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.”
Slowly, Ben’s stare came back to her. Though it hurt Simone, she had to tell him the rest. She took a deep breath and said, “You’ve become the monster in the shadows that others fear.”
“I…didn’t know he was here.”
“But you should have known. You have vampire senses, Ben. They’re far more enhanced than a human’s. You should’ve heard him. Smelled him. Something. But you were just so focused on your kill that you missed what was right in front of you.” And now the boy’s life would be changed forever. Simone was so desperate to make Ben understand what was happening. One life could impact so many others.
For better.
For…worse.
One life could do so much good, or so much terrible evil.
The air around her seemed to grow colder. “We don’t have much time left.” She offered Ben her hand.
He didn’t take it. “Can’t I just walk?”
“Ben—”
“This little show and tell routine is interesting and all, but I’d rather not fly angel anymore if that’s all the same to you.”
She grabbed his hand.
“Shit,” Ben muttered.
***
They touched down on an old, snow-covered road. Trees surrounded each side of the road. The leaves had long since vanished from those trees, and the gray tree trunks and limbs were frozen in the winter silence.
Simone pointed to the left. “This way will take you out of Desolate.” She looked to the right. “And that path will just take you back to your cabin.” Her gaze came back to his. Her dark gaze gleamed with emotion. “You have to choose the direction you take, Ben. It’s all on you.”
He stared into her eyes. There were deep golden flecks in her eyes. How had he missed those before?
“I don’t want you to return to that cabin.” She shook her head, and her hair slipped over her shoulders. “I don’t want you closing yourself off from what could be in this world.”
No snow was falling. Ben glanced up and saw that the sky above glinted with a thousand stars.
Simone’s fingers caught his. “I don’t want you to return to hunting and killing in alleys. You deserve more than just the darkness.”
But that was all he knew. He hadn’t known light since she left him. “He welcomed me to the darkness. That bastard who changed me. He turned me into…this.”
“Most vampires do go dark. They can’t resist the call of the blood. They…they lose themselves in the dark hunger that burns within them. The hunger for blood. For power.”
Great news.
“I don’t want that to be you. It doesn’t have to be you.” Her fingers tightened around his. “That’s what this night is about. You’re getting a second chance. You can see the world differently. You can be different tonight.”
He didn’t feel different. His tongue slid over his fangs. “I want your blood again.”
Her breath caught.
“I can hear your heart pounding,” Ben continued. Because he did hear it. Calling to him. Tempting him. “I want to put my mouth on your throat, and I want to damn well devour you.”
She should have backed away from him. Simone didn’t. She inched closer. “Then why aren’t you? Why aren’t you biting me right now?”
“Because I don’t want to hurt you.” Not ever. His hand turned so that he was the one holding her. “If you stay with me, I can change.” Hell, did that sound like begging?
“I-I can’t stay…”
No. Fear clawed him from the inside. “You came back to me. You want me—dammit, I proved how much we both need each other back at that cabin.”
“I’ve always wanted you,” she said as her gaze held his. “Vampire or man, I want you.”
“Then stay.” He would make her stay. “You want me to be some kind of better vamp? Some f**king good guy? Then you stay with me, and I’ll change.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Bull. “It’s as easy as we want it to be.”
She looked away from him. Gazed into the darkness.
A strange awareness rose over his skin. He almost felt as if…as if Simone were staring at someone. But when he followed her gaze and peered into the darkness, Ben couldn’t see anyone.