His Redeemer's Kiss Page 2

  “I shouldn’t. I don’t know you.”

  “I am Joaquin,” he offered without hesitation. “Now you know me.”

  Sparks shot up his spine at the sound of her laughter. Something bloomed inside of his chest, something bright and new. The animated sound was as intense as the brightest sun, sending light and energy rippling throughout his body. He gasped at the sensations, feeling all of them, feeling everything as if he could feel her touch on his skin, the gentle drag of fingers against his flesh. Electric, and so very rare.

  “Please, tell me your name.” The freshness of her voice, of talking to someone, left him fighting for air when he didn’t even have to breathe. He couldn’t stop himself from leaning forward, wanting to hear her answer.

  After several moments, he realized something was wrong. There was definite hesitation in her answer this time, but he knew she was still with him. He scanned the woods for the other Brethren he knew had to be near, but found he was alone.

  His throat tightened even as he asked her, “Do I frighten you?” He discovered he didn’t like the idea he may scare her at all. He never wanted to cause this person, or any, fear. He forced himself to relax, aware he may be projecting something she could find in the air or feel the same way he sensed her underlying pain.

  “I…I have listened to you and know I shouldn’t, but… It’s hard to explain.”

  Something in her answer sounded wounded. He could almost picture her dropping her lashes, trying to hide thoughts he couldn’t quite find this far from her. She had surpassed intriguing him.

  “Do the ones you stay with control you? Do they monitor you?”

  Her reply was again a snapped negative. “No! They are caring for us, protecting us.” She sighed, an underlying frustration in the quiet hum, and she wrapped him up in the sound. “It’s very hard to explain. This is unusual for me. I didn’t expect for you to hear me.” It sounded very much like a quiet admission to him.

  The next thought occurred to him with no trouble and he found he hated it. “You don’t trust me.” His frown reappeared. Why should she? he wondered. Even though he wanted her trust, it wasn’t realistic to expect it blindly, or considering their circumstances. Voices from some dark corner of the night. Hers, offering a comfort he couldn’t remember, it had been so long since he’d experienced it. His, hopefully offering something she needed in return.

  The sadness coloring her thoughts told him his answer before she ever spoke, but the knowledge he was right didn’t ease the ache her answer created. He wanted her trust.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Tell me what they are protecting you from.” Why would Brethren care for, much less protect, humans? The one who was neither Brethren nor human was still in the house, but his presence only made Joaquin more alert.

  He could almost feel her indecision as he waited.

  An uncomfortable ripple raked over his senses bare seconds before a shape loomed up from out of the darkness not five feet before him. He didn’t flinch, and he didn’t run.

  Cold, silver-white eyes stared at him from an expressionless face, judging him. This male was easily inches taller than Joaquin, and by the energy crackling about him on the air, much more powerful than any Joaquin could remember meeting. He accepted running would have gained him nothing but his death. As it was, it surprised him Joaquin hadn’t been attacked as soon as he’d been discovered. Brethren were not social creatures.

  “I greet thee, Brethren,” Joaquin offered in the formal manner of their kind. He waited, holding himself still to not provoke the man who hung effortlessly in the air before him.

  “If I had wanted to kill you,” he said in a low-rumbled, disinterested voice, “you would already be dead.”

  Joaquin’s eyes dropped to slits at the ease his thoughts were violated. If there was a leader to the scene he’d been trying to decipher, then this was him.

  “Why are you keeping humans?”

  The one hovering before Joaquin barely arched a brow at the question. “Why does it concern you? If you think the one you have spoken with will come and save you from your own folly, you are wrong. She does not care that you have decided to destroy yourself, nor does she care why you have spoken with her. You have disturbed her nights, and she only wished for you to cease.”

  Joaquin was informed of all of this with hardly a molecule of compassion. He wasn’t willing to let it go so easily. “Why are you protecting her?”

  Fires danced in the silvery eyes, a warning. “That is less than you need to know.”

  “Why? You are holding her. Is she your prisoner?”

  “You are asking questions I have no care to answer. Leave. You are not welcome.” Those chilling eyes narrowed at him. “I do not want to kill you, but I can.”

  Joaquin stifled the glare daring to appear at the threat. After centuries of his own living hell, he was not going to be shoved to the side that apathetically. He may not be the warrior this one was, but he did have a few tricks he’d learned over the endlessness of his life. “Do you welcome me?” He pinpointed his thoughts to ensure there were no eavesdroppers this time.

  Shocked awareness erupted on his senses as the feminine purity of her voice filled his mind once more. “I thought you were gone! Diego had said he would find you and make you leave.”

  “He is trying. I have offered my name and promise you no harm. Do you welcome me?” he asked again. Silently, he prayed she didn’t deny him this, a single touch of humanity he hadn’t felt since Angelica’s death.

  “They are warning me not to talk to you anymore.”

  Anger made his blood boil, but he showed nothing of it on his face, knowing he was borrowing time to connect with her. “So they are your keepers then, where you can’t think for yourself, where they guard you as a prisoner.” It was what he feared. She was being controlled, and the woman behind that lovely voice didn’t even know of the deception being played against her.

  “That isn’t fair! You don’t know what’s going on here.”

  “I want to,” he told her, his voice soft and pouring out with compassion. What wasn’t in his voice was the knowledge he would find a way to rescue her from her prison, the sooner the better for the both of them. “I want to know the lady who has warmed me with nothing more than her voice. Am I a bad man for wanting to merely talk to you?” He didn’t try to hide the ache of his loneliness from her. He knew on some level they were the same. Her pain had not diminished any either. It bothered him as much as her ‘protector’ staring deadly daggers before him did.

  Precious seconds dragged by, but he refused to drop his gaze or attention from Diego. He purposely remained motionless to not miss a single sensation, waiting for her answer.

  “No.”

  The whispered word drifted like a seductive caress into his thoughts, and he swallowed at the aching sound. With his gaze never leaving the vampire in front of him, Joaquin knew his time had run out. He would have to leave or be blown into little vampire bits. “I will do as your guard asks, and I will leave. For tonight.” He bowed his head in defeat to Diego, and shifted into a familiar owl to fly away on the night breeze. No sense in letting the powerful man feel Joaquin was more of a threat than he was. It may be his only advantage.

  He was positive Diego followed, so he didn’t try to circle around. He would find a place to rest nearby, though. He needed to know more about this woman who could reach him, who could speak to him. He wouldn’t be able to do what he felt compelled to do tonight. Tomorrow, he would get closer to study the home and do as his instincts demanded—remove her from the threats surrounding her. There had never been any of the Brethren he could trust. The long line of mistrust had catapulted from his creator, and he’d learned that lesson all too well.

  “Joaquin?”

  His eyes eased closed in joy at her tentative contact a few moments later. She was reaching for him. It was all that mattered in the darkness surrounding him. “I am here.”

  “You’re not still thinki
ng of, you know, killing yourself, are you?”

  A knowing smile broke over his lips as he reformed to his natural shape, sliding through the air to fold himself into the V of a branch. Diego had lied, and the truth warmed him as much as her voice did. “No. I believe I have found a reason to continue, if only for one more night. I will look for you tomorrow, when the sun has set. Will you welcome me?”

  “I shouldn’t go against Diego, Joaquin. He’s a good friend, and he is protecting us.”

  “I’m aware of what he is,” he offered, wanting to soothe her. Silently, though, he believed she didn’t know half the truth about the man she called friend. “I’m only asking for your conversation, nothing more. And know this, I would never, could not, harm you. I know you are scared. I don’t want you to be scared of me.”

  Several minutes lingered between them when he heard her voice once more. “You’re pretty mysterious, you know that? I think I can hear an accent, but it’s hard to tell this way. And you’re talking to me from who knows where.”

  Her silent laughter floated between them. It felt to him as if the entire world had changed on its axis. Everything he knew and had accepted had been, in an instant, changed forever. For the moment, he was very willing to see where the next night would take him.

  She fell silent as she thought it over. “I guess this is all right, to talk to you like this.”

  “I look forward to tomorrow evening then,” he whispered to her, feeling a relieved warmth in the pit of his stomach. “It would be easier to speak with you if I knew your name.” He prodded her gently, not wanting her to be nervous with the admission. Knowing her name would make it easier to find her voice in the mental openness they seemed to share. The sooner he could pinpoint her in the house hidden in the trees, the sooner she would be out from under the Brethren’s controlling deceit.

  There was only a slight hesitant pause, a quiet catch in her voice as she offered her name to him, and then like a light snuffed out, he knew she had closed herself off from his searching thoughts.

  Chapter Two

  Lily held the poetry book in her hands, waiting, but knew without trying too hard to find him again, that he was gone. She didn’t feel any resistance or pressure when she raised her mental barriers as a test.

  “He didn’t frighten you, did he?” Tani asked, checking the monitors attached like long-limbed beings to the unconscious Tabitha, lying unaware on the bed.

  Lily bit back the smile where she sat in the rocking chair, the book she’d been reading when she’d been interrupted by Joaquin’s misery held on her lap. Tani didn’t do unconcerned very well. She fiddled with the lines stretching from several monitors to the woman on the bed, checking Tabitha’s signs and pulse while trying not to pounce on Lily with questions. Lily could spot each one of those worried questions lined up in her watchful blue eyes when she looked over her shoulder, ready to be ticked off by the mother hen whose chick had been bothered.

  Lily shook her head, answering honestly, “When I first heard his pain a few nights ago, he really took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting to hear someone like that, and when it continued… I just couldn’t take three nights of it. I wanted to smack him.”

  Tani made a chuckling sound in her chest, repositioning Tabitha’s arm on the bed with a tender comfort. The myriad of monitor lines and feeding tubes draped all over from above the bed, but she moved around them effortlessly. “You’re healing, growing stronger every day, Lily. I’m very glad to hear you say that.” Joy glowed in her eyes now when she looked at her.

  Lily blinked. Tani was right. Right after their rescue, she would have hidden, a shriveled body blind to the pain emanating from Joaquin. She had been helping care for Tabitha with the others, but feeling a stranger’s pain and wanting to help, it was definitely an incredible improvement for her. After three nights, she hadn’t been able to take any more of his debating.

  So much had happened since the rescue from Albert Tenorio’s testing facility. All four girls and David had arrived at the unassuming cabin with the others from Tani’s band, a surreal situation that was still taking some time for them to understand. None of the rescued five could remember the details of their flight from the compound, only that they had all arrived here, completely hidden and safe in the deep woods of Oregon with Diego, Titania, Houston, and Laney to care for them all.

  Lily refused to let the lack of memory bother her, considering where they were now compared to the conditions they had been taken from. She wished she could forget so many other long days and the horrors of those longer nights behind so easily. So she couldn’t remember how they’d gotten out of California. Worse things could have happened than a rescue from their previous circumstances.

  In the time since that fateful nighttime escape, they’d prepared to move everyone to a cavernous house hidden in the wilderness near the Canadian border in Montana. The outfitted bus was already outside, ready to transport them and to care for Tabitha in luxury on the way. Houston and Laney had taken a lot of pictures to show the girls where they would be going, detailed pictures of their new home from any angle they could reach, including a vivid layout of the surrounding wild nothingness encapsulating the large, mansion-styled home. The cabin was too small for the four rescued girls, Nathan, David, Houston and Laney, and Diego and Titania. Crowded was the only way to describe it, but they’d made do until the right house and location had been found. Titania and Diego had gone out of their way to ensure they’d found the best possible location and style of home to continue their recuperation.

  The new house was wide open all over with large sprawling rooms and full, wall sized windows on every floor. It had apparently been some actor’s secret getaway who had willingly sold it to Houston. The details weren’t really important with so much of the process done while Lily and the others were still adjusting to not being behind bars. Considering Titania’s notoriety, it wasn’t hard to figure out her name had been used to sway the deal. Houston and Laney had taken special care with picking the house, to give the inhabitants the knowledge that they weren’t caged any longer. The views were breathtaking. Deep woods and craggy mountains not too far in the distance. And it was nearly impossible to reach by anything. They would all be leaving soon for the new house, where all that room would be put to good use, and they would all have space and time to heal. Every day, Lily felt a little safer, a little stronger, and knew Tani was right.

  Everyone had seen that all possible care was taken with Tabitha’s condition from the moment they’d been found. Lily wanted to believe the reading was helping her friend to focus on the outside world, to bring her back from the unconscious state she was in. It helped Lily, gave her something to put her energy into, because she wasn’t confident she could do or handle much more yet. It would happen. For the first time in years, she had faith in something.

  Each day brought a new sign the trauma was really over. No more guards, no cameras, no tests, needles, or guns. Those facts above all else helped to convince Lily, Kathy, and Amy they had really found freedom with their benefactors. It was just hard for her to think about what that freedom meant, and now that she had it, what she would do with it. Everything had changed. She still had nightmares, and feared when she woke up, everything here would be gone and she’d find herself once more in that cold and demoralizing steel cage with cameras watching her every breath.

  Lily gazed at Tabitha on the bed, the only of them who didn’t know the truth about their freedom. She had fallen into a coma almost immediately after the rescue. Lily wanted to believe reading to her helped, but there wasn’t very much any of them could do for her other than see she was cared for and comfortable. She understood hiring professional medical help or trying to get her attention at a hospital was out of the question. It was one of those facts about their circumstances she wished wasn’t real. It made finding them through the normal channels far too easy, and being captured again was not something any of them wanted to do. Tabitha wasn’t lacking for care, though
. None of them were. She wished the woman who lay so unaware would wake up. Lily knew she had been almost broken more than once, and feared the last round of tortures and tests had finally destroyed what was left of the smiling woman inside.

  A hand on her shoulder brought Lily’s attention to the bedroom. She still clutched the poetry book, looking up from where she sat with wide eyes to the understanding blue of Titania’s gaze.

  “She will survive. When she is ready, she will awaken. Time is all she needs, and she has as much as she wants or needs here.”

  At Tani’s words, Lily glanced at the woman in question, then rose to the woman at her side, still working through her own bevy of emotions that swam and rolled through her mind without any kind of regularity on a daily basis. “I know.”

  Tani crouched down by the rocking chair Lily sat in, brushing a wave of red hair from her face. Warmth and compassion radiated from Titania, and Lily basked in it, knowing it was meant in the strongest sense of compassion and friendship.