Energy slammed into her body, and she felt rather like she’d been plucked from her small cabin and thrown into a dark closet. The world receded around her and became condensed to the man in front of her and then only to his pain. Trying to think past the euphoria that came from having her lifelong power returned to her, she pictured the purple and blue flesh beneath the bandage, and punctured it in her mind, allowing the pus and bacteria inside to pour out down his arm. The man growled in agony.
The pus still trickled when she focused her energy into the wound itself and visualized repairing ripped muscle and flesh, fusing the torn sides together. His body bowed in an arch. He tipped his head back and roared in pain as he heated to a boiling point. A wet sheen of sweat covered his body and face. The power surged into him, and he glowed purple for just an instant.
In the space of a breath, it was finished. She doubled over, the pain in her shoulder and head blocking any other sensation.
Christ, it hurt. She’d forgotten how much. His pain, magnified by three…oh, it hurt. Genevieve whimpered and curled onto her side.Breathe.
She lost track of how long she lay there, unable to think beyond the pain. A half an hour? One hour?
When she could lift her eyelids without flinching, she knew the worst was over. Sweat covered her face, her nightgown stuck to her body, but she was able to move. Though her limbs felt heavy with exhaustion, she rallied her remaining strength to finish what needed to be done. She removed Alex’s blood-and-pus-soaked bandage, scrubbing his body with a wet towel, drying with another. Drying sweat would be the last thing he wanted when he went through the next stage.
He was barely conscious, grooves of pain and suffering carved around his mouth.I feel you, buddy. The lines of strain deepened as small shivers coursed through his body. Genevieve finished drying his legs and feet and ran to her small closet to get extra blankets. By the time she’d rushed back to him, his shivers had grown to great racking shudders. “Cold,” he rasped. “So—cold…”
She knelt next to him, working as fast as she could to bury him under the mound of blankets. A bright red flush covered his entire form, a reaction to the power she’d crammed into his body. His core temperature had taken a hard hit, to go from close to freezing to burning hot in the space of a couple of minutes.
The shudders didn’t dissipate, and Genevieve grew worried. She gave a startled squeak when a hot hand reached out from under the blanket and grabbed her wrist. “Need you,” he bit out. She was startled enough that she did not protest as he drew her under the blankets with him.
He heaved over onto his uninjured side, his face buried into the crook of her neck, hot breaths gusting against the sensitive skin. His heavy leg pinned her. His right hand shifted on her belly, and she spared a moment of worry that he would aggravate his shoulder by jostling it even the slightest bit. It didn’t seem to matter to him, though. Perhaps what she had done had numbed his body, or his brain was so far gone with pain and fever, a little more hurt didn’t affect him. His rough hand smoothed down her body and over her hip, catching in the fine lawn of her cotton nightgown. He grasped it before she realized what he was doing, dragging it up her body until it bunched above her breasts. Genevieve gasped as he pressed their naked bodies together, one large hand coming to rest under the curve of her breast, the other anchoring in her long braid. As his flesh met hers, his shudders finally subsided and he slipped fully into unconsciousness, his body turning into a dead weight.
He was so heavy, and her home was warm to begin with, so his furnace-like body temperature didn’t help. She shifted just a bit, but froze when the rough hair on his chest abraded her nipples. Would it be possible to get out from under him without moving? She wedged a hand between them to gingerly rest it on his hot chest and gave a slight push, but he remained immobile. She must be tired, she decided, if she was able to notice the resilient, muscular flesh beneath her palm.Shame on you. He’s near death.
Shaking her head, Genevieve pushed harder. He grunted and moved, enough for her to slide her upper body out from underneath him. She shoved her nightgown down until it covered her to at least her upper thighs.
She should move, get the gun, and keep watch on this guy. Try out her old, decrepit radio and see if she could contact someone for help. He could be some sort of career criminal, the bad guy. Genevieve yawned loudly instead. God, she was tired. Maybe she could take just a minute to catch her breath. Then she’d get up. Her state of exhaustion was related to him, so it wasn’t like he would be particularly spry in attacking her if she stayed for a second.
She craned her neck back a bit to study the stranger’s face. When the Lord saw fit to drop a man on her doorstep, He didn’t do it by half measures. This was a Man with a capital letter, the kind who probably choked people with a cloud of testosterone. Beneath bruises and cuts she knew were already healing at ridiculous speeds, the stranger’s face was perfectly formed, with a strong, straight nose, high cheekbones and full sensuous lips.
His skin was a toasty shade of brown. He was Hispanic, she guessed, which was unusual in the overwhelmingly white surrounding communities. She followed along his tanned throat to what she could see of the rest of his body, feeling a tiny twinge of guilt for ogling him while he slept. The twinge got swept away in admiration. His shoulders were broad, his stomach a flat washboard. A dark sprinkling of hair covered his chest, narrowing to a line that disappeared into his boxers. His left hand still lay on her stomach and no amount of calling herself foolish could stop her from noting he wore no wedding ring, had no pale strip of skin on his ring finger.
With her defenses lowered by utter fatigue, she wasn’t able to stop the impulse that had her stroking back the dark lock of hair that fell over his forehead. She lingered, exploring the coarse and curling strands.
His eyes popped open and caught her in the act of fondling his hair. “Sorry,” she whispered, embarrassed, and lowered her hand. His impossibly long lashes drifted closed again, but not before he tightened his hold and pulled her toward him. He gave a satisfied grunt when she pressed against his entire length.
His heat permeated her body. Sleep sucked at her consciousness, and she tried her best to fight it.Get up, get the gun. You can’t just snuggle next to this guy.
She couldn’t trust him, but surely he’d be out for a while. It wouldn’t hurt to give in to her heavy eyelids for a few minutes, right? Just for a bit. Five minutes tops, and then she’d be back in fighting form.
Roll out of bed and doze on the ground, then.She gave a halfhearted jerk to move away, but his fingers caught in her braid. Her exhausted mind gave a shrug, and she couldn’t even pry her eyes open anymore anyway. Sleep rushed over her like a Mack truck. Her last conscious thought was the groggy realization that she hadn’t had a man on top of her in years. Alex was a definite upgrade.
2
Being dead hurt. Why hadn’t the priests or nuns who’d taught at his elementary school ever talked about that?
Apparently, being dead also meant you went blind, because he couldn’t see anything except an inky blackness. Well, that sucked.
No, he wasn’t blind, he realized a split second later. His eyes just wouldn’t cooperate and open. Shit, someone had sewn them shut. His heartbeat accelerated, his breathing soughing in and out of his lungs. Would he have to spend eternity like this?
Calm down, Alejandro.
Papa. Alex relaxed. Okay, if he was hearing his late father’s voice again, which he hadn’t heard since he was twelve, then he must be dead. Maybe that’s what those hours of pain and torture and crawling in the freezing godforsaken mountainous forest had been all about. His father had been whispering to him then, too, in bursts of Spanglish, he recalled woozily. Urging him to keep going, to get to the cabin. He could see it, a tiny little log thing carved out of the wilderness. He could even recall the angel who had greeted him, though she was a bit hazy. The impression of soft arms and a backlit face stayed with him. Maybe everyone who died went through the same journey. Like some metaphorical shit.
Fuck, he probably shouldn’t be swearing in Heaven.
But if he was in Heaven, why did hehurt? His body felt like a massive collection of bruises and cuts. It even hurt to breathe, though did you still need to breathe when you were dead? His right shoulder and arm were the most affected, but his head wasn’t in too good a shape either.
Could he be in Hell? No. The cold had left, he was now toasty warm, but it was a comfortable warmth, not a fire-and-brimstone heat. Besides, he’d done some stuff he wasn’t proud of, but he hadn’t been that bad, and his father wouldn’t be with him if he was. Carlos Rivera had been too fine a man to end up in Hell. Purgatory then? That would explain the pain.
Since he couldn’t open his eyes, he put all of his effort into trying to move his arms. He froze when his hand slipped over something large and soft.
