“You told me that I wasn’t worth what she’d done for me,” Ben nearly shouted at the guy. “I want to know what she did. I want to know what happens to
her.
”
I have to know if she comes back to me.
Jamison’s head lowered. His gaze found Ben’s. “Maybe I can show you her future…and yours. Both mixed together. That won’t break the rules too much.”
If their futures were mixed, then that had to mean she came back to him. Hope flooded through Ben. “Good. Do it, just—”
Snow swirled around them. The snowflakes were moving so fast then that they almost looked like wings—an angel’s wings.
The twisting, gnarled trees vanished in that blur of white.
“Remember,” Jamison growled, “you asked for this.”
Ben heard screams then. Voices rising and falling in desperation. So many voices.
So much pain. So much fear.
What did they all fear?
Is it me?
Did they fear him? In the future, what would he do?
But then the snow vanished once more, and Ben saw…
Simone
.
“Simone!” Ben cried out her name.
“Aw, man, come on,” Jamison shook his head in disgust. “You know it doesn’t work like that. This is your third freakin’ time tonight with this crap. Get the drill down, okay? No one can hear you or see you in these visions. That’s just how it goes.”
Simone was walking in front of Ben. They were…in Desolate? Yes, the shifter had transported them back to the heart of the little town. Ben glanced around and recognized the town’s lone bar. The bar waited just a few feet away.
He hurried to keep pace with Simone. She might not be able to see or hear him, but he had no intention of losing sight of her.
The bar’s door opened. A man wearing a heavy coat staggered out. His eyes locked on Simone. “Well, hello, there, sweet—”
She grabbed him and rammed the man against the bar’s outer wall. Then she sank her fangs into the man’s neck.
“
Surprise,”
Jamison said.
Ben could only shake his head.
This isn’t right.
“No, she’s an angel!”
“Not in this future, she’s not. Actually…she hasn’t been a full angel in about ten years.”
Ben’s eyes were on Simone. The man wasn’t fighting her. He couldn’t. She’d just—she’d ripped his throat open.
Simone?
She let the man fall when she was done with him. Then she wiped her mouth, stopping long enough to lick the blood from her fingers.
And she headed into the bar.
Screams came then. Ben lurched forward when the cries erupted.
Jamison blocked his path. “You know what she’s doing in there. Wasn’t that—” He jerked his thumb toward the dead body. “Wasn’t that enough of a future glimpse for you?”
Ben’s gut twisted. “Simone isn’t like this.”
“You mean, she
wasn’t.
”
The screams quieted.
“I told you.” Jamison nodded and flashed that toothy grin of his. One that held an evil edge. “She gave up a lot for you.”
Simone appeared in the doorway again. Her blonde hair gleamed in the bar’s light, and that light also clearly showed the blood that soaked her shirt.
“There’s a price for magic.” Jamison turned his head and watched as Simone walked away. The woman was even whistling. “Especially for the kind of mojo she wanted used on you tonight.”
Ben peered into the bar’s window. Three bodies were sprawled across the wooden floor inside that place. “This isn’t her.” He grabbed Jamison by his t-shirt once again. “This is some trick you’re using to mess with my mind. Now show me her, the
real
Simone. Show me her future.”
Jamison’s hands came up, and four-inch long claws had sprung from his fingertips. “Move ‘em,” he ordered Ben, “or lose those hands.”
Ben didn’t move them. “Don’t make me kill you, shifter.”
“You mean…the way you killed Simone?”
That hit went straight to Ben’s heart.
And so did Jamison’s claws. Because they sank deep into Ben’s chest. “Warned you…” Jamison ground out.
Ben pushed Jamison back as his blood dripped onto the sidewalk. “Bastard, you said you’d cut off my
hands.
”
“So I went for your heart instead. Maybe I was trying to see if you
had
one. I mean, use your freaking head. What do you
think
happened to the woman after you took all her blood ten years ago? You took her blood, and then you turned her.”
No.
Ben’s gaze flew around the area, but he didn’t see Simone.
I can’t lose her!
“I didn’t give her my blood.”
“Uh, yeah, you did. It wasn’t a lot, I’ll grant you that much. The stories say it was just a drop or two, but that was enough to seal the deal, and enough to turn Simone into the first vampire-angel that the world has ever seen.” Jamison smirked. “Come on, it’s not like she was involved with any other vamp. Your blood did this to her.”
And Ben remembered a kiss. A last, desperate kiss in his penthouse. His lips had crushed against Simone’s, and, for just a second, he’d tasted blood. “No,” he whispered.
“Um,
yes,
” Jamison tossed right back. “And let me tell you, a lot of powerful folks were sure shocked by that change. Angels aren’t
supposed
to become vampires. Vampires are evil and dark, and they only exist to kill.”
Ben flashed fang at him.
“My point exactly.” Jamison flashed his own fangs, then said, “Angels are supposed to be good. They’re the protectors. To see one changed like Simone, it shook up the powers-that-be. They kept her in lockdown until they could see what she’d become
and
what she’d do.”
Ben brushed past the guy. Simone was close. She
had
to still be close by.
Another scream broke the night.
Ben ran toward that fading sound.
Simone!
He just had to get close to her once more and then—
He rounded a corner.
And staggered to a stop.
This time, Simone’s prey was a woman. Blood dripped down the woman’s throat as Simone laughed.
“No!” Ben yelled. “This isn’t you, baby! Stop!” She was the one who helped people. In the future, there was no way that Simone could become like
this.
“Three freaking times,” Jamison’s voice was disgusted as he headed to Ben’s side, “and you still act like folks in these visions can hear you. I
told
you, they can’t. She can’t.”
Simone’s hands rose. They curled around the woman’s neck.
“Don’t,” Ben whispered.
Simone jerked her hands to the right. The snap of the woman’s neck was too loud in the quiet of that narrow alley.
“Take a close look. What’s
missing
from this picture?” Jamison asked, his words sharp. “I mean, other than the whole soul that Simone used to have?”
Ben’s eyes burned. “She looks the same to me.”
“You are such a fucking liar. That woman looks like a monster. Check the fangs, dude. Look at all of the blood that
covers
her.”
Ben did, but in his mind, he still saw her as the woman he’d met in New York. The woman who had laughed so sweetly. When they’d bought that Christmas tree together, her eyes had lit up. She’d stared at him with so much love in her gaze.
After they’d decorated the tree, she’d kissed him. Promised him forever.
“Her wings are gone.” Jamison’s voice was flat. “But I guess you never really saw those anyway, did you? How can you miss what you didn’t see?”
Simone started to whistle again as she walked into the night.
“Where is she going?” Ben asked.
“To kill again. That’s pretty much all she does these days. But tonight…tonight will be different for her.”
Ben had to swallow the lump in his throat before he could speak. “Why did she lose her wings?”
“That’s the price for powerful magic. To save your sorry ass, she had to give them up. She traded her wings for your chance at redemption. Her wings…your soul.”
Snow began to fall around them once more. Only…
Ben lifted his hand.
It wasn’t snow.
Instead of catching an icy snowflake, he was touching a soft, silken feather.
An angel’s wings
. His hand fisted around that feather. “
No.”
“How else do you think you were able to see the past? And the future? An angel’s wings are so powerful—they’re the source of an angel’s magic. Those wings can do anything. Even give a jerk like you a second chance.”
The feathers swirled around them. Ben knew the feathers were taking him to Simone once more. Only it was a Simone he didn’t know. He’d lied when he told Jamison that she looked the same. She didn’t. She looked like a shell of the woman she’d been. All of the vibrancy, the
life
—it was just gone from her face and her eyes.
The feathers slowly drifted to the ground. Ben glanced around and saw that they were in a cemetery again. Simone was strolling through the graves. She paused for just a moment near what appeared to be a freshly dug grave.
“Fuck,” Ben muttered because he knew how this part of the tale went. “Is that
my
grave?”
Before Jamison could answer, four shadowy figures sprang from behind the tombs in that cemetery.
Another cemetery attack…just like with William…
Only Ben wasn’t in this image. He didn’t rush to Simone’s rescue.
Simone spun toward her attackers, baring her fangs.
“Hunters,” Jamison said on a sigh. “Not all humans are clueless. Especially when you kill as boldly as she’s been doing.”
The men were armed. With—cross bows?
“
Simone!”
Ben lunged between her and the men just as one guy fired a wooden stake from his cross bow. The stake flew right through Ben’s body, like he wasn’t even there.
Fuck, I’m not.
Then Ben heard a gasp behind him.
He spun around. Simone was still standing, but the stake had driven into her chest.
“She’s hit!” Ben heard one of the men yell. “Close in! Take her head!”
Simone’s fingers curled around the stake. She tried to pull it out of her body.
“Must’ve missed her heart,” another man shouted. “I’ll get her this time.”
Simone’s fangs flashed.
And another stake sank into her chest. She fell back then, dropping to the ground.
Ben dove to his knees next to her. “Baby?”
She was choking. Trying to speak. Coughing up blood. But, even though she wasn’t supposed to see him—
Jamison had been fucking clear on that
—her head turned. Her tear-filled eyes seemed to find Ben.
“L-love…” Simone whispered.
“I’ll take her head,” a man called out.
Simone’s lips curled as her eyes sagged closed.
And a machete sliced toward her throat.
“
No!”
Ben bellowed.
But his angel was gone. Her blood spilled onto the snow, spreading beneath her like wings. The wings she didn’t have any longer.
His breath heaved out, his lungs burned, and agony twisted Ben’s body.
Not Simone. Not Simone. Not Simone.
“Let’s dump her body with the other vamp’s. She sure seemed crazy enough about him. The bloodsuckers can be together in death.”
One man grabbed Simone’s feet. Another her—her head. Ben swallowed bile as he watched a dark-haired male drag Simone’s body toward that freshly dug grave.
“You’ll want to look close for this part,” Jamison advised him.
Ben forced himself to move near the grave. He felt as if the wood had sunk into his own heart.
This can’t happen. Not to her.
Jamison pushed him toward the grave. “I know…the flesh is all gone so it’s probably hard to recognize yourself…”
Fuck. Ben craned his head and looked into that grave. He saw…bones. A skull.
His
skull?
The humans threw Simone’s body in the grave. Her body and her head.
His eyes squeezed shut.
Why don’t you have a Christmas tree?
Her voice whispered through his mind. She’d loved those damn trees so much.
And…
she loved me.
She’d been so giving. So open.
I want to help you.
She’d looked him in the eyes.
I love you.
She had. An angel, loving the monster he’d become.
Ben opened his eyes and saw that the men had started shoveling dirt onto her body.
“See?” Jamison asked as he slapped a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “You’re together forever.”
Ben’s heart stopped beating. “I’m really the skeleton in that grave?”
“Um, yes, you are. Simone didn’t wind up saving you, but you…you sure introduced her to the darkness.”
Welcome to the darkness.
“Simone couldn’t handle the darker urges of her vampire side. Not once her wings were gone.”
The men kept shoveling dirt onto Simone.
“Christmas Day,” Jamison said. “She lost the last of her wings then. They were her gift to you, because she knew…” Jamison walked around the grave. “She knew that you’d wind up here. See, after you killed Miles—”
“I
didn’t
kill him!” William had stopped him before he’d taken the human’s life.
Jamison smiled. “Are you sure about that?”
Ben sucked in a sharp breath.
“After you killed Miles, you lost your hold on sanity. When it came to your prey, you didn’t care about guilt or innocence. You gave in to the darkness. You drank from anyone,
everyone,
leaving shells behind. You became the true monster that everyone fears, and you had to be put down.”
Simone’s blonde hair was covered by dirt.
“And without you…” Jamison’s voice roughened. “I think she was ready to die, too.”
She’d smiled at him, in that last moment. Or had she smiled
because
it was her last moment?
Jamison pushed a hand through his hair. “Some people aren’t made for the darkness.”
Ben glared at Jamison. “This
isn’t
happening to Simone.”
The shifter’s face hardened. “Then you’d better change your future, vamp. Because if you go dark, so does she.”
Ben leapt toward the shifter. He grabbed Jamison’s shoulders. “Take me to her! Not this twisted future. I want the real Simone,
now
!”