Dancing on the Wind (55 page)

weak blast of fire shot past him to land close to the gypsy but it was enough to make

Roland dive into the undergrowth. Snapping back to face Keenan, Fallon saw the bright

red bloom over her heart and he bellowed in pain. Her knees began to give way.

“Give her to me!” Coim hissed as he sprang forward and in a heartbeat caught

Keenan up, disappearing with her.

With a roar of fury, Fallon spun around. He had no weapon and Roland was once

more on his feet pointing the rifle at him, but that didn’t matter. Fallon launched

himself at the gypsy—changing in midair—and when he landed on Mizhak Roland, it

was with brutal animal savagery, a black blur of beastliness.

“Marti…!” was as far as Roland got before the glistening fangs closed on his neck,

ripped away the windpipe.

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* * * * *

Coim slapped Fallon again, splitting his lip. “Snap out of it!” the creature barked.

Fallon staggered beneath the blow but instinctively knew
An Fear Liath Mor
had

pulled his punch, making it little more than a love tap, yet it hurt like hell. He went to

his knees from the momentum and shook his head like the hound he had been only a

few moments before.

“You know what must be done,” Coim shouted. “We do it now or you lose your

mate!”

Keenan was lying on the ground and she was white as chalk. The front of her T-

shirt was saturated with her blood. She was still as death. She was dead and he knew it.

He could not lose her a second time and scrambled on his knees to her. “Take it,” he

said, lifting her into his arms.

Coim pushed the Supervisor forward. “Your hands are smaller than mine,

Shadowlord. You do it!”

The Supervisor needed no second order to act. He dug into his pocket, pulled out

his multi-bladed knife and flicked it open. “Bare his back,
Vainshtyr
.”

Coim leaned over and ripped Fallon’s shirt from hem to neck.

As the Reaper gently turned Keenan to her belly, he felt the cold metal of the blade

on his flesh.

“Ready?” the Supervisor asked.

“Do it.”

He paid little attention to the cut. It wasn’t until the Supervisor thrust a hand into

the wound and pulled a fledgling from his back that there was any true pain. The agony

was intense as the Revenant worms bunched beneath his skin and the hellion

deliberately hurt him in retaliation for extracting one of her young.

“Give me the knife,” he said. “No one hurts her but me.”

Shoving Keenan’s blood-soaked T-shirt up her back, he took the knife from the

Supervisor and made the cut—just deep and long enough—for the Supervisor to drop

the wriggling, writhing fledgling into the slit Fallon spread apart with his slippery

fingers.

For just a moment the creature looked as though it would balk then it raised its

green pointy head, flicked out a scarlet red tongue and dove down into the wound.

Within seconds, the cut closed and as Fallon eased Keenan up and into his embrace

again, she took a shuddering gasp and her eyes popped open.

“Get him out of here, Coim,” Fallon ordered. “I’ll handle it from here.”

“No, I want to…” the Supervisor said, obviously wanting to stay to see Keenan’s

first Transition, but
An Fear Liath Mor
snatched him up and they were gone.

“Fallon?” Keenan questioned. Death was fading from her eyes and in its place was

a fevered heat that began to spark red in the hazel depths.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“I’m here, baby,” he said as she bucked in his arms, her mouth open in surprise.

“I’m right here.”

* * * * *

She didn’t seem all that happy with her tail. She kept chasing it until she became

dizzy then flopped down, her little head still going in circles.

She snorted.

“I think it’s beautiful,” he told her.

She snorted again then lifted a back leg to scratch at the underside of her snout.

He was sitting against a rock with his knees drawn up and his wrists resting on

them as she pushed up from the ground and began sniffing. Laughing softly, he laid his

head back as she investigated the new abilities.

She barked and the bark echoed across the Ozarks. She barked again then threw her

head back and howled.

That seemed to please her and she tried it again.

Fallon’s eyes crinkled with mirth. He remembered all too well how he’d reacted to

his own Transition the first time, and it hadn’t been anything to laugh about.

Sniffing, sniffing, more sniffing. A bit of grass and another. More sniffing then she

swung her head toward Fallon.

“What?” he asked.

She squatted.

Fallon laughed so hard tears came to his eyes. “You are something, my bitch,” he

said, and slapped his hand on his leg.

She tossed her head. “
I don’t come when you say heel, lineman
!” she sent him, and

grinned.

“Don’t you want to know what it feels like to have your ears scratched?” he

countered.

She moved away from her piss, scratched dirt in a lazy attempt to cover the smell

then trotted over to him. He had stretched out one leg so she insinuated herself between

his legs and lay down, putting her head on his lowered thigh. As soon as he put his

fingers behind her floppy ear and began scratching, she kicked her back leg as she’d

seen other dogs do.

“Cute,” he chastised her. “Real cute.”

She grunted.
“How long will I be like this?”

“A couple of hours,” he replied. “Maybe longer.”

“I want to run.”

“Then run.”

She lifted her head. He was smoothing his palm down her neck.

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Dancing on the Wind

“I want to run with you.”

He smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

If anyone saw the black hound and his tan bitch streaking along the paths that

night, it would have raised no alarms. When the two stopped and tried to out bay one

another that would have caused no unease either. Had anyone been watching—and

there was one big gray someone—that person would have seen two scampering,

prancing hounds playfully snapping at one another, tumbling over and over, tussling

and bumping against the other.

When the puppy-like play became something more mature, the gray one turned

away. The mock battle between the hounds had become love.

“Love is a plate of veal,”
An Fear Liath Mor
sang as it strolled away.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

He placed the band upon her finger. “
Le mo ghrása mise, agus liomsa mo ghrá
.”
The

words of his vow were inscribed on the rose-gold band—I am my beloved’s and my

beloved is mine.

She looked down at the band then turned to his mother who had Fallon’s band on

her index finger. Svetlana smiled tearfully as she handed the band to the priest who

blessed it then gave it to Keenan.

Taking Fallon’s left hand in hers, Keenan slipped the identical rose-gold band onto

his ring finger. “
Le mo ghrása mise, agus liomsa mo ghrá,”
she repeated.

There were only five people at the ceremony in the Supervisor’s office—the bride

and groom, the groom’s mother, the Supervisor who was acting as best man, and the

same thin little priest who less than a week earlier had officiated at the bride’s funeral.

“I now pronounce you man and wife.”

Neither Fallon nor his lady had wanted an elaborate ceremony. They had wanted to

join their lives together, not throw a big party. Though champagne chilled in a bucket

and Svetlana had insisted on baking a traditional Irish wedding cake, a delicious

confection of rich fruit cake covered in white icing, there would be no fancy gown with

veil, no tuxedo, no attendants in organdy and lace. The bride wore a simple pale green

silk dress and the groom a black silk shirt and black leather pants.

“You may kiss the bride, Agent Fallon,” the priest said.

Fallon drew her into his arms and kissed her gently as his heart raced and his blood

pounded fiercely in his veins. A jet was waiting to take them to their honeymoon

destination and he was more than anxious to begin their first journey as man and wife.

When the kiss was complete and the priest introduced them for the first time as Mr.

and Mrs. Mikhail Fallon, they each turned to their lone attendant and either embraced

or shook hands.

“Congratulations, Misha,” the Supervisor said. “Well done. Very well done.”

“Be happy, Keenan,” Svetlana whispered. “Make him happy.”

“I will,” Keenan replied. “I promise you I will.”

A toast, a piece of cake shared, the marriage license signed and then they were

running down the hall—surprised to see people from the Exchange lined up in the

terminal. To a round of thunderous applause, they hurried through the jet way and into

the plane.

“Congratulations Agents Fallon,” the steward said. “We’re ready to leave when you

are.”

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Dancing on the Wind

“Then let’s get this baby in the air!” Fallon said, leaning over to kiss his bride again.

As the jet streaked through the wintry Iowa sky, Keenan sat with her head on her

husband’s shoulder, their fingers entwined.

“Did you see how the Supervisor signed the marriage license?” she asked.

Fallon laughed. “Yeah. John Doe.”

“Who is he, lineman?” she asked. “Have you any idea?”

“Just a Shadowlord Coim told me.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ve a feeling his story

would make an interesting one.”

“I’ll tell it to you one day, hound,”
came an amused voice from far away.

Fallon glanced behind them. “I need to go to the bathroom,” he said, staring into

her eyes.

“Okay,” she said, releasing her hold on him.

He arched a brow. “I might need help.”

Keenan frowned “Why would you…?”

He wagged his brows then laid her hand over the bulge between his thighs.

“Conceited prick,” she said, shaking her head.

“Stiff prick,” he said.

She followed him to the restroom and wedged in behind him, sliding her hand up

his back as he locked the door. When he turned to face her, she trailed her palm over his

arm and onto his chest.

“You going to make this a habit from now on?” she asked.

“What do you think?”

He grinned, put his hands on her waist and lifted her to the sink, pushed the hem of

her skirt up to her hips. One thick dark brow rose when he noticed she wasn’t wearing

any underwear.

“I think you’re horny,” she laughed as he lowered his hand to rub her exposed

flesh.

“I’m a horny, stiff, conceited prick,” he corrected, and turned his hand palm up so

he could insert his index and middle fingers into her wet warmth, hooking his thumb

along the crease of her legs as he nuzzled her neck.

Keenan looped her arms around his waist and pulled him as close as she could get

him. “Have I told you I love you?”

He shrugged. “I seem to recall something along those lines.” He took her mouth in

a deep, passion-filled kiss. His tongue laved hers then withdrew to flick across her

bottom lip, poke delicately at the corners. He drew back to stare into her eyes while his

free hand went to the zipper of his pants to free his cock.

“Do you know I love your conceited prick?” she asked in a husky whisper.

“Do you know he loves you?” he countered. He used his thumb to tease her clit.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Keenan writhed beneath his touch.

Fallon eased his fingers from her and positioned his cock at the folds of her damp

channel. He rubbed it against her then slowly pressed into her, snaking his arms around

her to bring her hips closer to his. Her legs locked around him. He surged upward with

his hips to complete the penetration, withdrew a bit then thrust harder.

Her vaginal walls gripped him tightly. He surged into her again with more force.

He brought a hand between them to mold his palm over her breast. He kneaded the soft

globe, a husky growling left his throat.

Their lips fused, their tongues mated. They came at the same blissful moment, the

rhythmic pulsing of their bodies taking them higher than the jet ever could.

288

About the Author

Charlee is the author of over thirty books. Married 40 years to her high school

sweetheart, Tom, she is the mother of two grown sons, Pete and Mike, and the proud

grandmother of Preston Alexander and Victoria Ashley. She is the willing house slave

to five demanding felines who are holding her hostage in her home and only allowing

her to leave in order to purchase food for them. A native of Sarasota, Florida, she grew

up in Colquitt and Albany, Georgia and now lives in the Midwest.

Charlee welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email

address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

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