His Redeemer's Kiss

by Diana Castilleja

  “Maybe we should sit?” Houston offered. “This could take a few minutes.”

  Lily shot him a look of dawning comprehension. “You know, don’t you?”

  Houston and Laney both nodded without remorse. Lily rubbed a hand across her brow. “Fine. Explain how you’re not human.” She plunked down on the couch where she’d lain, crossed her arms, and waited.

  Chapter Nine

  “It’s very simple, really. We’re vampires.”

  Lily smiled with sarcastic humor at the woman sitting across from her. “Please. Vampires don’t exist. Just tell me the truth.”

  Diego gave Tani a glance and a nod. Then, Tani opened her mouth.

  Lily stopped breathing. She knew that those—that it wasn’t possible, but she wasn’t imagining it either. “Oh shit,” she managed on a strangled croak. “Where—How—” Pushing out her hands, she steeled herself with a good shake. Then, opened her eyes to focus once more. “Show me again.”

  This time, when Tani smiled, her teeth were normal, pearly white and straight. “Now watch.” And without warning, two teeth lengthened, becoming noticeably sharper by themselves than when lined up. “It’s an illusion. It’s what you expect to see, so they are normal. They’re always pointed now,” she said, filling in the question blank. They withdrew much the same way as they had appeared, once more showing her a straight line of gleaming, pearl white teeth until she determinedly focused. Then she could see the jagged tips as clear as Tani’s nose on her face.

  Lily’s breathing staggered painfully.

  “It was better and easier to not explain, to not cause any of you more stress by letting you know the truth.”

  “Nathan is like you too?” She watched the other woman expectantly. She knew what she would likely find out, but hearing it… She couldn’t ask Joaquin. Not yet. Maybe another explanation would present itself before she’d have to face that truth. She could hope. Unreality had officially become a part of her life.

  “Yes.” Titania drew a breath, rolling her shoulders. “He’s like me, actually, quite young in vampire terms, and facing a lot of turmoil. He came about it rather cruelly, and has lost everything he had.”

  “Like all of us.” The connection was clear for Lily.

  Titania nodded. “Yes. That’s why he is adamant in helping as much as possible. His life was stolen, much like yours and the others. He believed he was being mugged, and was converted.”

  Lily’s eyes widened. “Oh my God! Why? Who?”

  Titania placed her hands within Diego’s, twining their fingers together, taking her time to answer. “Why? Because a vampire lives to create havoc, to encourage chaos. They are cruel and hateful. It’s a single pleasure for them to cause hysteria and pain. Conversion is the worst kind of all of that.” She opened her mouth, but seemed to think better of explaining it more. “As for the other, it’s hard to say who. None of them typically leave calling cards when they do attack, or bother to explain why any one person was chosen over another. Diego knew because it was his once best friend. I was an accident Diego inadvertently started before he realized what had happened. He never intended for me to become like him.”

  “But…” Lily sat dumbfounded by the reality. She almost didn’t know where to start. And Joaquin… She couldn’t look at him yet, though she knew he stood behind where she sat, still there, still giving her his unconditional support and comfort, regardless of her ultimate decision to his future.

  Titania lifted a pale hand, and Lily felt her jaw all but snap shut with questions. “Let me tell you a few things first. We don’t keep you for ourselves. Know that up front. We leave every night and Diego takes care of me and my needs. Your health and care really are of the utmost importance to us. We don’t kill to survive. In fact, it takes very little for us to live on. Not the way most bodies do. And it doesn’t harm—”

  When Lily felt herself blanch of color, Titania blushed, breaking off and changing direction. “Sorry. I just wanted to put your mind at ease. You are not here for any reason that has anything to do with what we are or how we survive. Please believe that. I saw what Tenorio had planned. I touched that evil place and I never want to again. Now we know there are more of us, gifted people who are being held, tortured, killed. We will find them, and somehow, he will be stopped.”

  Lily pinned Diego with a stare that could melt carbide steel. “You too? You ‘made’ her?”

  “It was a turn of events that brought us together,” he stated without apology. “The conversion was, in fact, an accident.”

  With aching slowness, as if she moved through some sort of sludge, she stood. Facing Houston and Laney, she told him, “You’re not. You’re up during the day. Are you human?”

  “Yes and no. I’m not a vampire, but I’m not purely human in the same sense.”

  “It’s okay,” Laney coaxed when he stopped with a hesitant and heavy pause.

  Houston’s smile was lopsided. “I’m Jahehn. I come from a Native American line of shifters. My grandfather was pure Jahehn. When it skipped a generation, they thought our line had lost the calling. My mother could have killed my dad when I did get it.”

  “Shifter?” she muttered. God, she could barely breathe. Her world spun, or flipped, or something, but this was not the one she thought she knew.

  “Wolf,” he tagged on when she could only stand gaping at them all.

  “But all of this”—she swept a hand to encompass all of them, including Joaquin, who had stayed silent and still—“it’s myth!”

  “Not really.” Laney’s calm voice helped slice through her disbelief. “You’re telepathic. Myth or reality? For us, this is our reality. I’ve known Tani for several years. Houston’s known her since she was fourteen. Our friendships kept us together when her world fell apart. Your friendship is keeping us together because we are all different. We need each other.” Curling into Houston’s shoulder, she continued with an iced fear growing in the words when she passed a comprehending look over Houston. “Our child will be different. And if you think you’re terrified of them finding you, I’m as terrified of what my child will face in this world. We could leave it behind, but then we’d be risking our child, just like you were risked in the normal world. Just like Amy, Kathy, and Tabitha. Do you understand?”

  “I think I do,” she finally managed through numb lips, to be heard over a heart thudding with incredulity. With the strength she had left, she faced Joaquin. “And you?” He nodded, but she felt such a wealth of misery in his admission wash over her, it made her eyes burn. She shivered once with the enormity of what they had divulged.

  The truth hit her hard and fast. “You’re in as much danger of exploitation as we are.”

  Tani gave her a look of complete agreement and understanding. “And not just by people. If any one of the science fields got their hands on one of us…” She visibly shivered. “The Brethren, the core of the vampires who don’t exactly live by a badge of honor, they don’t like us, they hate those like us. Friendship among the Brethren is never going to happen. Diego had no idea until he found me that there was any other way to live. He had been alone for a very long time. Nathan was the same way.

  “It’s a two front battle, three now with Tenorio. It would be hysteria if one of us were captured. Proving our existence has been a challenge since the beginning of time. The Brethren have fed that incurable curiosity with their games and man’s own imagination to fill in the gaps.”

  “You’re different?” All three nodded when she met each gaze. “How?”

  “None of us has ever killed to survive. We respect life, and for some, it hasn’t been easy to not take that step.” Titania shared another compelling look with Diego, a look of sheer understanding. “Brethren have no respect for the living, the very beings they need to sustain themselves with. Killing during feeding makes them fall into a soulless, maniacal, cruel darkness that can’t be reversed, and it’s as strong a pull as any addiction to fight their entire existence. Those who succumb are the
vampire of myth, the vampire of today who is sought and hunted. To our knowledge, we’re the only ones who are not like the Brethren.”

  “Oh my God!” She whipped around to gape at Joaquin. “That is what I felt when I first heard you.” An absolute desolation.

  “I was at the end of my endurance,” Joaquin replied with only a small flare of shame, though he never dropped her gaze. “I was ready to face the dawn that night. I did not lie. You saved me, and my sanity.” He stood as still as stone, accepting whatever her decision would be.

  She gripped his arms, giving him a commanding shake. “Do not apologize!” Centering herself in her topsy-turvy world suddenly gone wild, she asked everyone without looking away from Joaquin, “How can I help? We need to find him. I had no idea…”

  “Shh.” She didn’t argue when he wrapped his arms around her and tucked her beneath his chin.

  Now she realized why Tani had no heartbeat. Neither did Joaquin where she pressed against him.

  Vampires? Real vampires? It was unbelievable on so many levels, but Laney was right. This was the world she was in now. How much was real and wasn’t was no longer governed by the same rules she’d known her entire life. She drew a slow breath, absorbing what Tani had told her, understanding what it meant for Tani and Diego, and for Joaquin. Even Houston was different. This was the reality she lived in and, in many ways, it explained so many of the little things, like Diego’s strengths and talents, never seeing any of them during the day, even though she could’ve sworn she’d seen them. It had to have been a cover. When it came to being a vampire, though, it couldn’t have mattered less to her. It wasn’t like these mythical ‘monsters’ were truly the monsters she would have expected to find herself living with and around. She’d stared real monsters in the face and felt their cruelties, all the time while they were disguised as a normal person like any other.

  “You’ve never, you know…bit…me, have you?” she asked low enough for no one else to hear from where she curved against Joaquin’s shoulder, praying that she knew this answer. When he replied, her relief almost had her sag into his embrace.

  “No. I vowed I never would.” The steel in his words left no doubt he wasn’t lying. She knew the determination behind his vows.

  “Your help is part of the problem. I believe you would be invaluable with your telepathy. Diego and Joaquin fear for your safety. And you can’t change your physical presence.”

  Diego stood, Tani following, expressing it was time to leave to find David.

  “I’d slow you down.” She frowned at the bitter truth. It only took a couple seconds to come to her decision. “Go. I can talk to all of you. You can go unseen and search faster than I could.”

  Relief was so strong coming from Joaquin she wanted to smack him. Because he’d won.

  “Only with this. We still have things to talk about.” She made sure he heard it loud and clear.

  “Lily, I will tell you anything you could ever want to know, so long as I can keep you safe.”

  She stepped out of his embrace only so far, feeling the caressing weight of his palms fall to her waist when she reached up to cup his face. “Just come back.” Vampire or not, she wanted him there.

  “I will. I have every reason to.” Before she could guess his next move, he leaned down and kissed her, a passionate, brief melding of lips that left her off kilter. And on fire.

  * * * *

  Lily sat beside Tabitha reading, trying not to think of where Joaquin was, of if he was in danger. She knew if she worried too much, he would hear her and he didn’t need the distraction in their search for David.

  Vampires.

  She still wanted to roll over and laugh. It was like being in some crazy movie. Vampires, wolf shifters, parapsychology gifted people.

  The only thing they were missing was magic. Toss in a witch or two and she’d know she’d somehow left her world completely behind.

  Tani had informed her not too long ago the three had to split their search when David hadn’t been in Parks. He could be in any direction. Houston had searched his room for any clue to where he had gone, but there was nothing, only proof of his leaving with gaps in his closet and a few other things mysteriously vanishing. Like Houston’s Ferrari.

  Lily couldn’t deny she’d felt drawn to Joaquin, had felt his pain and his loneliness during their first conversation. It had been the unignorable pull reaching for her. That desolation. She knew that pain, how deep it sank into the body and soul. He could infuriate her without trying, but never be mad at her because of it, or for any of her reactions or feelings. The deeper knowledge was, she missed him.

  No matter how hard she tried to ignore it, there was something about Joaquin she felt drawn to. She couldn’t explain it. She didn’t understand it, but there was something about him. There was a calmness that almost seeped into her from him. As though he knew the right things to say, the right things to do to keep her calm. Even through all the shocking discoveries and surprises, she’d never once felt threatened by Joaquin. It was, simply, the man himself.

  “Lily?”

  The croaked whisper snapped her entire focus to the woman on the bed before her. She didn’t look away for a single second. “Tabitha? Can you hear me?” She quietly placed the book down, bringing the rocking chair closer to hold one of the hands in front of her. “Can you feel me?”

  Air staggered in and out of Tabitha’s chest, rifling the bed sheets.

  “Tabitha.” She repeated her name, slowly, calmly. “Focus on my voice, Tab. Wake up.”

  Restraint kept her glued to the seat of the rocking chair when she really wanted to scream and jump up and down in joy. The road ahead would still be a long one, but with Tabitha waking, nothing looked impossible in that moment.

  “Can you hear me?” She clutched the hand before her, waiting, anticipating.

  Lashes fluttered, revealing turquoise, sea green eyes.

  Lily felt the wet streaks as they raced down her cheeks. “Thank God,” she choked out. Tabitha worked her jaw and Lily offered her drops of cool water. “Better?”

  She blinked and sighed, then her eyes closed again.

  “Are you still with me?” she asked, worried she’d passed out again.

  The hand in hers tightened and the rise and fall of her chest deepened. “Feels weird.” Her voice was rusty and raw from not being used.

  She’d been warned to not overload her if and when she regained consciousness, so she went with the basics.

  “You’re in a bed, resting. We were rescued.”

  “Rescued?” Tabitha frowned, her brow drawn so tight a V cut into the sunlight yellow eyebrows over her eyes. “Rescued?” It seemed to be a foreign idea to her.

  “Yes. All of us. We’re all here. Kathy and Amy are down the hall asleep.”

  “How long?”

  Lily tried to remember. “At least nine months now. We’re safe.”

  Tabitha’s voice dried out and Lily gave her some more water, using a dropper to slip it into her mouth.

  “You’re weak. You need time to heal. Time is all. You need to rest.” But happiness for her friend brought tears rushing forward without restraint.

  Tabitha flexed a hand and grimaced. “The needles?”

  “Vitamins. Fluids to keep you alive.”

  “No chemicals?”

  “Vitamins and fluids. Nothing more.” Relief made her voice tremulous.

  Tabitha relaxed in stages on the bed. “It feels different.”

  Lily released her hand and splayed it on the cotton sheet of her bed. Tentative fingers ran over it, learning the texture.

  “A sheet!” she exclaimed weakly, shock vibrating in her voice at the sensation.

  “Open your eyes, Tab. The room is beautiful. No bars, no guards.”

  Her lids fluttered open. She squinted. “I-I can’t see.” Distress made her sob, her eyes slamming shut as a fresh wave of pain flared over her face.

  “Shh. It should pass. Your body has gone through a lot. We�
��re here to help you.”

  Time fell open and the thickening silence made the room shrink, made the air oppressive to breathe as Tabitha gathered her strength. One word blurted from her. A word torn from the depths of her anger, her pain, and her soul.

  “Why?”

  Lily froze, staring at her friend. “Why?”

  “Why didn’t you let me die?”

  The pain in her voice was bottomless. Lily had to bite her lip to not whimper from the anguish in the single question. “Because you were strong enough to live then, through it all. You’re strong enough to live now. It will be better, Tabitha.”

  Silence again. The overwhelming sense of despair was hard to fight.

  The brush of fingers, a bare touch of a feeling, floated past her cheek in comfort and she turned into it, seeking, but there wasn’t anyone there.