by Zoe Winters
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.
As an angel, she’d been nearly invincible. Nothing could hurt her or anyone under her protection when her wings were out. She squeezed her eyes shut and focused again to see if she had a shield to bring up now.
When she opened her eyes again, a silver light glowed around her, a protective force field. It wasn’t impossibly bright as it had been when her wings were white. Sometimes she thought it was the mere brightness of her presence that had driven danger away in the past. Even before an attack could be landed, sometimes the light itself was too much for others to cope with.
This light was much dimmer, and though the power flowing out of her felt strong, it was weaker than what she’d had before. It would help; it would be beneficial in a bad situation, but with a strong enough enemy or enough of them, it wasn’t the same guaranteed fortress of safety she’d had before.
Angeline flew a few more laps around the city, then went back to the hotel. When she landed on the balcony, Hadrian looked up from the sofa. She couldn’t read the expression on his face. She folded her wings around herself to cover up as she stepped inside.
“I thought you’d left,” he said. His feelings were a storm of contradiction, too hard to untangle. He didn’t look like a priest now, but she didn’t ask. It wasn’t as if he’d gone out with the Roman collar all the time.
“I wanted to know if I still had wings and wanted to fly.” There were bags at his feet. One of them was a duffel bag that no doubt held stuff from his church, the rest was new stuff he’d picked up for her. “You aren’t going back to your church?”
“We can’t stay there. We can’t stay in any church anymore.”
“Oh.” Angeline tamped down the excitement that he had used the word “we”. Instead, she tried to determine if he was upset about losing his church. She wanted to say that it didn’t matter, it wasn’t as if he had to babysit her. Sure, she had no one now, but it wasn’t as if any of that were his responsibility. Not really. She’d chosen to break rules. She’d fallen. And if she hadn’t been allowed to form any genuine friendships outside of other angels, it still wasn’t Hadrian’s responsibility to be her social events coordinator.
“We’ll go to Anthony’s penthouse. I have to be there for a meeting tomorrow night. We’ll have to drive, so… since you’re healed we should probably get on the road.”
“Oh. Okay.” She’d looked forward to sleeping in a nice bed. Then again, being with him in his car for another few hours didn’t sound bad, either.
“We’ll find another place before the sun comes up if you can stay awake that long.”
She didn’t want to read anything into that, any implication that he wanted her shifted onto his sleep schedule now. Each time he assumed some accommodation on her part, she didn’t contradict him.
“But, you already paid.”
Hadrian looked sheepish. “Not exactly. I enthralled the receptionist into thinking I’d pre-paid.”
With her recent angelic nature, Angeline thought she should be disappointed in the theft, but she just grinned, grateful to be away from the constant pressure to be perfect. If he wasn’t perfect, surely he wouldn’t expect her to be, either.
“I’ll get dressed.” She grabbed the bags and headed to the master bedroom to change.
When she reached the door, Hadrian’s voice stopped her. “Angeline?”
She turned. “Yeah?”
“Black is a good look on you.”
She blushed and disappeared into the bedroom. Before she could sort through the bags, the door opened. Angeline spun and pulled her wings in front of her.
Hadrian held out an ivory corset. “You left this one at my place. We’ll get more made if you want.”
She reached through her wings and took it. “Thanks.” It felt like contraband in her hands, the one thing she’d kept against their wishes.
This time, she locked the door.
“I know it’s not what you usually wear,” Hadrian said from the other side.
She dumped the bags out on the bed. No, it wasn’t. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d ever worn a pair of pants in any of the lives she could remember, which was an embarrassing thing to acknowledge.
“It’s okay.”
Angeline slipped into panties and a pair of black pants that fit her like a glove. She’d only given him her dress and shoe size because it hadn’t occurred to her that pants might be involved. How he’d figured this out, she wasn’t sure. He was a clothing-size savant.
She put the corset on and opened the door. “Will you lace me up, please?”
His eyes glowed red, but he slowly nodded and rose. She turned away, a chill dancing along her shoulders until he came up behind her and tugged the laces tight.
She gasped. “I-I’d like to breathe.”
He laughed. “Would you? Are the pants already making you sassy?” When he finished lacing, he licked the side of her neck and gave her a playful swat back into the bedroom.
She picked a red top from the pile. It was sleeveless, with a slinkiness that moved with the wearer. The fabric in the back draped loosely, revealing a low back that showed the tiniest bit of the top of the corset.
Angeline slipped into black boots and gave herself a once-over in the mirror. It wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t as if running around in a dress had ever been super practical. And the back of the top allowed wing access. So that was good.
She stepped into the living area where Hadrian waited. “You don’t think I look too trampy?” She turned.
“Of course not. This is very normal for women now. It’s sexy, but no one will judge you for it.”
No one will judge you.
It had been a long time since that sentence had held any truth. The idea felt so novel, she wasn’t sure she could believe in it yet.
Chapter Nine
Angeline lay on the passenger side with the seat leaned back, pretending to sleep. They’d run out of small talk early on, and things had grown awkward. Hadrian had turned on the radio to diffuse the silence of the car, but it didn’t help much.
“I know you aren’t asleep,” he said after a half hour of her fakery had passed.
Still, she lay quietly, hoping he’d think he was wrong.
“Breath and heartbeat changes in sleep. I can hear it. You aren’t asleep.”
“Maybe I’m trying to sleep, or just resting my eyes,” she said, still turned away from him.
“Maybe,” he agreed, not convinced.
A couple more minutes passed, and he shut the radio off. “Do you want to tell me what happened when you were up there? Before you fell, I mean. You were gone for a couple of days.”
She started to cry. Again. He would think it was the only thing she knew how to do. In Heaven she’d had to smile so much it made her face hurt, and now all she did was cry and mope like some broody teenager. She could barely remember the last time she’d been a teenager. The concept hadn’t even been invented yet.
Thirteen-year-olds were women back then, and they were married off quickly. She’d avoided that fate in her last human life until she was twenty, then when she couldn’t put her parents off any longer, she’d fled to the convent where Linus had made fleeing marriage seem both charming and childish.
“Angeline?”
“I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot of thoughts up here. A lot I haven’t had time to process that maybe I should have.”
“From your time as an angel?”
She sat up and wiped her face, pulling the seat up with her. “No, before.”
“Human? Vampire?”
“Both. They didn’t give us much time to think in Heaven. Even though I tried to watch over you, I didn’t have a lot of free time on my hands until the last few months.”
“What happened to give you more free time?”
“I screwed up an assignment. Someone I was supposed to be watching and protecting, died.”
Hadrian swerved around a semi that veered into their lane and moved his hand protectively in front of Angeline. “Fucking idiot,” he growled as he got the car straightened out again. “Screens?”
She bit her lip, unsure if she should have brought up the screens. In hindsight, the angel surveillance was a lot creepier than she’d at first appreciated. It had seemed normal after a while. She wasn’t sure Hadrian would see it the same way.
“It’s how we kept watch over our charges from Heaven when we couldn’t be down here. It’s not a big deal.”
“I’ll take your word on that.”
They fell silent while Angeline replayed the protective arm thing in her head about thirty times like some schoolgirl who’d just held hands with a boy for the first time. A part of her wanted to go back to the Angeline she’d crafted for herself as a vampire.
That Angeline didn’t get flushed. That Angeline had been all about innuendo and naughty flirtation and temptation. She’d been all about control and getting her way. She’d had no weird modesty issues. She hadn’t ever stuttered… at least not once Linus had beaten it out of her. But not only was it not really her, but Hadrian hadn’t been amused by where it led them. She didn’t want to do anything to remind him of that version of herself.
She could have gone back to pretending to sleep until the night wound down and they were in a new hotel, but she started talking instead, because what if he never asked again and she couldn’t find the space to talk about it?
She stared out the window as she spoke because she didn’t want to have to look at him, or see him looking at her. She wished she could be in a confession booth.
“When an angel first becomes an angel, we’re taught that the worst thing that can ever happen to us is to fall. We aren’t allowed to speak about it. We aren’t allowed to ever talk to any guardians while we’re down here. Even just speaking to one can be enough for us to fall.
“T-they knew I let you drink from me. They locked me in this place they called the black room and told me over and over how bad I was, that I would be abandoned. They would throw me out and you would throw me out. Then I wouldn’t have anyone. And they threatened to destroy me.”
Hadrian growled from the driver’s side. “What do you mean they threatened to destroy
you?”
“Like kill me for good, destroy my soul.”
“But no one can…”
“They can. If you’re an angel, they can.”
“What about now? Could they now?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I think they still can. I-I mean I know I’m called a guardian now, but we’re fallen angels, so in a way it makes us still angels.”
He gripped the steering wheel harder. “I’ll find a way to protect you.”
“Hadrian, I don’t think they care anymore. They ripped off my wings and threw me out of the sky. They’re done with me. They have more important business. Nobody up there is sitting around thinking about further punishment for me.”
Hours passed in silence after that. Hadrian was thinking so loud, she could practically hear it. She was glad the anger didn’t seem to be aimed at her.
Around six in the morning—a half hour before sunrise—he stopped at a hotel next to the highway. It was the same chain as the other one with interior hallways. Again he got a suite on the top floor.
Hadrian barely made it into the windowless room before he collapsed on the bed.
Angeline had to remind herself he was fine. This was normal. It was what they did when the sun came up. He wasn’t melting. He was fine. She was exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep in the master bedroom. She couldn’t stop thinking about those screens in Heaven.
What if they weren’t finished with her? What if they’d watched and seen? Maybe they were angry that she might not suffer so much if Hadrian kept her with him. Maybe they were watching right now. Maybe they’d come back for her, drag her back to the heavenly realm and destroy her.
She’d just rest her eyes. As an angel, sleep had been optional. Now that she’d fallen, the weaker light from the Moon insisted she get some sleep to help replenish her.
She blinked, trying to stay awake. Rodolfo stood at the foot of her bed looking down his stern narrow nose at her. She pulled the blankets high to cover herself, even though he’d seen everything while ripping her wings out.
Angeline wanted to scream, but no sound would come out. And it was day, anyway. It wasn’t as if Hadrian could rush to her rescue. And it wasn’t as if he could fight off Rodolfo even if he could. She sat frozen as the angel moved to her, his glistening robes swishing against the side of the bed.
