Tears of the Reaper Read online

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 hea
d 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 Cea
nnus 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.”