WesternWind 4 - Tears of the Reaper (5 page)

The elder nodded knowingly. “I thought as much.” He smoothed the tumbled hair back from the Reaper’s brow. “Here at the Colony you have no need to worry of such things happening to you. The elders and brothers have firm control of our women. Here, you are safe from those who would hurt you. Sister Rachel was bathing you, nothing more, and we were right here with you.”

Closing his eyes, Owen squeezed them tightly shut, dragging deep breaths into his depleted lungs.

“The elixir in your saddlebags, do you need it?” Elder Barrow asked.

It took Owen a moment to realize what the older man was asking him. “The tenerse?” he inquired, licking his lips.

Elder Barrow straightened up, disapproval falling over his craggy face. “Is that what it is?”

“It keeps me from Transitioning out of cycle,” Owen said, striving to calm his breathing. Sweat was dripping into his eyes, stinging him, and blinked away the discomfort.

The elder’s eyes widened. “When was your last change?” he asked, his voice barely audible.

The Reaper’s head thrashed back and forth on the pillow. “I don’t remember,” he admitted. “I don’t even know how I came to be here.”

“You saved my son’s life,” Edward spoke up. “And I will forever be in your debt.”

A fleeting memory of diving into filthy, oily water drifted through Owen’s mind. “He should not have been fishing in that shit.”

Elder Barrow winced at the vulgarity but smiled. “And his backside and the backsides of his friends were sufficiently heated to remind them of that,” he told the Reaper. “Luckily no fish was caught.”

“I believe it was more the act of fishing than the act of catching that drew them to the Forbidden Zone,” Brother Edward said.

“It was more the act of sneaking away to the Forbidden Zone is my guess,” Elder Barrow said with a snort.

“I am sure you are right,” Edward agreed.

“May we ask your name, brother?” Elder Barrow inquired.

Owen was breathing slower though his head was a tight band of sheer agony. He was cold and still shivering and was grateful when the younger man pulled the blanket up over his nakedness.

“Tohre,” he replied. “Owen Tohre.”

“It is an honor, Brother Owen. I am Elder Barrow Graves and this is Brother Edward Dayton.” He hastily put a hand to his chest. “I am sorry. Forgive me. I should address you as Lord Owen, should I not?”

“It’s just Owen,” he said then frowned. “Where’s my horse?”

“Your mount is being cared for,” Edward told him. “He is in my stable.”

“Thank you,” Owen said.

“If you will tell us how to draw up your elixir and how much to give you, we will have the healer do so,” Elder Barrow told Owen.

The Reaper tugged against the restraints holding his wrists. “Unchain me,” he asked. “I can’t stand being bound like this.”

Elder Barrow’s forehead creased with worry. “Are you sure it is safe to do so?”

“I’m not going to shift any time soon,” he replied. “If you’ll bring me the saddlebags, I can inject myself.”

Elder Barrow looked up at Edward. “Do as he asks, brother.”

Edward turned and left, quietly closing the door behind him as the elder began unlocking the shackles.

“We would not have confined you so if you had not been hallucinating,” Elder Barrow explained.

“It was the tenerse,” Owen said. “I took too much of it.”

The elder had moved to the foot of the bed. “Then should you take more?”

“How long have I been here?”

“Tomorrow will begin your second week.”

Owen sighed, amazed he’d been out of it for so long. “It’s a good thing I had so much tenerse in my system or I would have Transitioned by now. Even going a day without the tenerse has consequences for my kind.”

“Then it is something you must take daily?” Elder Barrow asked.

“Aye. I don’t have any choice in the matter.”

His right wrist and both ankles were free and the older man was moving to the head of the bed to unlock his left wrist.

“We do not believe in taking elixirs that addict the user to them,” Elder Barrow stated, “but I can see where this particular elixir would have benefit to you.”

Owen knew he’d been abusing the drug and needed to taper off but he couldn’t remember how much he’d taken the last time. He guessed he’d find out if the dose he injected didn’t calm the raging pain pounding between his temples.

“One of our elders brought up the question of what we should do with you if you do Transition,” Elder Barrow said.

“I will need to be locked away where I can’t harm anyone,” Owen said honestly. “Hopefully I’ll be gone from here before that happens.”

“You are welcome to stay as long as you like,” the older man said.

There was a light tap at the door then Edward came into the room with Owen’s saddlebags. He brought them over to the bed. “You are feeling better?” he inquired.

“My head feels like it’s on an anvil,” Owen answered. He held up his hand. “But I’m not shaking like I was.”

“I have had headaches such as that,” Edward admitted. “A cold cloth and a dark room seem to help.”

“Aye,” Owen agreed. “They do.”

Opening the saddlebags, Owen took out a vial of tenerse and the vac-syringe. He loaded the syringe quickly and efficiently.

“We do not have manufactured elixirs here,” Elder Barrow said. “Our elixirs are prepared as needed from natural things.”

“I guess you could call this natural,” Owen said as he thumped down an air bubble in the syringe. “It is made from a fungus that grows on stalks of rye.”

“Ah,” Elder Barrow said. “So it is not artificially created.”

“No,” Owen said. He swallowed then reached up to plunge the needle into his neck. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw both men wince.

“Does that hurt?” Edward asked with awe in his voice.

“Like a motherfu…” Owen’s face turned red and he dipped his eye. “Aye, it hurts.” He put the syringe down and rubbed the injection site to help disperse the burning pain lodged there.

“Would you like something to eat?” Edward asked. “You must be…”

“No,” Owen said. His mouth and lips had gone numb and that wasn’t a good sign. “Not right now.”

“Then we will let you rest,” Elder Barrow said. “Sister Rachel will be on duty outside your door. Should you need anything, do not hesitate to ask.” He put a hand on the Reaper’s calf and squeezed lightly. “Anything you desire of her, simply ask. She is obliged to provide it.”

When the men left, Owen threw back the covers. He had difficulty pushing himself to a sitting position but he was burning up, sour sweat pouring off him in waves that made him sick to his stomach to smell. He leaned against the ironwork headboard of the bed with his hands braced on the mattress, panting with the simple effort of sitting up. Though his mouth and lips were numb, his hands and feet tingling as though they’d been asleep, his head was a crushing, roaring torment that made him want to bang it against the iron. With hands trembling violently, he put his fingertips to his temples and rubbed, pressing hard against the violating agony.

“Merciful Morrigunia, make it stop!” he whispered, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. “Please make it stop!”

His parasite shifted brutally within his back and he cried out, falling over to his side, drawing his knees up as the hellion raked Her spiny barbs along the inner muscles of his back. He dug his fingers into his scalp, his palms plastered over his ears.

“Make it stop,” he pleaded, tears welling in his eyes.

He did not hear the door open nor the soft footsteps that approached the bed but the sweet smell of lemongrass drifted under his nostrils and he opened his eyes. He saw a young woman placing a large porcelain basin on the table beside the bed and lay there shuddering as she took a washcloth from the pocket of her black gown and laid it in the water.

Rachel had been ordered to listen for any signs of distress from the patient. As soon as she’d heard the outsider cry out, she hastened to do the elder’s bidding. She wanted to care for this man. She wanted no other to touch him—to ever touch him. She wanted it to be her hands that healed him, her body to which he clung when he was well. Such thoughts were not only forbidden, they were hopeless for he was an outsider and to lay hands to him in any encouraging way would be a wicked transgression.

“A cool cloth upon his brow would be of help, sister,” Elder Barrow had instructed. “Stay with him until he falls asleep. You may speak with him only if he desires it but do not instigate conversation. Do not touch any portion of his body save his brow. Is that understood?”

She had nodded in agreement, too afraid of the elder to speak.

Rachel wrung out the washcloth, folded it and turned to her patient. His amber eyes were narrowed in obvious pain, his handsome face showing the strain. Trying not to think about what she was going to do, she put a gentle hand over his and pressed lightly to make him move his fingers so she could lay the cloth on his forehead.

Owen hurt too badly to protest. He slid his hands from his head, clasped them and stuck them between his thighs, shivering so badly his teeth were clicking together.

With the cool cloth in place, Rachel reached for the sheet to cover him.

“Don’t,” he said, swallowing hard. He wasn’t cold although he realized she must think he was considering he was trembling so forcefully. “Burning up.” Once more he squeezed his eyes shut.

His plight touched her tender heart. He seemed to be in such agony. His flesh was hot to the touch and sweat glistened on his upper lip, ran in slow rivulets down his broad chest to trickle through the thick mat of hair there. Knowing the cloth was already warm to the touch, she took it from his brow—frowning at the heat coming from the material—and rewet it. Placing it on his head, she sinned again by putting her fingertips to his temples to begin a slow, gentle circuit as her mother used to do for her when she was a child.

Owen’s eyelids fluttered open. The scent of her flesh so close to him and her tender touch soothed him. “That feels good, wench,” he told her.

She massaged his temples until he closed his eyes then removed the cloth to wet it again.

“What’s your name?” he asked. She took so long to answer, he thought she might be mute, but at last she spoke.

“I am Sister Rachel,” she said, and her voice was as comforting as her touch.

“Rachel,” he repeated. He drew her womanly scent deep into his lungs. “I am Owen, Rachel.”

“It is an honor, Lord Owen,” she said. She liked the name, thought it very masculine and it fit the man who owned it.

“Just Owen,” he told her, beginning to be very aware of her but it wasn’t an awareness that he should be having at that moment and he knew it.

“I may not call you just by your given name, Lord Owen,” she said. “It is not permitted for a woman to show such disrespect for a man.”

The awareness was increasing at an alarming rate and that portion of him he feared would never again rise to the occasion was hardening, becoming engorged, actually beginning to throb. Though it should have been a welcome relief to know his cock still worked, now wasn’t the time to find it out.

“Is this helping, Lord Owen?” Her fingertips were still making tiny circles on his pounding temples.

Owen caught himself before he told her it was helping but not in the way she meant. Her help was doing things to him he hadn’t felt in several months and—a month ago—never thought to feel again.

“Ah, aye, it does,” he managed to respond.

“If you want anything, all you have to do is ask,” she said, remembering what Elder Barrow had instructed.

Under normal circumstances, Owen Tohre was a very considerate man and polite to females to a fault. His mother had raised him to protect and cherish the women in his life and his love for Siobhan had only reinforced those teachings. Though he had lost the woman he loved long ago and had never considered taking a mate, the Reaper was suddenly experiencing urges that he knew were wrong. Before he could stop, he heard himself say…

“I want you, wench.”

Chapter Three

Rachel’s hands stilled and her eyes grew as big as saucers in her pale face. She stood like a statue—afraid to look down at the gleaming eyes that were staring up at her. Barely even breathing, she slowly closed the lips that had fallen apart with astonishment at his words and tried to swallow past the thick lump in her throat. Slowly, very, very slowly, her gaze lowered to the man on the bed.

By all that was holy—and a lot that wasn’t—he had to be the most handsome man she’d ever had the pleasure to look upon. She knew as surely as she drew breath that she had already lost her heart to this stranger. Through magic or mischance, he had slithered into her soul and taken up residence there. With his coal black hair and those remarkable golden brown eyes spiked with indecently long eyelashes, those full lips and a muscular body that seem to beckon her roaming hands, to her inexperienced mind he was near perfection. How it could be she’d fallen so quickly and so deeply in love, she did not know, but instinct—and her treacherous body—assured her she had.