Her Reaper's Arms by Charlotte Boyett-Compo Read Free Book Online Page A

the clothes on his back and
    the horse upon which he sat. He’d accumulated very little since becoming a Reaper and
    what he personally owned could be carried within the confines of his saddlebags.
    Though he took great delight in reading, he didn’t own a single book. He borrowed
    them from the larger libraries that still stood and was careful to return them when they
    were due. Not once had he been forced to pay an overdue fine.
    “A bookcase,” he thought as Préachán’s long stride ate up the miles. “A bookcase
    along one entire wall filled with tomes I have yet to read. Books I can collect, books I
    can have as my own.”
    It took him nearly a half hour of riding before he realized he didn’t have a clue
    where he was going. Reining in his mount, he sat there laughing at the absurdity of his
    actions before taking out the handkerchief and sticking the tip of his tongue to a fleck of
    the rogue’s blood. Almost instantly, an image formed in his mind of the man whose
    blood he had tasted and he turned his head to look back the way he’d come.
    Sometimes, he thought as he stuffed the handkerchief in his back pocket, the
    devilish little imp that sat on his shoulder demanded his attention when it thought he
    should be concentrating on the matter at hand. It tended to rake his tattooed cheek with
    the sharp, pointed little toe of its miniscule iron boot and draw symbolic blood.
    “Pay attention, you fucking Reaper!” it would seem to hiss in his ear, its vicious little
    teeth mauling his earlobe if only in Bevyn’s imagination.
    That had just happened, thrusting him out of his self-induced euphoria regarding
    Lea and back into the sordidness in which Reapers existed.
    “You’re close by, aren’t you, balgair ?” he asked quietly. He sniffed the air, his eyes
    narrowing at the stench. “Aye, you bastard. You are very close by.”
    For a moment longer he sat there until his savage instincts took over and the fleck
    of blood he had tasted pointed him straight toward the balgair ’slocation. He pulled on
    Préachán’s reins and turned the ebon steed, directing it back the way they’d just
    traveled. The closer he got to the rogue, the sharper his lateral incisors became until the
    points were raking his bottom lip. With conscious effort, he retracted them, though the
    sharp claws that had sprung from his fingertips were harder to control. It wouldn’t do
    for a civilian to see him in the process of Transition.
    Not that he had much to worry about in that department. For as far as his sharp
    eyes could see no human was about. But the vile stench of balgair was rife in his nostrils
    and growing stronger with every yard Préachán covered.
    29
    Charlotte Boyett-Compo
    The Reaper frowned deeply for there was another scent—an obscene one—that
    washed over him the farther along the meandering dirt path he traveled. That scent was
    horrendous and it made the hackles stand up on his back. Reining in Préachán, he
    turned his head from side to side, drawing in the odor, trying to place it. The longer he
    sat there inhaling the vastly unpleasant smell, the more he rolled his shoulders as
    though something were slithering down his spine.
    He inhaled deeply. It wasn’t a ghoret, he thought. That was an odor he could never
    mistake for what it was. The pit viper was the most evil thing he’d ever encountered
    and once in contact with one, its smell was never forgotten.
    So what was the stench that made him feel as though he’d been dowsed with slime?
    Walking Préachán slowly along the trail, he saw nothing that drew his attention.
    Someone had passed this way recently, but not in the last day or two. The tracks
    weren’t fresh and though the scent of the balgair was strong, Bevyn had a strong notion
    the evil bastard wasn’t alive. Nevertheless, he moved carefully, his eyes whipping back
    and forth across the trail, scoping out the territory, his palm on the handle of his laser
    whip.
    The shack was sitting