Owen replied.

“We can not ask you to aid us and then refuse to aid you,” Elder Barrow stated. “Tell me what needs to be done and we will do it.” He was no doubt unaware that he had put a shaky hand up to his throat.

Owen smiled. “Are you familiar with transfusions, Barrow?”

The elder nodded.

“That’s how it’s done.”

Relief spread like wildfire over the older man’s face. “Oh,” he said. “That we can do!” He frowned. “How much will you need?”

“As much as you can give me,” Owen admitted. “I’ve not fed for quite some time.”

Elder Barrow flinched. “Then let us be about it. I will take you to the infirmary. We can get your weapons later.”

Going out into the bright light of the late morning, Owen had to shield his eyes with his hand and not for the first time wished he’d take Lord Kheelan up on the offer of a pair of the dark spectacles that Glyn Kullen was known to wear on occasion. At that moment, he could see the wisdom in shading his sensitive eyes from the glare of the sun.

“It isn’t far,” the elder said, seeing how the brightness was affecting the man beside him.

Owen got a look at the compound as they walked across a cobblestone pathway from what Elder Barrow told him was the bachelor men’s barracks to the infirmary. He saw women gathered in front of another long building beside the infirmary and rightly surmised that was the bachelor women’s living area. Other buildings must be the school, the church and the meeting hall. At the far end of the compound he saw the stables and smith, which Edward owned.

The people of the Colony stopped what they were doing to stare at the Reaper as he walked beside the elder. He did not feel the same dislike and fear he felt from the people he was sworn to protect but rather a deep disapproval and perhaps a touch of pity. No one looked away from him when he met their eye but neither did they greet him with the feigned respect his own people did.

“They sure as hell don’t like having me here, do they?” he could not keep from asking Elder Barrow.

“You are an outsider, Lord Owen, and a Reaper. You are something completely unknown to them. They mean you no disrespect so please excuse their curiosity,” the older man replied.

He saw Rachel standing beside a well in the center of the compound. She glanced at him then quickly away, lowering her head as she cranked the handle to bring up a pail of water. He felt as though she’d slapped him and put a hand up to his cheek. He had to tear his mind from her as Elder Barrow ushered him into the infirmary.

The healer came toward them, bowing slightly. “I am Healer Benjamin Tate,” he introduced himself. “It is an honor to meet you, Lord Owen.”

Owen clenched his teeth at the title. Where it hadn’t bothered him on his home turf, it irritated the hell out of him here in Manontaque.

“He needs Sustenance,” Elder Barrow said. “Taken from the arms of volunteers.”

“Taken as you would a normal blood transfusion,” Owen was quick to say for the healer’s face had blanched.

“Ah!” Healer Benjamin said. “That we can do.”

“Male, preferably strong males such as Edward,” Owen insisted.

“I will gather the men while you get things ready,” Elder Barrow said, and didn’t wait for agreement from the healer before hurrying out of the infirmary.

“I wish we could have placed you here in the infirmary but we have two men who are dying and…”

“I was making too much noise,” Owen said. “I understand. Can you tell me where the body of Elder Carlton is?”

“Through there,” Healer Benjamin answered, pointing to a door at the end of the room. “Do you wish to see him?”

Owen nodded. “Are you the mortician as well?”

“We call that job Diener,” the healer replied as he began laying out the instruments necessary to transfuse blood. “It is assigned to my cousin Gilbreth.”

“Has he started preparing the body?”

“Not as yet.”

“Good, then perhaps I can find clues to track his murderer.”

Owen went through the door into the embalming room and wasn’t surprised that the healer followed him.

“He was found in his field?”

Healer Benjamin replied that he had. “His family are dairy farmers and he was out inspecting his herd. When he did not return for the morning meal, his five-year-old son went looking for him.”

“A bad way for your child to find you,” Owen observed as he stared down at the horrible pallor of the dead man’s face.

“Elder Carlton was not the first to die in this manner.”

Owen looked across the body to the healer. “Barrow didn’t tell me that.”

Deep creases formed in the healer’s forehead. “That surprises me for it was his nephew who was the first to die.”

“When was this?”

“Five months ago. There has been a death each month since.”

Owen blinked. “And your militia hasn’t been out to investigate?”

Healer Benjamin shrugged. “The other deaths appeared to be the work of wild animals. The bodies were mangled,” he replied. “This is the first where there are no deep scratches or ragged bite marks.”

“Were there puncture wounds like these on the other victims?”

“Aye and all the blood was gone. Gilbreth found not a drop when he prepared them for burial. The bodies had been savaged horribly.”

Putting his fingertips to the dual wounds on the dead man’s throat, Owen unconsciously swept his tongue over his own lateral incisors. “No animal did this,” he said.

“Perhaps not this one,” Healer Benjamin said. “Elder Barrow believes it to be the work of a balgair. I suppose…” He stopped for the Reaper had bent over and flicked out his tongue, dragging it across the puncture wounds. He slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from gagging.

“Not balgair,” Owen said as he straightened up. There was confusion on his handsome face. “Not Reaper DNA either.” He stepped back from the table. “Something else, something not human.”

“Then it is an animal,” the healer said against the camouflage of his hand.

“No, not animal,” the Reaper stated. “I need to be alone for a few minutes.”

The healer’s face drained of color and he quickly turned away. He was out of the room before Owen could tell him he needed to contact the Shadowlords at the Citadel.

“What the hell do you think I’m going to do to the body?” he grumbled as Healer Benjamin firmly closed the door. “Eat it?”

Well, he thought as he looked around for a place to sit down, it wouldn’t be the first time a Reaper had consumed a dead body. It just wasn’t something he had ever contemplated doing, but then again, the need had never arisen.

Locating a chair, he sat down with his knees spread and braced his elbows on his thighs. The headache was making it hard for him to think coherently and he knew he was missing something here, something vitally important. Attempting to clear his mind of the pain and the myriad thoughts crowding it, he closed his eyes and called Lord Kheelan’s name.

He didn’t have long to wait before the High Lord answered.

“You are well, Lord Owen?”

“No,” Owen answered, “but we have a situation here and I need your help.”

There was a minute pause then Lord Kheelan asked him where he was.

“Some place I gods be damned have no business being,” Owen replied. “I’m in Manontaque.”

“You are correct in saying you should not be there but I sense more to this. What is wrong with you, Owen?”

“I believe I have tenerse poisoning,” he admitted. “I’ve been taking too much of the drug.”

Censure filled the High Lord’s voice. “Abusing the drug to forget your problems is not what I imagined you would do when I granted you leave. I thought you a stronger man than that.”

Owen flinched. “I thought I was too, but my condition is unimportant. The Colony where I am has had several murders. One of the elders thought it was a balgair.”

“In the Provinces?” Lord Kheelan exclaimed. “We have had no Intel on that.”

“It isn’t a balgair,” Owen stated. “It’s something else and I’m not sure there’s just one of them.”

There was another long pause and Owen had the impression Lord Kheelan was conferring with Lords Naois and Dunham. When the High Lord spoke again, he asked Owen to concentrate on the taste he had pulled from the dead body.

“Tell us all you can of it,” Lord Kheelan demanded.

It was a bitter, acrid taste Owen had picked up from the wound. The slight bit of dried saliva left behind had stung his tongue when he licked it.

“It stung or it singed your tongue?” Lord Kheelan wanted clarified.

Owen shook his head. “What’s the difference? I don’t know that I would…”

“Did it feel as though your tongue were burning as though from coffee too hot or was it like a paper cut to the tongue?”

Thinking back on it, Owen replied it was more a paper cut.

Again there was another long silence then Owen distinctly heard Lord Kheelan clear his throat.

“We are sending Lords Glyn and Iden to help you with this. Where in Manontaque are you?”

Owen had no idea and called out to the healer. It took the man a moment before he slowly opened the door and stuck his head inside, his gaze staying away from the dead man. “What is the name of this place, Benjamin?” he asked.

“We are the Communalists,” the healer replied. “Our Colony is called New Towne.”

“How far are we from the Forbidden Zone?” Owen queried.

“Two miles to the northeast,” was the reply.

“I am two miles northeast of the destroyed Saint Marie on their side of the border,” he told the High Lord.

“Let them know your fellow Reapers are coming and I’ll research what I can find out about the Communalists. Something prods my mind about that name but I need to investigate further,” Lord Kheelan sent to Owen.

“Thank you, Benjamin,” he said, waving the man away.

“I will have your teammates fly to Saint Marie and pick up horses and supplies there. We will send medication to help you with this problem you have developed,” Lord Kheelan said when Owen gave him the healer’s answer. “Don’t take any more tenerse than is absolutely necessary to maintain your cycle—which I assume you’ve fucked to hell and back.”

Hearing the High Lord use such language shocked Owen and he almost forgot to ask for a pair of the dark spectacles Glyn used.

“I will have him bring them along and, Lord Owen?”

“Aye, your grace?”

“Expect a lengthy stay with us when you return to the Citadel.”

Chapter Four

Annoyed that he hadn’t asked Lord Kheelan what he and his fellow Shadowlords thought was behind the murders, Owen left the embalming room and the stench of death cloying in his nostrils and went out into the infirmary. He was surprised to see several strapping men sitting on straight-back chairs with the sleeves of their dark blue shirts rolled up above the elbows. Among them was Edward, who gave him a wan smile.

“I am grateful to you men for your help,” Owen said, rubbing absently at his right temple.

“It is an honor to be of help to you, Lord Owen,” Edward replied. “If you can find and stop the creature that is killing our people, it will be a godsend.”

“Why do you call it a creature, Edward?” Owen asked. He had to sit down for the few beakers of blood already drawn were screaming at him to gulp them down. The hellion was bunching and twisting in his back and intensifying the agony in his head.

Edward glanced at one of the other volunteers. “Brother Daniel Patterson saw it,” he answered.

“I surely did,” Brother Daniel confessed. “I thought it would attack me but it ran away.”

“I only just heard of this. He did not tell Elder Barrow of the sighting,” Healer Benjamin accused.

“Why not?” Owen asked. He was licking his lips and several of the men were turning green from watching him.

Brother Daniel held his hands up in apology. “It bore the look of Brother Landon but it had long claws, sharp fangs and red eyes. Its face was a strange greenish color. I did not think I should dare speak of such to Elder Barrow.”

At Owen’s look of confusion, Edward told him Landon had been Elder Barrow’s nephew, the first to die.

Owen sat back in the chair, his headache pushed aside. “You are sure of this? You couldn’t be mistaken about what you saw?”

“Brother Landon and I were close friends, Lord Owen,” Brother Daniel told him. “I know what I saw but the creature only looked like my friend. It was not truly Brother Landon. He is dead and long buried. I helped carry his coffin. This thing that bore his likeness was depraved, a creature of great evil.”

The Reaper could no longer wait for the Sustenance. His body was burning with fever and the hellion was tormenting him brutally. He asked the healer to hand him one of the beakers.

To give the men of the Colony their due, not a one lost their lunch from watching the Reaper consume their blood but their faces were pale as he did so. By the time he’d downed four of the beakers they did not appear quite as squeamish about it.

“Where are your people buried?” Owen asked, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

“Our graveyard is west of the compound,” Edward replied.

“Your elders aren’t going to like this but I need to open Landon’s grave,” Owen told them.

“Desecrate his grave?” Brother Daniel gasped. “But why?”

“I wouldn’t do this unless I felt it was necessary,” Owen replied. “Who do I need to speak with to open Landon’s grave?”

“Me,” Elder Barrow said from the doorway. No one had heard him enter. He stood there with his gaze fiercely angry, his hands clenched into fists at his side. “Why would you wish to do such a blasphemous thing?”

“Brother Daniel believes he saw Brother Landon just before Sister Margaret was murdered two months ago,” one of the men spoke up. He was a younger version of Elder Barrow and it was easy to see they were father and son. “He hesitated telling you for fear of hurting you, Papa.”

Elder Barrow’s attention snapped to Owen. “What filth have you been feeding my people, Reaper?” he demanded.

“He has said nothing, Elder Barrow,” the healer injected. “He has only asked questions.”

Taking several steps toward Owen, the older man glared down at him. “You think my kin is vampire?”

“It isn’t a balgair or a Reaper killing your people,” Owen told him calmly. “I don’t know what it is but I have contacted the Shadowlords and they are sending two of my teammates out to help me find and rid you of these creatures, whatever they are.”

“Our Míliste…” Elder Barrow began.

“Will be of no use if these are creatures not of this world,” Owen reminded him. “It will take blood drinkers to find blood drinkers, vampire or not.”

Elder Barrow narrowed his eyes. “My nephew is not a vampire. I will open his grave and prove it to you and when that is done, I want you gone from New Towne!”

Owen was accustomed to being treated as though he had the plague. It was the same wherever Reapers went. Even those people who needed and asked for their help were glad to see them leave, only too happy to be rid of them after the job had been done. With the exception of the extraordinary people of Haines City, it was always the same. He didn’t know why he thought it would be any different above the border.

“But we need him, Papa,” Elder Barrow’s son declared. “We need his help.”

“Do not speak to me, Brighton!” Elder Barrow hissed. He turned his back on Owen. “Come and let us be done with this atrocity so he may be on his way.”

“He is not well, Elder Barrow,” Healer Benjamin said. “One has only to look at him to see that.”

Elder Barrow made no comment but kept walking, snatching open the door and striding out into the compound with his head high and shoulders rigidly back.

“I am sorry, Lord Owen,” Healer Benjamin said.

Owen got to his feet and held up a hand. “Don’t sweat it. I’m used to being the outcast,” he said.

“You are not an outcast here. We will go with you,” Edward pronounced, and Daniel as well as Brighton came to stand beside him.

* * * * *

The graveyard was as neat and pristine as the rest of the Colony that Owen had observed. It was fenced in with an intricate wrought iron barricade with a stunningly beautiful pair of wrought gates that looked like spreading live oaks.

“Did you fashion this, Edward?” Owen asked.

“My grandfather did before I was born,” Edward replied, gripping one of the three shovels they had stopped by the stable to get. The men refused to allow Owen to take one though the Reaper had offered.

“But he has added the benches you see scattered about,” Daniel put in.

“As well as the urns, which hold the flowers,” Brighton added.

“You are a talented man,” Owen told the blacksmith, for he was staring at one of the low benches Daniel pointed out to him.

Elder Barrow opened the gate on the right, the squeaking sound the only one to be heard on the hill upon which the graveyard sat. A slight breeze scattered the leaves that had fallen from the maples positioned around the immaculate grounds.

Each grave was marked by a simple wooden cross with the deceased person’s name and dates burned in elaborate script upon the arms of the cross.

“Brother Samuel does the calligraphy,” Brighton explained. “And my father uses a soldering iron to follow the script.”

“He is not interested in such things, Brighton. Pray cease your prattle,” the elder snapped. He was gripping a crowbar he had brought with him from the stable.

“I am interested,” Owen disagreed. “I took to whittling when I was a boy and still do it from time to time.”

“I can provide you with a kit if you wish to do so while you are with us,” Daniel said.

“He will not be here that long,” Elder Barrow declared as he came to a halt before his nephew’s grave. The name and dates read Landon Dane Grimes, April 26, 3449–July 10, 3478.

“Twenty-nine years old,” Owen said. “Much too young to die.” He glanced at Daniel.

“We could not have an open-casket ceremony,” Brighton said. “He was mauled too savagely.”

“It was a wolf,” Elder Barrow stated. “I am sure of it.” He gave Owen a hard look. “And that is what killed the others.”

“It wasn’t what killed Brother Carlton,” Owen said quietly.

The older man snorted and went to sit on a nearby bench. He looked out over the rows of crosses, seemingly unable to watch his nephew’s resting place desecrated.

Owen was having a hard time standing there in the sun with the brightness piercing his skull like shafts of steel and he did not want to join the elder on the bench for he knew he wouldn’t be welcomed. So he sat down tailor-style on the neatly clipped grass as Daniel, Edward and Brighton set about opening the grave to dig up Landon’s coffin. Arming the sweat from his brow, he looked down at his lap and he heaved a long sigh. From the way his cock had reacted to Rachel, it was in good working order. That was one worry off his mind. He had been afraid he’d never function as a man should after the incident in Calizonia. But—he reminded himself—the proof would be in the putting.

He grinned at the intentional pun and when he looked up, he was a bit surprised to find Elder Barrow staring daggers at him. The Reaper’s smile slowly faded.

“I am glad you can find amusement in this, Lord Owen,” Elder Barrow snapped.

Knowing there was nothing he could say that would help the situation, Owen kept silent. He turned his attention to the men excavating the grave.

The three Communalists worked rapidly and in a short while the sound of the shovel hitting the coffin’s wooden lid rang out on the quiet hill.

Owen got to his feet, staggering a bit from the immense pain that was crushing his skull. He had to swallow against the nausea that had suddenly shot up his throat from the stench of the opened grave.

Fifteen minutes later, the same ropes that had lowered the coffin into the ground were used to pull it back up again, Elder Barrow pushing Owen aside when the Reaper would have lent his back to the task.

“He is my nephew and it is my duty,” the elder ground out.

It was an arduous task of backbreaking work to drag the heavy wooden box up out of the ground but the men would not let Owen help. It was brought out head end first at an angle, pulling soil and rocks beneath it as it moved. Once out on level ground, it was Elder Barrow who used the crowbar to pry up the nails holding the lid in place.

Owen was fairly sure of what they would find when the lid was removed and when his suspicions were confirmed, he stood there with his hands on his hips, turning to look at Elder Barrow, who had thrown down the crowbar as though it were a viper.

“This can not be,” the elder said, his hands steepled over his nose and mouth. “It can not be!”

Edward, Daniel and Brighton had taken steps back from the sight that greeted them when the lid of Landon Grimes’ coffin was pried up. Each had hastily drawn out his handkerchief to filter the putrid odor clinging to the corpse inside the wooden box.

It had been five months since Landon died but in that time his hair had gone as white as an old, old man and hung in ratty wisps halfway down his chest. His eyes were wide open—staring hatefully at those who had disturbed his grave—and the pupils, irises and even that portion of his eye which should be white were blood red. Though Healer Benjamin’s cousin Gilbreth had no doubt sewn both eyes and lips closed, the lips were skinned back in a death’s head grimace that revealed long, pointed fangs. Where his arms should have been crossed over his chest, they were at his sides, his two-inch-long fingernails crusted with dark material beneath the jagged, yellowed plates. A face that had no doubt once been handsome was now a hideous mask of evil, the flesh a sickly shade of green mottled with dark blue veins that scored his countenance and hands like a road map. His burial clothes and shoes were caked with mud and something else that had a reddish tint.

“This can not be,” Elder Barrow said through the constriction of his fingers, shaking his head and stumbling back from the coffin.

“I did not believe in vampires,” Edward told Owen. “But surely this is one.”

“What you are seeing isn’t a vampire,” the Reaper said. “Technically, I too am a vampire, a dearg dul.” He nudged his chin toward the creature in the coffin. “That is the unholy dead, something truly vile.”

Elder Barrow squared his shoulders and lowered his hands. He turned stricken eyes to Owen. “What must we do?”

“Unless you take away his power to rise, he will do so again when the sun sets,” Owen told him. “There are two ways to go about it. You can remove his head, drive a stake through his heart and then bury the head at a crossroads or you can cremate him and scatter the ashes to the wind. If it were my choice, I’d go for the cremation. That way you know he’ll not rise again.”

The younger men watched the older, waiting for his decision. When he agreed cremation would be the less invasive way, Edward turned to leave, going back to the stable for what they would need to render the creature to ashes.

“You don’t believe he’s the only one, do you, Lord Owen?” Brighton asked.

“Don’t call me that,” Owen told him. “I am not your overlord, Brighton, but no, I don’t believe he’s the only one. My gut tells me that Brother Carlton will rise come nightfall and in turn make another like him unless we destroy him too.”

“And those others who were killed in the same way,” Elder Barrow agreed. He gave Owen an apologetic look. “I am sorry I treated you so unjustly.”

Owen shrugged. He glanced up at the sun. “Not a problem but we don’t have a whole lot of time to get the other graves dug up. If you won’t let me help, you need to get more men out here.”

“I’ll go,” Daniel said. He too glanced up at the sun that was beginning to lower in the sky.

Brighton came over to his father and laid a gentle hand on the older man’s shoulder. “I am sorry, Papa.”

“How did this happen?” Elder Barrow asked, his words directed at Owen.

“Somewhere there is either a lone creature that turned this one or—the gods forbid—a whole lair of them.”

“But what is it?” the elder demanded.

“I don’t know but I’ll ask the High Lord when next I speak with him. I believe the Shadowlords know what we’re up against and that’s why they are sending two of my teammates to help me. I do know there are beings called revenants who are also vampires. As far as I knew they were across the ocean in the Old Countries. I don’t think this is one of them.”

“Drochtáir.” The word came on the breeze to Owen and he lifted his head. He had never heard the word. “It is the depraved Source from which Raphian Himself was hatched.”

Owen knew very little about the evil known as Raphian, the Destroyer of Men’s Souls and the Purveyor of Unforgivable Sins. What he did know was that the beastly god was the immortal enemy of Morrigunia and the Triune Goddess was forever at war with the snake-like entity.

“There is a nest of the vile things somewhere in Manontaque, Lord Owen. We have sought it out but there is a miasma of malevolence hiding it from our view. You and your team must find and destroy it as soon as possible!” Lord Kheelan stressed. “Glyn and Iden are winging their way to you now.”

Edward returned with two men Owen had not met. Between them, they carried six cans of some kind of combustible material and the newcomers each carried a shovel braced on his shoulder.

“Daniel told me we will need to dig up the other graves. We came prepared,” Edward said. He took one look at Owen’s strained face and told him to sit down under one of the maples. “You look bad, Owen.”

“I feel bad, Eddie,” Owen agreed. Once more he armed the sweat drenching his face. It wasn’t in him to sit back while others toiled but he knew his strength was waning fast and his hands and feet were beginning to go numb again. Reluctantly he headed for a bench and the comfort of the shade.

As Edward and Brighton took their shovels to one of the newer graves and the other two men Edward introduced as Brother William and Brother Ellison headed for a third, Daniel came back with five other men and two women carrying jugs of water for the workers.

Owen was surprised to see one of the women was Rachel. She would not meet his eyes and each time he turned his gaze to her, he saw her stiffen as though she were either watching for his attention or felt it.

“The woman with Rachel is her sister Kathleen,” Elder Barrow said. The men would not allow the elder to dig in the hot sun either so he came to sit beside Owen on the bench. “Kathleen is Brother William’s wife.”

Owen nodded. He could sense the remorse coming from the older man, accepting Elder Barrow’s earlier unpleasant attitude had been in defense of his family and perfectly understandable.

Edward was pouring one container of fluid into Landon Grimes’ open coffin and then tossed in a match. The stench was so putrid, so cloying, he and Brighton staggered back, gasping, their eyes watering.

“What has my nephew become?” Elder Barrow asked softly, the hint of great sorrow in his deep voice.

“The thing that turned him is called a Drochtáir,” Owen told him.

Elder Barrow swiveled his head toward Owen. “You have been in contact with the Shadowlords?”

“Aye, and they informed me there is a nest of those things around here.” Owen bent forward, his clasped hands dangling between his spread knees. “How many colonies or settlements are nearby, do you know?”

“A few,” the older man answered. “You think perhaps they have become infected with this evil as well?”

“It’s very likely,” Owen told him. “My teammates are on their way and should be here before nightfall. We’ll start looking for…”

The Reaper never finished what he was saying for he jerked as though hit by an arrow and fell from the bench, hitting the ground with a loud whoosh of air. Elder Barrow knelt down beside him, watching as the younger man went into convulsions.

“Edward! Brighton!” the elder shouted.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to watch as Edward and Brighton sprang toward the fallen Reaper. Elder Barrow had stripped off his belt and had jammed it between Owen’s teeth.

“Kathleen!” her husband yelled at her. “Fetch a wagon!”

Kathleen had been ladling water from the earthenware jug into a tin cup for Daniel. She foisted the jug toward him and sprinted out of the graveyard. Her sister came hurrying over, there to help if needed.

Rachel was staring down at Owen with shock and when Elder Barrow yelled at her to squat down and hold the belt steady between the Reaper’s clenched teeth, she dropped like a rock to the ground. She took hold of the belt to keep it lodged in Owen’s mouth as Brighton, Edward and the older man forced his twisting, writhing limbs against the ground in an attempt to keep him from hurting himself or them—Edward and Elder Barrow holding one arm and Brighton putting his entire weight on both Owen’s legs.

Elder Barrow turned his head toward the other men who had paused in their digging. “We must be done with this before the sun sets unless you want a visit from one of the Drochtáirs.” At their look of confusion, he told them that was what the creature burning in the grave was. “One bite from its fangs and it will make you one of them.”

The men hurried back to their digging.

“High Elder Chamberlain is preparing his root cellar for Owen for when the time comes for him to Transition,” Daniel said over his shoulder as he scooped dirt from Brother Henry Nybert’s grave.

“That is good for according to Owen there are two more Reapers who will be joining us before nightfall,” Elder Barrow stated. “We don’t know when we might need to confine any of the three of them.”

Owen suddenly stiffened then lay still, his breathing slow and regular. He had passed out.

“What is causing his illness?” one of the men asked.

“Too much of the drug he must take each day,” Brighton replied. “He has tenerse poisoning.” He looked at his father. “Healer Benjamin explained it to me when he found out what it was Owen was taking. It can cause gangrene if he’s not careful.”

“I imagine should he lose a finger or toe, it would grow back so gangrene is not an issue for him,” Elder Barrow suggested. He cut his eyes up to Rachel. “Such must have been the case when the female castrated him.”

Rachel flinched and met the elder’s unwavering stare. The Reaper’s initial reaction to her now made some sense but her immoral reaction to him did not. She lowered her head, not wanting the elder to see the shame in her eyes lest she have her back bared to the whipping post.

“Is there something you wish to tell us, Sister Rachel?” Elder Barrow asked, his eyes narrowing.

She shook her head. How could she tell the elder about the promiscuous, dirty thing she had done to Lord Owen or the liberties she had allowed him to take? Her disgrace would surely be read before the entire Colony. She would be banished, turned out to fend for herself or even stoned as Sister Madeleine had been.

“Do you find this man to your liking, Sister Rachel?” Elder Barrow pressed. “You may speak.”

Rachel had to swallow before she could and there was precious little saliva in her mouth to do so. She met his penetrating look. “He is very handsome, your honor.”

“Would you be averse to pleasuring him should he ask it of you?”

Every man there stilled at the question and turned to give the elder and the woman their full attention. They all knew her to be a virgin, untouched and unspoken for, a quiet little mouse whom no man in the Colony cared to court. She was pale-skinned with a color of hair they did not consider pretty. Her eyes were a strange color that made them shy away from her as well. She was destined for spinsterhood in the Colony.

“Answer me!” Elder Barrow demanded. “Would you lie with this man if he asked you?”

“Papa, Reapers do not take women as you are suggesting unless it is as their mate,” Brighton spoke up. He had relaxed his hold on Owen’s legs and was sitting on his haunches, his hands on his thighs.

“I am not speaking to you, Brighton! I will not tell you again to hold your tongue!” the elder raged at his only son. “Answer me, girl!”

Rachel lifted her chin. “I will not give away my maidenhead to any man save he who asks me to legally Join with him, your honor,” she said, praying she wasn’t lying for she had a feeling that should Owen Tohre put his hands on her again, she would melt like ice over a raging fire.

Elder Barrow held her gaze, assimilating her answer, studying her eyes for any telltale untruth. When he was satisfied she was telling the truth, he looked away from her, dismissing her completely.

Rachel let out a shuddery breath and lowered her head. She flinched when she saw Owen’s eyes were open and realized he must have heard the entire conversation. He was staring at her in a way that made her flesh tingle. A tremor shook him and his eyes closed.

The buckboard came rattling over the rise with Rachel’s oldest brother Simon controlling the reins. Kathleen sat on the seat beside him.

“Let us get him in the wagon and finish this business!” Elder Barrow ordered.

Brighton took hold of Owen’s legs, Edward grabbed him under the arms and they carried him to the buckboard, Edward handing him off to Simon to lie on the makeshift pallet that had been spread in the wagon bed.

Rachel watched her brother turn the buckboard around and head back to the compound and wondered why she felt such a sense of loneliness once the Reaper was gone.

Chapter Five

The overabundance of tenerse in his system brought the hallucinations back to Owen and he tossed and turned on his bed though Elder Barrow refused to allow him to be shackled again. The older man sat beside the Reaper’s sickbed and from time to time would wipe away the pungent sweat that trickled over Owen’s face and bare chest. For propriety’s sake, Simon had given the ill man a pair of underwear that covered Owen from waist to mid-thigh. Already the cotton material was soaked with perspiration as waves of heat overtook the Reaper.

“Rachel!” Owen cried out, thrashing his head from side to side on the damp pillow.

Elder Barrow frowned. He got to his feet and wrung out the washcloth in the basin on the table beside the bed and ran it down Owen’s face and neck, across his heaving chest. “There now, son,” he said softly. “Try to calm yourself.”

Owen’s eyes opened and he stared up at the man hovering over him. It wasn’t the Communalist he saw in his mind’s eye but Arawn Gehdrin, the Prime Reaper who commanded the eight-man team of which Owen was a part. “Arawn,” he croaked, and held out a hand.

The elder took the Reaper’s hand. “I am Barrow, Owen,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” Owen said. “I shouldn’t have touched her. I knew better.”

The older man squinted. “Who, Owen? Who should you not have touched?”

“Rachel,” Owen said, locked in some fiery realm in his mind where his flesh felt as though it were being stripped by his body from the heat. “I shouldn’t have done those things to her. I know I shouldn’t have but when she touched me, I couldn’t stop.”

Elder Barrow swept a lock of sweat-soaked hair back from Owen’s forehead. “Where did she touch you, Owen?”

The Reaper groaned. “She put her sweet hand around me and I was lost, Arawn. The gods help me but I want her.”

Anger darkened Barrow Graves’ eyes and he nodded. “You will be the only man who will ever touch her, boy,” he said. He straightened up. “Did you pierce her maidenhead?”

Owen’s head moved back and forth on the pillow. “No, no. I wanted to. The gods know I wanted to.”

The door behind him opened and Elder Barrow turned around. He gave Edward a sharp look. “What is it, Brother Edward?”

“His men are here,” Edward reported.

“Bring them in,” Elder Barrow said, moving away from the bed.

Edward stepped aside and two men in black entered. They were as tall as Owen and just as well-formed in face and body. They looked to be about the same age as Owen or perhaps a bit younger. They each had the dark blue tribal clan tattoos on the left sides of their faces but both were different from Owen’s.

“I am Glyn Kullen,” one said, putting out a hand to Elder Barrow. “Thank you for taking care of our friend.”

Elder Barrow took the Reaper’s proffered hand. “He saved the life of one of our children. We owe him a great debt of gratitude.” He took the other man’s hand when Iden Belial introduced himself.

“Lord Glyn is in charge of the Pameny and Michinoh territories. I’m way down in Flagala.”

“Beautiful country along the coast there,” Elder Barrow said. “I know you men are tired. Have you had your evening meal?”

“No, milord,” Glyn replied. He was looking at Owen who was mumbling incoherently. He walked over to the bed. “We came straight here when we heard Owen was ill.”

“I hope you have brought an elixir to help him,” Elder Barrow said. “He has suffered so.”

“We did,” Iden answered. “And the sooner we get it into him, the quicker he’ll recover.”

“Owen?” Glyn sat down on the bed beside his friend. “Hey there, big guy. How’re you feeling?”

Owen’s face crinkled. “Glyn?”

“Aye,” Glyn said. “Iden is here with me.”

“I hurt, Glyn,” Owen said, his voice hoarse.

“I know. We’ve got something that will help.”

Elder Barrow watched as the younger of the two men reached into his pocket and pulled out a vac-syringe containing a dark yellow liquid. He turned away as the man prepared to inject it in Owen’s neck. He looked at Edward. “Were the bodies burned?”

“Aye, your honor,” Edward said. “Just as the last rays of the sun were disappearing on the horizon, the final grave was incinerated. There will be no rising for those creatures.”

“They were all infected?”

“Every one,” Edward replied.

The elder sighed heavily. “I must speak with High Elder Chamberlain. Have the women prepare trays and rooms for our guests.

“Rachel!”

Both Elder Barrow and Edward looked around to see the Reapers struggling with Owen, holding him down to the mattress.

“He’ll be all right,” Glyn told them. “Who is this Rachel he keeps mumbling about?”

“No one of importance, just his nurse, nothing more,” Elder Barrow said. “I have business to attend with our high elder so I will leave you gentlemen. Brother Edward will see to your comfort.”

“Thank you for all you’ve done for Owen,” Iden said.

Elder Barrow smiled. “It was our pleasure,” he said then motioned Edward ahead of him from the room.

* * * * *

His face hard and his eyes snapping with fury, Elder Barrow ignored the greetings of his people as he strode purposefully toward the cottage where High Elder Chamberlain Lawrence dwelled. It was not often he dared intrude on the high elder’s personal time and not once in all the years since his elevation to the exalted position as leader of the Colony had Elder Barrow visited High Elder Chamberlain at his residence. It was with some trepidation that he climbed the short flight of steps to the entrance door and knocked.

The door was opened almost instantly by Sister Daphne, the maid. She bowed and stepped back to allow Elder Barrow to enter the spacious receiving room.

“Tell his high honor I deeply regret intruding but it is a matter of some importance,” he told Daphne.

The young woman inclined her head and swept a hand toward one of the overstuffed chairs flanking the fireplace.

Elder Barrow declined taking a seat and instead went to stand before the hearth. He stared into the blackened niche, a muscle working in his jaw. He did not have long to wait before the high elder joined him.

“If you have come to report to me of the goings-on in the graveyard, there is no need, Elder Barrow,” the high elder stated. “My son informed me of what was done there. I have no problem with the matter.”

Turning around, Elder Barrow bowed before the man who ran the Colony. “Nay, it is not about that, your high honor.”

High Elder Chamberlain’s eyes narrowed. “Then sit and we will discuss whatever has brought you here.”

The two men had known one another since childhood and both had vied for the primary job as high elder. Their relationship was not the best but both strove to put aside personal dislikes of the other for the good of their people.

Elder Barrow waited until the high elder was seated before he took the other chair. He cleared his throat. “I will come straight to the matter,” he said. “I fear your daughter has acted impiously.”

High Elder Chamberlain arched a thick, brown brow. “Which of my daughters? I have five.”

“Rachel,” Elder Barrow said in a tone that suggested his high honor should have known which one.

The high elder exhaled a long, annoyed breath. “What has she done?”

“She touched the Reaper in an inappropriate way.”

“I know she bathed him.”

“This was later,” Elder Barrow stated. “When they were alone.”

“Touched him where?”

“Upon his vitals.”

Shock widened the gaze of the high elder. “You know this for truth?”

“The Reaper himself said as much though it seems he places the blame for the wickedness at his own door.”

For a long moment, the high elder said nothing then his face turned as hard as flint. “Daphne!” he bellowed, his hands gripping the arms of the chair in which he sat.

The maid hurried in. Her hands were clasped together, the fingers twisting around and around one another. It was obvious from the fear stamped on her face she thought she was about to be charged with some misdeed.

“Fetch Rachel,” the high elder snapped, not bothering to look at the maid.

Elder Barrow could not stop the smile that pulled at his thin lips as the girl practically ran from the receiving chamber. He looked to the high elder. “I thought you should know.”

“You did as was expected,” High Elder Chamberlain growled.

It was only a matter of minutes before Rachel appeared, her lower lip tucked between her teeth. As soon as she saw Elder Barrow, her face paled and she began to tremble.

“Come here, girl!” her father ordered.

Rachel came forward like the condemned walking to an execution. Her teeth were chattering and her breathing short and shallow.

High Elder Chamberlain barely glanced at her before turning his attention to the leaping flames. “I am told you touched the Reaper in an ungodly way. Is this true?”

Rachel whimpered. Tears flooded her eyes. “Aye, your high honor,” she answered.

The high elder stiffened. “Did he bid you put your hand upon his vitals or did you do so of your own wickedness?”

Rachel was shivering so violently, she could barely get the words out. “I…I do not know what c-came over me,” she managed to stutter.

“A handsome face and well-formed body!” her father hissed. He slowly swiveled his head toward her, casting her a look of disgust. “Did he pierce your maidenhead?”

“No,” Rachel cried.

“Did he touch you there?”

She could not form the word and merely nodded, her face a deep infusion of red, tears streaking down her cheeks.

High Elder Chamberlain switched his attention from his daughter’s shameful countenance to Elder Barrow. “Thank you, Elder Barrow, for informing me of the wicked conduct of this woman. I will handle it from here.”

Elder Barrow got to his feet, knowing he was being dismissed. He cast a revolted look at Rachel, bowed to the high elder then took his leave.

For ten minutes the high elder said nothing more to his daughter. When he slowly got to his feet, she moved back, cringing before the look of revulsion on his face. He said nothing to her. He lifted one hand and pointed a rigid finger toward a door beside the stairs.

Rachel whimpered, unable to keep from doing so, and began walking toward the door.

* * * * *

Glyn injected the second vac-syringe of pairilis into Owen’s neck. “That should do it,” he told Owen. “How’s the head?”

The pain had begun to diminish with the first injection. With the second one, the last of the debilitating pounding slowly faded. The nausea had already left him and thanks to an additional injection of pledax—a very strong antibiotic—the fever, itching and burning were gone. Owen was on his way to recovery.

“I feel pretty good,” Owen replied. “I’m hungry as hell though.”

“For solid food or Sustenance?” Iden asked.

“Both.”

“That’s a good sign,” Glyn declared. He unbuttoned his left sleeve, rolled it up and then held out his wrist. “Here, take whatcha need.”

Owen grinned. “You sure?”

“Reaper blood will go a long way in helping you get over the tenerse poisoning,” Glyn said. “Just don’t make it a habit.”

Owen understood the warning. He had overstepped his boundaries by abusing the drug, no matter the reason he had for doing so. He also knew nothing else would ever be said by the two men there in the room with him nor would they like it if he gave them his thanks. They saw it as their duty. He bent his head over Glyn’s extended arm and sank his fangs into the other Reaper’s flesh.

Glyn waited patiently for Owen to take what he needed then stepped aside as Iden offered his own arm to Owen. Rolling his sleeve back down and re-buttoning the cuff, Glyn took a seat in a ladder-back chair and leaned back, the front legs of the chair off the uncarpeted floor. “Everything’s all right now between Bev and Lea,” he commented. “Took some doing but things are back to normal.”

“Aye, Bev’s as stupid as he ever was,” Iden agreed, and laughed when Owen chuckled as he drank Iden’s offering.

When Owen was finished, he glanced over at Glyn. “Did they find out who killed Lea?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Glyn replied. “The same one who’s always interfering in our lives.”

A light flickered quickly through Owen’s golden eyes. “Morrigunia,” he breathed.

“Who else?” Iden snorted.

“I should have known,” Owen mumbled, “I wasn’t losing my mind after all.”

“That’s debatable,” Iden said with a smirk.

“Care to tell us who this Rachel is?” Glyn inquired. His fingers were threaded together over his rock-hard abdomen as he lounged in the tipped-back chair.

“Where did you hear that?” Owen asked, surprised.

“You kept babbling while the first dose of pairilis was taking effect,” Glyn replied.

“What did I say?”

“Who the hell knows?” Glyn asked with a shrug. “I asked the older man about it and he said she wasn’t important. He stated she was your nurse.”

Owen thought about it for a moment. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. We need to start looking for the Drochtáirs.”

“Suit yourself,” Glyn said, though his look suggested he knew there was more between Owen and the unknown Rachel than his fellow Reaper was telling. “We brought along all the information the Shadowlords have on these things. It wasn’t much. We don’t have any idea what the Drochtáirs look like but the victims are another matter.”

“Basically, the victims of the Drochtáirs become rabid blood fiends,” Iden told Owen. “The victims in turn infect other victims, who infect other victims. It’s a gods-be-damned plague.”

“According to Lord Naois, they are green in coloring with…”

“Long white hair and wicked talons and sharply curved fangs,” Owen injected.

“Aye,” Glyn acknowledged. “They can only move from dusk to dawn and the only sure way to finish them off is with fire.”

“Then it was good the Communalists opted for my second choice in eliminating them rather than my first.” He gave Glyn a jaundiced look. “I guess lopping the heads off and driving a stake through their tickers wouldn’t have accomplished much.”

“It more than likely would have pissed them off but it wouldn’t have put them down,” Glyn agreed. “Burning is the only way.”

“Lord Kheelan doesn’t know how many Drochtáirs are up here and when he and the other Shadowlords tried to ferret them out, they got nothing. They’re here but finding them might not be as easy as finding a rogue.”

“I have the taste of one in my memory bank,” Owen said. “It was a vile taste, let me tell you.”

“That should make it a bit easier,” Glyn replied. “We’ll start looking first thing in the morning. I think you need a good night’s sleep without pain.”

“What did Lord Kheelan find out about the Communalists?” Owen asked.

Glyn set the front chair legs down on the floor and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Now that is an interesting subject,” he said. “Apparently they’ve been around since before the Burning War but kept mostly to themselves in communes high up in the North Country mountains. They are a patriarchal society with some pretty bizarre beliefs. They’re primarily into agriculture and dairy farming with the men folk doing all the work in those areas. Their women are thought of as nothing more than chattel. Arranged marriages are the norm with young girls of thirteen to fifteen being the prime candidate for what is called fraternal polyandry.”

“What the hell is that?” Owen asked.

“Wait ’til you hear this,” Iden prophesied.

“It’s one of the tenets of their religion,” Glyn explained. “Fraternal polyandry is where several brothers have the same wife at the same time, sharing her amongst themselves. The reason for this is so a family will retain title to land indefinitely within kin groups. With such an arrangement, any child born could be the heir of any of the brothers so there is no scrabbling over inheritances.”

“That’s sick,” Owen said.

“To us maybe, but the Communalists believe in sharing everything between them. One family grows corn, another wheat, still another beans. They share the bounty between them and everything—except the land itself—is distributed equally from within the Colony. To them a family’s land is sacrosanct.”

“They remind me of the Plain Folk over in Glyn’s Michinoh Territory,” Iden said. “They all wear shapeless, baggy clothing—the men dark blue, the women black. The men wear beards and the women aren’t allowed to cut their hair.”

“The difference between the Plain Folk and these guys are that women aren’t allowed to do much of anything except cater to the men. Whereas the Plain Folk respect their womenfolk, the Communalists regard them as possessions,” Glyn said. “The women can’t even speak to a man unless given direct permission to do so. They can’t do anything outside the home unless they are accompanied by a Sciath, a close male relative such as a father, brother or husband. They can’t be treated by healers.” He held up his hand when Owen would have interrupted. “They have what are called Mátrins to see to their medical needs. She is the matron of the village and is always a widow in good standing.”

“Tell him about the punishments,” Iden said.

“Although the Communalists are against violence and killing, if a woman is promiscuous, if she lays with a man not her legal husband, she will be taken before the entire Colony and put to death for her transgressions.”

“Put to death?” Owen repeated.

“They call it claghit gy baase,” Iden said.

“That’s a term from the old language,” Owen said, stunned. “It means…” His face paled.

“Stoned to death,” Glyn explained.

“And that isn’t the worst of it,” Iden stated. “They have something they call whaaley and it is just plain sick.”

Glyn shuddered. “Aye, that turned my stomach when I heard of it. I couldn’t imagine anyone would do such an atrocious thing but Lord Kheelan said it had been common in the Old Countries where the Darkmen lived for centuries before the Burning War.”

“What does it mean?” Owen asked, feeling a shiver go down his spine.

“It is a brutal punishment meted out to any woman who allows a man not her husband to take liberties with her person. It is a threefold penalty that begins with a flogging then a branding applied to her forehead that marks her with the letter W. You can guess what that stands for. The ordeal lasts over a period of three days beginning with the flogging and then the branding. The third day…”

“Merciful Alel, no!” Owen hissed. His heart was suddenly pounding in his chest. He tried to remember if he had said anything to Elder Barrow about what had happened between Rachel and him. His palms grew slick with sweat and he flung away the covers Iden had pulled over him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Glyn snapped.

“I have to find Rachel!” Owen said, looking for his clothes.

Glyn exchanged a glance with Iden. “Why?”

“Where the fuck are my clothes?” Owen shouted. “I can’t fashion them yet.”

“Calm down before you have a stroke,” Iden said, bringing the black silk shirt and leather pants to Owen. “Why can’t you fashion them yet?”

“Too much tenerse in his system,” Glyn replied. “It fucks up the abilities.”

“They’d better not have touched her,” Owen growled, ripping the offending underwear from his hips.

“What did you do, Tohre?” Glyn asked, eyes narrowed.

“She was here,” Owen said as he dragged on his pants, irritated that they were loose on his flanks as he buttoned them. He had lost weight.

“They said Rachel was your nurse.”

“No, damn it, Morrigunia!” Owen spat as he jerked on his shirt. “The gods be damn it, I know She was here and She was the one who made me do it.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and began pulling on his boot. “How could I have been so fucking stupid not to realize it?”

“Tell me you didn’t mate with the woman Rachel,” Glyn said.

“Hell no, I didn’t!” Owen said then paused in the act of tugging on his other boot. He bit down on his lower lip for a moment—drawing a bead of blood to the surface—then looked up at Glyn with complete misery in his amber eyes. “At least I don’t think I did. Wouldn’t I have known if I had?”

“Were you aware enough to have known?” Iden countered. He held Owen’s black hat with its silver conchos out to him.

“I didn’t,” Owen stated firmly. “I know I didn’t but I touched her and…” He winced. “By the gods, she touched me!” He sprang up from the bed, feeling a bit lightheaded for a moment. “If they have hurt her, I’ll slaughter every last one of them!” He pushed Iden aside and jerked open the door, slamming on his hat as he strode.

Iden’s eyes widened and he snapped his head toward Glyn. “Kullen?” he asked.

“I think he’s found his mate,” Glyn said, “and we’d better help him make sure she’s all right.”

Chapter Six

The men of the Colony were walking toward him as Owen and his fellow Reapers came out of the barracks. Night had fallen and the November air had turned frigid with a hint of snow hovering in the air. Since the Burning War, the weather would shift from uncomfortable heat during the day to freezing with the lowering of the sun. Wind skirled in the eaves and whipped the torches in the hands of the men.

It was High Elder Chamberlain who stepped away from the rest of the men. “There were three of them,” he said. “They attacked the Rutgers family and ravaged all eight of the clan, Elder Rutgers and his son Brother Thaddeus and their six females. Only one, their hired hand,” he turned to indicate a young man off to one side, “managed to escape.”

“They fell on the Rutgers like mad dogs,” the young man said, his voice breaking. “They didn’t stand a chance against them.”

“Drochtáirs?” Glyn asked. He had come up alongside Owen and laid a restraining hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Terrible creatures,” the young man said, sobbing. “Vile creatures. I recognized one of them from over to New Junction.”

“What’s your name, son?” Iden asked.

“Brother Jonas.”

“How did you manage to escape them, Jonas?” Iden asked.

The young man’s face turned red. “I ran, milord. I was in the kitchen washing my hands for supper when the ruckus started in the front room.” He swallowed hard, his eyes bright with tears. “I just ran out the back door.”

“You wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t,” Glyn told him.

“We will send some of the brothers out to the Rutgers farm at first light to cremate the bodies,” Elder Barrow said.

“Are all the men of the Colony here now?” Iden asked.

High Elder Chamberlain nodded. “We thought to be of help to you in tracking down these beasts.”

“And you left your womenfolk unprotected,” Iden accused.

“They were told to keep the doors locked,” Elder Barrow said, stepping forward.

“Were your doors locked?” Glyn asked the young man who had escaped the carnage.

“Aye, but…”

“Then go home and see to your women and children,” Iden yelled at them.

“The male children are with us,” Elder Barrow told him. “The females can fend for themselves.”

“By all that is holy,” Iden growled, and turned his head to spit on the ground to show his contempt. “You bastards don’t deserve our help.”

“Go home and stay there,” Glyn said, casting Iden a quelling look. “There is nothing you can do to help us. You don’t even have weapons.”

“Where is my gun and whip?” Owen demanded. He was so enraged he didn’t trust himself to take another step.

“I have them,” Edward said, coming forward. He held the gun belt out to Owen who snatched it away from him, slung it around his hip and began buckling it with savage jerks.

“Where is Rachel?” Owen asked between tightly clenched teeth. He bent over to tie his holster to his thigh.

Edward looked to the high elder.

“If you are referring to the one who acted impiously,” the high elder spoke up, “she is at my home.”

Owen turned to the man who had spoken. “Who are you?”

“I am the high elder,” the older man answered. “I am the authority of the Colony.”

“Which one is your dwelling?”

“Rachel Anne…”

“Belongs to me,” Owen declared. He was glaring at the high elder. “I am claiming her.”

Iden and Glyn exchanged a quick look.

For a moment it seemed as though the high elder would refuse but then he spread his hands. “You have no idea what is involved here.”

“Lord Owen, you must understand,” Elder Barrow said, drawing Owen’s attention. “The woman in question will be cast out from the Colony when her punishment ends. She…”

“What the hell did you do?” Owen bellowed, spinning around to grab the high elder’s shirtfront.

If the men of the Colony had any notion of interfering, the lightning slap of Reaper gun hands to leather was enough to change their minds. Almost as one, they took steps back from Owen and the high elder.

“The one of whom you speak is in the root cellar of my home, the large one at the end of the compound,” the high elder said.

Owen looked in the direction the man indicated then shoved him away. With his hands balled into fists, he started toward the high elder’s dwelling.

“If you have regard for Lord Owen,” Elder Barrow told Glyn and Iden, “you will stop him from interfering in this. The woman has been given charbaa veih’n agglish. She has brought disgrace to her father’s house. For Lord Owen to saddle himself with such a one as her…”

Ignoring Elder Barrow, Glyn questioned the high elder. “Did you beat her?”

The high elder lifted his chin. “She was punished in accordance with…”

“Then you’d better hope we can keep Tohre from taking his laser whip to your worthless ass,” Glyn warned. “Iden, get Owen’s horse and bring it to the bastard’s house.”

“You aren’t going to rid us of the creatures preying upon us?” Elder Barrow asked, his eyes beseeching.

It was Iden who answered for Glyn was walking toward the high elder’s cottage at a brisk place. “We were given orders by the Shadowlords to eradicate the Drochtáirs and that is what we will do. Consider yourself lucky if that is all that we do!” Turning his back, he strode purposefully toward the stable where his, Glyn’s and Owen’s horses were lodged.

Owen didn’t bother knocking at the high elder’s house. He simply lifted his foot and kicked the door in. He heard a shriek as he entered, saw a young woman pressed against the wall as though she’d been papered there and bellowed at her to tell him where the root cellar was. When she didn’t immediately answer, he took a menacing step toward her and she lifted a hand to jab at a door under the stairs.

Jerking the door open, the Reaper was infuriated to find himself facing pitch blackness. He spun around, spied a kerosene lamp and snatched it up, carrying it with him down the steep wooden steps.

“Rachel?” he called out, for the place into which he descended was vast, leaping with shadows cast by the lamp. The root cellar no doubt occupied the entire area beneath the high elder’s house.

Spying what looked to be a large jail cell, he stared at it for some time, coming to the realization that it was meant to be a containment cell for him. He snarled like a cornered animal and called Rachel’s name again.

The sound of heavy footsteps thumping down the steps made the Reaper turn, his hand on the butt of his six-shooter.

“It’s me,” he heard Glyn Kullen say, lashing out with his boot at a rat that scampered away into the deeper shadows.

Owen cast Glyn a glancing look then continued on deeper into the root cellar. It was freezing cold below ground and the air smelled of rat droppings and decay.

“Rachel?” Owen shouted.

It was Glyn who found her, spying the paleness of her skin in the flickering light cast from the lamp. He reached out to grip Owen’s shoulder. “Over there,” he said.

Owen turned to where Glyn pointed and froze, dragging in a harsh gulp of air when he saw her.

Her wrists were chained to a support beam upon which she was hanging, her forehead pressed to the wood. The back of her black gown had been rent from neckline to waist, her upper body laid bare. Livid red stripes crisscrossed her flesh in broad slashes that still oozed blood. Her long blonde hair had been shorn close to her head, the scalp showing in places.

“Oh my god,” Owen whispered, and the lamp in his hand jiggled.

“Give me the light,” Glyn ordered, reaching for the lamp.

Pain gathered in Owen’s eyes as he moved toward her as though his feet were encased in quicksand and every step took enormous strength to make. She was so still, he feared she was dead. In the low light he could not see her breathing. As he hunkered down beside her, putting a gentle hand to her cheek, he was relieved to feel the warmth of her body.

“Is she…?” Glyn asked.

“Get those damned shackles off her,” Owen said. He didn’t know where else to touch her, afraid to hurt her, his hand hovering at her shoulder.

Glyn set the lamp on a wooden ledge that ran between two supports. “How am I supposed to do that, Tohre?” he asked. “I don’t see the keys.”

The shackles’ chains were attached to a thick stanchion that was in turn embedded into the six by six timber.

“Take them off her!” Owen bellowed, his eyes flashing at Glyn.

“Gow dt’assh!” Glyn yelled back, telling him to take it easy in the old language.

“Jean siyr myr te!” Owen hissed.

“Don’t tell me to hurry up, Tohre. I can’t…”

Owen sprang to his feet and grabbed the chains holding the shackles in both his hands and pulled, grunting brutally until he’d ripped the iron apart. Before the unconscious woman could drop to the hard-packed ground, Owen had scooped her up in his arms, swinging her around and barging past Glyn.

Glyn Kullen’s mouth dropped open. While Reapers had uncommon strength, such a thing should have been nigh to impossible for Owen to do. The chain links looked to be a good half inch in circumference, two inches in width. They weighed the woman’s arms down to either side of Owen as he moved like a bull toward the stairs.

“Find me the fucking key, Kullen,” Owen growled as he started up the stairs. “If you have to pull it out of her father’s ass, I want it!”

“Nee’m eh ny cailleeym m’annym lesh,” Glyn mumbled as he fell in behind his fellow Reaper. His words translated meant, “I will do it or perish in the attempt”.

The high elder’s maid was still clinging to the wall when Owen brought Rachel up the stairs. He turned and yelled at her to get Rachel a new gown. “Now!” he shouted.

Daphne took off up the stairs to the bedchambers as though she’d been prodded by a sharp stick. Her bare feet thundered on the risers and Owen looked down, noticing for the first time that Rachel was barefoot as well. “And bring her shoes!”

“I think I saw a pair of women’s boots on the front stoop,” Glyn said as he moved past Owen toward the front door. “I don’t think they wear footwear inside.”

Owen didn’t care. He could feel the slickness of Rachel’s blood soaking through the arm of his shirt. He said nothing else to Glyn as his teammate went out the door. He heard Kullen telling Iden to go into the house and help if he was needed.

The maid came running down the stairs with another black gown and a thick coat. She stopped on the bottom riser for Iden had come into the house. Her eyes flared.

“Take that shit from her and bring it here,” Owen said. He carried Rachel into a room where he saw a settee and lay her gently down. His jaw was clenched so tightly white lines had appeared around his mouth. “Tell that bitch to come here.”

Iden looked up at the maid. “You’d best do as he says. He’s been known to tear the heads off people who annoy him.” He reached for what she had in her arms.

Daphne made a little squeaking sound and let go of the gown and coat. She edged sideways away from Iden, trembling violently as she made her way to the settee.

Owen was easing the ripped gown from Rachel’s arms, grateful she wore nothing else beneath the coarse material for him to remove. Her blood was seeping onto the pale beige fabric of the settee and for some reason that gave him a great deal of satisfaction.

Iden took one look at the pale breasts of the woman Owen was undressing and looked away. He came into the room holding the gown in front of him as though it were a shield. “What can I do, Owen?”

“Get me something to wipe away this blood.”

Iden turned away to find the kitchen.

“Help me hold her up,” Owen ordered Daphne, and the girl reluctantly moved to the head of the settee. When Owen gripped Rachel’s arms and lifted her to a sitting position, Daphne groaned for she could see the deep lashes across Rachel’s back but she put her hands where Owen told her and kept Rachel still while he pulled the torn gown down her unconscious body. While the maid braced Rachel’s upper body, Owen eased Rachel’s hips up and tugged the gown completely off. “Ease her down and let’s turn her. Gently, damn it! Gently!”

With Rachel lying on her stomach, the carnage streaked across her back made Owen want to kill something. His hands opened and closed at his sides, his eyes had begun to glow a deep, scarlet red. As Iden came into the room with a bowl of water and a cloth, he knew exactly what was about to happen and dropped the bowl, leapt for the maid.

“Get the hell out of here!” Iden yelled, shoving Daphne toward the door. “Now!”

It happened faster than Iden had ever known a Transition to take hold. One moment Owen Tohre was human and in the blink of an eye he was crouched on all fours, snarling viciously, his fangs bared and his claws scratching deep indentations in the bare floor. He flung his head from side to side then arched his throat and howled. It was an enraged sound that made the hair stand up on the arms of all who heard it.

Normally Iden would have left with the girl but he knew the woman on the settee needed treatment. It was too cool in the house even with the blazing fireplace for her to lie there naked. He took a cautious step forward only to have Owen snap at him.

“I must help her, Tohre,” he said. “I must help your mate.”

Belial took another step but the hackles on the back of the wolf facing him rose. He stopped, putting up both hands. “Owen, she is cold. She needs to have that afghan on the back of the settee covering her while I go fetch some more water for her wounds. That’s what you sent me for, remember?”

The wolf swung its head toward the unconscious woman then seemed to shudder. It took a step back from the settee, still baring its fangs at Iden.

Advancing slowly and with care, Iden approached the settee, reaching up to drag the knitted afghan from the settee’s back. Very gently he draped it over Rachel’s legs, tugging it up to her waist.

“I’m going after the water now,” Iden said, backing away, making no quick movements.

A low, dangerous growl came from the wolf but it sat down on its haunches beside the settee, nudging its head against the bare shoulder of the unconscious woman.

Iden took time to heat the water this time on the large wood-burning stove. No one save Glyn was likely to come into the high elder’s house with a Reaper in full Transition. He looked about to gather clean cloths to bathe her back, but he could find nothing to apply to the woman’s wounds.

He stood still and closed his eyes. “Glyn?” he sent.

“Aye?” was the immediate reply.

“I need salve for her wounds. Are the Colony’s men still lurking about?”

There came a snort of humor. “As soon as they heard him howl, they scattered like chaff in the wind,” Glyn told him. “We aren’t going to have any trouble with them. I hinted that the Transition would last at least ’til morning.”

“You’re bad,” Iden said with a chuckle.

“I’ll get what you need from the infirmary,” Glyn said. “The healer had just introduced himself when Tohre let go with that roar of his. I take it he’s pissed.”

“He is more than pissed. He actually snapped at me.”

“I also have the key to those shackles. I won’t tell you what I said to get it.”

Once more in his mind Iden heard Glyn laugh and the connection between them was broken. He picked up a large bowl filled with the warm water, some soap, flung the cloths over his shoulder and went back into the receiving room.

The big black wolf hadn’t moved. His muzzle was resting on Rachel’s upper arm and when Iden came in, it perked up, baring its teeth again.

“I know,” Iden said, taking the warning to heart. “I’m not going to hurt your lady.”

Putting the bowl of water on the floor in front of the wolf, Iden went to his knees on the floor. He unbuttoned the sleeves of his shirt and rolled them up. “Glyn is bringing some salve for her wounds so don’t go all fierce beast on his ass when he comes in the door,” he said, taking one of the cloths and wetting it in the water before lathering it with soap.

The door opened and Glyn came in slowly. He heard the low growl and headed for the sound.

“Did you find out anything more about the Communalists who were killed tonight?” Iden asked in a normal tone of voice as Glyn joined him at the settee.

“Several of the men went back with the survivor to torch the bodies. They’d already cremated the one they had in the infirmary. As far as they know, that’s all of the infected ones. I told them to bring their womenfolk into town from the farms.”

“I bet that went over big,” Iden said, and the wolf growled.

“I reminded them that if the women were attacked and changed, they’d have more bodies to dispose of,” Glyn said. “I also asked where they’d get more women to take care of their needs if that happened.”

“Smart man,” Iden complimented. “Their comfort is more important than those women’s lives.”

“Fools,” Glyn pronounced.

Thankful the woman on the settee was unconscious, Iden worked carefully but methodically to cleanse her wounds as Glyn unlocked the tight bands around her wrists He took the bottle of salve from his pocket and rubbed it on the abrasions circling her soft flesh. He then held the bottle out to Iden who dipped his fingers into the salve and spread the foul-smelling stuff over the deep lacerations.

“That man should be horsewhipped,” Glyn said, a muscle working in his jaw. “What kind of beast does this to his own child?”

“One who believes women are nothing more than beasts of the field,” Iden suggested. “Look in the dining room over there and see if you can find me a linen tablecloth.”

“You want me to make bandages?”

“Aye.”

Glyn moved a bit too quickly for the wolf’s liking and the beast growled fiercely. The Reaper scowled. “Lhig eh,” Glyn growled right back, telling his teammate to stop it. He pivoted on his heel and left the room.

“You’ve got to get that temper of yours under control, Tohre,” Iden declared. “We are helping your lady so stop being the big, bad wolf and lie down.”

Another growl rumbled from the wolf but it backed up another step then stretched out on the floor, its head between its paws.

“That’s better,” Iden said.

It didn’t take long for Glyn to find a fancy linen tablecloth and rip it into bandages, seemingly taking great delight in destroying the table covering. He helped Iden lift Rachel and wrap the bandages around her, striving—just as Iden did—to keep from looking at the woman’s lush breasts.

“She’s a lovely woman,” Glyn told Owen.

The wolf’s ears twitched but it made no more threatening sounds.

Being as careful as they could be, the two men—unaccustomed to acting as lady’s maids—managed to get the clean gown over Rachel’s head and her arms thrust through the sleeve. Once done, the men were sweating profusely, avoiding looking at one another.

“All right,” Iden said as they lay Rachel down gently on her stomach again. “What now?”

“I don’t want to stay here until morning,” Glyn said. As the one temporarily in charge since Owen was unable to lead them, it was his decision to make. “I say we hitch up a buckboard and take her with us from this place.”

“Where to?”

“Back across the border to Saint Marie,” Glyn replied. “We’ll leave her there with a healer while we hunt down the Drochtáirs, although to tell the truth, I don’t give a damn if those creatures tear all the menfolk here to pieces. However I do care about the women and children.”

“Works for me,” Iden said then glanced at the wolf. “Is that all right with you?”

The wolf bobbed its head.

“Alrighty then,” Glyn said. “Go upstairs and get a mattress and plenty of warm covers. I’ll see to the buckboard. One of the men fetched Owen’s saddlebags for me so I guess we have everything.” He looked down at Owen. “You’ll have to ride in the back of the wagon until you shift back. If you still aren’t capable of fashioning your uniform, I’ll do it for you.”

The wolf sneezed at that remark as though it irritated him no end.

“Will you stop acting like a cub?” Glyn grumbled. He started for the door.

“Man, you should have seen him Transition,” Iden said, walking beside him. “I didn’t know it was possible to do it that quickly and I never even saw his clothes rip. They just vanished and there he stood with his bad-ass self.”

“Too much tenerse and too much testosterone flooding his system when he got angry,” Glyn said. “It’s a lethal combination.”

The wolf stood and nudged the unconscious woman with its muzzle. When Rachel groaned, it ran its tongue over her bare arm, licking her gently. Although it was unable to communicate to her with words or even thoughts, it understood what was happening and its great heart was breaking. It could smell the seeping of a little blood, the ooze of plasma from her wounds, and it felt such a rage tumbling in its breast it wanted to tear the throat from the man who had hurt her. By the time Glyn and Iden had everything ready and Glyn came to gently lift the wolf’s intended mate from the settee, the beast had tears in its golden eyes.

Chapter Seven

There were four elders of the ruling Senate sitting with the high elder at the large round table in the meeting hall. A single fat red candle burned in the center of the table and the draperies had been pulled shut over the few windows in the room. Outside, two brothers guarded the conclave.

“They have taken the woman from New Towne,” Elder Vaughn reported. “Brother Simon overheard them saying they will take her to Saint Marie on their side of the border. I have sent for the poleen.”

Elder Dayton, Elder Barrow and Elder Constantine looked to the high elder. It was after all his offspring who had caused them to convene.

“I want you to make the trip to the Bastion as was planned, Elder Dayton, come morning,” High Elder Chamberlain stated. “Make sure our leaders understand there will be a conflict with the Reapers when the poleen return to us.”

“Surely the leaders will not interfere in Communalist business,” Elder Constantine spoke up.

“They never have,” Elder Barrow reminded his fellow member of the Senate.

“True, but there has never been a complaint issued to them,” the high elder said. “The Shadowlords will act in the interests of their men and will surely extend a protest when the woman is brought to justice.”

“I do not believe it will be the Shadowlords who will come after us but Lord Owen,” Elder Barrow suggested.

“And perhaps his men,” Elder Vaughn added.

“That is a given,” the high elder concurred. “There will be no claghit gy baase but merely a meting out of the punishment she rightly deserves. What he does with her after he Joins with her is his concern, not ours.”

“Do you not believe he will lie with her outside the bonds of Joining?” Elder Constantine asked.

“Nay, I do not believe he will. Reapers are honorable men,” High Elder Chamberlain answered.

“But she is not an honorable woman. She has proven that,” Elder Vaughn said. “We all know how tempting such a female can be and though they are mighty warriors, Reapers are also men.”

The high elder’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “She has been cast out from the Colony. What she has done requires retribution and retribution will be handed down. If she has sinned further, the punishment will fit the crime.”

* * * * *

It was nearing one o’clock in the morning when the Reapers and their moaning cargo reached Saint Marie in the Wismin Territory. Glyn once more lifted Rachel into his arms and carried her toward the lone hotel, hissing at Owen that he could not traipse along beside him.

“You want the town up in arms?” Glyn challenged. “It’s bad enough two Reapers show up in the dead of night with an unconscious woman in tow and you expect the hotel management to just look the other way as you trot up the fucking stairs behind us?” He hissed. “Get real, Tohre!”

A low, angry growl came from the wolf before it turned and trotted off into the dark shadows of an alley, its tail switching angrily.

“What the hell is he doing?” Iden asked as he gathered the three sets of saddlebags.

“Who the fuck knows?” Glyn snapped. “Get the door.”

The clerk behind the desk looked up from the newspaper and froze when the two black-clad warriors entered the hotel lobby. He stared at them for a moment then his eyes rolled up in his head and he dropped to the floor like a rock.

Glyn sighed deeply. “Grab us a couple of keys.”

Iden went behind the counter, snorted at the desk clerk and hooked two adjoining keys from the pegboard. “Nine and ten,” he said.

“That’ll do,” Glyn said, heading for the stairs.

Iden pulled a gold piece from his pocket and dropped it on the counter then hurried ahead of Glyn up the stairs, unlocked the door to number nine and held it open. While his fellow Reaper held Rachel by the bed, Iden lit a lamp then came over to pull the covers back.

“You know it just dawned on me that we never did get any supper,” Iden commented as Glyn lowered Rachel to the bed. “I think I’ll go scrounge around in the hotel kitchen and rustle us up something.”

“Make a pot of strong tea while you’re at it,” Glyn suggested. “I’ve some herbs to brew in it that will help Owen’s lady.” He was pulling the covers over her, adjusting her head on the pillow as she lay there on her stomach.

“Fix me something too,” Owen said as he strolled into the room, his black uniform in place.

“I see you didn’t want to take me up on the offer of fashioning you some clothes,” Glyn said with a grin.

“I had no intention of walking into this hotel butt-naked with my stick dangling,” Owen snapped, “just so you could show off your molecule hurling.”

“You feeling okay?” Iden asked.

“I feel like I could go back to New Towne and make a meal of Rachel’s kin,” Owen growled. He came to the bed and his eyes crinkled with hurt. “By the gods, I will make him pay for hurting her like this.”

“Can’t say as I blame you,” Glyn said. He glanced at Rachel for she was beginning to stir. “I’ll have Iden bring you a tray and the tea. Make sure she drinks as much as she can.”

Owen nodded. He sat down on the room’s only chair and pulled off his boots. The energy he had expended to create the clothing he wore had taken a steep toll on his energy and resources. He felt as weak as a kitten and his head was beginning to pound again.

“Do you need a bit of tenerse to help you rest?” Glyn asked.

It wasn’t as much what Glyn had asked as the way in which he’d asked it. His fellow Reaper had let Owen know the tenerse would be doled out for the time being in increments approved by the Shadowlords.

“My head hurts,” Owen said.

“I’ll send you in a small dose.”

After stripping off his belt and pulling the tail of his silk shirt from his pants, Owen unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled them up to just below his elbows. He unhooked the top button of his pants then pulled the chair closer to the bed. He sat down, leaned forward and put a palm to Rachel’s forehead to check for fever. Satisfied she was cool enough, he slumped back in the chair and ran a hand over his face.

He couldn’t remember ever feeling so drained and that concerned him. They had a job to do in finding the evil that was the Drochtáirs and eliminating it. If the creatures looked as bad as Landon Graves, he couldn’t help but wonder what the source must look like.

Tipping his chin up, he closed his eyes and rolled his head from side to side. That did nothing to help his budding headache but it did help to relieve the tightness in his neck and shoulders.

“You should rest.”

His eyes snapped open and he looked down to find Rachel’s uniquely beautiful violet eyes regarding him. He hunched forward. “How are you, milady?”

“It hurts,” she told him.

“I can send you back to sleep,” he said softly. He wanted to hold her but he didn’t dare.

“Where are we?”

“In Saint Marie, on my side of the border,” he answered.

“They let you take me from New Towne?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“I claimed you as my own,” he stated. “They had no choice.”

“Claimed me?” she echoed, searching his gaze. “What does that mean?”

“It means that come morning, I will find a priest to say the words over us and we will be legally Joined,” he replied.

Rachel stared at him. “You want to marry me?”

“I am going to marry you, wench,” he stated.

“But you don’t know me,” she protested. “No man at the Colony wanted me as his wife. I…”

“I do,” Owen interrupted her, “and I always get what I want.”

A little smile tugged at her lips. “Always, Lord Owen?”

“Always, Lady Rachel,” he said, and reached out to drag the backs of his fingers down her soft cheek. His voice lowered and went deeper. “Always.”

Iden entered the room with a tray and smiled when he saw Rachel was awake. “How’s she doing, Owen?”

“This is Iden Belial,” Owen told Rachel, seeing the fear developing in her gaze. “He is a friend of mine.”

“A Reaper?” she whispered.

“One of two who came to help me rid the Colony of those preying on it,” Owen said. “She’s hurting, Iden.”

“I have something here that will help,” Iden said. “Glynn tossed a packet of healing herbs into the tea. He said it might be a tad bitter but it will help her to sleep comfortably.”

“Will you take a few sips?” Owen asked her.

“I’ll try,” she said. “I am very thirsty.”

“You lost quite a bit of blood,” he told her.

“Is…is it very bad?” she asked, moisture gathering in her gaze.

“It will heal,” Owen stated.

“But I will be scarred,” she said.

As a single crystal tear fell slowly down her cheek, Owen wanted to roar with fury. He wanted to smash something. He wanted to kill something. He wanted to tear the room apart with his bare hands, jump from the window and soar into the night straight for her father, wrapping his hands around the bastard’s neck.

“What is on your back does not detract from your beauty, milady,” he told her, his words catching in his throat.

“But all I had to give you was an unblemished body, milord,” she said. “I had nothing else.”

Owen knew a moment of such utter helplessness he could barely draw breath. Because he had put his unclean hands on this innocent girl, because he had corrupted her, the man who had brought her into this world had disfigured her for life and that thought haunted Owen Tohre mercilessly.

“You have everything I could have ever wanted, y chree,” he declared. “The goddess Herself sent you to me. I’ve no doubt of that. She would not have sent a woman to one of Her Reapers if She thought that woman was not meant for him.”

“What does that mean?” she asked. “Y chree?”

“My heart,” he answered, and took the cup of tea from Iden.

“Will you turn me over please?” she questioned.

“I don’t know, Rachel,” Owen said, his eyes filled with uncertainty.

“I need to know how bad it is,” she said.

Iden and Owen looked at one another and Iden shrugged. He bid them both a good night and left, knowing he was no longer needed in the room.

Very carefully, Owen helped Rachel to turn in the bed so she was sitting up. He could see sweat glistening on her sweet face as she sat there, breathing shallowly. He knew it would be a long time before she could take a deep breath. With his arm behind her neck, he helped her to take a sip of the fragrant tea.

“It’s not so bad,” she said, grimacing.

“I’ve had a few of Glyn’s infusions and if you can swallow that one, it isn’t as bad as most,” he replied.

After a few more sips she asked him to lower her to the mattress. As she held her breath, he did and when her back touched the soft sheets, she squeezed her eyes shut.

“No,” she said, unable to bear the pain.

“I didn’t think so,” he said, and eased her back over to her stomach. “Let’s give it a bit more time, sweeting.”

She looked at the tray of food. “You need to eat,” she said.

“I will when…”

“Now, Owen,” she insisted. “You will grow weak if you don’t. Sit and eat.”

The Reaper felt a tremor shimmy down his body at her words and the very heart inside his body seemed to swell. It wasn’t just that she had accepted him without much of a protest, but that she was looking at him with something akin to hero worship in her lovely gaze. That look made him feel invincible.

Making quick work of his food, for he figured Glyn would be arriving any minute to dose him with the tenerse, he made sure Rachel was as comfortable as possible, that she didn’t want anything save a goodly drink of water, and then sat down once more in the chair to wait for his teammate. He didn’t have long to wait.

Glyn tapped lightly at the door and Owen told him to come in. The Reaper smiled at Rachel. “I’m Glyn Kullen,” he said.

“Thank you for your help, Lord Glyn,” she said.

“It was my honor, milady,” Glyn replied. He looked to Owen. “You ready?”

“Aye.”

Rachel watched as the contents of the vac-syringe were injected into Owen’s neck, flinching as he flinched. “That looked painful,” she said.

“It’s not so bad,” Owen lied. He knew Glyn had given him a larger amount than he expected and glanced up at his friend.

“You need to sleep,” Glyn explained.

“I’ll make a pallet on the floor and…”

“No, you will not,” Rachel disagreed. “You will sleep beside your betrothed.”

Glyn’s handsome face crinkled with amusement. “You heard the lady, Reaper. Get your rump in bed where you belong.”

Owen gave Glyn a narrowed look. “What did you put in the wench’s tea?”

“A bit of backbone,” Glyn said with a chuckle. “See you in the morning.” He saluted his team leader then left, still laughing.

“Don’t you want to sleep beside me?” Rachel asked.

Owen wanted nothing more than to do just that. He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, watching her, and when a gentle smile eased over her beautiful face, he decided not to fight his desires.

“I sleep naked, wench,” he said.

Rachel sighed. “Shirtless, maybe, but until we are man and wife, you’ll have to make do with wearing pants and being outside the covers.”

“He put more than backbone in that gods-be-damned tea,” Owen mumbled under his breath as his fingers tripped down the buttons of his shirt. He peeled it off then draped it over the back of the chair.

“I feel funny, Owen,” she said.

“Aye, wench, I bet you do,” he said with a sigh, making a mental note to have a long talk with Kullen come morning.

“Come to bed,” she said.

Knowing full well Rachel would be filled with embarrassment at her actions in the daylight when Kullen’s pharmacopeia of drugs wore off, Owen went around to the other side of the bed and sat down. He stared at the far wall for a long moment before swinging his legs up on the bed and stretching out as far from Rachel as the space would allow.

“I will make you a good wife, Owen,” he heard Rachel say, her voice groggy.

“I know you will, Rachel,” he said, and turned his head on the pillow to look at her. The ragged cap of ash blonde curls looked cute on her instead of shameful as the cut was no doubt intended. With all his heart, he wished he could rake his fingers through those soft curls.

“Thank you for wanting me.”

For the longest time he lay there with his head turned toward her until his eyelids grew heavy. The last thought he had before a much-needed sleep claimed him was sent winging through the ether to listening ears he knew would hear. “Thank you for sending her to me,” he whispered.

“You are welcome, my Reaper.”

* * * * *

Under the deep cover of night something old as time slithered among the fields of New Towne. Where it passed, the winter crops withered and the ground became barren. A thick, slimy substance was left behind to mark its passing. Wildlife fled the advancing horror on frightened wings and alarmed paws and skittish hoofs so that the animals caged in pens that could not escape fell victim to the ravenous hunger. Wild shrieks of terror rang out in the night as that hunger was appeased. Though no human met death and damnation at the fangs of the creatures, the destruction and devastation left in the wake was vast. Splintered bones lay scattered about like fluff from a dandelion. No blood, no flesh, no marrow—nothing that could be consumed—remained of what had once been thriving herds and flocks.

As dawn lightened the sky, the hoard shrank back along with the departing shadows, flowing back into the craggy crevices and beneath the rocks and seeped into the parched ground where nothing would ever grow again. It left behind a malevolent stench that no amount of rain or snow or wind could eliminate.

When the sun set on this new day, hosts must be found to carry the seed of the hoard.

A new place would be found from which to harvest those hosts, a place that did not know what would be slinking toward it.

* * * * *

Owen was dreaming as he soared through the night sky. The wind was flowing through his hair, caressing his face, and the stars flashing by around him were spectacular to behold in their cold brilliance. His fingers were threaded between Rachel’s and as they sped against the backdrop of the ebony velvet heavens, her long blonde hair whirled around her like delicate tendrils. Clothed in a long white dress that cupped her silken shoulders so lovingly, the material molded to her shapely body and the bodice dipped low, barely concealing the dusky rose of her nipples.

He looked down to the black silk pants that clung to his own body. His chest and feet bare, a sheen of starlight reflected off the crisp hairs between his pecs.

Pulling his lady to him, he wrapped her with his body, her slender legs locking around his waist, his arms enveloping her in a gentle embrace. Together they moved through the midnight air in perfect harmony, her cheek pressed to his chest.

He had no idea toward where they were moving. One moment the sky around them was as black as pitch and then it began to lighten to a deep midnight blue, then navy then dark slate, dark blue, until the heavens surrounding them were a beguiling steel blue. They passed no clouds as they dropped from color to color to color but the air was a bit warmer there in that enticing hue.

They drifted down like weightless feathers onto a lush carpet of forest green velvet with spectacular sienna brown hills in the background and the sound of surf crashing rhythmically to shore somewhere nearby. The wind held the scent of jasmine with just a touch of pearly moisture clinging to the blades of grass.

“Where are we, my Owen?” Rachel asked.

“I don’t know, milady,” he answered as their bodies sank into the sweet texture of the grass. “Does it matter?”

He was stretched out on his back and she still clung to him, her long legs laying alongside his, her breasts crushed against his chest.

“All that matters is we are together,” she whispered. She pushed herself up and ran her hands over the muscles of his chest. “I love touching you.”

“I love you touching me,” he replied.

As it will in dreams, the scene changed abruptly and they were lying in a huge bed with soaring brass headboards and footboards of intricate swirls and knots and vines entwined with fanciful flowers. The brass posters were as big around in width as his muscled forearm and were so tall they disappeared into the heavens. From them floated wisps of gauzy white material like a canopy that snapped lazily in the breeze. Satins sheets stretched across a mattress made of a soft down material that made it feel as though they were still floating.

“Let me truly love you, my Owen,” she said to him, and in the next instant her lovely gown was gone and her lush body was there for him to behold.

“Do whatever you want to me, y chree,” he said huskily. In the twinkle of an amber eye, his black silk pants were gone.

A mischievous smile stretched across her full lips and she moved so she was sitting between his legs, nudging them farther apart until his growing erection flexed for her attention.

“Ah, my Owen,” she said. “Your companion looks cold.”

“Perhaps you could warm him.”

Her cool fingers closed around him and Owen sighed contentedly. He couldn’t have moved if his life had depended upon him doing so. He was completely at her mercy—willingly so—and life was surely good.

Wet warmth replaced her fingers and he lifted his head to find her gazing at him through the sweep of her pale eyelashes. There was such wicked devilishness in the look she gave him that he could not keep from trembling. Her little tongue was lapping at him, parting the cleft at the tip of his staff to gently probe inside. Her left hand was wrapped around the broad base of his cock while the right was kneading his balls, sliding a finger behind them to tease his anus.

“I’ll give you an eternity to stop that, wench,” he said in a throaty growl.

She smiled around his steely erection and took him deep into her mouth, her lips going almost all the way down it as she relaxed her throat. Her tongue constricted around him and drew upon his flesh. The sensation sent waves of acute pleasure rippling through his groin.

He buried his hands in her lovely hair and his fingernails grazed her scalp as he held her head. His eyes were closed, his breathing deep and slow as wave after wave of wondrous delight ebbed and flowed in his shaft. He was as hard as the titanium mined on his home world of Draíoct and he could feel the building pressure that ached to be relieved high in his groin.

Reaching down for his lady, he pulled her up and over him then turned so he was pressed between her silken thighs, pushing them wide with his knees. He ached to be inside her, needed to be inside her. He took hold of his cock and placed it against the opening of her cunt.

Rachel put a staying hand to his chest. “I am willing, my Owen, but remember I have never known a man.”

He had been about to plunge into her velvety sheath without thinking and he stilled, his body going as rigid as his cock. His amber eyes widened at the mistake he had almost made.

“Gently, my Owen,” she asked, her lovely face beaming. “Gently.”

With a groan, he lowered his lips to hers and claimed her mouth, needing the feel of her, the taste of her. It was a deep, plundering kiss and it left them both breathless when he lifted his head.

“I would cut off my cock myself before I would ever deliberately hurt you,” he swore.

Her nose wrinkled. “Aye, but it would grow back.”

He grinned. “Lucky for you. I am an expert with my staff, wench,” he teased, and kissed her again, grinding his erection against her nether curls.

“Braggart,” she allowed when he finally released her lips.

Owen arched one dark brow. “Not brag, milady. Fact.” He pressed the tip of himself between her wet folds—she was ready for him.

“Then show me, Lord Reaper,” she said, snaking her arms around his neck.

He pressed a little more, feeling the obstruction of the membrane that heralded her virgin.

“I won’t break, you know,” she said, wriggling her hips beneath him. She ran her bare foot up and down his calf like a kitten rubbing against its master.

Biting his lip, he pushed deeper into her channel and felt the release as her maidenhead gave way. He stilled, drawing in a breath.

“All the way,” she said, her hands sliding over his shoulders, down his arms to grip his hips. “All the way, my Owen!”

He settled into her, stretching her, filling her with his heat and hardness and the oozing juices that seeped from his head. He was breathing hard, striving not to let loose the climax that was beating at his groin with fiery fists.

She lifted her legs, wrapped them around his waist and arched up, taking him into her as far as he would go. “Like that, Reaper,” she hissed. “Like that!”

Sweat was gleaming on Owen’s face as he began to move inside her sweet body. He had never felt such intense pleasure as that which undulated over his shaft. Her sheath was warm and slick and her inner muscles were gripping him in hard little squeezes that both surprised and shocked him. There was no way he could prolong the roaring desire that was galloping up from the very core of him.

“My Owen!” she cried out, and he felt the quickening within her rippling. He increased his thrusts until they were both grunting with the sensations rocketing through them.

Her fingernails were digging into his back, spurring him on. His hands shot under her to bring her up to him. He lifted her higher. She arched up to meet his thrust and when she did, it triggered another, more prolonged orgasm that had her trilling her release. Her legs tightened painfully around his waist. He felt her teeth grazing his shoulder. Her entire body trembled and he came so hard, so thickly, that he let his head drop back and he roared, spilling into her over and over again until he was spent, drained, milked of every last drop of cum. Gasping for breath, he lowered his body carefully atop hers and turned so she was snuggled in his arms, their flesh melded from forehead to forehead, breastbone to pubic bone, knee to toe.

Rachel clung to him, her body such a blessing to him. They were slick with sweat, scented of sex, and their blood was pumping wildly through their veins as they lay there unable to move.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, my Owen,” she whispered back to him.

The sky around them darkened from steel blue to slate to midnight blue to black and the night breeze wafted warmly over them as they sank down beneath the gently flowing waves along the shoreline of dreamland.

Watching over them, a smile on Her lovely face, Morrigunia nodded Her pleasure. She had given Her beloved Reaper his wedding night though neither he nor his bride would remember it when they woke.

But the deed surely had been done and Rachel Lawrence was now well sown with her husband’s seed.

Chapter Eight

While Rachel was still asleep beneath the influence of whatever drug Glyn had given her, the Reapers sat at a table that had been laden down with more food than any three men should have been able to consume. Now, platters of bacon, ham, fried potatoes, toast, eggs and stewed apples were all empty. What was left of the gargantuan meal was on the plates of the diners and they were on their third pot of coffee. The dining room of the hotel—normally full of patrons for the morning meal—was empty except for the Reapers. Earlier Owen had gone to Glyn and Iden’s room, knowing they’d have the Sustenance the three of them would need to start the day.

“Here’s my question,” Iden said, munching on a strip of crispy bacon. “If there have been other humans infected with this and they are lying in graves somewhere in Manontaque Province, how the hell will we find them all? We can’t dig up every new grave between New Towne and Vardar.”

Glyn dredged his toast through the bright yellow of an over-easy egg yolk. “That’s a gods-be-damned good question. We have no way of knowing how many of those things there are up there, how many settlements and colonies have been tainted.”

Owen was sitting at an angle to the table with his long legs thrust out in front of him. His hands were clasped around a steaming cup of coffee. He had been the first to finish his huge breakfast and his plate was so clean it didn’t look as though it would need washing. “Remember the ghorets out on the prairie?” he asked, looking out the front window at the people standing across the street from the hotel and pointing that way.

“Which time?” Iden asked.

“When the drones were sent to take them out,” Owen replied, before taking a sip of his black coffee.

“Aye, what of it?” Iden inquired.

“He’s thinking about asking the Shadowlords to send the drones up there to incinerate the graves,” Glyn speculated. “Right?”

Owen nodded.

“The Bastion would never agree to that,” Iden said. “Taking out hundreds, maybe even thousands of graves would be…”

“The new graves don’t have the look of old ones,” Owen cut him off. “We would target only those graves that aren’t grown over with grass.”

“Even so, Owen…” Iden said.

“The graves of those up in New Towne all had the same look about them, Iden,” Owen interrupted again. “Not one blade of grass was growing anywhere near those graves and the first victim to die had been in the summer.”

“So you think those affected by the Drochtáirs will have barren land around their resting sites,” Glyn said.

“I don’t think it,” Owen replied. “I know it.”

“Then we first need to contact Lord Kheelan to see if he can send the drones up there,” Iden said. “He’ll have to contact the Bastion and give them a heads-up. What if they don’t agree to allow us to do what you are suggesting?”

“We’ll have to do it anyway and handle the repercussions later,” Owen replied. “We sure as hell don’t want the Drochtáirs crossing the border and infecting our people.”

“I hope to all that is holy the Ceannus don’t know about this new threat to humankind,” Glyn said.

“Who says they don’t?” Owen asked, and when his companions turned a shocked face to him, he shrugged. “They got here somehow. If the Drochtáir is the seed from which Raphian sprang, you’d best believe the Ceannus have something to do with them being on Terra. Hell, they could have arrived with the first ship Morrigunia destroyed for all we know and escaped up into the Provinces.”

“Or they could have been sent up there where we have no jurisdiction,” Glyn suggested.

“Aye, that’s most likely the way of it,” Owen said. “They were sent to infect the Northmen who the Ceannus knew would eventually slip across the border to infect our people.”

“And their Míliste can’t handle something like this,” Iden said.

Owen finished the last of his coffee and put the cup down on the table. “I’m going up to check on my lady,” he said, and stood. He dug into the pockets of his pants before he realized he had no money.

“Go on,” Glyn said. “We’ll take care of it.”

“I’ll pay you back,” Owen promised.

After he was gone, Iden and Glyn sat quietly for a few moments then Glyn exhaled a long, hard sigh.

“This could get ugly,” he said.

Iden scooped up the last of his fried potatoes before shoving the plate away. “You mean with the woman?”

“Aye,” Glyn answered. “You remember what happened to Cynyr when he took Aingeal to mate?”

“Owen already knows he’s going into the con cell when he gets back to the Citadel.”

“Something tells me he’s going to be in there a long, long time if things go the way I suspect they will,” Glyn said. “Abusing the tenerse already has the Shadowlords pissed at him. I suggest we make him ask the High Council’s permission before taking Rachel to mate because you and I both know he’s going to go after her father before this is over and done and he won’t ask permission for that.”

“Don’t you think they know what he’ll do, Kullen?” Iden asked. “I know gods-be-damned well they know every move we make before we even make it.”

“Aye, I know it too. We’ve been given free will to act as we see fit but there are guidelines we were meant to follow. We all know the rules and are expected to uphold those rules, not break them. When we step outside the guidelines and take matters into our own hands as Cynyr did with Aingeal, they won’t stop us. Neither will they turn a blind eye to our sins. They gave us that free will so we can fuck ourselves over and suffer the consequences.”

“Owen’s a big boy,” Iden said. “It’s his life, his mistakes and his consequences to suffer. If you want to remind him to ask permission first, then do it, but what happens if the High Council forbids it? He’ll do it anyway.”

“You’re right, but he’s my best friend, Iden. I have to at least try.”

* * * * *

Rachel was awake and sitting on the edge of the bed when Owen came into their room. Her hands were clutching the mattress in a death grip, a fine sheen of perspiration covering her exquisite features. She looked up at Owen with those lovely violet eyes and his heart did a merciless squeeze in his chest.

“You’re going to have to help me, milord,” she said. “I have to… I need to…” A dark blush appeared on her high cheekbones.

Owen managed to smile as he walked over to the bed and leaned over to put his hands on her upper arms and lift her from the bed. “Do you want me to carry you into the bathing chamber?”

“I can walk,” she said, afraid he’d hurt her more if he lifted her in his arms.

With him bracing her, he walked her slowly into the little room. She’d never seen a toilet before for they only had outhouses at the Colony. When he explained what it was and how it worked, she was so fascinated she didn’t think before hiking up the skirt of her gown and sitting down.

Owen left the room to give her privacy. After leaving Iden and Glyn, he’d stopped in the kitchen to order breakfast brought up to her. He had also spoken with the desk clerk about sending someone to fetch the priest. He had no intention of leaving Rachel in Saint Marie without the protection of his name. When the knock came at the door, he thought it would be her breakfast. Instead, it was the priest, looking nervous.

“Milord,” the priest said, and Owen noticed the man’s hands were shaking as he clutched the Good Book.

“I am Owen Tohre,” Owen said, stepping aside to allow the man in.

“I’m Father O’Connell,” the priest said. They shook hands and the priest glanced around the room. “Where is the lady?” When he heard the toilet flush, his face infused with color. He glanced up at Owen. “You will need witnesses for this to be legal.”

Owen nodded and silently sent a mental call down to his fellow Reapers. “They’ll be here in a minute,” he told the priest.

“Milord?” Rachel called out to him.

“Have a seat, Father,” Owen said. “I’m sure she’ll want to freshen up before we do this.”

Rachel hurt so badly she could not lever herself up from the toilet and was silently crying when Owen came into the bathing chamber. She looked up at him with such misery, he wanted to find her father and tear the bastard’s head off.

“Will you wet a rag so I can wash my face?” she asked.

“I can,” he replied, and did just that, waiting until she was finished then told her the priest had arrived.

Rachel looked down at the coarse black dress she was wearing and sighed. “It is bad luck to marry in black,” she said in a low voice.

He hunkered down before her. “Close your eyes,” he said.

Her forehead crinkled. “Why?”

“Just close your eyes,” he repeated, taking her hands in his. When she had done as he ordered, he told her to picture what she had always wanted her wedding gown to look like.

“I’m not good at pretending,” she said.

“Just try,” he told her, knowing every woman had a good idea of what she wanted to look like on her wedding day. He saw a slight smile flicker over her tearful face.

It took every last ounce of his energy to delve into her mind and pluck out the image, create it upon her sweet body with such care that it would not hurt her injured back. He even thought to provide the white kid slippers and silk stockings for her feet. When her eyes snapped open and she looked down to see the pretty white gown cascading around the stool of the toilet, her mouth sagged open.

“Is that better?” he asked, his head spinning from the exertion.

“Oh Owen,” she said, fresh tears blurring her eyes.

He got to his feet and helped her up, his calloused hands gripping the lacy sleeves covering her upper arms. He crooked his arm. “Milady?” he inquired.

Rachel gave him a look that would have felled a lesser man. It went straight to his very soul and when she tucked her arm through his and leaned against him, his heart soared with an emotion he never thought to ever feel again.

Glyn and Iden were in the other room when Owen escorted his lady from the bathing chamber. He saw their eyes bulge as they took in the beauty on his arm.

“By the gods, Tohre,” was all Iden could say.

Father O’Connell cleared his throat. “I would like to hear from her lips that this is something she wants,” he said, flinching as the two Reapers beside him gave him a stony look.

“It is,” Rachel said quickly. “With all my heart it is.”

“Milady is not feeling well so I would be obliged if you would make this short and sweet,” Owen said. “I need to get her back to bed.”

The priest nodded. “If you will join hands, I will begin.”

The ceremony was indeed short and sweet, and when it came to the speaking of the vows, Glyn had a surprise for his best friend and before Owen could declare himself to Rachel, the Reaper nudged him.

“I must have made at least a dozen before I found one I was satisfied with,” Glyn said and opened his hand.

Owen stared at the wide gold band nestled in his friend’s palm then looked up at Glyn. “It’s a claddagh,” he said with awe.

“Aye, it is, and I hope it fits,” Glyn replied.

The intricate knotwork gold band with two hands clasping a lace-work heart topped by a crown bejeweled with three sparkling emeralds was nearly as beautiful as the woman who would be wearing it. It glistened from the stray beam of sunlight that came from the window.

Owen took the ring from Glyn’s hand then slipped his arms around his friend, giving him a hug that surprised the both of them. Clearing their throats, they each stepped back, faces red, then Owen turned to his lady to state his vows. When he had, he slipped the ring upon her finger and added, “I pledge my friendship and my loyalty to you, my Rachel, and I give my heart into your keeping.”

The kiss that sealed their pledge was sweet and chaste but it was the look shared between the couple that truly sealed the Joining.

“Congratulations,” Glyn said, shaking his friend’s hand. “Iden and I are going to go find the healer and hire some ladies to look after Rachel while we’re gone. Is that all right with you?”

Owen nodded, unable to speak.

“And we’ll pay the good Father here,” Iden said.

“Thank you, Iden,” Owen struggled to get out.

Iden shook Owen’s hand and asked if he could kiss the bride.

“I would be honored, Lord Iden,” Rachel said, and smiled at him and then Glyn as that Reaper gave her a kiss as well. She thanked the Father.

When the others were gone, Owen looked down at her dress and released a long sigh. “I don’t think I can undo what I did,” he said, “and you need to get back in bed.”

The door opened and Iden stuck his head in. “We thought you might need to fashion something more comfortable for her.”

Owen smiled. “A long chemise would be great, Iden,” he said.

Rachel blinked as the luscious wedding gown disappeared and she felt the soft, sleek cotton chemise settle upon her body. “I will never get used to this,” she whispered.

Iden winked then closed the door behind him.

“Let’s get you in the bed,” Owen said, holding on to her arm.

Marveling at the magical abilities her new husband and his friends possessed, she barely felt the pain pulling at the muscles of her back as she got into the bed and lay on her side. Owen pulled the covers up and squatted down beside the bed.

“I don’t know how long we’ll be gone but I’ll make gods-be-damned sure you’re taken good care of, milady.” He threaded his fingers through her short curls.

“It will grow,” she said, reaching up to cover his hand with hers.

Owen shrugged “You know what? I rather like it.”

“You do?”

“Aye, I really do.”

They didn’t say anything for a long moment. He just hunkered there with his hand stroking her short curls but at last he knew he had to leave. He had a job to do.

“You will be careful,” she said, making it a statement rather than a question.

“I will do my best,” he replied. He didn’t want to make promises he might not be able to keep.

“I will be here,” she stated.

Owen leaned forward and pressed his lips gently to hers then got to his feet. He picked up his gun belt and hat, slung his saddlebag over his shoulder, gave her one last longing look and then left while he still could.

When he got downstairs, a squat man nearly as big around as he was tall was being escorted into the hotel by Iden. The newcomer was introduced as Healer Lagenhorn who grinned cheerily.

“We will take good care of your lady, milord,” the healer said, pumping Owen’s hand. “It is such an honor for me to do this for you.”

“Healer Lagenhorn sent Glyn to fetch a couple of the town’s women who have acted as nurses for him in the past,” Iden said.

“Will they have a problem caring for a Reaper’s mate?” Owen asked, locking gazes with the healer.

“Merciful Alel, no!” the healer said. “Why would they?”

“It wasn’t exactly a friendly welcome we received this morning,” Owen stated.

Iden laughed. “You mean the people standing outside the hotel pointing this way?” he asked. “It seems the good folk of Saint Marie were buzzing with the same kind of good cheer Cynyr found in Haines City. They didn’t want to intrude on us but as soon as they found out we weren’t the surly bastards it’s rumored we are, they warmed right up.”

“We are proud to finally meet you, Lord Owen,” the healer said. “You are, after all, our Reaper here in Wismin.”

“I’ll show Healer Lagenhorn up to your room. Perhaps you’d like to take a moment to contact the Citadel and let them know what’s up while the healer sees to your lady,” Iden suggested.

Owen winced. “Aye, I suppose I should.”

“Grovel as best you can, Tohre. They like it when you’re humble,” Iden said, slapping him on the back before ushering the healer up the stairs.

Owen walked outside and was greeted by passersby who tipped their hats to him or women who inclined their heads respectfully. Several children waved at him and he could only stand there on the wooden sidewalk and think he had found the place he would at last make his home just as Cynyr had made Haines City his.

Tugging the brim of his hat down a bit lower to block out the harsh November sun, he walked around the side of the hotel and into the alley, seeking a place where he could commune with Lord Kheelan in private. Finding such a place behind the general store, he sat down on an overturned barrel and closed his eyes.

“Lord Kheelan?” he asked.

“I am here, Tohre.”

Owen knew that tone and greeting didn’t bode well for him. He hung his head. “Ta mee ec yn laye ayd,” he said, pledging himself to the service of the High Council.

“One month for abusing the drug,” the High Lord declared. “An additional month for Joining without permission. Don’t make it three, Tohre.”

Owen knew the punishment was coming. He just didn’t know it would be that harsh. Six weeks, aye, but not two full months of being locked in a con cell without tenerse or Sustenance. It would be a brutal chastisement. “Aye, your grace,” he said, knowing full well another month was likely to be tacked on when he went after Rachel’s father.

“I mean what I say, Tohre,” Lord Kheelan said as he intercepted that stray thought. “And I’m not averse to making it longer if you push us.”

“Aye, your grace,” Owen acknowledged.

“Is there anything else?”

“Those killed by the Drochtáirs will need to be cremated, your grace. Can you send the drones to…?”

“I will see to it.”

“If the Bastion…”

“I said I would see to it! Do not belabor the point. When you find a grave, call me and the drone will come to handle the incineration. Now find the Drochtáirs then get your ass back to the Citadel before I lose what little patience I have left with you!”

A piercing shriek shot through Owen’s head and he slammed his hands to his ears, his knees going weak. He knew the debilitating sound had been intentional on the part of the High Lord. Lord Kheelan was angry at him and there was no doubt in Owen’s mind the High Lord would be even more irate once Owen presented himself before the High Council.

Leaving the alley, Owen joined his teammates in the stable, grateful Glyn had saddled Céierseach for him and making a mental note to repay his fellow Reaper for the new saddle though his head was still hurting from Lord Kheelan’s punishment.

“I wish we’d had time to bring our own mounts out here. I miss Faoileán, but this one is a good beast. I’ll hate to sell him when we leave,” Iden remarked, admiring the sleek black stallion to which Owen was tying his saddlebag. “Are you going to sell that one, Tohre?”

“No,” Owen replied. “I’m going to keep him.”

“It seems strange you’d give both your horses the same name, Owen,” Glyn laughed. “You should at least have given this one a different name.”

Owen shrugged. “I like the name and it doesn’t matter if they both have it. I’ll do like Cynyr and keep one at the Citadel and leave one here,” he said.

“So you’ve decided to make this your home base then?” Iden inquired.

They led their mounts out of the stable, glancing up at the flakes that were beginning to drift down from the heavens. Almost as one, they flashed cold weather gear onto their muscular frames.

Owen swung into the saddle. “Aye,” he said, easily controlling Céierseach’s prancing. “I believe it will be a good place for us.”

“Mayhap Glyn and I will find such a place in our territories as you, Cynyr and Arawn have discovered,” Iden commented. “I’m about ready to settle down.”

“I’m not,” Glyn said with a snort. He stuck his foot in the stirrup and mounted the horse he’d yet to name.

The snow was coming down a bit harder as the Reapers kicked their mounts into a trot.

* * * * *

From the hotel window Rachel watched the three Reapers riding north. All three were dressed in long black leather dusters and with their black hats and black pants as they sat upon their midnight black horses they resembled the centaurs of ancient myth—beast and man merging into one fearsome entity.

Though the healer had applied a salve when he’d looked in on her briefly, her back was throbbing with pain. She leaned there against the window until she could no longer see her husband and his men. She was weak, her breakfast growing cold, forgotten on the small table across the room. Her mind was teeming with the discovery she had made upon rising.

Putting a hand to her forehead, she tried to remember what had happened during the night but she could not. She thought she had slept soundly without moving but the evidence suggested otherwise. She turned her head and stared at the bed.

There was a sound at the door and expecting the hotel maid who had brought her breakfast tray, she paid little attention to it. The girl had said she’d return to take the tray and tidy the room. She was unaccustomed to being waited on and was embarrassed that Owen had left instructions for her to be. Turning back to the window to watch the gently falling snow, she leaned her forehead against the cold glass. It wasn’t until she felt the rush of air behind her that she turned, her eyes going wide as she recognized one of the three men who had entered her room. Before she could open her mouth to scream, the man clapped a cloth with something cloying and pungent permeating it and the light went out of Rachel’s world.

The leader of the poleen stood guard at the door, making sure no one was coming as the high elder’s daughter was lifted roughly and slung over the third man’s shoulder.

“Brother Claude,” the man with the cloth called out to the leader. “I believe we should take this with us.” He had thrown the bedcovers aside and was standing there holding the blanket in his meaty hand.

Claude scowled. “Don’t worry about her getting cold, Brother Gilbert. We need to be gone before they discover she’s missing,” he snapped, thinking his man meant the blanket.

“There is blood on the sheets,” Gilbert stated.

“She was lashed,” Claude reminded him.

“Not down there she wasn’t,” Gilbert insisted.

Claude hissed beneath his breath then stomped over to the bed. As soon as he saw the smears of blood where Gilbert pointed, his face turned stony. “Aye,” he said. “Bring the sheet.”

Going down the back stairs with the unconscious body of Rachel, the poleen were already back across the border by the time the maid came to find the Reaper’s mate missing.

Chapter Nine

“What is gained without effort is lost without thought—but what is gained through difficulty is kept with care.”

Owen jumped as the words spiraled through his mind. He had been staring into the increasing fall of snow covering the roadway back into New Towne and had become mesmerized by the tranquility around him. Whenever he went into battle, he tried to stay as calm as the situation would allow and not dwell on the difficulties that might present themselves. He had been thinking about the Colony and had decided the Communalists would not welcome him and his men this trip although it was certainly to their advantage to cooperate in finding the lair of the Drochtáirs. All he and his fellow Reapers needed was the location of the last farm hit and they would take it from there. There was no need to stay in New Towne any longer than necessary. When those quiet words had startled him, he sat up straight in the saddle and turned to Glyn with a frown.

“I think She’s fucking with me again,” he said.

Glyn didn’t need to ask whom he meant. “What’s happening now?”

“She’s whispering to me,” Owen snapped. “Some stupid shit about gaining and losing stuff.”

“Gaining and losing what?” Iden inquired.

“Who the hell knows? I was thinking about how the people of the Colony treated me when I first arrived and how they were when we left,” Owen said. “I guess it was Her way of reminding me to be careful in New Towne.”

“You gained their favor then you lost it,” Iden prophesied. “I agree. It was a warning.”

“You just can’t keep friends, can you, Tohre?” Glyn smirked.

“Aye, well, they either want to ignore me or maim me,” Owen agreed. “There’s no in between it seems.”

“Must be your pleasant personality,” Iden proclaimed.

“You over that maiming?” Glyn asked quietly.

Owen fidgeted in the saddle. “As over it as I can be until I know for sure the equipment works,” he replied. “It can get hard as rock but I don’t know if it’ll stay that way long enough to do the job.”

“A bit more information than we needed,” Glyn said, his face turning red.

“Entirely too much actually,” Iden stated.

Owen smiled.

They were entering the compound and were surprised there was no one about until Glyn reminded them it was Sunday and the Communalists would no doubt be having church services. As soon as he said it, singing could be heard coming from the church with its tall steeple and Sign of the Slain One perched on top.

Deciding not to draw any more animosity than they figured they already had, the Reapers tied their mounts to the hitching post in front of the infirmary and took shelter beneath the porch’s overhang, sitting down on the uncomfortable benches that were positioned to either side of the infirmary’s door.

“How long you reckon their services last?” Iden asked.

“A couple of hours I think,” Glyn replied. “I believe I read that in the report Lord Naois gave us.”

“Three hours,” Owen said. He’d read the report through twice before going down to breakfast that morning and had all but memorized it, wanting to know all he could about Rachel’s beliefs. “They should be out in an hour or less.”

“And won’t be too happy to see us lounging here,” Glyn surmised.

“They knew we’d be back,” Owen said. “We wouldn’t leave them to the mercy of the creatures although it wouldn’t bind my bowels if we did.”

“What a delightful image, Tohre,” Iden mumbled.

“Do you blame me after what these bastards did to my woman?” Owen challenged.

“An gno pearsanta no oifigiuil e?” Glyn reminded his friend of one of the Reaper restraints placed on them by the Shadowlords when dealing with civilians and Reapers alike. Translated, it meant, “Is it personal or official?”

“It is both,” Owen stated. “They made it personal when they hurt my Rachel.”

“Understood,” Glyn said, “but ná nocht d’fhiacla go bhféadair an greim do bhreith.”

Owen nodded. “I have no intention of baring my teeth until I’m ready to bite, Kullen,” he replied. He stretched out his long legs, crossed his ankles, tugged his hat down over his eyes and crossed his arms as though he had not a care in the world and all the time there was to be had. Only his friends knew the wheels were turning inside Tohre’s mind and those wheels were rolling over High Elder Chamberlain.

Glyn sat with his ankle crossed over his knee, his foot jumping up and down in agitation. He rarely sat still and to do so now was a particular irritation. He kept glancing down the street to the church.

Iden took out his harmonica and began playing an old Otharian lullaby from his childhood. In the silence of the falling snow, his music sounded even more melancholy that it usually did.

“How did you die, Belial?” Glyn asked, turning to give Iden an angry look.

Iden stopped playing. “Why?”

“I’m just curious.”

Shaking his harmonica on his leather duster, Iden turned his head toward the street. “I was hanged,” he said. “For stealing a horse actually.”

“I thought it might have been because you annoyed the hell out of some Otharian warlord.”

“Well, in a way I suppose I did,” Iden said with a grin. “It was Lord Alliant’s destrier I stole.” He cupped his hands around his harmonica and started to bring it to his mouth but Glyn shot out a hand and grabbed his wrist, shaking his head “no”.

“Doors are opening,” Owen said softly, though his eyes were closed and not a sound could be heard from the church.

Iden got to his feet and moved to the porch railing. “I wonder where the women are,” Iden asked as they watched only men filing out of the building.

“They worship on opposite sides of the church like the Plain Folk,” Glyn said, joining him. “They’ll come out last.”

“True gentlemen all the way,” Iden said with a snort. He cocked a chin toward the group of men who were standing in front of the church, looking their way. “They don’t look surprised to see us.”

“Like Owen said, they knew we’d be back,” Glyn said.

Dressed in navy blue suits with their dark blue shirts buttoned all the way to the chin, three of the elders started toward the infirmary. Behind them were the healer and Brother Edward. After giving them a long, haughty look the high elder turned away and headed for his dwelling.

Owen opened his eyes and stared down at the plank floor of the infirmary’s porch. He was uneasy but couldn’t explain why. His nerves were stretched thin and there was a knot in his belly that he didn’t like. Drawing in his legs, he sat up but stayed where he was, his arms still crossed over his chest, but he turned his head to watch the Communalists coming across the compound.

“They look nervous to you?” Iden asked softly.

“Like coyotes caught in a hen house,” Glyn replied.

Elder Barrow was the first to reach them and he bowed his head briefly in greeting. “You have come for information?” he asked, his eyes snapping to Owen for just a moment before returning to Glyn.

“Have there been any more deaths?” Glyn asked, and when the elder answered that there hadn’t, the Reaper asked for directions to the farm where the last atrocity occurred.

“The Rutgers farm is west of here about four and a half miles,” Elder Barrow told him, pointing to the road that led out of New Towne.

“How many settlements are close by?” Iden asked.

Owen was watching the elder and saw the man’s eyes flicker.

“There is New River to the east and New Junction to the southwest,” the older man replied. He licked his lips. “They are not Communalist colonies.”

“That boy last night said he recognized one of those who attacked the Rutgers as having come from New Junction. It doesn’t matter if that’s a Communalist colony or not,” Glyn declared.

“My people and I are only worried about our own,” Elder Vaughn spoke up. “The outsiders can fend for themselves.”

“That’s right brotherly of you,” Iden muttered.

“But there is another Communalist colony nearby,” Owen said quietly.

Elder Barrow did not look at Owen. “They have not been bothered by the creatures.”

“What’s the name of that settlement?” Glyn pressed.

“It is the seat of our Electorate,” the elder said. “Outsiders are not permitted within the limits of the Colony.”

“All right,” Glyn said. “That still doesn’t tell us the name.”

Elder Barrow blinked. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. His mouth opened and closed but no sound came out. It was Elder Vaughn who stepped forward to answer for him.

“The Electorate is in the Colony of New Allendale. Since you are not of our faith, you will not be allowed to pass through the gates. The gates are made of iron and are ten feet tall. They are kept locked at all times and are only opened to our people.”

“And you know for a fact none of those within the Electorate have been infected with what killed your folks around here,” Iden said.

Elder Vaughn shook his head. “No, there have been no murders in the Electorate. A member of the poleen—the Electorate’s lawmen—was here last evening and assured us all was well within the gates.”

“What about outside the city gates?” Iden pressed.

“No, there have been no murders in the New Allendale Colony,” Elder Vaughn said. “We would have been told if there had been.”

Owen stood. “Let’s go,” he said. He walked off the porch, not even glancing at Elder Barrow who stumbled back to keep from being touched by the Reaper. Not a one of the Communalists spoke to him as he untied his horse’s reins from the hitching post.

Glyn and Iden were untying their mounts as Owen grabbed the pommel of his saddle and vaulted onto his stallion’s back. Without another look at the townsmen, the Reaper drummed his heels against Céierseach’s flanks.

“We have sent Elder Dayton to the Bastion to inform them of what has been happening here and of Lord Owen’s interference in Communalist business,” Elder Vaughn said as Glyn and Iden mounted their horses.

Glyn crossed his wrists over the saddle horn and stared down at the older man. “I don’t imagine Tohre gives a rat’s pecker what you or your little suck ups do, mister,” he said. “Knowing him as well as I do, if I were you and your ineffectual Míliste, I’d keep the hell out of his way. You’ve already made an enemy of him and having a Reaper for an enemy is a mighty hard row to hoe.” Clicking to his horse, Kullen sawed on the reins and set the animal into a fast trot, Iden falling in behind him.

The moment the Reapers were out of earshot, Brother Edward turned to the elders and shook his head. “That man saved my son’s life,” he reminded them.

“And we saved his,” Elder Barrow stated.

“We aided him, aye, but we did not save his life,” Healer Benjamin said. “And he and his men are now going after the creatures who have been preying on us. Only they can defeat this evil. The Míliste certainly can’t. We are doing Lord Owen great wrong.”

“It is not right what is being done,” Edward told him.

“It is the law,” Elder Vaughn snapped.

“He’ll not forgive or forget this,” Healer Benjamin told the elders. “A Reaper never forgives or forgets.”

“In two days it will all be over,” Elder Barrow said. “We will speak no more of it.”

The two elders walked away, their backs stiff, shoulders straight and the snow soon obscuring them from view as they made for the meeting hall where the womenfolk would soon be serving the noon meal.

“It isn’t right,” Healer Benjamin said.

“No, it isn’t,” Edward said, his tone full of misery.

“But if we interfere, we too will be cast out, Brother Edward,” the healer declared. “If we get involved, we will be forced to leave our homes and will never be allowed to return. Our names will be stricken from the covenant charter and our families will be asked to shun us. It is not something we should undertake lightly.”

Edward ran a rough hand over his face. “I must pray on this,” he said, and pivoted on his heel, striding quickly toward the stable.

“Praying is all we can do,” Healer Benjamin said with a heartfelt sigh.

* * * * *

The cell was as icy as death’s hand as Rachel huddled in the corner. Her teeth were chattering together as she sat there on the bare stone floor, feeling the moisture creeping into the cuts on her back. She could not remember ever being so cold or frightened in her life. The plain scarlet red cotton gown she wore was meant to forcibly bring home to all her fallen condition, her whoredom.

They would be coming for her soon. There had to be the second of her punishments before the final one. She had never seen a loiscneach but she knew what would happen. Sheer terror filled her mind and she was trembling from head to toe.

Flashes of the violent examination the supreme healer of the Electorate had forced upon her preyed on her mind. She had awakened to a hard, cold surface under her lacerated back, her wrists and ankles lashed down, her legs spread wide, her naked body shivering with the cold. The supreme healer’s fingers had been rough, brutal, and he had pushed them into her without regard to either cleanliness or care. He had twisted them cruelly inside her, all the while smiling hatefully, calling her slut and whore and harlot. When he had withdrawn his fingers, he held them up and spread them in front of the supreme elders who were gathered around to watch her shame.

“As you can see there is no virginal blood so this signifies her maidenhead has been breached. This woman has thrown away her most prized possession to an outsider!”

“He is my husband! We were legally Joined!” she cried out, but the savage slap of the supreme healer’s hand across her face did more than split her lip and draw blood. It had effectively silenced her for she knew no explanation would be accepted by these determined men.

Cringing with every sound that echoed through the cold stone building, Rachel hung her head as tears trickled down her chapped cheeks.

“Owen, find me,” she whispered. “Please find me before it’s too late.”

* * * * *

Glyn urged his mount closer to Owen’s so he could speak with his fellow Reaper. They were riding along a small stream that was frozen over for the temperature seemed to be dropping with every mile they traveled. The snow had stopped but there was still the threat of it in the damp air and the clouds overhead warned that the precipitation wasn’t ended.

“Are we going to the Rutgers’ place?” Glyn yelled at Owen.

Owen nodded. His stomach was churning, his nerve endings raw as though they were being abraded by sandpaper. He had a heavy feeling in his chest that seemed to increase with every breath he took. Although he didn’t know what was wrong, he knew something was and the not knowing plagued him like a rotten tooth.

The Rutgers farm wasn’t much to write home about. Though the cottage looked to have been freshly painted perhaps in the summer, it was already peeling in places. The roof sagged in the middle and was missing shingles. The porch didn’t look safe and the corral to the side of the barn was ramshackle. Even knowing the dwelling had been occupied until the day before, it looked derelict and abandoned.

A freshly dug plot of land—large enough to contain multiple bodies—lay off to one side along with two individual plots behind which two wooden crosses had been placed. Both burial plots reeked of burned human flesh.

“Whatcha wanna bet they gave the two men those nice, neat little graves and then dumped the poor women into the communal one?” Iden snarled.

“The more I’m around those pricks, the less I like them,” Glyn said.

“They make the Drochtáirs look like choirboys,” Iden replied with a snort.

“And those things are close by,” Owen said quietly. He was staring off across the pastureland where dark lumps were scattered on the ground. “I’ve got their DNA coded in me but you two need to pick it up.”

“How are we to do that, Tohre?” Glyn asked.

Owen lifted a hand and pointed at the dark lumps. “Cows,” he said.

Glyn and Iden looked to where he was indicating. “What cows?” Glyn asked. “Looks like clumps of snowcapped black mud to me.”

“Those are hides, Kullen,” Owen said. “There won’t be any blood or meat or marrow, just hides covering bones.”

“Ugh,” Iden grumbled.

“Go take a taste, boys, and then let’s start tracking these beasts,” Owen ordered. He nudged a chin westward. “I believe we’ll find their lair out there.”

* * * * *

She must have dozed although as cold as she was she couldn’t imagine how that had been possible. It was the sound of shrieking metal that brought her to awareness and then the shuffling of feet coming toward the cell. She could not stop the whimper of fear from escaping her throat as a key was thrust into the lock of the solid iron door.

Bright light from several lanterns nearly blinded her as the door was thrown open. She put up a hand to shield her eyes and cried out as rough hands grabbed her arms and levered her up from the damp floor. She did not see the faces of her jailers for the brightness of the light hurt her eyes. As she was dragged from the cell, all she could do was whisper Owen’s name over and over again as a talisman to ward off the evil that was surely coming.

It was to a large round room they took her and ringing the room were wooden benches occupied by dark figures she knew must be the Council of Exalted Elders. There was only silence as she was thrust into a tall back iron chair that sat in the center of the room under a low chandelier ablaze with candles. Her wrists and ankles were lashed to the arms and legs with rawhide and a broad leather belt was passed around her waist to secure her to the chair’s back.

She was whimpering for she knew what was about to happen. Her second punishment might well be worse than the first, and the third—coming later in the day—would be worse still. As one of her jailers positioned himself behind the chair and took her head into his hands to steady it, she drew in a ragged, terrified breath.

The reality of the punishment that was then meted out to her far exceeded that which she was expecting. Her scream went on and on and on…

Chapter Ten

The pain was so unexpected, so intense, Owen nearly fell from his horse. Luckily the mount was standing still as the Reaper shot out a hand to grab the pommel then swung a leg over Céierseach’s head and hit the ground hard, squatting down with his palm pressed tight to his forehead, his fingers splayed wide.

“What the hell?” Glyn questioned, reining in his horse and sawing on the reins to turn it around. “What’s the matter?” He and Iden dismounted and went over to Owen.

“Sweet Merciful Alel that hurt,” Owen said, his breath ragged.

“Did you take your gods-be-damned tenerse this morning, Tohre?” Glyn snapped.

Owen lifted his head and gave Glyn a brutal look. “I couldn’t because some asshole went through my saddlebags and took the gods-be-damned tenerse, Kullen,” he threw back at him. Sweat was pouring down his face and he was shaking.

“Oh,” Glyn said, his cheeks reddening. “I forgot.”

“I forgot,” Owen mimicked with a sneer.

“Well, you need it,” Glyn said, going over to his horse.

“You think?” Owen snarled.

“Póg ma thoin, Tohre,” Glyn said.

“Aye, well, you can kiss mine too,” Owen returned.

“Tóg bog é,” Iden told Owen, bidding him to take it easy.

“God almighty that hurts,” Owen said, pressing his palm harder against his forehead.

Owen brought the vac-syringe over and leaned down to inject the payload into Owen’s neck.

“Go mbeire an diabhal leis thú!” Owen hissed as the burning liquid spread through the veins in his neck.

“Too late, Tohre. The devil already has my soul,” Glyn replied with a chuckle.

“She has all of us by the balls, I’m thinking,” Iden agreed.

“How’s the head now?” Glyn asked.

“I’ve never had pain like this,” Owen replied. “It feels like someone shoved a burning poker through my head.”

“The tenerse should start helping soon,” Glyn said.

“I’ve got to get out of here. The stench of burning flesh is starting to get to me,” Owen said, pushing to his feet. He stood there wavering for a moment, his unease undulating through him with the pain in his forehead beating at him.

“Aye, it seems to just be hanging in the air,” Iden commented.

“You gonna be able to ride?” Glyn asked, worry crinkling his brow.

“I have to be,” Owen said. He unbuttoned his duster and shrugged out of it.

“Are you hot?” Iden queried.

“I’m burning up.” Wadding up the garment, he walked to his horse and lashed the duster to his bedroll. He grabbed the pommel and swung into the saddle, shifting until he was comfortable.

“Any more pain?” Glyn asked.

“No,” Owen lied, and drummed his heels into Céierseach’s sides and the horse shot forward.

* * * * *

As the noonday sun began trying to push through the heavy gray clouds, the Reapers rode past a farm where three new graves rippled the little ground behind a neatly kept family plot surrounded by a picket fence. Dismounting, they entered the plot to investigate.

“August eighth,” Glyn said. “All three.”

“Forever together,” Iden read the inscription burned into the plain wooden cross. “You think they were victims of the Drochtáirs?”

“I don’t think we can take a chance that they aren’t,” Glyn replied.

“There’s no grass growing anywhere near the graves,” Owen said, closed his eyes and sent a mental call to the Citadel. “Lord Kheelan?”

“It is on its way to your location. You may go on.”

Owen opened his eyes. “The drone is coming.”

Glyn and Iden automatically glanced to the heavens though there was nothing to see but dark scudding clouds and a sun striving to push them aside.

“We’ve been instructed to leave,” Owen said, going out the gate of the little cemetery.

“We should be near New Junction, shouldn’t we?” Iden asked.

“About two miles away, I’d say,” Owen agreed. The hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood up and he started walking faster. “I feel those things coming.”

“I do too,” Glyn said. He and Iden ran for their horses.

They were galloping away from the farmstead as the ground beneath them shook and they all looked back to see bright red streaks shooting down from the depths of the concealing clouds. Though the drone was nowhere in sight, its laser beams reflected off the heavens, surrounding it in a scarlet wash of light.

After finding two more farms but no more graves, and after questioning the farmers about any strange attacks since summer, the Reapers learned there had been close to twenty deaths in the past four months. Upon finding out where those victims were buried—all in the community cemetery at New Junction—Owen put forth the suggestion to his men that there might be more infestations like the lone farmstead that no one knew about.

“Lord Kheelan?” he asked as he walked away from the farmer and his family, leaving Glyn and Iden drinking hot cups of coffee with the timid folks.

“Aye?”

“It has occurred to me that there may be other graves scattered across the countryside. It might take days to find all of them. Is there any way the drone can search them out from the sky?”

There was a long pause and Owen knew the Shadowlords were conversing together. At last the High Lord gave his reply.

“Get a soil sample from an infected grave,” Lord Kheelan ordered. “You will need to take the sample away from a populated area and place it where the drone can take it up into the craft for analysis. It can then search for areas where such soil exists and then destroy what is beneath it.”

“Is there any chance it could harm human or animal life in the process?”

“No.”

“We’re going in to New Junction then and I’ll get the sample there. Will the drone be able to locate the Drochtáirs’ lair in the same way?”

Another long pause and then a decided “no”.

“You men will have to find the lair and the only time you’ll be able to do it is when the creatures come out at night to feed. It is blocking our ability to home in on it,” Lord Kheelan said. “Our feeling is these things are smart enough not to take victims from the same area too often. They have become quite good at hiding. Let’s hope they don’t realize they are being hunted and go deeper underground. Once you find the lair, the drone can destroy it provided the Drochtáirs aren’t too far underground.”

Owen felt the connection sever between him and the High Lord and sighed. Lord Kheelan was one very angry Shadowlord if the tone of his voice and manner were any indication. As he joined his fellow Reapers, he thanked the farmers for their help and told Glyn and Iden to mount up.

“Problems?” Glyn asked as they left away from the farm.

“Nothing we can’t handle, but he says we’ll have to hunt for the creatures at night.” He tugged on his hat. “I’m thinking we could find them quicker and have less chance of giving ourselves away if we took to the air.”

“And expend a lot of energy we’ll need to fight them on the ground later?” Glyn questioned, shaking his head.

“No, we’ll mark where their lair is and return the next morning to unearth them and have the drone take ’em out,” Owen told him.

“Can the drone do that?” Iden inquired.

“Apparently so as long as the creatures aren’t too far down.”

“Then we’ll need to make sure no humans are anywhere near those things tonight,” Glyn suggested. “How are we going to do that?”

“From the air,” Owen said. “We’ll have to go down and warn them then shift back.”

“That will take a whole lot of energy, Tohre,” Glyn said.

“Maybe,” Owen agreed. “Maybe not. It depends on how many farmers are out away from town. If we can keep people in town until we can eradicate the Drochtáirs, that would be the best thing.”

“And then there are those already infected and lying in their graves waiting for sundown,” Glyn said.

“That will be handled as soon as I can get some grave dirt for the drone to analyze,” Owen said. He kicked his horse into a faster trot.

* * * * *

New Junction was a thriving community with stores of all kinds. The people walking the streets and sidewalks stopped dead still in their tracks as the three Reapers rode down the slushy snow-packed street. To give them their due, the good folk of the Manontaque Province town did not scatter as those below the border were known to do nor did they point. They simply stared—obviously knowing what the men were for the word Reaper could be heard now and again.

Riding up to the constable’s office, they dismounted and tied their mounts to the hitching post. The constable was standing on the plank sidewalk with two other men who were obviously his deputies. He nodded politely as Owen stepped up to him.

“I am Owen Tohre and this is Glyn Kullen and Iden Belial,” Owen introduced them. “We are here concerning the strange deaths that have been taking place up here.”

The constable blinked. “Does the Bastion know you are here?”

“The Shadowlords have been in contact with them,” Owen answered, “and the high elder down in New Towne has also sent an emissary to inform them we’re here.”

“We’ve been waiting four months for the Míliste to send men out here to look into this, but so far we haven’t seen hide nor hair of anyone.” The constable held out his hand. “I am Constable Ford and these are my deputies, Bart and Clint Ford.”

The three men bore a strong resemblance to one another and when Glyn asked if they were brothers, the constable replied they were first cousins.

“I took the job over from my father when he was killed back in July.”

“By the creatures?” Iden inquired.

The constable bobbed his head. “He was the fifth one to die while he was out investigating the murder of old man Tate and his son.”

“Are they all buried here in the cemetery?” Owen asked.

“All but the Tates,” Bart Ford answered. “They were buried out to their homestead.”

“I don’t know if you know this or not, but the dead rise up from their graves at night,” Owen stated. “Their remains will have to be cremated.”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Clint Ford hissed. “Didn’t I tell you they was slithering up out of them graves?”

“Folks aren’t going to want their loved ones dug up and burned,” the constable said.

“They won’t have to be,” Owen said.

The constable held up his hands. “I don’t want to know how and I don’t want to be there when it’s done.”

“If you’ll take me out to the cemetery, we can get this done before sundown,” Owen said. “You won’t need to see any of it.”

Chewing on his lower lip for a moment the constable nodded his silent agreement. “I’ll get my nag,” he said.

“I thought she was at home canning apples,” Bart teased.

“Cute,” the constable grunted.

“You two stay here and get us a room for the night,” Owen said. He knew they’d need a place to rest after expending all the energy they would need to track the Drochtáirs that night.

Untying his horse, Owen walked along with the constable as that man headed for the livery stable. They spoke of the weather, the town, the people—everything but what had been happening in and around New Junction. As they walked, people dipped their head in greeting to the Reaper but did not speak to him.

“Won’t speak unless you speak first,” the constable told him when Owen commented about it. “We hold you men in high regard up here.”

Owen glanced at him. “Why is that?”

“We know you’re the first line of defense against things what aren’t human,” the man replied. “We’ve had a rogue or two come through here but luckily they didn’t stay. It’s good to know you’re down here taking care of that situation.”

Owen wondered what the constable would say if he knew about the Ceannus and the plague of ghorets—those deadly venomous vipers whose bite had no antidote for human beings—that the aliens had set loose on Terra.

“They don’t think much of us in New Towne,” Owen remarked.

“You run afoul of one of their idiotic laws?” Constable Ford asked.

“I took one of their women for my own,” Owen said, and when the constable turned a wide-eyed look to him, he shrugged. “And I legally married her.”

“Holy fucking shit,” the constable breathed. “You don’t say?” His forehead wrinkled. “And she’s all right? They didn’t do nothing to her?”

Owen stopped walking, putting a hand out to stop the constable too. “What do you mean?”

“Surely you know, Lord Owen, Communalist women don’t ever leave the Colonies,” Constable Ford said, searching the Reaper’s eyes. “Leastwise not unless they were given charbaa veih’n agglish and thrown out and I’ve only known one who survived that.”

“My lady is safe in Saint Marie,” Owen said. “They lashed her before I knew what they’d done but if they touch her again, I’ll burn their settlement down around their ears with them in it.”

A worried look passed over Constable Ford’s lean face. “They just lashed her? Nothing else?”

“I didn’t give them time to do anything else,” Owen said.

“Lord Owen…” the constable began, but Owen cut him off.

“We need to get a sample of the grave soil.” He didn’t want to start worrying any more about Rachel than he already was. He had to believe she was safe in Saint Marie. To do otherwise would have him galloping back across the border.

“Aye, milord,” the constable said, looking away from the hard look on the Reaper’s face.

They didn’t have far to ride but the air was turning colder still. Constable Ford remarked that with the warm November days suddenly becoming frigid overnight was what caused people to catch the sniffles.

Owen smiled grimly. It had been a long time since he’d had such a mundane thing as the sniffles. Reaper didn’t get sick for their revenant worms, their parasites, kept them in good health, eradicating any germ that might cause them trouble. Sometimes he actually missed the frailties that made others human.

New Junction’s cemetery still had a few granite slabs left from before the Burning War. Some were aged with lichen but many were glossy marble, well cared for by the townspeople. It was larger than Owen expected with orderly rows of white crosses but the sight of the graves where no grass refused to grow and where the soil held a strange greenish tint drew his eye.

“Can’t get grass or flowers to grow on those graves,” Constable Ford said. “No matter how hard we try.”

“It’s the infection,” Owen said. “Once the dead are cleansed, I imagine the grass will grow over the mounds.”

They stopped before the closest barren mound and Owen dismounted, pulled out his handkerchief, and bent over to scoop up a handful of the bare dirt. He wrinkled his nose for the soil had a strange, tart smell that didn’t set well on his stomach. Just holding the dirt inside the protection of the cloth gave him an odd, unsettled feeling. Tying the material as best he could, he hated sticking it back in his pocket. He went back to his horse.

“I’ll meet you back in town, Constable,” Owen said. “I need to get this where the Shadowlords can retrieve it.”

Constable Ford glanced around as though he expected one of the infamous trio to appear out of nowhere. “Ah, aye. I’ll meet you there,” he said, and couldn’t seem to leave fast enough.

Owen snorted with amusement. He urged his horse past the cemetery and into a valley beyond where he felt there would be privacy for the drone to pick up the soil. Spying a good-sized boulder, he walked Céierseach over to it and leaned down to drop the handkerchief he still held in his gloved hand.

“Lord Kheelan?” he sent.

“We see you. Head back to town.”

The Shadowlord’s snotty tone was starting to irritate Owen but there was nothing he could say that would help. The only thing he could do was present himself before the High Council and submit to the punishment they had planned for him once all this was done. He knew since Morrigunia Herself had put Rachel in his path, the Shadowlords would not attempt to take her from him but he would be required to pay a very stiff price to keep her.

As he rode back toward town, he realized he would do whatever it took to keep Rachel with him. The Triune Goddess’ words, “What is gained without effort is lost without thought—but what is gained through difficulty is kept with care”, suddenly had meaning for him.

“Keep her safe for me,” he sent to the goddess, and was a bit unnerved when She did not respond as She normally would have. He tried again. “Mo Regina?” Yet still She did not answer.

By the time he stabled Céierseach and made his way to the hotel, he was starting to get very concerned for his lady.

From deep within the swirling heavens, Morrigunia in her incandescent dragon form sailed the skies, circling the drone several times as it maneuvered into place above the boulder upon which laid the graveyard dirt sample. She watched with curious eyes as the drone began to hum then the handkerchief and its contents were plucked from the earth to disappear inside the gray hull of the craft. A few times more She sailed around the flying disc then beat Her copper wings and banked sharply away. As She soared, She kept a dragon eye on the red streaks of fire spitting down from the drone and knew the infected ones were being eliminated in their graves.

Dividing Her mind between keeping watch over the actions of the Shadowlords and attempting to keep Owen Tohre from knowing what was happening only a few miles from where he stood was taxing Her great strength but it had to be done. She was shielding his mind as She had failed to do when he had felt the woman’s punishment earlier that day. Were he to feel Rachel’s pain now, were he to know what was happening to her at that very moment might well cripple his mind and that could not be allowed.

Casting a warm blanket of mental insulation over Owen as he joined his fellow Reapers for an early afternoon meal, Morrigunia bided Her time. Only She knew the outcome of this day’s brutal events and that outcome would bring Owen to Her on his knees.

Sometimes being a goddess was very hard work.

* * * * *

The pain was more than Rachel could bear and as her last scream reverberated through the cold stone room in which she lay, her last thoughts were of the man who had failed to come to her rescue. The man she believed had forsaken her.

“Why, Owen?” she whispered as darkness closed around her. “Why?”

Chapter Eleven

The food wasn’t setting well on Owen’s stomach and as he sat listening to Glyn and Iden swapping insults, he kept glancing across the dining room where the other patrons were sitting quietly, enjoying their meal. Now and again someone would look over at him and smile and he would automatically respond with a tight smile of his own. He was not used to people showing him friendliness.

“Terra to Owen.”

He looked around and frowned at Glyn. “Were you saying something of import or just thinking of ways to annoy me, Kullen?”

Glyn sat back in his chair and contemplated his friend. “What’s with you this afternoon, Tohre?” he challenged. “You look like someone drowned your kitten.”

Considering Owen had a strong love for felines—kittens in particular—that remark didn’t set well with him. “Leave off, will ya? I’m in no mood for your flippancy.”

“Whoa!” Glyn stated with a smirk. “The child has learned a new word.” He arched a dark brow. “Define flippancy, Owen.”

“Define this, Glyn,” Owen snapped, extending his middle finger to his friend. He pushed back his chair and left the table.

“Bad Reaper,” Glyn called out and Iden chuckled. “Bad, bad Reaper.”

A few people in the dining room who had overheard the conversation laughed too and though it should have made Owen angry, it made him smile. As he walked past a little boy who giggled at him, he winked and tousled the child’s hair, surprising himself and his fellow Reapers.

“Did you see that?” Iden asked, wide eyed.

“Indeed I did,” Glyn said. “I think he’s moving past what happened in Calizonia.”

“By Alel, I hope so,” Iden said. “I know Arawn’s been worried about him.”

“We all have,” Glyn agreed.

Standing out on the wooden sidewalk and watching the townsfolk go about their business—nodding back to those who politely acknowledged him—Owen leaned against the overhang support and let the cool wind waft across his face. He could not understand why he was so nervous, so uneasy. His supper was sitting in his gut like a rock.

A flash of red at the end of the street caught his attention and he looked that way, fairly sure it was the drone taking care of the graves in the town’s cemetery. Closing his eyes, he sent a question to the High Lord.

“Thirty-nine,” Lord Kheelan answered. “The last of them are being seen to now.”

“That’s more than I would have thought…”

“Make sure there are no more after tonight.”

The reprimand was short and not-so-sweet, and once again Owen felt the censure aimed his way. Opening his eyes, he let the link between the Shadowlord and him dissolve. Another flash of red lit up the sky and still another then the fireworks stopped.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Owen went back into the hotel. For some reason he was tired and thought a nap would do him good. He asked the desk clerk to tell his men where he’d be then slowly climbed the stairs, his unsettled feeling growing with every step.

Once in the room he would be sharing with Glyn and Iden, he unbuckled his gun belt, tossed his hat onto the desk and sat down on the rollaway bed to take off his boots. Since he had seniority, he got to sleep alone while his teammates would share the bed. Stretching out on his back, he cupped his hands under his head and stared up at the ceiling, trying to fathom what had him so ill at ease. For a long moment he thought about Rachel but reasoned she was safe in Saint Marie under the healer’s care and he was fairly sure the town’s people would look after her for him. After all, she was a Reaper’s wife and it would behoove them to make sure nothing happened to her. Yet still the anxiety persisted.

He fell asleep with that niggling worry prodding at his mind.

* * * * *

Glyn and Iden let him sleep until the sun was well set. When Iden gently shook him, Owen opened his eyes groggily.

“It’s time to reconnoiter,” Iden said.

“All right,” Owen said. He sat up and stretched, yawning hugely. Glyn and Iden had removed their weapons and boots and were taking off their shirts.

“How are we going to do this?” Glyn asked.

“I doubt we have to worry about south of us so I’ll take the north,” Owen said. “You take west and Iden, east. Start with concentric circles, spiraling outward from New Junction inward. If you see something, holler.”

“Makes sense,” Glyn approved.

Within five minutes, Glyn had opened the window and the three of them took to the sky in their avian forms.

* * * * *

The two men moved quietly into the barn and with as much stealth as possible saddled their horses. The men didn’t speak—there was no need. They worked quickly and efficiently, avoiding casting nervous looks at one another as they did. Leading the beasts out into the night, they walked the roan and the bay slowly well away from the nearest buildings then took to their saddles. They had a lot of ground to cover that night and as one kicked his horse toward the west, the other headed east, neither saw the black hawk and the seagull soaring away from one another through the night sky.

* * * * *

From far beneath the wintry plains of the Manontaque Province, three ravenous creatures slithered up from their subterranean lair and into the frigid North Country night. Where they moved, a milky white spread of slime sizzled on the ground, killing the vegetation nestled beneath the snow.

Unlike vipers known to the Terran world or any other, these creatures were hard-scaled with a sickly green armor plating that resembled chain mail. Impervious to the cold through which they moved, their bodies gave off a pulsing of concentrated heat that—should a humanoid come in contact with it—would eat through flesh and bone in a matter of seconds. The pulsing was hidden beneath a stealth-like cloaking that concealed the creatures from view. The only things that gave away their presence were the odoriferous trail left in their wake and the melting of the snow. There was nothing to screen either telltale sign.

Lifting the upper part of their bodies to test the air through titular heat-seeking pits between their nostrils and the eyes on either side of their heads, the creatures could detect no living things nearby. They hissed angrily in unison—forked tongues flickering, triangular heads weaving from side to side. Two large tubular fangs hinged back against the roof of their opened mouths and pitiless elliptical eyes gleamed red in the dark of night.

Undulating along as one entity, rippling over the ground with steady purpose, the creatures moved quickly. Hunger was beating at them and the Need was great. The sensitive membranes inside the titular pits allowed them to seek infrared radiation—a slight increase in the surrounding temperature that would alert them to the presence of warm-blooded prey. All that was needed was just a slight temperature variation from the night air. Mere fractions of a degree would suffice.

* * * * *

Among the three Reapers, Iden had the best sense of smell while in his seagull form. It was he who drew in the noxious stench permeating the air and banked toward it, signaling the others that he thought he had found their target.

Winging their way toward Iden, both Owen and Glyn warned their fellow teammate not to get within striking range of the Drochtáirs for who knew what powers the creatures might have. Could they—like the Reapers and rogues—shape-shift? How did they attack and infect their victims? Since the Shadowlords could not tell them what form the beings took, it was imperative that Iden stay well out of their range.

“I think they are vipers,” Iden sent. “And there are three of them moving as one.”

The only thing Reapers feared were ghorets—the three-feet-long silver and green vipers whose venom could kill a humanoid in mere seconds and make a Reaper wish he could die. Because of that fear, other snakes made them uneasy and they kept well away from those indigenous to Terra, venomous or not.

“How do you know? Can you see them?” Glyn asked.

“There’s no way to miss them. Where they are moving through the snow, they are leaving a serpentine trail behind and it reeks to high heaven,” Iden added.

“Well, if they are the seed from which Raphian sprang, it makes sense they’d be serpents,” Glyn commented.

“Aye, but vipers don’t mangle their victims,” Owen reminded his fellow Reapers. “Remember the first victims had deep scratches and bite marks. Those creatures are going to have to change to either humanoid or animal shape to attack their prey.” He caught the malevolent stench. “My money is on animal.”

“Whatever they can infect on the way to visiting some poor unsuspecting farmer and then assume its shape?” Glyn inquired.

“That would be my guess,” Owen replied. “Watch for anything down there large enough to attack a human.”

“How ’bout a wolverine?” Iden said, spying one of the beasts running pell-mell away from the advance of the Drochtáirs.

“That would do it,” Glyn agreed. He too had spotted the dark furry critter streaking across the snow.

“They are gaining on it,” Iden said then mentally whistled. “Those things can move ass, guys!”

Neither Owen nor Glyn needed to ask to which Iden was referring for they were watching the Drochtáirs closing with unnatural speed on the terrified wolverine.

“As much as I’d like to see how those creatures work, I really don’t want to see that little fur ball hurt,” Owen said.

“And just how do you…?” Glyn started to ask, but Owen was already changing in midair. The bird form into which he shifted startled his fellow Reapers into complete silence. Neither knew him capable of such a feat and were stunned as they watched him soar toward the fleeing wolverine, swoop down, clutch the animal behind his head and along its rump and then lift it up, banking away with it into the night sky.

“What the fuck was that?” Iden whispered.

“One ugly-ass bird,” Glyn whispered back. “That thing had a face only a mother could love.”

Below them, the slithering creatures came up short, their prey suddenly having vanished. They paused where they were for a moment then as though sensing they had been tracked, arced around and headed back the way they had come, using the same speed they’d used to go after the wolverine.

“They are on to us,” Iden said.

“On to that ugly motherfucker Owen turned into at any rate,” Glyn told him. “Let’s go after them but shield your thoughts and don’t utter one word. We don’t want them to know they’re being followed back to their lair.”

As Glyn and Iden struck out after the fleeing creatures, Owen was several miles away, lowering the struggling, snarling, malodorous wolverine to the ground and streaking out of the way of its thirty-eight very sharp teeth and ten even-sharper claws. The stench of the animal’s fur seemed to be permeating his feathers and he changed again from the condor with its nine-foot wingspan to his normal blackbird shape. Silently chuckling to himself as the wolverine hissed at him as he soared away, he headed back to where he’d left his teammates.

Glyn and Iden were circling like birds of prey in the sky and when Owen dove between them, he could detect the stench below. Looking down, he saw nothing save a cluster of boulders. Mentally marking the spot, he broke away with his fellow Reapers in pursuit. Once they were well away from the location of the lair, he dove toward the ground and landed. Glyn and Iden joined him.

Fashioning a bulky fur robe, he wrapped it around himself and sat down on a fallen tree. He was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open. The shape-shifting had taken its toll, conjuring the robe had taken even more but he wasn’t up to sitting bare-assed in the frigid night air. He braced one naked foot on the other, his flesh burning from the cold.

“What the hell was that?” Iden demanded as he too wrapped his nakedness in a thick fur. He had enough presence of mind to fashion wooly socks for his feet before he slumped on the ground.

“And how the hell did you do it?” Glyn added. He pulled his own fur tightly around him, giving Iden’s socks a long look before conjuring up ones for himself.

Owen shrugged and even that seemed to sap his waning energy. He too looked jealously at his fellow Reapers’ covered feet but had no energy left to cover his aching feet. “I’ve had a few weeks to fuck around with things while I was gone. I figured if Morrigunia could do it, maybe we could too. I remember seeing one of those big birds out in Calizonia and knew that was the only thing big enough to lift a wolverine. You hold the image of the creature you want to be and you shift.”

“You think we can change into something else as well?” Iden asked, now more intrigued than angry.

“It takes practice but, aye, I know you can,” Owen replied. He was shivering.

“You expended more energy than you should have and doing this hasn’t helped,” Glyn said, referring to Owen’s shift into human shape. “We need to get back and rest—you especially—then call in the Drochtáirs’ location to the High Council in the morning.”

Owen yawned. He was so tired, so drained, he didn’t know if it would be possible to shift again. He hoped he could for spending the night on the prairie held no allure whatsoever.

“Come on, Tohre,” Glyn said, his forehead creased with worry. “You need to get up.”

Nodding his agreement, Owen stood, wavering just a bit, and dropped the fur. The biting cold of the arctic air washed over him. He held his blackbird form in his mind far longer than normal but he finally managed to shift, taking to the air listlessly with his teammates winging beside him.

As they sailed through the open window of their room, they cursed at the same moment for the room was freezing. Shivering, Iden slammed the window shut and clothing himself in wool long johns, scrambled beneath the cover.

“Come on, Kullen,” he growled, his teeth chattering. “Get in and warm me up, baby.”

Glyn snorted as he fashioned his own set of thick wool underwear. “You wish,” he sneered. He glanced at Owen and knew his friend didn’t have it left in him to conjure clothing. Glyn did it for him.

“Thanks,” Owen muttered as he got under the covers and pulled them up to his chin. Despite the natural heat of his Reaper state—Reaper body temps were higher than that of a human—he was shaking from the cold. Despite the clicking of teeth, he was fast asleep before Glyn climbed into bed beside Iden.

* * * * *

Snow began to fall again as the two men rode into New River. They were cold, hungry and afraid as they woke the stable owner and asked for lodging for their mounts, willing to take an empty stall for themselves if the man agreed.

“Bad night to be out riding, men,” the stable owner commented, giving them a wary look. “If you don’t mind the straw, I don’t mind you sleeping there.” He named them a ridiculous amount of coins to stable their mounts but the men had no other choice but to pay it. Between them they didn’t have enough to rent a hotel room or buy food.

Settling down with the animals, it was a long time before they fell into a restless slumber. Every faint sound of a mouse rustling through the straw, every soft nicker of a horse or creak of the overhead timbers brought them wide awake and trembling.

* * * * *

Rachel could not sleep. She lay as still as she could and listened to the howling of the wind as it skirled around the building in which she was confined. Since she had had no food all day she was lightheaded and her stomach was protesting loudly. Her mouth was dry for not one drop of water had passed her lips since she’d awakened that morning. The only thing between her and the stinging cold of the cell was the thin red dress that covered her body. Her feet had become numb and she feared her toes were frostbitten or well on the way to becoming so.

Not that it mattered.

At ten of the clock the coming morning, those who resided within the gates of the Electorate would gather in the kiare-uillinagh, the quadrangle, to witness the third day’s final punishment. Those from the Colony beyond its guarded walls who wished to view the claghit gy baase would already be assembled and waiting for her to be brought out. The claghs jiarg would be piled to one side for those who wanted them and the Writ of Excommunication, the charbaa veih’n agglish screeuyn leigh, would be read. When the last punishment had been carried out, her body would be carried beyond the walls and left for the scavengers to feast upon. There would be no proper burial for her.

Pain racking her tortured body and sorrow throbbing heavily in her broken heart, she stared into the darkness but all she saw was the face of Owen Tohre. Until the last moment she drew breath—and perhaps even beyond in whatever hell claimed her—his beloved name would be the last words she would ever speak.

Chapter Twelve

It was the loud pounding on the hotel door that brought Owen up as though he’d been jerked by a noose around his neck. The shouts of his name made the blood race through his heart and he flung the covers aside, barely aware of Glyn and Iden scrambling from the bed and grabbing their firearms. He flung the door open and blinked, unprepared for the visitors standing at the door.

“You must hurry, Lord Owen,” Brother Edward Dayton yelled at him. “There is no time to waste. The hour is approaching!”

Owen stared at the two Communalists—Edward and the Healer Benjamin Tate. He was still half asleep and them being there in New Junction didn’t make sense to him.

“The hour for what?” Glyn asked. He waved his hand over his wool underclothing and his black Reaper uniform settled in place over his tall frame, the black leather duster covering him from neck to ankle.

“The claghit gy baase,” Benjamin stated. He tried not to gape at Kullen, stunned at the sudden appearance of clothing on the man. “Please, you must hurry! There is no time to waste!”

“Get dressed, Owen,” Glyn snapped. “Now!”

Iden was already clothed in his uniform and duster and was strapping his gun belt into place. He cast Owen a worried look. “Owen, get moving!”

It was as though he were mired in quicksand and unable to move away from the door. Seeing the two men from New Towne there was beginning to have meaning for him and all the blood had drained suddenly from his face. He staggered back, eyes wide, and barely felt the uniform that Glyn conjured onto him. He grunted when Iden slammed the gun belt into his belly.

“Get a move on, Reaper!” Iden shouted at him.

“Is she in New Towne?” Glyn asked as Owen finally came out of his stupor and slung the gun belt around his hips, buckling it low.

“Nay, the poleen took her from Saint Marie to the Electorate yesterday morning,” Edward replied. He was motioning with his hand, wanting the Reapers to hurry.

“Yesterday morning?” Glyn repeated. He glanced at Iden and the look that passed between the two men was filled with shock.

Owen barely heard them talking for there was a red roar of rage rushing between his temples. He tied the holster strap around his thigh, snatched his hat from the desk and shoved past Benjamin and Edward. His long strides took him quickly to the stairs.

“We lost time looking for you,” the healer said as he followed close behind Iden. “Had we not stopped for the night, we would have gotten here sooner but the weather was…”

“Don’t apologize,” Iden snapped. He waved his hand, adding a duster to Owen’s body as he walked. “You’re here now.”

“Thanks, Mama,” they heard Owen growl.

Jerking the hotel door open, Owen ran diagonally across the street to the stable. His head was pounding as he shoved open the stable door.

“Shit!” Glyn cursed, and spun around on his heel, racing back to the hotel.

“Where is he going?” Edward asked. His and the healer’s horses were tied to the hitching post in front of the hotel. He untied his mount and pulled himself into the saddle.

“My guess would be after his saddlebag,” Iden yelled back at him as he ran, “and the tenerse. If we don’t get it in our systems soon, we won’t be at maximum strength.”

“What of Sustenance?” Benjamin called out. He was having trouble mounting his roan for the horse was trying to sidestep, picking up on its owner’s nervousness.

“We can take that from most anywhere,” Iden shouted. “The tenerse, we can’t.”

Owen had already thrown his saddle onto Céierseach’s back and was bending down to buckle the cinch. His face was stone-cold hard and his eyes were glinting with crimson sparks. He didn’t wait for Iden to saddle up before he was racing his big black out of the stable. “Which way?” he bellowed at Edward.

Edward pointed to the northwest and drummed his heels into his horse’s sides to race after the Reaper who was already galloping away. Although he ran a stable and was a blacksmith, Edward wasn’t that great a horseman and he hung on to the reins and pommel for dear life as the beast pounded over the muddy ground. It wasn’t long before he spied Iden passing him and Benjamin running alongside. Soon after, the third Reaper shot past them at a breakneck speed, lashing his horse with its reins.

“Lord Owen?” The High Lord’s voice broke into Owen’s consciousness. “You have not given us the coordinates for the…”

“Get the hell out of my mind, you fucking bastard! I don’t have time for your shit!” Owen hissed.

There was immediate silence and a dull tugging at his mind that Owen knew meant Lord Kheelan was invading his thoughts, attempting to find a reason why he had been spoken to in such a disgraceful, disrespectful way. When nothing else was said, he figured the Shadowlord had whatever information he’d sought.

“Lord Glyn?”

Glyn flinched as the High Lord’s voice intruded. “Aye, your grace?”

“Where is it you go?”

“To a place called the Electorate,” Glyn replied.

After a brief pause, Lord Kheelan informed him it was near the settlement of New Allendale and that they were roughly six miles from the fortress.

“Fortress?” Glyn questioned.

“There are tall iron fences around the stronghold. Those gates are heavily guarded and locked to all outsiders not of the Communalist faith. You will need to shift to avian form to get inside.”

“Do you know exactly where it is?” Glyn asked, already having figured that out in his head.

“Aye.”

“Can you direct the drone there?”

Another pause that lasted a bit longer. “Aye, Lord Glyn. We will.”

“Then take out a section of the gates because we’ve not had our tenerse yet this morning or any Sustenance. If we shift, we’ll be at a disadvantage and I think you know what is about to happen inside that place.”

Lord Kheelan’s tone was one of sharp rebuke. “And risk the censure of the Bastion for doing so? Do you know what you ask?”

“I know gods-be-damned well what I’m asking,” Glyn snapped, and could have groaned for he knew he’d be in the con cell next to Owen’s before this was all over.

“Two months, Lord Glyn,” the High Lord stated. “Is it worth it?”

Glyn didn’t hesitate. “Aye, your grace. It’ll be worth every second of it.”

“Myr shen dy row eh,” Lord Kheelan. So be it.

Owen was bent low in the saddle as his horse chewed up the miles. He could see a large stonework complex high on a steep hill with a winding roadway leading up to a solid barrier the color of bright rust circling it. Rising above the barrier were four guard towers ranged at the four corners. As soon as he felt the prickling of his hair on the back of his neck he knew the drone was nearby. When the staccato bursts of red pulsed down from the heavens to hammer at the huge double gates of the complex, he smiled grimly.

“Thank you,” he managed to send.

“Four months, Lord Owen,” came the stiff reply.

That wouldn’t matter, he thought, if he wasn’t in time to save his wife.

In a fiery blast of sustained bombardment, a large section of the iron wall imploded and one guard tower flanking the main gate began to fall outward, the men inside screaming as it fell. Through the destroyed opening, people began scattering across the interior of the compound, men pushing women aside, trampling over them to get to safety.

A bullet whizzed by Owen’s ear as he jumped Céierseach over fallen rubble in the opening. Another flew past his shoulder, ripping a gash in his silk shirt. He felt the sting of the lead creasing his flesh but paid no attention to it. His eyes were on a fallen figure lying still amidst a scattering of red rocks. “Rachel!” he shouted as another bullet spun past his cheek, gouging a thin line along the bone.

“I didn’t think your people believed in guns!” Glyn yelled at Edward as they raced into the compound behind Owen. Drawing his gun, he took down two shooters aiming their rifles at Owen. From beside him, Iden punched bullets into another three guards.

“Only the poleen have weapons,” Edward shouted at him.

Amidst the shrieking of the men and the screaming of the women as they stampeded out the ruined gateway, the crack of the guards’ rifles, the return fire of the two Reapers, chaos reigned within the Electorate. Figures in dark blue robes were running for the doorways of the buildings, slamming the doors shut behind them.

Owen knew it was Rachel lying so still on the ground amid the rocks. Even with the scarlet of her dress, he could see darker stains he knew were blood. Her fair hair was caked with it and his heart was pounding so furiously, his mouth had gone bone dry as he sawed on Céierseach’s reins and the laboring horse’s back legs buckled as Owen threw himself off its back. Running low to avoid the bullets zinging over his head, it never occurred to him to return the deadly fire. All he cared about was reaching Rachel, doing all he could to save her from the fate her people had decreed. Sliding onto his knees on the rough, rock-strewn ground beside her, he ignored the slashes of the sharp rocks, the cuts that tore open his leather uniform pants and gouged his knees. He slid his arm beneath her and turned her, howling like a mad man when he saw her eyes wide open, staring, blood trickling down her oh-so-pale face.

“No!” he screamed as he saw the livid red brand burned into her forehead. “No!” He cradled her to him, her limp body feeling as weightless as a feather against him. He rocked her as bullets thudded beside him and skittered off the rocks. He was oblivious to the danger in which he had been thrust.

Glyn had emptied his six-shooter and not having time to reload, drew his laser whip and raced his horse toward three guards. He took one’s head with the forward snap of the whip and the other two heads with a snick of the backswing. A fourth he nearly cut in half at the waist as the man made to throw a knife at him.

Between his gun and his whip, Iden killed the last five guards then looked around for someone else to slay. The bloodlust was riding high within him and his lips were skinned back from his teeth, his eyes more red than brown. “Come on, you motherfuckers!” he bellowed.

Edward sat a few feet away, his right hand pressed tightly to his shoulder as Benjamin ripped his own dark blue shirt to bind his friend’s wound. Both men were trembling and neither dared to look across the compound where Owen Tohre rocked his wife in his arms.

“Glyn!” Owen shouted, and Kullen came running, holstering his gun and whip as he went. He went down on his knees beside Owen who was shrugging out of the duster while still trying to hold on to Rachel’s limp body.

“Take one,” Owen snarled. “Take one now!”

Glyn didn’t question the order though he knew another week or two would be added to his sentence in the con cell. He took out his knife, leaned behind Owen and jerked up his shirt. Cutting a six-inch gash over his friend’s kidney, he thrust his fingers inside.

Iden backed toward Owen and Glyn, keeping an eye out for any more guards. He had reloaded his gun and snatched up a rifle from one of the dead men.

“Give me the knife,” Owen ordered. He was panting from the pain as Glyn withdrew a parasite from Owen’s back. He grasped the bloodied weapon Glyn slapped into his hand then turned Rachel so he could slit the back of her gown from neck to waist.

“Let me do it, Owen,” Glyn offered.

“No.” He took a deep breath before making a similar cut across Rachel’s back. “Drop it,” he snapped.

Glyn moved around Owen to lay the wriggling parasite on Rachel’s wound.

Iden glanced behind him, still keeping a lookout for guards. He saw the parasite just lying on Rachel’s back and lifted his eyes to Glyn.

Glyn shook his head slightly then closed his eyes.

“Do it,” Owen said, and prodded the parasite who lashed its barbed tail to cut a vicious swath across the Reaper’s finger. “Damn it, burrow down into her!”

The revenant worm whipped back and forth over the wound but made no move to wriggle into the cut.

“Damn you!” Owen shouted, his face nearly as pale as Rachel’s. He snapped his head up and glared at Glyn. “Take another one.”

Glyn opened his eyes. “Owen, it’s no use. She’s gone, my friend. She’s…”

“Take another one!” Owen screamed at him, thrusting the knife at him.

Iden and Glyn exchanged a look as Benjamin and Edward came over to them.

“Maybe you injured that one, Glyn,” Iden suggested softly.

Glyn’s jaw flexed and he took the knife to make another cut for Owen’s hellion had already closed the first wound. Cutting his friend once more, he winced when Owen did but thrust his fingers inside Tohre’s back to pull out another parasite. The evil thing raked its barbed spine across Kullen’s fingers and he cursed. He dropped it beside the other one but it did not slither down into Rachel’s wound.

Owen was shuddering. His face was a mask of such intense grief anyone who saw it felt the prickle of tears in his eyes. When he threw back his head and howled to the heavens, all four men had to look away.

“Morrigunia, please,” they heard him say, his voice breaking. “Don’t do this to me. Please don’t do this.” Tears were spilling down his ashen cheeks. “You gave her to me, don’t take her away. Not like this. Please, not like this.”

From above them a streak of red shot groundward and a man’s agonized scream rent the air. The drone had obviously dispatched someone with a bead on the men. The Reapers doubted there would be another such sneak attack.

“Please,” Owen whispered. He lifted Rachel against him, not noticing the parasites had dug their barbs into her flesh. “Morrigunia, please. I’ll do anything you want.”

“Owen!” Glyn hissed a warning. “Be careful what you say, man!”

“Anything,” Owen repeated. “I’ll do anything just don’t do this. Please don’t take her from me.”

Dark black clouds rolled across the heavens and the wind came at the men with a vengeance. Ice pellets the size of peas rained down from the sky and struck glancing blows on heads and shoulders.

“Morrigunia!” Owen screamed in a long, agonized plea as the force of the storm increased.

Iden shoved Benjamin and Edward toward an overhang as the pea-size pellets became walnut-size. Glyn tried to take Rachel from Owen’s arms but the Reaper would not allow it. He did manage to force Owen up and together they sprinted for the overhang not because Owen feared or even felt the brutal punch of the hail but because he did not want Rachel hurt.

Squatting down with her, rocking her as he would a child, Owen’s keening was almost more than Glyn could bear. He started to speak to the grieving man but at the moment he opened his mouth, the two parasites shot down into Rachel’s wounds and began to buckle beneath her flesh.

“Oh shit!” Iden said, shoving Benjamin and Edward out from under the overhang. “Go, go, go!” he yelled at them as they stumbled out into the pelting hail.

Glyn’s eyes widened for he saw Rachel blink, watched the light that had faded from her eyes begin to glow red. “Merciful Alel, Owen,” he whispered. “What have you done?”

Owen looked down at Rachel and saw her begin to Transition in his arms. He felt the coarse pelt rippling down her arms and legs, across her lacerated back, tightened his grip as her muscles and sinews and bones began to elongate and pop and shift and crack within her. He held her head against his shoulder as her nose pressed outward and became a muzzle as her screaming mouth became a snarling maw of wickedly sharp fangs that snapped at him, as her fingers curled into claws and she raked them down his chest in an attempt to break free. Her snarls and howls were wild as she fought him but he held on even when her claws dragged down the side of his face. She was alive. She was gasping in breaths. Her red eyes were snapping lethal fire at him but she was alive!

He lifted one arm to his mouth, sank his fangs into his flesh to open it, ripped his own flesh, and then pressed the bloody wound to her mouth. “Drink, milady,” he said softly. “Drink.”

A rough tongue shot out to lap at the blood flowing from Owen’s veins. The long, graceful throat gulped hungrily as the Sustenance was taken in.

“There,” he said, crooning to her, soothing her. “See, that’s better, isn’t it?”

The golden she-wolf held against him was docile as she flicked her tongue to lap at the red liquid. Her pretty violet eyes closed and her breathing slowed. She laid her head against his chest and her lovely tail thumped against the ground a few times before she finally stopped licking at his wound.

“Sweet little she-wolf,” he whispered to her, bending his head toward her to place a kiss on her silky fur. “Beautiful little she-wolf.”

She lapped her tongue over his stubbled chin and he smiled until he noticed the ugly brand that marred the perfection of her silken fur. The letter W left its vileness upon her even in Transition.

“Owen,” Glyn called to him from where he stood with Iden and the two Communalists who had helped them. “We need to get out of here.”

The hail had stopped but the wind was still skirling like a banshee, blowing debris about the compound. The doors of the buildings were still sealed.

Making sure he had his lady firmly in his grip, Owen struggled to his feet with her, carrying her with one arm beneath her chest and the other under her flanks, her tail draped lovingly over the wound from which she’d fed that was closing on his arm.

“Take Céierseach,” he told Glyn. “Head back for New Junction. We’ll join you there.”

“You are going to Transition?” Glyn asked, his look incredulous. “Owen, you haven’t had any tenerse today or Sustenance and you just fed her from your own blood. You can’t…”

“Give me the tenerse,” Owen interrupted him. “Don’t worry.”

“Owen,” Glyn said, “you are weak. You won’t be able to protect her and what will you do without tenerse for her when she shifts back?”

“Morrigunia will see to it,” Owen told him. “Just go and take care of our friends here.” He looked at Benjamin and Edward. “You know you won’t be able to go back to New Towne.”

“We will have to,” Edward said. “My wife and children are still there. I’ll not leave them so the high elder can Join her to another once I’m cast out.”

“I have no one there,” Benjamin said, “but I will aid Edward in taking his family.”

“Let’s do it now,” Iden said. “I don’t think your elders want to mess with me and Glyn.” A muscle ground in his jaw. “Not considering the mood I’m in.”

“Then go take care of it,” Owen said. “My lady and I will meet you in New Junction.”

Glyn would have protested but he knew Owen so well he knew it would do him no good. If his friend said the Triune Goddess would aid him, She would. He stalked over to his horse, fumbled in the saddlebags for the vac-syringe—mumbling the entire time—filled it and came back. “For the record,” he said as he plunged the needle into Owen’s neck, “I am against this.”

“Give Iden and yourself a dose of that hellish brew,” Owen said as he bent over to put his she-wolf on the ground. She looked up at him, wagging her tail weakly as he took off his gun belt and handed it to Glyn.

In the blink of an eye, he had shifted into a great black wolf that nipped at his lady’s flanks to set her running after him. She hesitated. He nipped her again. She snarled at him then barked, looking surprised that such a noise had come from her mouth. He ran a little ways ahead of her, turned and gave her a soul-searing look. She wagged her tail then took out after him, her delicate paws digging into the snow. Together they raced through the gaping hole in the gate and disappeared.

“That man drives me crazy sometimes,” Glyn mumbled. He motioned Edward and Benjamin toward the horses. “Let’s get out of here before they drum up enough courage to shoot at us again.”

Iden glanced up at the boiling skies above them. “They’d best not,” he said loud enough for those inside the buildings to hear. “The Shadowlords still have an eye in the heavens.”

Mounting up, Glyn leading Owen’s horse, the four men galloped away from the compound and set out for New Junction.

* * * * *

The black wolf led his mate toward New Junction but soon began to tire. He had expelled as much energy as his body would allow and his thirst for Sustenance was weakening him. It took the last of his strength to run a jackrabbit to ground, pin it and feed until the edge was off his hunger. His mate had hunkered down beside him, watching from between her paws as she lay there with her pretty head between her front legs.

Owen garnered just enough energy to change back into human form, clothe himself and fashion a loaded gun for protection then lift his lady into his arms to carry her to a sheltered area. Sitting down with her in his lap, he stroked her head, knowing her initial Transition could last anywhere from an hour to several. He spoke quietly to her until she shifted more comfortably—moving to lie beside him with her body pressed up against his hip and legs—and went to sleep, her tail curled over his thigh.

The Reaper laid his head back on the rock behind and closed his eyes. His hand was buried in the lush fur of his lady’s ruff. He knew he had to find more Sustenance but at that moment he was depleted, drained, his energy exhausted.

It was Her hand between his legs that awoke him and when he opened his eyes, he found Her in Her crone form squatting down before him, one withered hand kneading his privates. She smiled at him with discolored, rotted teeth gaping between thin, bloodless lips. He didn’t move, just allowed Her to grope him though the action sent chills of disgust through his body.

She tsked at him then shifted to the form in which he was most accustomed to seeing Her. Her vibrant red hair draped over naked breasts tipped with large dusky nipples that drew the eye. She squeezed him one last time then withdrew Her hand.

“You bargained with me, Reaper,” She reminded him.

“Aye, mo Regina,” he said tiredly. “That I did.”

“Walk with me, Reaper,” She ordered, and got to her feet. Her long red hair curled around her like a living cape. As She walked, he caught tantalizing sights of her shapely legs behind the ankle-length hair.

He looked down at his lady who slept so peacefully in her lupine form. Her paws were flexing, her muzzle trembling, and he wondered what it was she was chasing in her dream. Getting to his feet, he wavered a moment, weary and lightheaded from his need for Sustenance.

She waited until he stood beside Her then lifted Her arm. “Drink,” She said.

He had no strength to deny Her command and took that silky arm in his hands, bringing the unblemished white flesh to his lips. His fangs shot out and he sank them into Her, closing his eyes to the delicious, intoxicating taste of Her potent blood. He barely felt Her fingers threading through his hair, Her nails lightly scratching his scalp. He fed for a long time until the empty reservoir within him was full. Sweeping his tongue over the puncture wounds, he stepped back, waiting to learn of the payment he’d be asked to make.

Morrigunia cupped his cheek, smoothing Her thumb over his full bottom lip. “Of all my Reapers, you are my most favored one, Owen,” She told him, Her mesmerizing green eyes holding his. “Do you know why, sweet Owen?”

“No, mo Regina,” he replied. Her touch was doing things to his cock that shamed him as he stood there.

“It was because you alone died for love,” She said softly.

A brief spasm of pain shuddered through Owen and his eyelids flickered. He wanted to ask about Siobhan. He wanted to know the woman he had loved so dearly had gone on to have a happy life.

“I did not take from you as I took from the others,” he heard the Triune Goddess say and forced his mind from memories of Siobhan and the home he had left behind on Draíoct. “Now I want my due.”

Owen stared into her beautiful green eyes. “Due?” he repeated.

Morrigunia turned Her penetrating gaze to the golden she-wolf who slept so peacefully. “I returned life to your mate,” She said. “I returned her to the land of the living.” Her stare leapt back to Owen. “Now, I demand my due.”

He lifted his chin. “I am ready to pay what I owe, mo Regina,” he vowed, though his knees were all but knocking together.

A slow, lazy smile shifted over the goddess’s lovely face. “I know, my Reaper, and pay you will.”

One moment they were on the frozen ground of the Manontaque Province and the next they were hurtling through ebon space, stars flashing by so speedily they were but pale golden streaks across the midnight sky. He gasped—fearing for Rachel’s safety—but all thought, all concern, for her flew from his mind and then all he could think of was the light silver rain that was slowly dewing on his naked flesh. It cooled him. It soothed him. It generated a miraculous calm and slowed his breath and lowered the beat of his heart.

When his body stilled, he was lying amidst fleecy gray clouds, luxuriating in the wondrous feel of floating on thin air, not touching anything. His arms and legs flung to each side, his cock as hard and engorged as it had ever been, he groaned with need. He writhed on the bed of clouds, needing relief in that rigid member, aching, throbbing and burning for release. The rain beaded on his flesh then trickled in rivulets into the various creases of his well-honed body. It pooled in his navel. It dripped from the slit of his straining shaft. It dripped from his wet black curls and ran through the hairs on his hard chest.

Sweet winds floating over him and with them came the intoxicating scent of gardenias laying warm in the summer sun. The scent spiraled all around him and touched him everywhere. It seeped into his pores. It wound down through his cock and up through his anal opening. It trickled into his mouth and oozed into his ear canals. It drifted up his nostrils to completely invade him, body and soul.

A soft coppery light began to shine up through the clouds beneath him, reaching up in sparkling shafts that tinted the clouds. The higher the shafts rose, the deeper the color undulating through the beams until it was a bright shimmering burst that lit the entire expanse of the heavens. Far more luminescent than a mere sun, more alluring and compelling than the golden disk of a lesser moon, this light fanned over his bare flesh and turned the silver rain drops to copper orbs skittering over him. With the light She came, rising up through the helianthus beams as naked as the day She had burst from the firmament of the heavens.

Her lustrous hair whirled and tossed and floated around Her head. Her lush body glistened with a sheen of coppery dew. The bright bush at the apex of Her thighs drew his attention and he licked his lips, aching for a taste of the sweet nectar he could see forming on the wiry curls.

He wanted Her so desperately. He itched to drive his stony shaft into that alluring body. She was hovering over him and the smell of Her sex was driving him mad with lust. He arched his hips, offering his rod for Her pleasure.

A slow, knowing smile formed on Her ruby red lips and She flicked out Her tongue.

Owen whimpered, wanting that soft, velvet wetness on him. He ached to know the warmth of that sweet tongue lapping at his cock. He longed for it to sweep along his balls, over the pucker of his ass, down his straining thighs.

Her hair reached down to him like fingers and curled around his legs, his arms, his chest. Where it touched, his flesh came alive, crawling with intense delight as the tendrils slithered over him. They plucked at his nipples. They slid over his shoulders and along his biceps. They circled his neck. They raked fiery fingers through his pubic hair. He felt one thick strand wrapping around his cock—kneading him, massaging him, pulling at his erection. He felt another wriggle up his ass and groaned so loudly the sound echoed across the firmament. A thin shaft serpentined its way down his slit and into his hard erection. He could feel it spreading through his shaft and reaching up into his belly. Two more flowed into his ears as another wound its way up his nostril and into the complexity of his seething brain. He lay impaled by the coppery mass of silk and yet his desire, his lust, continued to grow until he was nothing more than a writhing mass of passion.

“Take me, mo Regina,” he begged, his voice filled with panting.

“All of you? All that is yours?” She whispered.

Some sane part of him tried to say no but the thing that was winding its way up his anus was bringing such unbelievable delight to his groin, he could not speak. He merely nodded at her question, too far gone in his lust to do anything else.

The lock of cinnamon hair that had wound around his cock tightened its hold until it was painful, but he did not care. Another was cording his balls, the pain of that only increased the pleasure.

“I want your seed, Reaper,” She told him.

“Take it,” he managed to pant. Sweat had replaced the coppery drops of rain on his flesh. His temperature was soaring until he felt as though he were lying directly upon the sun.

Her hair was touching him everywhere and when She reached down to grip his nipples with Her fingers, he thought he would die from the intense pleasure-pain Her touch caused. She was twisting his flesh, pulling, digging Her sharp fingernails into the hardened little nubs until he felt blood seeping from the wounds.

Her body floated over his and She lowered it until the peaks of Her glorious breasts pressed against his chest and yet still Her fingers tormented his paps.

“I want your seed, Owen Tohre,” She stated.

He opened his mouth to agree but She covered it with Her own and Her tongue sank between his lips and down his throat. Her thighs clamped around his and She slid Her hot, wet cunt down the rigidity of his cock and it was he who felt impaled.

Things were crawling inside him and bringing about an itch so intense, so all-invading, that he whimpered from it. His entire body was filled with some alien force that turned his blood to molten lava and the cum building in him to a raging stream striving to burst free of its banks.

The smell of Her juices mingling with his as She began undulating Her body upon his shaft was unbelievably arousing. It did things to him he knew were wrong, were immoral and should have been unbearable. He was sinning—it was as simple as that—and he was being damned beyond redemption. There would be no adequate accounting for the transgression he was committing.

“Evil, Owen,” he heard some distant voice caution. “This is evil!”

He didn’t care. The pain was worse than anything he had ever experienced before yet he could not go on without knowing the full extent of the agony. He had to taste the sin for himself. He had to know.

The muscles of Her hot vaginal muscles clamping down on his cock were more painful than the ripping of his manhood from his body at the hands of the Ceannus bitch had been yet he reveled in it. It was so acute, so severe, tears gathered in his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. Yet he craved it. He wanted more. He had to have more.

He lifted his hips for Her to slam down on him, welcoming the agony that movement caused.

“I need your get,” he heard Her hiss.

The cum that shot from his rigid shaft burned so badly he screamed. It came from him in long, hot spurts that pulsed into Her waiting flesh. The cream, the vital juices, seemed to spurt forever and when the last pulsing drop squirted from his spent flesh, Her womb lapped it up, absorbed it, sucked it up into Her very core where it attached to the egg waiting there and a Reaper get began to form. He shuddered violently and lay still, his body burning, aching and throbbing in every pore.

“Good, my Reaper,” She said, Her fingers trailing down his face. “You did well.”

Owen gasped as his body suddenly began to spin around and around and he felt brutally cold air dragging across his naked flesh. The movement made him violently ill and he squeezed his eyes shut, unable to bear the rushing lights streaking past him. When he came to rest, he cautiously opened one eye to find himself lying beside his mate, her warm fur pressing against his bare hip.

And still Rachel slept on peacefully, her little paws still running in place.

He sat up, the cold of the snow on his body piercing. He tried to fashion clothing but he could not. All his energy had evaporated and his thirst was once again ravenous, his mouth as dry as the desert sands. Wrapping his arms around himself, he moved closer to his mate’s warm body but nothing could penetrate the cold that enveloped him.

How long he lay like that, he would never know, but as soon as he realized the goddess had returned, he looked up with trepidation, with fear, that lurked inside the very soul of him.

She came striding toward him in a long green gown that shimmered as though it were made from iridescent scales. Her feet were bare but those feet did not touch the ground over which She walked. Her long, unbound hair floated around Her slender shoulders. Her green eyes were heavy with spent passion and Her lush lips were slightly pursed. Despite his tiredness, his drained condition, he wanted Her again as he had never wanted another.

She fanned Her hand and the black Reaper uniform suddenly clung to his flesh. His boots were in place to cover his stinging feet.

“Come, Reaper,” She said, crooking Her finger at him.

Though he was freezing from the cold, sweat formed in his palms yet he didn’t think to disobey Her. Obediently he got up and went to Her, standing before Her like the subservient servant he was.

“I will name him Carthach for he came from the loving,” She said. She reached out to cup his chin. “And his father loved me well.”

A bright infusion of blood stained Owen’s cheeks. He felt the weight of his sin pressing down on his heart, knowing he had betrayed his mate, had forsaken his Joining vows to keep himself only unto Rachel.

“With me it is different, Reaper,” She said and Her smile was purely wicked. “As it always will be.”

He flinched. His infidelity weighed heavily on his very soul.

“The sin has been committed, Owen,” She told him. “You willingly paid the price of what you asked of me, did you not?”

He hung his head and nodded, too ashamed of what he’d done to speak. His flesh crawled, feeling Her hands on him again, experiencing the invasion of those coppery strands sinking into him.

“I can do more than just breathe life back into her, Reaper,” Morrigunia said, Her black-velvet voice wrapping around him.

He looked up into those green eyes that were older than time, more wicked than sin itself. He searched those orbs for the understanding of Her words.

“I can take away the brand that mars her forehead,” Morrigunia whispered.

He tore his gaze from the goddess and looked to his mate. The sight of that scarlet W burned into the fur of his lady made his heart hurt.

“I can erase the scarring that covers the flesh of her back and make that flesh soft and supple and silken once more.”

It was an insidious whispering that came from Her sensual lips that wound its way into his soul.

“Would you not like that, Owen?” She asked. “Would she not like that?”

He thought of the way Rachel had felt about her body’s markings by the whip and the pain he knew she must have endured at the lashing. He tried not to think of the glowing red brand that had been pressed against the smooth perfection of her forehead and the ungodly agony that had to have accompanied it.

“I can take all that away, my Reaper,” the goddess suggested. “And banish the pain, the memory of it from her innocent mind.”

Owen squeezed his eyes shut for he knew there would be a penalty for Morrigunia doing those things. As much as he wanted Rachel’s hurt removed and the visible signs of that hurt erased, he knew the price he’d have to pay would be stiff.

“And then of course,” She said, “there remains the third punishment she endured. The punishment that was so vile, contemptible, not even the gods Themselves would wish it upon Their worst enemies.”

He had tried not to think about that punishment at all for fear he would slaughter the entire Communalist horde. His brain had refused to wrap itself around that unpardonable retribution. He had pushed it to the side, fearful of even letting a hint of it squeeze past his aching heart. He knew it had been done, knew she had suffered that inconceivable agony, yet the mere thought of it was almost more than he could bear.

“Will you have that wickedness be a lasting penalty with which she—and you—will have to live, Owen, or will you have me cloud her memory and heal her flesh?”

Still he wavered. The damage had been done but it was reversible. He had the power to turn back the clock, to return Rachel to the unmarked woman-child she had been before he’d come into her life.

“I can return to her what she lost, Reaper,” Morrigunia said so softly, Her words but mere movements of air. “I can make her whole again. I can override the parasite and repair Rachel’s wounds.”

“Can you take the memory of what she suffered from her?” he asked.

Morrigunia shook her head. “No, Reaper, that I can not do. There are too many who know what was done to her. It will be there in their minds for her see and see she will even though you try to hide it from her. What I can do is fog the memory, make it bearable for her. She will not dwell on it. That much I promise you.”

He felt the goddess’s hand on his cheek but his eyes were closed, his body trembling for he knew the price for such interference on Morrigunia’s part would be weighty.

“Only I can do it, Owen,” She reminded him. “It is up to you.”

For a long moment he stood there with his eyes shut, his hands clenched into tight fists at his side. He knew he had no choice. He would pay the price. He had to.

“What would you have me do?” She asked.

Talking a long, deep breath, he exhaled it slowly then opened his eyes a fraction at a time until he was looking into the Triune Goddess’ verdant gaze. “There are two conditions,” he said.

The dark green orbs narrowed. “You think to barter with me, Reaper?” She snapped.

“I want everyone who hurt her—the one who lashed her…”

“That was her father’s doing,” Morrigunia interrupted him in a stony voice.

“He, I will deal with on my own,” Owen said. “The others, I want punished. The ones who took her from Saint Marie, the ones who judged her, the woman who did that horrible thing to her, any man or woman who put their hands to her to hurt her—including those who cast the stones—I want them punished.”

“Punished how?” the goddess demanded.

He lifted his chin. “Like unto like.”

An evil smile stretched over Morrigunia’s lush mouth. “It will be as you wish, my Reaper.” She tilted her head to one side. “And the second thing?”

“I want the Communalists to forget all about Rachel and those who helped us free her. I don’t want any of us to be constantly looking over our shoulders waiting for those bastards to come after us.”

She snaked out a hand to cup his neck and jerked him to Her until his lips were but a breath from Hers. “I’ll go you one better, Reaper,” She said. “I’ll wipe them from the face of the earth. I had already decided that.”

He shook his head. “There are good men among them and the womenfolk…”

“The good will live and the bad will perish,” She said.

He started to protest but then he remembered the agony his woman had suffered at the Communalists’ hands. He remembered how the men treated their females. He thought of what the men must be teaching their male children. “I agree.”

She released him and stepped back. “It will be as you wish, my Reaper.” She arched a perfect red brow. “Anything else while you have me in a good mood?”

“No,” he stated.

“You have not asked the price to be paid for this,” She reminded him.

“Does it matter?” he asked. “You know I will pay it no matter what it is.”

“You will need to make sure she understands that, Reaper,” She said.

He frowned. “What is between You and me…”

“You must tell her of the payment,” Morrigunia cut him off. “She must know you do this of your own free will.”

He snorted. “As if I had free will,” he muttered. He met Her steady stare. “All right. What’s it to be?”

“First I must tell you that she carries your seed,” Morrigunia said.

He shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. I haven’t…”

“On your wedding night you breached her,” the goddess told him. “I saw to it.”

Owen groaned. “How can You play with our lives like this, mo Regina?”

“Because they belong to me in the first place,” She replied.

Her words finally sank in. “She will have my child?”

“In nine months, aye,” the goddess answered.

“How can that be since she died? Would not the babe have died when…?”

Morrigunia hissed at him. “All things are possible with me, Reaper! Why do you persist in questioning me? Your mate is with child. That is all you need to know!”

A part of him was thrilled at the news but another part—the part that did not remember making love to his mate—was angered at the news. “What is it you want me to do now?” he asked, none too respectful with his tone.

She put the thought into his head and he balked.

“There is no need for me…”

“On your knees,” She stressed. “There is no other way to do this.”

He stared at Her for a long moment then obeyed, sinking to his knees before Her, a muscle grinding in his lean jaw.

“Since you are being so biddable, beg me,” She said. “Beg me to impose the payment on you, Reaper.”

His pride felt the sting of Her words. He hated to be humbled. The thought of being at Her mercy, being forced to do Her bidding rankled and he hesitated.

“What is gained without effort is lost without thought—but what is gained through difficulty…” She began.

“Is kept with care,” he finished. “I know.”

“Do you?” She countered. “Not yet you don’t, but you will.”

He wanted to get it over with. “Tell me what I need to do, mo Regina.”

She clasped his cheeks between Her hands. “You can do better than that. Try again.”

His eyes narrowed with shame. “Mo Regina, I am asking you.”

She tilted Her chin.

He swallowed hard, refusing to look away from Her steady scrutiny. “I am begging you, mo Regina.”

“You will do as I ask?”

“Aye, mo Regina,” he agreed, feeling a chill run down his spine.

“When I ask it?”

“Aye, mo Regina,” he said.

“You will make no protest at what I will demand of you?”

“No, mo Regina. I will not protest what you ask of me.”

“You swear it?”

“I swear it.”

“Your oath is unbreakable?”

“Aye, mo Regina. I will not renege on my vow to you.”

Her slow smile made his blood run cold.

“Then from this day forward you will be designated as my consort,” She said.

Owen blinked. “Your consort?” he whispered, terrified of the implication of that term. “What does that…?”

“My consort,” She stated. “My mate. The one who is to service me when I desire it, where I desire it and for as long as I desire it.” She ran her finger across his forehead. “When I call, you will come, Reaper.”

The repercussions of what he had sworn to hit him like a sledgehammer between the eyes and he scrambled to his feet, backing away from Her with a hand out as though to ward Her off. He shook his head. “No, I can not…”

“You have already sworn,” She said. “You made your pledge to Me and I have accepted. There will be no denial, my Reaper.”

He staggered away from Her, turning his back. He came up short as he looked into the she-wolf’s violet gaze looking up at him with such devotion, such trust, he wanted to scream.

“I could take her from you,” Morrigunia said, “but I will allow you to keep her. After all, I put her in your path, Owen.”

“So she can hate me for breaking my vows to her?” he challenged, tears flooding his eyes.

“She will share you with me,” the goddess said. “It will bruise her tender heart each time you come to me but she will accept it. What other choice will she have?”

Owen was looking into the little she-wolf’s sweet face. He wanted to bury his face in her golden fur and hold on to her.

“I will share you with her, Reaper,” he heard Morrigunia say.

In a flash of coppery light, She was gone and the harsh winter wind swirled around him. He remained where he was, standing there feeling helpless and hopeless and lost. When the little she-wolf came to him—sliding forward on her belly, her tail low in submission to him—his heart felt as though it would break.

He hunkered down in front of her. “I don’t deserve you, mo filliu bwoirryn,” he said, calling her his she-wolf. He scratched her behind her pretty ear. “I truly don’t deserve you.”

The she-wolf whimpered and licked his hand. She turned over to present her belly to him and he realized as he looked down at her head, the brand that had marred her fur was gone.

Chapter Thirteen

He had shifted back into his lupine form and led her across the open ground, keeping his stronger pace slower to accommodate her. He had brought down two more rabbits, proud to bring one back to her and to drop it at her feet before going after his own. It made his heart soar to provide for his mate and he had scampered off feeling like the warrior he knew himself to be.

Nudging her as they neared the town of New Junction, he sat down on the ground and she sat beside him. They were at the end of the street leading into the town and only a few hundred yards from the hotel where cheerful light shone from the windows. He had yet to try to communicate with her but he could sense her budding awareness and her eagerness to learn. With each female—or so Arawn had told him—the Transition was different. Aingeal, Cynyr Cree’s mate, had taken hers in stride, but Arawn’s woman Danielle had fought it every step of the way. He turned his head toward her.

“How are you, milady?” he sent.

Her head cocked from side to side as though she were trying to understand his words. He repeated them and she yipped at him, her tail swishing from side to side.

“Owen?” she whispered as though afraid to let anyone hear.

“I am here, my love,” he said.

Her tail swished even faster and she pounced playfully at him, butting him with her head.

“You are liking this, aren’t you?” he asked aloud as he shifted to human shape, his black uniform in place.

She reared up on her hind legs, her front paws on his chest and lapped at his whiskered chin then she sneezed as if she didn’t like the rough feel of his unshaven skin.

“We need to go into town and into the hotel,” he told her. “Can you shift yet?”

Once more her head shifted from side to side in query.

“Just think of what you looked like when we first met,” he said. “Hold that image in your mind and…”

Poof! Just like that she changed and was standing there in the all-together, her eyes wide, hands crossing over her bare breasts and golden triangle. She bent one knee, her face flaming. “Owen!” she complained.

He fanned his hand over her and as the black silk shirt and black leather pants clung to her shapely frame, her face turned redder still.

“I can’t wear these!” she gasped.

He reached out to take her into his arms, one hand to the back of her head to cradle her cheek against his chest. “You are a Reaper now, milady. It is what we wear.”

She looked down at the form-fitting clothing and he could feel her embarrassment as the coolness of the leather caressed her rump and the silk of the shirt abraded her bare nipples. She gave him an admonishing look.

“You’ll get used to it,” he told her.

“Reaper?” she said then gave him a startled look as though everything had suddenly settled into place. “Owen? What happened to me? How was I able to…? I was a wolf!”

“We’ll discuss it later, sweeting,” he said. “Where it’s warmer.”

She shuddered hard then nearly fell, sagging against him so he had to fumble to keep her erect. Her face had become ghastly pale and her eyes shockingly wide. “Owen?” she questioned.

Owen flinched as something cold and hard suddenly settled in his hand and he looked down to see a filled vac-syringe.

“Give it to her,” whispered the voice in his head.

“Milady,” he said. “Sit.”

He helped her to the cold ground and hunkered down beside her. She was shivering uncontrollably now, her lips trembling and blue and she was looking at him with such bewilderment it cut him to the quick.

“This is tenerse, Rachel, and each of us must have it.” He pushed aside her hair.

She nodded and before she could speak, he had plunged the wickedly fiery potion into her neck. Though he heard her suck in a breath, she did not cry out. He hastily massaged the injection site, the vac-syringe disappearing as quickly as it had come.

“Can you stand?” he asked. It didn’t take long for the drug to work, to speed through her system.

“Aye, my Owen,” she said, wincing only a little as she held on to him to get to her feet.

The wind whirled around them, sending slivers of ice into their faces. He draped his arm over her shoulder and urged her toward the town. The sun had long since set and most of the town had shut down. Only the hotel and saloon lights blazed as well as a single lamp glowing from the sheriff’s office.

As soon as they walked into the hotel, Rachel pressed up against him so tightly it seemed as though she were trying to crawl inside his skin. Brother Edward and Healer Benjamin were the only two people sitting in the lobby and their presence had unnerved her.

“It’s all right,” Owen said. “They are friends.”

Glyn was coming down the stairs and stopped in mid-stride when he saw Owen. A look of relief came over the Reaper’s face and he called up to Iden. “The wandering troublemaker is home, Belial,” he said.

Iden came to the balcony and peered over. “You okay, Tohre?” he asked.

“Aye.”

“Your lady okay?” Iden pressed.

“Aye.”

“See you in the morning then,” Iden said then turned away from the balcony.

Glyn came off the stairs and hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “He has company,” he quipped, “so I’ll be bunking with Benjie tonight.”

“I hope he doesn’t snore,” the healer commented.

“He does,” Owen replied.

Glyn smiled at Rachel. “It is good to see you again, milady.”

Rachel burrowed her face against Owen’s shoulder.

“She’s a bit shy,” Owen said.

Glyn nodded. “Lord Kheelan has been in contact,” he told Owen. “He’s sent the train and we are to meet it, Arawn and Cynyr and their ladies in New City by tomorrow.” He thrust his hands into the pockets of his pants. “I told him we’d be there.”

“You will, but I’ve business to see to,” Owen said. “I’ll join you when I can.”

“Owen…” Glyn began.

“I doubt the train will leave without me since I’m the main fare on Lord Kheelan’s menu,” Owen said.

“Well, I’ve got three months coming too,” Glyn grumbled, “so I’ll be right there beside you.”

“Three months?” Owen asked, his face pale. “Why so long?”

“Two months for asking him to have the drone shoot down the fucking wall and a month for my part in…” He shrugged. “You know.” He glanced at Rachel.

“He’s going to punish you for that?” Owen said. He shook his head. “Hell no. Hell no! That ain’t gonna happen, Kullen.”

“It’s either me or a month tacked on to yours,” Glyn warned.

“I’ll take the month then,” Owen said. “I’m not going to allow you to be punished for something I ordered you to do.”

“Well, you didn’t rightly order me…” Glyn said.

Rachel pushed back from her mate. “You are to be punished?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“It’s nothing,” Owen was quick to say, hiding the truth of it from her. “Five, six months in prison. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

Glyn pursed his lips and made no comment.

“Punished for coming after me?” she asked, searching his eyes.

“Punished for back-talking a Shadowlord,” he admitted. “They don’t like to be shown disrespect. This has nothing to do with you, dearling.”

She stared into his eyes and somehow gleaned the truth of it. Moisture gathered in her pretty eyes. “You are being punished for taking me to wife without permission.”

Owen’s jaw clenched. “Rachel, no. I…”

“You are,” she said. “I see it in your mind.”

Owen looked helplessly to Glyn.

“You shared your blood and two parasites with her, Tohre. She can read you like a book now,” Glyn reminded him.

“What else will you have to pay for?” she asked.

He shut down his thoughts as though he’d turned a spigot, hiding them from her. He’d have to be careful from here on out for her perception was far too keen for his comfort. “Nothing,” he told her. “That’s all.”

Rachel stepped out of his arms. “Don’t lie to me, my Owen,” she said. “Never lie to me.”

“I am not lying, wench,” he said. “They will punish me for Joining with you without getting their permission first and possibly for ordering Glyn to help me with the Transference but that’s all. I’ve not committed any other crimes.”

Yet, he thought, but kept that to himself.

“Will they take me from you?” she asked, her bottom lip quivering.

“I’d die before I’d let them,” he vowed. “No, they will not do that.”

She looked at Glyn.

“No, wench,” Glyn told her. “The Joining will stand.”

Owen held out his hand and was a bit surprised when she readily took it in hers. “I am starving, milady,” he said, “and I can hear your stomach growling. Let’s get something to eat then go to bed early. I am beat.”

“We need to be up early in the morning to make it to New City by noon,” Glyn insisted.

“I’ll be out of here at first light,” Owen said.

“Going where?” Rachel asked, but she’d already seen the thought in his mind before he could cloak it.

He looked down at her. “It has to be done, milady,” he said.

There was no love for her father in Rachel Lawrence’s heart—only worry for her husband. She feared for his safety but she knew no amount of talk would sway him from what he planned. All she could do was trust in his ability to make his way back to her unscathed. He was—after all—a Reaper and her father deserved whatever was going to be meted out to him.

“I am hungry,” she said, lowering her head, her fingers gripping Owen’s tightly. She had been taught to be a submissive woman and though it terrified her and every womanly instinct screamed at her to argue with him about this, she would show that acquiescence to Owen. She would be the meek and mild, dutiful and docile, and obedient wife.

“Have you eaten?” Owen asked Glyn.

“Aye, we have. You should have seen Eddie and Benjie packing away the grub,” Glyn said. “And that boy of Eddie’s?” He shook his head. “All he talked about was being saved from drowning by the big, bad Reaper. You’ve got a hero-worshipper on your hands, Tohre.”

“No wonder your eyes are brown, Kullen,” Owen said. “You’re so full of it.”

“You should talk!” Glyn snapped. “You with your…”

Rachel smiled as she listened to the Reapers exchanging insults. She glanced at Brother Edward and Healer Benjamin and when they smiled shyly at her for the first time in her life, she finally began to relax.

Though the others had eaten, they joined Owen and Rachel in the hotel dining room and kept up a constant stream of lively conversation. Edward’s wife Betsey came down to fetch a glass of warm milk for their little daughter who was having trouble sleeping in this unfamiliar environment. She greeted Rachel and gave her such a look of gratitude, Rachel knew everything would be all right from there on out. By the time they all went up to bed, Rachel was at ease and looking forward to lying in her husband’s arms.

“I asked the maid to draw you a bath,” Owen said as they climbed the stairs behind the Edward and Glyn. Benjamin had stayed behind to engage in a game of chess with the desk clerk.

“That will be heavenly,” she said, leaning into him.

They bid Glyn and Edward good night and kept walking down to the room to which Glyn had given Owen the key. After he unlocked the door then opened it, he bent to swoop her up in his arms.

“What are you doing?” she said, laughing.

“Taking my woman over the threshold so the beasties won’t be plaguing her,” he said, carrying her inside.

“What beasties?” she asked, her hand toying with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Those you trip over when you know nothing was in your path or hide things from you or cause the cake to fall or…”

“No cake of mine will ever fall, my Owen,” she said.

He stood there holding her, looking down into the remarkable color of her lovely eyes. “Why do you call me that?” he asked gently.

“My Owen?” she asked, and at his nod, she lifted one slender shoulder. “Because that is what you are.”

“But did you hear it somewhere?” A look of pain crossed his face. “Did someone tell you to say it?”

“I dreamt I called you that,” she admitted. “Is that what you mean?”

He feared Morrigunia had whispered the endearment into her susceptible mind but what did it really matter? He was hers just as she was his. He eased his arm from beneath her legs and let her slide down his body.

“I know this isn’t much but I swear to you I’ll build you a home of your own with my own hands just as you want it when we return to Saint Marie,” he said huskily.

The room wasn’t as nice as the one Owen and Rachel had shared in Saint Marie but it was clean and warm and comfortable. The hotelman had gone out of his way to cater to them since he had rented out five rooms—two that adjoined for the Dayton family and their two children. With meals and tips, it had made the man’s month and he could well afford to be generous to them. There was a vase of hothouse flowers on the table by the door.

Rachel placed her palms on his chest for he still had an arm around her back, holding her to him. She looked up into his handsome face. “Will you share my bath with me, my Owen?”

That he knew gods-be-damned well came straight from Morrigunia for there was no way this innocent, naïve woman would ever think of such a thing much less voice the request. His jaw tightened.

“Not from me, Reaper, but from her need for you. You give me far too much credit.” The stern words shot through his mind like quicksilver.

She plucked at a button on his shirt, lowering her gaze, her cheeks blooming with color. “Have I been too bold?” she whispered, and he heard a tremor in her tone.

“No, y chree,” he answered, and crooked a finger under her chin to tilt her face up. “Whatever your wish, it is my honor to fulfill it. All you need do is ask.” His words were low, tender, and yet his eyes blazed with an emotion that almost frightened her.

She nibbled on her lower lip and his groin tightened painfully. He wanted to suck that sweet little flesh between his own teeth and nibble on it. “On our wedding night…” she began, but he lowered his head and claimed her lips in a chaste, lingering kiss. When he released her, he held her gaze.

“Do you remember anything of that night?” he asked.

Her cheeks flamed. “There was blood on the sheets,” she said. “I believe we must have…we…” She swallowed hard. “We must have but I don’t remember it.”

“Neither do I,” he admitted, and at her look of surprise, he shook his head. “My goddess was playing with us, y chree. She does that sometimes.”

“Tell her of your vow to Me!” Morrigunia hissed in his ear so loudly he winced.

“Milord?” she questioned.

“Tell her and get it over with, you dolt!” Morrigunia snapped, flicking a finger against his temple. “Dont start your Joining on a lie!” She flicked him again.

“Stop thumping me!” he sent to Her.

“Owen?” she inquired, sensing his attention was elsewhere.

“We’ll talk after the bath,” he said.

She squeezed him gently through the leather. “I don’t really need a bath.”

“There is something we need to discuss,” he said. “And a bath would help to…”

“Tell me,” she said.

Owen drew in a long breath, searching for something else to tell her other than the vow to Morrigunia. “On our wedding night, when we…” He ran a hand over his face. “After we…”

“After we made love?” she pressed. She absorbed his memories quickly—too quickly for his comfort—and he saw them swirling through her mind.

“Aye,” he said. “Well, we… I mean to say, I…” He swallowed. “I got you pregnant!”

She smiled. “See? We didn’t need a bath for you to tell me that.” She took his hand and pulled him toward the bed. “Now, let’s discuss the matter that was left dangling.”

“Reaper,” Morrigunia growled at him. “Tell her now or I will tell her!”

He knew there was no way past it. He had to tell her so he dug in his heels, refused to go any closer to the bed. “Sweeting, there is something I must tell you.”

“Tell me later,” she said, tugging at his hand.

“No, Rachel,” he said, his face now solemn, his heart pounding in his chest. “I promised no lies and no lies means I need to tell you only truth.”

Her forehead crinkled. She tried to slip into his mind with her fledgling power but his was a closed door, firmly locked against her. For a reason she could not fathom, that frightened her. “Is it about the punishment?”

“Come,” he told her and drew her toward the settee.

Reluctantly she went with him, fear bringing an iron taste to her mouth. When he pulled her down to sit beside him, he covered their joined hands with his free one and turned so he was looking into her eyes.

“I want you to know I love you more than anything in this life,” he said. “I love you with all my heart, my soul, all that I am and I will love you for all time.”

Rachel shivered. “Owen, you are scaring me.”

He took a deep breath. “You died,” he said. “In my arms you were dead and there was nothing on this earth that has ever hurt me more.” He searched her eyes. “I would have done anything to bring you back to me. Nothing I would not have agreed to so you could be whole and unscarred, so the memory of the…of the…”

“Pain,” she said, catching that word as it settled in his thoughts.

“Aye, milady, the pain,” he repeated. “So the memory would not be so intense for you. I would have done anything to completely wipe the memories from your mind but…”

Something evil wriggled down her spine. “What did you do, my Owen?”

He put a hand to her face to cup her cheek. “Morrigunia was the only recourse I had, Rachel. As She once reminded me, there is nothing She can not do. If you were to live, it had to be through Her.”

“And She made me a Reaper,” Rachel said.

“Aye, but at a price,” he said.

That evil slithering along her backbone turned icy cold. “What did She ask of you?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, believing when he told her, there would be no more love shining in her eyes, only disgust.

“Tell her!” came the demand from the goddess.

Opening his eyes, he saw the fear building in Rachel’s gaze. “I am to be Her consort,” he said then looked away. “Her lover. Available at Her command when She wishes.”

Rachel’s eyes widened. “I must share you with her?”

He nodded, flinching at her words.

“For how long?”

He could not look at her. “For as long as She desires.”

Rachel was stunned at the news and as she sat there unable to speak, anger and jealousy rose up like twin serpents to strike at her heart. For the first time in her life she knew hatred and that hatred was aimed at the woman who would demand such a thing of Owen. There was no anger toward Owen, no hurt at knowing he would be required to cheat on his wife, no self-pity, only cold fury at the female who would have a right to the use of his body.

Owen raised his head and when he saw the rage smoldering in Rachel’s eyes, groaned. He had lost her. She was a good woman, a woman unaccustomed to the sordidness of life and…

“This is something over which you have no control,” Rachel said.

“No,” he told her, “but…”

“Then the evil is entirely her own,” she stated. “You have paid a high price for my life, milord, and I will not forget it nor who is responsible for the misery I see on your face.”

“Not that there is anything you can do about it,” a voice cooed in Rachel’s ear, and the young woman knew Owen had not heard that boast.

“You may have forced him into this, but you do not own his heart nor will you ever!” Rachel sent to the goddess, the harshness of her thoughts meant to sting.

Owen sensed something he had not been able to intercept flowing between the two women but when he would have questioned his lady, Rachel put her fingers to his mouth.

“Not now, my Owen,” she said, and reached down to take his hand. She got to her feet and pulled him with her. “We have something more important to do.”

“Rachel…” he began as she tugged him toward the bed.

She stopped and looked up at him, her chin high, her eyes locking with his. “She’ll forever be like a skunk we encounter on the path with its tail lifted in the air. I refuse to just stand here all aquiver and wonder when she’ll release her spray on us. I may not be able to do anything about her demands on you but I can surely give you what she will never be able to!” She pulled hard on his hand.

Owen stumbled along behind her, marveling at the strength she now possessed. Her hand around his was like an iron band and he had glimpsed the steely determination blazing in her pretty eyes.

She turned to him and her hands went to the buckle of his belt. When he would have stopped her, she looked up at him with one fine brow raised in challenge and he dropped his hands to his side.

“You belong to me,” she said as she pulled the belt end from the keeper and peeled the tang back to draw it through the hole. “Only me and no one else.” The belt came free of the buckle and she jerked it none too gently from the leather loops at his waist. “She can own your soul and your allegiance as I suppose is her right but she does not own your heart and she never will.”

“No, She…”

“Shush, my Owen!” she said. “I am speaking here!”

Owen clamped his lips together, amusement making them twitch as she tugged the shirttail from his black uniform pants.

“I am your wife,” she said, and her fingers went to the button at his throat. “I am your mate. She is merely your boss and you must do as she says although most workers do not like or respect their bosses.”

“That’s true enough,” he mumbled, and when she shot him a warning look, he bit his lip to keep from saying more.

Her fingers ran the course of the buttons and then she reached for his cuffs, making quick work of undoing the three buttons that held each cuff closed at his wrist. “I never thought to have a husband, a home of my own.” She glanced up at him. “Children. Now that I have two of those things and the third within reach, I will fight to the death to keep them.”

He stood still as she peeled the shirt from his body and then watched as she folded it neatly then laid it aside. A hastily drawn-in breath was all he was allowed as her hands moved to the clasp at the waistband of his pants and her knuckles grazed his bellybutton.

“I intend to have all that other wives and mothers have had for generations and I intend to enjoy every moment of it.”

His cock leapt each time she undid a button at his fly until he was so hard it sprang free of the opening of its own accord as she peeled the leather away.

“Sit down, my Owen,” she said, “so I can remove your boots.”

With his face red-hot with embarrassment, his cock jutting from his opened pants, he all but crashed onto the edge of the mattress behind him and had to swallow hard as she knelt at his feet to tug off his boots and remove his socks.

“You have uncommonly pretty feet for a man,” she commented as she sat the boots aside neatly and rolled the socks into a tight ball.

Owen could feel the blood racing through his veins as he stared down at her bent head. She was stroking the top of his foot, her fingers trailing along the instep as she caressed him.

“Beautiful feet actually,” she said then stood gracefully. “Most men have such ugly, crooked toes and dirty, jagged nails. Your feet are just right, almost feminine in their softness.” She held out her hand to help him to stand.

He groaned for his cock was poking toward her with such lively intent—the tip glistening with a bead of pre-cum—that he could feel the heat pulsing in his cheeks. He saw her cock her head to one side as though in deep thought.

“Will you teach me how to wave my hand and do away with your clothing, my Owen?” she asked as she looked avidly at his swollen shaft.

“It’s more fun this way,” he said huskily.

She lifted her gaze to his and smiled slowly. “Aye, you’re right. It is.”

He swallowed. “But I will teach you.”

She put her hands on his bare waist then wedged her fingertips beneath the waistband of his pants when he stood for her, began to slowly push them down over his hips. “And how to fashion them again?”

“Aye,” he said, his heart pounding furiously.

The leather seemed to have shrunk on his body, refusing to leave it easily. He knew that was in part because he was sweating with desire and the material was sticking to his flesh but he also had a suspicion other—more extra-worldly—forces were at work, making them work for what was coming. Rachel must have surmised the same thing for he heard her muttering beneath her breath.

“He’s mine and I am going to claim him so stop interfering!”

She managed to work the leather down his long legs and as he braced a hand on her shoulder to lift his foot free of the garment, she felt his fingers tense and looked up.

“I am yours,” he stated.

“Of course you are,” she agreed.

The pants were folded neatly like the silk shirt and put aside. He stood there before her as naked as the day he had come from his mother’s womb, heat suffusing his cheeks, his cock throbbing wildly.

“Wave your hand and make these clothes depart,” she ordered him, running a tongue over her upper lip.

“No,” Owen said, and his entire body clenched at the sight of that slick tongue. “Turnaround is fair play, wench. You undressed me now I will undress you.”

She made a little moue with her lips but sat on the bed so he could take off her boots. That done, slowly and with great care he undid the black shirt as she sat there looking up at him with such calm acceptance. He held out his hand to draw her to her feet then slid the opened shirt from her slender shoulders. The black leather pants she told him were beginning to grow on her he unbuttoned with extra care then peeled them down her beautiful legs. Unlike his lady-wife, Owen cast the garments aside carelessly, never noticing the prim press of her lips at his cavalier treatment of the garments.

“We will discuss your slovenly habits later, my Owen,” she commented.

The only discussion Owen wanted to have was with the delectable body that was now revealed to him. Scars that would have marred the perfection of that sweet body had all been removed by Morrigunia’s hand.

“You paid a high price that they were,” she said, easily reading his thoughts.

“Shush, my Rachel,” he said sternly, but his eyes belied the reprimand as he drew her to him, pressing her full-length against his own naked flesh. He ground his erection against her. “Let him do all the talking.”

“I’m listening,” she said, giggling.

He bent his head to claim her mouth and thrust a possessive tongue between her lips. For just a split second he realized he was going too fast, being too worldly for her, and would have withdrawn, but she lightly caught his tongue between her teeth and held it, staring into his eyes with a challenge he found drove straight to his loins.

Rachel knew nothing of men or of what excited them but she was more than willing to learn. She wanted Owen’s body to crave hers in a way that would never allow his eye to wander. Though it was extremely uncommon for men of the Colony to stray, some had and she had no intention of allowing her man to ever feel the need to do so. She vowed to give him whatever he wanted to keep him satisfied.

Owen intercepted that wayward thought and pulled back from her, smiling as she released his tongue. “I have in my arms what will satisfy me, sweeting.”

“Aye, but I am not a porcelain figurine, my Owen. I will not break if you handle me a bit roughly.” She gazed at him from beneath her long eyelashes. “Truth be told, I would welcome a firm hold.”

The Reaper’s eyes flared at her words. He ached to know the sweeping passion he suspected Cynyr and Aingeal shared, the all-encompassing desire he often glimpsed in Arawn’s eyes when the Prime watched Danielle. He wanted to experience the same building lust he saw mirrored in Bevyn’s gaze when Lea entered a room. He knew those men did not treat their mates like hothouse plants nor fragile glass statues that would break with a bit of hard handling. Yet he also knew the mates of his fellow Reapers had not been brought up as Rachel had in a restrictive environment where sex was a taboo subject and not meant to be enjoyed by the female in the equation.

“My Owen,” Rachel said with an exasperated sigh, “you think entirely too much!”

That said, she reached down and cupped his staff, wrapping her slender fingers around it tightly, giving it a slight tug as she maneuvered him so that the backs of his thighs touched the mattress edge.

“Lie down and let’s get on with the business at hand!” she said, and her fingers tightened even more around his cock.

His arms were still around her and he fell backward, putting a bare heel to the bed to slide them farther up into the center of the mattress. She had hold of him and seemed to have no intention of releasing that firm grip. Her arms were trapped between them and he reveled in the pressure that position brought to his lower belly. Lifting his legs, he wrapped them around her calves, imprisoning her against him.

“Wench, I think…”

“Please, stop thinking!” she hissed at him. “Stop talking. Stop everything but this!”

She was milking his shaft with her fingers, caressing him so firmly it seemed to him he was growing harder and longer in her grasp. Her fingertips were grazing his balls each time she loosened and tightened her grip, the short nails scratching delicately against his flesh. That action was sending wave after wave of sensuous delight down his legs.

Wiggling against him, she let him know she wanted to move freely and he reluctantly slid his legs from hers. She pushed up in the bed to kneel between his spread thighs, gazing down at his bare chest at her hands smoothed over the wiry hair growing there.

“I want to touch you all over,” she said, running her tongue over her upper lip. “I want to know every inch of you.” Her gaze grew hot. “Every mole, every freckle, every scar, everything.” She trailed her fingers down his side.

He felt like a sacrifice as he lay there while she studied his body. Where her gaze touched upon him, it felt as though heat were pouring from her eyes. He wanted to writhe beneath that fervent inspection but he held himself still as she started at his face and moved downward, her close scrutiny of every inch of his upper body making him pant with need. By the time she was staring avidly at his engorged cock, he began to sweat.

“Are all men as large as you, my Owen?” she asked, and stroked him, running the tip of her finger over the tip where pearly liquid had formed.

“I don’t…” He blushed to the roots of his hair. “I guess.”

“How long are you?” she asked. It was an innocent question but it was one he could answer with pride.

“Ten inches,” he said, remembering the day he had measured his fully erect cock and been punished for daring to touch himself.

She continued to stroke him, unaware he was gritting his teeth and that perspiration was dripping down his temples as he strove to keep from coming under her gentle touch.

“Does this please you?” she asked, lightly scratching her short nails under his scrotum.

“Aye,” he breathed. “Very much.” His body was beginning to quiver and he longed to wrap his arms around her, flip her over and drive into her mercilessly.

As though she had caught that intoxicating thought, she smiled slyly and lightly raked her fingernails down his taut thigh. “And this?”

“Wench, please!” he whimpered. “I am dying here!”

Rachel was becoming good at reading his mind and she slipped past his defenses to see what carnal thoughts were invading him to cause him to tremble so at her touch. In his mind she saw a faceless woman bending over him, her mouth wrapped around his shaft, her actions making it plain that she was drawing on his flesh. From Owen’s memories she surmised he enjoyed such a thing and bent over him, bringing his flesh to her mouth and before he could stop her, taking him between her lips.

“Rachel!” he cried out, his fingers entwining in her hair to hold her head still. He had not expected for her to kneel there looking up at him over the curly hairs of his lower abdomen and wink at him. He was shocked to the very foundations of his soul!

Rachel eased her mouth from his throbbing flesh. “Does that not please you, my Owen?” she asked.

“Aye, but…” His heart was pounding so fast he could barely think.

“Then shush,” she said, and lowered her head once more, his fingers still tight in her hair as she slid her tongue along his shaft as she had gleaned from his memories of whatever woman had relieved him.

Owen squeezed his eyes shut as her mouth worked magic on his swollen cock. She was taking the way of it from his thoughts—he understood that—and realized she did not find the act revolting. Her only objective was to give him pleasure and to her there was no disgust or stigma attached to what she was doing. If anything, she seemed to be enjoying it.

“I am,” she whispered in his mind.

But it was more pleasure than Owen could comfortably stand and he knew how quick his shaft would react if allowed any more freedom. He tugged at her hair. When she pulled back and licked her lips, it was almost his undoing. Before he unmanned himself in front of her, he slapped his hands to her shoulders, gripped them and pushed her over, flinging a leg over her as he reared up, his fingertips sliding to the sweet mounds of her breasts.

“I am ripe to bursting, wench,” he said through clenched teeth. “If I don’t… If we don’t…”

“There you go talking again,” she said, and she put her arms around him to pull him to her. “Do you ever hush?”

Owen shifted between her knees, thrusting her thighs farther apart. “I believe I have one last thing to say.”

Rachel opened her mouth to protest but never got the chance for he slid into her with such firm resolve it took away her breath. He was hard and full and filled her to capacity, stretching muscles that wrapped around him, clung to him, and began to ache at his entry. There was slight discomfort, a bit of a burn, but then her body was reacting to his sweet invasion and her juices began to flow over his hard flesh. He was like velvet wrapped around steel as he gently moved within her, his hips swiveling slowly as he allowed her to grow accustomed to his length and breadth. He pulled back just a little and slid in again, never going as deep as she feared he could.

Her nails scratched lightly at his sides as he ground against her, his hands sliding under her rump to lift her toward him.

“I like this, my Owen,” she whispered to him, and when their eyes met, she smiled broadly. “I like this a lot!”

Owen threw back his head and laughed. That he was giving her pleasure—that she could actually feel that pleasure—filled him with such delight he felt like crying.

Rachel knew he had worried about whether or not the sexual act would bring her enjoyment. Although she remembered the violence done her, the pain she had experienced, she supposed it was like that of the women who had borne children and spoken covertly of it to the younger women who had not. There had been pain, they said, but they could not remember it because the delight of the child in their arms had wiped away all the unpleasantness and agony involved in the birthing process. She likened holding Owen as she was at the moment to be the same thing. The pleasure of his body had glossed over, had wiped away, the sting of the pain that had come before. There was only the good now and the bad was but a fading memory.

“There you go thinking again,” Owen growled at her. “Do you ever stop?”

She squeezed him tightly and lifted her legs as he had done to wrap them—not around his calves as he had done with her—but around his waist, jailing him within their silky confines.

“I’d like it a bit harder, my Owen,” she said.

“My cock or the thrusts?” he challenged, and his hips began to piston a bit faster, his cock going a bit deeper with each third or fourth thrust.

“Both,” she affirmed. Her nails dug into his back, spurring him on.

It was as though a dam burst inside Owen and a fire had been lit within him. His thrusts became deeper and harder and as her legs tightened almost to the point of pain around him, those thrusts became more frenzied until sweat was dripping down into her face from his brow and she was arching up to meet him, plunge for plunge.

Rachel felt something gathering deep inside her womb and it was building to such a point she thought it was would shatter her when it arrived. She was clutching him, scrambling to hold on to his sweaty body as he slammed into her with such force the bed rocked beneath them.

When the minute vibrations began, the quivers of her inner muscles alerted her to something spectacular about to crash over her, Rachel stopped breathing, concentrating every ounce of her awareness in the connection between their two bodies. She thought of that hard length going in and out of her and then the sweetest of pleasures rippled through her with such intensity she screamed as her release spiraled in undulating wave after wave of the most wondrous pleasure she’d ever known.

Her climax seemed to go on and on and around him and Owen was caught up in that maelstrom of delight. It took him with hard squeezes that milked the cum from his cock and he spurted long and hard, his head back to howl his pleasure as the clenches around his shaft came again and again until he was drained. He stiffened as one last spurt left him then he collapsed atop her, panting for breath, his heart pounding so hard he could hear it thundering in his ears.

“Oh my Owen,” he heard her say. “I really liked that!”

He opened his mouth to speak but her giggle stopped him.

“Can we do it again, now? Please?”

Chapter Fourteen

He gently eased the covers back and was preparing to rise when he felt her hand at the small of his back. He twisted around and looked down at her in the faint glow coming from the window. Dawn was just spreading its rosy fingers against the midnight blue velvet of the sky. They had slept little and he was exhausted, but it was a good exhaustion that had left him in a rosy glow that made his heart content.

“You are leaving now?” she asked.

He took her hand in his and brought her palm to his lips, turning his head to place a soft kiss on her flesh. “Aye. Go back to sleep, y chree. I’ll see you in New City.”

She wanted to protest his going but she knew this was something he felt he had to do. “You will be careful?” she asked.

“I swear,” he stated, kissed her palm once more then released her hand. He stood and walked over to the chair to retrieve his pants.

Rachel lay there on her side with her hands tucked beneath her cheek and watched him dress. He was an uncommonly handsome man with a body with which any woman would be tempted to sin. His chest was broad and matted with a pelt of soft hair that made her breasts tingle just looking at it. The striated muscles rippling down his belly and the dark line of hair that pointed to that most glorious part of his anatomy that had given her such intense pleasure the night before brought a sigh to her lips. He was tugging the tight leather pants over his lean hips—covering up that long, thick instrument of bliss—and she couldn’t stop from giggling.

“Something funny, milady?” he asked, cocking a dark brow at her.

“You wear nothing beneath that leather,” she said. “Doesn’t the matter get cold?”

“Reaper body temperatures are high and inside the leather, the matter stays comfy warm,” he said, grinning. He sat down in the chair to draw on his boots. “That’s not to say the matter wouldn’t welcome further warming at your tender hands when we’ve the time to spare.”

“Ah,” she said, her toes curling beneath the covers at the thought. “So long as he doesn’t get a head cold.”

Owen rolled his eyes as he stood and plucked his silk shirt from the back of the chair. “I think I’ve created a sex fiend.”

“Most likely you have,” she said on a long sigh.

She liked the way he flung the shirt around his shoulders while thrusting one muscled arm in a sleeve. The tensing of his biceps and pectorals made her womb contract and she ached to run her tongue over his nipples.

“Milady,” he groaned, intercepting that wayward thought. He had felt his paps harden.

“You caught that?” she asked, lifting her head from the pillow.

“Aye, I caught it,” he said in a gruff voice as his fingers sped through the buttons.

“Um,” she said and laid her head down again. “I’ll have to be careful of my thoughts, huh?”

“On occasion,” he agreed as he began tucking the tail of his shirt into his pants. “Most times it won’t be necessary.”

Rachel was filled with pride as she watched him button the cuffs of his shirt then sling the gun belt around his hips, positioning it low before buckling it and then leaning over to tie his holster into place at his thigh. He was every inch a warrior, every inch a man, and he was hers.

“And mine,” a voice whispered in her head.

A small frown appeared at Rachel’s lush mouth. She knew he also belonged to the goddess—as did all the Reapers—but she did not want to dwell on that.

“You will protect him?” she asked silently.

Owen looked up. He had intercepted his wife’s thought. She didn’t know how to shield such things from him yet. He knew Morrigunia was intruding. He knew the Triune Goddess had said something to garner Rachel’s attention though he hadn’t heard it. He listened for the reply but heard nothing—just as Morrigunia no doubt intended. He saw Rachel relax.

“Did She reassure you?” he asked, coming over to the bed.

“She did,” Rachel agreed, and held her arms up to him. He was dressed except for his hat and duster, and ready to leave her. She wanted one last kiss, one last moment of holding his body to hers before she sent him on his way.

Owen bent over her and took her into his arms, pressing her tightly to him. “I’ll be all right,” he said, smoothing the hair back from her forehead.

“I know you will. She told me,” his wife said.

He kissed her then, and within that kiss was all the pent-up fear for her he had experienced when he thought her lost to him for all time. He did not thrust his tongue between her sweet lips for to have done so would have been a torment he could not withstand at that moment. There would be plenty of time left when he’d punished the man who had nearly taken her from him.

Rachel kissed him back and in her kiss was all the promise of days and nights to come. When he released her, she stared hard into his eyes. “I love you, my Owen,” she said.

Owen blinked, the words going straight into his heart. He couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak for he had been unprepared for them.

“Go,” she said, pushing away from him. “Go while I’ll still let you.”

He straightened up and stared down at her for a long moment, wishing he could say the words back to her but they were caught in his throat. At last he turned away, snatched up his hat and duster and fled the room, not daring to look back for fear he would be tempted to stay.

* * * * *

High Elder Chamberlain Lawrence slapped the maid as hard as he could and the poor woman hit the pie safe and slid down it, the sharp wooden edge of the corner gouging into the flesh of her cheek and splitting the fragile skin open.

“I told you to have my breakfast ready when I came down those stairs, Daphne,” he shouted at her. “Can you not do anything right, you bitch?”

Daphne was trembling like a leaf in a stiff breeze. The entire night he had kept her in his bed doing things that shamed and degraded her and yet she had been expected to be up before first light to prepare him a hale and hearty meal. Her body was sore in places that made it impossible to move easily and the lacerations on her buttocks were a living hell as the blood seeping from them stuck to the material of her coarse gown. Painfully she pushed to her feet, sliding her back up the wall beside her, her bare feet burning from the cold floorboards. She flinched when he raised his hand to her again, intending to hit her. Instinctively she lifted her arms to cover her face from his heavy blow.

“Why don’t you try that on a man, Lawrence?”

The low, brutal voice surprised the high elder and he spun around, his arm still raised. When he saw the Reaper standing in the doorway of the kitchen, he staggered back.

“What are you doing here?” High Elder Chamberlain demanded, but the authority in his voice was missing and in its place was fear.

“I’d have been here sooner but I had to direct the Shadowlords to the Drochtáirs’ lair,” the Reaper replied.

The high elder let out a ragged breath. “The evil is dead then?”

Owen Tohre’s smile was poisonous. “Either dead or about to die.” He turned to Daphne. “Go. Put on your shoes and coat and wait outside for me.”

“She’s going nowhere!” the high elder snapped, lifting his head as he lowered his hand. Some of his bravado began to surface.

“Do what I tell you, wench,” Owen said softly.

Daphne knew which of the two men to obey. One might have the look of the devil about him but the other one was the devil himself. She skittered out of the kitchen without a look back.

“I asked why you are here,” the high elder stated. “You took your whore and left New Towne. Our business is finished.” He licked his lips, a bit encouraged the man standing across from him wasn’t armed.

Owen almost smiled. He’d left his duster and gun belt in the hallway when he’d entered. He knew he wouldn’t need them. He folded his arms over his chest and stared hard at the Communalist. He cocked his head to one side. “Who sent the poleen after her?” he asked.

There had been no word from the Electorate concerning Rachel and as far as the elders of New Towne knew, the situation had been taken care of behind the protected walls of the Colony’s headquarters.

The high elder glanced at the back door, no doubt gauging how long it would take him to reach the exit. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“The poleen went to Saint Marie and abducted Rachel,” Owen said. “They took her to the Electorate.”

A shimmer of true terror scratched down the high elder’s backbone and his blood ran cold. For the first time he saw death hovering in the Reaper’s eyes and he took a step toward the back door. “I know nothing of that,” he lied.

Owen smiled slowly and that smile was savage, filled with a hatred so virulent, had it been an airborne bacteria, it would have infected the entire province. “They branded her and they mutilated her and they stoned her at the Electorate,” he said, his gentle, soft tone belying the fury glowing red in his amber eyes. “And they killed her.”

High Elder Chamberlain’s eyelids flickered at the news. If there had ever been any affection, any link to his daughter, it showed in that slight movement that acknowledged her death but it was gone in a heartbeat to be replaced with a stony glower meant to quell the Reaper. “I was not there,” he stated. “I would not know what went on.”

Owen unfolded his arms and began to unbutton the cuff of his left sleeve. “The thing is, she didn’t remain dead,” he said.

The high elder’s eyes flared. “W-what do you m-mean?”

The Reaper unbuttoned his right sleeve, tugged his shirttail from his pants and then put his hands to the buttons at the front of his shirt, flipping them carelessly open. “You know about the parasite, don’t you, Lawrence?” he asked.

“P-parasite?” the high elder took another side step toward the door.

“The revenant worm,” Owen told him. “That which makes me what I am.”

The high elder shook his head.

“It’s a vicious little beast,” Owen said. He flicked open the button on the waistband of his pants. “It has spiny barbs that pierce the flesh inside your body while it sinks its fangs into your kidney to draw blood. Sometimes it moves around inside you and it hurts so bad you wish you could lie down and die but you can’t. One of the things the revenant worms do is to make sure you live a long, long life with it inside you.”

“I don’t see…”

“The parasite not only gives you long life but the strength of ten men,” Owen continued. “It grants you the ability to change from human to wolf or bird form. Can you imagine what a golden wolf might become in bird form, Lawrence?”

The high elder shook his head. He was sweating profusely and when he lifted a trembling hand to wipe at his face, he grunted with fear.

“I can’t begin to imagine what a golden wolf would become,” Owen said, pulling the zipper down on his pants. “What do you think of a golden eagle?”

“W-what of it?” High Elder Chamberlain asked, taking another step.

“Of course eagles are a bit larger than most female Reapers get.”

“What are you babbling about?” the high elder demanded.

“I’m telling you about the parasite, Lawrence. In the right hands, that parasite can return the dead to the land of the living,” Owen said. “It took two of those parasites to put life back into Rachel.”

The high elder stilled as though he’d turned to stone. “S-she’s alive?” he asked.

“Alive and unmarked and unaltered in any way,” Owen snarled as he shrugged off his shirt and tossed it aside.

High Elder Chamberlain was like a snake-hypnotized rabbit—unable to move, unable to speak—as the Reaper kicked off his boots and unbuttoned his pants, pushing them down his legs. The high elder whimpered at seeing the man’s nakedness but could not look away.

“Unaltered in any way,” Owen repeated as he stepped out of his pants and kicked them to one side. He had wanted no drain on his powers to affect what he intended to do.

It was the purely evil smile that spread over the Reaper’s lips after he had spoken that caused the slight trickle of something dark to appear at the crotch of the high elder’s blue trousers.

“No,” High Elder Chamberlain managed to whimper as the Reaper took a step toward him.

Hellfire shot from eyes that glinted scarlet red and in that last instant before Chamberlain Lawrence fell headlong into that everlasting realm of damnation, he let loose a horrified scream that lasted but a second before it was extinguished in a gurgling rush.

Chapter Fifteen

Rachel had been pacing the platform as the train huffed and puffed, sending steam out on both sides of the track as the engine idled. She was wrapped in a long fur coat that Glyn had provided for her and warm fur boots Iden had thought to conjure. The air was colder than it had been in weeks and the sky looked threatening, snow hovering in the gray expanse, but she wasn’t all that cold. Despite the sleek coolness of her black leather pants, she was warm enough. She thought of what Owen had said about Reaper body temperatures and half smiled.

Everyone else in their traveling party was already on board the special train that had been sent out to pick up the Prime Reaper Arawn Gehdrin and his wife Danielle. The Gehdrins had been visiting in Haines City and would now be returning to the Citadel before going back to their home. The third Reaper in the line of command—Cynyr Cree—had already escorted his wife and their child to one of the six sleeping cars that had been set aside for their use. Glyn and Iden would be sharing a car between them as would Edward and Benjamin, Edward’s wife and children utilizing the fifth car while Owen and Rachel would take the sixth. The fussy little man who had been introduced to her as the train’s steward had his own sleep area near the front of the train.

Those horses the Reapers wished to take East with them had been loaded onto the special car and the wide door had been left open in preparation for Owen’s arrival. She saw a man going in with buckets of oats and another with buckets of water for the long troughs that ran in front of the double set of stalls.

“We take care of our animals,” Iden had told her earlier.

The menfolk were sitting in the day car and the fussy little man—whose name was Harold—was preparing the noon meal. The smells coming from the kitchen car made Rachel’s stomach growl.

“Harold is really Cynyr’s man but the two of them don’t see eye to eye. Harold visits the Citadel more than he is in Haines City and was there when the High Council sent the train after us,” Arawn had informed her.

Through the window of the day car, Rachel could see Aingeal Cree watching her and she looked up, waving shyly at the beautiful woman. Aingeal winked at her and looked away, saying something to Betsey Dayton as Edward’s wife joined her and Danielle.

“Where are you, my Owen?” Rachel whispered. Though she knew the train would not leave without him, she was growing increasingly more worried as the minutes ticked away. She began pacing again.

The whistle’s shriek made her jump but as soon as the sound died away, she knew it had been a signal that Owen had been spotted. She spun around, searching the land north of the platform and as soon as she spied him, her heart did a funny little squeeze a full second before she frowned.

“Now who is that he is bringing with him?” It was Harold who had spoken in an aggrieved tone from the train’s steps. “I don’t know that I have enough to feed eighteen people!”

“The brats won’t eat much,” Rachel heard the Prime Reaper say. “Don’t sweat it, Harry.”

“Lord Arawn, please!” the fussy little man pleaded. “Don’t start calling me that too!” He threw his hands into the air and stomped back up the steps.

Rachel looked away from her husband as Arawn stepped off the train. He smiled at her. “Wanna walk with me to the horse car?” he asked, offering his arm.

Smiling shyly at him, she took his arm as he led her down the wooden plank way to the car two back behind the coal car. Danielle had explained to her earlier that the car just behind the coal car was the baggage car. Between the baggage car and the day car were the sleeping cars.

“Do you know who that is riding beside Owen and hanging on to the horse for dear life?” Arawn asked.

“It may be my father’s maid Daphne,” she said, and the moment she said it, knew it for fact in her mind. “He abused her something fierce.”

Arawn nodded. “Seemed to be a habit with him, huh?” he asked.

Rachel did not miss the fact that the Prime Reaper had spoken of her father in the past tense. She thought about that for a moment then released a long, slow breath. There was no sorrow in her. She found she felt nothing at all about the man who had made her life such a misery over the years, only relief that it would no longer happen.

Owen was leading Daphne’s mount and the girl was—indeed—hanging on to the saddle pommel as though her life depended on it. Her face was pale beneath the livid bruises that covered her cheek and forehead and her lips were quivering. As soon as she saw Rachel, she heaved a long sigh of relief.

Arawn stepped forward to help the maid down and swung her easily onto the platform. “You bringing this nag with us, Tohre?” he asked Owen.

“Oh please, sir!” Daphne cried, and would have dropped to her knees if Arawn hadn’t snaked out his hands to grab her shoulders to keep her from doing so. “Oh please don’t leave me behind. I…”

“I was referring to the horse, dearling,” Arawn said gently. “Not you.” He cupped her cheek. “You are coming with us, milady. Understood?”

Daphne’s face flamed but all she could do was nod at his words.

“I wasn’t planning on taking her horse,” Owen said as he threw a leg over his mount. “But Céierseach is going.”

Arawn grunted. “You really ought to find another name for your beasts, Tohre.” He gave Daphne’s horse a quick look. “I think we should take this mare. She looks to be a good beast.”

“Suit yourself,” Owen said. He was looking into his wife’s eyes and aching to take her into his arms but didn’t want to in front of his boss.

Arawn ordered the mare loaded onto the train then turned to offer his arm to Daphne as he had to Rachel. “Let’s you and me get on board and ready to eat,” he said. “How’s that sound?”

“It will take me a while to fix us something, milord,” Daphne began, fear trilling through her eyes, “but…”

“Dinner’s ready and waiting,” Arawn said. “You’ll have to get used to being catered to, dearling.”

Daphne was looking up at the tall, handsome man with something akin to reverence. A hesitant smile was hovering at her lips as she walked with him to the day car.

“I like that coat,” Owen told Rachel.

“You had no trouble?” she asked, her gaze roaming over him, looking for anything out of place.

“Not a speck,” he said, and moved over to her, reaching out to cup her cheeks in his hands. “I hope you don’t mind me bringing the girl, but I just couldn’t leave her there at their mercy.”

“I am glad you didn’t,” she said as his right thumb feathered over her lips. She kissed the calloused pad then ran her arms around him, holding him as she pressed her cheek to his chest. Beneath the leather of the duster and the silk of the shirt, she could hear his stalwart heart thundering. “My Owen?”

He knew what was in her mind and nodded. “Those who would put themselves above their own have been seen to by the goddess. They will cause no more suffering in this lifetime.”

Rachel nodded. “That is good to know.”

“Let’s go, wench,” he said, squeezing her tightly for a moment before releasing her. “Arawn will have my hide if this train isn’t out of the station on time.”

At the mention of the punishment to which he was headed, Rachel’s own heart did a hard knock against her ribs. He had slung an arm around her shoulders and was leading her to the day car. Her arm was clasped tightly around his waist, holding him to her for all she was worth.

Owen glanced down at her, picking up on the fear for him that was cascading through her being. He would need to explain to her, prepare her for what would happen at the Citadel. He didn’t want her to know he would be in excruciating pain for the five or six months he’d be in the con cell. She didn’t need to know. He knew she’d be worried enough about him as it was.

He leaned down and kissed her on the top of her head as they walked.

“What do you think of Aingeal and Danni?” he asked.

“I like them,” she said. “They are Reapers too.”

“Aye,” he said, smiling. “That they are.”

“They said they’d teach me all I needed to know and when we get to the Citadel, Lea would teach me other things.”

Owen frowned. “What other things?” he asked. They had reached the steps leading up into the day car.

“I don’t know,” Rachel answered with a shrug. “They said I needed to talk to her though.”

“I am going to have to have a talk with Aingeal and Danni myself,” he said. He put a hand to the small of her back to usher her on board. As they entered the day car, he swept his gaze over those assembled until he found the two female Reapers. He didn’t like the fact they were looking back at him with a smugness he found disconcerting.

“All aboard!” Harold called out, pointing at the seats he intended for Owen and Rachel to take.

“Not so loud, Harry,” Cynyr snapped. “You’ll wake the baby.”

Harold stiffened. “All aboard!” he repeated, but in a lower, less strident tone. He sniffed at the Reaper then pivoted on his heel and pranced—not walked—down the aisle toward the dining car.

“He’s a strange little man,” Rachel whispered to her husband.

Owen nodded. He was glaring at Aingeal, knowing full well she was the ringleader of the bunch. When she puckered her lips at him and made little kissy motions at him, he snorted, making a mental note to have that talk with her and Danni.

As the train pulled out of the station, it made enough noise to wake the dead. Rachel had seen pictures of the engines but had never seen one in reality. It was thrilling to be sitting in the plush velvet seat and moving along without the jolting of a horse’s gait beneath her. She felt Owen take her hand in his and thread his fingers through hers. She glanced at him but immediately returned her attention to the passing scenery.

“It’ll start going faster as the steam builds up,” her husband told her.

Rachel’s eyes widened. “Faster?” she said, and at his nod, she wiggled in her seat and leaned her head against the glass. As the train began gathering momentum and the speed increased, she was like a child standing at the window of a candy shop, one hand pressed to the window.

Once the engine was moving along at a fast clip, Harold bid the passengers into the dining room. The car was larger than normal because the Shadowlords had known there would be extra people to partake of the meals. Everyone with the exception of the two men in the engine were seated at the linen-covered tables. Meals for the trainmen would be taken to them when the passengers had eaten.

Not wanting them to feel left out, Owen and Rachel sat with Daphne and Benjamin, who seemed to be flirting with the maid. Nothing was said of the Colony or their flight from it. The talk was about what the six newcomers could expect when they arrived at the Citadel. As the dessert was served, Arawn came over to their table and put a hand on Owen’s shoulder.

“Would you join me for a breath of fresh air, Owen?” the Prime Reaper asked.

It wasn’t a request and Owen knew it. He pushed his half-eaten dessert away from him, took the napkin from his lap and blotted his lips. He scraped his chair back. “I won’t be long,” he told his wife.

Rachel nodded. She knew Arawn was the man in charge of the Reapers and she had a feeling there was business to be discussed between him and Owen. It made her a bit uneasy but she gave Daphne a wavering smile.

Owen followed Arawn through the dining room car and the day car and out through the wide plate glass door that led to the observation platform. Though the air was frigid, the two men moved to the iron railing and both leaned over it, bracing their forearms on the top rail as they stared at the unobstructed view behind the train.

“Everything taken care of in New Towne?” Arawn asked.

“Aye.”

The Prime Reaper was silent a moment then spoke again without looking at the man beside him. “I spoke to Lord Kheelan. There won’t be a need for a Tribunal when we get to the Citadel. I am to escort Rachel to your quarters and have Danni go over things with her. You are to report straight to the con cell.”

Owen flinched. That wasn’t good news. He had no idea his sentence had already been handed down. Now he truly dreaded hearing it. He was in no way prepared for the length of his coming stay in the con cell.

“One year, Owen,” Arawn said.

Owen snapped his head around. “Merciful Alel, no!” he said, eyes wide.

“I argued until I was blue in the face but the sentence will stand. Lord Kheelan is furious with you.”

Owen knew Arawn wasn’t just saying that to make him feel better. Gehdrin took care of his men and he would have done everything he could to have the sentence reduced if it had been humanly possible.

“A year,” Owen repeated with disbelief, his shoulders slumping. He hung his head. “I never dreamed it would be so long.”

“I really am sorry, Owen.” He turned his head to look into Owen’s eyes. “We’ll look after her for you.”

“I know you will but that’s not…” He shook his head. “She’s carrying my child, Arawn. I won’t be there to see him born.”

Arawn squeezed his eyes shut. That was brutal news and he hated to hear it. His own lady-wife was expecting—thanks to Morrigunia’s compassion—and it made his soul ache to know Owen would be locked in misery when his and Rachel’s child came into the world. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe if you hadn’t gone after her father and taken him out as you did…” He sighed. “I don’t know. It might have been the same either way.”

“What about Glyn and Iden?” he asked.

Arawn blew out a long breath, puffing his cheeks out. “Well, Glyn was handed three months but most of that was for the gates being blown up by the drone. The other was for fishing out the second parasite.”

“That was an order!” Owen said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Arawn said. “Three months. No argument.”

“And Iden?”

“Ironically enough, Belial skated by without as much as a slap on the wrist. He might as well have just been along for the ride,” the Prime Reaper reported.

“That’s good,” Owen said then buried his face in his hands. “Ah, shit. I really fucked up this time, boss.”

“What did you promise Morrigunia?” Arawn asked. He had to. Glyn had told him about Owen’s words as Rachel lay dead in her husband’s arms. When Owen didn’t answer, he asked instead what had happened with the Triune Goddess.

Owen shuddered, his fingers wrapped around the iron railing. “I…” He hung his head. “Just saying it makes me want to throw up.”

“You slept with Her,” Arawn said gently.

“That’s not what I would call it,” Owen said.

“I understand,” Arawn said.

Owen looked at him. “Do you?”

Their eyes locked and Arawn nodded. “All too well. It was an exacting thing, an all-invasive thing.”

Owen nodded. “Aye, invasive,” he repeated. “That’s a good word for it.”

“I am surprised She allowed you to remember it,” Arawn said.

“I’ll always remember it,” Owen said, his gaze filled with misery. “That is part of the deal I made with her.”

Arawn shook his head. “That is not good but at least it’s over.”

“No, it isn’t,” Owen said.

The Prime Reaper flinched. “What do you mean?” Arawn asked, his face pinched.

“She made it part of the bargain,” Owen said. “She’ll make me relive it every time She calls me to Her bed.”

“Calls you to Her… By the gods, what did you agree to, Owen?”

“To erase the evil done my lady, to take away the pain Rachel suffered, I had to agree to Morrigunia’s demands. I had no choice, Arawn.”

“The man who set this into motion deserved what he got?” Arawn asked.

“Her father lashed her back until it looked as bad as Cree’s. They burned her forehead with a red-hot brand that seared the letter W into her flesh and if that wasn’t enough, they removed her clitoris and sewed the folds of her vagina shut before they took her out and stoned her to death!” Owen stated.

Arawn’s face turned pale. “It is hard to imagine such evil can exist in this world.”

“I would have gladly walked through fire to ease the memory of that pain, of those horrors from Rachel’s mind. If it had been Danielle, wouldn’t you have done the same?”

“In a heartbeat,” Arawn answered without hesitation.

“And now you know why when She calls, I have to go,” Owen said. “From now until I draw my last breath, I am Her consort, at Her beck and call when the mood strikes Her.”

“Oh god,” Arawn whispered. He was feeling sick himself. He too shuddered.

“Go back inside,” Owen said. “It’s too cold out here. I’ll be in directly.”

“Does Rachel…?”

“She knows and we will deal with it,” Owen said quietly. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

Arawn straightened up. For a long time he stared unseeingly at the tracks disappearing beneath the rear of the train. His heart felt as though it had been taken out and stomped on with hobnailed boots. He ached, he hurt for Owen. He wished there was something he could do to make it better for the younger man but he saw no way to do that. At last, he put his hand on Owen’s back. There was nothing he could say that would make matters any better for the Reaper. He squeezed Owen’s shoulder then left him, feeling as inadequate as he ever had.

As Arawn made his way down the aisle of the day car, his fellow passengers were taking seats at the windows, carrying on the conversations they had started in the dining car or just sitting down to watch the passing scenery. Rachel was walking toward him, a smile twitched at her lips.

“He needs to be alone, dearling,” Arawn told her.

Rachel met his gaze unflinchingly then shook her head. “No, milord. He’s been alone too much as it is,” she replied, and continued on past him to venture out on the observation platform.

Arawn stared after her, a slight smile easing over his chiseled lips. The woman the fates had chosen for Owen was indeed strong and ideally suited for the Reaper.

“How many months did he get?” Cynyr asked, knowing that was what their boss had gone out to impart to Owen in private.

Arawn raked a hand through his dark curls. “One year.”

A gasp ran through the other Reapers—male and female.

“Arawn!” Aingeal growled, but he held up a hand to stay her complaint.

“I did everything I could to get the sentence reduced, Aingeal, but Lord Kheelan was adamant. He wants to make an object lesson of Owen and…”

“You can’t let him stay that long in the con cell,” Aingeal interrupted him. “His wife is expecting a baby!”

“I know that,” Arawn told her. “But my hands are tied. There is nothing I can do.”

“Well, there’s something I can do!” Aingeal snapped. She threw herself into the seat beside her husband, her arms crossed angrily over her breasts.

“Now, Aingeal…” Cynyr began, but when she turned a militant, warning look to him, he snapped his lips shut. There was no arguing with his she-wolf when she got that spark in her eyes.

Arawn sat down beside Danielle and heaved a long sigh. “I wish to the gods they’d let me retire,” he complained.

Danielle put a soothing hand on his thigh. “You are the best man for the job, mo shearc,” she reminded him.

Arawn closed his eyes and laid his head along the seat’s plush back. “Sometimes I wish I weren’t,” he mumbled.

“She’ll handle it,” Danielle said.

Opening his eyes, he turned his head to look at her. “How, Danni?” he asked. “If I can’t budge Lord Kheelan, how do you think she can?”

Danielle patted his thigh. “He doesn’t love you,” she said, and at his stunned blink, she nodded. “She’ll handle it. Don’t worry.”

* * * * *

Owen fussed at Rachel for coming out on the platform without a coat until she arched a brow and swept her gaze down his coatless body. He simply snorted then wrapped her in his arms. They stood there gazing at the scenery flitting by past the rear of the train and said nothing.

“Tell me the truth of it, my Owen,” she asked at last. “How long will it last and how bad will the jailing be?”

He hated to tell her but he wanted no lies between them. “One year and it will be bad.”

It wasn’t the cold wind blowing across her face that brought moisture to Rachel’s violet eyes. “They will torture you?”

“No, mo filliu bwoirryn,” he said, loving the sound of the words “my she-wolf” on his lips. “The pain will come from my withdrawal from the tenerse and Sustenance.”

Though she’d had only a couple of doses of the stinging drug, she was already coming to rely on it and the Sustenance she’d been given that morning at breakfast had eased a hunger she hadn’t even known she possessed. If only a few hours could cause such discomfort, what would an entire year do to her husband?

“What can I do?” she asked, a solitary tear tracking down her cold cheek.

“Be there for me,” he said. “And the baby.”

When he had told her she was seeded with her child, part of her had rejoiced at the news while another part worried that the babe would be healthy. They had made love then so she could wipe out all thought of the goddess and her vile demands on Owen. She had not wanted to discuss the impending birth though the thought of having her Reaper’s child had thrilled her. It was the babe’s safety that concerned her.

Finally voicing that worry to Owen after they’d made love once more—some time in the wee hours of the morning—he had assured her no Reaper boy would ever be born unhealthy for the parasite would not allow it.

“But what if it’s a girl?” she’d asked.

“It won’t be, y chree,” he’d replied. “You can only have male children.” He told her why. “The parasite will not allow a female embryo to survive for It is a jealous thing.”

For a reason she could not express to him, that erased her worries for the child. She had not wanted to bring another female into a world where men treated them as possessions.

“I will always be here for you, my Owen,” she told him. She reached for his hand. “Come inside. I have a great need to lie in your arms for a while.”

Owen hesitated for just a second. He knew when they walked back through his fellow Reapers they would know what Rachel and he would be doing when they went to their private car.

“No more than they would do if they were in our boots,” she said softly, and tightened her grip on his hand.

The walk back through the observation car did not draw one flicker of the eyes of those sitting there talking. Not one person looked up at them as Rachel and he walked down the aisle. It was almost as though they were invisible.

“Are you thinking again, my Owen?” she challenged him as they reached the door to their compartment.

“It’s a habit I guess I need to break, my Rachel,” he told her as he reached around her to open the door.

“Indeed you do,” she insisted as she preceded him into the car.

He shut the door behind them but barely had time to turn around before he felt his clothing vanish. He looked down at himself with shock then at Rachel who was grinning broadly at him.

“Danni and Aingeal told me how to do it,” she said, and waved her hand again to vanquish her own clothing in the blink of an eye.

“Those two are a menace,” Owen mumbled.

She pressed against him, her soft flesh to his hard, unyielding tautness of muscle. “Would you like to know what else they told me how to do?” she asked in a throaty tone. She swiveled her hips back and forth against his swelling cock.

He stared down at her, stunned to the very fiber of his being. This shy, Colony-bred girl who had once been afraid of her own shadow was slithering against him like a serpent in heat and where her body touched his, he was aching with desire.

“When did those two…?”

“We talked,” Rachel admitted. “Mind to mind.” She smiled. “It is very useful, as Danni says, and a mind-picture is worth a thousand words.” She turned so she leaned against the door. Then ran the sole of her bare foot along his calf muscle. “Now lift my legs and…”

She got no further for his hands went to her thighs and he grabbed her up, slinging her legs around his hips as he drove into her tight sheath with one mighty plunge, pushing her up the panel as he began to snap his hips back and forth, plunging into her with force that made the door rattle, his buttock muscles flexing tightly.

“They’ll hear us!” she cautioned.

“I don’t give a warthog’s pecker if they do. Let them!” he growled through tightly clenched teeth. He was ramming into her as hard as he could, taking charge of the moment she had started and intent on keeping the upper hand with this brazen little piece of heaven.

“You wish,” she whispered in his ear, her fingers threaded through his thick hair as she slanted her mouth over his to take the kiss he gladly offered.

Their tongues dueled as he thrust into her with wild abandon. His thigh muscles contracted and released, contracted and released and his cock was like a trip hammer pounding into her hot wetness. Her inner muscles were squeezing him and when he felt the beginning of her climax, he shoved hard and deep inside her and held it as he experienced the ripple after ripple of delight that wove through her channel.

“Owen!” she hissed, her fingernails grazing his scalp as she took his mouth more to smother his own wild cry when he came.

It felt as though he would explode as he shot into her velvet warmth. The cum was thick and copious and it left him drained far worse than on that last night in the hotel. He barely had the strength and energy to turn with her and fall to the bunk, rolling so she was beside him, encaged in arms that refused to allow her to leave them.

“My Owen?” she questioned, smoothing the damp hair from his forehead.

“Aye, love?” he replied. His eyelids were growing heavy with contentment.

“I want you to eat me,” she said out of the blue as they lay there heaving.

His eyes flew open. “Rachel!” he said on a gasp of breath. Staring down at her with utter disbelief. “Where did you…?”

“Aingeal says…”

“Shush, wench!” he ordered, his eyes narrowing. “I see I need to have a talk with Cynyr and Arawn!”

She snuggled against him. “That’s okay. I’ll be talking to Aingeal and Danni when you do.”

Chapter Sixteen

When the train pulled into the station at the base of the fortified mountain upon which sat the imposing five-sided building of the Citadel at the end of the week, a light misting rain was falling and the waves of the ocean beyond were dark gunmetal gray.

Coaches were lined up at the station to take the passengers up the twisting roadway to the Citadel and the first one to leave carried the Gehdrins and the Crees. The second to leave carried the Tohres, Glyn and Iden, the third for the rest of their group. The silence in the coaches was palpable. Owen sat with his fingers entwined with Rachel’s, his gaze out the window at the destruction that had been wrought during the Burning War.

“Why do they not clean that up?” Rachel asked Glyn. “The Shadowlords, I mean.”

“I don’t think it’s as much them as it is Morrigunia,” Glyn replied. “She wants to keep it there as a reminder of what happens when man oversteps himself and ventures into the realms of the gods.”

Rachel glanced at her husband but he seemed to be lost in thought and she hated to intrude. His fingers were gripping hers so tightly it was almost painful but she would not complain. He seemed to need the comfort of touching her.

There were guards with laser rifles ringing the portico as the coaches pulled up to discharge the passengers. The Gehdrins and Crees ran beneath the sweeping concrete porch for the mist had suddenly become a drenching downpour.

“Even the heavens are crying for him,” Aingeal remarked to Danielle.

The four of them stood there as first Iden then Glyn scampered from the coach, leaving the door open for Owen and Rachel.

Owen turned away from the window and used his free hand to cup her cheek. “As soon as I’m in the building, they’ll arrest me,” Owen told his lady. “I won’t see you again until the sentence is over.”

She knew she had to be brave for him. She could not allow him to leave her with tears streaming down her cheek or fear lurking in her eyes. As Aingeal had reminded her only that morning, she was not just a Reaper’s woman, she was a Reaper in her own right and she had to be strong for her mate.

“I will be here waiting with our son when you return,” she said, and leaned toward him, briefly touching his lips with hers. Though she ached to deepen the kiss, she knew it would only make it harder on the both of them. She pulled back, smiled and then made to get out of the coach.

“Rachel?” he said, keeping hold of her hand.

She turned back to him. “Aye, my Owen.”

“I love you,” he said.

“You’d better, milord Reaper,” she replied, “because I love you right back.”

Before he could stop her, she used her budding strength to pull free of his grip and was out of the coach, streaking up the steps to the porch. Only Aingeal caught a glimpse of the devastating pain lurking in Rachel’s violet eyes.

“Take me to our quarters, Lord Arawn,” Rachel said, her voice breaking. “Now, please!”

Arawn understood and took hold of her arm, leading her into the Citadel before Owen was out of the coach. He stood in the downpour and looked up at the boiling heavens for a long time, mindless of the drenching rain soaking him. It would be his last glimpse of freedom for a long time. At last, he walked slowly up the steps, past the two female and three male Reapers and into the Citadel where guards flanked him immediately and led him into the bowels of the mighty stronghold.

“Son of a bitch,” Aingeal snapped as she stood there bouncing her baby son. She turned to Danielle and handed her the child then jerked away from Cynyr who tried to grab her and stop her from marching toward the place she knew the High Lord would be.

“Don’t,” Danielle said, reaching out to keep Cynyr from following his wife. She thrust his son into his arms. “Stay out of it, Cyn.”

Cynyr’s jaw was rigid. “You really think she can change Lord Kheelan’s mind?”

“I know she can,” Danielle said. She hooked her arm through his. “Come on. From the smell of your bairn, he needs his diaper changed.”

Cynyr moaned, glancing down at his infant. “Ah, Danni, I’m not good at…”

“Then it’s high time you learned,” she insisted.

* * * * *

Lord Kheelan Ben-Alkazar of Rysalia was the High Lord, the High Commissioner of the Shadowlords and by right the most influential of the three men. He was feared by his fellow Shadowlords because he had far more power than did they and he was more ruthless, more determined. His word was law and no one dared to question his words. It was said the man had ice water flowing through his veins and a soul forged in hell, a heart as black as pitch and twice as hard as obsidian.

That was until Aingeal Cree had bulldozed her way into the High Lord’s carefully kept, orderly life.

Argent, the gatekeeper, looked up from her desk and smiled. “How are things in Haines City, Lady Aingeal?” she asked politely, her two sisters—Aureolin, the blonde, and Corallin, the redhead—pausing in their tasks to greet the female Reaper.

“Where is that cold-blooded bastard?” Aingeal demanded, nodding at the three women to let them know her fury did not extend to them.

“I believe the High Lord is in the solarium,” Argent replied. “Through there.”

Aingeal nodded again and stormed over to the door, flinging it open with no care for the noise or the distraction she caused.

Lord Kheelan jumped, unprepared for the sudden intrusion though his expression said he’d been expecting it. “Now, Lady Aingeal…” he began, holding up a hand to ward off her anger.

“Don’t ‘Lady Aingeal’ me! Who the hell do you think you are, Ben-Alkazar?” she demanded, slamming the door shut in her wake. “Who died and made you a god?”

A muscle working in his jaw, the look he had used to quell hundreds of lesser men settled on his finely honed features and his eyes glared into hers. “You know, wench, I am getting a bit fed up with you insulting me,” he snapped. His gaze flicked to the door. She never heard the lock snick closed.

“Live with it,” she threw back at him. “Are you aware Rachel Tohre is with child?”

He lifted his head. “I am aware of a lot of things.” He narrowed his gaze. “That included.”

“And you really expect to keep that poor man in the con cell while his wife gives birth to their firstborn?” she questioned, coming to stand toe to toe with him.

“He knew there would be consequences to his actions and…”

“Get over yourself, Ben-Alkazar,” she interrupted. “You might be able to intimidate men who don’t know you’re nothing but a scared little boy who wishes he were still at home in the arms of his nanny on Serenia, but I know better.”

His eyes became thin slits of fury. “Be careful of how you speak to me, wench.”

“You are a man,” she said.

“I am a Shadowlord,” he stated. “And the most powerful of my kind.”

Aingeal flung out a dismissive hand. “That and twenty coppers might get you a cup of coffee but it cuts no marble with me!”

“Ice,” he said, his jaw clenched, teeth grinding. “The term is ‘cuts no ice’.”

“Whatever,” she snapped. “Are you going to do what’s right or am I going to have to make you do it?”

Lord Kheelan growled like a wounded bear. “You backed me into a corner once before, wench, and I stupidly allowed it because Reaper honor was involved,” he told her. “I don’t think you want to back me into another corner again. I might come out of that corner in a way you wouldn’t enjoy.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “I’ve been beaten and sold to a raping bastard for a brace of horses and raped repeatedly by men that bastard loaned me to for a drink or two of firewater. I’ve been kidnapped, thrown over a horse—the outcome of which was a miscarriage—and raped again.” She glared at him. “Do you really think you hold any threat for me?”

Lord Kheelan stared down into her angry eyes—seeing the images she meant for him to see flittering through her mind—and he dug his fingernails into his palms. “Don’t, Aingeal,” he said, his heart aching at those images.

“Cut his sentence in half,” she said.

“I can’t,” he told her. “I won’t. If I did that, the men would lose respect for me and…”

“If you don’t, I’ll lose respect for you,” she warned.

He snorted to cover up the pain that caused him. “You say that as though you have respect for me now! I know better.”

She searched his eyes. “You are not the son of a bitch you want people to believe you are. Your heart may be as black as a Reaper’s but there has to be some warmth inside it.”

“It’s as cold as the far reaches of the megaverse,” he insisted.

“I don’t believe that,” she said, lowering her voice.

“It doesn’t matter what you believe. It’s true.”

She shook her head. “What can I do to help change your mind about this, Kheelan?”

His name on her lips made his body ache with feelings he knew he should not be having, feelings that were more dangerous for her than they were for him.

“Don’t put this on a personal level unless you are willing to deal with the results, Aingeal,” he cautioned her.

Her chin came up. “Name your price.”

His eyes narrowed. “And if the price is too high? If it’s one you’re unwilling to pay?”

She did not respond to his goading. She simply held his hot stare with her cool one, daring him to do his worst.

Minutes ticked by and neither blinked. Neither of them moved away from the other though the toes of their boots were actually touching. Each could feel the other’s breath on their face. At last it was the Shadowlord who gave in to the silent contest of wills.

“All right, Aingeal,” he said in a low, husky voice. “Here’s the deal—I want a kiss from you. Not some perfunctory bussing, no fleeting press of your lips to mine, no simpering touch of mouth to mouth but an honest to goodness, solid, sensual kiss—your honeyed tongue halfway down my gods-be-damned throat—your body jammed so hard against mine I’ll feel the imprint of your nipples and, baby, you’d better put everything you’ve got into that kiss if you want me to even think about changing my mind.”

Aingeal stepped back from him, her heart pounding in her chest, her blood racing through her veins. He was glaring at her with such heat, with such hunger, she thought he would attack her, throw her to the floor and ram his rigid body into hers. She could see the heavy erection pressing at the front of his robe and the fists he kept clenching and unclenching as he stood there. Sweat was clinging to his upper lip, his eyes were flint hard, his breathing harsh and ragged as though he’d just run a race. There was no doubt in her mind she had finally pushed the man too far.

His smile was slow and hated and infuriating.

“I didn’t think so,” he said with a snort, and turned to walk away.

She didn’t consider the consequences of her actions but reached for him, grabbing his arm to jerk him back around. She pulled him to her and her arms went around his neck, her body slammed into his and her mouth was on his before his arms slid around her to mold her to him as though they were one entity. Her tongue thrust between his lips and dueled with his until she heard him groan low and deep, and knew the sound had come from his very soul.

Kheelan Ben-Alkazar poured his soul into that kiss. He gave more than he took from her for this was something he had wanted desperately from the first moment he had seen Aingeal Cree. His love for her was so overpowering, so overwhelming, he spent hours prowling the halls of the Citadel at night to cool the throbbing ache in his heart and the lustful need in his groin. He had never wanted another woman and he knew down to the depths of his soul that he would never want any other than Aingeal.

His hands spanned over her back, her rump, he thrust his tongue deep into the wet warmth of her mouth. He pressed her so tightly to him he could barely breathe but the lush curves of her body, her breasts, her hips fit his so perfectly he felt he could crawl inside her skin. He wanted nothing more than to lay her down and enter that sweet body. He longed to lie naked with her in the moonlight, claim her as his own. He hurt for the want of her. He had to have her. He had to!

Neither one of them realized how brutal that kiss was going to be until he finally broke away from her, putting distance between them. He was trembling from head to toe, his chest heaving and one hand out as though to keep her at bay. He was gasping for breath, straining to get himself under control, and she staggered away from him, coming up against the wall behind her and wanting to slide down it and crumble into a fetal position.

“Great god almighty,” she heard him whisper raggedly. She heard the audible swallow that came from his throat as he stumbled to a bench and sat down heavily, shoving a shaky hand through his hair. There was sweat on his forehead, trickling down his right temple.

She recovered first, knowing she had to press her advantage with him while she could. She cleared her throat, her voice sounding strange even to her own ears. “Six months.”

He shook his head. “Eight.”

“Not good enough,” she said, wiping a hand over her mouth, surprised to see it shaking. “Seven.”

“Eight,” he stated. He met her stare and she knew his word was final.

“I want your word he’ll be out in time to be there when his son is delivered.”

He nodded.

“Just so you know,” she said, edging toward the door. “I will tell Cynyr about this.”

He shook his head. “No, you won’t.”

“Oh but I will,” she said. “I won’t keep something like this from him. I…”

“You’ll forget it the moment you leave this room,” he said, holding her glower.

“Oh no…”

“This whole thing will be wiped from your mind the instant you walk out the door.”

She knew he meant it. “You have that much power?” she asked.

“More than you can possibly imagine,” he responded. He got shakily to his feet. “And just so you’ll know, if I had wanted more than a kiss, I would have taken it, Aingeal. If I had been a less honorable man, I would have demanded your body to seal the deal, not just your lips, and I would have gotten that too. Now get the hell out of here while I’m still an honorable man because that gods-be-damned honor is dissolving fast!”

Aingeal’s eyes flared wide and she scrambled for the door, fleeing as though the hounds of hell were after her. The moment she stepped outside the room, the memory of the kiss vanished and she stood there staring at Argent, unsure of what was happening.

“You were on your way to your quarters,” Argent told her softly.

“Oh aye,” Aingeal agreed, her brow furrowed.

Lord Kheelan slumped back down on the bench and buried his face in his hands. He might have ensured Aingeal not remember their encounter but he would remember it for as long as he lived. He barely heard Argent shutting the door behind Aingeal’s departure.

Chapter Seventeen

The door to the con cell clanked shut behind Owen and he heard the lock cycle into place. He stood there naked for he had been ordered to strip before entering the cell and listened to the silence that would be his life for the next year.

He looked around him. It was not his first time in a con cell—his kind knew them all too well—but it was the first time being punished in one. He shuddered for Reapers did not like to be confined for long stretches of time.

The cell was seven feet by seven feet, twenty feet high with no windows. Two horizontal iron beams were embedded in the titanium steel wall and jutting out from it at a ninety-degree angle was a shelf of solid sheet of metal six feet long by four feet wide. It would be his bed although there was no padding or covers. In one corner of the cell was a four-inch waste removal hole and in the one opposite a showerhead set flush against the titanium ceiling. On the wall over the waste removal hole was a small spigot from which he could drink water. A wire-encased light was recessed into the center of the ceiling and the light would never be extinguished. The cell maintained a constant temperature. A two inch by twelve inch slot in the door would be kept locked at all times except when he received the once-daily meal.

He walked to the uncomfortable shelf that was his bed and sat down. He stared at the titanium floor for a long time then pulled his legs up and stretched out on his back with his knees crooked. The light would be a horrid punishment. It was bright and intruding and it glared into eyes that would become more and more sensitive to the illumination as time passed. Flinging an arm over his face, he clenched his fists, knowing full well that embedded high in the ceiling were spy holes through which his jailers could observe every second of his incarceration.

He forced the discomfort of the hard shelf, the coldness of it against his back from his mind and went looking for Rachel. Once he had her pretty face before him, he concentrated on her. Knowing that image would fade as the animal side of him took over with the coming Transition, he wanted to hold it as long as he could.

It would be recorded in his file that at 1045 hours on December 2, 3478, a single tear slid down the temple of Reaper Third Class Owen Kieran Tohre.

* * * * *

Rachel Lawrence Tohre stood at the window of the imposing quarters to which she’d been led and stared out at the heaving gray blue ocean beyond the Citadel’s battlements. Rain was still falling but it was now a light silvery sheet that made soft sounds on the windowpanes. The rain held her transfixed for in that last moment before she had climbed the stairs with Lord Arawn, she had looked back to see her husband standing in the deluge, his face to the heavens.

“I love you, my Owen,” she said.

Lord Arawn had told her the walls of the punishment con cell were lined with lead and it would be impossible for Owen to communicate mentally with her. He also told her that she would not be allowed to visit him or see him until his full sentence was served. It was Danielle who told her why.

“When Cynyr was undergoing punishment, Lord Kheelan allowed Aingeal to go see him. It created problems for the High Lord,” Danni said. “Problems he doesn’t want repeated.”

Rachel didn’t ask what kind of problems. It didn’t matter. That was then and this was now and she doubted Lord Cynyr’s punishment had been as terrible as Owen’s.

“Will he have books to read or…” Rachel had asked, but Danni had shaken her head.

“Once he Transitions, such things would be useless to him.”

Rachel moved away from the window and sat down on the settee, drawing her knees up beneath her. She was cold but she knew the cold was inside her and did not come from the lovely, well-appointed room that would be her home while she was forced to remain in this terrible fortress.

“I’ll build you a home of your own with my own hands just as you want it when we return to Saint Marie,” Owen had sworn to her.

She imagined him stripped to the waist brandishing a hammer as he nailed joists into place on the roof of their fledgling home. Closing her eyes, she saw him lift an arm to blot away the sweat from his brow as he worked. She could hear the sound of the hammer striking the nails, the slight squeal of the wood giving way beneath the insertion of the nail. She could smell the new wood, the hint of honeysuckle wafting through the air.

That was the image she held to her heart.

That and the wicked smile of Owen Tohre as he looked down at her from the bones of the roof, one dark swath of hair tumbling into his amber eyes.

“He will always belong to Me,” a sly voice whispered in her ear.

Something inside Rachel hardened like molten steel. “Aye, you may have his body but his heart belongs to me and that is something you will never have!”

“I’ll think of you when he’s straining into My flesh,” Morrigunia taunted.

“And while that’s happening, remember it will be my body he is thinking about and not yours!” Rachel threw at the goddess. “He comes to you only because of me. Think on that, Morrigunia!”

She felt the Triune Goddess withdrawing and smiled nastily.

Though it broke her heart to dwell on Owen in the arms of the goddess, she knew the only way she would be able to endure it was to remember it was his love for her that had put him where he was. She made a vow to see he never regretted for one moment either the pain or the shame he was made to endure for that love.

* * * * *

Prime Reaper Arawn Gehdrin could not sleep as he lay with his wife’s head upon his shoulder. He was staring up at the ceiling. One of his men—nay, one of his friends—was being punished because a Shadowlord could not or would not love. It was a vile retribution and every Reaper knew it.

It wasn’t because Owen—or Bevyn and Cynyr before him—had disobeyed orders or flaunted rules. It was because Kheelan Ben-Alkazar could never have what those men had found. Because he couldn’t, the High Lord would make those who did suffer.

“There is nothing you can do, Ari,” Danni whispered.

“I know,” Arawn replied.

But that didn’t make the Reaper’s heart any less heavy.

* * * * *

Cynyr Cree knew all too well what Owen would be going through soon for he had endured the con cell punishment himself. Had Bevyn Coure been there, he too would be spending a sleepless night worried about their friend. But Bevyn, Kasid Jaborn and Phelan Kiel were on assignment in the Kiel’s Vircars Territory, no doubt sent there to reduce the number of Reapers who would protest Owen’s punishment and thus the support for Tohre.

“It will only be eight months, Cyn,” Aingeal told her husband as she ran her fingers up and down his muscled biceps.

“Aye, well, that’s still a long time, mo shearc,” he replied.

Cynyr had no idea what his wife had said to the High Lord and she had been unable to tell him. She didn’t even remember going to see the man but Cynyr knew she had else the sentence would not have been reduced by even a day. Only one person could have accomplished that feat and she lay beside him, her forehead pressed against his shoulder. That she did not remember her encounter with Lord Kheelan concerned him.

Jealousy the likes of which Cynyr had never known ate at his gut like acid but there was nothing he could do. In his heart he knew his wife’s body was still his and that not even the powerful Shadowlord would dare poach in that territory. But just knowing Ben-Alkazar had such affection for Aingeal that he would back down from one of his infamous proclamations, made the green-eyed monster in Cynyr Cree raise its head.

Not for the first time did the Reaper slip into a restless sleep hating—and fearing—the High Lord and that man’s power over Aingeal.

* * * * *

Glyn Kullen and Iden Belial sat together in the social room with a chessboard between them. Both men knew they would spend their restless evening until complete weariness claimed them playing the strategy game and honing their skills.

“She’s a pretty little thing,” Iden remarked of Daphne.

“Aye.” Glyn was sitting hunched forward, his arms crossed, elbows on his knees. He lifted a hand and moved his knight in front of king’s bishop pawn. He stared at it for a moment then swept his arm across the board, scattering the pieces. He raked his hands through his hair. “By the gods, I hate this!”

Iden’s lips twitched. “That’s because you were losing,” he suggested.

“The hell I was!” Glyn snapped. “I was three moves from checkmate, you prick!”

“If it pleases you to think so,” Iden chuckled.

Glyn would have to report the first thing the next morning for the beginning of his own punishment in the con cell and he was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. That was the deliberate intention of the High Lord’s part—this overnight waiting—and it rankled something fierce.

“At least Tohre’s sentence was reduced,” Iden said.

“Thanks to an angel named Aingeal,” Glyn replied on a long sigh. “That had to put a crick in Cree’s bushy tail.”

“I saw Lord Kheelan just before supper,” Iden stated. “He looked like somebody had run over his little puppy.”

Glyn frowned. “He’s got a puppy?”

Iden rolled his eyes. “It was an expression, Kullen. Who the hell knows if he has a dog or a cat or maybe even a ferret?” His forehead wrinkled. “A pet ferret seems about right for a man like him.”

“Skunk is more like it,” Glyn observed. He pushed back his chair and stood, began pacing the room. “If he looked that bad, I’d say it might be because he’s regretting Owen’s harsh sentence, but I suspect it’s him regretting he can’t have Cree’s mate.”

“Aye, now that you and I can agree on,” Iden said.

“Seeing what’s happening to Tohre is all the more reason I don’t want no woman,” Glyn declared. “Let ’em suck my stick then send ’em on their way.” He thumped his chest with his thumb. “That’s my new motto.”

Iden leaned back in his chair, the front legs of the seat off the floor. “Daphne don’t look to me to be the type to be licking your stick, Kullen. She’s afraid of her own shadow.”

“Who says I’d ask her?” Glyn challenged.

“You were flirting with her,” Iden accused.

“Was not!”

“Were too!” Iden said with a grin.

“Was not,” Glyn snapped, and spun around on his heel and stalked off, slamming the door to the social room behind him.

“Were too,” Iden repeated.

* * * * *

Whether or not Lord Glyn Kullen had been flirting with Daphne was a moot point. For years she’d had her eye on Healer Benjamin but knew nothing could ever come of the attraction he held for her. As an indentured maid to the high elder, she had been at his wicked beck and call with the Colony none the wiser—though Rachel had been aware of the arrangement. How could she not have been, living in the house with them? Once Rachel’s mother had died of consumption, Daphne had been installed in Chamberlain Lawrence’s bed.

Now the young woman was free to have a life—and love—of her own and she knew she wanted Benjamin Tate.

Walking silently beside the healer, she said nothing as he reached down and took her hand in his as they climbed the stairs toward the apartments that had been allotted to them. For the last two hours, they’d been speaking quietly in the solarium while each had oohed and aahed over the tropical plants growing there.

“Healer Dresden has asked me to be his assistant,” Benjamin had told her. “I get a very nice allowance and an apartment of my own. It will be a good life.”

Daphne had remained quiet until Benjamin asked if she would be opposed to him courting her. She’d shyly shaken her head, too excited to open her mouth lest she scream with happiness.

“Edward and his family will be staying here too,” Benjamin said. “He will be helping in the stables and Betsey will be working in the kitchens. Their children will be schooled right here. Is that not grand?”

Daphne agreed that it was.

“Our children will be schooled here too, Daph,” Benjamin had then put forth. “Think of the learning they will get in this remarkable place.”

She agreed that too would be grand.

“Then it is settled,” the healer had said.

As he escorted her to her door, he looked like a condemned man about to meet his fate as he leaned down—giving her time to stop him—before placing a gentle kiss on her brow. He smiled then hurried away, his cheeks burning brightly.

Daphne sighed as she opened the door to her room.

The last thing she did before turning in to bed was to kneel down and say a prayer—as she would every night of her life from that day forward—for Owen Tohre, the man who had made it possible for her to start living.

* * * * *

In another suite of rooms down the hall from Daphne, the Dayton family was doing the same, little Jonas—the boy whose life the Reaper had saved—leading the prayer.

Epilogue

The Reaper dove to the ground and rolled around the side of the building to avoid the bolt aimed at his forehead as the deadly missile thumped past him to bury itself up to the fletch in the wall. His hand clutched the obsidian dagger he held at his thigh as he continued to roll until he came up against the ramshackle building behind him. Pushing his back up the splintered wall, his grip tightened on the dagger. It was his only weapon and it had served him well over the years.

Taking a quick peek around the side of the building, he saw the man with the crossbow slipping another bolt onto the arrow shelf.

“Son of a whoring Matanuskan bitch!” the Reaper snarled. In that one look he’d spied nine archers and every one of them was after his hide. The odds were not in his favor but what the hell did he care? It wasn’t the first time nor would it be the last.

Gritting his teeth, he glanced down at the jagged hole in his leather britches. Though the vicious wound beneath the hole had closed, he was pissed that his britches were ruined. Such things annoyed him more than he cared to admit and at the moment, he didn’t have the energy to fashion a new pair. Every ounce of his strength would need to be conserved to fight the Matanuskans intent on separating his head from his shoulders. That wasn’t the way he wanted things to end.

“Where are you when I need you, you fucking bitch?” he called out to the heavens, hoping the Triune Goddess heard his snarled words.

She did.

In a glinting flash of coppery scales She soared down from the heavens, breathing fire upon the archers from Her snarling muzzle. Her leathery wings beat the air, fanning the flames as the screaming archers went scurrying—their burning bodies sending out reeking odors.

He sat where he was for a moment as the charcoaled archers finally fell and lay still, burning to a crisp in the cool morning air. Finally sheathing his dagger, he got to his feet and dusted off the torn sleeve of his black silk shirt.

“You took your fucking sweet time getting here, Morri,” he grumbled.

The dragon goddess’s claws hit the ground and the earth beneath his feet rumbled. Huge mandibles snapped at him, streams of steamy saliva dripping from jagged fangs.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “You’re a bad ass, wench. I got that long ago.”

Morrigunia threw back Her long neck and roared, the sound echoing across the valleys. Her gleaming green eyes bore into the Reaper as She strode forward, the ground trembling in Her wake.

He held still and craned his head to look up at Her. She didn’t frighten him—hadn’t in centuries—and if truth were told, he wished She’d lift one giant paw and squish him like a bug.

He knew She wouldn’t. She liked to torment him too much.

That sulfurous muzzle was only inches from his handsome face as the Triune Goddess lowered Her spade-like head. He stared into the horned eye ridge where the elliptical green eyes were consigning him to hell and smiled.

“What’s up, gorgeous?” he asked, folding his arms over his torn and dusty shirt.

The huge head tilted to one side then the Reaper staggered as a rush of hot, sulfurous air hit him directly in the face as the goddess changed, taking on Her humanoid form.

“You are a prick!” She screamed at him.

“So sue me,” he said, yawning. “You’ve known that all along, babe.”

It was within Her power to reduce him to ash but She rather liked the miserable bastard. He was Her only Reaper in that part of the galaxy and he did his job as well as could be expected, though more times than not She had to extricate him from situations he’d hurled himself into with careless abandon and an obvious death wish.

“You have insulted Me one time too many,” She flung at him. “It is time you learn who owns you, Reaper!”

He shrugged. “I’m all atwitter to learn what You’re going to do to me now, Morri.”

One moment he was standing on the soil of Matanuska and the next he was clutched in Her scaly paw and being hurled across space. It wasn’t the first time he’d traveled that way and he was fairly sure She wouldn’t allow it to be his last though his own death was something he longed for more passionately than a woman to slake his sexual aches.

Trusting Her as he never had another, he curled up in Her grip and went to sleep. Who knew how long the journey would last this time?

It was the brutal stinging that woke him with a gasp as She plowed through some vibrating obstacle that nearly took the hide from his bones. He yelped but almost immediately his parasite healed the raging agony that rippled through him.

“Where the fuck are you taking me, bitch?” he yelled at the copper-colored dragon.

“Where you will behave for a change, Reaper,” She whispered slyly in his mind.

“Evil bitch,” he mumbled as they dropped down into some place he did not recognize.

Bright light—so intense he had to squeeze his eyes shut against the incapacitating glare—made him stagger as She took on Her humanoid persona once more. His arm was tightly in Her grip as She marched him along and he knew there would be no way to escape that punishing hold. He’d tried that once and She’d broken every bone in his body before it was all said and done.

“Where are we?” he grumbled.

“Cease speaking or I will rip out your tongue,” She warned him and he knew She would. She’d done that on more than one occasion and it had hurt like hell.

His jaws clamped shut, his eyes watering from the brightness of the light surrounding him, She drew him up short and slammed him against a wall that was as slick as silk but had the strength of steel.

“Open,” She demanded, and a piece of the wall slid back to reveal an opening into which She thrust him.

The Reaper fell to his knees with a grunt, cursing Her as She came to stand behind him.

“Behold your executioner, my Reaper!” She said, grabbing the Reaper by the hair and jerking his head back.

“Damn, woman, that hurts!” he yelled. He forced his eyes to open and it was at that moment he saw the man sitting on a shelf across the room. “Oh hell no,” he whispered, his eyes going wide.

In a far-away galaxy, in a land that was more dream to him now than reality, Owen Tohre had known the man Morrigunia had brought into his cell. He stared at the newcomer with stunned surprise at first then shock then with growing, bitter hatred that peeled the lips back from his teeth. With a roar, he flung himself at the man on the floor only to find his arm in a brutal grasp from which he could not break free though he struggled like a madman to break that hellish grip.

“Come, my Reaper.” Morrigunia tightened Her hold on his arm and hissed at Owen, pulling him from the cell, the door sliding shut behind him to lock the other Reaper in.

Up through the Net She took him, poo-poohing his shriek of agony as the barrier tried to snatch his life from him, dissolve his very flesh. She drew him up so quickly the Net did not have a chance to kill him, the parasite within him hurrying to heal the damage already done by the Net. Completely unharmed by, undetected by, easily able to come and go as She wished through the deadly protection barrier, the goddess took him higher and higher into the black reaches of the megaverse.

And in con cell number three, Owen Tohre’s identical twin brother Eanan sat with his legs splayed out in front of him, his mouth open and his heart hammering painfully in his chest.

“How?” he questioned. Owen should have been dead all these many years. Should have been—at least—for it had been Eanan who had murdered him.

And yet here had sat Owen in this strange place, on this strange world, as astounded by his twin’s appearance as Eanan had been to see him.

“What happened?” Eanan questioned. “How can Owen be alive?”

You are alive, Eanan, he reminded himself. Why should it surprise you that Owen is? If She made you a Reaper, She could have made Owen one as well and obviously had.

“Why is he imprisoned here?” Eanan asked, turning fearful eyes to this alien space into which he’d been thrust. “What did he do?”

Was he to take Owen’s place in this jail—and that was surely what this was? And if he was here, where had She taken Owen?

A horrible thought slithered through Eanan’s head and he shuddered violently.

“You killed for love,” She had once told him as She forced Herself upon him. The memory of that rape had stayed with him like a bitter brew oiling the tongue. He had relived it many times over the ensuing years though She’d not laid a hand on him since.

If She had made him because he had taken a life in the name of love, had She created Owen because he had died for the same love? Would She do to his twin what She had done to him?

“The gods help you, Owen,” Eanan said. “You don’t deserve such evil, my brother.”

Eanan had had centuries to atone for the crime he had committed against his twin. He had spent every moment regretting his actions—the perfidy that had taken Owen from Siobhan.

“Siobhan,” Eanan whispered.

It had all started with that beautiful lass with the bewitching smile.

Eanan Tohre had lusted after Siobhan O’Shannessey since puberty and though he was identical in looks to Owen, there had been spitefulness, cruelty and a decided lack of morals in Eanan that had been absent in his twin. Where no one else could tell them apart—not even their own mother—Siobhan could take one look at them as they stood side by side and give that precious smile to Owen. Her sun rose and set in Owen.

Years of wanting her, pining for her, had taken their toll on Eanan and on the eve of his Joining day to the woman Eanan loved more than his own life, Eanan had run his blade across Owen’s throat and hidden his twin’s body where he thought no one would ever find it and know what he had done.

But Siobhan had known. She had taken one look at him as he stood there pretending to be Owen and had known. Her grief was more than she could bear and on what should have been her Joining night, she jumped to her death from the Cliffs of Radeen.

Heartbroken, grieving beyond his ability to bear it—not because he had been responsible for Siobhan’s death but had murdered his other half—Eanan had followed her over the high embankment, but as he took his last breath, his broken body smashed upon the jagged rocks, he had looked up into the merciless eyes of a giant being who snatched him up and away and who meted out a life sentence from which there was no escape.

“It is time you learn who owns you, Reaper!” She had told him.

“No,” he said, feeling the despair of the incarceration to the pit of his being.

As full realization of what he would soon be experiencing hit Eanan Tohre, he threw back his head and howled.

* * * * *

The two technicians went over the graphs again but could not find what had caused the two strange spikes in the fabric of the Net. It seemed something had come through the deadly filter but had gone out again soon after, leaving nothing behind in its wake.

“Should we inform the Shadowlords?” one of the technicians asked.

The senior technician ran through the data banks of the large machine no one but the Shadowlords and their gatekeepers knew was buried deep beneath the ground under the Citadel. He had scanned the DNA of everyone in the fortress and all were accounted for except for the three Reapers out on assignment.

“No,” the senior technician said. “They are all here.”

“Including the prisoner in con cell three?”

“Aye,” the senior tech reported. “He’s there, the gods help him.”