by Holley Trent
“So, the doctor was a vampire?”
“Yes. He actually turned Stonewall on the day everyone else thought he died. New vampires need a couple of days of complete rest before they can emerge in their altered state. The doctor bit Stonewall, and ordinarily in vampire creation, the inductee would then bite the vampire. But Stonewall was in such a weakened state that the doctor bit himself on the wrist and let the blood trickle into Stonewall’s mouth. The doctor called Stonewall’s family back in the room and pronounced the general dead. Two days after the funeral, the doctor returned to the gravesite and uncovered Stonewall Jackson, vampire.”
“Fascinating. Is that the key to becoming a vampire, drinking vampire blood?” Abby’s heart raced, but not with fear.
“Yes, you would be bitten so the vampire could first mingle your blood with his, and then you would bite the vampire and take a small quantity of co-mingled blood. If you think of it like a blood transfusion, you can only be infused with your blood type. Any other blood type would kill you. By co-mingling the vampire’s blood with yours, you can tolerate the transfusion.”
Malcolm’s face lacked expression, and Abby knew it was for her benefit. This was her decision. A few weeks ago, the prospect of exchanging blood would have made her gag. Today it was fascinating … and sexy. She’d struggled, trying to separate the man from the vampire, but now she saw that the Malcolm she loved was both … and better for it. His dedication to Sarah had translated to his teaching, and now he offered that same dedication to her. She was ready for his world.
“All right, Miss Curious. Surely there’s more you want to know?”
Abby pursed her lips. “You mean about becoming a vampire?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve made up my mind about that, professor, but let’s finish your story first. What happened to Stonewall’s wife and daughter?”
“I continued to visit them after I was turned. They never knew I was a vampire. Mary became a champion for perpetuating the general’s memory, and Julia grew into a lovely young woman. Unfortunately, she died in childbirth when she was in her twenties.”
“How about your family — and Sarah’s?”
“Caroline was already a childless widow, and she died a few years following Sarah. The rest of my family was scattered around Pennsylvania. They assumed I’d gone missing like so many of the soldiers in the war, and I thought it best to let them believe that. About forty years after the war ended, I returned to Gettysburg with the deed to my house. I passed myself off as Colonel McClellan’s grandson. Squatters had set up residence, and it was a mess. It took me more than a year to refurbish the property and the grounds. And as I’ve told you before, I’ve had to leave a few times because of my agelessness. If I stay away long enough, no one is left to remember me.”
Abby nodded. “And that’s always worked for you?”
Malcolm chuckled. “I had a close call once. The eighty-five-year-old widow of the mayor insisted I was a dead ringer for a professor she’d known at the college. I was more than a dead ringer, but I was able to persuade her that everyone has an identical twin in the world.”
“What about the ghost train? Did it simply disappear? And where is Stonewall?”
“When the war ended in 1865, there were no more casualties to collect, at least not in a wholesale way. Soul catchers mobilize around war and natural disasters, and then they disperse when they’re no longer needed. The train was abandoned by the ghosts, and the locomotive is now in a museum in Virginia. There’s a plaque that says it was such a powerful steam engine that rumors suggested it flew. As for Stonewall, he couldn’t bear to be in this country following the war. He moved to England. I continued to correspond with him until the 1940s. Last I heard he was a pilot in the Royal Air Force.” Malcolm smiled. “Any more questions?”
Abby touched the lapel of Malcolm’s tweed jacket and fingered the buttonhole. “No questions, but I do have a request. You’re shared your soul with me, Malcolm, and now I’m ready to share mine with you.” She eased four fingers into the band of his wool slacks.
Malcolm cocked an eyebrow at Abby but didn’t say a word.
“I believe we were destined to be together. When I look back at the choices I’ve made, they all led to us. Returning to Gettysburg after graduate school was about us, and writing the play was about us. Even all the time I spent trying to avoid you was about us. I’ve struggled with reconciling who I am with the amazing woman who was your wife, but I finally realized that no matter who Sarah was, she could not have loved you any more than I do. Nothing is more important to me than being with you. This is my home, wherever you are — forever. I want to be a vampire.”
“You can’t know how lonely my life was until you sauntered into my office in your paint-spattered jeans. You’ve left a handprint on my heart, and I feel whole again.” Tucking a tendril of her hair behind her ears, Malcolm leaned in and whispered, “I thought I’d never love anyone the way I loved Sarah, but I was wrong. If you knew how much you mean to me … ”
Abby shivered as Malcolm traced her ear with his tongue. “Does it hurt, becoming a vampire?”
“There may be waves of nausea and lightheadedness but nothing unbearable,” he whispered huskily, “and I’ll distract you.”
Abby pulled back and looked directly into Malcolm’s eyes. She saw love and joy there. “I’m ready.”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
“Surer than I’ve ever been of anything. There are so many ways I want to show my love for you. I can’t do it in a lifetime. I’m going to need eternity.”
He took her hand. “Before we go upstairs, you have to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“You have to marry me.”
Abby smiled. “Well, that’s easy.”
“Come with me, love.” He backed toward the stairs, pulling her with him, and then he swept her into his arms.
She kicked off her shoes, feeling weightless in his strong arms. When they reached his bedroom, the red tinge of his eyes glowed as he set her gently on the bed.
He smiled. “I’m going to kiss every inch of you.”
Abby closed her eyes to feel his fingers lightly trace a sensuous journey down her body. She raised her arms and on this cue, Malcolm slipped his hands under the billowy silk fabric of her blouse, coaxing it over her head.
She had never been more aware of the blood coursing through her veins, blood that would soon be her beloved’s. She reached up to his hair, and entwining her fingers in his ebony locks, brought his mouth to her neck.
About the Author
Susan Blexrud divides her time between Orlando, Florida, and the mountains of North Carolina. She is married with two adult children. Formerly the director of communications for the city of Orlando, she currently spends her days as a community volunteer, quilter, bird watcher, Yoga and Zumba enthusiast, and conjuror of her next romantic tale.
An Angel Fallen
A Sons of Gulielmus Novella
Holley Trent
Avon, Massachusetts
Copyright © 2014 by Holley Trent.
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.
Published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.
www.crimsonromance.com
ISBN 10: 1-4405-8790-6
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8790-0
eISBN: 1-4405-8791-4
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8791-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictit
iously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © 123RF/Vioral Sima; iStockphoto.com/jiexaa; iStockphoto.com/Pampalini; iStockphoto.com/Gilmanshin
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
The weatherman had wished for a white Christmas, and the asshole had gotten it, all right.
“Hope his junk falls off.” Mark Mayer pulled his cap down over his eyes and burrowed his hands in his pockets as a freezing wind from the Appalachian blizzard passed through him. He groaned. Angels didn’t feel pain, and now that he technically wasn’t one, Mark was being introduced to it in new and exciting ways every day. The damnable snow had to be part of his punishment for choosing to fall. He’d always thought snow was pretty before, but that was when he was still sipping the angelic Kool-Aid. And before he had functioning boy-parts that shrank painfully with each frigid gust through his jeans.
Freezing balls or not, he wouldn’t change a thing … except maybe falling sooner. He wouldn’t be trying to coax the woman whom he hoped was the love of his life out of the mountain woods if he’d manned up six months ago.
“Ah. There she is.” At the sight of a swishing, matted tail, he climbed up onto a short rock ledge and peered into the small cave atop it.
The wolf, with fangs bared and an unholy growl, poked its head out of the small cave it’d taken for cover. Mark put his hands up in the universal gesture of I come in peace and made soothing shushing noises at the animal. Pathetic beast. Her fur was matted and ribs visible beneath her fatless skin. She’d once been a beauty, both on four legs and two.
“Come on, Sweetie,” he said and hoped she recognized her own name, for that’s what it was. It wasn’t a term of endearment, though she was dear to him indeed. Her birth certificate read “Sweetie Evelyn Wolff,” and he knew this because in his months of transition after his fall, he’d had plenty of time to learn all about his werewolf.
Or at least, he hoped she’d be his. “No” seemed to be her favorite word when it came to mates, and she’d likely reject him just like all the rest.
She canted her head to the side and panted breathlessly. Her confusion and fear played across her canine face, but she knew him. Somewhere in that cluttered brain, there had to be a memory of him. As her friend, he’d held her and soothed her for so many hours before she’d walked down this feral path. His empty arms ached at the memory.
“That’s right, Sweetie.” He took a cautious step closer, never taking his eyes from her. “It’s me. Mark. You like me, don’t you? The lady inside you recognizes me. Tell my friend I’d like to say hello.”
All he needed was to get near the frightened wolf, and his touch would do the rest. Their energy had always been compatible, and though his power was greatly diminished now, he hoped he could still be her balm. His healing angel energy had kept her beast at bay in the months leading up to her wolf mania, but those were only quick fixes. Treatment, not a cure. The cure was taking a mate, but she wouldn’t.
She’d always been stubborn.
For more than a year before she’d been overcome by her wolf, he’d been her friend as well as her sometime-partner-in-crime. They’d shared a motley crew of friends and acquaintances comprised of part-demons, demigods, witches, and other sorts of supernatural delinquents. He’d been assigned to protect one of them—Ariel Tate—and Sweetie had been taken in by them, in a way.
Most folks probably didn’t expect to find an entire community of supernaturals living in the Eastern North Carolina boondocks, but Clarissa Morton fostered one there on her land. Not only was she Ariel’s grandmother, but a sort of collector of the paranormal huddled masses. When Sweetie had run from her pack to escape their increasing pressure to take a mate, Clarissa had put her up and Mortonville had gained a ferocious defender in this ray of sunshine that sometimes went furry.
He’d existed for countless millennium, but hadn’t known yearning until he met Sweetie.
Mark held his hand out to the wolf.
She sniffed it, and retreated farther into her hole.
“Dammit. Come on, wolf, you know me. I saved you once, don’t you remember?”
No response from the wolf.
Sighing, he crouched down, nudged his glasses up his nose, and rested his forearms on his thighs. Her mother had suggested he set a trap for her, but that had seemed inhumane. Contrary to the way Sweetie was behaving at the moment, there was still a woman in there.
The local wolf pack called it “the mania.” It was some awful evolutionary disadvantage that kept the pack’s birth rate up high, but often left single wolves with few options for partners. The long and short of it was Sweetie’s hormones were wrecked. The cure was taking a mate. She didn’t want one. She’d known that meant that over time, she’d lose her woman to her wolf, but she’d claimed it was better than the alternative. She’d rather forget who she was and what she knew than to be forced into a mating.
Well. He was going make her understand that she had one more option.
Him.
After all this, he hoped she wanted him. If she didn’t … well, he’d keep her hanging on until she found someone else. This was no way for a woman like her to live. The world needed more women like Sweetie.
He reached into his coat pocket and wrapped his fingers around the jerky he’d brought along. This seemed barbaric to him, teasing her out with scraps of meat like she was a stray dog. But maybe she wouldn’t remember. Once he got her out, he could fix her. Apologize for not doing this sooner. For as much as he’d criticized her for not doing what needed to be done, neither had he. He’d waited for some other man to step up, but maybe it had needed to be him all along.
Mark tossed the meat to the front of the hole. After a moment, she poked her nose out and sniffed it. With a fast snap of her powerful jaw, she snatched it up and scooted back into the shadows before he could grab her.
“For fuck’s sake.” He shook his head. He still had angel reflexes and should have been better than this. He was smarter than this, and yet he was letting an animal get the better of him. She was winning because he refused to treat her like what she’d become.
“All right, pup,” he muttered. “You want to act like a wild dog, I’ll play along.”
The yellow-green of Sweetie’s eyes shone like beacons inside her shadowy niche. She’d stopped growling. Whether it was the meat or the sound of his voice, he didn’t know, but she seemed less agitated. He wasn’t, though. Each blink of hers marked off a few seconds of tense silence that eroded his shrinking reserve of patience.
He wanted to take her home now, and the kind gentleness of his angel days wasn’t going to serve him well. She’d always told him he was too sweet for his own good. Well, he’d lost some of that sweetness right around the time his best friend decided to disappear into the fucking woods. He felt it was half his fault for not telling her sooner that he wanted her.
He clicked his tongue at her and snapped his fingers. “Come here, girl.”
She blinked again, unmoving.
“You want me to throw kibble at you? Maybe a dead rabbit?”
She lifted her head and made a little woof sound.
“Are you kidding me?” If Sweetie-the-woman really was front and center in the brain she shared with the animal, she would have been gagging about now. She didn’t even like gamey meat. Mark needed to find a way to put her back into the driver’s seat in her head.
He clicked his tongue and kept his stare on the wolf. If the wolf was hungry, maybe the woman was, too.
There was one last piece of jerky in his pocket. He extended it to her, and this time didn’t let go. “Aren’t you hungry? You’re so skinny. Are you’re confused
. You can’t remember what’s okay to hunt. You don’t want to hurt anything you’re not supposed to, right?”
She blinked.
“Come with me. I’ll get you something good to eat. No rabbit, but maybe a steak.”
That pulled an emphatic bark from the wolf’s throat. She eased forward and grabbed the end of the jerky between her side teeth. She tried to tug it away from him, but he held on.
“Okay, then. Steak. Maybe you’ll let me cook it a little. I’m getting better at it.” He chuckled and slowly extended his hand to touch her paw.
When she didn’t flinch, he stroked her foreleg softly and whispered encouraging words.
She inched out, nose-first, and he grabbed her around the flanks before she could pull away.
She nipped at him, letting the jerky fall, and setting her razor-sharp teeth into the fabric of his coat. Her legs flailed wildly, but he held her tight and pressed his face against the fur of her neck. “It’s all right to fall apart,” he said to the woman in the wolf. “You did it, and now I’m going to put you back together. Take what you need from me.”
The wolf wouldn’t know what that meant, but the woman inside would. That woman had been depriving herself of the soothing energy she’d needed for too long, and he wasn’t even sure she’d take it from him. “Fixing” a wolf wasn’t a temporary thing. Wolves mated for life. If she accepted him, they’d be psychically and intimately tethered for the rest of their lives, and given Mark’s still-intact immortality, that’d be a very long time. He was fine with that—their needs and wants being all wrapped up in each other’s. Knowing everything about each other. Propping each other up. He’d fallen for the hope of that—of having her for a wife. It’d be a different kind of heaven than what he’d known.
