Chapter Six
“It was my fault,” Ben said as he stared down at her. He’d braced his hands on either side of her so that she didn’t feel the weight of his body. “You were coming after me. You were hit by the SUV, because of me.”
She shook her head, moving slightly against the pillow. “I didn’t look when I ran after you.” She should have looked. Angels could take the form of humans if they wished. She’d taken her old human body because she wanted Ben to be able to see her. To touch her.
But that body was vulnerable. When angels were flesh and blood, they could be hurt. They could be killed.
They could be…changed.
Angels were supposed to stay out of the sight of human beings. She’d been taking a huge risk just by assuming her human form so many times around Ben. “The choice was mine,” she told him.
Most days, angels stayed in their astral forms. No one saw them that way. And angels, when they were in that astral form, they could fly right through cities. Right through buildings.
She’d been so used to the invulnerability of the astral form, that she’d forgotten how very fragile a physical body could be.
Until an SUV had hit her.
One instant, she’d been surrounded by a swirling world of white snow, and in the next moment, she’d only known darkness.
Later, she’d found out the darkness had been due to the body bag that she’d been put inside. The emergency personnel had zipped her up in that bag and tossed her into cold storage.
“Where have you been?” he demanded as his gaze searched hers. “All these years, where were you?”
She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back.
Ben’s jaw locked, but he withdrew from her body. A long, slow glide that had her tensing. And, when he was gone, she missed the hard feel of his flesh within her. How many times had she longed for him? How many times had she called out for him in the middle of the night?
He positioned his body next to hers. Simone started to rise from the bed, but his hand flew out, and his arm settled over her stomach. “You’re not leaving me again.”
Yes, she was. Sooner than he realized.
Her gaze darted around the small cabin. “Why don’t you have a Christmas tree?” She’d always loved Christmas trees. Their delicious pine scent. The way their lights twinkled. The homemade ornaments perched all over the limbs of the trees.
Perfect.
Her mom and dad had made sure she added new ornaments to their tree each year. When they’d…when they’d had their accident, a Christmas tree had been strapped to the top of their car. They’d just cut that tree at a local farm. They’d been so happy.
That happiness had ended with the scream of metal. Her parents had died instantly. Simone hadn’t passed so easily. Her car door had cut into her side, slicing so deeply. Firemen had painstakingly worked to free her from the vehicle. They’d kept telling Simone that she was going to be all right.
She’d known they were lying.
“You convinced me to put up that tree in New York,” Ben recalled as he pulled her closer. “You said the tree would make everything better.”
Simone swallowed as she tried to push the painful memories from her mind. “Your penthouse was so…cold.” Professionally decorated with everything in exactly the right place. Too perfect. Too sterile. “I thought the tree would give the place—”
“Warmth?” Ben’s voice was flat. “Life?”
She gave a slow nod.
“No, baby, you did that. You brought the life. Without you, there wasn’t anything left to celebrate.” He ran his tongue over his fangs. “Especially when I became this.”
“The fangs don’t make you a monster.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You should put up a tree,” she whispered. “It will remind you of the way things were. When your parents were alive. When you were younger. Happier. When you believed that—”
“A fat, old guy in a red suit was going to make my world better?”
Her lips pressed together. Simone shook her head. “No, when you believed that there was more than just darkness in this world.”
His hold slackened, and she slid from his grip. Simone found her clothes and dressed as quickly as she could. He watched her from the bed. Big, muscled, sexy…and dangerous. So very dangerous to her.
He didn’t know what she was risking for him. Simone planned for him to never find out. “I’m your second visitor.”
One dark brow hitched up.
“That means I show you the present.”
“The only present I care about…it involves you coming back into this bed with me.” He sat up, his jaw locking. “Once wasn’t enough. A million fucking times with you won’t be enough.”
Her gaze fell to the floor. “We can’t. Not now.” The minutes were ticking past too quickly. Her shoulders squared. “Time is running out. Get dressed. We have to go.”
He rose slowly. Had he missed the whole “time is running out” part?
He dressed, never taking his eyes from her, then Ben stalked toward Simone.
She exhaled on a relieved breath. “I move fast,” she told him.
Simone figured he needed the warning. Her wings spread behind her.
“So just hold on to me. You can even close your eyes, if you want. When you open them, we’ll be at our first stop. ”
“Screw that,” he said as his fingers curled around her and he pulled her against him. “I want you to stay right—”
Her wings flapped. She locked her hands on him and shot into the air, nearly ramming into the roof of the cabin. Her hold jerked Ben up with her.
“Shit,” Ben muttered. “Shit.”
Simone almost smiled. Then she flew them right through the closest window and out into the night.
***
Ben’s feet slammed into the ground and he nearly fell to his knees as his stomach finally left his throat and returned to its normal position. “What was that?”
Simone pushed back her long, blonde hair and grinned at him. “Angel speed.” Her dark eyes seemed to shine.
He never wanted to experience angel speed again.
“It’s how we can get to so many places in moments.” She snapped her fingers together. “Just like that.”
No, he thought it was more like the speed of light. Ben heaved out a breath as he straightened. The last thing he wanted was to look weak in front of Simone.
Simone. Her sweet, vanilla scent filled his nose. He could still taste her on his lips. She was real. Not some desperate dream. And he’d had plenty of desperate dreams about her over the years.
She wouldn’t tell him where she’d been. But he would find out. It was only a matter of time. He’d find out all of her secrets, and then Ben would never let her go again.
Her wings were gone now as she approached the cell—an actual prison cell.
She’d flown through an open window in the prison.
They shouldn’t have fit through that window, but she’d worked some kind of magic and—bam—they’d gotten inside.
Ben didn’t know why Simone had brought him to that dim prison but—
“I’m innocent!” A man yelled. Ben saw the guy’s bloody fists curl around the prison bars. “You’ve got to believe me! I didn’t hurt anyone!”
Ben took a few fast steps forward. He knew that voice.
“Don’t worry,” Simone said softly. “He can’t see us or hear us.”
The he in question—the man behind the prison bars—was Miles Gavin. Ben’s lips peeled away from his fangs as a snarl built in his throat.
“It’s an angel trick,” Simone added. Her fingers slid over Ben’s arm, as if she were trying to soothe him. “Angels usually move on the astral plane, and that’s why humans don’t see us.”
The astral plane? That bit of info actually succeeded in temporarily pulling his gaze away from Miles.
Simone licked her lips. “I was granted…special permission so that my magic would cover you, too. We’re in the astral plane right now—that’s how we managed to fit through the window. Space and time distort here.”
Well, at least that was one mystery solved. Or semi-solved. He still didn’t understand half of the shit that was happening.
“Humans can’t see us,” Simone continued. “They can never see angels in this plane.” She gave a faint shrug of her shoulders. “That’s why you didn’t see me all those times in New York. Before we met at that shelter, I’d been watching you for quite a while. You just never realized it.”
Apparently, he’d missed one hell of a lot.
“Let me out!” Miles yelled.
Ben narrowed his eyes as he focused on the human. That man should already be dead. Instead, Miles looked far too alive. His blond hair hung over his forehead. A bandage had been applied to his neck. Red stained his cheeks as Miles shouted, “You’ve got the wrong guy! Please, please! It wasn’t me!”
“Bullshit,” Ben growled. “He’s a murdering SOB. I should’ve ripped out his throat when I had the chance.”
“Like you did to the others?” No emotion was in Simone’s voice when she asked this question.
His muscles locked. “I’m a vampire. I have to feed in order to survive.” It was kind of his thing. Ben figured an angel should know that.
Miles was still begging. Hell, it even looked like the man was crying. Did your victims cry, too? Did they beg? Ben knew they had.
“You have to feed, but you don’t have to kill. That’s a choice you make.” Simone took a step away from him.
Ben advanced toward that cell. He was nearly right in front of Miles now, and the man showed no sign of being aware of his presence at all. Ben even waved his hand in front of the guy’s face. No response. He glanced back at Simone.
“You can take from your prey and still leave them alive.” Simone shifted a bit to the right when a guard entered the area.
“Leave them alive? And what? Let them turn out like me?”
Simone shook her head. “A vampire is only made—usually—if a human is drained of blood and then ingests some of the vampire’s blood.
There has to be an exchange.” Her head tilted to the right as she studied him.
“But after ten years, you’re well aware of how vampires are made.
So don’t try to tell me that you kill them because—”
“I kill them because they deserve to die.”
The guard unlocked the cell.
“They’ve killed,” Ben said flatly. “Tortured. It’s not like I’m hurting innocents.” Were there any innocents any longer? Sometimes, he wasn’t so sure. “I’m taking out the trash.” He was doing a fucking public service. Simone should be thanking him instead of lecturing him.
“You’re free to go, sir,” the guard told Miles.
Miles sucked in a deep gulp of air.
“No.” Ben’s hands fisted. “He killed five women. Strangled them. He—”
“The last attack victim survived,” Simone said, cutting through his words. “But you knew that, of course, because she’s the one who cemented your belief in his guilt. You looked into her memories, and you saw her attacker.”
Angels weren’t the only ones with special powers.
She could fly and enter some damn astral plane.
Vamps, on the other hand…vamps could compel humans.
He’d learned that he could gain entrance into an individual’s mind just by using a mild compulsion.
Ben could use his power to see the person’s memories.
When he hunted, he used those memories to guide him. He saw what survivors had witnessed. “I always punish the guilty.” Because he was dead certain of that guilt. “Jasmine Duncan saw him.”
The guard was leading Miles out of the cell. Ben hurried to follow the two men. This was a mistake. A huge, fucking mistake. Miles Gavin would just go out and kill again. He needed to be in the ground. He needed—
“Daddy!”
A little, red-haired boy ran toward Miles. The child threw his arms around Miles’s legs and held tight.
And…a few feet away, another tall, blond man slouched in a chair. His wrists were cuffed in front of him. That man looked up at the boy’s cry. His face…the man had the same face as Miles.
“Miles has a twin brother,” Simone said as her arm brushed against Ben’s. “Your victim didn’t know that. Since she didn’t know it, neither did you.”
Miles sank to his knees and buried his face in his son’s neck.
A twin?
Simone cleared her throat. “His brother stole his name. They shared the same face, so the deception was easy. Alex—that’s his brother—he used Miles’s money, he used his connections, and he took as much as he could from his brother.”
Miles was holding tightly to the little boy.
“But there are some things you just can’t take away,” Simone murmured.
Ben looked over at her.
Her gaze held his. “Tonight was important for you. This kill—taking Miles Gavin’s life would have changed you.”
His hands were shaking. I was wrong?
“You’re not meant to be judge, jury, and executioner.” Simone’s hands curled around his shoulders as she turned Ben to fully face her. “And you’re not supposed to just be a monster hiding in the dark.”
“So what am I supposed to be?” His voice was little more than a growl. He didn’t know how to be anything other than a monster any longer.
“More,” Simone whispered. “I need you to be more. For me. For yourself.” He saw her wings began to rise from her back.
Oh, shit. “Wait—”
It was too late. His stomach hit his throat once more as they took off.