Dark Angel

by Bridget Essex

  I ignored him. I touched the wounds in my neck.

  I pressed down. Hard.

  Blood began to drip out of the wounds. It splattered softly against Elle’s lips until I positioned myself perfectly over her mouth.

  Drip, drip. The blood fell almost silently into her open mouth, now. As I pressed harder against my skin, trying to breathe as deeply as I could, the dripping blood became a silent, steady stream of warm red that fell into her open mouth.

  Alec stood. I heard him sigh behind me, and then I heard him turn, pacing away, pacing back and forth in the alleyway, his boots crunching against broken glass on the pavement.

  I closed my eyes. I found Elle’s cold fingers with my other hand. I gripped her palm, hard.

  “Please,” I whispered, over and over again. “Please come back. Please.”

  Tears began to fall down my face, plinking quietly against the pavement by Elle’s head. Her long dirty blonde hair was spiraled out around her face, her eyes closed so softly, gently. She looked asleep, lying there. Beautiful.

  Like an angel.

  “Please don’t go,” I whispered, lacing my fingers through hers, squeezing her hand tightly. “Please, Elle,” I whispered, closing my eyes, breathing out a ragged breath.

  The hot blood flowed over my fingers, the hot tears flowed out of me, over my face, and her cold, cold hand pressed tightly against mine.

  “I’m falling in love with you,” I whispered, then. I was beginning to feel faint, stars crowding the edges of my vision as I felt the cold, hard pavement beneath my knees. I squeezed my eyes tighter, licked my lips. I felt so cold. “Please don’t go,” I murmured to her.

  I wasn’t strong anymore. There was nothing left in me to be strong. I fell against her, crumpling there. I was aware of her cold body beneath me, of my head pillowed on her chest, of her cold, still fingers still gripped in my own. My other hand left my neck, stopped pressing against the wounds, and the blood stopped flowing, but it had been a messy affair, and I could still feel the heat of the blood over my own neck and chest, the heat of it dripping down onto Elle, too.

  I closed my eyes. All around us was the cold uncaring night. Overhead there was not a single star shining down among the skyscrapers as the fog from the harbor marched forward, cloaking us like a ghost. Somewhere in the alleyway I could hear Alec growling, could hear him banging his fists against a brick wall, could hear the brick crumbling beneath the force.

  And here, beneath me, I felt Elle as still and cold as the grave.

  And inside of me, the last sharp shards of my heart began to slowly crumble.

  The light between us, the connection between us, began to slowly fade. The sensation of gravity, of my body and heart drawn irrevocably to her, began to slowly erase as I laid there, my head pillowed over where Elle’s heart had beat.

  The darkness of the night held us silently as the last hot tears leaked out of my eyes.

  “Please, Elle,” I whispered as unconsciousness began to cover my vision with darkness.

  “I love you,” I murmured.

  And the blackness consumed me.

  Chapter 12: Dark Angel

  Most of the time we’ll never know the reason that we were in the perfect time and place to meet the people we were meant to. Or why we were at the wrong time and place, and something terrible happened to change our lives forever. I think we like to chalk everything up to fate. It makes us feel somehow easier about the things that happen to us. If we believe that there’s something greater out there making certain that no matter how much we mess up in life, at least we feel then that we’ve done what we’re supposed to.

  I don’t know if I ever believed in things like fate or destiny. I didn’t even know if I believed in God.

  But then I met Elle. And how else could it be explained, the connection between us other than bringing up words like “fate?”

  When I met her, I started believing in something better.

  In the darkness, I didn’t know it was dark. I was someplace else entirely when I sank into unconsciousness. I should have been afraid, worried that I’d bled myself dry and that I’d lost too much. That I was dying. But things like fear or worry couldn’t possibly touch me here.

  In my mind’s eye, I was back in Queenie’s.

  Admittedly, a sports bar is kind of an odd place to go if you’re dying, but it didn’t matter. I was there, and I was alone.

  There was a Red Sox game on the flat screen televisions, all of them showing a commercial for lite beer right now, though. I was at the bar, my butt firmly planted on one of the leather stools, a cold glass in my hand, beaded with water from the ice. I sat at attention, and I was thinking about someone.

  She snuck a hand around my waist and turned the stool to face her slowly.

  Elle was there, in her long black coat, her dirty blonde hair hanging around her shoulders in soft waves. She was smiling truly smiling, her head to the side and her dark eyes flashing with desire as she looked at me, her gaze seeing into the very depths of me, it seemed, down into the deepest and darkest parts of me.

  Because Elle always saw me, the real me, the me that I’d never much allowed other people to see.

  She leaned down, now, and she kissed me.

  But her lips weren’t cold anymore. Her mouth was warm now, hot, as it devoured mine, as her hand went behind my head, her fingers twining into my hair and tugging me back. She grinned wickedly as she bent my head back now, as her tongue traced a hot path from my mouth to my jaw to my neck.

  I gasped, my fingers closing around her waist, because her mouth was on my neck, her teeth grazing my skin, but they weren’t sharp, these teeth.

  As I straightened, as Elle came to stand, both of her hands on the bar behind me, her arms boxing me into a delicious cage of her body, I looked up, feeling my heart grow with pure happiness inside of me.

  It’s as if she knew. For she smiled, her mouth turning up at the corners into a real and genuine smile. And then Elle bent her beautiful head to me again, her mouth seeking mine.

  I wrapped my arms around her neck and knew that there was no better place for me in the entire world than here, with my heart pressed against hers.

  ---

  Cassandra.

  From somewhere far away, I heard my name.

  Cassandra.

  But I didn’t want to leave. For the first time in such a long time, I was happy, and I didn’t want that taken from me again. Not without a fight.

  I wouldn’t let go of her without a fight.

  Cassandra.

  I opened my eyes.

  There was light everywhere, bright white light. And outlined in that light was the shape of a woman, her hair flowing around her shoulders like…wings.

  An angel?

  I breathed out, and when I breathed out, a wave of pain moved through my arms and shoulders, a wave of pain moved in my neck. I shuddered a little, and then I opened my eyes wider.

  And Elle bent down to me, her lips turned up at the corners wickedly as she pressed her mouth to mine.

  Her…warm mouth.

  My eyes opened wider. I was dead. I must be dead. I’d never given much thought to the afterlife, but I guess it was a lot more…real than I could have ever imagined. For one, Elle was in it. So that was unexpected and incredible and wonderful. And second, she was…warm.

  Almost…human.

  I closed my eyes again and wrapped my sore arms around her neck.

  Wait a minute…why were my arms sore? If this was heaven, it had some slight explaining to do. I didn’t want to bring pain and bruises in beyond the pearly gates with me.

  I heard a chuckle somewhere behind Elle. It sounded like Alec.

  What was Alec doing in my afterlife?

  Elle broke away from me then, laughing a little against me, as she pillowed her head against my shoulder for a moment. Then she wrapped her arms tightly around me, and she squeezed gently as she helped me sit up, my head spinning.

  If this was the afterli
fe, it wasn’t a very inventive one.

  I was on the (very) hard ground in front of the fireplace…in Elle’s warehouse of a living room?

  “What…” I croaked. God, I sounded terrible. I placed an arm around Elle’s shoulder and looked around. “What’s going on?” I managed.

  Elle stared down into my eyes with her own dark ones. They were flashing with thinly veiled emotion, but when she spoke, her voice quavered with it. “Cassandra,” she said softly, the words husky and raw, “you brought me back from the dead.”

  I stared at her with wide eyes. I looked past her to Alec, who was leaning against the corner of the fireplace. He shrugged, gave me a “don’t ask me!” expression, his eyebrows up.

  “Cassandra,” said Elle again, her mouth tasting my name like a prayer. “Cassandra, I’m human again.”

  I stared at her, my heartbeat quickening within me.

  “Apparently,” drawled Alec with another shrug, “if a vampire’s drained of blood and dies, if a human replaces that blood with her own…the vampirism can be reversed. Who knew?” he said with a grimace. “This is unprecedented,” he concluded quietly. “I’ve never heard of this happening in all of my years. And for right now, we really have to keep this to ourselves.”

  “You’re alive,” I repeated, my fingers pressing into the skin of her shoulders as I held Elle tightly. “And you’re human.” Hot, fresh tears began to leak out of the corners of my eyes as I slowly, gingerly, drew Elle down to me again. I held her as tightly as if I’d never let go, so many tears gliding down my face as I leaned toward her, as my mouth met hers.

  I drank her in, like this was our first kiss, although it obviously wasn’t. But it didn’t matter. It was still just as tender and gentle as if this was the first kiss I’d ever given. I wanted it to be soft. I wanted to taste the true essence of her, I wanted to taste her warmth, experience the heat of her skin and her mouth, her lips as they met mine. Every place that she touched me, my body began to thrum to life again, the grip of her hands, gentle against my back, were warm and alive.

  We were alive.

  She was alive.

  I broke away from her only to stare up at her in wonder.

  Elle was alive.

  “Cassandra,” she whispered, before anything else could happen. She shook her head, her jaw working as she searched my eyes. For a long moment she didn’t say anything, but after a long sigh, her husky voice whispered: “I was afraid. Afraid of what was growing between us, afraid of a connection I couldn’t understand, didn’t even believe could exist. What I said before…forgive me. I was afraid.” She searched my eyes, her own glittering with a fierceness I’d never seen. “But I am afraid no longer,” she said in a soft growl.

  I shook my head, the tears spilling down my cheeks. I was too overwhelmed to say anything, so Elle bent forward, brushed her warm lips against my ear, making me shiver.

  “I’m falling in love with you, Cassandra,” murmured Elle. “If you’ll have me.”

  I drew her against me tightly, her heart to my heart, her mouth to my mouth, and I kissed her with as much passion as my exhausted body could muster. Which, it turns out, was a great deal.

  Alec cleared his throat behind us. “I hate to break it to you, lovebirds,” he said with a wide smile that quickly faded, “but we have new problems to face.”

  Elle sighed against me, shaking her head. “If Magdalena knows that she failed to kill me, she’ll be after us immediately. We can’t stay here.”

  I thought about my life before Elle. How there was nothing holding me in this great big city that I loved so much. Nothing holding me at all.

  “We need to stop at my apartment,” I said to Elle. “To get my cat.”

  She chuckled against me, casting a glance heavenward. “Great. On the run with a cat.” But she shook her head at me, and her smile deepened. “Of course we’ll get your cat—what kind of a heartless vampire do you think I am?”

  “You aren’t a heartless vampire at all,” I told her softly, my heart rising within me.

  She glanced back at Alec. “After that? I don’t know. We could seek out Alexander Grayson, maybe.” She thought quickly. “Perhaps we could even see if I might become a vampire again. I’ll grow stronger. I’ll face down Magdalena again someday.” She turned to me, pain surfacing on her face as she grimaced. “Cassandra, I almost lost you—”

  “As long as we’re together,” I told her fiercely, “as long as we’re safe and have each other…we have everything.”

  “Anything can happen, Elle,” said Alec, his head to the side as he rocked back on his heels, his hands deep in his jeans pockets. “I mean, Magdalena has to be taken down someday,” he grimaced. “So who knows. Maybe it’ll be you who does it. After all,” he murmured, raising his brows, “heaven knows that power doesn’t last forever.”

  Darkness surfaced in Elle’s gaze, but just as quickly, it disappeared as she turned to me, as Elle searched my eyes, her smile deepening. “You know what?” she whispered to me.

  I looked up into her beautiful face, and I felt my heart skip a beat.

  “What?” I whispered back.

  “I’m starting to believe,” she said, her mouth tracing a delicious curve over my neck. She murmured the next words against my skin: “I’m starting to believe,” she repeated, her mouth turned up into a gorgeous smile, “that love does.”

  Far above us, the industrial chandelier burned brightly as my dark angel helped me to my feet, and we turned toward the front door, arm in arm.

  Ready to face anything, together.

  The End

  If you enjoyed Dark Angel, you’ll love Bridget’s Sullivan Vampires.

  The following is an excerpt from “Eternal Hotel,” the first novella in the Sullivan Vampires series, a beautiful, romantic epic that follows the clan of Sullivan vampires and the women who love them. Advance praise has hailed this hallmark series as “Twilight for women who love women” and “a lesbian romance that takes vampires seriously! Two thumbs up!”

  …So this was the staircase from last night, next to the front desk. The Widowmaker. It must be. I’d never seen a steeper set of stairs. From up above, they looked simply like the rungs of a ladder in a barn—so steep and so tall and almost impossible to even think of taking.

  It’s not that I don’t like heights—I’m pretty okay with them. But these stairs were something else. I wasn’t taking these steps—I’d have to circle back somehow and find the other spiral staircase down to the first floor

  As I turned, I caught the first floor out of the corner of my eye. Because of the cathedral ceilings of that first floor, it seemed much farther away then I’d thought it was.

  It was then that something strange happened.

  The ground seemed to spin under me for a moment, bucking and heaving like I was trying to walk on waves of carpeting, not good firm floor. Or did it really? Was it just a trick of the eye? Either way, I took a step backward as a shadow fell in front of me, but there was no floor beneath that foot stepping backward, then, and I was tumbling backwards, shock cold enough to burn me flooding through my body as, impossibly, I began to fall down the stairs.

  A hand caught my arm. I hung suspended over the abyss of the air, my back to the emptiness, and in one smooth motion, I was pulled back.

  Saved.

  The hand was cold, and the body I brushed against as I was hauled out of the air felt as if the person had stepped out of a prolonged trip through a walk-in freezer. I looked up at the face of the woman who had saved me, and when I breathed out, I will never forget it: my breath hung suspended in the air between us like a ghost.

  She was taller than me by about a head, and I had to lean back to gaze into her eyes. They were violently blue, a blue that opened me up like a key and lock as she looked down at me, her eyes sharp and dark as her jaw worked, her full lips in a downward curve that my own eyes couldn’t help but follow. She wore a ponytail, the cascades of her silken white-blonde hair gathered tightly at the b
ack of her head and flowing over her right shoulder like frozen water falling. She wore a man’s suit, I realized, complete with a navy blue tie smartly pulled snug against her creamy neck. She looked pale and felt so cold as her strong hand gripped my wrist, but it was gentle, too. As if she knew her own strength.

  I saw all of this in an instant, my eyes following the lines and curves of her like I’d trace my gaze over an extremely fine painting. And, like an extremely fine painting, she began to make my heart beat faster. That was odd. I was never much attracted to random women, even before I dated Anna, even before Anna…well.

  But this wasn’t just my heart beating faster, my blood moving quicker through me. This was something else. A weightlessness, like being suspended in the air over the staircase again, the coolness of her palm against my skin a gravity that I seemed to suddenly spin around. When she gazed down into my eyes, she held me there as firmly as if her hands were snug against the small of my back, pressing me to her cool, lean body that wore the suit with such dignity and grace that I couldn’t imagine her in anything else.

  I was spellbound.

  She said not a word, but her fingers left my wrist, grazing a little of the skin of my bare forearm for a heartbeat before her hand fell to her side. I shivered, holding my hand to my heart, then, as if I’d been bitten. We stood like that for a heartbeat, two, the woman’s eyes never leaving mine as her chin lifted, as her jaw worked again, her full lips parting…

  “Are you all right?” I shivered again. Her voice was dark, deep and throaty, as cool as her skin, as gentle as the touch of her fingertips along my arm. But as I gazed up at her, as I tried to calm my breathing, my heart, we blinked, she and I, together.

  I knew, then.

  I’d heard that voice before.

  I’d seen this face before.

  “Have we…met?” I stammered, eyes narrowed as I gazed up at her in wonder. We couldn’t have. She shook her head and put it to the side as she looked down at me, as if I was a particularly difficult puzzle that needed solving. I would have remembered her, the curve of her jaw and lips, the dazzling blue of her eyes. I could never have forgotten her if I’d only seen her once. It would have been impossible.