Redemption: A Custos Novel

by Emjay Soren

  I looked at Bastian when Leushus stopped speaking, and I can see his loyalty as if it were the clothing on his body. His eyes were wet with unshed tears, and I am moved by the compassion of these immortal men and all they fight for.

  “I hold the commands for Bastian’s wolf. I, and only I, can bring him to heel. Until now.” He takes my hand in his and smiles when he senses my confusion.

  “Be not afraid, and trust in me, Tavern.” He says with a whisper, and then an enormous whoosh comes from behind him, and all I see are wings. I feel my tears as they burn looking at him, seeing him for the first time, and I am at a loss being in the presence of such greatness. “I am gifting you today Tavern Madley, flesh of His flesh, blood of His blood. I am marking you to me, and my guardian Bastian Belfour.” His palm cups my neck and I feel a slight burn before it

  passes. At that moment I feel immense comfort. I have never been in the presence of such love and trust before.

  “What was that?” I ask, and slide my fingers over my now raised flesh.

  “Go see.” Leushus says.

  I stand and head for the mirror in the hall. It is there I see the scrolling work in red just below my earlobe and smack dab over my carotid pulse.

  L

  “What…..” My voice trails off, confused by this new brand in my skin.

  Bastian lifts his shirt, and across his back, much larger than my own, is the same symbol that looks strikingly like an ‘L’. “I wear the same mark as the Guardian of the Arch Angel Leushus. His status as Arch is different from the Arches in the bible. Leushus was made an Arch after he became a member of the Custos. He was a vampire like the rest. He was simply an over achiever. These things we tell you, share with you today Tavern, they are never to be discussed with anyone.”

  “Ever.” Leushus says.

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “And I know that, it’s also why I am choosing to share my gift with both you and Bastian. You are now the blessed beneath Bastian. He will look after us both, until the day comes that you make your choice to continue the path I am setting you on, or make one of your own.” He says it with a shrug of his shoulders, like he didn’t just give me the greatest gift I would ever receive.

  “I wouldn’t chose to go against you, Leushus. I am loyal. You will see that.”

  “Your loyalty is something I know abundantly of you, your loyalty to yourself, and others above you. You forgave London for killing you, Tavern. That kind of forgiveness is astounding.” He sits beside me and places my hand in his. “The choice that you’ll have to make one day won’t be a choice against me, it will only be different. That choice is something I can’t see yet, but I know that I won’t be disappointed in whatever path you take. Take my gift today, cherish it, keep it sacred between us, and should the time come that you no longer need us, then we have done our job well.”

  “Of course I accept it, Leushus. Thank you.” I am crying and wrapping my arms around him careful of his pristine wings. I hugged Bastian at the same time, thankful that these great men among monsters found me.

  They laugh at my weepiness, and pull back. “Let me explain the rest of the marking. My blood runs through your veins, and in a sense so does Bastian’s and London’s. Tonight though, I will give my essence to you, and bind you and Bastian together.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  “No more than the brand did.”

  I didn’t know what this all would mean. I didn’t know if it made me cherished like London. All I knew was my life was better because of all of them, and I would take this gift and thank God every day for choosing me. “Then I trust you.”

  He takes my hands and I stand as he makes a wide path around me to accommodate his wing span. Plucking a feather from the highest arch in the span he comes to a stop beside me. “I am going to prick my finger with the end of the feather, and then slice a small area in the brand to bond our blood. I’ve done this with Bastian, but to bond him to you I will then prick his finger and cut another small space on the brand to bond your blood to him. Do you understand?”

  Lots of blood and cutting…”Yeah.”

  He nods, and I feel a light scrape on my neck before he places his thumb against the brand. Bastian was next, and again, a small prick before pressure. “Done.” Leushus whispers. I look into that beautiful silver stare he has and I am flabbergasted at the sight of him.

  “Leushus!“ I gasp, but Bastian calms me.

  “He pays a large price for this, Tavern. For an Arch to gift a human with protection, he will lose strength for five nights. He needs rest.”

  I am immediately swarmed by guilt. “I am so sorry, Leushus. If I had known it would cost you, I would have said no!” I am panicked, because Leushus is the strong one of our gang of freaks. How could he jeopardize his strength for me?

  “Because I have given you Bastian as well. I will return to my home and rest for five days and nights, then be back when my strength returns. I did this willingly, Tavern. I knew the sacrifice, but am comforted by the choice. We love you, Tavern, and your safety is worth more then a few exhausted nights.”

  And like that, Leushus was gone, just disappeared.

  “He’ll be back.” Bastian chuckles, and slips his shirt back on. He seemed fine that Leushus was gone, and would be for five days and nights. “He says to stop rambling in your mind, Tavern, and get over it.”

  Stunned, I looked around the room. “Is he still here?” I knew older vampires could shift from one place to another, but was Leushus was still here, reading my mind and somehow talking to Bas?

  “Nope, part of the bond. I have a direct line to Leushus…..and you. I’ll be able to hear you speak to me with the use of your mind. It’s a gift of the bond, and a huge weapon if you’re in danger. I can hear your call anywhere, no matter the distance. Leushus can hear anyone, anytime. He’s listening to you, and filtering through me. It’s pretty fucking confusing, so I’d just let it be and it’ll all make sense in time. Maybe, unlike Leushus, you won’t ramble for hours, and actually use it for the right reasons.”

  I laugh, and feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. “I’ll try.”

  “Fuck off, old man. Go to sleep and let me get her settled with this.” Bastian said, laughing. It was starting to make sense. Okay, he could hear us talk.

  ‘Can I get you a drink, Bastian?’ I ask through my mind. He gives me his best panty dropping smile and nods. “Beer would be great, Tavern. Thanks!”

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Three months later

  Seattle, Washington, just a few blocks away…

  Tavern

  As days went, this one had been good. I sat in my beat up, but totally paid for by me, Toyota Corolla and listened to Bastian explain why it was insane for me to cross the I-90 bridge going from Seattle to Bellevue. However, rain or not, and there was always rain, I had a date with a bookstore holding my newest addiction in fiction.

  “Bas,” I say calmly as he grips the ‘oh shit’ handle on the passenger side and cringes as I speed up to get in the left lane. The wind is ridiculous, and the waves of Lake Washington are trying their best to start playing air hockey with small cars like mine. “I barely have a life anymore the way you guys lock me away. I have two things Bas, just two!” I look at him to get my point across, and he gasps and grabs the wheel.

  “Jesus Tav, eyes on the road!”

  “You’re being dramatic. I lived in Vegas, Bastian, in almost near constant bad driving and traffic.” I finally get in the left lane and set my little car to task, secretly thanking whatever gods control my life for getting me off the bridge.

  “You could have more to your life if you stopped being so frigid.” He doesn’t drop his hand from the handle as he speaks with mild annoyance. The old me would have laughed hysterically at that, but the new me that was rebuilding and moving on actually appreciated the accusation.

  “Well, frigid or not, I refuse to take any more chances and fuck it all up even mo
re.” He said he understood and that I would snap out of it one day, but he didn’t get it in the slightest. I had fallen in love with a vampire who not only fucked me, he really and truly fucked me. “I’ve come a long way since leaving……the mansion, and have done just fine making my way and getting my life back on track. I have a job that pays me what I am worth.” I sigh because just once I wish he could see my side. “I never thought that I would have all this again. Every bill I pay, every time I sit down to watch E! news… every time I turn the engine to this tiny car you hate so much, I am thankful that I have what I have.”

  Since I left the mansion after he told me exactly what I was to him, I refused to fall deeper into despair. The Cado and Nex had taken everything they could from me. All I had left was my dignity, and my drive, and that got me to the state of contentment I lived in today. I didn’t question the why or how, but Leushus was able to get me a whole new fake life. The name on my driver’s license was Cherish Partwo. It was a play on his dark sense of humor because we didn’t know if I was in fact cherished, as London was. We did know that if I went too far from her and Leushus at the same time, I would fall sick and weak. We tried shortly after I left the mansion. I made it as far as Kent when I started to get tired, and by the time I reached Olympia, I couldn’t stop vomiting and passed out.

  Now, as far as the government knew, I was a law abiding citizen. Single white female, age twenty-five, and had been living in Seattle my entire life. I had documents, such as my diploma from UNLV in English Literature and Creative Arts, as well as a social security number and birth certificate. This was my new life, and even though I missed my dear friend Jezzi, I would make this new life all that my old one could never be. Leushus told me all those months ago that I would one day have another option, another path I could choose. My bond to Leush and Bas suited me perfectly though, and I saw no immediate other path.

  Lost in my thoughts, I missed my exit, then startled when Bastian started cursing as I tried to get over to catch the next exit. I had forgotten he was with me. Weird, considering he was always with me.

  Always.

  “I get where you’re coming from baby girl, I do, but I wish you would relax a little. Have some fun, and come out with us from time to time.” He placed his hand over mine on the gear shift and his thumb stroked between my knuckles. I had been noticing these touches and the distant

  stares from Bastian more and more lately. I hated knowing that he had ruined me for other men. After having felt the way I felt when with him, I knew no other man would compare. Three years ago I would have been floored if a man like Bastian even showed a pale interest in me. Now, I felt awful, because I would never feel for him what he deserved. I pull my hand back and ran it through my hair, not wanting him to see my rejection yet again. I wish he would stop this. I had told him time and time again, that I could never be what he wanted. He always said he understood and would smile, but he still showed affection in ways that gave him away each time. I feel his emotions through our connection, but not like he feels mine. I see the pain my rejection causes, but he feels my sorrow all day, every day.

  “You realize what you’re saying, this whole lecture; I’ve heard it before and it’s the sole reason I became that lost little hooker just a few short months back. I love my life now, I love the time I spend with you guys, and I don’t mind staying in the condo.”

  He just rolled his eyes. “That’s all you do. If we want to see you or have a beer or two, you refuse to go out. Baby girl, it ain’t healthy.”

  “I see you all the time, Bas.”

  “I am not the same. When you’re at work, your colleagues can’t see me, even if you can. Doesn’t mean I don’t watch you, day in and day out, keeping your distance from them.” He was right. I stayed closed off and applied myself to the work in front of me. There were no after work cocktails and I didn’t go to company social events. When I wasn’t reading a new up and coming authors work, I was reading a published one, or writing my own. “Maybe it’s because I can talk to you without talking to you, courtesy of our bond. I talk to you and don’t feel like I’ve avoided people all day.”

  “Yeah, and you don’t want me being your whole world, so maybe you need to lighten up.” Blunt Bastian, that’s what I called him.

  “Well, maybe someday Bas, but I’m not ready.” I wasn’t afraid of the Nex or the Cado getting me if I left the condo. It was seeing him that terrified me. His rejection had been so strong and so painful, that never seeing him again would be too soon.

  “You think that I don’t know this is about seeing Preacher?” Aaaaand, there he was again, the Bas I knew still existed; the one who was my friend and didn’t lie to me, afraid of hurting my feelings. He refused to let me live in a world with big pink elephants in the room. “We all have no problem telling him to stay back if you decided you wanted a night out.” He looked out the window, not as nervous now that I was off the interstate. “He would understand.” He said it under his breath and like all the other ‘Preacher has changed’ stories, I pretend to not hear him. I find it shocking that Bastian still cheers for Preacher, when he is so openly attracted to me.

  “Even if it is, it’s not like he doesn’t know where I live. He knows everything Bas, and what he doesn’t know he can figure out real quick. It’s not about him, this is me, and where I feel safest.”

  Oh, how I just lied my ass off.

  He didn’t say anything more about it. I don’t know if it was because we made it safe and alive to the bookstore or if it was because, like all the other attempts they had all made to get me out of the condo, I said no, and in my world no would only ever mean no again!

  I grabbed my new book and paid for it, smiling as I handed the bored and solemn girl behind the counter my twenty dollar bill. “I never met a person in my life who liked paying for shit.” Bastian said, laughing. He was looking at a rack of different bookmarks and started smiling when he saw the latest teen heartthrob werewolf character from some vampire movie that was big these days. “Now, this is awesome!” He laughs sarcastically, and the girl scowls from behind the counter.

  “I absolutely think that if werewolves existed, they would look exactly like that.” I say, straight faced, and point to the giant dog/werewolf.

  “No way. They would be more like beasts than dogs.” Bastian says with a chuckle.

  The girl behind the counter suddenly comes to life, and starts telling us about the character of the wolf. “It’s this whole love triangle, and it is soooo sellable because of the long time rivalry between weres and vampires.”

  “Oh, is there a rivalry?” Bastian asks, completely egging the poor girl on. She has no idea she is talking to the one and only were known to the world, that all myths about weres are of him, and that he is the protector of arches, vampires, and me.

  Poor girl!

  “Totally. Vampires and werewolves despise each other. It’s a well known myth that they could never co-exist because of the alpha in both.”

  Bastian laughs out loud at the girl’s enthusiasm, and her opinion. “I don’t know, I think they might shock us all and be fine with one another.”

  She looks like she could spit nails, and I think she may even catch on that he is teasing her. “Well, then that makes you ignorant! We have a mythical section, I would suggest you read up before making fun of the truth.”

  Bastian, I think, is as shocked as I am that this girl is so damn passionate about the ‘myth’. I think she might even believe in it. She would die if she knew they did, in fact, exist.

  “I meant no offense. Call it a friendly debate. If I ever decide to read into the lives of vampires and werewolves, I’m skipping the book and coming to you.” The girl blushes and stutters as we say our goodbyes and head for the door. With nothing more than a smile, he had her crushing on him.

  “You are a filthy mutt Bastian, you know that?” He drops his hand on my shoulder and laughs.

  “Calmed her down didn’t I?” He says, as we climb in my car. �
��She was getting loud, and I didn’t want her boss hearing her call me ignorant and get fired.” He laughs again. “Damn, she was heated though.”

  I laugh, and make my way back towards I-90, watching as Bastian takes his hold back on the ‘oh shit handle’. “Bet she would kill to know what you are.”

  “Fuck, she couldn’t handle the truth. The minute she saw me bow to Leush she would fall apart. Enemies, my ass.”

  We both started laughing and it felt amazing. I had so missed the every day normal life, and though this was so not a normal world, it was my new normal and I was fine with it.

  “What’s up, Leush?” Bastian said, out of the blue. This was a secret only I was privy to. Bastian and Leushus were connected telepathically. They kept it between them, because Bastian could be used against Leushus if it were ever to get out. I knew because Bastian was with me from sunrise to sunset unless he was with Leushus, and because of our own telepathic bond. Unlike Leushus, I only used it when necessary or when at work. My colleagues couldn’t see Bastian because of some mind trick thing Leushus did. If I talked to him all day, I would soon become the nut in the company, so Bas and I stayed on a telepathic level while I was at the office. Leushus and Bastian swore me to secrecy, and when I say swore, I mean Leushus made it impossible for me to ever tell that I knew.