A Vampire's Christmas Carol(14)

Simone. Her sweet, vanilla scent filled his nose. He could still taste her on his lips. She was real. Not some desperate dream. And he’d had plenty of desperate dreams about her over the years.

She wouldn’t tell him where she’d been. But he would find out. It was only a matter of time. He’d find out all of her secrets, and then Ben would never let her go again.

Her wings were gone now as she approached the cell—an actual prison cell. She’d flown into an open window in the prison. They shouldn’t have fit through that window, but she’d worked some kind of magic and—bam—they’d gotten inside. Ben didn’t know why Simone had brought him to that dim prison but—

“I’m innocent!” A man yelled. Ben saw the guy’s bloody fists curl around the prison bars. “You’ve got to believe me! I didn’t hurt anyone!”

Ben took a few fast steps forward. He knew that voice.

“Don’t worry,” Simone said softly. “He can’t see us or hear us.”

The he in question—the man behind the prison bars—was Miles Gavin. Ben’s lips peeled away from his fangs as a snarl built in his throat.

“It’s an angel trick,” Simone added. Her fingers slid over Ben’s arm, as if she were trying to soothe him. “Angels usually move on the astral plane, and that’s why humans don’t see us.”

The astral plane? That bit of info actually succeeded in temporarily pulling his gaze away from Miles.

Simone licked her lips. “I was granted…special permission so that my magic would cover you, too. We’re in the astral plane right now—that’s how we managed to fit through the window. Space and time distort here.”

Well, at least that was one mystery solved. Or semi-solved. He still didn’t understand half of the shit that was happening.

“Humans can’t see us,” Simone continued softly. “They can never see angels in this plane.” She gave a faint shrug of her shoulders. “That’s why you didn’t see me all those times in New York. Before we met at that shelter, I’d been watching you for quite a while. You just never realized it.”

Apparently, he’d missed one hell of a lot.

“Let me out!” Miles yelled.

Ben narrowed his eyes as he focused on the human. That man should already be dead. Instead, Miles looked far too alive. His blond hair hung over his forehead. A bandage had been applied to his neck. Red stained his cheeks as Miles shouted, “You’ve got the wrong guy! Please, please! It wasn’t me!”

“Bullshit,” Ben growled. “He’s a murdering SOB. I should’ve ripped out his throat when I had the chance.”

“Like you did to the others?” No emotion was in Simone’s voice when she asked this question.

His muscles locked. “I’m a vampire. I have to feed in order to survive.” It was kind of his thing. Ben figured an angel should know that.

Miles was still begging. Hell, it even looked like the man was crying. Did your victims cry, too? Did they beg? Ben knew they had.

“You have to feed, but you don’t have to kill. That’s a choice you make.” Simone took a step away from him.

Ben advanced toward that cell. He was nearly right in front of Miles now, and the man showed no sign of being aware of his presence at all. Ben even waved his hand in front of the guy’s face. No response. He glanced back at Simone.

“You can take from your prey and still leave them alive.” Simone shifted a bit to the right when a guard entered the area.

“Leave them alive? And what? Let them turn out like me?”

Simone shook her head. “A vampire is only made—usually—if a human is drained of blood and then ingests some of the vampire’s blood. There has to be an exchange.” Her head tilted to the right as she studied him. “But after ten years, you’re well aware of how vampires are made. So don’t try to tell me that you kill them because—”

“I kill them because they deserve to die.”

The guard unlocked the cell.

“They’ve killed,” Ben said flatly. “Tortured. It’s not like I’m hurting innocents.” Were there any innocents any longer? Sometimes, he wasn’t so sure. “I’m taking out the trash.” He was doing a f*cking public service. Simone should be thanking him instead of lecturing him.

“You’re free to go, sir,” the guard told Miles.

Miles sucked in a deep gulp of air.

“No.” Ben’s hands fisted. “He killed five women. Strangled them. He—”

“The last attack victim survived,” Simone said, cutting through his words. “But you knew that, of course, because she’s the one who cemented your belief in his guilt. You looked into her memories, and you saw her attacker.”

Angels weren’t the only ones with special powers. She could fly and enter some damn astral plane. Vamps, on the other hand…vamps could compel humans. He’d learned that he could gain entrance into an individual’s mind just by using a mild compulsion. Ben could use his power to see the person’s memories.

When he hunted, he used those memories to guide him. He saw what survivors had witnessed. “I always punish the guilty.” Because he was dead certain of that guilt. “Jasmine Duncan saw him.”