Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Hunger's Harmattan by Unknown (best management books of all time TXT) 📗

face and feel it beading along the creases where their bodiesmet. Lowering her head and opening her eyes, she stared into his and quiveredat the raw need sparking red flares in his amber eyes.

“You are my woman,” he said throughclenched teeth.

“I am,” she agreed as the first faintripple of delight wriggled through her sheath.

He felt her body tensing around him andknew at the exact moment her climax began because it grabbed him with suchforce, her muscles contracting around him with such intent it almost hurt.

Tremors of delight shot through her as thequickening suddenly came fast and furious, followed speedily by his own climaxthat had him pounding upward against her with enough force to make her gasp.Grunting with each thrust, he finally stilled as her last quiver drained himand he relaxed.

Allowing her to slide down his spent body,he held her against him until they were both ready to move apart, each stillbreathing heavily.

“I’ve got to round us up a meal,” she saidas she climbed off him.

“I’ve got reading to do.”

She reached over and took up his book thenhanded it to him. “Dinner in twenty,” she said.

He nodded as he opened the book to theplace where he’d left off. Out of the corner of his eye he watched her as sheheaded for the food prep area of their quarters and smiled. It felt good, itfelt right and it was beginning to feel like the home he’d never had.

Chapter Eleven

Ailyn awoke in the middle of the night andlay there for a moment trying to figure out what had torn him from his sleep.Since leaving Theristes behind, he had been sleeping like a baby at night withShanee curled in front of him, his arm around her. Now he lay on his backstaring up at the ceiling and feeling his heart racing.

He listened but heard no sound that mighthave disturbed him. The quarters were locked down for the night—he’d made sureof it before coming to bed—so he knew no one could have entered without settingoff the alarm. Shanee was lying on her side with her hands tucked beneath herpillow and the steady rise and fall of her chest told him she was fast asleep.

He folded the covers back and sat upgingerly so he wouldn’t disturb his lady. As he started to swing his legs fromthe mattress, he got the first whiff of a tainted, acrid smell that made thehair on his arms stir. He frowned, loathe to put his feet to the floor.

“Ailyn, what is that stink?” Shanee said,turning over to face him. “My eyes are burning.”

The smell was intensifying and the sharp,musky odor was suddenly so overpowering it started a violent headache in Aliyn.He tried to place the smell—knowing he’d encountered it before—for it wassettling on him like a wet blanket.

“Ailyn?” his lady questioned and started tofling aside her covers.

“No!” he yelled at her and vaultedfrom the bed. The origin of the stench had finally come to him and he was outof the sleeping chamber like a shot. “Stay here!”

The lining of Shanee’s nose was beginningto burn fiercely and her eyes to water. The smell was so powerful she couldbarely draw breath. Ignoring his order, she tossed aside the covers and stoodup, padding around the bed in her bare feet.

“Ailyn? What is it? Is something on fire?”she asked.

There was a faint blue glow in the livingarea and she could hear Ailyn bumping into the furniture and cursing. Just asshe reached the doorway of their bedchamber, the lights in the living area cameon.

“Shanee, get back!” her husband shouted and she saw him sailing through the air towardher.

In slow motion she saw him land in front ofher, skidding across the carpet with the three-feet-long creature whipping inhis hand. She stared in horror at the broad triangular head, the slender bodystriped green and molten silver, the tubular two-inch sharp fangs that wereburied in Ailyn’s forearm. She watched a glowing blue ooze drip from the woundas the viper’s vertical pupils shifted to her.

“Get back,” Ailyn warned. He was shudderingas he managed to grasp the snake’s head with his other hand and twist it fromits body, leaving the ghastly fangs still buried in his flesh. Tossing the restof the evil thing across the room, he struggled to get to his knees but hecouldn’t. Neon blue streaks of venom splattered against the wall and ran downit where the headless body hit, the death throes of the creature spraying thedeadly toxic in flowing arcs.

“Ailyn!” Shanee screamed, finally galvanizedinto action when she saw the foam at her husband’s lips. She reached for himbut stopped as his glazed eyes speared her.

“Get…back,” he whispered and collapsed,convulsing violently.

Shanee knew there was nothing she could dofor him. “Vid-com!” she yelled, and when the screen pulsed into life, sheshouted for a medivac team. “Hurry and be careful. My Reaper’s been bitten by aghoret!” She knew that one drop of the viper’s venom could cause seriousproblems for a humanoid if not outright kill. She glanced at the two cybotsthat were standing against the wall and started to activate them.

A loud knock on her door startled Shanee.“That was quick,” she said as she jumped over Ailyn’s prone body, hurrying tolet the medivac team in. She punched in the deactivation code for the alarmsystem then yanked the door open.

“You got here quick…” she started to say asecond before a thick, oily mist hit her squarely in the face. She choked onthe vapor and staggered back, already beginning to feel the cloying hand ofunconsciousness reaching up for her.

* * * * *

Ailyn was delirious for over a week,strapped down to a table on his belly as he writhed in agony. Locked inexcruciating pain as the venom attacked his nervous system and his blood boiledin his veins, the Reaper’s flesh was speckled with pockets of pustules thatformed then broke open on his body. His body temperature was acutely high. Histhroat was parched, his gasps ragged as he tried to draw air into hissuperheated lungs. Though his revenant worm was striving to produce its owntoxin to combat the