“I want you inside me,” she whispered.
“And you will have me there,” he said,caressing her shoulder, stroking her hair. “Give us a few more days and I’ll bepouring myself into you.”
His words sent tremors through Shanee. Herhand was on his pectoral, her fingers twirling the hair that grew thickly overhis taut muscles. “I don’t know if I can wait a few more days,” she said.
His arms tightened around her. “I canpleasure you with my hands and my mouth, ionúin, until I can pleasureyou with my cock. Be patient. Anything worth having is worth waiting for.”
She fell asleep there on top of him withhis strong, powerful arms wrapped around her, her lower body securelypositioned between his long legs. His chin rested atop her head and as theirbreaths became one in unison and rhythm, the waterfall gently lulled him intoslumber beneath her.
Chapter Three
“I have no intention of ever seeing mymother again,” Ailyn told her two days later when she’d finally dredged up thecourage to ask him. They were reclining on a large flat boulder behind thecascade of the waterfall. The bright light spearing down from the ceiling was waningand he had lit several torches that were ranged along the walls.
“General Strom believed that might be thecase,” Shanee told him.
“Is he better than Morrison?” he inquired.
She nodded. “A good man, I think.”
“If she really is dying,” he said, his gazeclouding, “it makes sense why she would want me home.”
“For the money in the an Éilvéiseachbank account?”
His head swiveled toward her, his browfurrowed. “I’d forgotten about that,” he said. “No, I doubt she gave that amoment’s thought. Felix might have but not our mother.”
“Then why?” she asked.
He held her gaze for a moment. “Think aboutit, ionúin. What one thing can she get from me that no one elsewould or could give her?”
Shanee shrugged. “I can’t imagine. I didn’tbelieve for a minute that she was being sincere with her crying,” she said. “Igot the feeling that was simply for show.”
“My mother never loved any of herchildren,” he stated. “She was always too self-centered to care for anyoneother than herself. We all grew up with wet nurses and nannies and myriadservants. I spent most of my life with my father’s parents before being sent tomilitary school when I was seven. We all went to Soraniline Military Academy assoon as we were old enough and then on to the Fleet Academy. It was rare we wereallowed home even on high holidays. My holidays and summers were always at mygrandparents’.” He wiped a hand over his face. “That was why I was so excitedto be assigned to my father’s ship when I got my commission. I was able tospend two months with him without my mother demanding his attention before itwent down in flames.”
“You were the only survivor,” she said.
“Aye and I’ve prayed many a night that Ihad died with the rest of the crew.”
“Your time on R-9 must have been hell,” shesaid softly.
“Hell doesn’t even begin to describe it,”he told her. “But it’s the reason my mother wants me after forty-four years ofnot giving a damn if I lived or died.”
She looked at him. He didn’t look at dayover twenty-five and she said as much.
“And I won’t,” he said, before sliding offthe boulder and into the depths of the pool.
She watched him swim across the milky greenwater then leave the coolness of the pool for his pallet. She pushed away fromthe boulder and swam underwater to the point where he’d left the pool thenstood up, shaking her long white hair behind her. She waded to the shore thenknelt down beside him. He was sitting with his knees drawn up, his armsencircling them.
“Reapers don’t age as you know it,” he toldher as she took up a towel he’d given her earlier and began drying her hair.“For every year you age, I will age less than an hour.”
Shanee had not read that in the reportshe’d been given on the Reapers. She knew they could live well past two hundredand even beyond but it had not occurred to her that a Reaper’s physicalappearance would change so little over time.
“If you cut me, I’ll heal instantly. Stabme and the wound will close right before your eyes. If you burn me, the fleshwill rejuvenate and my body will re-form itself to look as I did before theflames touched it. The only true way for me to die is to have my head severedfrom my body and the queen destroyed.”
“At that rate, you could live forever,” shesaid.
“Now do you see what it is she wants fromme?” he asked.
The knowledge came like a sharp blow to hersolar plexus and she stared at him. “One of your revenant worms!”
He nodded. “She may think she does but shehas no idea what it is she is asking, what having a hellion inside her will doto her. All she cares about is not dying, living for as long as she can andhaving people cater to her every whim. She craves attention, thrives onwielding power over those she considers lesser beings. She is not a goodwoman.”
“That was my impression,” Shanee admitted.She reached out to run a hand along his bare shoulders. “Do you want to talkabout what happened to you on R-9?”
He lowered his head. “There are only twopeople I’ve ever discussed it with and one of them is Tariq. When we spoke ofit, we weren’t face-to-face. He has such power within him, ionúin, it ishard to fathom it. In our minds, he would speak to us all without our guardsknowing. Without him encouraging us to hold on, most of us would have goneinsane.” He closed his eyes. “Some of us did and had to be put down.”
Shanee flinched. He spoke of those poor menas though they were animals.
“They were,” he said, easily reading hermind. He opened his eyes and turned to look at her. “I am.”
“I can’t begin to imagine how you felt whenthey gave you…” she frowned. “What did they call it?”
“Transference,” he said. “They
