climax he’d ever known.
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
Her legs tightened around him as she came a second time—even more intensely
than the first—and felt as though her insides would shatter with the glorious strength of
the pleasure. She writhed beneath him, lapping up the very last of his juices like a
woman dying of thirst. She moaned. She hissed. She gave herself entirely to the
experience and when she collapsed—lying as still as death with him pressed heavily
upon her—she knew she had been loved and loved well.
“If we don’t conceive a child from that, we never will,” she told him.
Bevyn lifted his head and looked down at her with such a shocked expression it
frightened her. “C-Child?” he repeated.
“Aye, milord,” she said, her forehead creased with concern. “Did you not consider
it?”
He shifted off her, pulling free of her intimate hold on his cock and practically fell
beside her, one arm draped over his eyes. She’d broached this subject the first time they
lay together and he had pushed it aside then. He wanted to push it aside now, pretend
she had not brought it up.
“Milord?” she questioned, sitting up, afraid of his reaction. “Did you not think it
could happen?”
“It never crossed my mind. I didn’t want to think about it,” he said, and lowered his
arm behind his head, looking up at her now with fear. “By the gods, Lea, women die
giving birth.”
“Aye, some do but the majority don’t.
“I can’t lose you,” he said, and his eyes filled with tears. “Lea, I couldn’t live
without you! I wouldn’t want to!”
She put her arms around him and drew him to her, his head to her shoulder and
she comforted him, shushing him as he cried, his reaction so much more alarming than
she could have ever imagined. She tried to calm him, but he would not be consoled. His
hot tears ran down her breast and down her rib cage.
“You aren’t going to lose me, Bevyn,” she said. “The goddess did not give me to
you for you to lose me.”
“She’s right, Reaper.”
Bevyn’s eyes popped open at the sound of the voice only he had heard. “You
swear?” he asked.
“There will be no children for you, my Reaper. Not by her.”
A part of him rejoiced at hearing that but another part was wounded beyond belief.
He gently probed Lea’s mind to see how she felt about children and was relieved to
know she had no great desire to become a mother. He somewhat relaxed, though her
next words raked at him with steely claws.
“Were I to conceive, we would be good parents to our child, milord,” she said.
“I know you would be,” he said, not so sure of his own ability to parent a child,
Reaper son or not.
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Her Reaper’s Arms
His eyes went to the clock and he saw he had only ten minutes left to be with his
lady. Where had the time gone? It did not seem half an hour had passed. He would
have to be up and dressed and gone far too soon. There were things he had to say to her
before then and he had to get her mind off the subject of conceiving.
“Arawn will come fetch you for lunch and supper,” he told her, lifting his head to
rake a hand through his hair. “You’ll be dining with him and the Gatekeepers each
night.”
“And Penthe?” she asked.
“I doubt the Gatekeepers would countenance that,” he said. “They’ve no love for
Amazeens.”
“So I’ve noticed,” she said.
“Arawn will give you a tour of the Citadel, if you’d like, and will show you the
solarium. It’s in the same section of the ground floor where the High Council has its
facilities. There are some of the most exotic plants in the world in the solarium.”
“That sounds nice,” she said, and had to bite her lip when he eased out of her arms
and sat up on the edge of the bed.
“Anything you want or need, just ask Giles. He’ll provide it,” he said, and stood.
She stared at the myriad scars that ranged down his back and cursed the woman
who had been responsible for marring his perfect body.
“I’ll be back in a week and then we’ll be allowed to return to Orson,” he said, and
waved his hand, his black uniform settling in a flash over his tall frame.
“I like it here,” she said.
He turned around to face her and she realized something new had been added to
his uniform. He was now wearing a tie and collar insignia.
“We’ll come here as often as we can then,” he said, “but we’ll also have our home in
the Armistenky Territory.”
“All right,” she said, digging her fingers into the coverlet to keep from crying at his
leaving.
“We’ll have our own private railroad cars now with a steward who will be assigned
to us, if you’d like,” he said.
“I don’t think I would, but whatever you decide is fine with me,” she said, and
could feel the moisture striving to break free behind her eyes.
“I don’t care one way or the other so if you don’t want it, we won’t have it. We can
ask for something else,” he said.
“Like what?” she asked, although at that moment she didn’t care about having
anything except him in her arms, which were already feeling the emptiness of his
leaving.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll talk about it when I come back.”
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“All right,” she agreed, and drew in a breath as he turned to walk out of her life for
a week that she knew would be sheer hell for the both of them.
“I love you,” he said, his back to her, aching to rush back to her, hold her, but if he
did, he knew it would be difficult to break free again.
“I love you too, milord.”
“Take care.”
“I’ll be with you in your heart,” she whispered.
Bevyn squeezed his eyes shut and left the bedroom. Every step he took away from
her was an agony that ripped at his very soul. The coming week would be a torment far
worse than anything Kennocha’s torturers had practiced on his body. When he opened
the door to find two brown-clad guards
