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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Her Reaper’s Arms
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
“Anything else he might need?” he heard Mable whisper.
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“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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Her Reaper’s Arms
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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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
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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Her Reaper’s Arms
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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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“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