Redemption: A Custos Novel

by Emjay Soren

  “She’s thinkin’ of me?” I ask, waaaaay more than curious.

  He laughed, “All she ever thinks of is you. Give her a chance, to see if she could silence your storms.”

  I didn’t need to think, I didn’t need to pro and con it. I needed to act. I would charge onto the dance floor and demand she get her hips, ass and tits away from Bastian before I kill the only werewolf known in history.

  I would do it with a wink and a smile if it meant she would let me touch her again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tavern

  “Having fun little Bird?” I heard Preacher and kept a close eye on his face, testing his emotions.

  “Yes.” I replied with a smile, trying to keep things light. “You?” I spun away as I asked, circling my hips to the beat. London rolled her eyes in laughter and made a move to leave, pulling a laughing Bastian with her.

  “Not even a little, Bird.” He is right behind me now and I feel his hands as he wraps them around my middle, my back to his chest.

  “What are you doing?” I gasp so quietly, had he not been a vampire he wouldn’t have heard me.

  “I want to dance with you.” His voice is so low, and he sounds desperate. I feel my resolve shattering, knowing I never stood a chance.

  “We are dancing.” I gulp, and spin to face him. I need to see his eyes, that is where his truth is.

  He nods and says nothing, but drops a light kiss on the side of my mouth. My breath hitched in my throat. It feels like a lifetime since he'd kissed me. “Like that little Bird?” He asked, but intensifies the moment by gripping my hips and aligning my small frame against his body, against his erection.

  I nodded and decided that I'd been a goner the minute he came to me. I hooked both hands around his neck and swayed my hips to the soft, gyrating beat. “This song is perfect for what you’re doing to me Bird. Those flashing lights hit you, I had no choice but to stare. I had to come to you, had to touch you.”

  His words are unraveling me. I am losing this fight, and doing so with a smile. “Well, you’ve touched me. Are you done now?” I had to know.

  He laughs darkly and everything in me turns into scorching liquid. I am ready to beg for mercy. “I haven’t even begun to touch you, Bird.” He lifts his hand, capturing me by the back of my neck. His mouth is close. “Are you gonna let me back in, Tavern?”

  There is no question here, because I am so wet, so ready to be at his sexual alter begging for mercy. “You never left, Preacher.”

  He crushed my body to his and slants his mouth over mine, fusing our lips together. At the first taste of his mouth I groan and open fully to him, like a rose in bloom, I give him all of me at once. The fire consuming me daily, making it hard to think of anything but sex, goes into overdrive with him here before me like a mirage. “Don’t make me wait….touch me.” I gasp as his hand circles the edge of my dress.

  “Don’t tempt a desperate man, Bird. I’ll fuck you right here just to prove a point.”

  Jesus, that would be hot as all fuck, but I have to keep mild composure at least. “Fuck, Bird, you like that don’t’cha?” He drops his hand between our bodies and I can feel his fingers skimming very close to that apex where my need has gathered for him.

  He looks to the crowd and up to the balcony where the gang is watching us with apt attention. I watch him nod before turning back to me and smiling. “What was that?” I ask, confused.

  “A gift.” Leushus says suddenly from behind me, and then I feel a fissure of exploding energy starting at my feet and ending in tingles atop my head. I can see Preacher smiling, and the club is still in full swing, the intro to the song lasting a hell of a lot longer than I knew was normal.

  Leushus and the gang are all leaving, and I look to Preacher who is working the buckle of his jeans free.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, horrified at how desperate I am to see his thick cock after being starved from it for days. He begins stroking himself. I'm watching the crowd, waiting for the cops to come dashing in and arrest him for indecency.

  “I'm givin’ my Bird what she wants. I’m gonna fuck ya Bird, right here in the middle of this dance floor.

  He pulls me to him. I am panting, excited as I've ever been and scared to death that we both have lost our minds. That fear spikes when he lifts my dress over my ass and I know what he's about to see.

  “Bleedin’ hell, Bird. Where are your knickers?” He asks, and snakes a swipe of his finger through my wetness.

  “Preacher!” I gasp and for the first time I notice that the people around us are watching like it’s normal, that the intro to Love Stoned is still going and that Preacher is on his knees with my leg over his shoulder. “What is going on?” I demand, feeling that fear and arousal intensify as equals.

  “A gift from Leushus. He read us, and is making it possible for me to fuck this pretty little cunt right here and now, with no repercussions.”

  “Do they know?” I ask looking at the patrons who are acting no different, dancing around us, some glance our way, but do nothing that implies they see my pussy on display over Preachers mouth.

  “They know we're here, they can feel our sexual energy, but no, they don’t know.”

  I thought of what he was saying. He was going to fuck me here and now, on the dance floor of Sinners and Saints amongst the entire crowd. I was terrified, and beyond turned on. “How did he know what we were talking about? It’s too loud in here.” I gasp when his fingers still on my clit and he dips a single digit deep inside of me.

  “Leushus always knows what any Custos is thinking and feeling. We can’t hide it from him. So he did us a favor and made it happen.”

  I nod like it made a world of sense and in my new world where shit went bump in the night a lot, it did. “That is fucking awesome!”

  “Don’t know if I’d say awesome. I don’t like him knowin’ my preferences, Bird.” He laughs and drives his finger deep adding another before going to work on my clit. His tongue is swirling and I'm already too far gone to make it last. I shatter in seconds and scream in all the chaos and noise of the bar. “That’s it, come on my face so I smell you while I fuck you.”

  Oh yeah, I missed my dirty man. I knew it then, that regardless of the pain he dealt in my future, I would let him back in; because he needed me as deeply as I needed him. He may not see it, and that was fine for now. He would tell me one day what was holding him back from me.

  “I did, now fuck me!” I demand, and he is up, lifting me with one arm. Holding himself erect at the hole of me he slides me down onto his shaft. I cry, real tears, at how bad I was missing this. I came again, right then and there.

  “Naughty Bird. I have to teach you to savor me, the way I eat you and the way you take my dick. You need to learn to hold it off so it’s stronger.” My feet are around his waist and I am rocking against him, slippery wet, fucking on a public dance floor and getting away with it.

  “Naughty Preacher.” I moan and feel him drive against me with freight train force. “You shouldn't give all your talents away in the beginning. You make me come. I am only following your lead.”

  He groans and drives into me again, we are both shuddering, yelling out, letting the insanity take us. “Fuck, I love that you follow me.”

  “Come Preacher!” I demand, lost in the moment. “Come deep inside of me, mark me here and now in front of everyone, so they know this pussy is yours.”

  He groans loudly and shouts as his orgasm bursts into me. I am drifting with each thrust, looking at all the random faces standing beside me as I feel him come, and come right along with him. They are watching without watching, and it makes me crazy.

  As the last of the shudders release him, he sets me down to my feet and kisses me softly on my lips. “Naughty Preacher…what happened to delaying your gratification for the sake of savoring my pussy?” I ask and run my hands through his long blond curls, tugging on them making him groan.

  “There is no savoring when my Bird gets a filthy mouth
.”

  I laugh and gasp when he drops to his knees before me. He pulls his flannel shirt off and folds it, placing it between my legs, cleaning me. “I hate wiping myself off you Bird, but without knickers you’ll leave with me dripping out of you with every step.”

  I groan and feel a wet gush and I want him again…and again…and again!!!

  He stands and tucks the flannel shirt in his back pocket.”Come to me tonight, Bird? To my bed?”

  He has never asked me before. He has always known that was where I would be. For Preacher, this was huge. “Do you have more to give me?” I ask, knowing he always has more.

  “More then I will ever give another.”

  I stop and feel my pulse rise and my ears burn from the depth of that statement.

  “Preacher…” I start, but he silences me with a kiss.

  “Leave it for now, Bird. We'll talk soon, but just leave it for now. Because saying that, was like taking a bullet.” He looks at me and I can see how deeply hard it was for him to admit he cares. “Please?”

  I nod and feel the power break around us, the music changes to a Lady GaGa song and we move slowly through the crowd hand in hand, but all I can think of is that he is back and better than before.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Preacher

  I could see her white knuckles as she gripped the headboard, and I knew she was catching my point. “Please, Preacher, please!” She was crying out for her orgasm.

  “Enjoy me, Bird.” I knew what I was doing felt amazing and that by delaying the end she would come harder for it.

  “I am, but it’s hurting me Preacher! I can’t breathe baby!” I almost paused when she called me that, but I kept going, reminding myself that the time had come to let love in and all that happy rot. I focused on her heartbeat and knew she wasn’t in a danger zone, she was just horny as fuck.

  “No, Bird, I hear your heartbeat and I know you're being greedy. You’ll come when I let you.” And she would come.

  “Your cock is big Preacher, who wouldn’t be greedy.” She gives a hard laugh and a cry, and it only asked me thrust harder.

  “Greed’s one of the seven sins, Bird.”

  “So is lust.

  Now I laugh. “Gluttony.”

  “Oh, I am so binging on your cock.”

  Now I laugh. “Come Bird, so you can finish me in your mouth.”

  She came, hard. The way she contracts around me makes me want to blow, but I'll save it for her mouth. I let her catch her breath, giving her shallow digs that are keeping me on the edge. “I’m ready for you, Preacher.”

  She opened her arms for me, welcoming all I would give her. It made me emotional because I wanted to give her everything, needed to. My nights before meeting my little Bird were spent worshipping something I could never have again. I was tired.

  I slipped easily from inside her and drew my body farther up hers as she lay beneath me on the bed. “Do you mind the taste of yourself in your mouth?”

  “I like knowing I’m on you.” She says it and before I can one up her, as our banter tends to dictate, she sucks me in knowing how I like it. I feel that same emotional piece in me come to life again. I brush her sweat soaked bangs from her eyes and use my knuckles to stroke her cheek. I savor her as deeply as she savors me.

  Overwhelmed with emotion and need I can barely choke my words out, but I need to ask, for her sake I need to ask. “Can I come inside, Bird?”

  She releases me to answer with a gasp. “You never asked before.”

  I nod, knowing what a fuck I am and cup her cheek trying to show her. “Never cared before, Bird.”

  She pauses and her eyes are on me. I hold her gaze. If she says no, I'm fine with stroking until I release, but I want a yes, want to know she wants it to. She says nothing, keeping her eyes trained on me and smiles such a pretty smile. She nods in agreement and I feel full of life, even though I'm dead.

  I watch as she takes me deep and never look away as her cheeks hollow with every stroke. I shoot, and I long to find words that will express how bad I want her. She takes me in and accepts it all without any promises from me.

  My Bird is amazing.

  *

  It’s been hours since she fell asleep beside me, her head upon my chest. She had never stayed before tonight, and I was going to try and keep her from ever leaving again. As if summoned by my thoughts alone, she began to stir beside me. I smooth my fingers along her spine and think she is back to sleep when she giggles.

  “That tickles.” Her voice is low and almost a whisper and I laugh. It’s a reaction only she could bring out in me.

  “Did I wake you?” I pull her in, though she is as close as she can be without being fully on top of me. Even though I like the thought, I need to come clean and tell Bird my secrets, ask her to stay…

  She seems to ponder my question and I love that about her. “No, I think I just…did.” She buries her face in my chest and drops kisses along my ribs. “I should get to my room.”

  I can feel the tension immediately because I do not want her away from me. Not anymore. Lesson learned.

  “I think you should stay.”

  “You do?” She asks. I can hear the suspicion in her tone and hate knowing she doubts me.

  “I do.” I run a hand through my hair and lean to my nightstand lighting a blunt because I need its distraction. I inhale and wait for the words to come.

  “Care to elaborate?” She sits up and clutches the sheet to her chest, immediately on the defensive.

  “I would, but you need to understand, that outside of my wife I have never wanted to experience.....more...” I look at the bifter and drop the ash in my hand. “Until you.”

  “Experience what?” She asks, still skeptical, but she seems intrigued.

  “Emigen was everything. I left my priesthood for her and never once thought I had made the wrong decision.” I didn’t elaborate on the fact that had I stayed, I would have saved their lives and died of old age. I don’t include Mary and Peter in this thought because I cannot ponder them never having existed. It comes down to fate, and where I was destined to be in the end, not them. It’s those thoughts that hold me back. “I never thought I would love anything more than the Father, then Christ. But seeing her and her flowing golden hair, I knew.” I shrug because it’s appropriate. “I never looked back, and through it all I have held on to my faith in God and whatever plan he has for me. Over the last few months I have questioned that faith. Cookie took your life for mine and I didn’t honor the gift, didn’t cherish it. I wallowed, and lost faith and fight and was barely existing.......until I saw you, shivering in a corner, and knew that you were my second chance, just as I was yours.”

  “Preacher.....I....."

  “No, Bird. Let me get this out there. I am not an emotional man. I try to be compassionate and show empathy even to the damned. But that night I saw you, desperate and scared and so alone, I understood redemption, Bird.”

  “Preacher, you are my second chance. I don’t know how I came out the other side of all this, but I did. And though it’s been hard, I am grateful, and I have you to thank for that.”

  “Me?”

  She nods and leans in to kiss my cheek. “I would have died, Preacher, had you not given in to me. I love that you trusted me with your desires and your needs, and you used them to take away the ache and the draw. I am able to see an end to this because of you, and I’m doing it without blood.”

  “I will give you blood anytime, Bird, but I appreciate your desire to free yourself through blood, sweat and tears. If or when it gets to be too much, all you need is to ask. I wouldn’t deny you.”

  She smiles that pretty smile again and I am lost, to her and her alone. “I would only ever take it from you.”

  In the middle of all that hope I was feeling, there was possessiveness too. “You're damn right there, Bird. I would kill the vampire who fed you.”

  “God that’s hot.”

  I wiggle my brows and grasp her ankles
pulling her to me and stealing her kiss. “I want ya ‘gain, Bird.”

  Her hand falls between my legs and she palm strokes my cock through the sheet. “You don’t need to ask me Preacher.” I am quickly thinking up my next position when a thunderous knock beats at my door.

  “Preacher?!”

  It was Leushus, which meant he knew where I was and exactly what I was about to get to doing, so it had to be bad. Guy Code, rule number one: Cock blocking is only cool in the event of an emergency. That. Is. It!

  “Hold it, Bird.” I groan, and get to the door faster than any human could. I was making this fast. “Leush?”

  He looked ragged and pale, like he had gone months without sleep and blood; like he looked earlier. “What is it?” I ask, more concerned by the second.

  “I know what you're gonna do here, Preacher, and you need to listen to me, hear me out before you completely lose it.” This was a warning that held no malice. It was a warning that whatever he was about to tell me was gonna hurt. He was panicked, and Leushus didn’t do panic.

  Bad stuff.

  “Tell me then, and let’s get to work on stopping whatever it is that’s got you like this.”

  “Not that easy, Preach.” Cash said and behind him was Bastian and, of course, Cookie.

  “Wow, the whole peanut gallery.” I tried making a joke, it wasn't working. Not that I was some big comedian in the first place.

  No one talks, and I can feel slight tremors start in my hands. This was personal. I can’t help but look back at Tavern. She has gotten from the bed and slipped on my shirt and boxers. I then notice that I am buck ass naked at the door, and even that has them silent.

  Buck ass naked anyone in this house is fodder for a century. “Spit it out or I’m closing the bleedin’ door and gettin’ back to my girl.” That last part was said intentionally, I wanted everyone to know that I chose her, chose right.

  It was Leushus that tried to speak but Cash beat him to it with the finesse of a bull in a china shop. “He’s back, Preach. Angelo Caprecci was commissioned by Darcallion the minute he saw you leave Inked with Tavern.”