Guardian's Hope (25 page)

“To share your room. I didn’t say anything
about your bed.”

“Hope springs eternal…” he laughed. Images of
love making flashed from his mind to hers. He leaned forward to
kiss her again, but she pushed him away and threw herself at him so
that he overbalanced on his heels and fell back. She laughed as she
crawled up his body.

“Yes, I do.” She straddled his waist and ran
her hands up the buttons of his shirt. Something about him changed.
Her smile disappeared and her face became serious. It took her a
moment to realize what had happened.

“You’re hiding something from me. You wanted
to tell me the other morning. You thought that in the… ah…, heat of
the moment, I wouldn’t notice, but I did. Just now, you wanted to
tell me or show me again and then you cut the connection. You can
turn it on and off just like I can.” She tapped his temple with her
finger, then traced a line over his cheek to his lips. “What is it,
Nico? What is it you don’t want to tell me?”

Nico sat up in one swift movement. Hope slid
back to sit on the ground between his spread thighs. He raised his
hand to touch her face, but with a frown, let it fall between
them.

“I should have told you before I ever touched
you. I should have given you the chance to turn away before… I
thought… It doesn’t matter what I thought. It was wrong. At the
restaurant, when we were talking about Burgas, it was the perfect
opening and then we were interrupted and after that it didn’t feel
right. I’d planned to tell you, to show you tonight, here by the
fire. I wanted tell you my story first.”

He looked so lost and afraid, this man who
feared nothing. She wanted to touch him, hold him, kiss away the
haunted look in his eyes, but she sensed that now was not the time.
So using her practical, sensible teacher’s voice, she took his
hand.

“Then let’s go sit by the fire and you can
tell me your tale, but know this, Nico ad Nimeni, you are my
heart’s desire and there is nothing you can say that will turn me
away.”

Chapter 25

He wanted her to sit across the fire from
him, but Hope refused and instead, insisted upon sitting next to
him. He simply didn’t understand. She’d given him her body, yes,
but more importantly, she’d given him her heart. It was all she had
to give and once given, she couldn’t take it back. She reached for
his hand, but he pulled it back, so she folded her own neatly in
her lap.

“Don’t touch me,” he said stiffly. “Wait
until you’ve heard what I have to say.”

She settled herself as comfortably as she
could and folded her hands in her lap. “I’m listening.”

Nico sighed and closed his eyes, forming the
words in his head before he spoke.

“You call me Nico. I’ve used many derivations
of that name in my life, changing it as I change my language or my
House of Guardians, but I have always kept the surname of ad
Nimeni. You’ll find no other Paenitentia who carries it. My name
means Nothing, son of No One. Human’s use a variety of terms to
describe my birth; out of wedlock, the wrong side of the blanket,
bastard. These terms have no meaning to members of the Race.
They’re genetically programmed to care for their young. You’ve seen
Grace’s red rose, yes?”

Hope nodded. “It means Grace and Canaan are
bound to each other forever. She told me the rose was originally
white as a symbol of their mating, like a marriage. Canaan has one,
too.”

“Yes and did she also tell you that
Paenitentia are sterile until that rose appears? All members of the
Race can trace their lineage back hundreds, even thousands of
years. The Guardians of the Race, great record keepers that they
are, have the longest and most defined lineage. One of my parents
came from that line, but no one knows who he or she was. As a
human, it’s something you wouldn’t understand.”

“I think I do, Nico,” Hope whispered softly,
“Among the Community of Saints such children are known as children
of sin and the stain is on the child as well as on the mother.
There were none in our little church, but I heard it preached
against since I was old enough to sit in a pew. But out here, in
what I’ve come to think of as the real world, people don’t think
that much about it. It’s commonplace.”

Nico smiled wryly. “Among humans, not among
the Paenitentia. I’m a freak, Hope, an abomination. No decent woman
would mate with a creature like me.”

Hope laughed a little, though it hurt. “I’ll
let the decent woman comment pass, but not the mating. Dov and Col
went out of their way to let me know about your reputation with the
ladies.”

“That’s different. Unlike your Community of
Saints, the Paenitentia have nothing against sex between
consenting, unmated adults. And while it’s frowned upon, even the
white rose doesn’t prohibit sex with another. It only prevents
conception. Among certain women of my Race, my name and
circumstance gives me a kind of mystique, the illusion of
danger.”

“Ah,” Hope nodded knowingly. “You’re like
that actor, James Dean.” She shrugged at his startled look. “I
watched
Rebel Without A Cause
with the twins. They explained
it. You’re the bad boy, forbidden fruit.” She leaned back and eyed
him from head to toe. “I don’t see it, but go on. You didn’t pop up
fully formed. Who raised you?”

Nico sighed and shook his head. Hope simply
didn’t understand the seriousness of what he was telling her. How
could she?

“I was raised as a Rom. A Gypsy,” he
clarified when she looked askance at the term. “Years ago, the Rom
had a reputation for stealing children. It wasn’t deserved. When a
baby in a family with too many children ‘disappeared’, it was easy
to blame the traveling Rom. Unwed mothers sometimes dropped their
babies off. I was found in a traveller’s hut by the side of the
road. Someone left me there to die. I always knew, but to me it
made no difference. I was a child of the tribe and the woman who
took me in loved me. She couldn’t have children of her own and she
put all her care and love into me. She was my mother and I wanted
no other.”

This was so hard for him. His voice had grown
soft with emotion. Hope held her end of the mental link between
them open, but his was closed. He couldn’t see the images she sent
him. He stared at the fire, seeing nothing but the past. This time
when she reached for his hand he let her and she entwined her
fingers with his. She was holding his hand, but she wasn’t sure if
Nico was holding hers. She thought he might be clinging to someone
from the past.

They sat together silently, watching the fire
burn low. Finally Nico straightened and stretched his back. Without
a word he added wood to the fire until the blaze was restored. He
remained standing.

“I was born with a little red teardrop on my
chest. Magda, my foster mother, thought it was a blessing from God.
Children of the Paenitentia grow and develop much like humans, so I
grew the same way as the other children of the tribe. The Rom
didn’t keep track of dates and times. They lived by the seasons and
their travels on the road, so I’m not sure how old I was, fifteen
or there about. My fangs developed. I couldn’t control it. Almost
overnight I went from a child of the Rom to a monster.”

“I don’t know what the Paenitentia did in
Eastern Europe, but the belief in vampires still exists.
Decapitation of the dead is still practiced in some areas and
burying the dead with garlic is common. The Rom were both religious
and superstitious and I shared their beliefs.”

“They thought you were a vampire,” Hope
whispered, “Dear God in Heaven, no.”

“No, not vampire. Damphyr; the child of a
mortal woman and a man bitten but not fully turned. A monster just
the same. I was sentenced to death by stoning.”

“Oh Nico, how horrible. How…”

“Don’t,” he snapped, “Don’t say a word. Let
me finish and be done with it.” Nico took two deep breaths and
continued, “The day of the stoning, the men and women formed a
circle around me as was the custom. My foster father threw the
first stone. It hit me in the head, stunning me, and I fell to the
ground. The others joined in. At some point I heard a scream. Magda
had entered the circle and threw her body across mine to shield me
from the blows. She loved me, you see and I was all she had. She,
too, was struck in the head.” Nico rubbed the spot on his temple,
remembering. “It wasn’t intentional, it all happened so quickly.
One strike and she was dead.”

“I fought them when they tried to take her
from me. I fought them, but I was a boy and no match for grown men.
They took her from me and buried her and because of her my death
sentence was commuted. But they weren’t finished with me. The old
wise woman, Serafina, brought out what she called the devil’s
tooth. They tied me down and scored my body with it as a warning to
others about what I was. They left me as they found me, lying on
the side of the road. Their final act was to sprinkle my body with
holy water. The smoke rising from the wounds where the droplets
touched was proof of my evil.”

As he spoke, he unbuttoned and removed his
woolen shirt. Now, he gripped the edges of the turtleneck and
pulled it over his head. Keeping his hands in the air, he turned a
full circle.

“The devil’s tooth was a demon claw. This is
the result.”

Hope stared in horror at the mass of scars
covering his torso. Deep welts crisscrossed his back. They rose
from below his beltline in angry purple and red. The deeper scores
were blackened. His shoulders and upper arms were marked as well.
His chest and abdomen had fared worse. A man in her church had
suffered deep burns as a child, destroying the skin of his cheek
and neck. The damage to Nico was as terrible. His front hadn’t been
scored, he’d been flayed.

The only skin that remained untouched was a
small patch over his heart where amidst the lilies, a black skull
shed blood red tears. It was there Hope placed her right hand. She
couldn’t speak. Tears poured from her eyes.

Nico tensed. His skull and lilies burned
under the warmth of her hand. He’d taken something precious from
her and rewarded her sacrifice with this. He was, indeed, a monster
and the look of anger in Hope’s eyes was a punishment he deserved.
He watched her struggle to control it.

“Say what you’re thinking, Hope. You have
right to be angry with me, to hate me. I took your innocence
knowing that when you saw the truth…”

Hope’s head snapped up and she stepped back.
Her green eyes blazed brighter than the fire. “Enough with my
virginity! Why is everyone so concerned about what was mine to
give! I’m not a child. You didn’t take it. I gave it to you freely,
willingly.”

“I took it without showing you the monster
you were giving it to.”

“There is no monster here, Nico, only a man
who was tortured in his youth. My tears aren’t for me or for you,
the man. They’re for the boy that once was. My anger isn’t toward
you but toward the people who did this to you.”

She wiped her face with the palms of her
hands and placed them on the scarring of his chest. “I see you,
Nico. From the very beginning, I saw you. Not your clothes, not
your face, not your body. I see you. Open your mind and your heart
to me, Nico. See me.”

He relaxed his guard and opened the channel
between them. The images she sent him flooded his mind. There she
was, sitting in the dirt at the side of a road, holding a boy whose
body was bloody and torn. She rocked him in her arms, kissed his
eyes and stroked his hair back from his forehead. He could see her
love and compassion. The image changed. His own scenes flashed back
at him, all the ways he wanted to make love to her. Only now he no
longer had the perfect body he preferred to keep in his mind. This
one was scarred and hideous, yet she responded not with horror, but
with joy. She wanted him now, as he was, without pretense and
without reservation.

He didn’t know he was crying until he felt
her wipe the tears from his cheeks with her thumbs.

“Let me love you, Nico. Please.”

Her lips touched his and her arms went around
him. Her hands rubbed and skimmed and lightly played over places
that hadn’t felt another’s touch since he was a child. He crushed
her to him, devouring her mouth, drinking her in like a man dying
of thirst who has found the water of life. He paused only long
enough to lift the sweatshirt over her head and he kissed her
again.

The feel of her breasts, warm and full,
against his chest almost did him in. The feel of her skin against
his was overwhelming. She was beautiful in ways no other woman
could be. She reached for his belt buckle, as she had the other
day, and this time he didn’t interfere. She unbuttoned the clasp,
the zipper came down and her hand slipped inside to hold him. She
stroked and caressed him. Her lips clung to his, her breasts to his
chest, leaving only enough room between them for her hand to
maneuver. He groaned with pleasure.

Hope smiled against his lips and stepped
back. He tried to follow but she put her hands to his chest and
lightly pushed him away. Taking another step back, she kicked off
her shoes, unbuttoned her jeans and in one swift motion, slid out
of her jeans, panties and socks. She removed her hair tie and
loosened her braid to free her hair from its confines, then ran her
fingers through its length, spreading the waves over her shoulders
and breasts. She lifted her hands to the sky with her head thrown
back. Moonlight glinted off her hair and shimmered across her skin
in a golden whisper. She was beautiful, a Celtic goddess
worshipping the moon. Nico could only stare in wonder at this
mesmerizing creature who loved him.

Hands still raised, she smiled at him, not
shyly, but slyly with a woman’s age old power shining from her
eyes. She knelt before him and as he’d done for her, so she did for
him. Slowly, reverently, she removed the remainder of his clothing.
His cock sprang free, long and hard with need. She ran the tip of
her nail along its length from base to tip. Her laugh was low and
sultry when it jumped in response. Nico moaned and swallowed
hard.