A Reaper's Love (WindWorld) by Charlotte Boyett-Compo Page A

such
terrible pain upon him for months and literally ripped him limb from limb
before thrusting a fist into the man’s body to pluck out his intestines.
Screams of agony had brought two guards running to the Fiend’s aid. One guard
had been lucky. He died of a broken neck. The other—who had done brutal things
to Dixon that were worse than physical pain—left the world in a haze of
savagery that left the former SEAL covered in gore.
    Thirty men later, Dixon stood outside the
barricaded doors of an office and smiled. Behind the door was a man who had
doled out torture, dismemberment and death as casually as he took a piss each
morning. His infamous cruelty had made him a legend in the Islamic world. The
power he wielded in the Dhaween was about to come to a screeching halt but not
before Dixon dredged from Hassan’s mind the names and locations of other
terrorists.
    * * * * *
    “ Who the fuck are you ?”
    Dixon stilled, shocked to hear the angry
voice stabbing through his head.
    “Who the fuck are you ?” he answered
before realizing that had not been the smartest thing to do. He completely shut
down his mind yet still felt something buzzing at it, clawing at it, trying to
gain entry.
    He looked around him but saw no one staring
back at him. Just to be on the safe side, he did what he had done in Hassan’s
torture palace. He turned himself into a fine wisp of smoke, but unlike at the
Dhaween encampment where he had drifted under the door to the locked room where
Hassan had hidden, this time he wafted away on the hot Somalian wind.
    Floating above the crowds in the bazaar he
searched for the likeliest candidate to have mentally shouted at him. The
moment he found the culprit, he hovered above him—watching the prick searching
for him.
    “ You’ve a creature inside you, too ,”
he thought.
    He studied the tall, dark man pushing his
way through the crowd. Though he didn’t lean that way, he had to admit the man
was strikingly good-looking with thick black hair and emerald eyes far too
sensuous to be found on a male.
    “A mere Reaper,” the creature told Dixon . “Panthera, though. The same as you.”
    “But not as powerful?”
    “No, not as powerful,” the creature replied. “And as yet without a life-mate thus not
as dangerous as one who has a female to protect.”
    “Such as me.”
    “Aye, Gravelord. Such as you.”
    “I want my woman,” he told the creature.
    “And you shall have her.”
    “When?” he
demanded.
    “Soon.”
    Not soon enough to suit him. The mere
thought of the lovely woman from his beastly dream made him hard, made him
ache, made the beast inside him claw and twist and growl with need. He longed
to hold her, touch her, sink deep into her sweet body. He wanted to experience
the honey of her kisses, the slide of her silken flesh under his. His heart
hurt just thinking of tasting the nectar between her thighs.
    But there was one more camp to destroy
before the creature would let him leave the hellish heat and stench of Somalia.
    “Pirates,” the
creature had advised . “Very bad men who prey on travelers and military ships
alike. Their leader is almost as bad as was Hassan.”
    So there was another dangerous target that
needed extinguishing.
    “You are doing the goddess’ will,” the creature whispered . “Stand fast, Gravelord. You will have
your woman soon.”

Chapter Seven
    The Exchange two weeks later
     
    “We’ve got a situation,” the Supervisor
told those gathered.
    “What kind of situation?” one of the
directors asked.
    “There is a very powerful balgair wreaking havoc all over the Middle East,” the Supervisor said. “He is going
through al-Qaeda, Taliban Hamas and Hezbollah installations like a hot knife
through butter. The kill count of terrorist leaders is now over fifty and
climbing. Not only is he assassinating the leaders, he is destroying their
compounds. And he isn’t just going after terrorists. He annihilated an entire
band of Somalian pirates this