Her Reaper's Arms Read online

  The Reaper’s head lifted and his eyes met hers. His face was so grave, the look he

  gave her grim.

  Something had happened, she thought as she let go of the batwing doors and

  walked out onto the boardwalk. Though she had only met this man the day before, she

  was so finely attuned to him already that she knew he was hurting. Without a qualm,

  she stepped off the boardwalk and ran to him, her face filled with concern.

  They met in the center of the dusty street, completely unaware of the townsfolk

  who had stopped their business to watch them. She reached out a hand to him and he

  took it, bringing it to his lips.

  “Are you all right, milord?” she asked.

  “I will be,” he answered, and released her hand to put his arm around her waist as

  though he needed the support of her body to hold himself up.

  Lea slid her arm around his body and they headed for the saloon. She was keenly

  aware of their hips touching as they walked and the rub of his holster against her leg.

  She said nothing—just held him—as they made their way into the saloon and up the

  stairs side by side.

  “You’ve been keeping busy,” he said quietly. He could smell the scent of wash

  powder on her hands.

  Lea nodded. “I don’t like idleness,” she said. “I had to do something while I

  awaited your return.”

  Her words were a balm to his soul and they slipped unerringly into his black heart

  and began to make a home for themselves there. No one had ever awaited his return

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  before—not even the Shadowlords. No one had ever cared whether he ever returned or

  not.

  She opened the room door and went ahead of him, easing her hand from his waist

  to go to the window and pull the drapes shut for she had not missed his squinting eyes

  while they had been out in the sun. Instinctively she knew the light was bothering him.

  Bevyn shrugged off the weight of the saddlebags and let them fall onto the chair

  beside the bed. He took off his hat and put it over them, staggering a bit.

  “Is it your head?” she asked, for he had put a hand up to rub at his right temple.

  “Aye,” he answered. “It hurts like a bitch.”

  “Would something cold to drink help, milord?” Lea asked him. “Perhaps a wet rag

  for your head?”

  “Aye, sweeting,” he said, his hands at the buckle of his gun belt. “That would be

  good.”

  She glanced at him before she went out the door. He was moving so slowly—as

  though every movement cost him dearly, every eye blink hurt. She went to him and

  brushed aside his fingers as he struggled with the buckle. “Let me,” she said.

  He stood perfectly still as she took off the gun belt and slung it over the post at the

  headboard of the bed where it would be handy should he want it. She undid his belt

  and removed it. Tugging gently, she pulled the silk of his shirt from his pants and then

  unbuttoned the front and the cuff, helped him out of it before pushing him gently to the

  edge of the mattress, bidding him silently to sit while she saw to his boots.

  Bevyn sat down heavily and stared at the top of her golden head as she knelt at his

  feet, removing his boots and socks. He obediently stood when she took his hand to

  lever him to his feet so she could undo the fly of his pants and slide them down his long

  legs. He had to brace himself with a hand to her shoulder as he stepped out of his pants

  and just touching her gave him a strength of which he was in desperate need at that

  moment.

  She moved behind him and threw back the covers. “Lie down,” she said. “I’ll be

  right back.”

  Like a child, he did as she ordered, lying down on his back, his eyes staring

  sightlessly at the ceiling as he waited for her to come back to him. He could hear her

  downstairs speaking quietly to the saloonkeeper, ordering her to close her doors for

  their Reaper was not feeling well.

  “‘Our Reaper’,” he repeated her words aloud. “‘Our Reaper is not feeling well.’”

  She was back with a basin of water, a rag tossed casually over her shoulder, and

  Mable followed close behind with a pitcher and ewer clutched in her wrinkled hands.

  “Put them there,” Lea ordered the older woman, and Bevyn could not help but

  smile. The roles had been reversed and Mable was now Lea’s servant instead of the

  other way around.

  “Anything else he might need?” he heard Mable whisper.

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  “I’ll see to it,” Lea answered. “Close the door behind you.”

  The pain thundering between his temples was getting worse by the moment and he

  knew he needed something for it. As much as he hated taking another dose of the

  tenerse—the one each morning was bad enough—he knew he’d never be able to sleep

  without help, and sleeping was the only way to rid himself of the brutal agony

  hammering at him.

  “Wench,” he said. “Get the needle and vial from my saddlebags.”

  Lea nodded without speaking, knowing he was watching her as she poured him a

  glass of water. She brought the glass to him, slid her hand under his neck and lifted his

  head for him to take a sip. When he had, she lowered his head then set the glass aside to

  do as he’d asked. When she brought the vac-syringe and vial to the bed, he instructed

  her on how to load it and lay there watching her move as efficiently as any healer he’d

  ever known.

  “You do that right well, wench,” he complimented her, turning his head so she

  could have access to his neck.

  “I imagine I’ll get plenty of practice over the years,” she replied, unaware that her

  words had given him a stronger dose of relief than any amount of tenerse ever could.

  Placing the empty vac-syringe on the night table, she massaged the pain she had

  given him, her fingertips cool against his heated flesh, then she wet a rag and wrung it

  out, folded it and laid it across his forehead.

  “Lie with me?” he asked, reaching up to catch her wrist before she turned away.

  “I will,” she said. “Let me see to the door first.”

  He watched her go to the portal and slide shut the latch. That she had thought to

  keep them safe while he was incapacitated made his heart swell with pride. His eyes

  tracked her every movement though it hurt to even move them.

  Lea went around to the other side of the bed just as she had the day before and sat

  down, removing her boots and stockings but this time when she had done that, she

  stood to draw her gown over her head. In just her chemise, she draped the gown over

  the footboard then climbed up into the bed with him. She sat with her back propped

  against the headboard.

  “Come here, milord,” she said, holding her arms open to him. She had no qualms

  about his nudity, the fact that his powerful body was bare except for the horrendous

  scars that streaked across it.

  Bevyn did not question her order. He simply moved so he could lay his head in her

  lap, curled beside her in a fetal position, wriggling one arm behind her back and the

  other falling over her thighs.

  The minutes ticked by as she sat there smoothing the hair gently back from his high

  forehead, her free hand spl
ayed between his shoulder blades, feeling one brutal wound

  puckered beneath her palm. She was looking down at him, wondering how long it

  would take for the medicine to take effect. His eyes were open and he was staring

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  unwaveringly across the room without blinking. When the first sob took him, she

  tightened her arm across his back.

  “Oh god,” she heard him moan, and then a solitary sob became a torrent that shook

  his entire body.

  Whatever he had seen, whatever he had been a part of had taken a violent, brutal

  hold on him and was digging in with cruel barbs. His tears saturated the thin cotton of

  her chemise and ran down between her thighs. They were scalding tears and the sounds

  that came from his very soul shook her as he cried. She was unaccustomed to hearing a

  man cry and to hear a man like this one—a Reaper—do so was unnerving and it sent

  chills down her back.

  “Tell me, milord,” she whispered to him. “Let it out.”

  He was whimpering as he cried, as though whatever he was remembering was so

  terrible, so exacting, that it was refreshing itself over and over in his mind. It had a

  strong grip on him, refusing to let go, and she could tell he was battling with that evil,

  straining to break away from it.

  “Let it out,” she said. “Don’t keep it bottled within you.”

  “No,” he whined.

  “Share it with me, milord,” she said. “Let your burden become mine. We will

  banish it together.”

  The bed was shuddering beneath his sobs and the keening sound he made caused

  her eyes to fill with sympathetic tears.

  She didn’t think he was going to tell her, but then the tale spilled from his trembling

  lips as he squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that continued to fall unchecked. She

  sat there in stunned silence as he told her what he had seen hanging from the walls of

  the rogue’s shack, of the evil that had been wrought in that isolated place, of the

  atrocities that had been done.

  “They were young women,” he sobbed. “And they had been tortured.”

  Lea could have told him of the nunnery near Dixonberg that had burned to the

  ground a year earlier, of the nuns who supposedly had succumbed to the flames but she

  knew he would remember hearing of it. Twenty females—many no older than thirty—

  had been reported to have perished in that fire of unknown origin. Obviously at least

  some of them had not.

  “Their bodies were hanging on meat hooks,” he said, and shuddered so violently

  she thought he would come apart in his struggle. “If he hadn’t already been dead, I

  would have stripped the skin from him inch by inch for what he’d done.”

  How long did it take for the medicine to claim him? To knock him out?

  She laid her fingers over his lips to keep him from speaking aloud any more of the

  horrendous things he had witnessed in that vile place. If she could reach into his mind

  and extract the scene of such carnage, could erase it, she would.

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  He sobbed brokenly for so long, she feared he would make himself sick. His tears

  had soaked the sheet beneath them and still he shuddered with such pitiful cries he was

  getting hoarse. His body trembled, his hand clutching hers as he vented his sorrow.

  “Help him,” she prayed to whatever gods still listened to the people of Terra.

  “Please, help him.”

  All of a sudden the scent of gardenia drifted through the room and Lea looked up,

  stunned, for there were no flowers nearby. It seemed darker in the room and cooler, and

  then the delicious aroma increased until it was almost as though it were being poured

  upon her skin. It flowed over them along with a soft breeze that came out of nowhere.

  “Forget for now, my Reaper,” a sigh breathed through the room.

  Bevyn’s body was tense as a steel spring one moment and in the next, it was as limp

  as a string of silk. When at last his sobs died away to hitching breaths that shook the

  bed, the terrible grimness smoothed from his face and he lay quietly, his head heavy in

  Lea’s lap, his fingers relaxed and slightly curled toward his palm.

  “Morrigunia,” she heard him whisper, and looked about the room with fright for

  the Triune Goddess was rumored to be a fearful sight.

  But only darkening shadows filled the room. No creature with flaming red hair

  hovered in the corner to rush at them with wicked talons. No fire-breathing entity

  lurked to snatch the Reaper from her arms.

  Yet Lea’s arm stiffened around her man, holding on to him protectively. If she

  needed to fight for him, by all that was holy, she would.

  She stroked his forehead and cooed to him, humming a lullaby from her childhood.

  Over an hour had passed since they had lain down but it felt to her like an eternity.

  She felt his fingers running along the underside of her arm as though he were

  testing the softness of her flesh. As he spoke to her, she could hear the gruff roughness

  of his strained throat.

  “I want you,” he said.

  “I am here,” she replied without hesitation.

  He moved, lifting his head from her lap, pushing up in the bed until his face was

  mere inches from hers.

  “You are mine, Lea Walsh,” he said, putting a hand to her cheek to cup her face.

  “I know I am.”

  “You will always be mine.”

  “That I will, Bevyn Coure,” she agreed.

  Had he not been under the influence of the very potent drug racing through his

  system, she did not think he would have cast aside his normal cautions. Had not the

  memory of what he had seen not been hanging there to remind him of how fleeting

  human life could be, she wondered if still he would have acted upon his need.

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  His hand moved from her cheek to behind her neck and he pulled her toward him,

  put his lips on hers in a soft, tender kiss. He plied her mouth gently, his tongue

  caressing her lower lip, the creases, then he moved back.

  “I want you,” he said again, searching her eyes.

  “Then take what you need, milord,” she told him. “I offer it freely.”

  His hand shook as he lowered it to her breast, caressing her through the worn

  material of her chemise. He held her gaze even as his thumb swept over her nipple,

  causing it to harden.

  “I need you,” he whispered, and moved his hand so he could insinuate it beneath

  the fabric, could touch the softness of her breast, could center the puckered nubbin in

  his palm. He cupped her. “More than I need breath, I need you.”

  There was so much hurt in his amber eyes, so many injuries streaking his soul, that

  she would have moved heaven and earth to bring joyous light back into those bleak

  depths. Her heart ached for this man—wounded so deeply that the scars had become

  badges of honor to him. She could see the loneliness in his gaze, feel the barrenness of

  his very being looking back at her. She knew something of such loneliness, such

  emptiness, and it called out to her—like unto like.

  Yet she hesitated.

  “What worries you, sweeting?” he asked gently, sensing her reluctance.

  “I don’t want to be like you,” she said.
/>   “You can’t be like me,” he said. “Not unless I give you a fledgling and that I will not

  do if you are against it.”

  She nibbled her bottom lip, eyes locked with his and filled with quiet desperation.

  “But when you… Will what is in you…?” Her face burned scarlet and she ducked her

  head, breaking eye contact. “You know.”

  Bevyn’s brows drew together then understanding lit his golden gaze. “You think

  that what is inside my cum will contaminate you?”

  If possible her face turned redder still and she bobbed her head in silent agreement.

  “Look at me,” he said, and reached out to tilt her face to him. He smiled softly.

  “Sweeting, while it is true my seed is rife with Revenant spore, it will not infect you.

  You can not become a Reaper in that way. Only extracting one of my hellions and

  implanting it in you—”

  “I don’t want that!” she said as her face leached of the blush that had been there

  only moments before.

  He caressed her cheek. “Then you have nothing to worry about for I will never

  force you to do anything you don’t want to do.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her

  bottom lip. “Do you understand?”

  A fleeting smile touched her lips. “Aye, milord. I understand.”

  “There is no reason to fear what is inside me.”

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  “All right.”

  “And no reason to ever fear me. If you don’t want to do this…”

  “What if we m-make a baby from this?” she asked. “Will she—”

  “He,” he corrected her. “Reapers can only give their mates male children.”

  She asked why that was.

  “My hellion, my Queen, is a jealous thing,” he said. “She would see to it that one of

  the spores destroyed a female…” He flung out a hand, searching for the word. He did

  not think she would understand what zygote meant. “A female…”

  “Embryo?” she provided.

  “Aye!” he said, pouncing on the word with relief. “She would destroy it in the

  womb.” Such talk disturbed him and he stirred her away from it, having no intention of

  ever getting her pregnant.

  “But if you don’t want to lie with me, I will understand.”

  “Would a child of ours be like you?” she asked, and Bevyn wanted to groan with

  frustration. He shifted uncomfortably.

  “Well, aye, he would, but only when he comes of age,” he replied uneasily. “After