beaten into the novices in order to make them strong or to break them. Either way, the
brothers gain.”
“What did…?”
“I won’t speak of my time at the monastery,” he said. “Not now and not ever. Let it
suffice to say I was glad to have been sent from there to Rathlin until I found myself in
hands nearly as evil as the brothers.”
He was silent for a long time after that. Lea said nothing, giving him the time he
needed to come to terms with whatever memories their talk had dredged up for him.
When at last his body relaxed and his desperate hold upon her eased, he placed a gentle
kiss on the top of her head.
“I am grateful I have you, sweeting,” he said. “That is all that matters to me.”
“A lot was done on the house today,” she said, her palm flat on his chest, feeling his
stalwart heart beating strongly against it. “I think you’ll be pleased.”
“It can’t be finished quickly enough for me,” he said. “I like sleeping beside you
and if our taskmistress won’t allow it beneath her roof, I’d just as soon move back over
to Mable’s until our place is finished.”
Lea tucked her lower lip between her teeth, wondering why he had not mentioned
the surest way to remedy Cornelia’s restriction. Perhaps, she thought, he did not want
to tie himself down to her with a Joining.
“It isn’t that,” he said, easily reading her mind.
She craned her neck to look up at him. “Can I ask why then?”
“Two reasons,” he said. “One, I’m already in deep enough trouble with the High
Council for having taken you to mate without first garnering their permission.”
“Bevyn!” she gasped. “You didn’t tell me that!”
He shrugged. “It’s not all that bad. The punishment should be miniscule but—”
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“Punishment?” she echoed. “What are you talking about? What kind of
punishment?”
The Reaper sighed. “Sweeting, don’t concern yourself about it,” he said. “It will be
negligible. Trust me.”
“Bevyn…” she said, her eyes clouding with fear.
“I’ll no doubt spend a week in one of the containment cells,” he said. “Solitary
confinement. That’s all it means.”
“No pain?” she asked.
“No pain,” he lied, knowing full well that week would be spent without tenerse or
Sustenance. It would be a minor hell but well worth it in his estimation.
If he was allowed to keep her.
He refused to consider otherwise.
“You promise?” she whispered.
“They are not going to torture me, wench,” he said with a laugh. “Just punish me
for acting rashly. Now had I compounded the issue with taking you to legal wife or
transferring one of my hellions to—”
“No!” Lea snapped, pushing away from him. “That you will never do!”
“I have said I wouldn’t and I won’t,” he said. He soothed her, running his hand
down her arm.
“Swear to me, Bevyn,” she said, and he realized she was trembling.
“I will not give you one of my fledglings, sweeting,” he vowed. “On my love for
you, I swear I will never do that.”
And without doing so, he knew he could never legally Join with her. He would not
take the chance of leaving her his widow without the protection of a parasite to keep
her safe. A leman, a mistress, was one thing. A wife was something entirely different in
his world.
Lea calmed and returned her cheek to his shoulder—twirling a strand of his chest
hair around and around her index finger. “Just the thought of having one of those
beasties inside me scares me to death, milord,” she mumbled.
“I know,” he acknowledged.
88
Her Reaper’s Arms
Chapter Seven
Hiding in the stable loft, Penthe watched the men going to work on the shell of a
house being built nearby. She crunched a couple of apples she’d found in a bin for her
breakfast, wishing she had a cool dipper of water to wash it down with.
The Reaper had been up at dawn—his paltry human female alongside him—and
Penthe could not help but admire the pure male beauty that was his as he began work.
He had come out without his shirt and in denim jeans instead of the black leather that
was part of his uniform. She thought his ass fit the jeans exceedingly well, the material
lovingly cupping the strong muscles. Sweat was already glistening down his heavily
muscled chest and she wondered what it would taste like to run her tongue over that
trickling stream.
Though she knew he was off limits as far as breeding material went—Reapers only
begat males since their tainted seed would not allow them to create females—she
regaled herself with fantasies of chaining him to a breeding bed and raping his
magnificent body over and over again, drawing that very substantial seed from a cock
she knew would be just as glorious as the rest of him. Oh the sons they would make!
But that was indeed a fantasy—and a forbidden one at that—for to bring more
Reaper males into the world would be a sin against her Amazeen heritage.
While it seemed as if the entire town had gathered around the house Penthe
overheard was going to be the Reaper’s abode, the Blackwind climbed down from the
loft and went in search of something more substantial to fill her belly. She managed to
gather quite an assortment of foodstuffs in a basket—along with several bottles of
water—before slinking back to her hiding place, stretching out to watch the building
construction.
Off to one side, the human female was sitting with several like herself but Penthe
noticed her gaze was never far from the Reaper. The one called Lea was giving off a
scent the Blackwind could not miss and apparently it did not miss Coure’s attention
either for he kept sending the female heated looks that no one else seemed to catch.
“She is your world, isn’t she, Reaper?” Penthe quietly questioned as she swung her
attention back and forth between Coure and Lea. “I wonder what you’d do if you lost
her?”
That thought bore some speculation, Penthe thought as she munched happily on a
pie she had swiped from some female’s kitchen window where it had been left to cool.
* * * * *
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
Sitting on a spread quilt beside her man, Lea slathered mustard on still another two
slices of bread as her
