by Zoe Winters
She looked at the ground. “I understand. I’m s—I understand.”
A small crowd gathered nearby.
“Put your wings away. You’re drawing attention.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. The humans know. Shouldn’t they also know there is good out there? That the supernatural isn’t just things that will hurt them?”
Hadrian snorted. “Good? I hope that’s not the camp you’ve assigned yourself to.”
She didn’t return his barb. It seemed she might crumble to pieces from his words, as if she were a fragile porcelain doll instead of the powerful badass that she clearly was. Her skin was still that same milky white, nearly glowing against the dark curtain of her hair. A twisted part of him wanted to run his tongue over that skin.
Angeline didn’t say anything else as she helped him to his church and down the back stairwell into the basement. She seemed surprised by what he’d done with the place. He’d fixed it up, turning it into a cozy apartment, his own bachelor pad. He’d enthralled the church’s two remaining priests never to venture down there. There was a second wine cellar they were instructed to use, instead.
She led him to his black leather chair, and he dropped into it with a grunt. He wouldn’t show weakness, but every place a vampire had bitten or burned him tonight, and all the places the energy balls had hit him still burned and seemed to be burning even more than before.
He glared while she looked on with concern. “I thought you said you’d leave.”
“But you aren’t healing. Something is very wrong.” She moved with that same grace she’d had when she’d first seduced him into her darkness. He tensed as she knelt beside the chair and pulled her hair back from her neck. “Drink. Whatever they did, I know my blood can heal it.”
Hadrian swallowed around the lump in his throat. It was a sign of wisdom that she hadn’t had the temerity to sit on his lap. He would have dumped her onto the floor if she’d presumed such familiarity. But the offer of her blood… Maybe she could atone for her sins after all.
His gaze went to the pulse throbbing in her throat. There were legends about angel blood. Hell, there were ballads and shrines and all manner of art and culture devoted to the power of angel blood. It was the most coveted thing that could ever touch a vampire’s lips.
There was a hierarchy of blood when it came to potency and taste. Animal and bagged blood were at the bottom and practically worthless. Human blood came next. It was delicious if you’d never had better, and it would sustain and keep a vampire strong. Then there was therian and witch blood. Then guardian—because they were fallen angels. And finally at the top, angel blood. But angels didn’t give it freely, and a vampire didn’t have the power to just take it, so Hadrian doubted many vampires had ever had the honor.
“Father Hadrian? Please, drink.”
“And if I don’t? I’m weak, and sick, and you’re probably stronger than me right now. Will the temptation to force me be too great for you again?”
Guilty eyes rose to his. “I… no, I would never…”
“Wouldn’t you? Isn’t that how I came to be a vampire?”
She crumpled then and began to cry in earnest. It was decades ago, let it go, Hadrian. It wasn’t as if he hated everything about being a vampire. It had its highlights. And it wasn’t as if he couldn’t go lie out in a field and wait for the sun to claim him if it became too much to continue on.
But he couldn’t let go of the anger that she’d tried to make him her toy. There was something inside her that called to the darkest parts in him. The light that glowed off her… the sweetness made him crazy. The idea of taking her vein might drive him to madness.
Before he could stop himself, his hand had moved underneath her cascade of dark hair to stroke the back of her neck. “Poor, lost little angel.”
She flinched but didn’t pull away from his touch, and he didn’t stop petting her for several minutes. The silence was broken only by her muffled crying. He wanted to make her cry forever.
“You know I can’t enthrall you,” he said. Those tricks only worked on the humans.
“I know.”
“So if I feed, it will hurt.”
“I-I understand.”
His hand tightened on her neck. “Do you, little angel? Let’s find out.”
Before she could protest, Hadrian picked her up and settled her on his lap. A frisson of fear came upon him. She couldn’t have weighed more than one twenty, but it had been hard to lift her. Whatever the magic users had done, not only was he not healing… he was getting progressively worse.
He brushed her hair out of the way. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut. She cried out as his fangs sank into her throat, and he gripped her harder around the waist. Honest guilt. He loved the taste of it, and in an angel, it became a rare delicacy.
She was such a novelty. He couldn’t get inside her mind to see her dirty secrets. He could neither absolve her of her past, nor kill her. The only thing he could do was taste her, enjoy her. He growled against her throat as he savored the delicate sweetness of her blood. They were right. Angel blood was a sweet nectar that deserved every sonnet ever written about it. Every ballad. Every legend. It was true. All of it.
Hadrian felt his strength return. The pain faded as he drank and Angeline whimpered and trembled beneath his fangs. Human blood never could have healed him so quickly. How would he ever drink another human after this? He found the strength to pull away and ran his tongue over his bite marks to seal and help heal them, even though he knew she must have her own healing abilities.
She sat quiet and still, her breath moving in and out of her like a prayer. The back of her dress seemed to have a million buttons from just below the middle of her back and going the rest of the way down. He started to unbutton them.
“W-what are you doing?”
“Whatever I want.”
Her breath caught in her throat, and she nodded. When he’d worked through all the buttons, he pushed the dress down around her waist. It was exactly as he’d thought when he’d held her against him. A corset. The back was lower, but he hadn’t been wrong when his fingers had pressed against the hard boning. Why did she wear them? Perhaps his little angel liked pain.
Hadrian still remembered the black corset underneath the dress she’d worn the night she’d fucked him on the altar and turned him. That night she’d seemed wanton and worldly. Now she seemed somehow innocent, as if none of that had ever happened.
“How long has it been?”
A slow, shuddering breath was the only response. He wondered if she knew what he was asking.
An eternity later, she answered. “You were the last time.”
“But that’s… six decades.”
She shrugged, her gaze fixed on a marble St. Francis statue in the corner. “We aren’t allowed… we don’t. Even what we just did… it’s an abomination. If they ever found out that I…”
“Who will tell them?”
She gasped when he cinched the corset tighter and bit her again. He drank less this time, having already been satisfied by the first feeding. When he withdrew his fangs and sealed the wound, he carefully buttoned her dress and nudged her off his lap. He could neither bring himself to be particularly cruel or kind at the moment, still processing the experience of her blood and the revelation that no one else had taken her since that night.
***
Angeline felt his eyes on her. She should leave. It had taken everything in her not to flee when he’d called her little angel. It was what Linus had called her. The endearment had always been followed by something terrible when it had come from the mouth of her sire.
She’d had to mentally remind herself that she’d watched Hadrian for years. She knew him. He wasn’t Linus. A pet name wouldn’t change that. And further, she’d seen plenty of reasons over the years to trust Hadrian. Most evil acts for him occurred in a gray area in service to a greater good.
She wandered the basement. The decor was mostly modern. Sharp lines a
nd hard planes. Cold marble statues watching her and documenting all her sins. Only a little comfort or warmth here or there… a comfy leather chair, a rug, a large, ornate bed with sheer black curtains around it. Lots of white candles and Gothic candle stands.
Everything was black and gray and white with a few flourishes of gold here and there. The only thing that didn’t fit the bland color scheme was a wardrobe and trunk in the corner made from rich dark oak. The other corner had racks and racks of wine.
A familiar piece of fabric peeked from behind the trunk. It was the bag she’d left behind years ago. She tensed, afraid the rosary would burn when her fingers brushed over the cross, but of course it didn’t. Instead, when she held it, she felt herself glow.
“You kept this?”
She jumped when his arms closed around her waist. He’d moved across the room so quickly and quietly she hadn’t noticed him behind her.
“I never bothered throwing it out. It’s not as if I live here all the time.”
She put the rosary and drawing back into the bag and placed it on the trunk. It felt wrong to keep it. It only reminded her of things she wanted to forget.
“Do you want absolution, Angeline?”
“I know that you’ll never…”
“Answer me.”
“You know I do.”
“Even if the penance is difficult?”
Angeline nodded. He released her and went back to the chair, and she could finally breathe. When she turned around, he was studying her again. She couldn’t decide what his new mood was about. He’d hated her from the moment she’d turned him. It was disconcerting to see this sudden change. She didn’t trust it.
Something about him still frightened her. She knew he couldn’t hurt her. As an angel there was nothing that could hurt her, except a higher-level angel. And yet, it was so easy to forget all of that while captured in his dark gaze, his punishing grip, the hard lines of his face that said he would never waver in his judgment.
“If I’m to avoid Anthony, I’ll need to stay indoors for a while. You will give me your blood until I decide I’ve had enough. Even if the threat to me has passed. In time, I may choose to forgive you.”
Of course, that would be what he wanted. He had no idea the risk he asked her to take on. For an angel to lower herself to feed a vampire… It wasn’t done. Her hand rose to her throat where he’d bitten her.
“Too much for you little angel?”
“N-no. It’s not too much.” She didn’t think there was anything he could ask for that she wouldn’t give him. He was her loose end, the one sin that couldn’t lay buried in the past. She wasn’t sure she’d ever forgive herself for doing exactly as Linus had done to her. Even if Hadrian never forgave her, she’d feed him as long as he wanted her.
His eyes lit with malice she hadn’t seen since her sire, and she took a step back. The night she’d met Father Hadrian, she’d sensed the darkness in him, the darkness that would echo hers. He’d been her perfect match. But now she searched, hoping for bits of goodness instead.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. He’s not Linus. Even if he were, no one can hurt you now. She felt the tingle of her wings inside her back, reminding her of the power she had now. She was safe. Everything would be okay.
When she opened her eyes, he still watched her.
“Undress and lie down in the bed. I want you to sleep here tonight. I don’t sleep until the sun rises.”
“I…” He was messing with her mind, pushing to see how vulnerable she’d allow herself to be around him. Linus had played those games, too. Only he’d hurt her every time she’d shown the least hint of weakness, whenever she’d offered the smallest amount of open trust.
Hadrian turned away. “I won’t watch you. I won’t touch you.”
It wasn’t as if he could hurt her, at least not while she was conscious.
“I can’t miss prayers. I’ll be in trouble if I’m not back in time.”
“They keep you on a tight leash up there, don’t they?”
“Y-yes.”
“Mine would be tighter. I’ll wake you in a couple of hours.”
It was an order not a request, and he expected that she would do as he said. His back was still to her. She didn’t know why she unbuttoned the dress and removed her corset and panties. When she’d slipped under the covers he crossed to the bed.
She tensed. He can’t hurt you if you don’t fall asleep.
Hadrian tilted his head to the side as he watched her lying under the blankets. “What do angels eat?”
“L-light.”
“Of course they do. And here you are in the dark with a vampire.”
She watched, tense as he ran his fingers over the corset that she’d draped over the small chair beside the bed. Even though the piece of clothing wasn’t on her body, the caress seemed to burn her skin.
“Why do you wear these?”
Her blood must be top grade for him to take this sudden interest in her. A few hours ago the only words he’d had for her were “leave” and “go away, stalker.”
“I-I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Is that what I asked?”
She could bring her wings out at any time and send him hurtling across the room. He was no match for her. He had to know that. He couldn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to do. And yet, all it took was for the command to fall from his lips, and she was ready to talk, to give him whatever he wanted. Was it the guilt, or was it him? Something about Hadrian felt like those corsets. Constricting, but somehow still ultimately safe. Though his darker side had taken over, she hadn’t eradicated his goodness when she’d turned him, she could still feel it in there.
“Linus used to make me wear them after he’d turned me. They were in fashion in Europe at the time, but it was more about control for him. It became a fetish.”
“But you hated him. You told me you escaped him.”
“I know. I can’t explain it. It’s stupid. I shouldn’t have wanted to wear them after Linus.”
“They make you feel protected.”
“It sounds even crazier when you say it.”
“Indeed.” He turned back to the ivory corset. “You can’t wear the regular ones anymore?”
“My wings would mess them up.”
He turned back to her and she shuddered when his hand cupped her face. “And if you didn’t have to use your wings? Could you wear them then?”
“Y-yes.”
“It’s a pity you don’t have any.”
“I have a collection hidden in my closet.” What are you doing, Angeline?
“When you return tomorrow night, you will bring them.”
Chapter Three
Angeline pushed past the golden gates, straightening her dress for the thousandth time. True to his word, Hadrian hadn’t touched her when she’d lain in his bed. She couldn’t understand why she’d even done it. It wasn’t as if she should trust him when he’d expressed clearly how much he hated her. And yet, she did trust him. She’d trusted him to let her sleep unmolested in his bed. She’d trusted him not to lock her away somewhere or harm her when her defenses were down.
He’d woken her in plenty of time to get ready and return to Heaven. She’d been afraid that on waking, he’d be back to wanting rid of her, but from the moment his fangs had been inside her throat, his manner had shifted. She ran her fingertips over her throat again, but of course there was no mark, no scar. They wouldn’t know. How could they?
Don’t be foolish, Angeline. They could easily find out. If she got under their radar, they could watch her when she was on the human plane the same way she could watch Hadrian. On the screens. Perhaps she should have questioned the surveillance before now. It had seemed necessary before. How else could you watch your charges to protect them? What good was an angel who couldn’t protect anyone? But now the screens felt ominous and stifling.
She bumped into Rodolfo on the way to prayers.
“So glad you could join us
. And on time,” he said.
She tried to smile, but she didn’t like him under the best of conditions, and right now, when she felt she should have a black mist clinging to her to give her sins away, she liked him even less.
He gave her an assessing once-over. “Something seems different about you. Your aura… it feels… off somehow. Did you get enough light yesterday?”
“I-I’m not sure. Maybe not. I’ll be more careful.”
Rodolfo looked at her hard for another good minute, as if he would be able to see the vampire’s fingerprints on her if he just looked long enough. She knew he didn’t care if she was absorbing enough light. He suspected something. And if she didn’t play it off convincingly, she’d be in worlds of trouble.
He nodded. “See that you do. We may have an assignment for you, soon. We’ll need you in top form.”
An assignment? Now she knew he suspected something. The only reason they would give her an assignment after the last one she messed up was if they just wanted to keep her busy. She excused herself and moved into the prayer circle.
“Hey, Angeline. Whoa… you look different.”
She’d felt it building before with Rodolfo, but now she knew she was flushed. She turned to the warrior angel and tried for an innocent smile. “I’m fine, Kurt. It’s nothing.”
But he wasn’t buying it. His eyes lit with something almost carnal, as if he could somehow know the only thing covering her bare form only hours before had been the sheets on Father Hadrian’s bed.
A group of angels joined them and formed a circle. They held hands and began to chant and pray. A large, radiant ball of light rose above them. Wings came out, and they absorbed the power of the light as their prayers became louder and stronger. This went on for an indeterminate amount of time until they fell silent as if by some internal cue. Then they laid out in the lush green grass and floated on the high from the energy they’d raised together.
Kurt’s hand brushed hers in the grass. “Angeline,” he whispered.