by dark wind
His gaze dropped from hers, he stared at the floor for a moment, and then he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked up to find her staring at him as though he were a stranger.
“So be it,” he said softly and turned away.
He walked out of their bedroom, out the front door, and continued down the street, his hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his dirty jeans.
Chapter Seventeen
Dorrie Burkhartreached over to turn the volume higher on the radio. The blaring rock music hurt her ears but it drowned out the sweep of the wipers slapping at the rain pelting the windshield. Being barely able to see the road did not stop her from going thirty miles an hour over the posted speed limit as she sped down the expressway. She wove in and out of the sparse traffic and laid on the horn when another car dared obstruct her progress. Had she not felt the urgent need to relieve herself of the two Bloody Maria’s she’d consumed after work, she would have driven past the Whistlin’ Dixie truck stop. The double shots of tequila in the Bloody Maria’s had made her a bit dizzy and the extra lime in the Bloody Mary mix had given her heartburn.
Pulling into the parking lot, she drove through a deep puddle, splashing oil-slimed water on a trucker who was climbing into his rig. She pulled alongside the restaurant side of the building and parked in the only slot available. Shutting off the engine, she grabbed her purse, threw open the door and made a dash for the restaurant overhang.
Mike Peters glanced up as the door to the restaurant chimed. The beautiful blond who rushed in made him draw in his breath. Tall and willowy with long legs that seemed to go on forever in the short black miniskirt, the woman was the best thing he’d seen all night.
Hell, the best thing he’d seen all week, he corrected as she lifted her hands to fluff her waist-length hair.
He felt himself grow hard and was thankful for the obstruction of the cashier’s counter where he sat.
“Evening,” Mike managed to say, swallowing as the woman turned her lovely face toward him.
“Hey, how’s it going sweetie?” the woman replied. Her cornflower blue eyes seemed to be appraising him and she must have liked what she saw for they gleamed with teasing light. “Where’s the john?” Unable to think of anything to say, Mike merely pointed to the rear of the restaurant.
“Thank you,” the woman sang in a cheerful tone and headed toward the back.
Mike saw her glance to the right where the booths were lined against the wall. He watched her stop, stare at the man sitting by himself in the last booth, and then continue to the restroom. A few moments later, she returned, turning to look at the stranger once more, before walking up to the cashier’s counter.
She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “He alone?” she asked.
“Been alone all night,” Mike answered.
“Really?” She let the word drop like a stone, turned once more to look at the man in the booth, then smiled. “Not anymore.”
The sway of the blond woman’s ass as she headed to the section of booths brought a knowing smile to Mike Peters’ face. “Oh, baby, baby,” he said, leaning on the counter. “Gonna get you some company, huh, big guy?”
Had she known, Dorrie couldn’t have cared less that the night cashier at the Whistlin’ Dixie Truck Stop and Café thought she was a hooker. Her full attention was on the handsome man sitting hunched over a steaming cup of coffee.
“Hey, Warrior,” she called out as she slid into the booth opposite him. “New in town?” Kamerone Cree didn’t need to look up to recognize the voice of the woman who spoke to him. “Out slumming, Dorrie?” he asked, lifting the cup to his mouth. He kept his eyes on the scratched tabletop.
“Miss Priss kick you out or did you run away from home, little boy?” Cree swallowed the scalding coffee-his sixth cup since coming in from the rain-and leaned back in the booth, draping his arm over the edge of the red vinyl backrest. Slowly, he raised his eyes to hers.
“Where’s McGregor tonight?”
Dorrie shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares?”
“Everything in this world is expendable,” he muttered.
“Especially the men.” Dorrie watched the Reaper smile, though the smile never reached his amber eyes.
“Aye,” he whispered. “Especially the men.”
“So there is trouble in paradise.” She grinned. “I thought so. You are as out of place in this world as I am, aren’t you, baby?”
“But this is your birthplace.
Dorrie rolled her eyes. “It was early 60 years ago Earth time. Everyone I knew is either dead or dying. I can never contact anyone in my family. They wouldn’t believe me anyway. Not that there is anybody I care enough about to look up in the first place. I grew up in B. F. E. Arkansas and that town sucks, you know?”
He studied her for a moment. “Do you hate Terra that much?”
“I would go back to Rysalia in a heartbeat if things were different.” Her answer surprised him. “You did not mind the enslavement of the females?” Dorrie lifted one shoulder in disdain. “I never felt enslaved. I had lots of friends.” She arched one tawny brow so he could not misinterpret her use of the word friends.
“I remember hearing of one or two,” he said dryly.
“I never lacked for anything on Rysalia,” she said, “and I didn’t have to worry about my next paycheck or the IRS or the rent or the utilities or if my car was going to start in the morning or not.”
“Freedom isn’t always what we wish it to be, is it, Dorrie?” he asked softly.
“No, Reaper, it isn’t,” she replied just as softly.
Lightning flared beyond the windows and both of them turned to look out across the glistening parking lot. Thunder rumbled, shaking the glass, then the rain grew heavier.
“You’d better get home to McGregor,” he suggested, “before it gets any worse.”
“I’m right where I want to be,” she said in a husky voice.
Cree looked away from the hungry look in her blue eyes. “Go home, Dorrie. You’re not where you should be.”
“What if I said I’m where I’ve always dreamed of being? Doing what I’ve always wanted to do.” He smiled. “‘We could strip him and mount him and he wouldn’t be able to lift a finger to stop us’,” he quoted.
Dorrie laughed. “You remember me saying that?”
His smile faded. “I remember everything, Dorrie. That is part of the curse of being Dearg Duls.” A slight shudder ran through Dorrie Burkhart. She wasn’t sure if the chill was a result of his words or the temperature in the drafty restaurant.
“How close to Transition are you?” she asked, her scrutiny moving to his left hand which was toying with the coffee cup, rocking it from side to side.
“Two, three weeks.”
“You’ll need Sustenance,” she reminded him, and then reached out to cover his hand.
Cree nodded. “Aye, I will.”
“What about triso? Do you have enough to last?” She knew the Reaper needed what this world called morphine in order to sleep each night.
“Tealson has been supplying me with the drug each month,” he answered. “Troi is manufacturing it on the Vortex.”
“Must get lonely for the old AIU hovering up there on the dark side of the moon.” She grinned. “Maybe we ought to get him an inflatable doll to play with.”
Cree smiled and this time the smile reached his sad eyes. “I thought about sending him a nice upright vacuum cleaner.” He snorted, at the picture of his cybot and the vacuum waltzing together on the bridge of the starcruiser.
“I don’t even want to know what image just popped into your perverted mind, Reaper,” Dorrie said, wondering if he was aware that she was stroking his hand.
Cree cocked his head to one side. “I’m more than aware of it, Dorrie,” he said and slowly withdrew his hand from beneath hers.
Dorrie tucked her lower lip between her teeth for a moment then threw caution to the wind. “How do you feel about being a kept man, Cree?”
“
I’ve been a kept man ever since I stepped foot on this gods-be-damned world.” He relifted the coffee cup and drained it.
Dorrie licked her lips as she watched the movement of his throat as he swallowed. She ached to kiss the hollow at the base of his throat where the gentle pulsing of his blood caught and held her attention; to run her hands over his hard flesh and feel the steel of his shaft within her.
“You are a brazen slut.” He chuckled, intercepting her wayward thoughts.
“I am a horny slut. And stop reading my thoughts, Reaper.”
“Go home. Rape McGregor. It’ll make his night.”
“I would rather...”
“Go home,” he repeated. His direct gaze was stern, brooking no argument from her.
“What about you?” she asked. “Do you intend to sit here all night?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll do what I have to.”
For a moment she held his unwavering stare, then arched her shoulders. “If that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want.”
“Can’t condemn a girl for trying.”
“I don’t.”
Dorrie slid out of the booth, stood there for a few seconds and when she realized he had dismissed her, she walked away without saying goodbye.
“Drive careful,” Mike Peters called out as Dorrie pushed through the door into the streaming rain. Three feet from the door, he lost sight of her in the deluge.
She never made it to the car.
He came out of the pouring rain, his strong arms encircling her, pinning her arms to her sides, one hand slapped across her mouth, and dragged her with him into the shadows behind the building.
Struggling furiously to get away, Dorrie bucked in the steel-like grip that was bruising her ribs and pressing the air from her lungs. The man’s callused hand smelled of diesel fuel and stale cigarettes and his breath against the side of her face as he drew her deeper and deeper into the no man’s land behind the truck stop reeked of garlic and rampant tooth decay. She tried to bite him but her lips were pressed tightly to her teeth behind his filthy hand and when he moved his thumb and forefinger to her nose to cut off her air, true panic set in. She clawed at his thighs but her fingernails were too short to gain any purchase through the thick corduroy of his trousers. With the lack of oxygen rapidly turning her world black and bringing the stars down from the heavens, she began to pass out.
Lyle Drake had killed fifteen women since he turned 40 years of age three years before. He had celebrated his 40th birthday by strangling and mutilating a young hitchhiker he’d picked up on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Two months later, he killed his second victim, a pretty college student whose car had broken down on a lonely stretch of I-80. All the women had been beautiful, young, and possessing long blond hair and delicate blue eyes. Each of them had angered Lyle Drake in some fashion.
Tonight, the woman struggling in his arms had splashed him with greasy water as she drove into the parking lot, but Drake intended to see she never angered another man this side of the grave. What the Lord God Jehovah did to her once she was at the Judgement Seat was none of Lyle’s concern.
“Whore of Babylon,” he named her as he pulled her into the woods behind the truck stop. “Witch of Endor!”
By the time he had taken his victim as far into the woods as he deemed necessary, the woman was unconscious, her limp body sagging in his powerful arms. With infinite care, he laid her down on the slick detritus of leaves and pine needles and squatted over her. He gripped the front of her blouse and ripped it open, a powerful erection leaping to life at the sound of the tearing fabric.
The jerk on her clothing brought Dorrie partially awake. She coughed, gasping for breath and then came fully awake as the man atop her circled her neck with his hands and began to squeeze the life from her.
She clawed at his hands, bucking beneath him like a wild thing, digging her heels into the earth. But he was too strong, too intent on killing her. His long matted hair and ragged beard was dripping with rainwater as he bent over her, pressing his thumbs into her windpipe. She stared into his crazed eyes, saw the way his lips were skinned back from his teeth as he spouted biblical passages and knew she was going to die. With the last bit of conscious thought, she screamed for help though no sound passed her blue-tinted lips.
Chapter Eighteen
Gray light streamedthrough a slit in the draperies and fell harshly on the sleeping woman. She moaned, turning to her side to escape the intrusion. Burrowing into the soft pillow, she reached out to touch the man who always slept beside her.
She frowned as her hand patted farther away, searching for her bed partner. When she realized she was alone, she sighed and turned to her back. Very slowly she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.
She blinked and blinked again for the water-stained acoustic tiles overhead were unfamiliar.
As was the musty smell filling her nostrils.
And the scratchy roughness of the sheets beneath her naked body.
Then the night’s events came back to her in a flash and Dorrie Burkhart shot up in the bed with a shriek, her eyes wide with terror.
“You’re safe,” he said quietly.
Dorrie whimpered and snapped her head toward the man who spoke. When she saw Kamerone Cree sitting in a chair across the shadowy room, she began to shake uncontrollably.
He got up and went to her, sat on the bed and took her in his arms. “It’s all right. He’s dead.” She did not need to ask how her attacker had died or who had killed him. Instead, she clung to Cree, burying her face against the softness of his shirt. Shuddering so badly her teeth were clicking together, she was unaware of him stretching out beside her and cradling her body against his own as he lay down with her. With infinite care, he smoothed her tousled hair and placed calming kisses along her brow.
“I...was...so...afraid.”
“I know. I heard.”
But had arrived barely in the nick of time. One minute later and Dorrie would not have survived her attack.
“W...where is h...he?”
Cree shrugged. “Gone.”
“If t...they f...find t-the b...body... If t...they tr...trace him b...back to us...”
“They won’t,” he told her. “There isn’t anything to find.” The memory of Cree standing on the transporter pad of the Vortex, Bridget Dunne cradled in his arms as blood dripped from his hands and chin often woke Dorrie from her sleep with a jolt.
“Remind me not to make an enemy of you, Kami.”
“Go to sleep, Lady,” he told her, settling her closer to him. “We have nowhere to go and no time to be there.”
Dorrie woke tofind his hand on her breast. The heat of his palm sent shivers of delight through her body.
One look told her he was sleeping soundly, his handsome face turned toward her as he lay on his belly.
She ached to reach up and smooth away an errant lock of silky hair that had fallen across his brow, but she did not want to wake him. Quite content to lie beside him and watch him sleep, Dorrie wished with all her heart that she were the woman this man loved and not Bridget Dunne.
“I would never deny you anything,” whispered Dorrie, her gaze moving over his ruddy face. “I would move heaven and hell to make you happy, Kamerone Cree.”
The thick sweep of his dark lashes lifted and those remarkable amber eyes staring at her caused a quickening in her womb and she knew he had once more intercepted her thoughts. He stared at her for a long time then the hand covering her breast tightened gently.
“Cree...” she began but he withdrew his hand and placed a finger to her lips, denying her.
“I belong to her.”
Dorrie took his hand and held it. “And if she doesn’t want you?” she asked, searching his eyes.
“She does,” he answered. “But right now, she’s angry with me. She’ll get over it.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
He didn’t want to believe that would happen so he dismissed the ques
tion. “Are you hungry?” Knowing the subject was closed and now off limits, Dorrie sighed with exasperation. “Aye, Reaper, but not for food.”
Cree chuckled. “Slut,” he teased and turned to his back. He stretched then sat up, wincing as his hand encountered the empty vac-syringe of triso he’d used during the night.
Dorrie pushed herself up in the bed and watched him as he padded barefoot to the bathroom and opened the door. “Where are we, anyway?”
“For lack of a better word, my home,” he answered. “At least for the time being.” She frowned as she took in the tawdry surroundings. Without having to ask, she knew the room had to be in a rundown motel. The vinyl chair sitting askew of the round Formica table, the wall hung double dresser and nightstands were a dead giveaway.
“Either you enjoy subjecting yourself to such morbid digs or you didn’t have much money last night.”
“I took all the money you had in your purse to pay for these delightful accommodations, my love.” Dorrie grunted. “I should have known.” She swung her legs off the mattress. “So I guess that means we don’t have any money for breakfast, huh?”
“Guess not,” he replied as he walked to the chair and sat down to pull on his boots.
“You’re not seriously considering staying here, are you?”
He shrugged. “I’ve nowhere else to go.”
“Aye, you do. You’re going home with me,” she challenged, expecting him to refuse.
“Good,” he said, surprising her. “I was hoping you’d say that.” Then he frowned. “Will McGregor mind?”
Dorrie turned as she was walking into the bathroom and looked at him. “Raine moved out yesterday afternoon,” she told him. “I guess he got tired of me or else he’s found a Terran woman who is titillated by his boyish charms.”
“And you’re not,” he stated.
