DarkWind: 2nd Book, WindDemon Trilogy (40 page)

A violent shudder rippled down Cree’s lean body and he jerked his arms from around Dorrie and sat up, wrapping his arms around himself. She could hear his teeth clicking together.

“I w...will not h...harm you, D...dorrie,” he whispered, his voice growing thick.

Dorrie wished she could assure him that she knew he wouldn’t, but she wasn’t so sure. She knew he had once Transitioned in front of Bridget and had even been fed from Bridie’s veins without harming his lady. But that was then and that was the woman he loved. This was now and he was suffering the agonies of the damned because of the ghoret bite. Nothing was the same.

“D...doesn’t m...matter,” he vowed, his febrile eyes searching her. “I will n...never harm you.”

She reached out to stroke his arm and winced at the increase in the heat of his flesh.

“N...not long, n...now.” His words grew thicker and sounded more animal growl than human speech.

Dorrie started to speak but he sprang away from her, plastering himself against the far wall, his shriek of sheer agony making her flesh crawl. She stared at him as he peeled off his clothing and flung it aside.

She swallowed hard, her womb quivering from the sight of his rock-hard body.

One moment he was curled into a fetal position, the next he was on all fours, his back arching like that of an angry cat, his head hanging down between his arms. He shook his head angrily, his body rippling from head to tailbone with the effort like that of a dog shaking off water.

“Kam?” Her heart pounded against her ribcage.

He growled, then threw his head back and howled, the piercing sound reverberating through the cavern.

The weretiger shot to its feet and flung itself from the ledge. The scribbling of its claws on the rock as it strove to gain purchase was loud in the close quarters. It disappeared into the nether regions of the cavern with a screech of terrified protest.

Dorrie’s mouth dropped open as she took in the spectacle of the Reaper going into full Transition. The sounds alone-the splitting of his flesh as claws emerged from his fingers and toes; the regrouping of his internal organs; the snapping of his bones; the leathery growth of his snout and ears pushing out from his head-were enough to give her nightmares for years to come. But the most godawful sound was the liquid squish of fangs pushing up from his mandible and down from the roof of his jaw. The glint of the ivory canines slick with long strands of saliva would stay with her forever.

As would the vermeil eyes glowing out at her from beneath a black, leathery brow framed by thick fur.

Whimpering with terror, Dorrie scuttled like a crab to the far shadows of the cavern and hid there, her face buried in her arms. She covered her ears with her hands to cut off the horrific sounds of his changing. She curled in upon herself, drawing her knees up as close to her body as she could and turned her back to the Reaper. If he could not control his Transition and came after her, at least she would not have to see him approaching.

He growled deep in his throat as he caught the scent of the female. He lifted his snout and sniffed the air, dragging her odor into his expanded lungs. He stood, sniffing again, homing in on the pheromones that pulsed from her excited body. He sidled closer, swinging his great head, then headed toward the female. She had a sweet blood-smell about her and he stopped only a few inches away from her thick golden mane. His snout crinkled as he drew in her scent and his night-gaze moved hungrily over her slender form.

He looked about him. He sniffed the air. Satisfied he had no rival lurking about ready to pounce, he lowered his head and nudged the female.

Dorrie stiffened; her heart beat so fast she thought it would break free of her chest. She trembled as she felt his hot breath on her neck, waiting for those strong jaws to close over her and tear away her spine. She nearly screamed when his rough, pebbly tongue dragged over the flesh at the base of her neck then flicked under the restriction of her arm to lap at her jaw.

“No, Cree.”

A purr started low in his throat as he heard what to his animal ears was the soft whimper of the female’s surrender. He nudged her again, his muzzle seeking her face.

“Cree,” she forced herself to say. “It’s Dorrie. It’s
me
, Kamerone.”

Her words meant nothing to him. In his sickened state, the Reaper did not understand the humanoid tongue. His transition from man to beast was complete and no vestige of humanity existed within his beastly brain. All that registered was his great blood-hunger and the raging desire to rut with the female.

He nudged her again then nipped at her neck with just enough strength to sting.

“No!” Dorrie howled. She tried to scramble away, but he was on her, his forepaws locked around her hips. Terrified, she opened her mouth and screamed.

The Reaper, startled by the loud sound, shook his head, lowered his fangs to the nape of her neck-intending to snare her flesh-then quivered as a heavy blow to the side of his head toppled him from the female and pitched him into blackness.

Cree woke to
a splitting headache and a trio of wary eyes staring back at him from in front of a sputtering fire. Gingerly, he put a hand to the spot on his temple where the pain seemed to have settled and drew his fingertips away dotted with wetness. He stared at his blood.

“Who the hell hit me?”

“Bastard!” yelled Dorrie. “She should have caved in your gods-be-damned thick skull!”

He blinked at the vehemence and turned to Kahmal for an explanation.

“You tried to mate with her,” the Amazeen Major explained.

Cree winced. From the prickly feeling all over his skin, he knew he had to have undergone Transition in the not too distant past, but he could not seem to recall the event. He was sick to his stomach, his head throbbing and the fever making his thirst an unbearable state.

“I was trying to mate with her?” He was amazed at this development. He already had a mate. Transition would not-should not-change that fact. He picked up his clothing and thrust his feet into the pant legs.

“I don’t think you knew what you were doing,” Kahmal told him. “You must have been trying to mark your territory to keep that one from having Burkhart.”

He swung his gaze to the weretiger who gazed back at him with a mournful expression that seemed resigned to whatever fate this superior animal had in store for it.

“She wanted to kill the poor thing and I wouldn’t let her,” Dorrie said in a sulky voice.

“We would be doing it a favor.” The Amazeen was hunched over the meager fire, her frostbitten fingertips black. She was shivering badly.

“Come here, lady,” Cree whispered hoarsely. He held out his hand.

“Not on your life, asshole!” said Dorrie. “I ain’t coming anywhere near you ever again!” She swiped at her breeches as though she could rid herself of the feel of his body atop her own.

“He meant me,” Kahmal snapped. She locked eyes with the Reaper. “What do you want?”

“My body temperature is still high. Let me warm you.”

Her teeth chattering, her body cold, the Amazeen did not think twice about his offer. She crawled over to where he lay on his side and stretched out beside him. As he enfolded her in his arms, put one leg over hers, she pressed against his chest. Almost immediately, the high heat of his body began to thaw the chill of her flesh.

“Dorrie?” he called to her, looking over his shoulder. “Let me hold you, too.”

“Are you kidding me?” She, too, was shivering, the fire providing miniscule warmth as the flames began to die.

“The transition is over,” he said on a long sigh. “You’ll freeze if you don’t.”

“Then I’ll freeze!”

Kahmal lifted her head from his chest and looked up into his tired face. “Do you want me to drag her over here?”

Cree smiled at the Amazeen, but his words were for Dorrie. “Don’t think you can keep your hands to yourself, Burkhart?”

Dorrie’s cornflower blue eyes widened. “You son-of-a-bitch!”

“There was a time you would have given yourself to me without a moment’s hesitation,” he interrupted, staring into Kahmal’s embarrassed eyes.

“That was before you tried to do it doggie-”

“Wolf.”

“What?” Dorrie sputtered.

“I’m more wolf than dog.”

Kahmal’s lips twitched and she had to look away from his amused stare.

“Get your ass over here, Dorrie. My ass belongs to Bridget and yours is safe now that I’m me again.”

Dorrie thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. “Bastard,” she grumbled but despite her anger scooted to where he and the Amazeen lay. She pressed against his back, threading her left arm around under his and between his and Kahmal’s bodies. “Don’t you turn over. Do you hear me, Cree? You keep that projectile aimed toward the Amazeen’s whatsit.”

With the combined heat of the females’ bodies and his own fever, Kamerone Cree was acutely uncomfortable, made even more so when he felt the weretiger settle at his feet and put its bony head on his ankle. He sighed, knowing he would get no rest as sweat oozed down his face, under his armpits, and down his belly.

“A kamwich,” he heard Dorrie mumble.

“What?” asked Kahmal.

“What we have here is a Kam sandwich,” replied Dorrie. “A kamwich.”

“Go to sleep, Dorrie,” said the Reaper, though his eyes glowed more from humor than the fever that made them so unusually bright.

He lay awake
, staring past Kahmal’s shoulder to the frost-rimed walls of the cavern. He knew he would need to wake the women and have them help find firewood. The weretiger, one giant paw on Dorrie’s hip, was straddling the Reaper’s legs, pinning him down, absorbing his warmth as the females were. Cree shifted his legs and the beast opened its eyes.

“Is there prey close by?” Cree asked though he never opened his mouth.

The creature lifted its head and peered down the dark tunnel into which it had fled when the Reaper transitioned.

“How big?”

A visual picture passed from the animal’s mind to Cree’s. Too big for the sickly animal to bring down yet large enough to feed them all: a musklope.

“Water?”

Another picture: an underground lake.

“Get off.”

The weretiger sighed deeply and rolled off the Reaper’s legs with some effort. The creature was very ill, as close to succumbing to its lack of nourishment as it had ever come in its ten years of life.

“I will hunt the ‘lope,” Cree said. “You guard the women. If trouble comes, howl for all you’re worth.”

Kahmal had opened her eyes and was staring at the Reaper’s intense profile. She knew he was communing in some fashion with the werebeast so remained quiet and still. As she studied him, she found she was deeply affected by the handsomeness of his face so close to her own; by the scent of his body odor-wholly masculine, if a bit ripe, from the receding fever. By the movement of the pulse at the side of his throat and the steady rise and fall of his broad chest as he drew breath. She was moved at the feel of his strong arms around her body and the press of his hard length against hers. She found she could draw no other thoughts save those of the man beside her.

“How are your fingers, milady?” he asked softly.

Kahmal was not a woman for pretenses and neither was she ashamed or upset that he had caught her awake and staring at him. She brought her hand up and flexed it. She frowned.

“There is feeling, but the color is still dangerously black, milord.”

“You may lose the tips of your fingers,” he warned, taking her hand and inspecting the discoloration of her flesh.

“It can be no worse than losing a teat to the blade.”

“How ‘bout your toes?” Dorrie asked, yawning.

“I don’t know,” Kahmal answered.

Cree shifted so he could sit up. Kahmal did the same and together they removed her boots.

“Your feet are fine,” he stated, rubbing the cold flesh between his palms.

Kahmal breathed a sigh of relief for when they needed to run, she did not want to slow them down.

Cree’s eyebrows slanted upward in question.

“I will do everything in my power to keep them from taking you to Rysalia, Cree,” she said.

“Why the change of heart?” asked Dorrie.

Kahmal raised her chin. “I have my reasons. You need not be privy to them.”

Cree and the Amazeen stared at one another for a long time then he took her hand, lifted it to his lips and kissed her palm. “My thanks, Lady.”

She withdrew her hand, the flesh tingling from the touch of his mouth. “I owe you my life,” she told him. “Honor dictates I help preserve yours.”

The weretiger butted against Cree’s legs, reminding the Reaper of his promise to provide food. Cree stood.

“The two of you need to find as much firewood as you can. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone but you’ll need at least enough to last until morning. And move further into the cave system. I’ll find you.”

“Where are you going?” Dorrie asked, her eyes worried.