Forbidden (The Preternaturals)

by Zoe Winters

  Angeline had redressed him in his clerics, and he couldn’t decide how he felt about that. Was she mocking him? Why would she dress him in this? To rub in his face what she’d so callously taken from him?

  What’s that smell? It was like the Heaven he hadn’t been allowed into, a smell as pure and clean as the light he’d spent three days in. He felt crushed suddenly by that thought. The light had been more brilliant than the sun; it had teased him with something he couldn’t have. Darkness had been given as his companion instead.

  If this works, you can make a choice. You can go back there. He was unsure if the mental voice was his human side or his demon side.

  His eyes darted to the source of the delicious scent. His nostrils flared when he saw an attractive blonde in a white dress. She’d been bound and gagged. Strange. He couldn’t read her mind. Shouldn’t he be able to do that? Even without that skill, he sensed she was an innocent, and something in him rebelled against the notion of hurting her.

  “There you are, my dear. I was worried you’d overslept,” Angeline cooed at him. “She’s a witch, so you won’t be able to read her. Many of them are naturally well-shielded from that sort of intrusion. Try not to let it trouble you.”

  Angeline’s voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Not nearly the seductive purr that had fooled him before. Her human face was pretty, but it wasn’t the level of perfection he’d seen as a human. It wouldn’t have been enough to cause him to break his vow of chastity.

  As her fangs descended, he saw the demon ripple over her image, not just the small bits he’d seen before as a human with glowing eyes and fangs, but the full demon smiling out at him. A moment later, the ripple was gone and she looked as she had before as her eyes changed back to normal and her fangs went back to their hiding place inside her gums.

  His gaze went back to the hand-delivered meal. He was like a captive tiger being fed a prey animal in an enclosed space. He should feel the thrill of the hunt as he stalked his prey. But this one was already complacent, already enthralled and willing to offer her vein. She watched him without a trace of fear—more curious than anything.

  Before Hadrian could think about what didn’t line up, Angeline’s voice screeched at him again. “Feed,” she ordered.

  Even under normal circumstances as a human, Hadrian hadn’t been the kind of man who took orders well. Perhaps it was why he’d courted a position of authority himself. But if his human side didn’t like to be commanded like a misbehaving puppy, his demon side definitely did not. Oh, she did not know the Pandora’s box she’d just opened.

  She will rue the day she ever set foot inside my church.

  He was thankful she could only control him—or so she thought—and not read his mind. He appreciated the element of surprise.

  His meal was pretty, with delicate pixie features. Her hair came to just her shoulders, and she appeared wise beyond her years.

  “She’s young, but she feels very powerful to me,” he said to no one in particular.

  There was no fear coming from her, but there also was no anger or duplicity or anything extreme at all. Maybe hope? Hope for what?

  The puzzle piece that wouldn’t line up only a moment before clicked into space. If she were enthralled, she shouldn’t have any feelings at all. She should be blank, save for whatever suggestion or desire had been put in her head.

  He allowed his fangs to drop for the girl’s benefit, just so she was clear about which side of the good/evil fence he was technically on now. But nothing changed in her gaze. For some bizarre reason she seemed to want this. He wondered again if she was enthralled.

  “Why is she bound and gagged?”

  “You can never be too careful with witches. This one is strong. I’m surprised she hasn’t broken the thrall. If she does, we wouldn’t want her to have access to her magic. Now feed. You’ll feel better.”

  His back was to Angeline, still trying to figure out his meal. The self-control he’d practiced as a human would become very useful to him, he had no doubt. But right now he had to give the impression Angeline was the one in control.

  Hadrian held the girl in an embrace as he turned to face his sire. No way was he turning his back on that nut for long. He sank his fangs into the girl’s delicate throat and drank. Her whimper caused his grip to tighten involuntarily on her arm. If Angeline hadn’t been there, he would have thrown her down on the grass and done more than just drink her blood.

  Nothing was this good. He tasted relief as he drank her. This girl had a death wish. In another time and place he would have tried to help her, but that was a different Father Hadrian. This one was happy their desires meshed so well. She wanted to die, and he wanted to kill her. She wanted to lose herself in oblivion, and he wanted to lose himself in the power of her blood.

  Such power for someone so young. His demon instincts told him it was the kind of strength he should only expect to find in a very old vampire. Not a human. Not even a witch. And certainly not a witch no older than this one. For the second time, the thought, something is wrong, drifted through his mind. He only hoped it was wrong in a way that wouldn’t bite him in the end.

  “Drain the bitch dry.”

  Jealous?

  Hadrian licked and sealed the witch’s wound, then spun her to face him. He removed the gag, his mouth capturing hers in a kiss. She was too weak from blood loss to protest, and he had no interest in doing anything more than screw with his sire. Let her see how fickle his attentions would be after being brought into this life unwillingly. The gasp of dismay that came from Angeline served to take the edge off his anger. He went back to feeding.

  “Drain her, then I can fuck my new plaything.”

  Hadrian struggled to keep the grimace off his face. Most newly risen vampires would have been so under the power of their sire that the idea would have sounded wonderful. Either way, she didn’t have to tell him twice. As curious as he was about the witch in his arms, and as much as he knew the girl probably didn’t deserve a death like this, his survival—and freedom—came first. Where before his mercy had overridden his pragmatism, now it was the opposite, courtesy of the demon side.

  When the last of the life slipped from the girl, Hadrian dropped her on the ground. The power surged through him, and he looked up at his sire, revealing bloody fangs.

  Angeline, misreading the meaning of his smile, returned one of her own. “Come here. I can take my time with you, now.” She crooked a finger, a seductive glint in her eyes.

  Hadrian very much doubted she’d ever turned a vampire before. If she had, she might have known that though there was a connection of power between them, it did not flow in the direction she thought it did.

  “No,” he said.

  Angeline’s eyes widened, then her mouth turned down in the pout he’d once found attractive but now could see as nothing more than childish nonsense she should have outgrown long before now.

  “What did you say to me?” she demanded, her voice going shrill. Without any real power over him, it seemed her only weapon was the tried and true temper tantrum.

  “I said, NO. Have you never heard that word before? Or was it so long ago you can no longer recall its meaning? You come here.” He pointed at the upturned clumps of dirt in front of him where he intended her to stand.

  Her face went more white than usual as she found her feet moving against her will to obey his order. “How? This can’t happen. I-I’m your maker. I’m the boss. What I say goes. This isn’t fair!” With each clipped statement from her mouth, her voice became more panicked.

  “Life isn’t fair, sweetheart. The Latin I spoke to you wasn’t sweet nothings. It was the Church’s exorcism ritual. I used it while you were performing your own ritual to bind us together. It reversed which one of us had control over which demon. It was an experiment, I’ll admit. I wasn’t sure it would work, but my intention must have been very strong. It might not have been wise to let someone chant a language you couldn’t decipher while your own magic was going
.”

  She was crying now. Crying. What right did she have to cry after what she’d done? She’d desecrated his church, used her dark, vampiric magic against him, and in a sense had raped him. It wasn’t an idea he was comfortable thinking for too long. He’d wanted her, and even without the thrall he may have wanted her still, but his vow had meant something, and he’d always respected it. If she’d been human, he would have turned her down.

  The confidence left her face, her lip visibly trembled, and a surge of excitement went through Hadrian.

  “Are you scared because you must now take responsibility for your actions?”

  Her lip still trembled, but her glare came back in full force. “You’re like me. Why can’t you see you’re like me?”

  Hadrian crossed his arms over his chest. This should be good. “In what way am I possibly like you?”

  “You were a priest. I was training to become a nun. I thought you’d understand me. We could be together and… and somebody would understand me…”

  “Stop.”

  She wanted to keep talking, he could tell, but her mouth shut automatically at his command. If she’d been a prospective nun—a sweet innocent—and had transformed into the manipulative beast in front of him, her sire must have been truly horrible. He’d made her this way.

  Part of Hadrian wanted to keep her with him and fix her. But how did one fix a vampire with centuries of emotional damage and moral decay? Besides, his right-and-wrong compass was no longer sound. It wasn’t the solid thing that had always pointed him to true north. There was enough darkness that had come to him through her blood that it would be the blind helping the blind. After all, he’d killed an innocent woman for the sake of pragmatism only a few minutes ago. He wasn’t confident in his ability to help someone such as Angeline navigate good and evil.

  No, in the morning she would meet her real maker. But that was hours off, still.

  “Pick up the witch and bring her inside,” he said. He couldn’t very well leave a corpse out in the cemetery. Although there was a gate and trees that shielded the place, you never knew who might wander through.

  They could have just dropped the girl in the hole Hadrian had crawled out of and put the dirt on top of her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it yet.

  “Are you going to hurt me?” Angeline asked as she hefted the witch’s body in her arms.

  “Do you deserve it?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Once they were inside the church, he directed Angeline to lay the witch on the altar. He’d have to do something with her later. For now, he unbound her wrists and smoothed her dress. It wasn’t as if she was going anywhere. He hoped she’d found whatever peace she’d seemed to be looking for.

  Hadrian brushed blonde strands of hair away from the woman’s face and traced the smile lines around her mouth, then he took the ropes that had bound the witch and coiled and uncoiled them in his hands.

  “Is this the life you’ve enjoyed?” he asked his sire.

  “What?”

  He waved an arm at the evidence of her most recent train wreck. “This. Controlling everyone and everything. Having pet zombies. That’s what I was the other night to you. It’s what you are with me right now.”

  Angeline stared at the witch on the altar, looking back every few moments with trepidation at the ropes in Hadrian’s hands. “You’re a vampire, too, now. Don’t act like you’re too good for it. Your line to God has been shut off. You’ll do the same things. You’ll control people. Some day you’ll get lonely, and you’ll make a vampire. You’ll want someone you can shape and mold to your liking. You have it in you. I saw it. Why do you think I turned you? I watched you long enough to know.” She sounded desperate with the need for him to hear her, understand her.

  Father Hadrian nodded. “Oh, I believe you. But that doesn’t make it a good way to live. I think the only way I can help you now is to let you go.”

  Her eyes widened at the implication. “No!”

  “Oh, you know the word and its meaning. Excellent. I had thought perhaps no wasn’t a part of your vocabulary.”

  Tears welled in her eyes again. “You’re a monster. I’m centuries older than you. You can’t keep this hold on me. I will kill you. Do you hear me, you bastard? I will kill you! Whatever magic you did will wear off soon enough. Nothing can break or twist the bond between a sire and her creation, not even your cheap exorcism ritual.”

  “Be wise, Angeline. Your theories, though quaint, may not play out as you’d like. In which case, you’ll still be at my mercy.”

  The wind seemed to go out of her sails. Hadrian took her by the arm and led her outside to a covered stone porch. There was an old rocking chair he’d enjoyed sitting in to read his Bible. The morning sunlight had always been on his face while he prayed. He gritted his teeth, trying to hold back the anger that he’d never sit in that rocking chair in the bright morning again. She’d stolen that from him.

  Was he killing her to release her from her own hell, to protect himself, or out of vengeance? And if he truly believed he was trapped in Hell, shouldn’t he greet the morning with her? Without the demon influencing him, he would have met the sun. But the demon’s pragmatism along with his own human curiosity was a damning combination. What would life be like as a vampire? And should he miss the opportunity to find out? The old man’s warning from the in-between place seemed like a distant wisp of a dream now. Hardly worth heeding.

  “Sit,” he said.

  Angeline collapsed in the chair, and he used the ropes to bind her. He met her eyes, keeping her gaze in his, his hand holding her chin firm. “Good girl. You will not try to escape. Do you understand?” He wasn’t sure if the force of his power was strong enough to override her survival instinct, but that plus ropes should be enough.

  “This is cruel. Why are you doing this? I’m sorry. Okay? Just let me go and I’ll leave you alone. You can have your freedom. Just let me have mine.”

  “Remember, Angeline, I’ve heard thousands of confessions. I know when one is truly sorry. I’ll be back to talk with you, but first I need to hunt and think.” He went back to the cemetery and retrieved the gag, not that he thought anyone would hear her. After he’d gagged her, he stalked off into the night to explore his new powers.

  An exciting idea was forming, and he was intoxicated with it. Now he’d know who was worth saving.

  ***

  Angeline blinked back the tears clouding her vision. Didn’t Father Hadrian know what she’d given him? She’d freed him! She’d made him into a god, young and beautiful and strong for eternity. And this was how he repaid her?

  She’d been foolish for not paying more attention to what he’d been chanting. Although her Latin was weak, at least one of those words should have tipped her off. Exorcizo.

  She’d been too drunk on his blood—the purity and sweetness of it. Father Hadrian had been a good man. Good like she’d been once. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but him being able to fight back hadn’t been on the list. She hadn’t been able to fight back. It wasn’t fair. Nothing about any of it was fair.

  Surely there was enough good left in him to let her go. But then, if he had goodness in him it would rebel against the darkness in her. Who was she kidding? She was in trouble either way. Deep trouble.

  The vampire who’d turned her had been vicious beyond imagining. His name was Linus, a name of Greek origin which means flax. Not a name that strikes terror—until you meet him.

  Angeline tried to shut out the memory, but it surrounded her, a three-dimensional vision that wouldn’t go away.

  She was sitting in a dank cell that had been built by her sire. They were deep in the bowels of an opera house. Angeline suspected he kept her here so she could hear the voices of angels while she was trapped in Hell. Why would God let this happen to her? How could she be abandoned like this to a demon?

  She hadn’t fed in two weeks. She was weak, emaciated, seeing things.
Unfortunately what she was seeing in front of her right now, was real. Linus paced outside her cell, lecturing her as if she were a small child in need of basic survival instruction.

  “The next human I give you to feed from, you’ll drain them and you’ll like it. Keep feeling this guilt, my little angel, and see where it gets you.” He stopped and faced her, his expression dark. “Or maybe you do see now. I’ve never encountered a vampire quite like you. I think I should like to start a menagerie with such oddities. It would entertain me greatly.”

  He’d left her for an hour, then returned with a noblewoman who had come to see the opera. She shook, her face streaked with tears. Linus hadn’t bothered to put her under.

  “Angeline, dear? Pay attention. This is how a real vampire feeds.” The woman struggled in his arms, her screams so loud surely someone would hear.

  But he’d timed the feeding to the climax of the opera when the voices above were far louder than the screams below, drowning out the woman’s cries. He let her body drop when he’d finished feeding. She wasn’t quite gone yet, but she was weak, sobbing, staring up at Angeline with wide, terrified eyes.

  “P-please,” she said.

  As if Angeline could help. There was nothing she could do, standing inside the makeshift cell, gripping the bars, her knuckles going whiter than normal at the smell of the fresh blood.

  The woman was bleeding to death on the stone ground less than a foot away, her wrist within easy reach. Angeline eased herself to the ground and pulled the woman’s wrist through the bars, her fangs descending.

  Then the human was against the opposite wall where she’d been flung, dead.

  “I didn’t say you could eat yet. You can eat when you’re ready to be a proper vampire.” He’d left her again. She’d screamed for hours, but no one ever heard her.

  Angeline shook herself out of the memory, her gaze darting around the dark cemetery as she renewed her struggle. What if Linus was near? What if he found her here somehow before Hadrian returned? He’d take her back.

  She took slow steady breaths to calm herself. The last she’d heard, her sire was on the other side of the Atlantic. He rarely came to the states. He couldn’t know where she was, and he’d left her alone for almost a century since she’d escaped him.