by Reinke, Sara
“Thank you, Valien,” Pilar whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he warned her sternly. “Take me to this bar you mentioned. We’ve still got work to do—and not much time.”
****
Pilar sat in the passenger seat of Elías’s car, watching as Valien and Téo wrestled Pepe Cervantes’s body to the side of a canal bridge, a low-slung concrete wall over which they unceremoniously dumped him. High tide was in, the waterway below swollen to nearly full capacity. With the window rolled halfway down, she heard the heavy splash as Pepe hit the surface. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine his body bobbing momentarily on the green-gray surface before at last sinking into the murky depths.
El coquí, el coquí siempre canta… she sang in her mind, only it was her father’s voice she imagined, Enrique singing to her from beyond the grave. By the time she reached the last, lingering line, she imagined that Pepe would have hit the canal floor, settling into the loose silt and mud, floating ever so slightly, a tempting morsel to draw the curious attention of at least one or more hungry alligators.
They’d set fire to Melaza, dousing the inside of the nightclub with gasoline, then setting the entire building alight after they’d removed the bodies of Pepe and his friends. They’d then thrown each of the dead Nahual into a different canal, crisscrossing the entire city of Bayshore and tossing corpses into waterways where they were least likely to be seen doing so—and where the bodies would be least likely to be found anytime soon.
When they’d finished with Pepe, Valien and Téo parted company, with Téo walking back to his sister’s Camry and Valien returning to the Charger. As he crossed in front of her, Téo cut Pilar a long, mournful glance. He hadn’t heard her admit her love for Elías but had obviously picked up on it anyway. It broke his heart and she felt badly for that, because no matter how often or how much he got on her nerves, a part of her had once cared for him.
But that girl is gone now, she thought sadly as he walked away. I’m sorry, Téo, but she died last year along with my father. There’s a new woman now who’s come to take her place, and her heart—my heart—belongs to Elías.
Valien opened the car door, sat down behind the wheel. “That’s the last of them. With any luck, they’ll be eaten by gators and that will be the end of that.”
“What if somebody finds them?” she asked as he started the engine. “The other members of Los Pandilleros will know they’re missing, even if they’re never found.”
“Yo sé,” he replied. I know.
“Tejano will find out,” she said in a hush, and he nodded. “His brother’s gone missing, the club’s burned down. He’s going to come here, isn’t he?” In a hush, she added, “Looking for Elías.”
Because as big, bad, tough and vicious as Pepe Cervantes had been, his older brother was a thousandfold worse, at least. She’d never known Valien to be afraid of anything, not in their entire lives, but even the mention of the older man’s name was enough to make him stiffen unconsciously, his gaze growing apprehensive.
“No,” Valien said. “Tejano will come looking for us. He’ll have no reason to suspect Detective Velasco was involved.” With a quick glance in her direction, then back out the windshield, he added, “And we’re never going to let him think any differently.”
In essence, he’d just vowed to keep Elías safe, to protect him—and the truth about what had happened to Pepe. He’d agreed to accept the blame for Pepe’s murder—and all the consequences that would surely come with it.
“Thank you, Valien,” she whispered, understanding the gravity of what this decision, what it could mean not only for him but for their entire corillo.
“You know, this is a nice damn car,” he replied, trying to sound nonchalant as he dropped the transmission in gear and pulled back onto the main highway. “Your galán, he has good taste.”
“Yeah. He does.” Pilar nodded, looking toward the backseat, where Elías’s blood was still visible, the fragrance of it discernable.
With a sigh, Valien said, “I have to wipe his mind, hermanita.”
Her brows furrowed. “No.”
“He knows about us now,” he argued. “He’s been bitten.”
“He’s a good man. And he saved my life.”
“He knows way too much. And he’s a cop, for Christ’s sake. Do you have any idea the kind of trouble he could make for us?”
“He won’t.”
“Why? Because you’re sleeping with him?” Valien shot her a look.
“No. Because I love him. And I’ll ask him to keep it all secret. And because he loves me—so he will.”
Valien shook his head. “I won’t empty his mind. Not of everything. Just what he knows about us. I can make it like he hit his head, suffered a brain injury, amnesia or something.”
“You’ll make him forget me.”
He glanced at her. “It’s too dangerous for the corillo. And I’m already agreeing to take on a huge risk for him. I’m sorry.”
“Valien, please,” she whispered, fighting against tears. “I love him.”
He didn’t say anything else, but she knew he didn’t need to. He’d made his decision. She could beg and plead for the rest of the night, and it still wouldn’t dissuade him, not if he thought it would be best for the corillo.
“I’ll tell Jackson about you and Taya,” she said at length.
Valien hit the brakes so hard, the car’s back tires locked up. The tail end of the Charger swung hard to the right and the car slid to a screeching halt.
“Don’t even joke about that,” he said, and it was his turn to look stricken.
“I’m not,” she shot back. “Leave Elías alone.”
“It’s not just up to me, Pilar—you know that. I’ve got the other corillo leaders to answer to, like Siervo.”
“You’re the corillo leader. You took Dad’s place.” Her brows furrowed, she stared him down. “You make the rules, Valien. The rest of us just follow them. Whether we like it or not.”
She waited, letting this ultimatum sink in through his thick skull and even thicker sense of pride. To try to sweeten the deal even further, she said, “And he’d be on our side, Valien. He’s a cop. He can help us make sure no one finds out the truth about the bodies in the canal. He can help keep our secrets—not expose them.”
Valien stared straight ahead out the windshield, drumming his fingers angrily against the steering wheel. Finally, he huffed out an aggravated sigh and spared her a glower. “Don’t tell Jackson.”
“I won’t.”
His brows lifted, a pleading expression. “He’s my friend, like Chita is for you. I know about him and Taya. He’s crazy about her, but I just can’t get her out of my head. Or my heart.”
Pilar touched his hand gently. “I won’t say anything,” she promised.
He nodded once, then put the car into gear, pulling back into traffic again. “All right,” he said, his tone of voice distracted, as if he hoped to convince himself as much as Pilar. “But if he talks, Pilar—if this chota boyfriend of yours does anything to put the corillo at risk—then by God, I’ll kill him myself. Comprendes?”
Unable to contain the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, Pilar replied, “You’ll have to go through me first.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When Pilar and Valien arrived back at Estela’s house, Jackson met them at the front door, his eyes round and worried. “I think something’s wrong.”
He brought them to the guest bedroom, where Elías lay on the bed, the sheets draped loosely around his waist. Estela had started an intravenous line to pump blood into his veins; it was a technique many among the Nahual knew with intimate familiarity, as it was frequently employed, especially in incidents of dire injury, to increase the blood and nutrient supply to wounded corillo members too.
“He was responding well,” Estela said to Valien. Pilar could see gauze bandages wrapped and taped to cover the vicious bite wounds on Elías’s torso a
nd arms. An assortment of first aid supplies littered a bedside nightstand. Estela may not have understood all that was going on, but like a dutiful Nahual woman, she’d responded nonetheless. Valien had told her to do something, and that was all the impetus she’d needed…although Pilar suspected if Estela had known the truth about Elías—specifically, his involvement with Pilar—it might have been a different matter altogether. “But then he started getting restless, kicking and muttering. He said he was hot.”
“He’s diabetic.” Pilar remembered how Elías had suffered a hypoglycemic attack the night before because he’d been unable to reach his sugar pills. But this was different. His blood had smelled odd to her then, bitter and strange, but now it smelled sweet, more so than normal, almost cloyingly so. His mind felt different to her too, his body’s physiological signs and symptoms. Sitting down against the edge of the bed, she slipped her hand against his and opened her mind telepathically, trying to use his own memories as she had before to learn what was happening, and if he knew how to fix it.
But this, too, had changed. Elías had endured Pepe’s unwelcomed presence in his mind, and the awareness of her there, probing his thoughts—however gently—was enough to frighten him. Elías groaned, turning his head against the pillow, trying to pull his hand loose from hers.
It’s all right. She tried to soothe his anxiety, speaking softly to him, gently. Despite his efforts to prevent her, she could still see that he recognized what was happening to him—the opposite problem that he’d suffered the night before. Instead of too little blood sugar, his body now had too much. The stress of his injuries, the torture Pepe had subjected him to, it had taken a physiological toll on him. Pilar realized this, and also that there was no magic cure, no emergency pill he could take to correct it.
He would box, she thought, because she could see it in his mind. The only way to rid himself of the excess sugar in his blood was to exercise—to expend as much energy as physically possible—and he’d do so by taking on the punching bag at his condo. He’d work out until the point of exhaustion, and only then would he have reined his wayward body chemistry back under some semblance of control.
“Let me be alone with him,” she said suddenly, quietly. Looking around at Valien, Jackson and her mother, she said it again. “Let me be alone with him. I know what’s wrong. I know what he needs.”
And because she didn’t want to come right out and say it in front of Estela—I have to fuck his brains out—she gave Valien in particular a pointed look. “He’s diabetic. He’s having a hyperglycemic attack—too much sugar in his blood. I can help him. I just…I need you guys to go away for a while.”
Estela sputtered, her brows narrowing, as Valien took her by the arm and led her gently from the room, despite her protests. He nodded once at Jackson, who looked mystified, but followed, closing the door quietly behind them.
Alone with Elías in the cool, shadow-draped room, Pilar leaned over him in the bed, smoothing his hair back from his face. There wasn’t time for subtleties. She pressed her mouth against his, kissing him, letting her tongue slip past the unresisting seam of his lips. He uttered a soft sound at this, a faint and muffled murmur, then stirred beneath her, his mind emerging groggily from the depths of unconsciousness.
That’s it, she whispered in his mind as she raised her hips, reaching down and pushing her pants away, sliding them down her thighs. She kissed him all the while, and he moved his head to meet her, opening his mouth further, his tongue drawing lightly but deliberately against hers.
Kicking the pants aside, she next sat up long enough to shrug her way out of her shirt. As her lips left his, his eyes opened sleepily, and he looked up at her, dazed and semilucid.
“What…are you doing?” he murmured, still caught up enough in the pleasant limbo between awake and asleep to have absolutely no coherent memory of what had happened to him or where he was. All he knew—and she could see it plainly in the forefront of his mind—was that the woman he was loved was astride him, naked and beautiful, and his body responded. His heartbeat quickened, his breathing growing sharper, swifter, and she felt the sudden push of his arousal against her through the front of his pants.
He reached for her and she leaned down, his fingers spreading in her hair. He pulled her into him, kissing her again, groaning softly as her hands moved between them, opening his fly.
“I love you,” he whispered, raising his hips to help as she pushed his slacks down. Caressing her face with his free hand, leaving the other tangled in her hair, he smiled at her, weak and weary. “Te amo,” he said again, this time in Spanish.
“I love you too,” she said, making his smile widen. Planting her hands against his shoulders, she held him firmly against the mattress, first raising her hips, then plunging down, drawing him deeply, abruptly inside of her. He groaned again, and as she fell into a fervent rhythm, her belly slapping against his, he thrust up to meet her.
That’s it, she said again in his mind, because his heart was racing now, slamming in a frantic, staccato rhythm in his chest, pushing blood forcefully through his body.
His breath was hitching, his entire body tensed, every muscle in his torso, abdomen and arms standing out in strained, sweat-glossed relief. He clutched at her, gasping for air as she rode him harder and harder. The mattress beneath them rocked and creaked, the headboard knocking heavily, repeatedly into the wall. When she had him nearly at the breaking point, his body tense and strained, poised for release, she came to a sudden, complete stop.
“No.” His eyes flew wide in bewildered surprise. “Please…no pares.” Don’t stop.
She leaned over, kissing him, feeling the ragged intake of his breath against her lips. “Por favor,” he pleaded, his voice hoarse with need. “God, please, Pilar…”
She fell against him again without warning, harder than before. Beneath her, he closed his eyes, arching his back, uttering a soft, choked cry.
“Come for me,” she urged him.
But again, just as he was about to, she stopped, leaving him to tremble beneath her, sweat soaked and gasping. “No,” he begged again, straining to push himself into her, tugging at her waist. “Please…Madre de Dios…”
When she moved again, resuming her fierce rhythm, he knotted his fists in the blanket beneath him, his pleas dissolving into a groan. Again and again, she’d do this—not to torment him, but rather to push his body to the outermost limits of endurance. When she finally let him come, he threw his head back with a cry, his fingers digging so fiercely into her hips, she’d later find bruises there, ghostly imprints of his grasp. It was massive, shuddering through him, leaving him breathless in the aftermath, trembling beneath her.
“How do you feel?” she murmured with a smile, leaning over, kissing him gently.
“Exhausted,” he said with a winded laugh. “You…God, woman, you damn near wore me out.”
“Bueno,” she said. “That was the whole point.”
She moved to sit up, but his brows lifted and he caught her shoulder. “Don’t go,” he said.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she told him, bending down to him again, letting her lips linger this time, the tip of her tongue tracing lightly, playfully against his. “I’m right here.”
His mouth unfurled in a weary smile. “Bueno,” he said. Still weak from blood loss, in pain from his attack, he grimaced slightly and glanced about, gathering his bearings. “Mind telling me where exactly here is?”
“Later.” She rocked her hips against his in invitation. “Your blood sugar’s up. We probably need to make love again, help you burn it off.”
His body fascinated her more so than any other human’s ever had. On the one hand, he was strong, all lean muscles and toned form, but on the other, on the inside, this same body—powerful enough to endure the physical exertion to which he regularly, if not relentlessly, subjected himself, not to mention the unimaginable amount of abuse and blood loss he’d suffered at Pepe’s hands—betrayed itself with its own fragile che
mistry, the delicate balance of glucose and insulin in his veins, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute.
His brow arched. “You think?”
She laughed. “Definitely.”
Cradling her face in his hands, he pulled her down, kissing her softly, sweetly. “God, I love you.” She could see in his mind that he still didn’t remember—not quite, not yet—but for some reason, he must’ve felt it important to say those words over and over, to be sure she heard them, that she understood. “I love you, Pilar Cadana.”
There would be time yet to explain everything—about her people, what had happened, what he’d come to mean to her. She still didn’t know if she believed in parejas or not, but as she smiled at Elías and he smiled back—in that simple gesture, stripping from her the past year’s worth of pain, fear, heartache and loss—she knew that if there were such things, then she’d definitely found hers.
He’s changed my life…saved me…and in more ways than one.
“I love you too, Elías Velasco,” she breathed—because just as she could never tire of hearing him say it, she, too, could never say it enough. “I love you too.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“Definitely an author to watch.” That's how Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine describes Sara Reinke. New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards calls Reinke “a new paranormal star” and Love Romances and More hails her as “a fresh new voice to a genre that has grown stale.” Dark Thirst and Dark Hunger, the first two books in The Brethren SeriesTM of vampire romance are available from Kensington/Zebra Books, while the third installment, Dark Passion, is available from Double Dragon Publishing. The series continues in 2011 with Dark Passages: Tristan & Karen, Dark Passages 2: Pilar & Elías and Dark Vengeance, from Bloodhorse Press, and in a free online graphic novel, Dark Interludes, available at: www.sarareinke.com.
