Title: Original Sin
Author: Timothy Quinn
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Cort was trying to find his path to Calvary
Timeline: 1880’s
He wasn’t going to die here. That alone was the only thing Cort could be certain of.
This wasn’t about death.
At least not his own.
John Herod had already seen to that.
This was about teaching him he couldn’t run.
He couldn’t hide.
He couldn’t deny what he was meant to be, or who he was meant to be with.
A shudder ran through him.
He wouldn’t spend eternity at Herod’s right hand.
He’d find a way to sever his own neck before he did that.
He couldn’t Feed.
He’d been denied what he craved, and the thirst was starting to weaken him.
He tugged at his bonds, his wrists already raw.
It was a futile and pathetic gesture.
He wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.
It was his lot, at least for the moment, to be chained like Herod’s pet dog at his master’s front stoop.
All around him, in this godforsaken hellhole they called Redemption, he could smell blood.
It stained everything, even the dusty ground he sat upon.
Much of it, he had once spilt himself.
The memories weren’t pleasant.
So alike.
The two of them had been so much alike.
Sitting there in the dust, the man Cort used to be was closer to the surface than he could allow.
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the old fountain, thinking to find some peace in reciting the Psalms, but his mind was relentless in dragging him back to the life he had once known in this place.
Nothing here was comfortable anymore since he’d been changed.
Hadn’t taken much, though he’d fought like a man possessed of a whole lot more than just righteous fury.
Herod’s laughter, bright eyes shining with something that was not of this world, and he’d woken up disgusted at himself and the world to a degree far lower than all that piss running in the street behind the Saloon.
He’d also woken up dead – though it had taken him a while to fathom that out – with an actual Soul where his cold, empty heart used to be.
Through the pain it had whispered to him steadily, kept him from going insane, and in the days that followed, he’d learned how to listen to who he truly was inside. There was more to this life, this existence than the lessons Herod had been so eager to teach him. Yes, he followed, he obeyed, he took pleasure from the misery he brought, the lives he took, the devastation in his wake, but he wasn’t the man his Sire believed him to be.
It wasn’t his destiny to be another man’s puppet.
He was stronger than that, with a will to live.
It took the preacher who’d saved him in Nogales to finally show him the light.
A Chosen One, a holy man, a good, decent human being who’d helped him heal, offered guidance, taken him to one side during those times when Herod was asleep.
In the Sanctuary of the Church he’d spoken passionately of the way a Vampire’s life could truly be, of Clans and Mating, of Souls that Bond for eternity, and the significance of what he had yet to discover within himself as he sought some inner peace, and the one who would someday make him whole.
Like a child at his teacher’s feet, he’d sat and listened with rapt attention, desperate to know more. At the same time he’d also found forgiveness for all those terrible deeds he had done.
So easy had the seduction of darkness been.
So easy.
But doing what was right?
Now that took real courage.
Yet he’d killed him.
God help him, but Cort had put a bullet in the preacher’s head at Herod’s bidding, and walked away, dropping his gun on the steps of the altar and refusing to ever again carry another.
Until now.
Until once more he’d done only what was expected of him.
And it came so naturally, it was terrifying.
Herod was fast.
Cort was faster.
Still.
Even after all that time.
He shivered, whispering a prayer for the old preacher’s Soul as the memories assaulted him.
He’d never even known the man’s name.
“There’s always forgiveness if you ask for it…” and that familiar, comforting voice floated back to him from the past, reassuring and warm. The preacher had shown him there was nothing within him so dark, so dreadful, it couldn’t come into the light and be washed clean.
So he’d gone back to that Church and stolen the gun he’d been forbidden from touching.
The one locked in a solid metal box, hidden from the world beneath the altar, under a stone.
The one he’d been told was cursed.
‘The Left Hand of God’ was its name.
Separated from it’s partner it had sat there in an oil cloth.
A Colt Peacemaker, with a Crucifix on the grip that marked his palm as he picked it up and felt it’s balance.
It was perfect.
Too long in the barrel, but perfect.
He could cut it down, make it shorter for the quick draw.
He had the skills.
He had the patience.
Yet Herod had tried again that night to make Cort his Mate.
Cort struggled to keep bile from rising in his throat.
He’d kicked and he’d screamed and he’d fought.
No one came to help him.
Not even Lonergan, who’d stood guard at the door every night to make sure they weren’t disturbed.
Didn’t he hear what was happening? Didn’t he know? Didn’t he care?
Didn’t it matter anymore?
At least whores got paid for spreading their legs.
All he got was pain.
Anger.
Would it have been easier to surrender?
Maybe.
But surrender wasn’t in his nature.
Never had been.
John had thought him weak, weak of mind, weak of spirit. But he wasn’t weak of Soul. He’d taken a knife to certain parts of Herod’s anatomy and left him bleeding, impotent, humiliated. Maybe he’d helped birth the monster who now ran this town with a more twisted sense of godlike power than he’d had before.
It was simply one more thing to feel guilty for.
Herod only wanted to know what true fear tasted like.
And Cort swore one day the bastard would know.
Preferably right before Satan welcomed him to damnation.
“Whatcha prayin’ for preacher? Ain’t no one here gonna save yo’ sorry ass from what’s comin’!”
Raucous laughter broke through his quiet pleas to God.
Some of Herod’s men watched him from the dark porch of the big mansion.
They mocked him, spat on him, kicked him, threw trash at him. One had tempted him with a glass of water just out of his reach.
He tried to swallow a few times, but his throat remained dry and scratchy.
All that his ‘hanging’ in the saloon had achieved was a few bruises and a headache that thumped ceaselessly through his skull.
Or was that caused by something else altogether?
The voice of his guilty conscience perhaps?
The guilt would never let him go.
“I have renounced violence!” he snorted to himself, recalling how he’d tried to sound so brave in front of the townsfolk who knew him better for what he used to be. And yet his voice had held just that tremulous touch of fear.
He hated himself for that.
He hated himself for a whole lot of things.
Still, it had brought Ellen to his attention.
He could’ve dangled there on that rope ’til the Second Coming, it wouldn’t’ve made the faintest difference, but she’d shot him down anyway, unaware that he couldn’t die.
The grave would be his only peace.
Trouble was, no one would be kind enough to kill him.
He would suffer his own Calvary before that.
Herod knew how to make people suffer in torment.
Cort wasn’t sure what Ellen was really doing here. Actually, he wasn’t sure she knew the answer to that herself. But damn if she wasn’t fine looking. He might wear a collar and carry a Bible, but he wasn’t blind.
She wasn’t here for him. He was smart enough to know that. But there was a life in her that nothing short of a bullet could extinguish.
Trouble was, it seemed that might be the only way she left this town.
Dead.
That was the only way anyone left Redemption.
With the stench of drunken breath in his face, Cort found himself unchained and hauled roughly to his feet by two men who dragged him out of the street and into the whorehouse.
“Please God let me die…”
In his mind, over and over the same words kept repeating and the same answer kept coming back.
Not yet.
Not yet.
The preacher had told him there was a purpose to the Vampire.
His Soul had a reason to live.
He had only to find that reason.
When he was already dead, what else was there to fear?
It wasn’t his time to leave this earth.
Not yet.
The Jesuits who had taken him in, made him a Priest, taught him that too.
There was purpose.
Always.
You just had to find it, even in the dark,
But then there was Ellen.
She saved him for a second time.
She was warm, and she was real. Suddenly right there, her naked skin pressed to his chest, her hands caressing his face. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
“Oh God, why are you doing this to me?” he asked softly, slipping his manacled wrists around her, holding her tighter, pulling her closer until their hips ground together.
She was clearly a horsewoman by those strong thighs, and that good firm ass in those leather pants.
“Because we could be dead tomorrow,” she whispered, and hot kisses warmed him like nothing else had been able to in a long, long time.
This wasn’t some cheap whore who took his company only for the coins he could offer; who lay back and let him take what he wanted. Ellen was strong and determined. She wanted to feel alive, and for a while again, so did he.
His head fell back against the window frame as her mouth worked his cock, her tongue dancing over his flesh, making him shiver. He groaned as her lips applied just the right amount of pressure to take him over the edge, and he was coming down her throat with humiliating speed.
She chuckled, grinning up at him as she tugged his pants down to his ankles. “Been a while, huh?” But in truth had been a while for both of them.
Pushed backward onto the bed, Cort could do little but nod mutely and watch as she stripped off her storm sodden clothing. She was panting, flushed, and wet with more than just the rain.
Her skin felt like silk beneath his gun calloused fingers and he caressed her as best his shackles would allow. She moaned, moving into his touch, arching her back as he tugged her nipples into stiff, throbbing peaks.
She knew just how and where to touch him, stroke him, and as she squeezed his balls in the palm of her hand, it only teased him with the promise of further pleasures. It didn’t take long before he was hard again and aching to be inside her.
She smiled, her long yellow hair falling around her face as she leaned down to kiss him. Their tongues collided in a moment of desperate connection, and before he could do or say anything, she moved her hips, sinking onto his cock with a gasping, almost contented sigh of approval.
“Oh god…” Cort breathed, exhaling the unnecessary air he’d been holding in his lungs. She was tight, and so hot inside.
Cort captured her left nipple in his mouth, sucking hard. She cried out, her muscles clenching around him and he bucked upward, forcing himself deep into her warm, wet sex again and again.
She offered him her right breast, and he suckled that too, catching the hot flesh between his teeth. Should a starving man deny himself a free meal? Or so he reasoned with himself, for through it all he could still hear her heart beating, and sense the blood that pumped fiercely through her veins. The Vampire couldn’t be denied for much longer.
Pulling back, she sat up only to ride him as though he were a mustang on the prairies. It was wild and frantic. Sweat matted her hair, and stung his eyes. He watched her move, clutching fiercely at her hips, bruising her skin. But it didn’t matter. She took his length, her vibrant body opening up to accept him, and with a shout that must’ve been heard through the entire town, she bathed his cock with her own wet heat as she came, and triggered his climax again.
He couldn’t take any more.
As she collapsed against his chest, her breath snagging in her throat, he flipped her over onto the mattress. Dazed with passion she blinked up at him, more than a little shocked by what she saw, but he couldn’t hold back. The Vampire was loose. His fingers tangled in her hair. She tried to struggle but he wouldn’t let go.
He turned her head.
His fangs dropped. With a low growl he bit down into the pale curve of her neck, tasting her blood surge thick and strong over his tongue.
Ellen whimpered, closing her eyes, lost in sensation, overwhelmed by an arousal more intense than the first.
Cort fed. His strength returned. With that power came his overactive senses and for a moment he had trouble readjusting.
Somewhere outside he could hear men whispering.
Taking his fill, he licked the puncture wounds he’d made and all evidence of what he really was, healed right before his eyes as if it had never been.
Sated, he finally kicked off his boots and pants before pulling the comforter up around himself and Ellen, who rolled over into his arms and promptly fell asleep with her head on his shoulder.
He smiled.
She wanted Herod dead.
Tomorrow they would make plans.
There was a way out of this.
He could see it clearly now he had an ally. Together it might be possible to destroy all that Herod held dear. Though his old enemy couldn’t die from something as simple as a bullet, it would at least give Ellen some closure for what he had done to her father, and a shot to the head would buy time enough to flee far from this place and start a new life somewhere, perhaps as part of a Clan that would welcome him as one of their own.
Not even John Herod would get up too fast from a bullet to the skull.
Cort sighed, finally drifting to sleep in a warm if somewhat lumpy bed, dreaming only of freedom and death.
Excellent, Speed!
—Naj 😀 😀 ♥️♥️