Forbidden (The Preternaturals) (19 page)

She swept back her hair and tilted her head. A hiss escaped her lips when
Hadrian bit her. He answered with a rumbling growl as he drank.

Then everything came tumbling out of her in sobs that began small and
barely audible and then grew until they almost overwhelmed her.
Hadrian didn’t stop drinking. He didn’t pull away and ask her to
talk about it. He didn’t do anything but pet her hair and continue
to drink.

The jolt of pain from his fangs was all she’d needed to trigger the
release of emotion. Though she’d thought everything that could be
wrung out of her had been wrung out inside the black room while the
voices had whispered and accused and threatened, she hadn’t had
time to process it all.

Until now.

She’d needed to cry so badly in a place that was safe where she didn’t
have to keep constant vigilance for fear of what might come next—a
place she could feel something without fear that it would be used to
harm her later.

This space, this moment belonged only to her. It was a piercing bright
point of pain that she’d been allowed to feel and let go. Until
now, she hadn’t understood just how much she’d held back and held
onto for years up in Heaven. There, everything was about appearances.
How everything
looked
. If it was appropriate enough, right
enough, holy enough, clean enough. If it had been sanitized enough
for the rest of the denizens of this cloyingly perfect place where
nothing and no one could be real. That suffocating perfection that
stole the light from their eyes and the joy from their hearts while
they smiled, always smiled. Because what might happen to you if you
didn’t smile and pretend everything was okay?

The realness of Hadrian’s fangs in her throat nearly unmade her, then
remade her into something that was okay to just
be
. To exist
without expectation or condemnation—imperfect as she was.

His grip on her as he fed was overwhelmingly possessive. He was another
corset, one that wrapped entirely around her soul—something that
should be a cage, yet somehow felt like safety and comfort. Like
freedom.

Angeline was unsure if the earlier fight in the parking lot with the other
vampire had been about protecting her, or about protecting the food
source that was
his
.

She tried not to let it mean anything. She tried not to think about how
everything inside her lit up at the idea of being
his
. She
didn’t even care what that meant. If it included forgiveness or
not. Friendship or not. Romance or not. Sex or not. The one thing she
somehow knew it contained, was safety. She felt safe with him and was
content with whatever grew between them, if anything even could.

Hadrian ran his tongue over her neck to seal the wounds and held her quietly
as her sobs wound down and she found the will to be silent.

When the moment broke, it felt awkward, as if neither could articulate
what had just happened between them, as if both feared they would
destroy or somehow break it if they gave voice to it. Words could
kill everything sometimes.

Father Hadrian took a few steps away from the couch. The physical distance
was almost unbearable after what had transpired. He scrubbed a hand
through his hair, rolled his shirt sleeve back down, and righted his
clothing. He crossed to a writing desk and took a pen and hotel
stationery from the drawer.

“Write
down your sizes, and I’ll go get you some clothes. Do you need
anything else?”

“Can I order room service?”

“I thought you ate
light
.”

“W-we do, but we still
can
eat food. I like it. At least I did as an
angel. A cheeseburger sounds like Heaven right now.” She wrinkled
her nose, catching herself. “Or… no. That’s wrong. Heaven
sounds terrible, and a cheeseburger sounds great.”

He chuckled. “Order whatever you want. I’ll be back in a bit.” He
wrote his cell number down for her.

Angeline folded the paper and put it on the coffee table. “Thank you.”

He stood for another moment and looked at her in a way she could barely
bring herself to hope for. His fingertips trailed lightly through her
hair one last time, then he slipped out of the room.

***

Without Angeline with him, Hadrian could utilize vampire speed. He hadn’t
driven far outside the city to find a hotel room for the night. He’d
wanted something nice but not too flashy, and not in the very center
of things—a space that would feel safe for both of them.

Vegas never slept. It was like New York that way. There was a time when
he’d loved that about it, but he wasn’t sure anymore if Vegas was
the place for him. Or the church he’d hidden out in for that
matter. In fact, he wasn’t sure who or what he was supposed to be
anymore.

When he’d become a vampire, the priestly trappings were more a
signature, a calling card, than any real sense of leftover piety. The
church had been a place of familiarity, and the basement had been a
perfect resting spot for the day. Safe. But if he intended to keep
Angeline with him, he’d need to find somewhere new to settle, and
not a church as he normally frequented.

Though it could be just the wards, he had a feeling that as a fallen angel,
she was no longer welcome in churches.

And why should he keep her with him? Hadrian tried to find the anger he’d
held onto for so long where she was concerned. In truth, he very much
enjoyed his vampiric nature, so he wasn’t sure why he’d held such
a grudge against Angeline. And it wasn’t as if her attempt at
dominating and controlling him had come to much effect in the end.
He’d turned the tables and maintained his autonomy. It wasn’t as
if she held any power over him.
Keep telling yourself that.

When he’d seen her on his church steps crying out for him, the anger and
bitterness he’d tried to hold onto simply vanished. She wasn’t
that vampire anymore. And even when she had been, the darkness didn’t
sit well on her. She had never worn her vampiric nature like anything
more than a mask covering the parts of her that were too fragile and
easily wounded. It was never her darkness he’d been attracted to,
no matter how much he’d wanted to pretend. It was her light.

When he’d first set up this feeding arrangement, he’d wanted to see
how far he could push her, and if he got angel blood out of the deal,
he wouldn’t push the vein away.

Angeline had given him more than just her vein. She’d given him an open
trust that he didn’t want to crush or damage. She’d slept in his
bed without a stitch of clothing on, simply because he’d asked her
to. She’d trusted that he wouldn’t cross any lines, and he
hadn’t. He’d been honored that she’d offered him that trust,
and he refused to break his own code. He would never damage someone
who approached him that way.

Something inside him screamed that she was his. Hadrian pushed the thought
away. It was the same possessive feeling she’d once had toward him.
And that hadn’t ended well for either of them. That kind of
possession felt dark and ugly and controlling. Even so, this thing
between them felt right.

He found himself irrationally angry with the heavenly realm, with the
church, with everything he’d believed in his human lifetime,
everything he’d committed himself to and the shadows and trappings
he’d continued with into his immortality. He wasn’t sure if he
could ever go inside another church after this.

It would be like supporting the very beings who’d hurt Angeline. He
ripped off the Roman collar and threw it on the ground. He couldn’t
even look at it anymore.

When Hadrian reached the strip, he slowed his pace to appear normal and
human. It drove him nearly insane to move so slowly when he had
things to do. The casinos were just getting started for the night.
Vegas was the one city that seemed to have incorporated the
preternaturals as a tourist attraction.

He crossed the street to go into Caesar’s Palace. The casino’s Forum
Shops would have better offerings than most of the strip.

On the way to the shops, Hadrian passed a smokey bar with live music and
appetizers. Vampires openly had women on their arms, fangs out, eyes
glowing, big smarmy smirks on their faces. The women weren’t
enthralled—clearly fans of fang. A couple of male werewolves
shifted in the lounge, while a woman giggled uncomfortably as one of
them licked her neck in wolf form.

As if Vegas weren’t already extreme enough.

Hadrian wasn’t sure what he’d do with himself now. He’d kept to the
same feeding MO for decades. The absolution/punishment model. With
Angeline as his food source, it wasn’t strictly necessary for this
to continue. Besides, who was he to judge? Who was anyone?

***

Hadrian had been gone over an hour, leaving Angeline far too much time and
space to think. She closed her eyes against the memories of
induction, the first six weeks after she’d been elevated. It was
constant prayer and instruction with little time for rest. They
weren’t given as much light to feed on in the beginning. Rodolfo
had said it was important not to distract from studies, not to become
addicted to the pleasure of feeding, but now she saw it for what it
was.

It was easier to hammer all the fear and paranoia into her head if she
wasn’t well-fed and comfortable. It had been Linus all over again,
and she hadn’t even seen it. Why would she? Linus had kept her
locked in a cage. There had been no artifice. He’d been just as
nasty as he’d had to be to make her into his ugly image.

But Heaven made it all look so pretty. They made you want to be that
because it was supposed to be what good looked like, what worth and
value looked like.

She tried to block the memories out, but they only came to her sharper
and more clear.

“
Whatever you do, don’t break the rules. You don’t want to become a guardian.”

She’d known from her time as a vampire that guardians were fallen angels
and that they weren’t a talkative sort. Most appeared unhappy, and
many worked for vampires with plenty of money. Guardians didn’t fit
in with the vampires socially, and they didn’t fit in with the
demons. And they rarely sought out their own kind.

It didn’t take long in angel boot camp to learn why. Falling was
shameful. Why would you ever associate with others who had done the
same shameful thing you had done? Why would you want to be reminded?
It was better to be isolated and protected from reminders.

But Hadrian hadn’t looked at Angeline like she was something dirty.
He’d seemed more horrified by her damaged state than anything.

Angeline ate the last french fry and pushed the cart of food away. She
stretched and let the blanket fall. It had been a long time since she could just
be
naked without feeling like it was a cardinal sin. The only good thing Linus had
ever drilled into her was comfort with her own body. She couldn’t
allow her time in Heaven to erase that.

When room service had come up, the man who’d wheeled the cart in had
been professional, but he’d been unable to disguise his interest.
He was only human, so of course she could protect herself, and there
was nothing to feel ashamed about, and he hadn’t had bad
intentions.

As an angel, and even now as a fallen one, she knew the intent of
others. She could feel if they were human or demon or angel or
vampire or therian. She could feel if they had magic around them and
if they were dangerous or safe. She could see auras and feel
intention. It wasn’t a “smell” thing, not like many of the other preternaturals
who could smell emotions. It was far more subtle. And it wasn’t
mind reading, either.

Hadrian was harder to read than most. She suspected he might not know all his
own intentions about things, which made it harder for her to get a
sense for them. Yet, somehow underneath the cluttered feelings and
confusion, she’d known he was safe.

Angeline crossed to the bathroom and turned away from the mirror, twisting to
glimpse where her wings should be.
Did
she really still have
wings in there? The last blood she’d gotten from Hadrian had
combined with the light from the Moon to finish healing her, so if
there were wings in there, she should have access to them now. She
opened the sliding door and went out onto the balcony again, turning
her face up to the moonlight.

She closed her eyes and focused. She felt the familiar flutter in her
spine, the energy as it zipped down her back. She held her breath,
almost afraid to hope, then she felt the magic unfold out of her, and
wings came out. She climbed and balanced on the railing and let
herself fall. Then she began to fly.

Angeline flew back to the city, staying high in the air, safe from the
voyeuristic stares of the people on the streets below. She wove her
way between tall buildings with reflective glass that would sparkle
brilliantly in the sun. She flew up to one of the windows to get a
look at her wings.

They were a glossy black, not unlike her other wings in appearance except
for the color. She hadn’t spent any time as a vampire around
guardians. She’d seen them casually, but she’d never seen one fly
nor had she seen the wings come out or the protective powers being
used.

She’d thought fallen angels had become vampire bodyguards because guardians
could be in the sun, and no one else wanted anything to do with them
or needed them. She’d thought they were like stronger humans who
could watch over the vampire to make sure no one staked him in his
sleep.

Linus had never had one. He hadn’t cared for them. He’d instead always
kept vampire bodyguards and had picked his resting places carefully.

She felt stupid now, not knowing, going two hundred years in such a fog.
It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a guardian in her time as a
vampire or angel, but they were so discreet. She wondered if all
guardians realized they had wings or if they were ashamed they were
black, as if they’d been marked unclean. But someone must have used
them for Hadrian to know about it.