Leilani

by LM DeWalt

  Christian stepped forward, dropping his sunglasses onto the sand and aimed a gun at Mariana. “It’s very obvious to me that a promise was broken.”

  “You were supposed to be as far away as you could go. What are you doing on this beach?” Mariana snapped at him. She looked over to where Aloysius had tackled Arturo and noticed Aloysius had Arturo by the neck, holding him immobile, but was watching the exchange between Christian and Mariana.

  “I had a feeling Melinda wasn’t going to keep her word. Obviously, that feeling was correct,” Christian answered her without taking his eyes from mine. I tried to look away but it was as if a spell kept my eyes on his. I couldn’t move, let alone breathe.

  Mariana looked suddenly distressed as she noticed Arturo’s helpless state. Maria had already disappeared from our view, not that she would have been of much use to her anyway. “Look, it’s obvious that I’m outnumbered here, seeing as you even brought one of your goons,” she looked at Giovanni who stood next to Kalia. “We can forget the whole thing. Just release Arturo and we’ll be on our way.”

  Aloysius, Giovanni, and Christian all laughed in unison. “I don’t think that is in our best interest,” Aloysius replied. “What’s to stop you from coming back with the whole clan? To tell you the truth, I’m kind of surprised Melinda sent you here practically alone.”

  Mariana started to back away but Mateo jumped behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Let me go!” she screamed and elbowed him in the stomach. He lost his hold on her and she jumped forward, grabbing whoever was closest to her.

  “Back off or she dies!” Mariana said with her arm across Fiore’s neck. “I will break her neck.”

  I went toward her but Mateo held his arm out and stopped my approach. “No, Lily. She’s mine.”

  Mariana narrowed her eyes at him. She squeezed her arm around Fiore’s neck tighter, causing Fiore’s eyes to widen.

  “So it’s her, is it?” she sneered at Mateo. “This is the one who’s going to turn you. And I suppose you’ve already been drinking from her?”

  “It is none of your business. You left, remember?” Mateo calmly answered, keeping his eyes on Fiore.

  “But you are mine. You always were and you always will be,” Mariana said with a smile that made all of us cringe with disgust. “She didn’t even complete it yet and you’re already crazed and ready to save her?”

  “You lost your right to me the moment you walked away, the moment you lied to me. I feel no loyalty to you,” Mateo said. He looked over at Christian. Christian nodded. “My loyalty lies with Fiore now so let her go.”

  “I don’t think so. The Italian dies and then you leave with me. It’s that simple.”

  Mariana released Fiore long enough to turn her around. At that moment, Mateo said, “Now!” and both he and Christian grabbed Mariana in one swift move, shoving Fiore to the side.

  Christian aimed the gun at her temple.

  “And what exactly do you think your pathetic bullets will do to someone like me?” she sneered though the panic was obvious in her wide eyes.

  “Wooden bullets,” Christian said as he prepared to pull the trigger.

  Mateo released his hold on her and stepped in front of Christian, holding his hand out. “May I?” he asked.

  Christian nodded and handed him the gun before walking to where we were hovering over Jose Luis. He looked at his face and the sadness in his eyes was obvious. He opened his mouth to speak when Mariana interrupted him.

  “Please, are you serious?” Mariana looked at Christian. “You handed the gun to him, Mr. Compassion? He’ll never do it. I can walk all over him for the rest of his life and he’ll never do anything about it. He never has. His new attachment to Fiore isn’t going to change that.”

  “Mariana, don’t underestimate me—” Mateo was interrupted by a sudden blur as Mariana dove at Fiore again. A loud pop exploded in our ears as her body dropped to the ground.

  No one moved a muscle as Mariana rolled onto her back, the front of her shirt soaked in blood. “You make a great cop,” she spit. “You missed my heart.”

  She then turned her head toward me. “By the way, dearest Lily, I would think twice about the company you keep, especially that one.” She motioned with her eyes to Aloysius.

  Christian ran over and dropped to his knees next to Mariana. Mateo jumped in front of him. “Please, allow me. This is something I must do,” he said as he placed both hands on either side of Mariana’s head. He looked her in the eyes and sadly but resolutely whispered, “I always loved you. You didn’t deserve that,” before turning her head and snapping her neck with a loud crunch.

  The only thing that broke the silence following Mateo’s courageous move was the sound of Arturo throwing up on the sand. “Go,” Aloysius said as he pulled Arturo to his feet. “And let this be a warning to you and Melinda. We are a family and together we are stronger than any of you could ever be, no matter what your numbers.”

  Arturo wiped the vomit off his chin and looked at us before turning and running down the beach. As soon as he was out of sight, we turned to Mateo. He had dropped to his knees and held his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking from his sobs. I stood to go to him but Kalia stopped me. “Fiore, please go to him. He did this to protect you, but no matter how he felt about Mariana right before he killed her, he loved her, and he’ll be hurting because of it,” She turned to me. “Lily, go take a walk with your husband. The rest of us will stay with Jose Luis. If he awakens while you’re gone, we’ll let you know.”

  I nodded and stood, wiping the sand off my knees. I took a deep breath and turned toward Christian. He held a hand out to me. I ignored it and walked past him, motioning for him to follow me. Aaron and Aloysius both looked as we passed them but said nothing.

  About a mile down the beach, we reached a small pier. I walked onto it and Christian quietly followed behind me. Taking my shoes off, I set them aside and sat down, dangling my feet over the water. My legs were not long enough to touch the water but the spray of the waves wet my feet and ankles with its coolness. Christian stood like a statue. I looked up at him, shielding my eyes with my open hand.

  “May I?” he asked.

  “You do what you want,” I answered. I needed to hang on to my anger. I couldn’t allow him to hurt me again.

  “Lily, please, I never meant to hurt you,” he said as he sat next to me, his bare toes just grazing the water below us.

  “You could have fooled me,” I blurted, the anger boiling to the surface. “You walked out on me, on us. You left without a word.”

  “I thought I was doing the right thing for you and Jose Luis. I thought you would be out of danger if I did as Melinda asked. I was wrong.”

  I turned and looked him in the eyes. “You did as Melinda asked? How could you? We took vows. We vowed to love and protect each other, no matter what!”

  “That’s just it,” he said as he looked out onto the water. A pelican sat on a small wave and rode it to the end, taking to the air before finding another and doing it all over again. “She promised to leave you all alone if I left and never came back. She said your pain at losing me would be enough revenge for her. She said she would forget you ever existed. She lied to me.”

  “Of course she lied. What else would she do? When did you even talk to her? I don’t understand that.”

  “I did go for a walk that day. I ran into her in the park. That’s when she taught me how to let you go, too. She was afraid that if we kept our connection, you would figure out the truth and find me. She said if you found me, it would make our deal null and void,” he explained and turned to face me. As soon as his eyes met mine, my stomach did its usual flip.

  “Then how did you get out of the country? How did you even get to Oregon?” I didn’t understand how he got around so fast without money.

  “Part of the deal, as long as I promised to stay away, was financial. I got back all the money Melinda and Maia stole from me, every penny.”

  I could
n’t believe what I was hearing. After all that had happened between us, he was worried about money. “And you thought it was in my best interest to just walk out on me for money?”

  “No, Lily. You’re misunderstanding my words. I left because she promised they would all leave you alone, including Ryanne. That you and Jose Luis would be able to live a happy life, without their interference. The return of my money was just a plus. It’s what enabled me to fly to Oregon and talk to Aaron and Kalia.”

  “That’s another thing. What made you decide it was up to you to talk to them and fix things between us?” I was desperately trying to hang on to my anger but it was disappearing with every syllable he uttered.

  “I know you love them and they love you. In the time we spent together, I grew to love them too and, like you, I couldn’t just sit by and watch them be destroyed my Maia’s lies and deceptions. I wanted to fix things so you could be happy again.”

  That did it. I jumped to my feet and started pacing the small wooden pier. He stood and grabbed my arm. I yanked it away from him. “How could you ever think that I would ever be happy without you? You made that decision for me though it wasn’t yours to make. You left when I needed you most and for what? Melinda didn’t keep her word. It was never her intention to do so! Why on earth would you believe her?”

  “I realize that now, Lily. I know I hurt you but, though you may not believe it, I did it because I thought it would help. You’ve had nothing but grief ever since you met me.” He looked down at me as I stood within inches of him. His breath blew the hair on my forehead. Instinctively, I wanted to reach out and touch him, wrap my arms around him, lose myself in his kiss. I fought the urge with all I had.

  “But we needed you here. Jose Luis needed you. I had to do it alone. He asked to see you before he died. It killed me that I couldn’t give him that,” I explained. I was losing my resolve and I’m sure he knew it. He reached out and placed his fingers on my chin, lifting my face to meet his eyes.

  “I am so sorry about what I did. If I didn’t think it would help, I wouldn’t have done it. I just wanted you to live in peace and you haven’t been able to do that since we met.”

  “It was never about you,” I insisted. “It was always Ian. It’s still Ian. That’s not going to change, regardless of whether or not you’re with me. Don’t you understand that?”

  A single blood tear rolled down his face. I fought my body.

  “Again, I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I love you so much that I would have stayed away forever if I knew it meant your happiness,” he wiped the tear away with his free hand. “You did a great job with Jose Luis, by the way.”

  “But we were supposed to do it together.”

  “I know and I’m truly sorry. Please let me…” He stumbled over his words and took a deep breath.

  “Let you what? Make it up to me? Is that what you think will fix this?” I hung on to my stubbornness while my anger subsided.

  “I don’t know what will fix this,” he said into my hair as he rested his lips on the top of my head. My knees weakened and he wrapped his arms around me before I fell.

  “How do we undo what Melinda taught you to do?” I asked in a whisper as his strong arms held me up. I leaned my head back to look at his face.

  “Like this,” he whispered back as his lips found mine. The only thing keeping me upright now was his grasp on me. I had no fight left as his tongue parted my lips. He kissed me hard and I returned every bit of it as I sighed and pressed my body against his. Warmth radiated from my toes to my head as his fingers tangled in my hair and I lost all sense of where we were and how we had gotten here. I wasn’t even sure where his body ended and mine began, or even whose breath was whose, whose fingers touched whose skin, or whose sigh was whose. I lost complete control of my body and soul as they melded together with his, to be one as they were meant to be. All I cared about is that I had my Christian back—in mind, body, and soul.

  We parted reluctantly when we heard a shout from further up the beach. Kalia ran toward us waving her arms in the air, kicking sand up as she went.

  “He’s awake! Jose Luis is awake!” she shouted.

  Christian looked at me and smiled, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the sand. “What are we waiting for? Our son is awake!”

  THIRTY-THREE

  “Jose Luis, how are you feeling?” I asked as we approached. He blinked against the increasing sunlight and then held his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes.

  “I think I feel good. I’m not sure yet. I should get—”

  His eyes widened and a smile grew in an instant when he spotted Christian behind Kalia. He got to his feet and dove at him so fast Christian didn’t have a chance to react and was knocked to the sand on his back. With their arms around each other, they lay and laughed. The rest of us looked and each other and joined in the laughter. Kalia put her arm around my shoulder and smiled at me, her eyes full of love. I had my family back, everyone together again, but how long would it last this time?

  Forget about all of it for now. We are all back together again, well, except… Her look became distant for a moment and I knew she was thinking of Maia. She shook her head and looked back at me. We must enjoy this reunion. This new beginning, of sorts.

  I nodded and, wrapping my arm around her back, squeezed her to my side. I had known how much I missed and needed her, but I guess I hadn’t realized exactly how much I loved her until now. She beamed when she heard my thought. Aaron walked over to where Jose Luis and Christian were still on the ground and helped Jose Luis up before offering a hand to help Christian. Both of them wiped the sand off their clothes before joining the rest of the anxiously awaiting group.

  “I guess I am a little stronger now, huh?” Jose Luis asked with a shrug of his shoulders. We all laughed.

  “Let’s go home,” Aloysius said. He had already folded the blanket and carried it under his arm. At some point, though I had no idea when, he had also taken his shoes off and rolled his pants up. Fiore ran over to take his shoes from him, laughing at his bare feet.

  “What? Do not tell me you have never seen a man walking barefoot on the sand?” he teased.

  “A man, yes. A prim and proper, ancient vampire, no,” she teased back. “This gives me an idea.”

  “Oh, no,” I cut in. “I’m not sure any of us are ready for your ideas.”

  She smacked me in the back of the shoulder. Jose Luis came to my rescue.

  “Hey, lady,” he said in as tough a voice as he could manage. “Hands off my mother.”

  “Well, excuse me,” she held her arms in the air in surrender, shoes and all. “No, seriously, just listen to me. We have all been through a lot lately. We need a breather and, since we are all vampires here and no one is affected by the cool weather, even Mateo, I propose we take a short vacation. Kind of like a celebration, a big, happy reunion.”

  My eyes automatically went to Christian; remembering the last trip we took together. He met my eyes and I knew he saw what I was picturing—our moment in the hot springs. I looked away.

  “But what about my sister?” Jose Luis asked. “We still have to get Leilani back.”

  “And we will, trust me,” Aloysius interceded. “I think, under the circumstances, Fiore has a point. Lily and Christian just reunited, as did Kalia and Aaron with Lily. And you, my boy, will need a little time to adjust to your new state. A few days away might be just what we all need to rejuvenate us and prepare us for whatever it is we’ll have to do to get Leilani back.”

  “But what about Lucia and the children?” I asked. “Tomas is still in the hospital.”

  “Margarita and I will take care of them,” Giovanni offered. It was obvious by his firmness that he agreed with Fiore’s idea.

  “And I can help,” Mateo added. In all the happiness of seeing Christian again, I had forgotten to even check on how Mateo was feeling after losing the woman he loved.

  “Nonsense, Mateo,” Aloysius said. He stopped at the botto
m of the steps that would take us back to the street and turned to face us. “You are now part of this family and you need this as much, or more so, than the rest of us.” Aloysius turned and began climbing the stairs with the rest of us trailing behind.

  “I guess the boss has spoken,” Mateo whispered under his breath.

  “I heard that,” Aloysius said without a glance back. We all laughed.

  Two police cars and one fire truck still remained outside the building. Upon inspection of the outside, we saw nothing wrong, and since the police were busy writing in their pads and didn’t stop us when we approached the front door, we entered without hesitation. We were told to run to our rooms and pack and hurry back downstairs as soon as we were ready. Since Margarita was still out with the children, Giovanni said he would meet up with them and let them know what was happening. He promised to take the children to the zoo as was planned for today and to keep them entertained while we were gone.

  “Lily, can you pause for just a minute, please?” Christian asked as I tossed things into my suitcase. I looked up at him and the butterflies started their usual fluttering. How did he manage to cause that after all this time?

  “But Aloysius said to—”

  He came to me and wrapped his arms around me, interrupting whatever was on my mind. “I know what he said but I need a moment,” he stepped back enough to lift my chin with the tip of his fingers. “Do you think you can ever forgive me?”

  Looking into his warm blue eyes made my whole world spin out of control. It was like a ride, but no matter how scary it was, I didn’t want it to stop and I certainly didn’t want to get off.

  “I don’t know, Christian,” I kept my voice low so no one else could hear. There were way too many mind-reading vampires in one place for my liking. “You really hurt me. I thought I’d never see you again. I thought you changed your mind and finally ran away, like I expected you to when you found out what I am.”