His Redeemer's Kiss

by Diana Castilleja

  He only wished he’d had the ability when Angelica had been so ill. Then he would have done anything to save her. His once precious wife, more precious to him than the air he had once breathed so normally, taken for granted.

  Never again. He would not fail Lily. She had become the very reason he could relish each rising for the first time in his endless existence, the only reason he needed to push on through a life that should have ended so long ago. She was his soul, the light to an endless drifting in a world of darkness. If he had once longed for redemption for his sins, then he would suffer for an eternity upon eternity in penance if anything happened to Lily.

  The bond they shared had solidified into a thick and unbreakable cord that reached out to him from her on every level. What she felt, he felt. What she thought, he could hear, sense or feel. Unless she kept him out…

  He groaned with sudden insight. She had been blocking him. It was undoubtedly conceivable considering how often he had to seek her to hold her, to help her, to offer his strength to protect her. That’s why he had to continually push his way into her mind to help her shoulder the agony of the intrusiveness. She had been protecting him. He could only shake his head at her stubborn nature, finally coming to the fore when he’d known all along she had the strength to be the person he’d seen the entire time.

  He just hadn’t expected to meet that woman now, when he wanted nothing but to keep her safe at his side. Deep inside, she was a gentle creature, a tender being who couldn’t hurt anything or anybody, but she owned the strength of an entire army in her soul. He’d tasted it, felt it. It was her reborn strength that filled her now. She needed to strike a blow to the ones who had taken so much from her. Her need battled his urges in a determined confrontation. Joaquin wanted her out of that place, needed her standing by his side. Safe.

  Lily wanted retribution. If not in blood, then in a way that would leave a mark on all of them. But she was suffering, and it reawakened all the guilt and raging agony of his failure to protect Angelica, rising from his past like a voluminous ghost. He hadn’t been able to protect his wife, and now, here, he couldn’t protect Lily.

  Rage hazed his vision as the sum of it all hit him. She was his in every sense of the word. His to protect, to cherish. Nothing would stop him. She was putting herself at risk to save them all.

  Without warning, two more owls joined his harried flight. He hadn’t asked, silently accepting he’d never had to.

  The rumbled tone was unmistakable when it flitted through his mind. “You will not reach her before daybreak.”

  He couldn’t bring himself to answer, knowing Diego was right and he’d have to let Lily live another day in their hands. It was what he hadn’t been able to share with her, not wanting her to lose faith. He would save her. There was no failure.

  “You have shared blood.”

  The carefully directed statement caught him off guard when it hit him, deliberate and very private between the two men. He wasn’t sure how to respond, or what Diego would do knowing Joaquin had done what he’d promised the other he wouldn’t do—take from Lily.

  “Yes.” There was no point in lying. No reason to deny what Diego could obviously sense too easily now.

  “Are you claiming her?”

  The bite of the question was a warning. The wrong answer would probably be the last thought he’d ever have. He knew the only answer he could give.

  “I am. She bears my mark.”

  Diego fell silent, leaving Joaquin to wait, prepared to fight for her, praying he wouldn’t have to. He knew Diego could destroy him with hardly any effort.

  “This is unprecedented. We will have much to discuss once she is with us again. Are you prepared to stay? She will not part from Tabitha.”

  “I am. I have offered myself to her, and in doing so, to you and your fight.”

  Joaquin sensed the unspoken approval from Diego. They spurred on to their destination. Toward the light that warmed him and glowed from the inside out.

  His only light.

  Lily.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The aching tension between her shoulders woke her up. She stretched, well aware of why she felt like she’d been hanging from a taffy pull. She lifted her head until it rested against the bars she knew would be behind her. There was no comfort knowing she was right when she found the cold, biting steel at her back.

  “Joaquin?” The silent call of his name faded away, leaving her cold.

  There was no answer. An emptiness she had never experienced made her eyes water. The weight of the silent barrenness tried to crush her like the memory of his absence from her life after she’d hit her lowest. He would come. There was absolute faith in that knowledge. It had to be daylight. It was the only reason he wouldn’t answer. She drew a deep breath, burying the rush of loss she’d suddenly been hit with. She wasn’t alone, just for now. She wasn’t forsaken. He would come.

  There was no light in the cages. Their only light came from weak fluorescents recessed within the hall ceiling several feet away. She counted a total of six of the torture cages. She’d spent enough time in them to know what they were. Which meant they also had containment cages. Lab rat cages to study them. To imprison them.

  Drawing her strength inward, she carefully opened her mind again, waiting for the bombardment to hit.

  It did. A split second later. She snapped taut, grasping the chains attached to the cuffs on her wrists in bloodless grips, stifling the urge to scream. Within moments it became manageable, but those first few minutes were always the most agonizing of her life.

  “…boots are polished…”

  “…the movie last week…”

  She sifted through them, one by one, seeking, searching, and by God, prying like a thief. She didn’t care.

  Then, what she hadn’t expected to hear at all—a female voice. A voice praying, sounding hopelessly lost and bereft. A voice that had nothing to do with the machinations of the compound surrounding her.

  She followed the sound of that one voice, seeking its owner. Long, agonizing moments later, she relaxed, withdrawing her energy, allowing a very small, victorious smile. All she had to do was wait for nightfall. That would be a cakewalk.

  * * * *

  The instant he snapped awake, his first reaction was to connect with her, reliving her pain with no warning. Searing and throbbing along his back and behind his legs. He hissed as the striking agony invaded his nerves and muscles, clenching and screaming in reaction, only an echo of the torture she had been dealt. Dirt exploded above him with a vengeance, spewing for yards in all directions as he shot like a lightning bolt clear of his resting place, wanting to scream out the sheer agony that stripped his skin. A red curtain blinded him for several seconds as he fought to calm himself. Similar earthly upheavals happened in the distance. Joaquin didn’t think twice, knowing they were rising to join with him. For the first time since his conversion, the three had lain to rest within knowledgeable distance of each other; a lesson learned, broken. And there was no stronger statement of unity.

  “She’s been whipped.” Two sets of grave eyes flattened at the news when they neared. “She’s tired from blood loss, but not giving in.” He glanced in her direction, feeling her awareness, sending her comfort. Her relief was impossible to miss. “She knows we’re coming.”

  “Then let’s not disappoint her,” Nathan said with a smile that belied the defiant heat in his gaze. The three bounded upward, changing their shapes on the fly.

  “This won’t be like the compound,” Joaquin cautioned. He relayed the layout of what she had seen to the other two.

  “Doesn’t matter. She won’t suffer another night in their hands.”

  Joaquin could do nothing less than agree with Nathan’s determination. Joaquin’s vow had not changed. She would be rescued without fail.

  “She has found at least one more,” he told the other two flying with him.

  “Focus on Lily. We will find the one she heard.” Diego’s intent bec
ame clear. They would disable those at the compound and rescue Lily and the woman she had found.

  “How are we going to keep them from finding the house? Lily says they know where it is and have been searching for a way to reach it, but haven’t been able to get close enough. That’s why they tricked David.” Joaquin sent the problem on the community wavelength he’d once described to Lily.

  “Nathan?” Diego asked.

  A mirthless laugh echoed on the wind. “In that, some things will be exactly like the compound. I doubt they’ve changed much of anything in their procedures since they never would have found what short-circuited their alarms system.”

  Agreement circled all three.

  Joaquin reached for her again, pouring strength into his voice, his will. “Lily?”

  “I’m here.” Exhaustion thickened her words, but her voice was so comforting to hear at all. “I’m cold.” He sent a wave of warmth to her without a second’s hesitation. “Thank you.”

  “I can see the buildings now,” he told her.

  “Be careful. There are guards everywhere.”

  “With you?”

  “Outside, and in the hall where the cages are. I think there’s only one there, though.”

  He knew the more he talked to her, the more her strength was flagging. As he drew closer, he was better able to study the damage their lash had done and was sickened into utter silence.

  “Why did they hurt you more?” He would’ve cried if he’d been in his own skin.

  “Tried to make me talk. They tried,” she told him with whispered pride. “They failed.”

  He cocooned her in his own strength, letting her lean on him even when he was still too far away to actually touch her, too far away to take away the pain of the multitude of cuts. She was fading, drifting in and out of consciousness, no matter what he did.

  Together, the three landed on the sprawling building directly over her head. It was all he could do to stay there, calm and patiently observing when he wanted to claw through the roof beneath him to get to her.

  Crouching, they took a moment to take in the layout of the compound and study the activities on the ground. Nathan spoke first. “The computer controls are in that one.” He pointed to a short block building with only a few windows. There were none at all in the structure beneath them where Lily was being held.

  “This is getting to be a habit,” he drawled with that youthful insolence Joaquin had seen only once or twice before.

  “We need more than a diversion this time.” Diego crouched low on his haunches, studying every aspect of movement around them with a keen gaze. “This must stop. The offices we searched were nothing more than his place of business, the man he pretends to be for the world. He had none of his private enterprises on his computer or where it could be discovered.” He gave both a thoughtful look. “I managed to destroy his entire computer bank at his private residence. This”—he waved a hand—“is likely his solution to that destruction.”

  Joaquin ran a hand over his face, trying to concentrate, knowing Lily was directly beneath his feet. “Then there’s Hawthorne. He knows at least of David and Lily, and knows David can get in when he can’t.”

  Diego nodded. “I know.” He frowned.

  Joaquin was getting impatient. Lily was growing weaker, colder.

  “Patience, friend,” Diego told him, sliding a mercurial gray look at him. “We will not let her die. She already shares blood with you. Her path has been set.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Diego glanced away. “She only has two choices left to her. She will need to share blood again, and suffer the conversion the same as we did. Or die. There is no in-between in this.”

  Joaquin almost fell from his own lowered crouch in stunned shock, but managed to grab himself in time. “Titania’s accident?” he uttered in bewildered, slow-dawning shock. Diego only nodded. What have I done? Chills slid down is spine to form ice in his stomach.

  “I do not understand why it is happening anymore than I understand how we are different from the Brethren who created us.” He shrugged. “But we are. I also believe once we find the one who completes us, we become stronger.”

  “Explain,” Nathan demanded, his eyes widening.

  Diego narrowed his attention, watching as men paced and circled below them on the grounds. “Before I met Titania, I had certain controls of magic. The energy pulse is one.” He seemed to be counting. “Once we…joined, there was no question to it. I could control it, and more. Much more.”

  Joaquin considered what he was hearing. “The bond? It has made us stronger together?” Was that how Diego managed to maintain the protective barriers around the house? Because with Tani, Diego had found something more? Joaquin wondered, only to have his thoughts interrupted.

  “Yes. Once she survives the conversion—you and I know there is no easy way around it.” Both Joaquin and Nathan nodded in agreement. “Then you become complete in a way that is significant to the both of you.

  “The search we did for the chip? It was Titania’s suggestion, but it was easy to do once I understood her intention. The same with healing. I could heal myself, but learned when she was attacked I could reach out to her as well.” He seemed to fall into a silent introspection for a moment. “She is telling me to mention her strengths have also increased. When it is the right person, the benefits are twofold.”

  Joaquin finally understood what he was saying. “Lily is this person to me?”

  “She believed it almost immediately. I had my doubts, but you understand why.” He tossed a snarled look to the military precision below them. “This is what they all came from. It is because of Titania I did not kill you outright.”

  “I owe her many thanks, then.”

  “So, there is hope?” Nathan asked, looking for all the world like a child needing reassurance.

  “There is, but I cannot say when.” Diego held his chin in a firm hand, his attention fully on their situation. “Wait a few more minutes. I will search for their munitions. I am sure this force has an even greater holding than the last. Nathan will corrupt and destroy their computer banks, disengaging their alarms and their cameras. Once that is done, we will find everyone being held. Crippling Hawthorne should slow down Tenorio from pursuit for a very long time.”

  Joaquin nodded, albeit grudgingly. For the minutes wasted, Lily was still suffering. Diego placed an understanding hand on Joaquin’s shoulder, finding his gaze as a sense of brotherhood flowed between the two men. “I know David would not have hurt anyone under different circumstances.” Turning the other way, he told Nathan, “Be sure to erase any information on the house, on us, on the girls. This cannot continue.”

  Nathan nodded, his expression firming once more. Then, like silent harbingers of death, they separated. Joaquin watched as they melted into the shadows, Nathan on his mission and Diego hunting the armory.

  Moments later, one by one, lights blinked out, causing immediate shouts from the ground. “Cameras are down.” Joaquin didn’t wait. Not one soldier saw the mist that slipped beneath the vent lip to slither to the floor below. All the bars made him shiver with revulsion, feeling the echoes of pain and horror that had been suffered inside that building. He approached Lily’s cage, easily sliding between the bars before solidifying his body once more.

  Finding her brought fury rising with a sharp, volcanic boil. She had been stripped naked and spread eagle to be whipped mercilessly. Her head hung and only shallow, shuddering breaths showed she lived at all. Blood pooled on the ground where she had been left to bleed, her weight held on the balls of her feet, her arms pulled overhead by pulleys.

  It was all he could do to croak her name on an anguished gasp, then snatch one hand brace in a cold hand to squeeze the iron. It crumbled into dry dust in his fingers. Holding her weight, he repeated it on the other shackle until her limp form fell against his shoulder where he caught her. Holding her tenderly, he braced her to crush the ankle chains, then created a long shirt to cove
r her body, knowing the welts on her body were oozing again because of the unavoidable movement.

  “I’m so sorry,” he choked out, breathing in her scent where he nuzzled her temple. “Why, lovely? Why did they do this?”

  She pressed into his embrace. Even though she was weak, her heart was beating strongly. “For escaping.” Her breath warmed his skin where she touched him. “They thought I would tell them how to reach the house.”

  He pressed into her hair, hiding the anguished tears that fell.

  “Don’t cry for me.”

  Groaning, he could barely talk, outraged at her condition. He needed time to help her, especially if what Diego said was true and that Joaquin would be able to heal her.

  Chilled but tender fingers lifted and drifted over his cheek. “I knew you would come. They couldn’t break me.”