Forbidden (The Preternaturals) (20 page)

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.

He reached out for her. His hand glowed as he pressed it against the
center of her chest and she felt the burn of final destruction begin.

Angeline sat up, nearly hyperventilating, her eyes darting around the room.
But Rodolfo wasn’t there. She’d fallen asleep for just a moment.
The clock on the nightstand read nine o’clock. She shielded her
eyes from the morning light streaming in the window and went to check
that the balcony door was locked. Maybe she should go for a short
flight, but after the realness of Rodolfo’s glowing hand burning
through her to disintegrate her soul, she didn’t want to be out and
about.

She slipped into Hadrian’s room and shut and locked the door behind
her—as if that lock would stop anyone from entering—particularly
an angel anyone.

Hadrian looked dead. He’d gotten his shirt and shoes off before collapsing,
but then the sunrise had taken him. Angeline climbed into the bed.
She’d wake before sunset and go back to her room before he knew
she’d been there.

***

Hadrian woke to the most lovely smell. Dinner, delivered in bed. At some
point in the day his dark angel had moved to his room. Her head
rested on his chest, one arm and one leg thrown over him. He raised
her arm to his mouth, and his fangs elongated.

She jerked and let out a whimper, still not fully awake, as he bit into
her flesh. He didn’t care what she said, the taste had not
diminished by any noticeable margin. There was less power in it, yes.
Her guardian blood still made him feel stronger than human blood by a
large degree, even more than therian or witch blood. But the taste
was still the best he’d ever had.