His Redeemer's Kiss

by Diana Castilleja

  “We’re getting out of here.” He mouthed the words against her skin. Waves of warmth soothed her pains as he absorbed as much as he could, easing her torment. Immersed completely in the blinding intensity almost brought him to his knees, proving her strength once more. He had no choice but to steal an extra moment or two to wade through her agony and ease her pains in the process. He couldn’t let her go on in her current condition. Then, with as much gentleness as possible, he lifted her into his arms, carrying her weight as if she weighed as much as a butterfly.

  Before he could take two steps to reach the gate, a shuddering explosion rocked the building and shook the ground beneath his feet with a horrendous quake. He smiled knowingly. Score one for Diego.

  “Woohoo!”

  He almost laughed out loud at Nathan’s gleeful reaction.

  “And we forgot the marshmallows.” There was a definite playful whine in the young man’s complaint.

  “What are marshmallows?”

  “I’ll show you some time,” she answered drowsily from her position in his arms. Her mouth brushed his neck when she spoke and it sent a raw shiver down his body.

  He didn’t spare another moment, simply cupping his hand over the gate lock and pushing. The steel door flew open with a harsh, grinding, metallic snap.

  “You’re pretty handy to have around,” she teased him.

  “Just don’t be kidnapped again. My heart can’t take it.” He strode through the mangled gate and aimed for the one door.

  “Your heart doesn’t beat,” she pointed out.

  “Some, not as much as most normal humans. I can make it beat a natural rhythm.”

  She shook against his body, laughing, trying to hide the winces even that little movement caused her. Holding her like the treasure she was, he prayed she laughed for him for a very long time. “Hold on,” he told her, concentrating to do the same to the steel door before him that he’d done to the cage gate.

  It shattered outward, a warped metal plate sliding on the concrete floor, leaving sparks in its wake. He didn’t think twice, lifting his hand and forcing a hard wind ahead of him. The guard running toward them was lifted and slapped into the opposing wall. He fell slack with a resounding crack of bone.

  “Let’s hope they’re too busy to worry about their prisoners.”

  “Did Diego find her?”

  The response was swift in answer. “I have her. She is not in as bad a condition as Lily, but she has been here for far too long.”

  Lily nodded, relieved. “I heard him through you, didn’t I?”

  He pressed a loving kiss to her forehead. “You did.” He wasn’t sure how or when he was going to break the real truth to her, that she was becoming as much like him as she was human. He had to get her out of there before anything else could be decided.

  Nathan’s determined tones reached out to him next. “The computers are in a series of meltdowns. The only thing they’re going to have left is a lot of steel cases and garbage. I’m going to get David.”

  Joaquin nodded, marching with his precious cargo through the labyrinth of corridors making up the building where the cages were. He didn’t put another worry toward the other two, knowing they were perfectly capable.

  Diego met them at the door to the outside. He held in his arms a limp, tallish brunette. “She was the only one I found any signs of.” Diego had put the woman he found under a mental command to keep her blissfully unaware.

  “I only found one voice,” Lily said without lifting her head. Her disappointment was unmistakable.

  “She will not be left behind to suffer more. That is one less for Tenorio’s experiments.”

  She nodded to acknowledge she’d heard Diego, but kept silent, conserving her strength.

  “Then let Nathan locate David and meet us on the other side of the plateau.”

  Oblivious to the two walking men holding their precious burdens, soldiers raced back and forth searching for the cause of the fires, trying to extinguish them even as more seemed to ignite and detonate all around them.

  Shadows leaped and jumped in front of the roaring yellow flames, spreading to four of the lower buildings. The munitions building was completely engulfed in a riotous conflagration of heat and bursting spires of flame. Dust rose and swirled in the jarring wind currents from the raging heat as the speeding vehicles and men raced to douse the flames that refused to die, almost as if they were fighting to continue their path of destruction through the compound.

  “Nice work,” Joaquin stated watching intently as yet another building, one that appeared to be barracks, erupted with a whoosh sound.

  “The less left, the longer it will take for them to regroup.”

  Joaquin couldn’t argue with that logic. Not for the first time, he wondered what kind of man Diego had been before in his life, because the man who stood with him now gave new meaning to the word ‘relentless’.

  Diego turned his back on the snapping blazes and marched away from the worst of the eruptions while Joaquin followed. They lifted effortlessly and cleared the high wire fence with little trouble. Ahead of them lay miles of open desert and rock formations. The compound had been nestled in deep dunes and arroyos, hidden from the natural world. The closest sign of life was still miles away.

  “Houston has left to meet me before sunrise. He will take our new charge to the house.” Diego looked toward the compound and frowned. “David and Hawthorne are missing. Nathan is searching, but thinks they are gone.”

  “That’s bad, isn’t it?” Joaquin studied Diego’s expressions.

  “It is not good.”

  Joaquin lifted Lily higher and a cool hand spread against his chest. She was resting, but hardly coherent. “She needs care.” He knew they would not reach the house in time either.

  “Houston can ensure she is safe. He can take her as well, if you wish, and see to her wounds.”

  Joaquin curled her tighter into his frame, unwilling to let her out of his sight again, even though he knew she would receive the best of care with her new family. When he didn’t reply, Diego continued, understanding Joaquin’s reticence without a hint of condemnation for his feelings. Joaquin didn’t doubt Diego would have done the same for Titania, care for her, hold her, protect her, if their roles had been reversed.

  “There are places to hide in the canyon where you both will be protected.” Large, feathered wings protruded from Diego’s shoulders, moving with a graceful lift as they stretched and rose above him and over his head. “Take the time you need, friend. We will welcome her as one of our own when you both return.” His somber countenance became less strained for a heartbeat. “Titania is anxious for her and sends her prayers. She will not be alone.”

  Joaquin was grateful for the unequivocal support from the both of them. “Tell Tani I am in her debt.” If it weren’t for her, he would have been vampire toast at their first face off.

  “Good luck.” Then, with a nod, Diego launched into the air, a majestic form carrying precious cargo.

  Looking down at Lily’s pale face, everything else melted away. “Let’s go, lovely.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Joaquin knew the caves and cracks Diego meant. They were closer than the house, but still took time to reach. The entire time as he made that journey, his thoughts tumbled. There were memories, however distant, of his conversion and he knew the pain he drew from her now was nothing compared to what he had unintentionally forced on Lily to have to endure.

  When the devil had attacked him, he’d been bereft with his loss, welcoming the end he’d thought he’d earned. Suffering the catastrophic, painful tragedy of the wreck, awash in the guilt and loss of watching his wife die. It was an end, but not the end he’d believed. The creature who had ‘made’ him had played with him, alternately diving against Joaquin’s throat as though he was his last supper to then leave him weak and defenseless in the wilderness of the new world. He’d been too exhausted to fight off the attack, then too weak to escape.

  T
here was no memory of the first drink for him. The Brethren who had made him had jumped between cold and calculated to nearly maniacal in his treatment of Joaquin. To this day, he didn’t even know the man’s name. He knew at some point, his creator had perished. There was an infinitesimal prick of knowledge, like a light bulb just going dark, and whatever had tied them together in his creation had ceased to exist.

  He did remember his conversion. There would never be enough time and distance for him to ever forget it. The humiliating pain, an absolute loss of his own body and its functions. He’d never faced a higher form of degradation or forgotten the feeling of being ripped open to be shoved ruthlessly into his own skin, inside out. He’d gone to ground on pure instinct. His creator had abandoned him before he’d even begun to lose his humanity. The absolute vacuum of the ‘living death’ had disconcerted him when he’d awakened to find inches of soil over his head. He’d panicked, bursting through the barrier. It took him three nights to realize when he woke, he wasn’t going to suffocate. He didn’t breathe unless he wanted to. It was an afterthought in his new existence.

  He had almost died irrevocably the night after his conversion, so stunned and disoriented erupting from the earthen bed he’d burrowed, he’d stumbled along the nearest road searching for help, any answer, or his creator. He’d found none of what he searched for.

  Someone found him, though. Horsemen who thought to take advantage of a lone man, obviously unsure of his place, and even more unsure of what he was doing. He did have the presence of mind to defend himself that night.

  The horses reacted the worst, screaming and fighting to flee the terror they instinctively recognized. The men were not as astute. Two had drawn swords, flicking at him with the razor-sharp edges. They never touched him. Speed was his first discovery. Strength his second. Then, it became his fight as, one by one, the five fell beneath his hand.

  For a man who had never killed a person, fighting for his very life changed it all. Death was only another step into the life he’d been shoved into. The scent of blood from one of the injured was the brain-numbing shocker.

  Fangs unlike any he’d ever seen burst forth, making him freeze like a statue to examine the change, the urge and the cause. Nearing the fallen man, he stared at him through dispassionate eyes, where the fallen no longer seethed with the bravado of his friends and their malicious objective. He watched Joaquin through eyes glassy with pain and shock. A quick assessment showed he’d damaged something in his fall from his horse. Even though his hands moved, his legs did not even though he scrabbled to get away any way he could.

  Joaquin knelt next to the man and let the urge, the hunger, guide him. There was no escape for either man. He recognized penance when he saw it. If this was his for Angelica, then so be it. He would pay his debt to his love.

  The first rush was a shocking bliss. Remembering too well the abuses his creator had forced on him, he placed a hand over his provider’s eyes and let him rest, taking from the pounding vein in the man’s neck, guided by some unseen, unknown hunger. He didn’t try to fight the horror of this new hunger. He knew what he faced after spending countless nights as another’s victim. The man’s life would end by someone else’s hand, a merciful hand to end his injuries. Not because of Joaquin’s needs.

  Something stopped him from gorging as the heat and life filled his limbs. A knowledge, or a warning, he didn’t know then, and he’d never once dared to challenge it. Never once wished to see what the outcome would be for crossing that line. Never once fed to end a life, to steal away the soul, the beat, of another. He had to live this way. Joaquin had never delivered the fatal blow that would end their existence as they knew it.

  Until now. Looking at the beauty in his arms, terror knifed him.

  He had done this. Despair like he’d never known trapped him in a heavy fist. Lifting her, he buried his nose into her hair, so fragrant, redolent with the scent of cinnamon. Ahead he saw the first place that would work, but passed it, knowing he needed a deep hideaway.

  Because come daybreak, Lily would be completely alone. With a dead man.

  * * * *

  Her body ached. Tingles of awareness brought her up from the fog she’d been drifting through. The tender lapping of a tongue against her thigh made her jerk completely awake.

  “I better know you,” she muttered while her hands clenched into something scrumptiously comfortable layered beneath her.

  “You know me like no one else.”

  She grinned, hearing his voice and floating along the river of sensation he was giving her. She winced, flinching when he found a slice over a nerve.

  “Relax. This will help.” The warmth of his caresses continued.

  “What are you doing?” It felt like…he was…licking her. He couldn’t be, but the velvet heat repeated with slow, lingering swipes. What was worse—she was enjoying it. His touch was making her heart speed up, easing the sting of the cuts and slices in her skin, drawing her attention further and further away from the pain.

  “Salving your cuts.”

  “That doesn’t feel like any ointment I’ve ever known.”

  He chuckled, his warmed breath flowing over her skin, making her tremble anew. “Better than any ointment, love. Just lie still.” A tender kiss followed. “You have a lot. I don’t want to miss one.”

  She opened her eyes. And blinked. It was pitch dark. How could he see a thing? She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Beneath her, she felt a thick pile of something cushioning her along her front. Other than that, she was completely naked. She couldn’t find it in her to really care too much, though. His ministrations were heavenly, distracting her from her unclothed state. Tilting, she lay her cheek down, too tired to think too fast.

  “Where are we?”

  “In the Grand Canyon.” Another swipe higher on her inner thigh. She twitched, swallowing the automatic groan. He was slowly melting her into a mass of quivering need with his attention to detail.

  “I take you to mean that literally.” His laughter warmed her and she smiled. “I can’t see anything.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s too confined for a fire. I can see. You are safe.”

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Tending to your cuts.”

  She hated to complain about that part, even as wonderful as it felt. It was so unusual. Her mouth snapped shut when he found a particularly sensitive one. The groan was impossible to hide this time. She clenched her hands again, feeling velvet and more. Pillows?

  “How did you manage pillows?” she wondered aloud, the unexpected sensation of their plushness distracting her away from his apparent ministrations.

  “It was the only thing I could think of at the moment. These needed to be cared for, you needed to be cared for,” he purred, dropping another decadent trail along her buttock. “Do you want something else?”

  “Hmm? Oh, no,” she breathed, shuddering as he moved again. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m healing you.”

  It was so matter of fact that, for a moment, his words didn’t register.

  “Wait. Healing? How?”

  “The same way I can heal my bite after feeding. The ones I’ve already done are beginning to show improvement. By the time I’m done, they’ll be mostly gone from all over.”

  “Amazing.” She lay there, entrenched in his touch, his lips and his tongue as he laved and lapped a slow moving trail up her body. The stroke of his fingers on quivering skin a moment later had little to do with healing, and she told him so.

  His voice was as sensual against her skin as the velvet beneath her. “It’s hard to ignore your body, corazón. It warms beneath my touch like the hottest fire. You’re so soft, silky everywhere I touch. And delicious.” She knew he was teasing her; the flutter of his fingers matched the lowered lascivious voice.

  She laughed. Pressing her face into the pillows, she endeavored to stifle the giggles she knew would echo through the cave, or wherever it was he’d hidden them away
. Between his touch and his teasing, it was easier to forget why she was hurting, knowing she was safe again.

  “Ah, Lily,” he crooned. “I love hearing you laugh. It was taken away from you for too long.” Her breath caught, and she tried to roll over, but his hands stayed her. “Not yet.”

  The caress of his fingertips teased as much as the wandering of his tongue where he stroked against her body, time after time. The drag of his hair on sensitized skin sent sparks up her spine in a rush while the touch of his body next to hers, so close but not where she needed, where she craved to feel that searing, passionate touch, drove her insane.

  She wasn’t sure how much time it took until he was satisfied. She, on the other hand, was a riotous knot of wanting, writhing with barely controlled restraint into the pillows. She wished she could see. At least she wasn’t claustrophobic.