Boyett-Compo, Charlotte - WesternWind 01 - Wynd River (21 page)

Transference.” He cocked one shoulder. “For every Terran ten-year period, my face will age one year.”

She stared at him. “I am twenty-nine,” she said. “Will I look like this for another ten years?”

“For another hundred or so, wench,” he said, and smiled when she hooted with laughter.

“I’m going to have to look Donal up in about twenty years and rub my youth in his wrinkled old face!

He’ll be fifty-two then!”

At the mention of her first husband, Cynyr’s smiled slipped from his face. He had every intention of

meeting up with that bastard and paying him back for trading Aingeal for a brace of horses.

“If he hadn’t, you would never have met her,”Lord Kheelan’s voice intruded.
“You will leave the man

alone, Reaper.”

Aingeal had not been privy to the stern words. She had put her head back on her husband’s shoulder,

yawning as the lulling motion of the railroad car rocked her.

Cynyr made no comment to the Shadowlord’s demand. He too was finding the clickety-clack of the iron

wheels soothing and closed his eyes as he laid his head against his wife’s. Within a few moments, he was

asleep.

* * * * *

Aingeal was driven awake by the violent memories swirling through her lover’s mind. She gasped as his

dream passed through her own subconscious and she reached out to grab it, wanting to know what

demons rode her man so viciously when he slept.

The lash hit him across his back and drove him to his knees. His young mind could not tolerate the agony

and shut down, rendering him almost immediately unconscious. Repeated blows fell upon his bare back

to tear open his flesh but, although his body flinched, he did not feel the whip’s sting. When he

woke—groaning in pain—he was lying on his belly, stripped of his clothing, his wrists and ankles tied to

the wooden bench upon which he’d been placed.

“You’ll learn to do as you’re told, boy,” a man’s voice said at his ear.

Hands dragged over Cynyr’s rump. The touch was sweaty, clammy and when his cheeks were spread

apart, something warm and dry probed at his buttocks then penetrated with a brutal drive that made him

scream in agony.

“Atone for your sins, boy,” the man whispered as he stretched out atop Cynyr. “Beg Alel for your

immortal soul.”

Cynyr barely felt the agony burning across his back as a body pressed onto him, for nothing could

compare to the impaling evil that claimed his innocence. A piteous scream was drawn from the very

depths of his being.

Cynyr jerked awake, his eyes wide, his face peppered with sweat. He was dragging in harsh

breaths—panting from being lost in the nightmare still again. His hand was gripping Aingeal’s so hard he

could feel her bones grating together.

“Who was he?” Aingeal asked, drawing her husband’s frightened eyes to hers.

Seeing the woman he loved sitting beside him, the Reaper let out a long breath and shuddered.

“Who did that to you,
mo tiarna
?” she asked.

“I am not your lord,” he said, wiping his free hand over his face.

“You are what you are to me,” she replied. “My love. My husband. My life. If I prefer to call you my

lord, then that is exactly what you are.”

He willed his heart to slow down, his blood to stop throbbing so violently through his body. He strove to

calm his breath.

“Was it one of the quarrymen?”

He shook his head. He’d never spoken of it to another living soul and never had intended to, but the

worry in his wife’s voice, the concern on her lovely face, the encouraging way she rubbed his hand in an

effort to loosen the vicious clench with which he held it, encouraged him.

“It was the priest,” he said so softly she had to strain to hear. “The camp priest who came once a week

to hear our confessions.”

The face of the perverted clergyman who had violated her husband flashed through Aingeal’s mind and

she knew a fury unlike anything she’d ever felt.

“How long did that go on?” she asked.

“Every time I was given the lash.” He laid his head back along the seat. “I learned not to do anything that

would make it necessary to be whipped.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I hope some man managed to gut him. There were enough who wanted to.”

“That was on Cairéal?”

He turned his head and looked at her. “Do you ever forget anything I say to you, wench?”

“What can I say? I’m cursed with a good memory,” she said.

He snorted. “Well, whatever you were good at before the Transference, you’ll be a master at now,” he

complained. “Aye, it was Cairéal.”

“So if the bastard is still alive, he’d be there?”

“He’d be close to one hundred years old if he’s alive, wench. I seriously doubt he is still drawing

breath.”

“Then stop remembering him,” she said. “He can’t touch you again, so why let him keep molesting you in

your dreams?”

He put his free hand up to cup her face. “Have I told you how much I love you, Aingeal Cree?”

“Not nearly as often as I’d like to hear it,” she replied. Then her eyebrows drew together. “A master at

skills I was good at?”

“Aye,” he said with a sigh.

“Then if I was good at sex before the parasite, I’ll be even better now?”

Shaking his head at her question, he wished they were alone in the train car. “I don’t know if I could

take you being any better than you were. You near wore me out as it was,” he confessed.

She grinned at him. “What do you say we get off at the next decent stop and spend the night in a hotel?”

she asked.

“No.”The one word was a warning from the man in charge at the Citadel.

“Behave, wench,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you like to?”

He stared her in the eye. “More than you can imagine, but the HC says we can’t.”

Aingeal’s gaze narrowed. “Did he tell you we couldn’t?”

“Aye.”

Knowing she could not buck the Shadowlords, though every instinct screamed at her to, Aingeal cursed

beneath her breath. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable journey to the Citadel.

The Citadel was unlike anything Aingeal had ever seen. It had been built over the crumbling foundations

of an older structure, following closely the same perimeters as the original building destroyed during the

War. Fashioned in the shape of a flattened star, the edifice was an imposing brick construction five

stories tall including the basement. Covering twenty-nine acres and encompassing over six million square

feet, the headquarters of the High Council was an imposing site. There were ten sections—each

dedicated to the defense and safety of all of Terra. There was a section for each of the seven continents

that made up the planet, one section entirely for troops, another for maintenance personnel and workers,

with the remaining section just for the use of the High Council and its Shadowlords.

“Each one of the Shadowlords has an entire floor to himself,” their guide explained as he led them along

the mezzanine of the High Council’s section. “I am told their individual apartments are spectacular.”

“Only the best for our rulers,” Cynyr quipped.

“They have earned it,
mo tiarna
,” the guide rebuked him.

“Someone told me there had been records found?” Aingeal prompted the guide.

“Oh, yes! The discovery of records in a vault buried deep beneath the basement has been a godsend to

the people of Terra. There were things found there that will take the scribes a hundred years or more to

decipher, but what they discovered covered the history and politics of every country in the world along

with startling medical information that will save many a life in the years to come.” He beamed proudly. “It

is an honor to work here with so many thrilling discoveries popping up every day!”

Cynyr rolled his eyes, for he knew the HC would limit how much of that information would ever be

made public. He suspected most of it would be destroyed as quickly as it was revealed.

“You are a very cynical man, Cynyr Cree,”Lord Kheelan’s voice snarled.

“I have every right to be,”Cynyr sent back at him.

They had arrived at a large ornate desk manned by three very beautiful young women.

“Lord Cynyr Cree,” the guide announced to the young women.

Aingeal’s face turned to her husband and when he glanced down at her, she raised an eyebrow in query.

“Did you think my title was honorary, wench?” he asked.

“I didn’t even know you had a title,” she replied.

He waved a dismissive hand. “There are many degrees of lordship among the HC,” he said. “The

Shadowlords are the highest ranking with Lord Kheelan being high commissioner. Reapers are a rung

below the Shadowlords, ranked by time spent as one of our kind.”

“Where do you fit in the rankings?”

“Third,” he answered.

“The High Council is meeting with the Prime Reaper at this moment,” the young woman in the middle

spoke up. “Please have a seat and we will call you when it is your time to meet with the Council.”

There were very comfortable-looking chairs sitting off to one side. No one was seated there but Cynyr

was too nervous to sit. He barely noted the guide’s departure. He glared at the young woman who had

spoken. “How many Reapers are at the Citadel today?”

“With the exception of Lord Bevyn, who will be arriving shortly, you are all in attendance,
mo tiarna
,”

she replied.

Cynyr frowned and turned away. His wife asked him what was wrong.

“Something’s up,” he said. “At first I thought they were bringing me here to censure me for what I did,

but if we are all here, something is going on.”

“You said there were seven of you?” Aingeal questioned.

The Reaper sighed. “Aye, wench, you know I did.”

“Who are they? Do you know them?”

“In order of rank they are Arawn Gehdrin, Bevyn Coure, myself, Owen Tohre, Phelan Keil, Glyn Kullen

and Iden Belial. I’ve only met Tohre and Kullen.”

Cynyr wasn’t even aware he was pacing while his lady took a seat. She was watching him but he didn’t

notice. An evil notion was tumbling around inside his head and he was too involved in trying to keep it to

himself to pay attention to what was going on around him.

Gently, Aingeal tried to slip past her husband’s mental blocking but she could not find a way into his

thoughts. She was a novice to psychic ability, yet she recognized a deliberate shutting out when she

encountered one in her lover’s mind. She stopped trying and instead turned her attention to the three

lovely young women at the desk.

The one in the middle was blonde, blue-eyed and buxom. The one on the right had red hair, green eyes

and was very tall, towering above the other two. The one on the left had hair the color and sheen of

polished steel though she could not have yet reached her thirtieth birthday. She was smaller than the other

two and her eyes were the same color as Aingeal’s. Each was extraordinarily beautiful with flawless skin,

pert noses and full lips any man would describe as luscious. She could not help but wonder if the women

belonged to the Shadowlords.

The silver-haired woman smiled at Aingeal as though she had intercepted the stray thought. Very slowly

she shook her head in denial then looked down at the paper upon which she’d been writing.

Another guide came walking toward them and with him was a Reaper Aingeal knew at to be Lord

Bevyn. He glanced at Aingeal, frowned, and then turned his attention to Cynyr.

Cynyr had not missed the irritated look on Bevyn Coure’s face. He had read the disapproval on the

other Reaper’s face and knew Coure was here because of what Cynyr had done to Aingeal. His

shoulders drooped though he stepped forward to greet Coure.

The Reapers did not shake hands but nodded curtly at one another. Since neither had met, Cynyr

introduced himself. “I am Cree,” he announced.

“I gathered as much,” Bevyn Coure drawled. He looked pointedly at Aingeal. “Your mate?”

Cynyr raised his chin. “Aye.”

“Very pretty,” Coure acknowledged. He nodded at the young women behind the desk then shoved his

hands into the pockets of his black leather britches. “I too have a mate.”

Stunned, Cynyr could only stare at his fellow Reaper.

Coure shrugged. “I paid dearly for the privilege,” he said. “Just as you will.”

“That’s why we’re all here?” Cynyr asked.

“That’s why we’re all here,” Coure repeated.

“You may go in, Lord Bevyn,” the blonde woman told him.

“The gods be with you, Cree, and the Wind at your back. You’re going to need both,” Coure said as he

sauntered off.

“How many of us have mates?” Cynyr called out to him.

Coure turned. “Just you and me.” His eyes slid to Aingeal for a moment then away.

Aingeal got up and went to stand beside her husband. “Obviously he was allowed to keep his lady,” she

said. “You shouldn’t worry so,
mo tiarna
.” She put her arm through his. “Relax.”

He wished he could, but his insides were rumbling around and he felt sick. He couldn’t ever remember

being so nervous in his life. Not even when he had awakened from a lashing at the quarry to find the

priest riding him like a dispirited steed could he remember feeling so anxious. Pain had been a way of life

for him at the quarry. He had learned not to expect anything other than hurt, hunger, thirst and

degradation in that hellhole. He thought he had risen above all that.

An hour went by but the High Council did not call for Cynyr. He was left to pace the floor in front of the