Chapter Five
Simone stared into Ben’s stunned eyes. Her gaze swept over his face. A face that had haunted her for so long.
High forehead. Strong cheekbones. A long, hard blade of a nose. And that jaw—the wonderful square jaw that she had loved to kiss.
“You’re dead,” he gritted out the words as he stood, frozen, in the doorway.
Simone let her stare sweep down his body. His shoulders were so broad. His arms and chest were muscled and powerful. He towered over her own five-foot-four frame and—
“You’re dead!”
His shout had her gaze snapping back up to his face.
Ben’s eyes were wild. “Is this another one of the demon’s games? Does he think it’s fun to torment me with images of you?”
In that moment, her heart broke even more.
“I already see you in all my dreams,” he whispered. “I think I’m tormented enough.”
Even though she wanted to crumble, Simone pushed back her shoulders and stiffened her spine. She’d known this wasn’t going to be easy. She just hadn’t realized how much it would hurt to see him again. “You’re dead, too,” she heard herself blurt.
Then she winced. That was hardly the introduction she’d intended to use with him.
His dark brows shot down.
“I, um, I mean…you’re undead.” That was the deal with vampires. Not totally dead and far, far from mortal.
He grabbed her. Yanked her against him and into the cabin. Since he’d pulled her inside, she considered that an invitation to enter.
“Be real,” he rasped against her mouth, and then he was kissing her. She’d missed his kiss so much. He’d always kissed her as if he were desperate for the feel of her mouth beneath his. As if he couldn’t get enough of her.
Simone’s fingers sank into the thickness of his hair. She stood up on her toes as she tried to get closer to him. He was so solid and strong against her. So real. So…hers.
He tensed. His head lifted. His eyes blazed down at her, glowing now with the power of the vampire. “You’re dead.”
“You keep saying that,” she whispered. Simone licked her lips. She could still taste him. She wanted to taste him again.
“A dream? Is that what this is? Am I just dreaming about you again?”
She shook her head. “This is a visit,” she told him, fighting to keep the emotion from her voice. She’d fought so hard for this time with him. “I’m the second one to come and see you tonight.”
His brow furrowed.
Jeez, hadn’t William explained things to him?
“Your life—your soul—is on the line, Ben. Tonight is your last chance.” His only chance.
And she was so glad that she was with him.
“Three visitors will come this night. One for the past. One for the present.” She swallowed.
“One for the future.” She didn’t want to think about the future.
She’d already glimpsed what could come, and it terrified her.
“I’m crazy,” Ben said flatly, but he didn’t let her go. “I’ve lost the little sanity I had, and I’m imagining you now.”
This was the part she dreaded. Simone exhaled slowly, and she let her own power slip out from her. Her shoulder blades tingled, then warmed as—
“You’ve got wings.” He leapt back, moving a good five feet in less than a second. “Fucking wings!”
She knew her wings—long, white, rather fluffy, especially when she got nervous—were fully extended. “When we met before, there were some…things…you didn’t know about me.”
His jaw dropped in shock.
“I was in New York because I was looking for you. But I…I wasn’t supposed to actually make contact with you.” She sure hadn’t intended to get physically involved with him, but Simone had broken all of the rules for Ben. “I was assigned to…help you. To guard you.”
He shook his head.
“I was your guardian angel.” Did he notice the emphasis she’d just put on “was” in that particular sentence?
Ben shook his head again as he walked toward her. His hand lifted and he reached out to carefully touch one wing. “It’s real.”
“The wings are real, and so am I.” They didn’t have much time. This one night was the only shot that Ben had been given. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t stay with you.” She’d wanted to be with him. More than anything. But—
She’d changed.
He was still staring at her wings with something close to wonder in his eyes. “Why didn’t I see them before?”
Simone focused and slowly, inch by inch, her wings grew smaller. They kept shrinking until…now you don’t see them. “You remember the scars on my shoulder blades?”
He’d seen them. Kissed them. Asked how she’d gotten them. She’d lied to him and said that she’d been in a car accident when she was twenty-two. Well, technically, that had only been a partial lie.
She’d died in that car accident. As had her parents.
But…she’d become something more in death.
“The scars hide the wings. When I’m in the mortal realm, the wings shrink in size and slide beneath the skin.
” Their small size made them little more than a ridge beneath her flesh.
“When I go…home…” She didn’t have a home any more.
Hadn’t, not in years. “When I go home, the wings return to their normal size.” At least, that was what should’ve happened.
He spun her around. Stared at her back. She knew he’d be seeing the tears that were now in the back of her shirt.
When her wings emerged, they sliced through her clothing.
An angel’s wings were soft, true, but they could also become razor sharp—depending on the angel’s needs.
When they were threatened, angels always used their wings for protection.
It wasn’t all about flight with those wings. It was about power.
Slowly, he turned her back around to face him. His expression looked so confused, so hurt, when he said, “I thought you died in front of me.”
Tell him. “When I was twenty-two, I did die on a street like that one. My mom and dad—we’d just picked up our Christmas tree.
” They’d been so happy. Singing carols in voices that had been horribly off-tune.
But that had been their tradition. Get the tree.
Sing the carols. Laugh all night during decoration time.
She cleared her throat. “A drunk driver hit my family before we could make it home. I survived for a little while, just long enough for an ambulance to get there, but I was dead before they could load me onto the stretcher.”
She saw his eyes widen.
“I died, and I was given a choice. I could pass as others do, or I could try to…help. I chose option two and wound up with wings.”
“You expect me to believe this?” Now anger snapped in his words as he stormed away from her and paced toward the small fireplace.
She didn’t go after him. If she touched him…
what would happen? Simone knew what she wanted to happen.
I want him, once more. A memory to hold tightly in the darkness.
But first, she had to make the guy see reason.
“You’re a vampire. If vamps can exist, if demons like William roam the earth, then angels can be here, too.
I mean, come on, you just saw my wings.” What more proof did he need?
His laughter was bitter. “I mourned you. I blamed myself for your death.” He whirled back to face her, and fear whispered through Simone when she saw the rage on his face. “When I lost you, I lost everything that mattered.”
That had been the beginning for him. The beginning of the end. Her fingers twisted together. “If I could’ve come to you sooner, I would have.” But the people upstairs hadn’t known quite how to deal with her new condition. They’d thought they could help her. Heal her. Change her.
And all she’d wanted was to get back to Ben.
“Back in New York, I watched you for two years before I ever spoke to you,” Simone admitted.
She wanted to confess all to him, but she didn’t know how much Ben could handle, not yet.
“You’d buried your parents, and you were so consumed by your work.
” A millionaire with his star on the rise.
He’d been vicious in business. Willing to do anything.
Willing to destroy.
“You were going down the wrong path. I just wanted…” She took a slow step toward him. “I wanted to help you. I tried to be your conscience, whispering when you were doing things that could come back to haunt you.” Or to seriously bite him in the ass.
His bitter laugh came again. “You haunt me.”
And he haunted her. “But I got too close,” Simone told him softly. “It wasn’t about guarding you. I wanted to…to be with you.”
His head jerked up at those words. His gaze narrowed on her.
“I wasn’t human, but you made me wish that I was.” She would have traded her wings for him. Would have given her life, gladly, for him.
She’d loved him before he’d even spoken a single word to her. And when they had talked, when he’d kissed her, she’d been lost.
“You were jerking me around,” he charged, voice rough. “From the beginning, you were trying to manipulate me.”
His words hurt. Simone shook her head and took another step toward him. “Never, I promise. Ben, I’d never do anything to hurt you—”
He sprang at her. His fingers closed around her shoulders in a bruising grip. “What do you think the last ten years did to me?”
She didn’t have an answer. No, she did, but Simone couldn’t say the words to him. Those years turned you into a monster. Everyone else saw the monster when they looked at him. But she still saw the man he’d been.
The man who’d come into the shelter that day, looking so lost and out of place in his fancy coat. For so long, she’d been whispering to him that he needed to help others. Help. Help. She’d entreated for so long, trying to get him to hear her, and that day…he had.
He’d given his thousand dollar coat to the woman in the corner. Then Ben had rolled up his sleeves. Simone had taken human form that day because she’d been so happy to see him. So happy for the change that he’d made.
Ben had seen her. He’d come toward her. He’d helped her make lunch for the people in that shelter.
And he’d taken every piece of her heart.