DarkWind: 2nd Book, WindDemon Trilogy (17 page)

At the thought of his bloodson, Kamerone Cree hung his head, closed his eyes, and began the rune of protection he had spun around the infant from the moment he’d first laid eyes on Jaelin.

Although he resented the fact that Bridget had allowed herself to conceive a child during their lovemaking, he had accustomed himself to the notion while she was pregnant. He had feared for her safety, but what concerned him most was his fear of what the infant would look like. Having heard the particulars of his own birth-and the tragic end of his dam at that time-he was terrified the baby would be a miniature replica of himself while in full Transition. He envisioned the horror he would see on the faces of the women gathered around Bridget’s birthing bed and the screams of shock and disgust from his lady.

But there had been no screams-not even of pain-and the birthing had gone easily for both mother and child.

“Your lady is designed to bear many children,” Lares had pronounced upon learning Bridget was with child. “She will have no problems giving birth.”

That there would be no other children born of their love, Cree fully intended to make certain. There were ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies and he would make sure Bridget did not conceive again. One mistake was unavoidable. Two would be unthinkable.

As relieved as he was that his lady had survived the birthing and that she had experienced no undue amount of agony in the doing of it, he was still as nervous as a green youth after the birthing. He found himself backing away from Tina Portas as she walked toward him carrying the infant.

“Would you like to see your son, Kamerone?”

For a moment, he thought of refusing, but his curiosity got the better of him and he shuffled forward, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. When Tina eased aside the blanket covering his son’s face, Kamerone Cree lost his heart to the tiny wonder.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Tina had asked.

Beautiful? No, the child was not beautiful. He was wrinkled and red and his little face was screwed up in a mighty frown of whatever sensation the infant was experiencing at that moment. His tiny hands were peeling and his thick brown hair was in spikes around his round head. But when the miniscule little lashes lifted and the bright green of his gaze appeared to go unerringly to his father, Kamerone Cree felt his knees buckle and his heart begin to pound fiercely.

“He has my lady’s eyes,” he said, his throat closing. Bridget’s gaze had followed him during his nightmarish torture in the lab of the Be-Mod Nine unit and those beautiful eyes had been his only respite from the agonies visited upon him in that hellish place. To him, Bridget’s eyes were the only saving grace in his dark-stained world at that time.

“What will you name him?” Dorrie had asked.

He and Bridget had not discussed a name for their son. Both knew what the sex of the child would be since his parasite would not have allowed a female fetus to exist within Bridget’s womb.

“Name him?” he repeated and shrugged. “Bridget will want to name him.”

Beryla Dean smiled. “She said she preferred you to give your child his name.”

Pride made Cree’s captive heart swell and his slight smile was not lost on the women gathered around him, each waiting anxiously to see how the Reaper would respond to his son.

“Name him, Cree,” Lares had demanded from the doorway.

Cree looked to Lares and to Raine McGregor, to Tealson Hesar and Tylan Kahn, to Alexi Noll and Paegan Thorne, André Arbra and Hern Belvoir: the men who had risked life and limb to make the journey to Terra so his lady and he could be re-united. He nodded then turned his attention to the women who had fled the domination of the Rysalian Empire: Beryla and Dorrie, Tina Portas and Aurora Burds, Amala Dayle and Ivonne O’Malley.

There was one word in his language he wished for them all so he spoke it as he named his son: “J’Nai, Jaelin”. In Rysalian High Speech, it meant: peace, to the child of us all.

“J’Nai, Jaelin,” the others repeated for each of them knew the meaning behind the name the Reaper chose.

“Would you like to hold your son?” Beryla had asked quietly.

He had shaken his head so hard in denial of the request, he had developed a bitch of a headache and had backed away, fearful of hurting the infant. Afraid his parasite would do harm to a male destined to replace Kamerone Cree in the order of nature, he put distance between them. Such was the way of the Dearg Duls and the beastly thing that lived inside them.

But no one there understood why he did not want to touch his son and each had silently condemned Cree in his or her own way: as a coward or as selfish or as uncaring. None knew that he dared not touch the boy or that the heart inside him was aching with the need to do so.

“There’s time,” Beryla had said, but her own eyes were unforgiving of Cree’s inability to take his child into his arms and bond with it.

So he had walked away, feeling their condemning eyes following him every step of the way.

When Lares had found him sobbing uncontrollably on the floor of the restroom, he had so shocked the dark man, Lares had been unable to express himself for a moment or two. At last, Lares had demanded Cree stop crying.

“You are bawling like a Diabolusian jackass, you Ry-Chalean dog! Cease at once or I shall be forced to squash you like the bug you are!” When Cree continued to weep, Lares had shoved him rudely. “Reapers do not cry, Iceman!”

“This one does!” Cree snapped as he turned his face to the Necromanian.

“For what purpose?” Lares asked, stunned by the misery he saw in Cree’s amber eyes.

And so the Reaper had explained why he could not touch Jaelin. He unburdened his heart and soul to his friend. Told him why it was no Reaper was ever allowed to see his children and why no Reaper was ever allowed to know a child of his loins.

“The Dearg Duls within me would strive to kill the rival male. Do you not understand that, Taborn?”

The Necromanian understood. “You must tell your lady,” Lares insisted.

“I cannot!”

“Why can you not?” The Necromanian’s deep bass voice was like thunder from the heavens.

“If I tell her there is a chance I might harm our child, she will run as far away from me as she can get.” Cree’s eyes were filled with misery.

“So you will let her think you have no love for your own child and that the mere contact between you is loathsome,” Lares stated, shaking his head. “That is not acceptable, Cree.”

“I have to protect him,” the Reaper replied. “The only way I know how!”

And so he had done the only thing he could do: pray for his child and make sure he did not touch the boy.

Even though his heart ached to know the feel of the little body in his arms and his soul cried with the need to place his lips against his son’s.

A hitch of emotion shuddered through Kamerone Cree and he began to mouth once more the rune of protection for the child.

“Like, you have to leave now, dude.”

Cree opened his eyes and turned to look at the pimply-faced boy standing in the aisle. “What?”

“You can’t like stay and watch the movie again,” said the gangly teenager. “It’s my job to roust loiterers.”

“Job,” Cree repeated as though the word had no meaning for him.

“Yeah, like I’ve got a job,” the teenager smirked. “Don’t you?”

“Go away.”

“Look, dude,” the kid sneered, “like, don’t give me any shit. You understand? I’ll call the cops on your ass. Now, scram.” He flicked on his flashlight and made the mistake of aiming it directly into Cree’s eyes.

With the speed of a weretiger, Kamerone Cree was out of his seat and the teenage boy was a foot off the carpet, his designer tennis shoes scissoring the air, his designer shirt front clutched in the hands of a man whose eyes were glowing a deep, scarlet red.

“Go...away!” Cree repeated and tossed the teenage boy like a piece of refuse into the seats across from him.

Kory Kimball’s back hit the arm of one of the theatre seats and he yelped as he slid to the dirty floor amidst crushed popcorn and spilled soda pop. But as painful and humiliating as the fall was, the sheer terror of looking up at the glistening teeth and pulsating laser-red eyes of the man who’d thrown him, kept the teenager from making a sound.

“You should respect your elders, boy,” the man advised. “Did your sire not teach you this?”

Kory bobbed his head, his mouth opening and closing like a catfish’s. He knew he couldn’t possibly be seeing the man’s ears elongating and his fingernails extending into claws, but he would later tell his friends at the arcade that the bastard who had attacked him had been more beast than man.

“Now, go...away!” Cree insisted and took a step toward the terrified boy.

Galvanized into action at the impending threat, Kory let out a high-pitched shriek and scrambled backward on all fours until he reached the far aisle. Twisting his body, he gained his feet and took off running, not bothering to see if the man was following him.

“Fool,” Cree called himself. He knew the boy would alert the theater staff that would in turn make a call to the security force. For a moment, he contemplated leaving quietly, slipping out the exit door before any further harm could be done.

But he let the moment pass and returned to his seat.

He was still sitting there staring at the blank screen when the Dougherty County police arrived.

“Strip,” the
Sergeant ordered.

A muscle worked in Cree’s jaw but he said nothing. He shrugged out of the leather jacket and tossed it to one of the two men flanking the Sergeant. He yanked the shirt from the waistband of his jeans and began unbuttoning it with one hand while the other hand opened and closed into a fist at his side.

Sergeant Joe Hampton watched their prisoner carefully. The man put up no resistance when he’d been arrested at the Georgia Nine-o-Plex on Westover Road. He’d been cuffed, read his rights then shoved into the back of a cruiser. There had been no identification found on the pat down and the perp had not responded to questioning. The only time he’s shown any sign of hesitation to do as he was told was when they made him remove the necklace he was wearing. For a moment, Hampton thought the prisoner would balk at the demand, but then he’d jerked the gold chain over his head and flung it to the counter, staring at it intently for a moment before shrugging as though it didn’t matter.

Photographed and printed before being brought down to lockup, the man had ignored all attempts to learn his identity. He’d even smirked when he was printed, giving the impression that he knew something they did not.

That ‘something’ had been the fact that the perp had no fingerprints. Not one swirl, not one knick, nothing.

The pads of his fingertips were as smooth as glass.

“It’ll make it harder to find out who he is,” O’Hearn in booking had promised, “but we’ll do it. We’ve seen this sort of thing before. I’ll alert the G.B.I.”

The words hired assassin had swept through the police station and every cop within a ten miles radius had found a reason to drop by to take a look at the prisoner.

“I wouldn’t want to tangle with him in a back alley,” was the consensus of the majority of policemen.  

Cree dragged off his shirt and let it fall to the floor.

“What’s that?” Brent Busbee asked, pointing at the tattoo on Cree’s chest. He unfolded his beefy arms and stepped closer to the bare-chested man. “Hot damn! That looks like it was burnt on!”

Cree stared straight ahead of him, ignoring the overweight security man standing closer than was comfortable for the Reaper. He was unbuckling his belt when Busbee reached out to touch the laser-imprinted Reaper insignia. Before anyone could react, Busbee was sailing across the room, hitting the wall with enough force to knock five posters to the floor.

“Do not touch me!” Cree’s lips skinned back.

Hampton whipped out his stun gun and zapped the prisoner who merely shrugged off the electrical charge as though it were the nuisance of a pesky insect.

“Is that the best you can do, Keeper?”

“Keeper?” Terry Akins, the third cop, repeated, drawing his service revolver. He flexed his knees, brought the weapon up, cradling his right wrist in his left hand, and flicked off the safety. “You fucking move and I’ll fry you, mister!”

Something evil crawled through the prisoner’s heated gaze and all three policemen felt the hair standing on their arms. Quickly drawing his own piece, Busbee shook his head and pointed it pointblank at the prisoner.

Hampton increased the voltage on his stun gun and hit the prisoner again, staggering the man this time, but doing no more damage than a mosquito bite. He flicked the dial to full capacity and was relieved when the man went to his knees with the jolt.

“Cuff him!” Hampton ordered and Busbee and Akins were on the prisoner, pressing him to the tile floor.

Cree felt his arms being jerked behind him and the chill of the handcuffs encircling his wrists. He grunted as the stainless steel bracelets were clamped too tightly, but made no move to break free of the men restraining him although he could have done so with ease. He grunted again as he was dragged to his feet because the man on his left-Busbee-slammed his fist into Cree’s back, disturbing the parasite and the thing responded by pressing against a nerve along Cree’s spine. The pain was intense for a second and Cree’s knees buckled.