by Nina Bangs
Passion closed her eyes for a moment, trying to center herself before opening them again. Hope was the heavenly executive secretary for Ted. She had access to everyone’s files. If she deleted your file, you were dead to the Supreme Being, didn’t exist, no paradise for you. Not that heaven was much of a blast in her opinion. But that was just her.
“No, you can’t.” Someone upstairs hated her. Passion didn’t think she’d survive even a week with Hope as her partner. “We’re not avenging angels. We’re here to observe. Then we try to resolve things peacefully.”
It was what Ted had trained her to do. He’d come to her bland and boring cubicle each morning and hand her a list of souls in need of saving. When he left, she’d ease into their minds, listen and observe, and then try to gently urge them along the path that Ted had specified. She’d never tell him, but sometimes Ted’s paths seemed a little weird. But what did she know?
“Oh.” Hope looked disappointed. “I don’t think that will work, Passion. True evil doesn’t respond to kindness.”
“And you know this how?” Both Passion and Hope were pretty clueless when it came to any hands–on experience. Sure, they’d observed humans forever, and at least Passion had spent every working hour in their minds. But they’d never actually interacted with anyone here on the mortal plane.
Hope blinked at her. “Everyone knows that.”
“Right.” Passion headed for the great hall. She couldn’t stand the thought of going back to her room with Hope tagging along and…
“Besides, from what Archangel Ted told me, there are lots of nonhumans here. And everyone knows that all nonhumans are evil.” Hope thought about that for a moment. “Except for us, of course.”
Couldn’t argue with that logic. Passion wanted to say it out loud, but sarcasm would wing its way right over Hope’s head of tousled dark hair. Wasted effort. Ted frowned on sarcasm, so Hope couldn’t appreciate the finer nuances of it. Passion thought sarcasm made a fine verbal weapon.
Passion stopped inside the great hall to look around. She needed a few minutes away from Hope to think. She’d even sign up for a fantasy if it gave her some moments free of Hope’s eternal happiness. “They act out fantasies here. Watch, but don’t talk with anyone.”
Hope paused to study her. “You know, I don’t get you. You called for help from above, and now that I’m here you act as though you don’t need me.”
Passion didn’t miss the hurt in Hope’s voice and immediately felt guilty. “I do need you. But we can’t rush into anything. We have to study the situation before acting.”
Hope thought about that and then nodded. “Okay, that makes sense.” She smiled before turning to glance around her. “I think I’ll take a look around, maybe catch some evildoers in the act.”
“You do that,” Passion muttered as she watched Hope wander away. Once she scanned the room to make sure Sparkle wasn’t there, she allowed herself to relax. She’d buy a ticket for the next fantasy. That would give her about a half hour of freedom.
Buying the ticket was easy; dealing with Holgarth wasn’t.
“I want to be the queen’s lowly maiden.” That wouldn’t require much effort on her part, and she’d have time to catch her breath and make some plans.
“Absolutely not.” Holgarth pursed his thin lips. “I have a wonderful part for you. You’ll be the evil vampire’s equally evil bloodsucking mate.”
She frowned. “The queen’s lowly maiden was good enough for me last time.”
“That’s because it was the only remaining part.” The wizard straightened his pointed hat that had a tendency to slide to the left. “One should always aim as high as one is able.” He offered her a contemptuous sniff. “The vampire’s mate is probably beyond your meager acting ability, but since it’s a brand-new part, you have no expectations to live up to.”
“Why do you hate me?” And give me one good reason why I shouldn’t…Passion closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again. Violence was never the answer.
Holgarth raised one brow. Probably his version of a shocked gasp.
“I don’t hate you. I treat everyone with equal disdain. Few deserve anything more. Now do you want the part?”
She didn’t, but he’d insulted her acting talent. Pride was one of the deadly seven, but maybe just this once she could get away with no one noticing. “Sure. But why choose me to be the first? I’m surprised you didn’t wait until someone with real acting ability came along.”
Holgarth was lugging around a formidable-looking staff, and he used it to tap out his irritation on the great hall’s stone floor. “I just invented the part. And you’re the first because the real evil vampire is late. I’m responsible for maintaining our schedule. The show will go on with or without Count No–Show.”
He glanced at his watch. “Now, as soon as the virgin—yes, there’s always a virgin—leaves the queen’s table and climbs those dark, forbidding stairs on the other side of the hall, you’ll follow her. You’ll intercept her on the first landing and make some suitably frightening threats involving neck biting and blood guzzling. As you reach for her, the heroic captain of the guard will rush to her rescue. You’ll avoid a few sword thrusts from him and then allow him to skewer you.”
“The fun never ends here, does it?”
The wizard glared at her. “Sarcasm is not an attractive trait.” He straightened his hat again. “You have exactly five minutes to get your costume on and be back here.”
“What—”
“Black cape and pointed teeth. You’re already as pale as death. Oh, you might want to slap on a long black wig. The dressing room is over there.” He pointed.
In five minutes she was back thinking that hanging with Hope might not be so bad after all. With a resigned sigh, she followed the giggling virgin up the dark winding stone stairs. She kept tripping over her cape, and no way could she talk around the fake fangs.
The wide-eyed virgin waited on the first landing. Her big blue eyes narrowed considerably when she realized she wasn’t getting a True Blood or Vampire Diaries hottie. Tough shit. Passion winced. Those “ugly, ugly” words were coming a lot easier.
“I’m firsty, human.” Thirsty. Passion was thinking thirsty in her mind, but by the time the word squeezed around her fangs, she sounded like a cartoon character.
The virgin put her hands on her hips. “Great, a vampire with a lisp. You know, I was expecting a little more than this.”
Passion decided to forego the small talk and move right to the action. She grabbed the virgin.
The virgin screeched and tried to shake her off. Passion hung on. Okay, where was the hero?
“Take your hands from her, you filthy bloodsucker.”
The voice was deep and so dangerous that Passion knew before she even turned around that the hero would be sporting lots of sinful colors.
He wasn’t. Passion sucked in her breath as she stared at his only color, black so dark it seemed to absorb the dim light shining from the one sconce attached to the stone wall. This man—no, not a man, something else—was not only one of the irredeemables, he was…Passion had a horrible suspicion she was facing evil from the depths of hell. She really hoped she was overreacting.
“Make me.” Now that was dumb. Whatever he was, he terrified her. Passion had to remind herself that angels had no fear. Yeah, and who had laid that lie on all of them?
“I intend to. I’m Sir Bain, and the queen has sent me to rescue this beautiful damsel.”
He cast the gaping virgin a sensual glance that curled Passion’s toes, and it wasn’t even aimed at her. The virgin tore herself from Passion’s grasp and flung herself at her rescuer. Passion didn’t blame her.
Sir Bain backed up one step, just enough to make the fair damsel miss her target and end up kneeling at his feet. It seemed an appropriate place for her to be.
Then her rescuer smiled at Passion. “Shall we settle this now?”
Okay, she understood a little of what the virgin wa
s feeling. His smile was a flash of white in the dimness, the only light in a face dedicated to the darkest evil. He had intense blue eyes ringed by sooty lashes. And his mouth was meant to be a sexual temptation to any woman who ever wondered what pleasure a mouth could bring. To add to the unfairness of giving all those gifts to one who was unworthy, he had a beautiful face framed by long, smoky dark hair.
But Passion wasn’t quite as prostrate with desire as the unfortunate virgin. She saw the hunger crouching behind all that beauty. Archangel Ted had always warned them that wickedness wore a beautiful face in order to tempt humanity, but he hadn’t mentioned that it also did a pretty good job on angels too.
Strangely enough, though, she wasn’t really tempted. If she had to choose her evil, she’d pick one with tawny hair and amber eyes that promised all kinds of sexual excitement. What the heck are you thinking? She wouldn’t allow herself to be tempted. She’d do her job here and then go home.
Her thoughts, as fascinating as they were, suddenly shattered as what felt like an earthquake made the whole landing shake. Before she could even gasp, an unseen force flung Sir Bain to the floor, then picked him up and heaved him against the far wall.
Unfortunately, as he fell, he grabbed the terrified virgin to anchor himself. So when he hit the far wall, she took the impact with him. He staggered to his feet. She didn’t.
Passion froze. Even as she registered the unnatural twist to the virgin’s neck along with her blank staring eyes, something was happening to Passion too. Warmth flooded her. Not normal heat, but a burn that seemed to race through her veins and then pool in her fingertips. Life. The word rang in her head. Life. It was a pounding at her temples, a blinding light right behind her eyes, an explosion of power that almost brought her to her knees.
Without realizing it, Passion stumbled toward the woman on the floor.
“The bastard. I’ll kill him for this.” Sir Bain crouched beside the woman’s body.
He thrummed with a fury that Passion could feel scraping at her skin, trying to push her away. On some subconscious level, she recognized the deadliness of his anger. But she wouldn’t be pushed back or stopped. Not by him or anyone like him.
“Move away from her.” Passion’s voice seemed to come from far away.
Surprisingly, he obeyed her. He stood and looked around wildly, as though he’d find the object of his anger hiding in the shadows somewhere.
Passion crouched beside the woman. She recognized death, but so recent that her soul still remained. Passion didn’t know how she knew this. The how wasn’t important now.
Life. The word was thunder in her head, a battering ram crashing against the wall of her mind. She swayed, willing herself to stay conscious. She had to put her hand on the woman. It was a compulsion, one she had no weapons against. Placing her palm flat against the dead woman’s chest, she felt the heat flowing from her fingertips, watched in horror as a glow built around the five contact points.
Behind her, she heard Sir Bain suck in his breath and mutter a curse. One she’d never heard before. Then the woman began to breathe. It was as simple as that. Passion stared at her neck. No longer twisted, it looked normal. The woman opened her eyes.
“What the hell happened?” She pushed her hair away from her face and scrambled to her feet before Passion could help her.
I don’t know. I don’t freaking know. Passion had never been so scared in her long life. Fine, so fear wasn’t a part of her heavenly experience. But this, this was so weird that she wanted to race screaming from the castle, beg Archangel Ted to take her home, huddle in the darkest corner she could find, and pull forgetfulness over her head.
“You fainted. Have you eaten anything lately?”
Sir Bain’s tone was calm, the voice of reason in a world that had suddenly taken a hard right turn off the normal path. This was a side road that she didn’t want to explore, but she couldn’t find a place wide enough for her to turn around.
“No, I guess I haven’t.” The virgin smoothed down her white flowing dress, and then looked at Sir Bain from under her lashes.
Didn’t the idiot know she’d been dead? And now she wasn’t. Why? How? Passion felt panic bubbling up under the surface of her false calm.
“But before you carry me back down those steps, because I still feel a little weak, I want to see you protect me against that wicked vampire.”
The wicked vampire that just saved your ungrateful butt. Even if said wicked vampire didn’t know how the heck she’d done it. Passion rose from her crouch. Surely Sir Bain didn’t intend to carry on with the whole fantasy thing?
Evidently he did, because he drew his sword and began to stalk Passion. Guess she had to play the game. She did a little of her own stalking as she offered him a few unenthusiastic hisses.
“Looks as though you could use a little help, my lovely vampire queen.”
The husky male voice warmed the sensitive skin behind her ear and sent prickles of awareness skittering down her spine. Passion’s senses recognized him before she even had time to breathe his name. “Edge.”
The virgin stared at the man behind Passion. She looked conflicted. Tough choice—vampire or hero. Passion knew which she’d pick.
Guess it was time for her to say something. “Abandon hope, virgin, for Edge, the master of all the kingdom’s vampires, has arrived.” Fine, so Passion wasn’t great at improvising.
“Ah, my lovely maiden, I can almost taste your sweet blood.”
Edge’s voice was warm, intoxicating, and made Passion want to lick her lips. But honestly, they had to get a new scriptwriter for these fantasies, because everyone’s lines were way too hokey.
“But before I dine, I’ll make sure Sir Bain never rescues another virgin. Then I’ll celebrate the night with my dark queen.” His soft laughter didn’t bode well for Sir Bain or Passion’s emotional stability.
Shock over what her glowing fingertips had done warred with her sudden need to turn around and embrace all that dark promise. She never got to think through her tangled feelings.
“You bastard.” Sir Bain flung his sword aside and leaped past Passion to land on Edge. The two men fell to the floor. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize your death touch? Try to kill me, will you?”
Then things really got crazy. Sir Bain became something else. Sure, he was still beautiful, but whatever she’d sensed crouching inside him made its appearance. He seemed to grow larger, his fingers curling into claws, his eyes glowing red. He peeled back his lips to snarl at Edge, and Passion would have sworn his teeth were pointed.
But Edge had his own thing going on. Those amber eyes shone with hungry anticipation. “It was an accident, but if you want to settle it this way, let’s do it.”
Passion didn’t get to see what happened next, because the small landing became a sound-and-light show that seemed to shake the whole building.
She could hear faint screams coming from the great hall, but they were drowned out by the shrieks of the totally freaked virgin. Passion knew what she had to do. She couldn’t stop what the two men were doing to each other, but she could save the woman.
“Come with me.” Passion reached for the woman’s hand.
She yanked her hand away. “I’m not going with anyone from this crazy place.” Frantic, she whirled in a circle, looking for the stairs. Any stairs.
But the flashes of light and booming explosions disoriented her. She stumbled into a wall and sat down hard.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Passion didn’t have time for this kind of crap. Reaching down, she hefted the woman over her shoulder and raced down the stairs toward the great hall and hopefully safety.
The virgin beat a panicked tattoo on her back. “Put me down. Put me the hell down.”
Passion was gasping for breath and her legs felt wobbly by the time she reached the last step. She dumped the woman none too gently on the stone floor. “I think we’re safe.”
The virgin had no opinion on that. She simply sat there with a dazed e
xpression on her face.
Suddenly, a new player moved into the shocked silence that had fallen around the great hall. The quiet made the flashes of light and wall-shaking booms even more obvious. Passion had a fleeting impression of dark hair and blue eyes before the stranger turned to rally the forces.
“I’m Dacian. I’m one of the good vampires in her majesty’s kingdom.” He smiled at everyone, exposing fangs that looked way too real. “As you can hear, Sir Bain and the evil vampire master are battling to the death above us.” Boom. Crash. “Meanwhile, the evil vampire’s mate is trying to kidnap our virgin so that she can drain the innocent’s blood.”
There were a few weak boos from the audience. The “innocent” still looked a little wonky from her experience.
“And while we await the outcome…” He cast a meaningful glance at Holgarth-the-snarky-wizard, who was already making his way toward the stairway. “I’ll capture the vampire’s mate and drag her off to the dungeon.”
Oh, no. He wouldn’t. Dacian moved almost too fast for her eyes to follow. He would.
Before she could even yelp her outrage, he scooped her up and whisked her into the dressing room. As he set her on her feet, she was dimly aware of the raucous laughter coming from the crowd in the great hall.
“What’re they so happy about?” Passion didn’t find anything funny about the whole situation.
Dacian shrugged. “Don’t have a clue. There’s some woman out there keeping them all happy and laughing. I’m damn glad she’s here tonight. What the hell happened up there, and who’re you?”
Passion tried to pull her tattered dignity together as she absently noticed the violet swirling around him. Pride. Compared to the two fighting upstairs, Dacian was practically ready for sainthood.
“I don’t know what happened up there. Sir Bain was doing his thing and then something tossed him across the room.” She refused to tell him about her glowing fingers. “Then Edge came along, and Sir Bain went ballistic on him.”
He raised one dark brow to indicate she wasn’t finished with her answers.