BlackWind Read online

  “And I know you won't be able to get to her no matter how hard you try.”

  “Don't underestimate me.”

  “Don't go looking for trouble until its time to meet it head on, then,” Brian countered.

  “What does that mean?”

  Brian drew in a long breath. “You'd best let me finish my tale before you decide if you'll be going after that little gal in Belfast.”

  Sean put his fork in the container and closed the lid.

  “Why aren't you finishing your food, lad?”

  “Let's get something clear between us,” Sean said, pushing aside the container.

  Brian folded his arms over his chest. “What is it you feel we should be clear about?”

  Sean locked gazes with him. “Bronwyn,” he said, his tone hard and unyielding, “is my bondmate. I—”

  “I am aware of that. I'd have it otherwise, but that wasn't my choice to make.”

  “No, it sure as hell wasn't!”

  “Lad,” Brian said in a warning tone, “don't read meanings into my words that aren't there. There is a good reason I said what I said.”

  “I intend to marry Bronwyn McGregor.”

  “That may or may not happen. Only time will tell. But for now, she's as far out of your reach as are the stars.”

  “That may be true for now, but they can't keep us apart forever. She is my lifemate.”

  “Again, I am aware that she is, and I am also aware that she will be the only one for you for as long as you live.”

  “Don't patronize me!” Sean snapped.

  “I wasn't! I know you took her that night up at the creek. I'd venture to say her parents will learn of it soon enough. That will make them all the more determined to keep you away from her.”

  Sean threw out an angry hand. “She won't tell them. We will be together. No one will stop that from happening.”

  Brian sighed. “Would you be so anxious to be with her if you knew you would be putting her in grave danger?”

  “From what?” Sean scoffed.

  “From you.”

  “I would never hurt her!”

  “Not intentionally, no. But you don't know all there is to know about you, yet, do you? About your heritage and genetic makeup.”

  “I—” Sean stopped. His eyes widened. “Are you trying to tell me Dunne put one of those things inside you?”

  A slow nod was Brian's reply.

  Pure terror drew its sharp nails down Sean's spine. He stared at the man, his heart suddenly pounding. “Before or after you got my ma pregnant?”

  Brian stood and walked to the mesh-covered window. He turned his back and looked into the parking lot. “Before, though I didn't know the deed had been done until after they sent your mother away.” He glanced around. “And what is in me is also in you. The spores of the parasite are passed through the sperm.”

  Horrified, appalled, Sean couldn't speak. His chest felt as though a ton of weight pressed against it, and he felt cold, colder than he had ever been.

  “Your ability to read minds, your quickness, your strength, all of it comes from the parasite.” Brian turned back to the window. “I haven't tried to read your thoughts about your night with the McGregor girl, but I hope and pray you used protection.”

  Sean's breath caught in his throat. “What if we didn't?” he asked, his question barely above a whisper.

  “Then you had best hope your seed didn't take within her. If it did, pray the seed was a girl child, because the spore would kill that before an embryo could form.” He chuckled mirthlessly and faced Sean. “The revenant worm wants only male offspring.”

  Sean stared at his father, watching the man's eyes narrow and a crease form in his forehead.

  “Ah, Seannie,” Brian sighed. “This is not good.”

  Sean buried his face in his hands. “What have I done?”

  “That was a grave mistake.”

  “I didn't know.”

  “This is why you might want to think twice about the girl you've chosen as your mate,” Brian said gently.

  Sean shook his head. “Bronnie couldn't have gotten pregnant.”

  “Let's hope she didn't, lad. Had I known what Dunne did to me, I would never have laid a hand on Dorrie.”

  “How did they implant you without you knowing?”

  “As best I can figure, someone slipped something into my food or drink one night at supper. All I remember was waking up one morning feeling like I'd been run over by a lorry. My back hurt so bad I could barely climb out of bed. I stumbled into the bathroom, gagging and heaving like a man coming off a three-day drunk, but all I had was dry heaves and a terrible thirst water couldn't satisfy. There is a reason why that was, but I'll go into that later.

  “When I glanced into the mirror, I looked somehow different. Oh, no physical changes, but I just didn't look like the man I'd been shaving for all them years. My back was paining me so badly I turned around, tried to see it in the mirror, but it didn't look any different. No cuts, no bruising, no welts or the like. I just thought maybe I'd slept crooked and pulled a muscle or two.

  “I took my shower, then decided I'd do a few laps in the pool, hoping to work the kinks outta my back. I swam every morning, never missed a day, and I was looking forward to relaxing for thirty minutes or so before I had to report in to work.”

  Brian shuddered, then flexed his shoulders, as if to throw off a feeling that had overtaken him.

  “When I got down to the gym and got a whiff of the chlorine in the pool, I started getting this strange feeling. It was a dread unlike anything I'd ever felt before, like something bad was about to happen. The closer I got to the water, the worse the feeling got.”

  His words trailed off as he stared at the table. Sean said nothing, giving his father time to gather his thoughts. After a moment, Brian shook himself and looked up. Misery filled his eyes.

  “I could not make myself get close to the water. The more I tried, the more intense the feeling of dread grew. I stood shivering, wondering if I had suddenly developed an aversion to water. I knew that was possible, but having grown up on the seacoast, living my life like a porpoise in the waters of Galway Bay, I couldn't fathom not being able to jump into the pool.” He sighed. “I finally left, not understanding my fear at all.”

  “Did you talk about it with anyone?”

  “I was too ashamed of my weakness to make anyone privy to it. I just kept going back, trying to enter the water, but every time, the same terror overcame me. By then, I had seen your mother, and my obsession with her replaced any thoughts of the pool.”

  “How did you find out what they'd done to you?”

  A mirthless laugh hissed from Brian's tightly clamped lips. “On the day I transitioned for the first time.”

  “T—transitioned?” Sean muttered, his voice trembling.

  “Changed. Into a semblance—although not as drastic—of the creature they found in the bog.”

  “I don't believe that.”

  “Believe it. It happened, and will happen again.”

  “How is it possible? It's against the laws of nature!”

  “Nature as you know it, aye, but not the place that creature came from. I won't candy-coat it, son. The first time scared me something fierce. I didn't know what was happening. No one told me I was going to become like the bog man, and if they had, I'm not sure I would have believed them. You see, I didn't know Dunne had decided to implant humans with the parasite, and sure as hell didn't know I'd be the one receiving it.”

  “Oh, my God. What did you do when you...when you...” He could not say the words.

  “When your ma was taken from me, I went a bit crazy and tried to leave Fuilghaoth. I wanted to stop her marriage to Cullen, to get her back. They locked me up in one of the containment cells, and it was while I was so furious that the full Transition began. I'm sure Dunne knew it might happen and that was why I was caged. As soon as the godawful pain began in my back, I knew what they had done to me. I nearly went mad wi
th the thought of that evil inside me. The terrible thirst water couldn't quench was satisfied by the beakers of blood passed through a small door into the cell. I guzzled the stuff like it was nectar!”

  Sean covered his mouth with his hand.

  “When I reverted back to being human, Dunne sent for me. He was curious to know what I had felt during the Transition.” Brian ground his teeth. “I'd never wanted to kill anyone as much as I wanted to kill him that day. I demanded to know why he'd done this terrible thing to me.”

  “What did he say?”

  Brian flung out a dismissive hand. “He said names were drawn and mine was the first. On the luck of a draw, I was the lucky recipient of the revenant worm. How, he asked me, was he to know I'd impregnated a village girl with my tainted sperm? As soon as he said that, I knew I'd fallen right into his plan. He knew, Sean. He knew what Dorrie and I had been doing and he knew I'd more than likely get her with child. He could have put a stop to it, but didn't. It was the impregnation that fascinated him. He wanted to see what would happen to the babe when it was born. He knew I'd created another like myself.”

  “I...I'll turn into an animal? A beast?” Sean's eyes widened. “A beast that could hurt people?”

  Brian shook his head. “No, no! You will be put in a containment cell to keep you from hurting yourself or others. It's not so bad, really. Transition lasts for only a few hours, then you change back.”

  Sean felt hopeless. “This can't be happening!”

  “I'm sorry, lad, but it is all too real. And about to change your life forever.”

  “What will happen to me?” Sean sobbed, barely aware of the tears cascading down his cheeks. “When will it happen?”

  “In the chimps they experimented on, Transition generally occurs at puberty in males that have had the parasite implanted. Of course, with older males, Transition starts within four to six weeks. In my case, it was delayed for more than two years because I was a strict vegetarian. I think the pain over losing your mother, the fear of worrying about her, the anger over having her taken away from me, brought the Transition on earlier than it might have come had those things not been factors. Three days after she was sent to America, I went into full Transition. Once they saw the correlation between vegetarian and meat diets, they knew what had to be done with you. They sure as hell didn't want you going into Transition outside their control.”

  Sean looked up through the screen of his fingers. “Did my mother know any of this?” he asked in a shuddery voice. “Does she know what is inside me?”

  Brian shook his head. “They saw no reason for her to know. What they did, though, was bring her into Fuilghaoth before she was sent to America and program her with certain instructions she was to follow to the letter, as was Tymothy Cullen.”

  “Instructions?”

  Brian held up his hand and ticked off his reply. “First, you were not to be told who your real father was.

  “Second, under no circumstances were you ever to be taken to a doctor and examined. The doctor might take a blood sample and that was to be avoided at all costs since the blood would contain antibodies beyond that doctor's experience. Any records needed for you to enter school would be provided—falsified, of course—by Fuilghaoth.

  “Third, you were not to be coddled, cosseted in any way. They wanted you to grow up tough and determined. With Tym Cullen as an example, I'd venture to say that was a given.

  “And fourth, you were never to be given meat of any kind—you were to be fed only vegetables. There is no blood in vegetables, lad. The parasite thrives on blood, remember? Animal or human, doesn't make any difference to it. Dunne knew from his experiments that, if you received no meat, your Transition would be delayed.”

  Sean glared at the man, delving with ease into his mind. What he found made him recoil, and he stumbled back against the wall, shuddering. “I'll never eat meat, so there isn't any chance I will—Transition,” he declared, spitting out the word as though it were filth.

  Brian shrugged. “You won't have any choice in the matter.”

  “Yes, I will!” Sean shouted.

  “By Dunne's time clock, you have another month, at most, before your first Transition. Prior to that, your blood will begin to change. You will feel it as the parasite starts to awaken. Once that happens, once it begins to feed upon you, the byproducts it throws off will turn your red blood to a black, tar-like consistency.”

  “That is disgusting!”

  “That parasite is what has kept you from getting all them childhood diseases the other brats got. Did you never wonder why you were so damned healthy?”

  “I just thought I was lucky.”

  “Luck had nothing to do with it. The parasite attacks an illness and devours it. Once you Transition the first time, it will heal you"—he snapped his fingers—"like that! You'll never have to worry about cuts and scrapes again. The flesh heals in the blink of an eye. That is why Dunne sent me to fetch you. Imagine Transitioning over here and having someone see it! That would be bad enough. But imagine getting a cut on your arm that seals itself up quicker than you can strip the backing off a band-aid and you can see why it was imperative I come get you. I wasn't counting on your ma having filleted Cullen, although it couldn't have happened to a more deserving man.”

  “There has to be a way to keep me from—”

  Brian interrupted in a stern voice. “As soon as your time is up in this wretched place, we'll be leaving for Fuilghaoth. You need to be in the facility when you Transition for the first time. You must be where those who know what to expect can care for you.”

  Sean shook his head savagely. “I'd rather die than live my life like that!”

  “There are only two ways a Reaper can die, lad. By being burned or being drowned.” He cocked a brow at his son. “Which would you prefer?”

  Sean, reading the truth of Brian's words, slumped against the wall. “I'm terrified of either.”

  “That's because the parasite is terrified of being destroyed in those ways. What's your feelings on snakes, lad?”

  Sean flinched. “I hate the damned things!”

  “Aye, well, there is a viper called a ghoret that Reapers fear almost as much as fire and water. I'll tell you about them evil little reptiles one day.”

  Sean slid down the wall and hunkered there with his head buried in his arms.

  Squatting beside Sean, Brian put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I will be beside you every step of the way, lad. I swear I will do all I can to make it up to you for this.”

  “You didn't know what would happen.”

  “But I regret every day of my life that I didn't let the Stalcaires murder your ma.”

  Slowly, Sean raised his head. “Why?”

  “To keep her from Cullen's brutality all those years, for one thing,” Brian said between clenched teeth, “and to keep you from having to go through the agony of Transitioning every four months.”

  “But you loved her.”

  “I love her,” Brian corrected. “That hasn't changed. But it would have been better for us all if I had had the courage to let her go back then.”

  Sean stared into his father's eyes and saw his own guilt. “If I had known what was coming, I would never have laid a hand to Bronwyn, either.”

  “I know, and I regret not having come earlier. Blame me, if you want.”

  Sean looked at the floor. “I've no one to blame but myself.”

  “Now you see why it might be best to keep away from her.”

  With shoulders sinking in defeat, his heart breaking, Sean lowered his head to his arms once more. “Aye, I understand.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Bronwyn refused to look at the nun who had entered her room without knocking. She detested the wiry woman, whose body odor was acrid and sharp within the folds of her long black habit.

  “The physician is here to examine you,” Sister Mauveen snapped. “Be up with you, girl.”

  Bronnie's fingers tightened around the pencil in her
hand, but she gave no other sign that she had heard the nun's words.

  “If you wish to be dragged down to the infirmary, that can surely be arranged.” When Sister Mauveen clapped her hands, two larger nuns appeared at the door.

  Her lips pursed tightly, Bronwyn got up from her desk. She barely looked at Sister Mauveen as she passed.

  “The wages of sin are pain and death,” Sister Mauveen pronounced, folding her hands into the sleeves of her habit. She lifted her pointed chin. “The Lord will provide both for those who disobey His commandments.”

  The nuns at the door parted as Bronwyn walked toward them. She stepped into the hall, expecting them to fall in behind her, and was not disappointed. Bringing up the rear was Sister Mauveen, the rosary beads at her waist clacking together as she followed.

  Dr. Liam Darby was waiting for them at the door to the infirmary. He smiled encouragingly and ushered Bronwyn inside with a gentle pat on the back. He stepped in front of Sister Mauveen as she tried to join them. “I have a nurse to assist me,” he said in a firm voice. “You won't be needed.”

  Sister Mauveen's nose twitched and she twisted to see inside the infirmary. Her beady eyes swept the room, her upper lip quivering. Upon spying the nurse talking to Bronwyn, she sniffed and straightened up to look the doctor in the eye. “Mother Superior will expect a full report from you on the girl's condition.”

  “Naturally,” Dr. Darby replied. “I give a full report when I do physicals, Sister.”

  Sniffing again, Sister Mauveen tossed her head. Spinning on her heel, she clapped her hands and her entourage fell into step behind her.

  “Bloody vicious old penguin.” Dr. Darby shut and locked the door behind him. “Well, Bronnie, how are you feeling today?”

  Bronwyn liked the tall, rawboned physician. He had a kind face and understanding eyes. “I've got a cold. I've been coughing like crazy.

  “It's this rainy Connacht weather. Well, I'll leave you with Miss Moher. She'll help you get into the gown.” He patted Bronwyn's cheek. “Let's see if we can't do something about that cough.”

  Bronwyn smiled and started undoing the buttons of her uniform blouse. She stopped to cough. The sound was wet, filled with congestion, and lasted a long time. She was grateful when Miss Moher handed her a tissue.