Forbidden (The Preternaturals) (8 page)

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 that 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 her 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.