Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Hunger's Harmattan (10 page)

Ailyn turned his head to both sides. “I
look just like my father,” he whispered.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

He stared at his reflection. His mother had
always insisted his hair be shorn military fashion, close to his scalp, and he
had hated that skinhead look. On R-9, he didn’t see a mirror for close to
twenty years but his jailers kept his hair trimmed close to his ears for
sanitary reasons. When he’d arrived on Theristes, he’d let it grow—just because
he could. But seeing himself now and realizing just how much he looked like his
father, he wasn’t sure how he felt.

“I don’t know, Shanee,” he answered
honestly. “A little of both, I think.”

“Go take a dip in the water to get the
stray hairs off you else they’ll be prickling you all day,” she told him.

He didn’t question her order but got
up—running both hands through his shortened hair—and waded into the lake.

“You are very good for him, Shanee.”

She looked around to see Tariq. Thankfully
he had a towel wrapped around his privates as he squatted down beside her. “I
wish I could take the shadows from his eyes,” she admitted.

“That will come in time,” Tariq said. “He
is nearing Transition. Did he tell you?”

“Aye,” she said, nodding. Her eyes were on
her lover as he did a powerful butterfly stroke through the water. “He said I
was to stay here.” She let out a long breath. “He won’t even let me see him
take Sustenance or the tenerse I know he injects each morning.”

“It is because it shames him that he must
do that in order to thrive,” Tariq declared. “He sees it as a weakness and he
does not want you to view him in that light.”

“I don’t care about him being a Reaper,”
she said, stabbing the scissors into the ground. “I don’t.”

“I understand that but he doesn’t.”

“He won’t try,” she snapped.

Tariq shrugged. “Shanee, to him being a
Reaper is a foul, evil thing. He cannot see past the creature he becomes to the
soul within the beast. He cannot see the good that could come from having
powers such as his. He struggles with it but until he learns to accept what he
is, not to rail against it but acknowledge it, he will never know peace. Of all
the men who have had this done to them, he is the only one who is fighting it
so fiercely.”

Tears filled Shanee’s eyes at her lover’s
pain. “How can I help him accept it?”

“I don’t think you can. I don’t think
anyone can. He must do that on his own.”

Ailyn looked up to see the Prime Reaper
sitting close to his woman and a sharp dart of fury pierced through him. With
his jaw flexed, he struck out for the shore, his eyes blazing.

Tariq shook his head. “Be understanding
with him, Shanee. He is about to let loose a portion of the beast he tries so
hard to contain.” He got up and walked away before Ailyn could leave the water.

“Tariq!” Ailyn bellowed, and every villager
stilled, every eye turned their way, every breath—especially so Shanee’s—held.

“Aye, my friend?” Tariq asked, stopping and
turning to face him.

“I am requesting a
Ceangal
on the
day I return from my punishment,” Ailyn stated.

Tariq frowned. “It is not a punishment,
Ailyn, and well you know that.”

“I want the
Ceangal
!” Ailyn
insisted. “It is my right and I am demanding it!”

“What is a
Ceangal
?” Shanee asked as
she looked from one man to another.

“It is what my people call a Joining,”
Tariq said. He locked gazes with her. “Is that what you wish as well, Shanee?”

“I wish it!” Ailyn shouted. “And I will
have it!”

“Unless your lady agrees to it, there will
be no
Ceangal
, Ailyn,” Tariq snapped.

“And until you ask her in the correct,
time-honored way,” Bahiya said as she came to stand beside her mate, “I will
advise her not to agree.” She lifted her chin and folded her arms over her
chest.

Ailyn’s hands were opening and closing at
his sides. His face was hard with fury, his eyes sparking amber fire. His
breathing was shallow and quick and a vein throbbed in his temple. For a moment
he glared at Bahiya then expelled a long, irritated breath out through his
nose. “What do I need to do?” he asked.

“You need to get down on your knee, take
her hand and ask her in the way she deserves to be asked,” Bahiya told him.
“She needs to hear the words from you that you will love, honor and protect
her.”

Other than the roar of the waterfall in the
background, there was not another sound being made there at the lake. Every
villager was staring intently at Ailyn, awaiting his response to the Prime
Reaper’s lady’s demand. Though he was well-liked by the villagers, none knew
him as well as Tariq did and most were wary of his refusal to embrace what he
had become.

Shanee met Ailyn’s gaze. Her lower lip was
tucked between her teeth. This was something she had never thought would happen
to her. Joining with a man—not even Rory Quinn—had not been on her list of
things to do in her lifetime. Though she had loved the Phantom, he had broken
her heart and she had never thought she would give that heart to anyone else.
Yet with Ailyn it was different. It seemed right to Join with him. It seemed
natural. It was something she found she wanted very deeply.

“I love you,” Ailyn told her.

“If you do, then humble yourself before
her,” Bahiya said, “else those are just words and they mean nothing.”

“Bahiya,” Tariq said in a low voice that
only his lady knew was a subtle, gentle warning.

Drawing in a deep breath, Ailyn came to
stand before Shanee. He held his hand out to her and helped her to her feet.
When she was standing—her hand in his—he dropped to one knee and brought her
hand to his heart.

“I love you,
ionúin
,” he said. “I
want nothing more than to spend my life beside you. I vow that I will love and
honor you, protect and care for you all the hours of our lives. I will stand
beside you in good times and in bad, I will respect your goals and your beliefs
and I will honor them as I honor you. I am asking you to be my life-mate, my
help-meet as I pledge I will be those things to you.” He lifted her hand to his
lips and kissed her knuckles. “Will you Join with me, Shanee Iphito?”

Shanee’s heart was trip hammering in her
chest and her throat was clogged with unshed tears, making it impossible for
her to speak. She could only nod.

“Aye?” he asked, his face hopeful.

She nodded again and when she got the one
word out, her voice broke. “Aye.”

Ailyn shot to his feet and swept her up in
his arms, slanting his mouth across hers in a kiss that practically sizzled.

A resounding cheer went up from the
villagers and Bahiya breathed a sigh of relief. She cast her mate an arched
look then turned away.

Two days later Ailyn left the village to go
back to the cave alone. For the first time since his first Transition, he did
not fear the change but looked forward to it. He wanted it over with so he
could return to Shanee and the
Ceangal
that awaited him.

Trudging deep into an underground portion
of the cave to which he’d never taken Shanee, he was aware of the chill that
flushed over his naked body. He had removed his breechclout—his one concession
to propriety—for when he shifted into his beastly form, the small strip of
clothing would be torn asunder anyway. Barefoot and shivering as he moved
farther below the surface, the distant drip of water and squeal of bats caught
his attention. He knew the bats would be fleeing his arrival, streaking out
through the vents only they could fit through.

With him he carried a small satchel that
contained a vial and vac-syringe of concentrated tenerse and four quart-sized
bottles of blood. The blood would keep chilled in a small pool fed by an
artesian well whose bubbling waters were ice cold.

When he reached the seven-foot-round hole
that opened into what appeared to be a bottomless expanse, he was beginning to
feel the itch, the heat infusing his body that signaled the onset of
Transition.

He took the satchel and set it down beside
the incandescent pool. He took out the Sustenance, put the bottles into the
water and then went over to squat at the opening of the cavern with its slick,
steep walls that were as smooth as glass. He waited until his bones began to
pop, his sinews to stretch, his joints creak then he jumped off into space as
the first wiry hairs began to sprout on his elongating body. By the time he hit
the bottom of the lava tube—landing lithely on his feet—he was more animal than
man. By the time he let loose the howl hovering in his throat, he was no longer
human and would not be for nearly a week.

* * * * *

Shanee hesitated as Bahiya stood cooking
their midday meal. She had read the reports of what Transition was like for the
men who had been turned into Reapers but reading of it and hearing of it
firsthand were two separate things. She ached to know what it was her mate was
experiencing at that moment.

“Talk to Tariq,” Bahiya said, not looking
up from the pot. “A man’s Transition is different from a woman’s.”

Sometimes Shanee forgot that Bahiya was a
female Reaper even though—like now—the older woman could read her mind so
easily. Bahiya was so quiet, so shy and so gentle with everyone around her it
was hard to imagine she could turn into a raging beast.

“I nibble things,” Bahiya said with a
giggle, and glanced around at Shanee. “I don’t gobble like my man.” She laughed
at her joke and waved Shanee toward Tariq who was working at his forge.

It was only when the Prime Reaper fashioned
jewelry and art pieces that he wore clothing of any kind. A thick leather apron
hung from his neck to cover his body from chest to knee.

“A spark on your dangly hurts like the very
demon,” he had explained to her. “Doesn’t feel good on your nipples either.”

Tariq was hammering a small strip of
red-hot gold on the anvil when she joined him. He smiled. “He’s in full
Transition and not in any kind of pain.”

She sat down on a stump that was used as a
stool. “Will you tell me what it is like for him?”

“You read the file on Reapers,” he said.
“Did they not show you a vid-com? I know they made one of each man’s first
Transition.”

“I saw Damian’s but General Strom said he
couldn’t find Ailyn’s.”

“He lied,” Tariq said.

“Why would he?”

“I am sure he had his reasons.” He was
holding the gold strip with long-handled tongs as he worked it. Stopping his
hammering, he lifted the strip and plunged it into a bucket of water.

“So tell me what Ailyn is going through.
Make me understand what happened to him that day.”

“What has he said to you about it?”

Shanee looked out over the village. “He
said when the Transition began he didn’t know what was happening. No one had
told him what to expect.”

“They didn’t tell anyone,” Tariq stated.

She went on to tell him the other things
Ailyn had revealed to her about that hideous day.

“You spoke to him when he was undergoing
the change,” she said.

“I tried but he didn’t really hear me. That
wasn’t important. It was the sound of my voice reassuring him that he wasn’t
alone in this that was meant to allay his fears.”

“He thought he was going insane.”

“They all did,” Tariq said. “When he began
listening to me, he was no longer so despondent though he constantly begged to
be allowed to die.”

“Thank the gods he wasn’t put down like the
rogues,” she said. “As hard as it was for him, at least he didn’t go insane
with it.”

Tariq took up another gold strip from a
small brazier and laid it on his anvil. “The stronger the man, the better, and
Ailyn is a strong man. That first Transition is always the hardest,” he told
her. “Most especially for a male Reaper. Females handle acute pain far better
than we do so their first Transitions aren’t as hard on them as ours are on
us.” He began hammering the gold strip. “The pain won’t ever be as severe after
that initial conversion. It is bad, it hurts, but it doesn’t last as long and
comes quicker and easier with each Transition. After twenty years, Ailyn’s
Transitions are more annoying to him than painful.”

“So he isn’t suffering,” she wanted
clarified.

“Not physically, no.” He shrugged.
“Mentally? That’s another story.”

“For all Reapers?”

“For Ailyn,” he replied softly. He lifted
the gold strip with the tongs and dropped it beside the other one in the
bucket.

“What about our children?” she asked.

“Your sons,” he stated.

She knew the hellion would never allow
female zygotes to live. “My sons,” she agreed.

“In Ailyn’s sub-generation of Reapers, his
sperm is rife with the spores of the revenant worm but when a child is
born—unless both parents are Reapers—that child is not Reaper until he is given
his own Transference.”