Hadrian pointed to the door. “Go. Do not return here again. I don’t need
your protection or your warnings. Wouldn’t want you to get in
trouble with God, now would we?”
“I-I’m sorry. For that night. I truly am.”
“I don’t care. Leave.”
***
Hadrian watched the hypnotic swish of her dress until the church door thudded
closed and he was alone again. He clenched his fists, the rage
causing him to shake. He wanted to run after her. He wanted to tie
her up and… he didn’t know what. He was no match for her angelic
power, and that angered him even more. He was always a sitting duck
whenever she appeared in his life—some stupid fool she could play
games with.
He remembered the night of his rebirth with clarity that still surprised
him. He’d pretended there was something noble in sending her to
greet the sun, in murdering his sire. He hadn’t been able to admit,
even inside his own mind until this moment, that it had been
vengeance and nothing more—pure rage that she had thought to
control him, to own him like some pet.
He’d hidden behind familiar holiness, behind absolution, behind the idea
that he was doing her a favor, that she could have another chance to
get it right this time. And now that she had, he still hated her.
Someone upstairs had seen something in her worth saving, something
worth
elevating
for fuck’s sake. How had she lied to them?
How had she tricked them?
There was nothing holy in her, and now she was an angel and he was… this.
Even if he’d meant the words he’d said so long ago while explaining
why he must kill her, he’d thought she wouldn’t be his problem.
He’d never have to see that face again. Perhaps she’d reincarnate
as a human, but he wouldn’t know her. She wouldn’t know him. They
might pass as ships in the night, neither one the wiser for the
experience. Perhaps some day they’d meet and he’d absolve her for
something as he drank deeply of her blood. Or perhaps he’d kill her
again in her new form. But he wouldn’t
know
.
He remembered the innocence before his turning, thinking of her as his
dark angel. Wanting her. It had all been lies. Tonight she’d been
dressed much as she had back then, a long, old-fashioned dress, but
white instead of black. The gown had a low-back so her wings could
come and go without damaging the fine cloth.
He
wanted to damage the fine cloth. He wanted to damage her. He wanted
to break her beyond all repair. He wanted vengeance still.
Hadrian shoved the holy water onto the floor, shattering the marble. He
hissed as water splashed his face, judging him. He growled into the
empty church. Fuck God and all his stupid rules. Hadrian was the
judge, jury, and executioner in this town. And nobody said or did
shit about it. He’d stayed away from sin city for far too long.
The vampire blurred out of the church, his anger becoming a living thing,
another demon clinging to him, rippling black and shiny beneath the
surface. He hunted until he found a petite woman on the streets. Her
black leather skirt rode high to give him an enticing view of her
thigh. Cleavage was cinched as if to say, “And here is what we have
on special tonight, honey.”
Her hair was long and dark, like Angeline, her eyes far too guileless for
a prostitute. Too innocent. Tricking him. Another dark angel.
“How much?” His voice was clipped as he bit out the words.
Fear rolled off her at his intensity, his anger. She took a step back.
“I-I was going to take a break. It’s b-been a long night.”
Oh, a stutterer. Just like Angeline with all her pretend innocence.
Fantastic. He would enjoy this one. He took her by the arm and led
her off the street.
“How much?” he asked again.
“T-two fifty.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Rather rich for this neighborhood don’t you
think?”
“You frighten me.”
“As well I should. It’s your call, sweetheart. Yes or no. Are you in or
out?” He hoped she’d say yes. It would be one more sin to add to
her pile, so he could punish something that looked like his sire.
“Y-yes. I need the money.”
He looked inside her mind. She truly was an innocent. She wasn’t just
sorry for her sins. They ate her up inside. She shouldn’t be on the
streets. He should take her some place safe. He could fix her life
with the smallest flourish of thrall on someone in the position to
save her. He couldn’t bring himself to fuck her. As badly as he
wanted to get some aggression out, to take her vein while he screwed
her against an alley wall, he simply couldn’t go there.
But he couldn’t bring himself to forgive her, either. She was too much
like his dark angel.
His fangs descended. “You won’t need money in Heaven.”
“Y-you’re one of them.”
“Indeed.” He clamped a hand over her mouth to stop her scream and drank until
she went limp in his arms.
***
Angeline shielded her eyes from the brightness of Heaven. With all the lights
on the Vegas strip, it shouldn’t seem so unnaturally bright here.
She pushed through the golden gates and tried not to look as if she’d
been consorting with the devil.
She wondered if Hadrian’s darkness had left an imprint, perhaps a cloud
around her soul. She looked down at her arm, worried she’d see an
angry mark where his hand had been. He hated her, and yet, for the
briefest moment she’d relished the feel of his skin on hers after
so many years. No one had touched her with any brand of passion since
she’d been elevated. It was forbidden. And Hadrian’s touch had
been searing.
What was wrong with her? Even as an angel she couldn’t stop thinking all
the wrong things about him.
“Angeline? You missed prayers. Where were you?” said a short, balding angel.
Oh, God. Rodolfo. One of the
adjustment angels and one of the biggest suck-ups to the man upstairs
she’d ever met. His perfect and overly obsequious behavior had
allowed him a level of power not normally granted to any angel that
wasn’t created one from the start. Elevated angels didn’t
normally get to make demons or elevate others to angelhood. But he
did. He’d elevated her, and he’d turned the last demon. Jane, was
it?
Jane had stayed locked in her room with the screens, obsessively watching
her mate and young child, much like Angeline obsessively watched
Hadrian. He was right. She was a stalker. The only thing she wasn’t
doing was sending him cryptic messages and dead flowers. Surely that
could only be a matter of time.
“Angeline?”
She shook the thoughts from her head. “I’m sorry, I was somewhere
else.”
“Prayers are not optional. You know our powers are strongest when we meet
together for daily prayer circle. It’s not so much to ask of an
angel is it? Perhaps I was wrong about you.”
Rodolfo liked to jab her with her one insecurity—the fear that Linus had
tainted her so greatly that none of her lives before mattered, none
of her goodness, none of her striving to be better. Linus had washed
it away in a river of pain and blood and death.
“I’m sorry. I lost track of the time. It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t. Forgiveness is not a luxury for our kind. You
don’t want to be sent to the black room.”
She shuddered. The black room was a punishment for angels. No one who
went to the black room talked about it. Ever. Nothing that happened
in there could ever be spoken aloud. All she knew was that it was
bad, and she’d never seen an angel who’d gone in there ever slip
up again.
They came out perfect. Too perfect. Not the slightest disobedience. And if
someone were to ask why they were so perfect and obedient, the only
response would be eyes so haunted, it took one’s breath away to
look into them. It was as if they begged the questioner to gaze into
their soul and see the story they could never share.
“N-no, sir. I won’t miss prayers again,” Angeline said.
He gave her an assessing look, as if contemplating whether he should
report her. “See that you don’t.”
She nodded and scurried off to what Hadrian had referred to as her
glittering castle in the sky
. He wasn’t far off in that
guess. There was a tower with a window and a view of the water. She
climbed the winding stairs to the screening room at the top.
The screens were meant for her to watch over charges when she had
assignments, but Angeline hadn’t had an assignment in a while. It
was for the best because she’d spent the better part of the last
few decades preoccupied with the only vampire she’d ever made.
She waved a hand over the wall, and an image snapped to life. She winced
as she watched Father Hadrian drain a prostitute. Her hand went to
her mouth when she saw how much the victim resembled her.
This one is your fault.
The thought
rumbled through her mind in Hadrian’s rich baritone.
Just another reason she shouldn’t have approached him. If he couldn’t
make her pay, someone else would. Angeline turned from the screen and
descended one flight of stairs into her bedroom. Everything in this
place was jewel-encrusted gold and silver—or marble. Fabrics were
silk, mostly white with a bit of gold thrown in. It was so
sickeningly perfect, so cloyingly pristine.
Maybe Rodolfo was right about her. How could she look at the utter
perfection of this place and long to be in Hadrian’s arms in the
basement of his wilting and dying church? Her closet was filled with
long white and gold dresses, as well as a few in silver and pale blue
for variety. The blue brought out her eyes.
The clothes had been waiting for her when she’d first become an
angel—all in a similar style to what she normally wore, except with
low backs that wouldn’t obstruct her wings. There were even
corsets, though these too had been altered with a lower back than was
normal. She missed the others she’d worn before she’d been
elevated. Secretly, she’d accumulated regular corsets whenever she
ventured into the human world. It had become a compulsion to collect
and hide them.
The corsets she wore now were ivory and bright white. The hidden ones
were black and red—colors of death and pain and seduction. They
felt like a guilty and hedonistic secret sitting in the back of the
closet, and she knew it was dangerous to keep them.
She’d only put them on a few times in the privacy of her own room.
The steel-boned cages covered the place in her back that transformed
to allow glistening wings to come out. Out of curiosity, she’d
tried to bring her wings out while wearing one. She’d bowed her
head and closed her eyes until she’d felt the glow and the
transformation start.
When the wings had hit the obstruction, they’d stopped, the energy of
her angelic magic coiled tightly within her. She’d felt that if she
tried harder, if she forced the wings to push through, they would.
But she’d stopped herself and put the corset back into the closet.
Angeline pushed the dark-colored secrets farther into the back and pulled the
dresses to fan across the front to cover them better. She shouldn’t
want to own any corsets, neither the regular ones, nor the modified
versions.
Linus had liked them and insisted she wear them for him. When she’d
broken free from him, not wearing one had felt too frightening and
exposed. She had grown to like the little cage, even as she’d hated
her captor. And here they still were, all lined up in a row, offering
her their restrictive sanctuary.
Hadrian’s roar on the screen in the tower pulled her out of the memories.
Angeline flew down the stairs, out of her home, and through the
golden gates to return back to the human world. She didn’t have to
see the screen to know he needed her, even if he didn’t want her.
Chapter Two
After disposing of the girl’s body, Hadrian had gone to the desert to
think. Surrounded by the peace of the Kelso Dunes, he couldn’t
decide if he was lonelier in the city or out here with only stars for
company. The choice to align himself with an enemy to bring down
Anthony’s vampire police state before it spiraled out of control
had cost him any semblance of family or friends.
And seeing Angeline had only made it worse. When she’d first turned
him, she’d said she wanted a mate, that she was lonely. But all
she’d done was pass that loneliness to another soul. Would he be
less lonely if he’d spared her that night? Perhaps, but at what
cost? Being her obedient puppet? The thought made him cringe.
Hadrian was so wrapped up in his internal pity party that he didn’t hear
the strangers approach.
“This is almost too easy.” A woman’s voice.
A circle of vampires and magic users formed around him. All Anthony’s.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known the vampire king was pissed at
his betrayal. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t expected reprisal.
He’d just foolishly thought that returning to his old church—a
place he was sure the king couldn’t know about—would offer him
safety and protection. But Anthony had witches, and no doubt they’d
used a personal item of his to find him.
Inside the walls of
Our Lady of Mercy
,
he would have been safe even from their locating spells, but his
wards didn’t extend into the vastness of the desert.
“I guess you’re here to kill me.” What difference did it make
anymore? Why not escape this life? He knew why. He feared the golden
room in between the worlds where his life would be weighed and
judged. Hadrian wasn’t sure he was prepared to atone for his own
sins. It was easier being the judge than the convicted.
One of the male vampires chuckled. “We’re here to play with you until
you’re too weak to fight back. Then we’re taking you to the king
for execution.”
The magic users in the circle each raised a palm to reveal a glowing ball
of purple energy. It sparked off their fingertips as if it had a
sentient need and desire to cause pain. The vampires in the group
growled, fangs extending, eyes glowing, crouched and ready to pounce.