It’s for the best, and you know it, I tell myself, and for once, it is the truth. I am not good for her, never have been. It’s selfish to cling to her. I can’t give her what she wants, what she deserves. Sorrow and heartache are all I offer. He is her equal; the man she is supposed to be with. A creature like me doesn’t get the girl, well… not for the long run, anyway.
A vile creature, I berate myself. A liar and a cheat. The worst humanity has to offer does not come close to all I have done through the years. I never deserved her love. She should never have given me her forgiveness. Yet, redemption was impossible without both.
I drop my head into my hands and let the tears fall. Redemption wasn’t the end game when I started on this quest. Revenge and annihilation were the goal. Humanity had run its course, dodged extinction time and time again. They are inferior beings, selfish and cruel, yet indignant and righteous. Sure, there are exceptions whose hearts are full of true compassion. But, even they hold secret, selfish desires, deep in their souls. Desires buried so deep and encased in good intentions that they don’t even know they exist.
The title of hero was never one I wanted. The knowledge that it will be the last one I earn makes me chuckle. Me? A hero? Who would have thought?
A joyless smile curves my lips. Even when I was on the side of the righteous, looking back, I would never have called my actions “heroic.” How heroic is it to prey upon the dying, offer them forgiveness, and guide them to eternal peace? For the first time in my life, I’m prepared to give up what I want for the good of another.
I drop my eyes back to the paper on my desk, and for once, they stay dry. I’m ready to let her go. I’m ready to say good-bye. I’m ready to finish this letter, even if there is only a slim chance she’ll ever see.
My dear Charlotte…
Chapter 1
Louisiana State University, 1998
I didn’t want to love you…
It’s been a long time since a human has scared me. I’ve sat in the background of her life, watching and waiting, popping in and popping out, with her none the wiser to my presence.
“You’re up next, pledge,” the Dean of Pledges says as he taps me on the shoulder.
I internalize my groan while flashing him a false smile. I stand behind some bedsheets, which split the great room into two, uneven halves with the rest of my hopeful brothers. My stomach churns, not from nerves, but from revulsion. The children milling around me are clueless to the forces controlling the world. They cannot fathom the power I wield. All they know are parties and girls, beer and sex. I know of war and death, having been around since the dawn of time. Inferior creatures.
The music booms as the boy preceding me on the stage does a sad excuse for a dance he hopes will entice one of the girls to purchase him. Catcalls and whistles sound shrill in my ears. His drunken shadow stumbles back into the cheap curtains, making them flutter. I catch sight of the only reason I put up with all this nonsense and demean myself to their childlike antics.
She appears uncomfortable on the other side, stealing nervous glances at her “sisters.” With her bottom lip caught in her teeth, she pushes her hair behind her ear and fidgets in her chair. There is no plastic cup in her hand, nor a beer bottle. She and I are probably the only sober people in the house, though I carry a drink and have ingested another.
A curse bounces around in my skull when my heart skips a beat at her image. No woman has ever evoked such a physical response in me, yet she does, every time.
This is a mission. She is an assignment.
It doesn’t matter how many times I say the words. I can lie to my commander. I will lie to the girl on the other side of the bedsheet. But, I cannot lie to myself.
“Pledge!” the dean hisses and snaps his fingers in my direction, indicating it is my time to step out onto the makeshift stage. I force a smile onto my face and crack my neck. Stepping out to be eye-fucked by every female on the other side is not what I want to do. What I want to do is break the dean’s nose. Millennial college kids are the worst of all the students I have ever suffered.
I take a calming breath before strutting through the separation in the two sheets. The girls on either side of my prey nudge her in the ribs with their elbows, and she blushes crimson in response. A fire ignites deep within me. I can’t deny how beautiful she is.
“Ladies! Up next, a southern boy, born and raised right here in Baton Rouge. Let’s hear it for Henry Montplaisir.” The MC slurs my introduction and it takes everything I have not to roll my eyes in irritation.
The music kicks up, Montell Jordan’s This Is How We Do It. I grit my teeth and try to bob to the pedestrian beat. I have rhythm, just no desire to “shake my ass for the ladies.”
I don’t need the added allure. This incarnation of myself is attractive. It needed to be to catch her eye and keep her from the boy my commander is interested in. The kids of this era are influenced so much by their peers, especially those they think themselves in love with. In the midst of grunge culture, my prey prefers the look of a preppy boy. So, I am clean cut with blond hair and a svelte face and form. She likes a fit man who is not overtly muscular. Easy enough to maintain a softer middle that is nowhere near the beer guts my older, soon-to-be “brothers” sport.
My hips draw every female eye but hers, and hands fly into the air.
“Five dollars!” some pudgy sorority pledge shouts.
“Ten!” calls out a brunette, just not the right brunette.
“I’ve got fifteen!”
The voices collide and fight for the honor of a date with me. Yet, she remains mute, eyes downcast to her fidgeting fingers.
A redhead and a strawberry-blonde bookend her. I’ve seen her around campus with the redhead, who stands barely as tall as my chest and is a fellow pledge of their sorority. They are inseparable, except when she is with him, the idealistic youth with the power to alter the course of humankind. It all depends on who influences him: the brunette or my commander, Alyssa Hebert, who is the strawberry blonde and shares a dorm room with my prey.
Furious whispers flow between the three woman in my sights, but my enhanced hearing allows their words to reach me over the music.
“Why aren’t you bidding?” Alyssa demands as girls continue to launch numbers into the ether. My price is getting obscene.
“Ninety-six!”
“Ninety-seven!”
“Ninety-eight!”
Alyssa fumes in her seat, as our plan gets closer and closer to failing. The girl with the highest bid at the end of the song wins the pledge. We’re about two-thirds the way through now.
“Charlotte,” the redhead leans into the brunette’s ear, “isn’t he the one you wanted?”
Charlotte bites her lip and peeks up at me, a shy smile on her face. A face that is young and full of all the hope of life. Her bright eyes follow mine; they never dip to my gyrating pelvis or popping pecs. No, what interests her is what lies beneath this seductive package I created. “He is.”
“One hundred!”
A girl jumps to her feet. “One ten!”
“Then why aren’t you bidding?” Alyssa hisses.
“One twelve!”
The redhead glares across Charlotte at my commander and puts an arm around her friend. “Why aren’t you bidding? Do you not have enough? I don’t have to bid, you know, I can give you money.”
“One seventeen!”
Charlotte flashes her friend a sincere smile and shakes her head. “I have money.”
“One twenty!”
“Then bid!” Alyssa all but screeches. She quakes with the barely reigned in fury roiling through her body.
“One twenty-one!”
This time Charlotte cuts an uneasy glance at her. “All that matters is that I get the last bid, right?”
“One twenty-two!”
The song approaches its end. The corners of her redheaded friend’s lips turn up in a sly grin. “You damn genius! How much do you have?”
“One twenty
-five!”
“Enough,” Charlotte confirms. The last lyrics fill the room. Only a few more notes before the fade out. “Two hundred!” she yells as she leaps to her feet.
The song ends, and the room is dead silent. The MC looks at her in shock. I have to say, I am, too. I would have been the highest earner already at one hundred and twenty-seven. Charlotte shrinks in on herself now that all eyes are on her, and the female ones are all shooting daggers. The girl who held the previous high bid is also on her feet, her jaw hanging from its hinges. Alyssa’s cheeks puff out with her lengthy exhale while the redhead wears a shit-eating grin.
“We have our winner!” the MC exclaims into the mike. “Your name?”
Charlotte blushes an enticing crimson that warms my cold heart. “Charlotte Moore,” she mumbles, and I’m sure that no one but myself heard her.
Shit! The swear word rattles inside my head. Here we go again.
Chapter 2
It wasn’t supposed to be real…
“Well, that was a close call,” Alyssa whispers in my ear during the after-auction kegger. Charlotte is paying the dean for her purchase, me.
I take a sip of my drink, only to regret it, and gag on the fowl taste of cheap beer. Alyssa stifles a laugh.
“I thought it was a rather smart call,” I say as I glare at her.
She comes up to my shoulder, her strawberry-blonde bob framing a pretty face that isn’t her true one. It would be a waste of time to memorize her features. As soon as this venture is over, they’ll change.
She rolls her eyes. “If she was going to grossly outbid everyone, then there was nothing smart about doing it at the last second. Do it first thing and shut everyone down.”
“It was a power move,” I counter. “A way to throw the gauntlet, so to speak.”
“It was stupid and reckless. She almost lost.”
I ignore Alyssa and focus on the woman who purchased me as she ambles over to us. “Hey.” I whisper the lazy greeting of the millennial’s.
“Hey,” she answers, her eyes dropping to her nervous hands.
“We were just discussing whether your last minute bid was sheer genius or rookie luck,” Alyssa jumps in, her gaze locked on Charlotte.
“I’m not sure it was either,” Charlotte admits with a shrug. “I didn’t feel like screaming for three minutes, is all.”
Alyssa narrows her eyes, an open sneer turning that pretty, false face ugly, same as her dark soul.
“It was nice talking to you, Alyssa,” I say, ending our uncomfortable conversation. She may be my commanding officer, we may be on the same team, but I care nothing for the woman.
She claps me on the shoulder, but keeps her gaze on Charlotte. “I know when I’m being dismissed. We’ll meet up tomorrow and exchange notes?” she directs at me.
I nod, fully aware that she doesn’t mean classroom notes.
“Good, oh, and Charlotte?”
Charlotte lifts her chin to look Alyssa in the eye.
“Should I wait up or will you be out all night?” Alyssa laughs at the embarrassed flush that engulfs Charlotte’s face.
“You know,” Charlotte finally addresses her roommate, “don’t wait up. I’ll stay with Paige tonight.” Her eyes cut to her redheaded friend who is speaking with her purchase.
File that away. The friend’s name is Paige. I catalog the friend’s features: short, thin, pale, but with a great smile and bouncy, shoulder-length hair.
I look back at my prey after Alyssa leaves. She’s a head taller than her friend, with chestnut hair that falls to her shoulder blades. Her dancer’s frame has filled out nicely since the first time I stumbled across her five years ago in a ballet class. I was there on orders to look into the boy. There were rumblings about his potential, even at thirteen, but she sidetracked me. Since then, the job is always the same: step in and block them from getting together. I didn’t understand why anyone cared about the dating choices of children. They hardly ever stay together long term at that age, but Alyssa, who was going by the name Mrs. Wendy Benson at the time, was insistent on it. She was the counselor at their middle school. If she had her way, they never would have met. But, after rearranging their classes and keeping them on opposite sides of the school sixth through eighth grade, they managed to run right into each other, literally.
“Everything okay?” her question pulls me out of my memories.
I blink and find Charlotte nervously chewing on her lip. I take a step forward and crowd her. Instead of dropping her gaze back to the ground, she tilts her head back to look up into my face. I’m not much taller than her, at least this version of myself isn’t. If I weren’t wearing this false flesh, I would be a good four inches taller than I am. Yet, her emboldened gaze still surprises me. Our relationships have always started with her rebuking my advances with shy consistency.
“Everything is okay. Why do you ask?” I reply.
“You were lost in thought.” Her teeth work at her bottom lip. “Were you hoping to be purchased by someone else? I won’t hold you to our date.”
I run my fingers along the outside of her upper arm. She shivers, but doesn’t drop her eyes.
“Is there any way I can get you to change your mind?” I whisper into the minimal space between us, pasting my most charming smile on my face.
Her eyes search mine, weighing the sincerity of my offer. “Yes,” she purrs with a little more confidence.
I wait for her answer, my breath caught in my throat. Why is my heart racing? I try to turn my head, but I’m trapped. “Yes,” slips out my mouth with eager anticipation.
Her smile grows. “Convince me that you are worthy.” The challenge laces her words. “Don’t take me out because I bought you.”
My heart skips a beat. It’s been more years than I can count since I’ve been given a choice about what I do, about what I want. She may not have said the words, but what seeps into my soul is, “Don’t take me out because you have to.”
Chapter 3
I’m not sure why I dragged my feet with you…
Charlotte left the party after issuing her challenge, and I haven’t talked to her since. I’ve seen her on campus with him or Paige, sometimes both. We’ve crossed paths at the student union and the quad. She offers me a shy smile each time, but never slows her steps to allow for conversation. This explains why Alyssa is stalking over to me through the library, an exile on a mission. It’s been a few weeks.
“What are you doing?” she hisses under her breath so as not to draw the eyes of the children surrounding us.
I lean back in my chair and arch an eyebrow. “I have a research paper due at the end of the week. What do you think I’m doing?”
Her arm shoots out and sweeps the papers, pens, pencils, books, and laptop off the table where I’m working. Every eye zeroes in on us in morbid curiosity. So much for remaining inconspicuous!
“A bit over the top, don’t you think?” I say in an attempt to deflect everyone’s attention. “It was just a football game, just a kiss. You turned me down.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Henry! Why hasn’t there been a date?”
Snickers emanate from the surrounding peanut gallery, but Alyssa doesn’t realize the damage she is causing by not backing down.
I bend over to collect my scattered belongings and glare at the floor. A heat akin to a fire simmers underneath my skin, alerting me to the fact that Alyssa is close to burning me out of existence. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I whisper, knowing she will hear me, but no one else will. “Erase my presence and you will follow soon after.
The sound of her grinding teeth permeates my ears, and I can’t help but smile. The simmering burn beneath my skin fades away. It is easy to fling threats when you hold all the cards, but Alyssa doesn’t. Muses are my specialty, and Charlotte only responds to me. Other exiled angels–those of us who were evicted from heaven after the battle to control it, but not sentenced to eternity in hell–had tried, and failed, including Alyssa. She may want
to torch me to a crisp with the ignes iudicii, a fiery weapon of angels to cleanse the world of individuals who disrupt the balance, removing them from not only life, but also history, yet she won’t. Not now, anyway. Not until the threat Charlotte poses to the real mission has passed.
“Walk with me.” The three words come out with little emotion, but I know she will infer the command, and will hate it.
She holds her tongue as we cross the campus, making our way to the levies out past the practice fields. No one should be out there at this time of day. It doesn’t matter that it is September; it is hotter than hell out here.
“You realize he gets closer and closer to asking her out each day?” she seethes the second we reach the foot of the levy. “She paid for you–”
“I’m no whore, Alyssa,” I cut in, “and that’s not what Charlotte wants.”
She bristles in response to my comment. “Do you think that this is a game?”
I hitch my backpack higher on my shoulder. The fad of wearing only one strap is so stupid. “You know I don’t.”
And, I don’t. The charismatic boy child has everyone in a frantic state. How he holds the future scales of calamity and peace in his hands, I don’t understand. One man cannot sway an entire people that much, at least, no modern man. There have been a few scattered throughout history, but as the world becomes smaller, it also becomes more divided. By the time he’s even old enough to make a difference, nothing will unite this festering species, one way or the other.
“I also know you didn’t want to be involved with her again.”
Alyssa’s words are a slap to my face. There is more than just not wanting this particular assignment. Muses are dangerous, able to inspire latent desires in every being. Things I don’t even think are possible, I suddenly do, and my deepest dreams aren’t possible. Yet, the dreams are an addiction I can’t shake whenever I’m involved with her.
Once Upon A Midnight Page 177
