Guardian's Hope (26 page)

She leaned in closer and touched the slit
with the tip of her tongue, then closed her eyes to savor the bead
of moisture she’d captured. The next time she touched her tongue to
him, it was to measure the length of him from sac to tip, stopping
along the way to memorize every ridge and vein. She marveled at the
softness of his skin covering the rigidity of his cock, like silk
over steel. She took him fully into her mouth.

The bridge between them was still open and
she quickly learned what pace, what motion of her tongue gave him
the most pleasure. He wound his fingers in her hair as he pumped
more deeply into the moist, warm cavern of her mouth. His pleasure
became hers and she felt a rush of wetness between her thighs. The
pace increased along with his fullness until he let out an
agonizing groan and tried to push her away.

His voice was thick with need. “My precious,
you need to stop, now. I can’t hold back much longer.”

She released him long enough to look up at
him with heavy lidded eyes and smiled. “I don’t want you hold back
from me. Not ever.”

She drew him into her mouth again and resumed
her ministrations. In moments, she felt him stiffen and her mouth
was filled with milky sweetness.

When he came, he shouted his release in
exultation. It filled the wild flower clearing and echoed off the
surrounding trees. It was the sound of love and beauty and
redemption and her heart was filled with the glory of it. She’d
never heard the word used in such a way.

“Hope!”

Chapter 26

Later, they made love again, this time
cocooned in the warmth of the sleeping bags that Nico had zipped
together to form one unit. They took their time, slowly exploring
and savoring the wonder of each other. And when they were done and
Hope returned to earth from the spiraling heights his hands and
lips and body had sent her, she snuggled up against him, fitting
her body along the length of his. His finger drew lazy circles over
her breast.

“What’s this I see in my head?” Nico asked
lazily. “Who is this handsome fellow with the wings?” He felt her
smile in the darkness.

“That’s my guardian angel. It’s how I always
picture him.”

“The only Guardian you should be picturing is
me.”

“Jealous of a figment of my imagination?” She
lifted his hand from her breast and kissed the tips of his fingers.
“There’s no need. I was just thinking that if he showed up at this
very minute and said that the cost of this one night would be
eternity in my old life, in my father’s house, I’d gladly pay the
price. Oh Nico, these flowers, these stars, this moon and you
making love… I’ve had a glimpse of Heaven and I’m happy.”

Nico pulled her tightly to him. “You’re not
going anywhere. You’re mine and I’m keeping you here, with me. If
you’re haloed friend were to take you, I’d march into Hell to bring
you back. You’d better tell him so.”

She giggled a little. “He knows. It was my
thought, not his. After all, he must have been the one who sent you
to that awful bar to rescue me. Otherwise, we’d never have
met.”

“And here I thought I owed my thanks to the
twins. Would you like some more to eat or drink?”

Delores, it seemed, had thought of
everything. They’d laughed when they found the screw-top bottle of
wine and the packages of cheese and crackers rolled up in one of
the bags.

“I think I would,” she said. “I think I like
this Boones whatever-you-call-it better than any wine I’ve tasted.
Maybe it’s just the company and atmosphere.”

“Maybe it’s just poor taste in wine and
men.”

She kissed his nose. “I have very good taste
in men as you well know. Stop fishing for compliments and pour the
wine.”

“Ordering me about already, are you?” He
laughed as he pulled himself from the bag.

“Yes. And hurry up.” She snuggled beneath her
covers. “Your warm spot’s getting cold.”

He leered at her in warning. “You’d better be
careful, woman. A naughty vixen deserves to be punished.”

So this was what Grace meant about punishment
and fun! Hope hugged herself and shivered from her shoulders to her
toes.

“I’m waiting,” she said and laughed.

*****

They made it back to the room a half hour
before sunrise. As soon as the door was closed against the
approaching day, Nico pulled out his phone and speed dialed
Nardo.

“Broadbent? Where’s Nardo?... Ah, I see and
you’re covering the phone.” he looked over at Hope and shrugged.
“No, I was going to ask him to send candy and flowers to the front
office here.” He snorted and said to Hope, “The Professor doubts
your affections can be purchased with flowers and sweets.”

Hope laughed. “Tell him he’s right. I should
have held out. All I got was cheap wine with cheese and crackers.”
She could hear Broadbent’s laughter through the phone and then he
said something she couldn’t quite hear.

“Well there’s the mystery, professor. It
wasn’t my wine or cheese… Yes,well… I’ll let her explain…The card
should read ‘Thanks. You’re an angel’… No, one woman is enough for
me and our angel’s madly in love with someone called Otis… Yes, I
think you’re right. We’ll see you tonight.”

“What’s going on?” Hope asked as soon as he
closed the phone.

“Nothing immediate. They’re trying to get an
address on the bartender at Bloodsucker’s. Nardo can’t find a thing
on the guy. Goes by the name of Smith, but who knows if that’s real
or an alias. He goes to work before dark and never leaves until
after dawn, so Nardo got the idea to set up cameras to follow his
route. It’s taking some time. Nardo was setting up in the attic of
what he thought was an abandoned house. Turns out he was wrong. A
dozen squatters showed up to party and now he’s stuck there until
nightfall.”

“Poor Nardo. It doesn’t seem fair. They’re
doing all this for me, while I’m here enjoying myself.”

Nico put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re
not to worry about this. The Guardians know what they’re doing and
they can get the job done faster than you can alone. The men
watching your house are paid by Smith, but we know he’s not running
the show. If your sister’s alive, and I believe she is, we don’t
want to move too fast and force them to do something we’ll regret
later.”

“I know. I know. It’s guilt, that’s all. I
have no right to be so happy while…”

“You have every right. Nothing you’ve done
has taken away from the search for your sister. Now go get your
shower and let’s get some sleep.”

He was already in bed when she returned from
the shower. She’d felt so free in her nakedness up on the mountain,
but here in the motel, she had a sudden attack of shyness and she
wore the white nightgown. She nervously picked at one of the tiny
buttons as she stood by the side of the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, “This feels
really awkward. It shouldn’t, but it does.”

Nico drew back the covers to invite her in.
“It is for me as well,” he said as she slipped between the sheets.
“I’ve never slept with a woman before.”

“Oh please.” Hope leaned on her elbow and
propped her head on her balled fist. As suddenly as it came, her
awkwardness was gone. She rolled her eyes. “I know you’ve slept
with other women. You said so up on the mountain.”

“No. I’ve bedded other women, which means
I’ve had sex with other women. I have never slept with a woman
until now.”

“Ah,” Hope nodded her head in understanding.
“Slam, bam, thank you ma’am.”

Nico choked out a laugh and shook his head.
“Where do you get these things? No. I’ll bet I can guess.”

“Dov and Col, of course. They’ve made it
their mission to bring me out of the Stone Age. They’re developing
a whole curriculum of movies, graphic novels, and idiomatic
language. I think it’s helping.”

“And as soon as we get back I’m announcing
school is closed. If you need a teacher, I’ll take the job.”

“Why? Did I get it wrong?” Her eyes sparkled
with mischief.

Nico lay back on his pillow, closed his eyes
and sighed. “No. Your assumption was correct, but crudely put.”

“Oh I know that,” she laughed. “The two of
them are dying for me to say something awful in front of the
others. I was only using you for practice. After what we did last
night, I didn’t think you’d be offended.”

“The mistake is mine,” he said seriously
though she saw the telltale quirk at the corner of his mouth. “I
thought you’d make a nice, quiet little mouse of a mate. I see now
I was wrong.”

She fell back on her pillow. He’d said mate.
Did he mean it or was it just a turn of phrase? Hope tamped down
the shiver of pleasure and asked a question she’d wanted to ask
earlier.

“Nico?”

“Hmm?”

“If it’s your secret, you know I’ll keep it,
but do the others know about your past? Your scars?” She didn’t
want to hurt him, yet it bothered her to think the others knew and
never hinted at his history.

He didn’t open his eyes and his voice
remained calm, but she knew it wasn’t easy for him to answer.

“Not the whole of it. Canaan knows I didn’t
receive my skull and tears in the usual way and Grace saw a small
portion of my back. I swore her to secrecy. Actually I frightened
her into it. She didn’t deserve it. I’d been injured and she was
concerned for me. I’ve told you more than I’ve ever told anyone.”
He paused and opened his eyes to stare at the popcorn ceiling
above. “No. That’s not true either. If I’m to give you the truth,
you need the whole of it. The two Guardians who found me after I’d
received my skull and tears knew everything. They’re the ones who
taught me about who and what I was. They taught me about honor and
what it means to be a Guardian of the Race. They gave me purpose.
They gave me my life.”

Her hand found his under the covers and she
squeezed his fingers. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s too
painful. I don’t need to know.”

“I didn’t want to tell you, but now that I’ve
begun, I must. You need to know who you’re involved with.” He
licked his lips. “You’d think, after all these years, it would be
easy to tell. It isn’t. I don’t know why.”

“You’ve kept it locked inside your heart for
so long you’ve formed a wall around it. Those kinds of walls are
hard to break down. You don’t have to tell it all at once. When
you’re ready, I’ll listen.”

“No. I’m ready and you need to hear all of
it. I don’t know how I survived the mauling with the claw. I’ve
tried to remember, but it’s a blank. The first thing I remember is
waking up in the woods. I was lying in a stream, soaked and
freezing. I must have drunk the water but I hadn’t eaten in a long
time. I was skin and bones and so weak I could only crawl. I
dragged myself along that streambed for days until I came to a
small farm. It was a Sunday morning. I know because the family was
dressed in their best and gathering at the wagon. The woman carried
a Bible. I was so afraid they’d see me lying in the tall grass. I
remember how the sun burned on my back. I thought the sun sickness
was another sign that I truly was a damphyr.”

“Anyway, when the family was well down the
road, I made my way to the house. There was a dog, but it only
wagged its tail and licked my face. I was grateful. I knew I wasn’t
strong enough to fight it off. In the kitchen, I ate everything I
could stuff in my mouth and promptly threw it up. I thought it was
another sign. I needed blood, not food. I actually considered
biting the dog. Fortunately for both of us I couldn’t bring myself
to do it.” He winced at the memory. “I made up my mind that I would
relearn to eat human food or die. I stole a couple of shirts and a
bag of food and dragged myself back to the woods. I kept moving. By
eating small amounts of food every few hours, I gradually regained
my strength. It was years before I learned that my reaction was
typical of starvation.” He shrugged. “That’s the way I lived for a
long time. Steal food and clothes on Sunday and hide for the rest
of the week.”

Hope rolled to her side and kissed his cheek.
“I’m so glad you didn’t bite the dog.”

He smiled at that. “Me too.”

He was quiet for a long while and Hope
wondered if he knew she was seeing the images from his memories.
After a while, he tore himself away from the images and continued,
his voice a monotone.

“Eventually, I made my way to the sea and
became a wharf rat. I lived by night. I was a gambler and a thief
and a smuggler of anything that could be sold in the hell holes
along the docks. I killed my first human when I was around
seventeen. He was a sailor who preferred boys over women and I
looked like an easy mark. He propositioned me first, offered me
money and only forced the issue when I refused. He didn’t know that
in spite of my size, I was already stronger than most men. I killed
him with his own knife.” Nico’s voice hardened. “Don’t think that
killing him had anything to do with honor or self-defense. I was
already jaded enough to do anything for money, anything but expose
my scars. It wasn’t too long after that my reputation began to
grow. I’d learned to control my fangs and buried any emotion that
brought them out. No one knew what I was and I never let anyone
close enough to find out. I was a boy who could take down the
strongest of men and I found I could make my living with my fists.
I fought in bars, cellars, stables, anywhere I could find someone
to set it up and handle the betting. I fought all comers and some
of the men I fought died and every one of them that died was a Rom.
It was murder and I knew it. So there you have it, Hope. Thou shalt
not commit murder, but I did and at the time I was proud of it. I
became the monster they said I was.” His face became hard with the
beginnings of rage, the planes of his cheeks so sharp they looked
honed.

Hope knelt beside him and took his face in
her hands. Her tears fell to his cheeks. “Stop it. Stop it,” she
shouted. “You were a boy! A boy with a man’s strength. Those people
flayed you. The damage wasn’t just to your body. They shredded your
heart and your soul. They killed the child that you were. Few men
could survive what you did and not want revenge. You had no one to
show you the world could be different, no one to heal the wounds to
your heart. Murder is wrong. I won’t deny it, but you were a
tortured child with a tortured child’s mind and reason. I won’t
condemn you for that and neither will God. You are no monster,
Nico. You never were.”