0036393001337282886 wind demon 01 Read online

  ****

  THEY WERE sitting under the sweeping shelter of one of the ancient oaks, Bridget with her back to the tree, Cree with his head in her lap. She had forgiven him for his earlier outburst and was running her fingers through the dark curl of his shoulder length hair.

  “What scared you so badly this morning, Kam?” she asked, glancing up as a distant spear of lightning stitched through the sky to the north of them. She was surprised to see that portion of the sky turning black.

  Cree had been almost asleep, reveling in the feel of her hands in his hair, thinking how he had been able of late to sleep the night through as long as she was lying at his side. He pried his lids open and tilted his head back just a little so he could look up at her.

  “Don't you know?”

  “No,” she drawled. “If I had, I wouldn't have gone swimming.”

  He studied her a moment then realized she was serious. Had she known he was going to react as he had, she would not have dove into the river. He relaxed in her lap. “I am Dearg-Duls, Bridget. Do you not know what that means?” Bridget's hand stilled in his hair. “The Druids of ancient Ireland believed the Dearg-Duls to be vampires,” she said. “But there is no such thing.”

  He craned his neck to look up at her again. “Are you sure?”

  She tugged at his thick curls. “Aye, Reaper, I'm sure!”

  “Do you not realize your ancestors and mine must have met at some point? The cultures are too similar for there to be any other explanation.”

  “So Dearg-Duls came from Chale?”

  “Aye, I would imagine so,” he answered. “But like most folklore, some of their true nature was corrupted in the tales. There is a place not unlike your Stonehenge on Chale Prime.”

  Bridget let that pass. “So how are you like the vampires of Earth?”

  “I can not enter running water. None of my kind can.”

  “So you can't swim. You aren't the only ones who can't.”

  “We can not tolerate the smell of garlic. Reapers shun it like the plague.”

  “I don't like curry, myself.”

  “When we Transition, we shapeshift.”

  “Vampires of Earth did, too,” she responded. “Go on. What other vampiric traits do you have, Reaper? I know you don't have an aversion to sunlight otherwise we wouldn't be sitting here.” Before he could answer, she held up her hand. “And you can see yourself in mirrors so that let's that out. You eat food; you don't sleep in coffins; you brought me the statue of the Blessed Mother so I know you aren't affected by touching holy objects. You don't go around baying at the moon.” She stopped. “Do you?”

  “Not likely,” he said dryly.

  “So if you don't do any of the traditional things that make vampires vampires, what do you do?”

  “We drink blood.”

  Bridget shivered. “I know,” she said quietly. “I fed you some, remember?”

  “I remember,” he replied just as quietly.

  They were silent for awhile then he reached up to take her hand and hold it on his chest. “Don't go into the water, again, Bridget. If you had gotten into trouble, there was no way I could have helped you.”

  “I'm a good swimmer.”

  “Don't do it again,” he said firmly.

  “I like to swim.”

  “Too bad. When we come here, you won't be coming to swim.”

  “Cree-”

  “This place is a little like your Earth, isn't it?”

  She sighed, understanding that the matter of the swimming was settled in his mind. She glanced around them. “Yes, I guess it is.”

  “Once,” he said, sitting up and stretching, “when I had to go after a Hunter, I transported down to a place in your Iowa. This valley reminds me of that place.”

  “Excluding the good Sisters, how many women have you brought back from your visits?” she asked.

  “None.”

  Bridget arched a brow at him. “None?”

  He shook his head. “That wasn't part of my job,” he replied. He stopped, and then frowned. “I take that back. I brought one back when Kryn Kiel's ship had warp drive failure and he hailed us to help him. The female was an important scientist and they needed to get her to the station ASAP. MacCorkingdale was her name. Sada MacCorkingdale.” He thought about that for a moment, and then snorted. “By the gods, but that woman fought me!”

  “Can you blame her?” she asked.

  “Blame her?”

  “I can assure you that being plucked up from the only life you have ever known, by a strange intimidating man, then trekked half-way around the universe to an alien world where you are enslaved-”

  “Enslaved?” he questioned, offended.

  “Yes, Reaper! Enslaved. What do you call the buying and selling of human flesh if not slavery?” He stared at her. “You are not enslaved to me, Bridget.”

  “You bought me,” she accused.

  He had the grace to look sheepish, “True, but-”

  “Can I return home?”

  He shook his head firmly. “No, you cannot.”

  “Leave you to live on my own?”

  “You'd better not try!”

  “See other men-”

  She didn't get that hypothetical question out before he twisted sideways and had her beneath him before she could roll away.

  “Try seeing another man, Bridget, my love, and I will make you watch while I tear out his throat and drain every drop of blood from his screaming body!” The memory of seeing her naked in Konnor Rhye's bed still twisted his gut.

  “Get off me, you oaf!” she hissed, pushing with all her might, but an enraged Kamerone Cree was not an easy obstacle to move.

  “You are mine,” he said simply and his mouth came down to drown out her protests. Before long, his kisses became less punishing and more urgent until, once more, Bridget was without clothing.

  ****

  “I BELIEVE I've created a monster,” she complained as she buttoned her blouse.

  “You started it,” he said.

  She glared at him. “How did I start it?”

  “By ogling me the day I came home.”

  “I was not ogling you,” she snapped, casting her attention to his naked chest for he was scratching the thick pelt of hair over his breastbone.

  “You were ogling me,” he stated. “Just as you are ogling me now. Keep your eyes off me, woman. I am taken.” Bridget grinned. “I know you are.” She reached out and touched the Reaper insignia tattooed on his left pectoral. The insignia stood out sharply against the tan of his bare flesh and she found herself drawn to it as she always was. “Did this hurt when they did it?”

  He glanced down at the stylized crimson scythe and shrugged. “Aye, but it was part of the Initiation into the Warrior Caste and was an honor to endure.”

  She traced it with her fingertip. “The thought of you suffering for any reason hurts me.” She stopped for he had reached up to take her hand. She smiled as he brought her fingertips to his lips and kissed them.

  “Perhaps you were right,” he said releasing her hand. He got to his feet.

  “Right about what?” She watched him jump up until he had caught the lowest hanging branch of the oak tree. The powerful muscles of his arms and chest contracted and released as he settled his hands comfortably around the tree's limb. Swinging his legs up and back several times-going higher each time-he did a back flip from the branch, landing lithely on his feet.

  “Show off,” she sniffed. “What was I right about?”

  He strolled back to her, dusting away the loose bark from his callused palms. “About there being slavery in the Empire.” A jagged line of lightning veered across the northern sky and he noticed it, turning to stare in that direction. “How long has the sky been darkening?” he asked.

  “For awhile now. Why?”

  He bent over, scooped up his uniform shirt, and dragged it over his shoulders.

  “We resent it, you know,” she told him as she watched him button his shir
t.

  “Resent what?” he asked, his eyes still on the occasional lightning.

  “Being brought here and enslaved to you men,” she said. “Many of us are trying to find ways to stop the Retrievals.”

  “Us?” he queried, tucking the shirt into his leather uniform pants. He put his hands on his hips. “You mean the Resistance is trying to find ways to stop the Retrievals?” He did not want to entertain the notion-such as the one Lares Taborn had put into his mind-that his woman could belong to the infamous group that was intent on driving him crazy and destroying the world as he knew it.

  “You say the word ‘Resistance’ like it's evil. They are only trying to help their own.”

  “They play a deadly game.” He cast another worried look toward the lightning in the distance.

  “In what way?”

  “In many ways, Bridget,” he said with exasperation. “They think they can overturn a system of government that has been established for thousands of years. Under the Empire, not only Rysalia, but also its neighbors, have flourished. After the Disruption, the Tribes were scattered all over the galaxy.” He swept his arm toward the forest. “There was no organized effort to get food, provide shelter, to defend themselves. There were no towns, no law; crime was rampant; murder and thievery, a way of life. Until a few men of clear purpose banded together and formed the Tribunal.” She shook her head. “I know Rysalian history, Kam. The Brotherhood re-organized the Tribunal from before the Disruption.

  Brotherhood by its own definition excludes women, now, doesn't it?”

  “Women have to be protected,” he explained. “They are weaker than men; unable to defend themselves from harm and invading marauders.”

  “Saying that to a woman of Celtic ancestry will get you a swift kick in the family jewels, Reaper. The Celts had women warriors far more savage than their men were. And American Indian braves turned over their captives to the women of the tribe because the women were better at torture. Even during the Afghanistan war, the tribesmen let their women have Russian prisoners to torment.”

  “I know how well women can torture a man, Bridget,” he said quietly. “I have experienced it first hand.” Bridget looked away. “That is not what I meant.”

  “The Brotherhood brought law and order to the tribes, Bridget. At least give them credit for that. They made provisions for their womenfolk, too, and established schools for the children. Civilization was re-born from the ashes of the Disruption.”

  “So they've only done good in your world?”

  He shook his head. “No, it hasn't always been good, but you should know what absolute power left unchecked can do. Your world learned that during your Gulf War.”

  “I won't argue that with you.” She came to her knees before him. “Kamerone, your world is much worse than mine has ever been. Even in 1968 when it looked as though the entire planet would explode! Here, at the same time, Jarl was designing that insidious little retrovirus so that those few men of clear purpose could rule their little corner of the universe. Not improve it, mind you, or bring civilization to it, but to dominate it. Isn't that what they are called: The Brotherhood of the Domination? Is that not government run amok, Kam? Government left unchecked?”

  “Aye, I see your point.”

  “And when the women of your world became sterile, when your scientists threw up their hands and said they guessed they'd made a terrible mistake, where were the next generation of Rysalian warmongers going to come from? Not Chale. Not Ionary.

  Not Serenia or Chrystallus or Virago or Diabolusia. Nor from Necroman or Oceania.” She shook her head. “That damned virus made sure of that!”

  “I know, but-”

  “So you came to my little corner of the universe: a place you had no goddamned right to be!” she said bitterly. “You stole from my world. You took from my world and you brought our women here against their will. You bought and sold them and used them like breeding sows. You kidnapped our brightest, prettiest scientists and physicians, regardless of whether or not that woman had a husband, a family she left behind to always wonder what terrible fate had befallen her. You took our best to re -populate your world and those you could not breed or who had no skills, you used as domestic help or as common trollops for your lower caste warriors!”

  “All that is true,” he agreed, “but that is the way life is here. I have no more say in how things are done here than you do.”

  “What happens when a half-Terran, half-Rysalian female is created? It is vacuumed out of its mother's womb and tossed in the incinerator because some faceless male bureaucrat deemed it useless!”

  “That is enough,” he said, uneasy with her argument. It sounded too much like Resistance babble. “I don't want to hear anymore about this.”

  “Can't you understand how terrible a thing it is to be used like that, Kam? ” she asked quietly. “How terrified I felt when I looked up and saw that cybot leaning over me. How degraded and humiliated I felt when I was paraded naked before a committee of Breeders who decided the Empire would best be served if I was handed over to the Ministry of Behavioral Modification instead of going to the pens?”

  “I said that's enough, Bridget.” He turned to stare at the lightning that had crept closer as they spoke. A dark scowl formed on his face. “There is a storm coming.”

  “You'd better believe there is,” Bridget agreed. “The Resistance-”

  “I mean weather-wise,” he snapped.

  “What if I should conceive, Kamerone?” The quiet question gained his full attention. “Have you thought of that?” He looked at her for a moment then turned away. “You must not allow that to happen.”

  “That's easier said than done. I am fertile. Tests were done when Kon-” His head jerked around and his hand came up to keep her from finishing her sentence. “Don't you dare,” he warned, his eyes flashing,

  Bridget bit her lip, watching him as he turned back to the study the increasing flashes of lightning on the horizon.

  “You know that I love you,” she said softly.

  “I know.”

  “Don't you want me to have your child?”

  “You can't.”

  “Why not?”

  He sighed deeply, put his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently. “Because I am a Reaper, Bridget. My seed is tainted; virulent with the spores of a parasite that makes others of my kind. Every child conceived of my sperm is infected with it. Any egg carrying female DNA is automatically devoured by the parasite.” He searched her eyes. “Do you want your child to be born a monster like his father?”

  “You are not a monster.”

  “I am the closest thing to it on my world or yours.” He looked over his shoulder as the wind kicked up and blew his hair across his eyes. “The winds have shifted and we have to go. Rysalian windstorms can be deadly.” He reached for the mini Vid-Com on his utility jacket. “Cree to engineering.”

  There was only a crackle of static.

  “Cree to engineering. Two to transport to FSK-14.”

  Once more the crackle of static was the only sound from the Vid-Com.

  “We've waited too long.” He looked about them and looked for the dense darkness beyond the trees he had discovered earlier. “There is a cave beyond the oaks. We'll shelter there until the storm passes.”

  “I don't like storms,” Bridget said soberly as they began their trek toward the cave. “Thunder and lightning terrify me.”

  “You'd better learn to like them because we've got a serious one on the way.” Chapter 18

  FIRE SNAPPED in the dried twigs he had found. Outside, the wind howled fiercely against the cave's entrance. Murderous cracks of lightning and the ominous reverberation of thunder shook the cave walls and rumbled beneath their feet as Cree and Bridget sat huddled around the meager light of the small fire.

  “How long do you think it will last?”

  Cree was watching the last flickering afterglow from a lightning hit close by. His gaze was uneasy, worried, and he shrugge
d his answer without speaking.

  Bridget pulled his utility jacket closer around her shoulders. “Will we have to spend another night here?” She saw him shudder. “I pray to the gods we do not. One night was enough.”

  “Do you really do that?”

  The Reaper turned his attention from the cave's entrance to her. “Do what?”

  “Pray?”

  He grunted and looked away again. “It is just an expression. If any gods exist, they exist only in your little corner of the Universe.” He shuddered again.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Not at all,” he stressed. “If anything, I am too warm.” He swung his head around and fixed her with a demanding look. “Move away from me.”

  “You don't want me to sit next to you?” she asked, hurt.

  “No, I do not.” He fanned her way. “Go on; move.”

  Bridget pursed her lips tightly, but did as he ordered. Ever since they had entered the cave the afternoon before, he had been getting more and more sharp with her; less and less civil. He had lain down beside her the first night, holding her in his arms, but she knew he had not slept; had not closed his eyes. When she had awakened that morning-aching from a night on the hard ground and hungry-he had been watching her.

  As he was watching her now, his eyes haunted and his mouth tight.

  “If I didn't know any better,” she said, “I'd think you didn't even want me in the cave with you.”

  “I wish to every deity in the megaverse that you were nowhere near me right now!” he hissed as he came to his feet.

  His harsh words shocked Bridget. What had she done to anger him?

  “I have never taken leave,” he was mumbling to himself. “There was a reason I had never taken leave.” He paced the small area in front of the fire, repeatedly running his hands through his dark curls. “I never should have taken leave!”

  “Then why did you?” she asked in a defensive voice.

  “Because I wanted to please you!” His voice turned waspish. “I wanted to give you the sunshine. I wanted to give you the flowers and the grass and the trees and the gods-be-damned butterflies!” Bridget blinked. “And now you regret bringing me here?”