Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Pleasure's Foehn (26 page)

“She’s going to Transition, Cair,” Liam said, grunting from the effort of pulling his brother from the room. “Tariq is only making it easier for her by removing the clothing.”

Tariq lifted Davan’s nude body into his arms then carried her across the room. He knelt down on the floor and cradled her against him, his eyes locked on Cair as the warrior was pulled out into the corridor.

The last thing Cair saw was Tariq holding Davan against his bare chest as the door closed and The Burgon himself bolted it.

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* * * * *

Liam handed Cair a glass of water to rinse out his mouth. He patted his brother’s back, stroked it gently, for Cair had retched so hard, strained so violently, he had torn the blood vessels in his esophagus and streaks of blood showed in the vomitus. Another prolonged, reverberating scream came from the room in which Davan lay, and Cair shuddered again, bending forward to expel the water from his mouth.

“How much longer?” he asked Liam.

“I think perhaps she’s reverting, Cair,” his brother told him. “It isn’t as painful as the first Transition but it hurts. She’ll grow accustomed to it.”

Tears filled Cair’s eyes. “What have I done, Liam? I should have stopped this!”

“And let her die?” Liam asked quietly.

Cair covered his face with his hands and hung his head, his shoulders shuddering with the force of his weeping. Liam drew his brother against him and smoothed his hand up and down Cair’s back, absorbing the wretched sobs that came from the depths of Cair Ghrian.

There were two men standing apart from the others and they, too, were crying. Neither had been introduced to Cair for there hadn’t been time. Almost as soon as the door had closed and Ryden had locked it, the god-awful sounds of Transition had silenced and stilled everyone in the corridor. One of the men reached out to touch the other.

“Do you think it will ask the same thing of Davie that it asked of us?” Lorcan asked Roman.

Roman thought back to the words the Revenant worm had whispered to him in the low, sultry croon that had washed through his tortured body—

“
Accept Me, Warrior. Protect Me and I will protect you.
”

“I don’t know, Lor,” Roman replied.

Lorcan wiped at the tears on his cheek then pushed away from the wall upon which he’d been slumped. He walked over to Cair and laid a hand on the warrior’s shoulder. When Cair looked up, Lorcan smiled.

“I am Lorcan Shanahan,” he introduced himself. “Davie’s brother.” He put out his hand.

Cair gripped Lorcan’s forearm in the time-honored greeting of warriors. “I wish we had met under happier circumstances.”

Lorcan shrugged. “I, too.” He turned and motioned Roman over. “This is Roman,”

he said.

Roman greeted Cair in the same way then squatted down in front of him. “You did what you had to in order to save our sister’s life. I would have done the same. I am honored to be a…”

“Hush!” Lorcan hissed. “You know you are never to speak the name!”

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Roman blushed. “I forgot for a moment.”

“Why doesn’t he want us to know what he is?” The Burgon asked, eavesdropping on the conversation. “What difference could it possibly make?”

“He has his reasons,” Liam answered for them. “Perhaps one day he’ll let us tell the worlds what we’ve become.”

Cair ran the sleeve of his shirt under his chin to wipe away his tears. “Do any of you know where it is he came from? Has he ever given you a name of his home world?”

The three warriors looked at one another. “No,” Lorcan replied. “All I know it that his world is beyond our universe.”

Ryden Bakari, The Burgon of the Aduaidh, was sitting to the other side of Cair. He ran a hand over his face, weariness beginning to set in. “We know the
Hespra
, the ship carrying him, came in from the Green Sector. That is the last spiral band in our galaxy so the
Hespra
might have journeyed to either Réalta Madra or Seabhac. We have no way of knowing which one.”

“If we took him back to Seabhac or Réalta Madra, what are the chances he might recognize the starmarks?” Cair questioned.

“Since he was unconscious from the moment they captured him until the ship crashed, I’d say there is no chance whatsoever,” Ryden answered. “They kept him in an E.S.U. the entire time.”

“Aye, but even in an Extended Sleep Unit, my thought is he would be able to describe what his home galaxy looks like,” Cair suggested.

“Not necessarily. I don’t think he’d ever been onboard a spacecraft until he was snatched off his planet,” Roman observed. “If he wasn’t familiar with space travel, I don’t expect he would know much about the stars and especially not starmarks.”

“You’re probably right,” Cair said.

Becoming aware of the silence from the room beyond, everyone looked at the locked door. Not a sound was coming from the room and the eerie quiet wore on the nerves of the waiting men.

Inside that room, Davan opened her eyes to find she was wrapped tightly in strong arms that held her cradled gently against a naked chest. Though the side of her face was pressed against the hairy expanse, she knew it was not her husband who held her for the smell was different—the aura surrounding him was not the same. Cautiously, she looked up and her eyes flared wide.

“Welcome back, Pretty One,” he said.

The face of the man holding her was so beautifully male, Davan could do nothing more than stare at him with mouth ajar and eyes absorbing the sheer magnificence of the chiseled features and mesmerizing gaze. From the high cheekbones to the absolutely perfect masculine nose to full lips that begged to be kissed to thick, wavy dark brown tresses that haloed his head, the one who held her so protectively in his embrace was almost too handsome to be real. When the slow, lazy smile parted his lips to reveal very 148

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white, even teeth, she thought she might well have died and gone to a very blessed reward.

“You,” she said and had to clear her throat and start again. “You clean up real nice, Tariq.”

His grin was infectious and he gave her a light squeeze. “After decades of looking like a mangy wolf, I guess that’s about as good a compliment as I’m likely to get,” he said.

She could not take her eyes from him and wanted nothing more than to reach up to feel the soft waves of his shoulder-length hair. Her palm itched to do just that. His smile faded. “Is your back hurting still?”

Davan had to think about his question, so taken with his looks that nothing else seemed to matter.

Not even the fact she was lying naked in his arms.

“Back?” she repeated.

“I tried to make the Transition as easy for you as I could, but I know how bad that gnawing, tearing misery can be when the creature sinks its fangs into your kidney.”

The pain slithered across her mind and she winced, shifting in his arms. There was a bit of residual pain in her lower back but she felt better than had in years. She felt strong, physically powerful and thirsty beyond measure.

“You will need to take Sustenance once a day,” he told her. “And the tenerse. You must never be without the tenerse.”

At the mention of the powerful narcotic, a portion of the euphoria she had been experiencing began to evaporate. Memory of what she had undergone came back to hit her squarely between the eyes and she pushed away from him, blushing to the roots of her hair when she remembered she was entirely nude. Her arm went over her breasts and one hand to the juncture of her thighs.

“I haven’t been looking,” he said but the mischievous glint in his eyes gave lie to his words.

“Pervert,” she said and scrambled to her feet, looking around for something with which to cover herself.

Tariq laughed. “My lady used to insult me with that same word.”

“Aye, well, you deserve it,” she mumbled. Her arm hiding her breasts and her hand covering her crotch, she minced her way over to a tall cabinet, opened it and was relieved to see sickbay pajamas and shirts stacked on a shelf. Lying on the floor on his hip, his head propped upon his doubled fist, he watched Davan getting dressed. There was a gentle, whimsical smile on his full lips and he sighed when her shapely rear was hidden beneath the cotton of the pajama bottoms.

“I’ve never understood why you wear clothing on your world,” he said. “On Theristes we never wore clothing. We did not need it.”

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“It’s called modesty,” she said, her back to him. She could feel his eyes on her and her face was burning as she made quick work of the pajama top. She licked her lips, feeling the thirst growing.

“My woman was modest,” he said. “She was also very beautiful and it pleased me to see other men look at her with longing, wishing she belonged to them.”

Davan turned around. “Wasn’t that too much of a temptation to the other men?

Didn’t you worry about one getting out of line with her?”

Tariq cocked his head to one side. “And have my fangs buried in his throat before I twisted his head from his body and stuffed it up his ass?” he asked in a conversational tone. “Temptation was not a problem on Theristes, Pretty One.”

“I guess not,” she muttered. She wiped her hand over her parched lips. “Is this going to be a constant thing?”

“The thirst?” he asked, getting to his feet. As he stood, the remnants of the jumpsuit slid off his hips and down to the midpoint of his thickly muscled thighs. Davan swallowed hard for the staff hanging between his legs was not only immense in breadth, it dangled halfway down his thigh and ended in a bulbous head that made her knees weak just looking at it.

“Bahiya called it my love knob,” he said with a wicked smile. “It barely fit the first time around but practice made it easier.” He winked. “We practiced a lot, Bahiya and me.”

Blushing to the tips of her breasts, Davan tore her eyes from the enormous cock, but scientific curiosity got the better of her and she asked if all the men of his race were so well-endowed.

“Only what you outworlders call the alpha males,” he replied with a touch of braggadocio. “The rest are no different than the men of your world.”

“That’s the biggest tool…” Davan stopped, her face feeling as though she were leaning close over a fire pit.

“Was I not mated with my beloved Bahiya and you not mated to that puny little warrior man Cairnan, I would show you just how big it can get,” he boasted. The thought of his huge cock getting any bigger made Davan lift the front of the pajama top and fan her sweating chest. “Theristes,” she said, wanting desperately to change the subject. “Is that the name of your world?”

“Aye,” he said and padded over to her.

Davan turned her back on him. “For the love of the Goddess! Will you please put something on?”

Tariq sighed and reached past her to pluck a set of pajamas from the cabinet. “What if they don’t fit, Pretty One?” he asked.

“Make them,” she said, moving as far away from him as the room would allow. The warrior stepped into the pajama bottoms. “I might have to let something hang out.”

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Grinding her teeth, Davan walked to the door and tried to open it. She grimaced when she found it locked.

“When you Transition,” Tariq told her as he came up behind her, “you will need a secure room into which you can be locked. They call it a containment cell here.”

Davan flinched. “Why would I need them to lock me in?”

“Because,” he said, “you would be a danger to your loved ones otherwise.”

Remembering the transformation of her body—the strength, the wildness, the unbelievable conversion from human to she-wolf—Davan leaned her head against the door. “Oh,” was all she said.

Tariq took her into his arms and rested his chin atop her head. “You will live a long, fulfilling life, Pretty One. Think of all the things you will learn in that long lifetime. Think of all the people you will be able to help with your healer skills.”

Davan turned in his arms and pressed her cheek against his chest. He had left the pajama top unbuttoned and the wiry hairs tickled her skin. She felt protected with this man. The strength of his arms was reassuring.

“I want to find that Saurian bastard who stabbed me,” she said.

“He’s somewhere out there in the dust storm,” Tariq told her. “Finding him will be like looking for a needle in a mound of hay. There is something else to consider.”

“And what is that?”

He put his crooked finger under her chin and raised her head so he could look into her eyes. “You need to be careful of your child.”

“I don’t have a child,” she said.

His voice was infinitely soft as he said, “Aye, but you do.”

“I think I’d know if I’d had a child, Tariq,” she said with an uneasy laugh.

“I’m sure you will once he is born,” the warrior replied. Davan’s face paled. “I’m pregnant?” She put a hand to her belly, surprised the brutal pain that had nearly taken her life was completely gone.

“The babe is still seated in your womb,” Tariq informed her. “Had it been a female, the parasite might have allowed you to miscarry, but since it is a boy, it healed your torn womb and kept the child safe. Sometimes it amazes me the things the parasite can do.”

Davan stepped back and lifted her pajama top. There wasn’t a mark on her abdomen even when she pulled the waistband down almost to the spiky curls of her mound. She smoothed her hand over the unblemished area of her belly. Thirst was making her lightheaded and she staggered, grateful for the support of Tariq’s hands. She flinched when he lifted his hand and pounded on the door then pulled her back as the door opened.

Cair was the first into the room. He snatched Davan away from Tariq and held her with trembling arms. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice wavering. 151

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“I’ll be fine, warrior, unless you don’t stop crushing me,” Davan said, barely getting the words past her lips before Cair’s mouth was covering hers and kissing her so hard she thought she would smother. She had to gasp when he released her and held her against him as though he’d never let go.