Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Pleasure's Foehn (9 page)

“I need to hit the rack, myself. That 0630 chime is going to come much too soon,”

she said, ladling up the remaining tofu in her soup. Draining her glass of iced
an tSin
tea, she stood, picking up the last quarter of her sandwich and wrapping it in a napkin. 47

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“If you’re free for lunch tomorrow, why don’t we meet and you can give me the particulars concerning your siblings on Amerigen,” he suggested.

“I’ll make the time,” she said, falling into step beside him. “I’ve been bypassing lunch and supper and I think that’s been a major mistake.”

“And I’ll make damned sure the mess stays open until you’ve eaten,” he stated.

“I can’t expect the cooks to—”

“That’s their job, Doc,” he cut in.

They had reached the elevator so he called out her deck level. His quarters were three decks up while hers was four decks down. He stood there as she entered the lift.

“Then it’s settled?” he inquired. “Lunch tomorrow?”

“Just let me know when.”

Cair walked back to the cook, woke him and told him to get to bed. On his way up in the elevator, the captain of the
Foehn
discovered he was bone-tired. He couldn’t stop from yawning but as soon as the elevator door shushed open, he was wide awake.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Amethyst demanded. She was standing in the opened door of his quarters, hand braced on the wall and one foot tapping angrily. It wasn’t just the tone of voice she threw at him or the narrowed eyes flashing with fury that halted Cair in mid-step. She sounded too much like a suspicious wife and that rankled. It also brought out the bastard in him as he continued walking toward her, brushing her aside when she tried to block his entry.

“Answer me, Cair!” she ordered, following him inside. “It’s nearly four in the morning. Where have you been all night?”

He didn’t bother answering her but walked into the bathing room and went to stand before the urinal, unbuttoning his uniform trousers as she came barging in.

“I’m talking to you,” she hissed.

Staring down at the urinal, he continued his stony silence. When he was finished, he stuffed himself back into his trousers then went to the sink to wash his hands, the urinal automatically flushing as he stepped away.

“Don’t you dare ignore me!” she yelled and lashed out at him, punching his shoulder hard enough to propel him toward the sink.

Cair spun around and grabbed her by the shoulders, shoving her back against the wall. His teeth clenched, his face a hard plain of anger, he leaned into her.

“Get the hell out of my quarters,” he said forcefully, “and don’t come back. I’m sick to death of your demands and your jealousy and everything else about you. I’ll have Seamus bring your things to you. I never want to see you at that door again!”

Amethyst twisted savagely out of his grip and slapped him as hard as she could. The red imprint of her hand was vivid on his cheek as his head rocked to one side. She would have kneed him in the groin but he sidestepped her, reaching out to thrust her 48

Pleasure’s Foehn

away, the infuriated woman stumbled and hit the shower door hard enough to put a serpentine crack through the polyglass surface.

“You cocksucker!” she screamed and came at him with fingers arched into claws, her long nails going for his face.

He hated to do it but he’d learned over the last four years that the only way to handle Amethyst when she became violent was to become violent in return. With as much care as he could muster, he snaked out his hand and punched her, clipping her jaw with just enough force to drop her like a rock, her eyes rolling up in her head. Before she hit the floor, he grabbed her, swinging her up in his arms, carried her to the door and deposited her outside into the corridor. He laid her down on the floor gently then went back inside and locked the portal, changing the entry code so she couldn’t come back in.

Going to the Vid-Com, he called security and told them to come get her. Then without another thought, he stripped, took a shower and by the time he crawled into bed, had forgotten all about the termagant who had made his life miserable for longer than he wanted to remember.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Chapter Six

Davan yawned and yawned again as she fluffed the covers around her for the tenth time. As tired as she was, she could not seem to get to sleep. Her mind was replaying the last two hours over and over again. Every word he’d said, every facial expression, every gesture, was stamped indelibly on her subconscious.

“My mother had me sent here,” he told her. “As a punishment for not doing what she wanted.”

Why he was being punished had been left unsaid but Davan thought it might well have been over some woman for his next words had shocked her.

“She wants to choose my mate for me—just as she chose Bennick’s and Liam’s—but they are afraid of her. I’m not.”

“I didn’t know Prince Bennick was married,” she commented.

“He isn’t, yet, but that’s because of Mother’s insatiable desire to have all of us home on Amhantar for the Joining. She loves all that pomp and circumstance. With me exiled here and our little brother Liam somewhere near the front, the ceremony is pending.”

“Is your younger brother a Deathwielder, too?”

“Liam?” he asked with a chuckle. “By the Goddess, no! The boy is a wizard with electronics but wouldn’t know one end of a scythe sword from another. If he ever took one in his hands he’d be liable to whop something off.”

“He’s not married, either?”

Cair shook his head. “Can’t. Not until the heir is Joined. That’s according to Amhantarean Tribunal Law. Of the two of them, I think Liam is the only one looking forward to getting married, though. He seems to have some affection for Siobhan.”

They talked of the two women who would be joining his family and Davan got the notion he thought both were flighty and somewhat timid.

“Mother wouldn’t choose a woman who could stand up to her,” he grumbled. “Not for Ben and Liam, at any rate.”

“She chose a different woman for you?”

He had given her a strange look then shrugged. “One she thinks would be good for me, at any rate.”

Though she’d asked a few leading questions, he changed the subject, asking about her instead.

“I understand you have a relationship with the man who flew you here.”

She nodded. “Ja’Klyn and I have known each other since the university.”

“Is this an intimate relationship?” he inquired.

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Pleasure’s Foehn

Davan had blushed, hesitant to discuss her private life with the man sitting at the table with her. “We were seeing one another but not anymore,” she told him.

“Ah,” was his comment and then the direction of the conversation changed still again.

By the time she felt sleep pulling her down into its warm arms, she had gone over her conversation with the man known throughout the galaxy as The Black Sun several times over. It was no wonder when the dream came, the Scythelord of Amhantar was front and center…

The
skirl of metal clanging against metal was loud across the fog-shrouded moor. Mist
rained down upon Davan’s bare arms to pebble her flesh with invisible beads of coolness. Her
lace shawl had slipped down her back and the moisture was seeping beneath the neckline of her
silk gown. The hem was wet and her dainty slippers soaked from the heavy dew that clung to the
grass. Smelling of heather and peat, the air seemed to press down on her, underlining the anxiety
she felt as she stood watching the two warriors dueling on the crest of the hill.
They were fighting over her—The Black Sun and Ja’Klyn—each having declared her as his
mate. Words had been thrown, a challenge laid down and now they were parrying and thrusting,
hacking away savagely on Cnon na Bás, the Hill of Death, where duels had been fought on
Amhantarean soil for centuries.

His deadly scythe sword slashing at Ja’Klyn’s heavier broadsword, Cair Ghrian was hard to
see in the dense fog. The black of his uniform blended with the predawn sky and all Davan could
make out were the sparks made by the weapons as they met.
She
could make out only a little more as she searched for Ja’Klyn in the combat. His white
shirt was a blur that flashed now and again as the mist parted.
Wringing
her hands, she waited nervously for the victor to come to claim her.
In
the skeletal branches above her head, a raven cawed to her and she looked up, surprised by
the raucous cry. The bird was prancing along the twisted limb, peering down at her with beady
eyes that seemed to pierce her very soul. It cawed again and it sounded as though the raptor was
saying Cair’s name, rooting for the Deathwielder to win.
There
was a choked-off cry and then silence settled upon the valley where Davan stood,
shivering in the chill morning mist. The clash of the blades seemed to have been swallowed in the
fog that had grown thicker still. Suddenly afraid, her heart pounding, she pulled the shawl over
her shoulders and clasped it tightly to her neck. She squinted, trying to make out what was
happening on Cnon na Bás, but the wafting fog obscured her vision.

“Caw!”
the raven squawked. “Caw!”

Then
it spread its ebon wings and took to the sky, the flutter of its wings echoing through
the early morning.

As the first finger of dawn’s light reached up from the horizon, Davan could see the
silhouette of a man striding down the hill, his weapon still clutched in his hand. He was coming
slowly toward her with purposeful steps that told her he was the champion, the victor of the
death duel fought over her.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Davan
backed away, her nerves to the breaking point for she was fearful of finding out who
would now control her destiny. She cried out as her back pressed against the rough bark of the
tree and she was so frightened, she could no longer move.
He came toward her with eyes steady and footsteps sure. When he was but a foot away, he
tossed aside his bloody weapon.

“Come
to me, wench,” he ordered, holding out his sword hand to her.
Davan shook her head, too terrified to move. Her knees were quaking.
He
took another step toward her and at her whimper, reached out to place his bloodstained
palm upon her cheek.

“You
are mine,” he said and his palm moved to the back of her neck to pull her face up to his.
His
mouth claimed hers in a kiss so heady she nearly swooned. She sagged against him and
he snaked a firm, uncompromising arm around her waist to anchor her to him.
The
kiss went on forever as his tongue slipped possessively into her mouth and one long leg
insinuated itself between her legs. He pressed against her, pushing her back to the tree so her
crotch rode his hard thigh and she could feel the steel of his shaft thrusting against her belly.

“Mine,”
he repeated and the hand at her neck slid over her shoulder and down her chest to
mold itself over her heaving breast, a knowing thumb stroking her erect nipple.
The
ground was wet and cold as he lay her down but the warmth of his muscled body
covering hers heated her blood to the boiling point. She clung to him, her arms around his wide
shoulders and when he reached down to peel aside the hem of her gown, to expose her silky flesh
to his calloused palm, she groaned in surrender.

His
hand fumbled between them until he freed his cock from his britches. She could feel the
weight of it against her thigh, the drop of moisture from its tip sliding over her flesh. His love
weapon was as tempered as steel and just as smooth.

He
took hold of the lower part of her leg and thrust it over his hip, his hand sliding down her
thigh to lift her toward him. He shifted his body until he was paused at the apex of her thighs, the
head of his shaft hard and hot.

“Mine!”
he snarled and as the tip of his cock found the entrance to her cunt, Davan threw
back her head and…

…whined for the Vid-Com’s chime dispelled the mist in which she had been dreaming. It dissolved the face of her conqueror, her passionate captor and thrust her rudely from her spectral lover’s arms.

“No,” Davan protested and clutched her pillow tighter to her chest. That it was a goose-down rectangle instead of the hard, sensual body of a lover frustrated the healer so badly she threw the offending pillow across the room and lay there trembling, so aroused she actually hurt.

Try as hard as she might, she could not bring the face of her lover to mind. His dream voice, likewise, would not reveal his identity to her. Had it been Ja’Kyln who had been the winner of the duel or had it been Cair—that dark Scythelord—who had won?

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Frustrated and aching all over, she flung herself out of the bed and hurried to the shower, turning the water on full blast and—as cold as she could endure it—stood beneath the onslaught and let the frigid stream pour over her heated body.

* * * * *

“She made one hell of a mess on your door, lad,” Seamus said, shaking his head.

“Whatcha wanna do about it?”

Cair stared at the blood-red letters splashed across his door and over the wall beside it. He knew Amethyst would retaliate but he’d had no idea how evilly until he had started out of his quarters that next morning. Every vile word, every vulgar name in her lexicon of vengeance was streaked there for every passerby to see. She had called him every crude name he’d ever heard and some he guessed that came from her native
an Iodáil
tongue.