Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Hunger's Harmattan, Unknown [best ebook for manga TXT] 📗

huts so their talking would not bother the villagers trying to sleep. Thoughthe moon had set, neither needed a torch to light their way for their eyesightwas as keen as a wolf’s in the darkness. It was to the waterfall they went.Sitting down side by side on a broad, flat rock, they stared out over thewater. Neither spoke for a long time. Finally it was Tariq who broke thesilence.

“From the dawning of time when man awoke tofind a rib missing and a woman lying at his side, it has been the duty and theobligation of the male to protect the female, to care for her, to provide forher, to give her children. It has been the female’s task to care for her mate,to keep his hut, to bear his children and to give him the pleasure of her body.Traditionally, she is the weaker, he the stronger, and it is his will that isdone.”

Tariq said nothing for a few minutes as helet his companion absorb those words. When he spoke again, he drew one leg upand rested his wrist upon his knee.

“Now consider the Amazeen,” he said. “Theyare a race of women who believe it was not they who came second into creationbut that they were here first, life having been breathed into them by thegoddess. The first man came from woman’s womb as a child to be led and taughtand controlled. Because they believe males are inferior, the Amazeen bow to noman. They are fierce warrior women and are deadly, capable fighters. Theycapture and enslave men of other races and think nothing of castrating them ifthe mood strikes. They think nothing of cutting off their breast to enhancetheir ability to pull a bow. What man—I ask you—would cut off one of his ballsto better wield a sword? Amazeens make formidable enemies.”

Once again Tariq fell silent to allow Ailynto think about what he’d said.

“Are you telling me I should go back withher to Riezell?”

Tariq turned his attention to Ailyn. “Noman can tell you what to do, my friend. You are a Reaper. You will do what youwish to do.”

“What if I don’t know what I want to do?”Ailyn challenged.

The Prime Reaper smiled knowingly. “Themoment you looked into her eyes, you knew she was destined to be your mate. Youfelt the pull toward her. You felt what my people call the eolach, theknowing. The moment you put hands to her, she was yours and you were hers.” Helaid a hand on Ailyn’s shoulder. “You will not be able to allow her to leaveTheristes and return to her world without you. She cannot stay here for she hasa destiny on Riezell. You cannot ask her to put aside her desires, her beliefsand her goals simply because you are the male and she is the female. That mightwork with a Riezellian woman but I can promise you it will not work with anAmazeen.”

“I don’t want to go back to Riezell,” Ailynstated.

“I know this but I also know it will behell for you here without her, a hell much worse than anything to be found inthe laboratories on Riezell-Nine.” Tariq’s hand tightened on Ailyn’s shoulder.“You know Reapers mate for life and no matter where you are or where she is,there too will your heart strive to be. It is a miserable existence when yourheart is separated from hers. It is a misery I do not want you to ever know,Ailyn.”

“We have not mated yet,” Ailyn said.

“Aye, but you have,” Tariq said, and whenAilyn would have protested, the Prime Reaper moved his hand from the youngerman’s shoulder to over Ailyn’s heart. “You have mated here, my friend. She isyours and you have claimed her as such. You will no more allow another man totouch her now than you would willingly put your neck in the lunette of aguillotine.” He patted Ailyn’s chest twice then removed his hand, got up andheaded back to his pallet and the woman whose sweet body waited for his.

Ailyn was still sitting there beside thewaterfall as the first fingers of dawn stretched toward the heavens. Weary andno closer to making a decision than he had been during his vigil beside thewaterfall, he went back to Tariq’s hut and entered the room set aside forShanee and him. His lady was lying with her back to the door as he slipped ontothe pallet beside her and put his arm over her, drawing her to him. The momenther body touched his, the decision was made.

“I missed you,” she said. “I don’t likebeing apart from you.”

“Nor I from you,” he said, his warm breathtickling the hairs at the base of her neck.

“Then what are we going to do about it, ehemann?”she asked.

“We,” he said, yawning before he couldcontinue, “are going to go back to Riezell.”

She turned over beneath his arm and met hisgaze. “Truly?”

He reached up to cup her cheek. “I can’tfight this feeling growing inside me, ionúin, and I don’t wish to. I satout there all night thinking about what Tariq must have gone through when hewas separated all those years from Bahiya and I knew I’d never survive such aparting without losing what little mind I have left.” He ran the pad of histhumb over her bottom lip. “So you will have to be content to keep me in thestyle to which I intend to become accustomed.”

A slow, happy smile stretched over Shanee’sface and she caught his thumb between her teeth. “Aye?”

“Aye,” he said, “but…”

Her smile wavered. “But?”

“I don’t do housework.”

She giggled.

“And there’s the problem of my mother,” hesaid, all traces of humor gone from his amber eyes. “She’ll learn I’m there andshe’ll do everything in her power to get to me.”

“With any luck, she’ll have gone into thearms of the Gatherer before we get back,” Shanee said, hoping that would be thecase.

He yawned again.

“You get some sleep,” she told him, sittingup. “You don’t get enough as it is.” She’d slept beside him every night and he’dtossed and turned, mumbled in his sleep, and gotten up in the middle of thenight to sit outside