BlackWind: Viraiden and Bronwyn (16 page)

BlackWind: Viraiden and Bronwyn

massive jaws into her silky throat. The thought of that made Bronwyn stoop down to pick up her pet.

“He won’t harm her.”

Bronwyn looked around then straightened up, shocked by his pallor and the tremor in his hand as he threaded his fingers through his unbound hair. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve been better,” he replied, then hunkered down to pat Brownie. “Come here, gorgeous.”

Bronwyn smiled as Brownie lay down, turned up her stomach for a scratching, and wiggled with pleasure at the firm fingers that ran over her tight little gray tummy. Her smile flickered when the big black dog loped over.

“Bronnie,” Cree said. “Meet Ralph.”

Ralph sat then lifted one giant paw in greeting, raking it up and down.

Bronwyn’s smile returned. She shook the proffered paw. “Does he belong to you, Ralph?” she asked, using her other hand to smooth the sleek black fur on the dog’s head.

“Humphf,” Ralph replied with an emphatic nod of his big head.

“It certainly isn’t the other way around,” Cree joked.

Cree vigorously rubbed Brownie’s stomach one last time then got to his feet, jamming his hands into the pockets of his black jeans.

Brownie wiggled on her back a few more times, her little paws waving in the air.

Bronwyn laughed. “Get up, slut. He’s lost interest in you.”

“She knows better,” Cree disagreed.

Sighing, Brownie got to her feet, shook herself then turned to look at Ralph. For a moment, her pretty little brown eyes blinked then she walked cautiously toward him.

Bronwyn dropped the leash, giving Brownie space to investigate this new acquaintance. When the canines touched noses then gave each another the traditional nose-to-butt inspection, Bronwyn looked away with embarrassment.

“Are you off today?” she asked Cree.

“Aye. We were headed down to the lake.”

Brownie and Ralph were playfully nipping at one another, running in tight little circles around their master and mistress.

“Mind if we tag along?” Bronwyn inquired.

Cree shrugged. “It’s a free country.”

The reply wasn’t encouraging, but Bronwyn decided to ignore the standoffishness it implied. She called Brownie to her to take hold of the leash.

“Let her run free,” Cree said. “No animal should be tied up.”

“Stop reading my mind. I don’t like it.”

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Cree said nothing to her demand. Instead, he started down the gravel path, seemingly uncaring if she walked with him or not.

A frustrated sigh hissed from Bronwyn’s mouth as she followed. She had to jog a little to catch up to him, slapping her leg for Brownie to follow then became exasperated when her pet raced on ahead, the black dog plodding along beside her.

“Isn’t that the dog who was with you the day you fell off your bike?” Bronwyn asked, coming abreast of Cree.

A muscle worked in his cheek. “I didn’t fall off my gods-be-damned bike, woman.”

“Then what happened?”

He kicked a large rock off the path. “I laid it down to avoid hitting a frigging deer.”

“Oh,” she said, smiling at the male ego she’d unknowingly bruised.

He cast her a sidelong glance. When she grinned at him, he looked away.

They were quiet until they reached the hill overlooking the lake. A large red maple, a few lilac bushes and a trio of tall poplars ringed the hill. Lush grass covered the knoll.

The view was magnificent, the crescent-shaped lake fanning out in either direction from the hill. The water rippled gently, a deep steel blue that lapped at the rock-strewn jetty jutting out into the waves.

“When the lake freezes over, some of the people who work here build ice houses out there,” Cree told her.

“It gets that cold here?”

“I’ve seen some idjuts stupid enough to drive pickup trucks all the way along the shoreline, forty feet or farther out across the water.”

“Huh,” Bronwyn commented. Such a thing seemed incredible to her, having grown up in the South and spending most of her life there.

Cree nodded toward an inviting spot. “I come up here a lot.”

“So I’ve heard,” she said, dropping to the grass.

“From who?”

“Sage says you come up here to eat your mysterious lunch.”

“And does he tell you what’s in that mysterious lunch?”

“He believes hog entrails and chicken gizzards, as I recall.”

Cree snorted as he sat down. “That boy is one of the idjuts I’ve seen driving on the gods-be-damned lake. It figures he’d think something so frigging obscene.”

“No entrails and gizzies?” she queried with a grin.

“Not likely.”

“Then what?”

He leaned back on his elbows, crossed his booted feet and regarded her. “Why do you want to know?”

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“Just curious.” She picked up a blade of grass and ran it between her fingers. When he remained silent, she looked back at him.

“So you can report what you’ve learned to Spice Boy?” he asked.

“You don’t want to tell me, don’t tell me,” she said, returning her attention to the rolling lake.

“A corned beef on rye with a side order of sweet potato fries and a soda pop.”

“Well, that’s normal enough.”

“A bag of cheese puffs, two chocolate bars, a box of raisins, three double packages of toaster pastries, a tube of sugar cookie dough and a can of mixed nuts.”

She turned to stare at him. “You’re joking!”

He laid down, his hands cupping the back of his head. “I have a healthy appetite.”

“You are a heart attack waiting to happen! Do you know what that stuff will do to you?”

“What can I say? Reapers are junk-food addicts.”

It was the first time he had labeled himself to her and she wasn’t sure how to react.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

She knew he’d plucked her thoughts from the air, but this time it didn’t annoy her.

She crossed her legs and stuck the blade of grass between her lips. “Do I have reason to be?”

“No.”

“Would you ever hurt me?”

“Never,” he said, his voice low and throaty.

“Then I’m not afraid of you.”

“Disgusted by what I am?”

She shrugged. “Unsettled a bit, perhaps.” She chewed on the grass.

“Enough to stay away from me?”

She took the grass from her mouth and tossed it away. “Obviously not or I wouldn’t be up here with you, now would I?”

Brownie yelped playfully and Ralph answered as they raced down the hill and to the edge of the lapping water.

“Don’t you dare get in that water, Brownie!” Bronwyn yelled.

“Ralph is part Lab,” Cree remarked. “He loves the water.”

“Well, I don’t feel like bathing that little brat today.”

“Let her play. If she gets wet, I’ll bathe her.”

Bronwyn glanced at him. He was staring at her, his eyes looking tired and wounded. Before she thought, she touched his forehead. “You’ve got a fever!” she said, shifting around to get a better look at him.

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He took her hand, staying her inspection of his face. “Reaper body temperature is much higher than a human’s. I’m okay, Bronwyn.”

“You don’t look okay,” she said, feeling the heat of his flesh radiating up her arm.

“There are deep circles beneath your eyes that weren’t there when we came up here.

Your face is flushed and—”

“I am all right.” He brought her hand to his chest. “I swear.”

Through the fabric of his black polo shirt, she felt the heavy thudding of his heart. It seemed unnaturally quick, though she had no idea what the blood pressure and pulse rate of his kind would be.

“I’m worried about you. You don’t look well, Viraidan.”

“You’ll get used to seeing me this way from time to time,” he said, letting go of her hand. “It’s normal.”

Bronwyn opened her mouth to protest his cavalier attitude then thought better of it.

The man obviously knew whether he was ill or not, she reasoned, and decided to drop the issue. She did, however, make a mental note to talk to Brian and see if he would give her a lesson on Reaper anatomy.

“Is that a tribal tattoo?” she asked, staring fixedly at the dark blue design.

“It is a
marc as
úinéireacht
.”

“Which is?”

“A mark of ownership.”

Before Bronwyn could ask what that meant, he unbuttoned his shirt, palmed a medallion hanging on a thick chain around his neck before she could look at it then pulled the shirt toward his shoulder. “This is a tribal tattoo—the
dúr diabhol
.”

Bronwyn glanced at the dark crimson design on his left pectoral. She thought his flesh looked burned around the stylized grim reaper with its scythe handle made of human skulls.

“It was done with a laser brush,” he said, pulling his shirt over the tattoo.

“That had to hurt,” she said, flinching.

“I was a child when it was done. I barely remember the pain,” he said as he re-buttoned his shirt.

“Your culture was vastly different from ours, wasn’t it?”

“More brutal, more uncaring, aye. But you have men who are just as brutal and uncaring. Daniel Dunne was one of them. He marked his newly made Reapers in the same manner.”

At the mention of that hated name, Bronwyn looked at the ground. “Would you mind if I asked you something?”

“What do you want to know?” he asked, his gaze wary.

She drew up her knees and clasped them in the perimeter of her arms. “Brian said you were a friend of Sean’s.”

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A shadow passed over his face. He looked away to stare at the leafy canopy overhead. “I don’t want to discuss him.”

Bronwyn felt heat rising in her cheeks. “May I ask why?”

Cree cut his eyes to her. “No.”

She sighed heavily and turned her attention to the dogs frolicking at the water’s edge. There were so many questions, questions she thought perhaps Cree would answer in time. At least, she hoped he would.

“Don’t count on it,” he said, springing to his feet.

She watched him walk down the hill. His shoulders were stiff, his hands clenched into fists. He was like quicksilver, she thought. One moment he seemed to want to be with her and the next he was pushing her away. His manner, his mood swings, irritated her, yet she found herself drawn to him in a way she could not explain.

As he picked up stones and sent them skipping across the water’s surface, she was reminded of watching Sean do the same thing on the Flint River. She smiled sadly and squinted. If she concentrated, she could picture that long-lost boy standing on the riverbank in Georgia, his sideward pitches causing the rocks to skip three, four or more times across the water.

She closed her eyes and imagined the male standing at the water’s edge was Sean grown into manhood. She could picture his bright blond hair and cornflower blue eyes shining in the warmth of the sun. In her mind’s eye, she could see the light green shirt he had worn most often and the tight, faded blue jeans that had made her insides ache.

She lay on the grass, her hands to either side of her head. The smell of the grass was crisp and clean, its lushness a comforting cushion beneath her body. A light breeze washed over her and the lacy patterns of the tree branches overhead against her closed lids lulled her.

Her thoughts returned to the river, but this time it was the Kinchafoonee and the late afternoon when Sean had made her a woman. Her memories were strong—his hands on her breasts, the feel of his lips on her mouth, the weight of his body upon hers, the pressure of him seated deep inside her.

There was a rustling sound nearby but she did not open her eyes. She was locked in the past, her body on fire with a need she had not felt in many years. Her breathing was deep, slow, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

She felt contact along her right side—a hard length stretched beside her. A sensation moved over her leg, pressing that leg to the ground. Another sensation became wedged between her legs, insistent pressure firm at the juncture of her thighs.

Strong fingers threaded her own and she captured them in a tight grip. The light grew slowly darker over her face until soft, pliant lips claimed hers. A powerful chest flattened her breasts, the tips aching to be touched. When the warm moistness of her shadow lover’s tongue slid past her lips, Bronwyn groaned and tightened her grip on the phantom hands that held her own captive.

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She groaned again when her left hand lost its prisoner then gasped as the escapee found its way to her breast. Arching up into the possessive grasp that plied her, she thought she would faint, for her lover’s tongue took that moment to probe deep inside her mouth.

Her free hand went to her lover’s hair, pressing his mouth tighter to hers, which brought a grunt from deep in his throat. She felt him release her other hand as he shifted fully atop her, his hands going under her body to caress her buttocks, his knees spreading her legs apart, the steel of his shaft held hard against the core of her. His lips left her mouth and trailed down her throat, placing hot kisses in the hollow.

“Sean!” she cried, holding him to her.

“I am here,
ghrá mo chroí
.”

Bronwyn’s eyes flew open. The long-remembered term of endearment sent a shockwave of pure agony through her soul and brought her out of the strange reverie into which she’d fallen.

Cree was sitting beside her, his face closed, unreadable.

She sat up, pulling at her blouse, clutching the front in a fist.

“You were dreaming,” he told her.

Bronwyn let out a shuddering breath, then another. She squeezed her eyes closed.

“It was so real,” she said, her voice breaking. “It felt so real!”

He watched her cover her face with her hands and ached as she began to cry. For a moment, he resisted the urge to take her in his arms, to comfort her, but her heartbreaking sobs struck a chord deep within him and he pulled her onto his lap, drew her head to his shoulder and held her as her wild sobbing shook them both.