Forbidden (The Preternaturals)

by Zoe Winters

  “Too late for that now.” Hadrian pulled her to him and sank his fangs into her throat. She tasted of rage and fear with an added dash of sociopathic spice. A bit rich for day-to-day feeding, but not bad for a treat.

  She struggled in his arms, beating uselessly against his chest as he drank. Eventually the fight went out of her; her breathing became more labored and then stopped along with her heartbeat. Father Hadrian healed the mark on her throat and dropped her.

  On his way back to the casino, he enthralled a passing thug with a gun, planting the suggestion that the woman was alive and he should go shoot her. With a bullet in her head, no one would think anything else about the issue. He whistled on his way back to church, thinking that man was lucky Hadrian would only feed from women, because the sins pouring off him were monumental. And Hadrian doubted he was any more remorseful.

  Now it was Angeline’s turn.

  ***

  Hadrian returned with a spring in his step, his sadness over what he’d lost replaced with excitement over his new mission. His happiness was cut short when he caught his sire standing in the middle of the church, a guilty and panicked look on her face. He’d been seconds from losing her.

  He didn’t think, he just commanded. Even a second of contemplation would be enough for her to get away from him. “Stop right there.”

  She’d looked away as if that would stop his order from stealing her will, but it didn’t matter. When she stopped, he knew his power still worked. They were linked by blood. He didn’t need eye contact.

  Instinctively he strode to her, grabbed her wrist, and put it to his mouth, drinking her blood to strengthen their connection.

  He growled as he tasted the new power. Familiar power. The witch. Was that how she’d broken his hold? But that was impossible. There had been many yards and a solid oak door between the witch’s corpse and where Angeline had been. Something wasn’t right. Maybe Angeline had a taste before he’d risen. That had to be it.

  “Just let me go.” Her voice was weary and defeated, not believing he would stoop to releasing her. It was simply what she was supposed to say in this situation.

  “You know I can’t do that.” He still wasn’t sure of his motives. Though he drank up his new powers as greedily as the wino had partaken of cheap alcohol, he was still angry with her. He was angry there was so much out there he hadn’t been equipped to fight and angry that becoming a priest and isolating himself from the rest of the world as much as he had still hadn’t worked to protect him from evil.

  The most condemning part was that he wasn’t sure he could blame the demon for making him as he was. There had been a sharp seed of darkness in him from the start, something he’d always pushed down, hiding behind holy actions. He’d kept the darkness buried in the crevices of his soul, but the vampiric blood had flipped the switch to activate it.

  His grip on Angeline’s wrist was punishing, even though such show of force was unnecessary. His mere order for her to stop was enough. The fear rolled off her. Whatever she’d done to momentarily gain the upper hand wouldn’t come to her rescue again, and she knew it.

  Before he could question her about the witch, a child walked in the back door. She wore a simple white dress that was far too big for her. The clothing was spattered with blood. Fang marks marred her throat, but they faded before his eyes.

  How was that possible? What human could self-heal like that?

  “Angeline! What did you do?”

  She cowered at the anger in his tone. “She begged me. She put her vein right in my face. What was I supposed to do?”

  Hadrian rolled his eyes. If she expected him to believe that…

  “It’s true,” the girl said. “I hoped it would work this time, but it started the cycle over again. She’s not strong enough or old enough, either.”

  “You thought what would work? What cycle?” Hadrian said, growing more confused with each nonsensical phrase that passed through the girl’s lips. Something tickled the back of his mind, something he didn’t want to admit could be possible. But he knew that golden hair and those features, though they’d been on a grown woman, not a child. Hadn’t they?

  No. He’d been lucid enough when he’d risen. He hadn’t only imagined a fully grown woman.

  “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” she said.

  “Hadrian,” he said dryly. “Father Hadrian to you.”

  “You’re funny. I’m Tamara. I wasn’t able to introduce myself when we first met.” She turned serious. “You plan to kill her don’t you? Your sire?”

  “I plan to set her free, yes,” Hadrian said, still pretending it was about doing something for Angeline’s greater benefit.

  “And yet, you don’t want the same freedom for yourself? Interesting.”

  Tamara was far too perceptive. At the moment, Hadrian sought a different freedom—one from responsibility and consequences. And the girl knew it.

  She frowned. “It’s a curse, you know. Immortality isn’t a gift. It’s a curse. Everything changes around you, and you’re trapped. You never get to forget or start over. You lose people… things. It’s all fun and games now, but one night you’ll wake up and realize it isn’t anymore. Just be glad you have an easy way out when you need it. The sun or the pointed end of a stake. I want to be free, and it annoys me that you don’t. You should greet the sun with your sire. It will save you a lot of pain.”

  When she reached the door, she turned back. A purple ball of light appeared in her hand. It crackled, sounding like electricity, causing Father Hadrian to retreat.

  Their eyes met.

  “Are we going to have a problem?” The girl asked. “Will you hunt me? We both know you can’t kill me, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get greedy. You wouldn’t be the first to find out my secret and try to use that to your benefit. Because if you are, I’ll have to kill you now.”

  “I wouldn’t feed off a child,” Hadrian said, increasingly disgusted that Angeline had.

  Tamara laughed. “Oh, you are new to this world. This is just a vessel, part of the loop I’m trapped in. I’m far older and wiser than you. I’m happy to walk away if I can have your word that you won’t come after me, that you’ll keep this secret. You do still have enough priest in you to honor the sanctity of a secret, don’t you?”

  “Are you doing evil with your powers?” Hadrian asked, unable to let the issue drop.

  “No. But if I don’t find a way out, and my pursuer captures me, you’ll see what evil truly is.”

  “Who is chasing you?”

  “Another cycler, like me.”

  “Leave town,” Hadrian said, “and I won’t follow you or tell anyone we met.”

  “Very well. There are too many lights and too much noise in this town, anyway. I thought I could get lost here for a while.” The purple ball of energy shrank and then sizzled out into nothing but a small string of smoke that dissipated into the church.

  She opened the door, and a raven flew in. The bird squawked angrily as he made swooping circles around the sanctuary.

  “Henry! It’s fine. Stop it.” The bird flew to the girl and perched on her shoulder, ruffling his feathers and gurgling in his throat—only slightly mollified. “One more thing.” She pointed to Angeline. “You need to kill her. She can’t be trusted. Her word is worthless. If you won’t do it, I will.”

  “I’ll handle it.”

  The girl nodded and left the church, pulling the door shut behind her.

  Hadrian pushed Angeline back out to the porch. “Move.” When he’d tied her back up, he pulled a second rocker in front of her and sat, regarding her calmly.

  “Why did you go back inside? Why didn’t you leave through the courtyard when you had the chance?”

  Angeline avoided his eyes. “I went back for my cloak and bag.”

  “I hope it was worth your life.”

  “Hadrian, please. You know me. Let me go. I won’t bother you. And I won’t bother th
at girl, either. You’ve made your point. Would you kill one of your own kind? Humans are food, but I’m like you.”

  He arched a brow. “Father Hadrian. And I haven’t been your kind long enough to feel much loyalty. As for knowing you, you’ve never let me in enough. You’ve just come to Mass and flirted. I’ve never known anything of substance about you. I still don’t.”

  “What do you want to know? That I was turned two hundred and twenty years ago by a sadistic psycho named Linus? That I finally got strong enough to escape him after decades in his warped care? That anytime I feel his presence, I uproot and move myself? The things in that bag are all I’ve got. I just wanted someone like me. Is that so bad?”

  It was unsettling to watch the vampire cry and mean it.

  Her voice was barely above a whisper when she spoke again. “We could be great together.”

  Hadrian pushed his chair away and stood. He needed to move. He couldn’t stand to absorb her past traumas like a sponge. He had to remember why he was doing this. “You planned to turn me into your puppet, just like your sire did to you. I don’t know if the power I have over you can be maintained. Either way, I don’t want a constant struggle. You took my old life and gave me this one instead, but I want it to be my life. I’m not your plaything, and I have no need for you to be mine.”

  “I wouldn’t have been like him.”

  But Father Hadrian heard the change in her voice and knew it was at least a partial lie. “We still have time before the sun comes up. I’ll hear your confession if you want to give it to me.”

  “For nearly two-and-a-half centuries of destruction? I can’t even remember most of it.”

  He took her hand in his. “Then I’ll just pray for your soul.”

  Hadrian stayed with her until he could see the pink edges of light as dawn climbed out of the night.

  “I must go inside now.” He knew Tamara was right that he should greet the sun with his sire. But he found himself unable to resist the siren song of power and what this new life could mean for him.

  Angeline gripped his hand. “Take me with you. Just think about what you’re doing. You can always kill me later if I can’t change.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. You’re too dangerous. Letting you live another day would be the stupidest thing I could ever do. And I promised the girl. This isn’t the end, it’s a new beginning for you. You and I have both seen that room with the doors. All those possibilities are waiting. You can start over in a new life and not have your past follow you. Aren’t you tired of all this?”

  Tears slid down her cheeks, and she looked away. “I’m scared. I haven’t died in a long time.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I know.”

  “You could have been a great vampire, but you had to go and turn out to be good.” She injected extra disgust into the word good as if even the smallest measure of moral fortitude was no better than a rash.

  “Who says I’m good? Goodbye, Angeline. May God have mercy on your soul.”

  He went inside and latched the door shut. On his way to his chambers, he spotted the things Angeline had come back for. Curious, he crossed the creaking hardwood floors and untied the ropes on the black velvet handbag.

  Hadrian hissed, his face taking on the demonic visage as his hand jerked away from the offending object that had burned it. He dumped the contents of the bag. There were only two things inside: a folded piece of parchment with a hand-drawing of the virgin mother, and what must have been a centuries-old rosary. He wasn’t sure when she’d gotten or made the drawing, but he had no doubt the rosary had been hers when she’d been human.

  His gaze went back to the door. He took a step toward it, having second thoughts, but he stopped himself. It was a better life for her if she could start over and bury all this. He put the parchment and rosary back inside the bag, careful not to let the cross touch his skin again. He took the bag and her cloak back to his chambers. The last thing he heard before he fell dead for the day were the screams of his maker.

  Forbidden

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  Angeline’s gaze panned up to take in the full imposing force of the Las Vegas church. Hadrian’s church. The austere gray stone had lost its polish and shine over the years but had yet to be demolished. It clung to life with a single weekly morning mass while the vampire lay dead for the day. Midnight mass had long since been abandoned, and confessions were only heard on Saturday afternoons. Not by him.

  She’d known Hadrian would return to this place to lick his wounds in peace. He always returned here when he was hurting. He’d been in hiding for nearly a year now, since his banishment from the vampire king’s court. Angeline should have come to warn him much sooner. The king had grown more determined for retribution.

  She stopped outside the giant wooden doors and reached to take the handle, then pulled back as if burned by it.

  You can do this. You must do this.

  From the moment she’d returned to this plane, she’d watched over him as the guilt clawed at her. That night wouldn’t stop replaying—the night she’d turned him into a monster. Her twisted words and the depravity of desecrating his church played over and over in her private mental theater. Every time she went to sleep, she dreamed of it only to wake struggling for air, remembering that searing moment of death when the sunlight had touched her face for the first time in over two hundred years.

  Now more than ever, she wished she had some liquid courage. Though blood repulsed her, she still remembered how an addict’s vein could take her out of herself and make her brave enough. Sometimes too brave.

  She breathed in the magic that surrounded Our Lady of Mercy. Every decade or so Father Hadrian paid someone to put up new wards. It shielded the church from preternatural beings to offer him true sanctuary when he needed it, when innocents needed it. It allowed only him… and her.

  After all, who could bar an angel from a church?

  The smell of incense filled the air as she pushed the door open. He sat on the front row before a statue of the virgin mother, his head in his hands. She smelled the salt of his tears as she glided down the aisle to him.

  No. She couldn’t do this. She turned and went back up the aisle as quietly as she could.

  “I can smell you, you know.”

  She froze. If she kept walking, he’d never know it was her. Once she cleared the door, she’d release her wings and fly far from here. It was better to watch from a distance and intervene on his behalf if needed. He wouldn’t welcome her.

  Hadrian came closer. The darkness curled off him, enveloping her, making something inside her reflexively recoil even as she still wanted him. After what she’d done, that dream was over. She’d been so sure of her vision, so sure he was the one she was meant to walk the lonely nights of eternity with. The drugged blood had messed with her mind—made her see delusion instead of truth. And this was the wreck she’d created as a result.

  He gripped her arm, and she felt a tingle, the mildest burn, as if he were silver and she were a vampire still. She looked down to see the contrast of his swarthy skin against her fair. And God help her, but even after everything and how much she knew he must hate her, she still wanted his hands on her.

  “Father Hadrian,” she whispered. She had the power to break free of him. She could put up her shields, but she couldn’t bring herself to fight him.

  The muscles in his hand tensed around her. He recognized her voice. She feared he still had some hypnotic hold over her, that he’d maintained the power he’d taken the night she’d made him a vampire.

  Hadrian spun her to face him. He was still so impossibly beautiful and so tall and broad. He towered over her. His coal-black eyes burned with fury even now. He hadn’t forgiven her. He would never forgive her.

  “How did you get in here?” he demanded. “There are wards.”

  She couldn’t bear the contempt on his face. She imagined that if he could, he would burn her in holy water. His hand on he
r arm tightened… punishing. He wasn’t finished punishing her yet. “Exorcizo te, immundissime spiritus, omnis incursio…”

  “Stop. That won’t work on me anymore.”

  His chant dropped off midstream. “What are you?” Words from another time.

  She bowed her head and closed her eyes until she felt the glow flow out from her, and then her wings emerged to their full span, the edges brushing against the pews on either side of her. She looked up to find he’d taken a step back.

  “Here for revenge, then?” he asked. “Get in line.”

  “I’m here to warn you. I-I’ve been watching over you. For a very long time.” Decades.

  “Stalking me, you mean. When you felt the magic on the church you should have taken it as a mystical restraining order and backed the fuck off, Angeline. I don’t want you in my church. I don’t want you in my life. You disgust me.”

  She felt the tears gather as her wings sagged and shrank, disappearing inside her back. “A-Anthony plans to kill you… after he’s tortured you for your betrayal. S-some of the demons aren’t especially keen on you, either. A-and the therians.” The truth was, that ever since the human world had become aware of the preternatural world, chaos had reigned, and with the latest threat gone, Hadrian had become everyone’s favorite new enemy.

  “If you cared so much, you could have sent someone else to warn me.”

  She let out a breath when he released her arm. “I’m not allowed to associate with your kind.” The information the heavenly beings had access to wasn’t often shared, anyway. But if they ever found out she’d come to him…

  He snorted. “Why don’t you scurry on back to your glittering castle in the sky? I’m just fine here.”

  The tears came then. She couldn’t stop them. “I know I don’t deserve it, but thank you for releasing me from that life.” She wasn’t sure how much better her new life was, but at least the weight of Linus and all of his darkness was off her. At least who she was hadn’t been trained and molded by a sadistic psychopath. She felt true now. Real. Except for this one sin she couldn’t forgive herself for.