Prime Reaper (3 page)

Before he could stop her, she had moved over him, wriggled down him, the lower part of her lithe little body pinning his legs to the bed. Realizing what she was about to do, he swept a hand through the air to cleanse himself—hoping it worked for he’d never tried such a thing previously. With relief he noticed the different feel on the flesh of his cock only a second before she took him into her mouth, eliciting a gasp that almost choked him.

“By the gods!” he gasped, his hand raking through her hair of its own accord. Digging his heels into the lumpy mattress, Arawn thought he would rocket off the bed and into the wilds of space as his lady’s lips plied his suddenly rigid flesh. Her tongue was swirling over the tip, slipping gently into the slit, and her lips were suckling him, milking him in such a way he thought it would drive him mad.

“Where did you learn that?” he asked, shock rife in his strained voice.

“Moira said—”

“Hush!” he ordered, his amber eyes shooting sparks of crimson fire. As he was making another mental note to speak with Moira McDermott first thing come morning, all thought completely evaporated as the fire in his groin became a raging inferno. He became lost in the sensation of Danielle’s warm, moist mouth as she gave him the most 12

Prime Reaper

intense pleasure he’d ever experienced. Rapidly approaching climax, he actually whined when his lady slid her mouth from him and she slithered up him like an eel.

“Want some more cake, Arawn?” she teased.

With the flames of the firestorm now leaping in his demon’s eyes, the Reaper slammed his hands to her hips, lifted her effortlessly and sat her down upon his stony erection. “Want a ride, Danni?” he countered evilly as he thrust his hips up, burying his cock deep inside her velvet sheath.

“Oohh baby! Aye!” Danielle whooped, tossing her waist-length hair over her shoulder. She leaned back to brace her palms on his hard thighs and met him thrust for thrust, her breasts jutting forward to capture and hold his attention. Unaware there was a devilish grin on his lips, the Reaper watched those bouncing breasts and slid his hands up to cover them, his thumbs going automatically to the hardened little buds to rake back and forth across them.

“Aye, Reaper,” Danielle said, letting her head fall back. “Aye!”

What a glorious surprise his lady was, Arawn thought as her fingernails dug into his thighs. She was totally uninhibited and as free as the wind that skirled against the windowpanes. With her head thrown back and her long, slender neck exposed to him, he ached to drag his tongue over that creamy expanse, longed to nip her, take just a few drops of her spicy blood to make this mating complete.

“Harder, Arawn!” she hissed at him, and shock shot through him just a nanosecond before pure lust hit his loins. He increased the upward thrust of his hips, slamming into her with force.

Just at the peripheral edge of sanity, Arawn could hear the noise of the bed bouncing on the floorboards and a small, impish part of him gloried in the knowledge that there would be at least four sets of ears—if not more—that were aware of just how rigorously he was loving his woman. He could well imagine the knowing grin on one old woman’s wrinkled face and could almost hear her cackle of glee. 13

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Chapter One

Danielle caught her husband’s eye as they stepped from the train car at Boreas. She arched a brow at him for he’d awakened her three times during the night with his questing hands and probing muscle. While it was true they were newlyweds and she immensely enjoyed their private, sensual times just as much as he did, she was fair worn-out from his overactive play, and they’d only been Joined for less than three weeks. On the way from Haines City to the Citadel on Cynyr and Aingeal’s railcar, she’d found reasons to spend time with Aingeal Cree and Lea Walsh, Bevyn Coure’s woman, just to avoid being alone with her randy husband in their sleeper car.

“I’ve created a monster,” Danielle had told the other women with a groan.

“No, you’ve just unleashed a Reaper,” Lea had replied with a laugh. “Bless your heart, that is worse yet.”

“And to think he tried to escape your clutches,” Aingeal giggled.

“What was that look for?” Bevyn asked the Prime Reaper as they headed for the coach that would take them from the depot up the treacherous mountain to the Citadel. Arawn shrugged. “Don’t ask,” he mumbled. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his black uniform pants.

Bevyn and Cynyr exchanged glances and both men smiled.

“Has our Prime been tamed?” Bevyn asked, digging an elbow into Cynyr’s side.

“Your Prime is in no mood to have his men insulting him,” Arawn growled. “Cease your prattle, Coure, or I’ll have Lord Kheelan have an intense word or two with the both of you.”

Arawn glanced over at Danielle and saw that look again in her eye. He felt heat rising to his cheeks and tore his gaze from her. Had they been alone, he would have fallen upon her like a rutting beast and taken her with the same abandon he’d employed the night before and—the gods help him—he could barely walk as it was!

Where Danielle was concerned, he had no restraint whatsoever and that shocked him to his foundation. Never would he have believed himself such a randy bull. Shaking his head, he dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands.

“You know, Ari,” Bevyn said. “It’s all right to love your woman.”

“You know, Bevyn,” Arawn drawled, turning his head to spear his second-incommand with a lethal glare. “It’s all right to assign your Reaper to the outermost realms of Calizonia if he pisses you off one time too often.”

Bevyn pursed his lips together and fell back.

“How does it feel to get your ass handed to you?” Cynyr queried. 14

Prime Reaper

“Humbling,” Bevyn mumbled.

“Then you’d best leave him be,” Cynyr suggested.

“Aye,” Bevyn agreed.

Aingeal slipped an arm around Danielle’s waist. “Whatever you’re doing, Danni, keep it up. That blush is extending all the way up to the top of Ari’s ears.”

“I think keeping it up is exactly what Danni has been doing,” Lea said sweetly.

“Does it appear to you he’s walking a little funny?”

Danielle hid her face in her hands as the blood rushed to her face but she giggled along with her friends and when she risked a look through her fingers at Arawn, he was glaring back at her, a muscle ticcing in his jaw.

Cynyr lagged behind to put a hand to the back of his wife’s neck, pulling her to his side. “Leave off, wench. Gehdrin is starting to blow smoke out his nose.”

“What did I do?” Aingeal asked in an innocent voice, batting her eyelashes at her husband.

“The same thing Lea is doing and I believe Bevyn is about to put an end to that side of the equation.”

Bevyn, indeed, had stopped to take his lady’s hand in his. He bent his head to say something to her and the smile slipped from Lea’s face. She looked up at her Reaper with a heated expression that could have melted ice on a cold winter day. The large coach pulled by six strong horses could seat six passengers although not all that comfortably with three people on each side facing one another, elbow to elbow. Bevyn was first to help his wife into the coach and they sat side by side behind the driver. Cynyr and Aingeal were next so that when Danielle climbed the steps into the enclosed conveyance, she and her husband would be forced to sit opposite one another, which seemed to suit Arawn just fine. Once he was inside, he took the last seat beside Bevyn and then turned his head to look out the window, seemingly ignoring his wife. As the coach started forward, a loud whistle blew a long, piercing note.

“What was that?” Danielle asked Cynyr who was sitting beside her.

“That’s to let the guards up on the mountain know the coach is leaving the depot,”

Cynyr said.

Danielle turned to look out across the treeless plains that stretched around the base of the mountain. Large black craters dimpled the land beyond the roadway that snaked up the mountain. “How barren this looks,” she commented. She was absently rubbing her side. It was a habit Arawn found endearing.

“The Citadel used to sit on fairly flat land with lots of woodland surrounding it, Danni,” Bevyn told her.

“Aye, but that was before the War and before the massive earthquakes that followed close on the heels of the cessation of hostilities,” Cynyr clarified. Danielle’s eyes widened. “You mean there wasn’t a mountain there before?”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Cynyr smiled at her. “It’s not really a mountain, wench,” he said. “It is a man-made summit the Shadowlords had constructed as part of the defense of the Citadel.”

“It was made?” she whispered.

“During the fighting, powerful explosives were dropped from the air and that’s what created the craters you see. There were tons and tons of debris that was used to fashion the mountain upon which the Citadel now sits,” Arawn told his wife. “It was deadly chemicals from the explosives that killed all the trees and pretty much scorched the surrounding land so that it will never again know plant life.”

“Those explosions nearly flattened the building from which the Citadel was raised,”

Cynyr added.

“The explosives brought on an earthquake and the earthquake buckled the land along the coast,” Bevyn said, continuing the history lesson, “and entire cities in what became the Pameny Territory disappeared into the sea. Millions of people were killed.”

“A huge wave of water washed over a good portion of the states all along the sea coast,” Arawn said, “pushing debris from the destroyed cities up onto the land around here. Beneath the North Sea, that water you see to the south of the mountain is a cemetery that was more than just sacred ground to the Terrans. It housed their honored heroes and leaders.”

“Lord Kheelan once told me that a wreath is taken out to sea each May thirtieth and dropped as tribute for the warriors whose tombs are now deep beneath the waves,”

Arawn stated.

“Lord Kheelan is the High Commissioner of the Shadowlords,” Aingeal explained to Danielle.

“I’m curious, Ari,” Lea said. “Were the Shadowlords here before the War?”

Arawn shook his head. “No. Morrigunia brought them here to rule when She saw what a mess the Terrans were making of their world. You see the War began across the ocean in what was called the Middle East and nearly every country on three continents was destroyed and their population along with it. There had been conflicts in that part of the world since the beginning of time and it escalated to such a point that peace was impossible. Terra was on the very brink of complete annihilation when the War began, with this country getting involved in the very thick of things.”

“There were only a few thousand survivors across the ocean when Morrigunia finally intervened,” Cynyr put in. “She’d already extracted Her Reapers from Terra before all hell broke loose.”

“By the time She brought us back, this world was little more than a junkyard being overrun with
balgairs
, rogues brought here by the Ceannus,” Bevyn remembered.

“Disease was rampant and there was a plague that nearly wiped out all of humankind.”

“The Ceannus are evil men from another galaxy who want to rule Terra,” Aingeal clarified for Danielle. “Our menfolk destroyed the last batch sent here to do us in.”

Cynyr patted his wife’s hand and winked at her.

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Prime Reaper

“Are there Reapers across the ocean?” Danielle asked.

“No, but there are Revenants over there,” Bevyn said. “They—”

“What are Revenants?” Lea asked.

“You don’t need to know,” Arawn said firmly. He shot his second-in-command a fierce look.

“What harm—?” Bevyn began but the Prime Reaper’s voice was like a laser whip lash.

“No, Coure,” Arawn said.

“But—”

“What part of the word did you not understand, Reaper?” Arawn snapped. “Is it the
n
or the
o
that you are having trouble with?”

Bevyn blushed and mumbled an apology.

Silence settled over the coach as the horses labored to draw the vehicle up the switchback trail that snaked up the mountain. Cynyr’s and Aingeal’s fingers were threaded together and his lady’s head was resting on the Reaper’s shoulder. Lea’s hand stroked Bevyn’s thigh as he stared down at the coach’s floor. Both Danielle and her husband were looking out the coach window. When the coach stopped, two guards came to the doors and asked for the identification papers of the men.

“Prime Reaper Arawn Gehdrin and Danielle Gehdrin,” the Prime Reaper said, handing over both his and his wife’s credentials which he carried on his person. He indicated his wife sitting across from him.

The guard looked closely at the papers, compared the photographs attached to them with the two people then handed the credentials back to Arawn.

“Reaper 2-I-C Bevyn Coure and Lea Walsh,” Bevyn told the guard who stood at the other door. He extended his set of papers to the waiting man. When the guard was satisfied with Coure’s papers, Cynyr handed him both Aingeal’s and his.

“Security is tight today,” Bevyn commented as the coach started up again. “I can’t ever remember being stopped like that before.”

“Neither can I,” Arawn agreed, a tight frown on his face as he returned the papers to the pocket of his uniform shirt.

“Wonder what’s happened,” Cynyr joined in.

The three Reapers remained quiet the rest of the short trip to the entrance to the Citadel. Their eyes held a worry that their ladies didn’t miss and so the women were equally silent as they were helped out of the coach.

At the entrance to the Citadel, a dozen guards were stationed to either side of the doorway, six to each side, three feet apart, and in their hands were laser rifles.

“I’m liking this less and less,” Arawn said.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“Why don’t they give us laser rifles?” Bevyn asked, and when the Prime Reaper gave him an irritated look, he held up his hands. “Just asking.”

“Do you realize the technology involved in maintaining those things? Even a handgun?” Arawn demanded. “You have to recharge them every gods-be-damned fifth time you use them and believe me when I tell you they drain quickly during a firefight. You must have a base station to slap them in for that and even a rapid-charging base station takes time. Where are you going to find one out in the desert or up in the mountains, Coure? How many towns have you been through that have electricity on a continual basis? Ones where electricity isn’t sparingly regulated?”