A Vampire's Christmas Carol(15)

The guard was leading Miles out of the cell. Ben hurried to follow the two men. This was a mistake. A huge, f*cking mistake. Miles Gavin would just go out and kill again. He needed to be in the ground. He needed—

“Daddy!”

A little, red-haired boy ran toward Miles. The child threw his arms around Miles’s legs and held tight.

And…a few feet away, another tall, blond man slouched in a chair, with his wrists cuffed in front of him. That man looked up at the boy’s cry. His face…the man had the same face as Miles.

“Miles has a twin brother,” Simone said as her arm brushed against Ben’s. “Your victim didn’t know that. Since she didn’t know it, neither did you.”

Miles sank to his knees and buried his face in his son’s neck.

A twin?

Simone cleared her throat. “His brother stole his name. They shared the same face, so the deception was easy. Alex—that’s his brother—he used Miles’s money, he used his connections, and he took as much as he could from his brother.”

Miles was holding tightly to the little boy.

“But there are some things you just can’t take away,” Simone murmured.

Ben looked over at her.

Her gaze held his. “Tonight was important for you. This kill…taking Miles Gavin’s life would have changed you.”

His hands were shaking. I was wrong?

“You’re not meant to be judge, jury, and executioner.” Simone’s hands curled around his shoulders as she turned Ben to fully face her. “And you’re not supposed to just be a monster hiding in the dark.”

“So what am I supposed to be?” His voice was little more than a growl. He didn’t know how to be anything other than a monster now.

“More,” Simone whispered. “I need you to be more. For me. For yourself.” He saw her wings began to rise from her back again.

Oh, shit. “Wait—”

It was too late. His stomach hit his throat once more as they took off.





Chapter Seven


“Where in the hell are we now?” Ben asked as he jerked away from her.

“This is a long way from hell,” Simone murmured. “Trust me on that one.”

He was shaken, she could see it. She’d hoped for that exact reaction when she took him to the little jail in Desolate.

Ben had almost killed an innocent man. If William hadn’t stopped him, Miles Gavin would have died in that alley.

Instead, Miles would be spending the night with his son.

And she and Ben had returned to the alley in question. The spot that had started everything on Christmas Eve. “This is where you almost killed him,” she said as she pointed to the dirty brick wall just a few feet away.

His eyes widened. “You sent the demon, didn’t you?”

Yes, she had. She’d paid a heavy price for the night’s work. “I wanted to save you.” Okay, so maybe she’d never completely stopped watching over him. Maybe she couldn’t. Love didn’t stop, no matter how much time passed. “You were so intent on killing tonight that you missed a few things here…”

He growled at her.

“Don’t bite the messenger,” she told him, aware that her voice held more than a little bite of its own. “Because you need to hear this message.” While there was still time. She exhaled slowly. “Maybe you should have gone a little deeper into the alley.” She led the way as they advanced into the darkness of the alley. A dumpster waited in the far back, near the rear entrance to a restaurant.

She heard the rustle then. Such a faint sound. Easily overlooked. As overlooked as the person who’d made the sound.

Ben grabbed her arm and pushed her behind him. Simone smiled. He was protecting her. It was sweet, really. The big, bad vampire—trying to shield her. She’d been right about Ben. He wasn’t a lost cause, not yet.

“You’re so busy punishing the world,” she told him, her heart aching, “that you forget you can save it.” Help. When she’d first been assigned duty as Ben’s angel, she’d whispered that message into his ear so many times.

The rustle came again. She looked up and saw a hand curve over the edge of the dumpster. A second hand joined it as a young boy—around seventeen—pulled his body up and out of that garbage-filled bin. He was wearing old, mismatched clothes, and when he hit the ground, she saw that his too-big shoes were lined with holes.

“He saw you, by the way,” Simone added. “When you nearly killed Miles, he was watching.”

Ben’s gaze was on the boy.

“That’s Cale. He pretty much lives in this alley, but after seeing you, he’s getting ready to rush off. He’s afraid the cops will come back and find him here.”

The boy’s stare darted nervously around the alley.

“Or he’s afraid that you’ll come find him.” Simone was pretty sure that particular fear consumed the boy’s mind.

The boy ran past them. Simone could feel the heat of his body, just for a moment, then he was gone.

Ben stared after him.

“Cale hid when he heard you come into the alley. He jumped into the dumpster…” Simone wrinkled her nose. That dumpster was foul. “He stayed there until the cops were gone. You scared him so much that he was afraid to move…until now.”