0036393001337282886 wind demon 01 Read online

  “This isn't necessary,” Konnor insisted. “I'll go willingly with you, Hascom.”

  “I would not be you at this moment for all the gold in Ionary, Rhye, ” Ensign Hascom snapped. “Have you lost your mind, man?”

  A grimace of pain shot over Konnor's face as the manacles snapped into place too tightly around his wrists. The S.G.s forced him to his knees in preparation for manacles to be locked onto his ankles.

  “He is not a criminal,” Bridget yelled at them. “For God's sake, don't do that to him!” It was her words that brought Cree into the bedsuite. He had hoped beyond all hope that the scream he had heard when they had blasted into Rhye's quarters had not come from his female's throat. When he had heard her cry out, begging the Security Guards not to hurt the treacherous bastard, he had lost that hope. Hearing her defend her lover had sent a red, hazy film of red fury seeping over his vision and when he had entered the room to find her naked in the Keeper's bed, that fury had turned to murderous intent.

  “Cree!” Bridget gasped, reaching out a hand to him. “Please don't let them hurt him! I beg you. He-”

  “What do you want us to do with him, Captain?” Hascom asked, deliberately cutting off the frightened woman's words. He liked Konnor Rhye and did not want to see the man's blood shed there and then.

  “Cree, please?” Bridget whimpered for the Reaper had advanced on Konnor.

  The man they called the Iceman reached out and grabbed a handful of the Keeper's hair. He brutally dragged Rhye's head back until the cords stood out in Konnor's neck. “You will regret this night, Konnor Rhye,” he seethed. “I swear to you, you will regret it for as long as I let you live!”

  “I don't give a damn what you do to me,” Rhye answered. “But don't you dare hurt her. If you hurt my woman, Cree, so help me-” Konnor's head snapped back as the Reaper backhanded him across the mouth. The return motion of the Reaper's hand sprayed blood as it connected with Konnor's lips.

  “Cree, please!” Bridget shouted. She scrambled off the bed, trailing the end of the sheet behind her. She put out a restraining hand and hooked it on the Reaper's biceps. “He's not to blame…”

  The Reaper rounded on her, his hand drawn back to hit her. His amber eyes flashed with lethal intent as his lips skinned back from his gleaming teeth.

  “No!” Konnor screamed, his own eyes flaring wide with fear for Bridget's safety.

  Bridget flinched, turning her head. She put up her arm to ward off the blow.

  In the moment before she had flinched away from him, Cree had seen the terror in her eyes. He had seen her fear of him. It drove a shaft of bitter ice through his melting heart and his hand came down, clamped painfully around her wrist, instead, then jerked her toward him.

  “You are my woman!” he hissed from between clenched teeth. “My woman! Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, Cree,” she answered quickly. “Yes! Yes!”

  “Not his!” the Reaper denied. “You will never be his again! Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” she replied, nodding.

  The Keeper's mouth was torn and bleeding and he had to spit blood before he could speak. “Hurt her and I will kill you, your heartless bastard!” He thrashed savagely against his captors, but the guards held him securely, Hascom urgently whispering for him to hold his tongue.

  Cree ignored the threat. His hand tightened on Bridget's arm. “Come!” he ordered in a freezing tone and started to drag her from the room.

  “What are you going to do to him, Cree?” she asked, stumbling along in his wake.

  “Be quiet,” he ordered.

  “She will never be yours!” Konnor dared to throw at the Reaper. “As much as you want her, you will never have her! Her heart belongs to me!”

  Cree stopped, turned, and fixed the Keeper with a look that should have dropped the man dead where he knelt. “Be careful,” he said in a deadly quiet voice, “that I do not remove your heart with my bare hands for her to keep as a reminder of this night's folly, Rhye.”

  “Please don't let them hurt him, Cree,” Bridget begged. “I'll do anything you want. I will-”

  “Shut up!” the Reaper shouted at her. He didn't want to know what she was willing to do to save her lover's life.

  Without another word, blocking out the Keeper's venomous curses being heaped down upon his head, Cree turned, jerked Bridget behind him, his fingers clenched around her wrist, and exited Rhye's quarters. He pulled her to the elevator, his hand so tight around her wrist she tried with her free hand to pry it off while attempting to hold onto the sheet in which she had wrapped herself. Stepping on the end of the sheet, she stumbled against him and he had to jerk on her arm to keep her from falling.

  “You are hurting me,” she whimpered, feeling the bones in her wrist grating together.

  “Good!” he ground out.

  “Are you going to beat me?” Fear turned her face white as the sheet she struggled to keep it around her nakedness.

  “I have every right to do whatever the hell I want with you, bitch!” he snarled.

  There were two Keepers on the elevator when the doors opened. Cree's own S.G., Lt. Alexi Noll was one of them. Seeing his commanding officer standing in the corridor, he snapped to attention. “SIR!” he barked.

  “Get the hell out of my way, Noll!”

  “Sir! Aye, Sir!” Noll shoved his companion off the elevator and stood watching with open-mouthed surprise as the Reaper got on the elevator, yanking the half-naked woman in behind him.

  “Who the hell was the female?” Noll's fellow Keeper asked in a shocked voice as the elevator doors shushed closed.

  “Didn't you recognize her? That was Koni's woman.” He winced. “Oh, Sweet Merciful Alel!” Noll breathed. “'Kam and Bridie sitting in a…'” He winced again. “This ain't good!”

  Bridget was trembling violently as she stood next to Cree in the elevator. The back of her hand was slick with his blood and she looked down nervously at the brutal cuts on his knuckles. “You are bleeding,” she said then bent over as his fingers tensed around her wrist.

  “What the hell do you care?” he growled, not bothering to look at her.

  “Captain, I-”

  “Shut up,” he ordered in a hiss of a whisper that brooked no argument. “I don't want to listen to any more of your lies.”

  “I haven't lied to you.”

  “Twenty-one hundred hours,” he said, as though to himself. “Not twenty-two hundred. Not twenty-three hundred. Twenty-one hundred means twenty-one hundred.”

  “I lost track of the time,” she said foolishly and was rewarded by a narrowed, dangerous gaze. The look on his face was purely satanic.

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened to reveal several people waiting to get on. One of them, insensitive to the charged atmosphere and not really having seen who was already in the cage, made to enter.

  “Don't even think about it!” Cree warned.

  The man glanced up, saw who had spoken, and scrambled to get back as far away from the Reaper as the far corridor wall would allow. Bridget caught just a glimpse of Amala Dayle's smiling face beyond the stunned man's shoulder as the door slid closed again.

  Chapter 13

  “COMPUTER!” Cree bellowed as he dragged Bridget into his quarters and sent her careening across the room. He was oblivious to her yelp of pain as she hit the wall and slid down it to land in a heap on the floor.

  “Yes, Captain?” the Vid-Com answered and for once its voice was subdued, respectful.

  “This woman is not to leave these quarters while I am away. She is not to receive visitors nor Vid-Coms nor is to be allowed to make them.”

  “What of a case of an emergency, Captain?” the Vid-Com inquired in a defensive tone.

  “Not even then!”

  “Sir, that is not logical. Suppose she gets-”

  “Fuck your logic!”

  “You language of late has become offensive, Captain,” the computer chastised him. “If this continues-”

/>   “One more word out of you and I will pull out your guts!” he roared and took a step toward the Vid-Com, intent on doing just that.

  “That is not necessary. Your orders are understood and will be acted upon accordingly, Sir.” The machine clicked off.

  Bridget shook violently as she crouched on the floor, rubbing her bruised wrist. When the Reaper turned toward her, his intent mirrored in the coldness of his demon dark eyes, she crossed her arms over her face, allowing the sheet to fall from her heaving breasts. “Don't beat me!” Cree went as still as a deer frozen in the sweep of a ship's landing lights. His eyes dropped to Bridget's naked chest and held. He stood there staring at her breasts as they rose and fell with her agitation, then his gaze lifted to her face.

  What he saw made him want to pull Konnor Rhye's head clean off his body. Bridget's lips were swollen from the Keeper's kisses.

  There was high color in her otherwise ashen cheeks that echoed the rosy flush of her full breasts when he looked down at them again. His jaw clenched. “Cover yourself, woman!” Bridget retrieved the sheet and brought it up to her chin. Her hair was tumbled about her face as though it had been caught in a whirlwind. She risked a glance at the tall man towering above her, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, and thought she well might not survive this night's work despite Dr. Dean's assurances otherwise.

  “Faithless bitch,” she heard her master whisper and flinched as he moved.

  Hunkering down before his captive, Cree almost smiled as the Terran female cowered back from him, plastering herself to the wall. He held her terrified attention, not speaking, and allowed her to feel the depth of his fury. When her eyes filled with tears, the right side of his mouth lifted in a parody of a grin.

  “You should cry, Bridget,” he told her. “It is only fitting that you should shed tears for your lover.” Bridget's mouth trembled. “What are you going to do to him?” she asked, afraid of his answer.

  Cree's left eyebrow twitched upward in disdain. “I can do whatever the hell I fell like to him, Bridget, ” he replied. “He is a lowly Keeper. What is your Earth saying? A dime a dozen? He is expendable and easily replaced.”

  “Don't hurt him,” she pleaded. “I beg you, Captain. He's a good man. He-” She stopped as he reached for her, squeezing her eyes shut as his hand came toward her face. When she did not receive the slap she expected, but a whisper -soft touch on her cheek instead, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

  “You lied to me,” he accused in a soft, tender voice. He traced the back of his hand down her cheek. “You betrayed me and took advantage of my trust.”

  “Blame me, then,” she begged. “Do what you will to me, but don't go after Kon-”

  “Do not say his name, Bridget,” he warned her in the same quiet voice. He turned his hand over and cupped her cheek. “Not ever again.” He rolled forward to his knees before her. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” she nodded. “Anything you say, Captain. Anything you want.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “Did he take you?”

  Bridget felt a shudder go all the way through her soul. She felt the sweat form on her upper lip, saw him look down at her mouth as she flicked out her tongue to wipe away the salty moisture. “Captain…”

  “Did he take you?” he interrupted, stressing each word.

  She tore his gaze from his. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “This night,” he wanted clarified.

  “Yes,” was her soft-as-a-breath reply.

  “Did you enjoy what he did to you?”

  “Captain, please, I…”

  “Did you enjoy what he did to you?” Once more each word was stressed individually, tiny poison darts coming at her: She drew in a hitching sob. “Yes.”

  “Say it,” he ordered softly.

  Bridget moaned. “No, please don't make me do that.”

  “Say it,” he repeated in a gentle encouragement. “Tell me you enjoyed what he did to you this night.” She hung her head, shaking it from side to side, moaning. Her shoulders hunched forward as she sobbed. “I can't.”

  “Shall I go ask him if he enjoyed it or not?”

  Her head snapped up and she saw deadly purpose stamped on his dark countenance. “No. Please no!”

  “Then tell me.”

  Bridget lowered her head once more. “Yes, Captain, I enjoyed it.”

  He didn't speak again for some time then he drew in a long breath, let it out slowly, and moved his hand to her chin where he caressed her, his thumb stroking the point. “Do you want him to die, Bridget?”

  “No!” she denied, her eyes wide.

  “A horrible, agonizing death?” he continued as though she had not answered his first question.

  “Please, no.”

  “I can arrange for him to be with me at my next Transition.”

  She saw his willingness to put Konnor Rhye to death and she tried to shake her head, but couldn't for his grip tightened about her chin.

  “I would tear out his jugular and drain the bastard dry,” he said in a matter of fact tone. “Is that what you want?”

  “No,” she cried, tears falling down her cheeks. “No.”

  “What,” he asked in a silky, sultry-low voice, “are you willing to do to keep him from such a fate, Bridget?” A cold shiver ran down Bridget's spine, struck in the deepest regions of her belly. “W-what do you mean?” she counted.

  The whisper was as soft as a fledgling's down when he answered: “What are you willing to do to convince me not to mutilate your lover?”

  She was shocked as he bent forward and pressed his lips knowingly, expectantly to her forehead, but Bridget schooled herself not to show it. She watched as he pulled back and felt his hot breath on her face. She searched the fevered sparks dancing in his dark orbs-those demonic windows on a dark-stained soul.

  “What will you do?” he breathed.

  The intense sexual longing she saw leaping at her from his searing gaze fascinated her. The heat from his body, the smell of his arousal was intoxicating, and she found herself drowning in the brown abyss of his need. She had no way of knowing the subliminals encoded in the music she listened to daily were sending silent messages to her to respond to that sexual need vibrating in Kamerone Cree.

  “Whatever you w-want, Captain,” she managed to say.

  His smile was slow, lazy, and infinitely victorious. His hand moved from her neck to her left breast and molded itself around the warm flesh. Bridget sucked in a breath, caught in the web of longing that had entangled them both as he hefted the weight of it in his palm and squeezed. When he leaned forward, laying his cheek against hers, his hand tightened on her swollen breast and she groaned. His breath against her ear sent shivers all the way to her toes.

  He took her hand and placed it against the front of his uniform trousers. “Do you feel my need, milady?”

  “Yes,” she gasped, her hand shaking.

  He withdrew slightly and when his mouth slanted toward her own and his velvet -firm lips briefly touched hers, she felt a wild quiver of longing stab through her womb. His tongue parted her lips and slipped between them, flicked along each corner of her mouth, then stabbed deep in the warm recesses.

  Bridget was lost, reveling in the feel of his lips on hers, her hand beneath his pressed to the bulge of his flesh. He was molding her fingers to him, making her rub his erection. She growled deep in her throat as he leapt against her palm.

  “What will you do to satisfy my need, Bridget?” he whispered against her mouth.

  “Anything you desire.”

  Cree pulled back from her, removed his hand from hers though he kept her breast captive with his other hand. “Anything?”

  “Yes, Cree,” she answered, her body on fire wanting his.

  He stared deeply into her eyes for a long, long time, judging the truth of her answer, the depth of her own need. Her nipple was a hard little nub against his palm and he circled it with his hand.

  “Please.” She straine
d forward to plaster his hand to her chest once more. “I will do whatever pleases you!” He smiled at her, watching her answering, hopeful smile, then his became brutally predatory. “That's good to know,” he said, removing his hand from her. He came slowly to his feet then reached out a hand to her.

  Bridget stared up at him in confusion then settled her hand in his. He helped her to her feet, then pulled her-unresisting and more than compliant-into the strength of his powerful arms. She nestled against him, hearing the thunderous tattoo of his heart beneath her cheek; reveling in the musky scent of him; thrilling to the hand on her hair, gently stroking her head. Her arms went about his hard waist, held him to her.

  He held her that way for a long time then he spoke, his voice a purr of victory.

  “I want you…” he began and when she tilted her head to look up at him with breathless expectancy, his smile turned brittle.

  “Yes?” she asked

  Cree eased her out of his arms and held her by the shoulders, looking down into her face. “I want you to go bathe.” Bridget's brows came together. “Bathe?”

  “Aye,” Cree answered. “You have his scent on you and it offends me.” He dropped his hands. “I will not lie with you until you are rid of the stench of him.”

  A tremulous, relieved look came over the Terran woman's face and he wondered why, but she was quick to smile at him, quick to agree and obey. He watched her go, felt a sliver of doubt drive under the flesh of his heart. When the door to the bathing chamber closed behind her, the smile slipped from his face.

  “Computer?”

  “Yes, Captain?” came the hesitant reply.

  “Should an emergency arise while I am gone, you may allow help to enter my quarters. See that nothing happens to her.”

  “Of course, Captain,” the Vid-Com said with what could have passed for relief from a human.