Ben’s eyes burned. “She looks the same to me.”
“You are such a f**king liar. That woman looks like a monster. Check the fangs, dude. Look at all of the blood that covers her.”
Ben did, but in his mind, he still saw her as the woman he’d met in New York. The woman who had laughed so sweetly. When they’d bought that Christmas tree together, her eyes had lit up. She’d stared at him with so much love in her gaze.
After they’d decorated the tree, she’d kissed him. Promised him forever.
“Her wings are gone.” Jamison’s voice was flat. “But I guess you never really saw those anyway, did you? How can you miss what you didn’t see?”
Simone started to whistle again as she walked into the night.
“Where is she going?” Ben asked.
“To kill again. That’s pretty much all she does these days. But tonight…tonight will be different for her.”
Ben had to swallow the lump in his throat before he could speak. “Why did she lose her wings?”
“That’s the price for powerful magic. To save your sorry ass, she had to give them up. She traded her wings for your chance at redemption. Her wings…your soul.”
Snow began to fall around them once more. Only…
Ben lifted his hand. It wasn’t snow. Instead of catching an icy snowflake, he was touching a soft, silken feather. An angel’s wings. His hand fisted around that feather. “No.”
“How else do you think you were able to see the past? And the future? An angel’s wings are so powerful—they’re the source of an angel’s magic. Those wings can do anything. Even give a jerk like you a second chance.”
The feathers swirled around them. Ben knew the feathers were taking him to Simone once more. Only it was a Simone he didn’t know. He’d lied when he told Jamison that she looked the same. She didn’t. She looked like a shell of the woman she’d been. All of the vibrancy, the life—it was just gone from her face and her eyes.
The feathers slowly drifted to the ground. Ben glanced around and saw that they were in a cemetery again. Simone was strolling through the graves. She paused for just a moment near what appeared to be a freshly dug grave.
“Fuck,” Ben muttered because he knew how this part of the tale went. “Is that my grave?”
Before Jamison could answer, four shadowy figures sprang from behind the tombs in that cemetery. Another cemetery attack…just like with William…
Only Ben wasn’t in this image. He didn’t rush to Simone’s rescue.
Simone spun toward her attackers, baring her fangs.
“Hunters,” Jamison said on a sigh. “Not all humans are clueless. Especially when you kill as boldly as she’s been doing.”
The men were armed. With—cross bows?
“Simone!” Ben lunged between her and the men just as one guy fired a wooden stake from his cross bow. The stake flew right through Ben’s body, like he wasn’t even there. Fuck, I’m not.
Then Ben heard a gasp behind him.
He spun around. Simone was still standing, but the stake had driven into her chest.
“She’s hit!” Ben heard one of the men yell. “Close in! Take her head!”
Simone’s fingers curled around the stake. She tried to pull it out of her body.
“Must’ve missed her heart,” another man shouted. “I’ll get her this time.”
Simone’s fangs flashed.
And another stake sank into her chest. She fell back then, dropping to the ground.
Ben dove to his knees next to her. “Baby?”
She was choking. Trying to speak. Coughing up blood. But, even though she wasn’t supposed to see him—Jamison had been f**king clear on that—her head turned. Her tear-filled eyes seemed to find Ben.
“L-love…” Simone whispered.
“I’ll take her head,” a man called out.
Simone’s lips curled as her eyes sagged closed.
And a machete sliced toward her throat.
“No!” Ben bellowed.
But his angel was gone. Her blood spilled onto the snow, spreading beneath her like wings. The wings she didn’t have any longer.
His breath heaved out, his lungs burned, and agony twisted Ben’s body. Not Simone. Not Simone. Not Simone.
“Let’s dump her body with the other vamp’s. She sure seemed crazy enough about him. The bloodsuckers can be together in death.”
One man grabbed Simone’s feet. Another her—her head. Ben swallowed bile as he watched a dark-haired male drag Simone’s body toward that freshly dug grave.
“You’ll want to look close for this part,” Jamison advised him.
Ben forced himself to move near the grave. He felt as if the wood had sunk into his own heart. This can’t happen. Not to her.
Jamison pushed him toward the grave. “I know…the flesh is all gone so it’s probably hard to recognize yourself…”
Fuck. Ben craned his head and looked into that grave. He saw…bones. A skull. His skull?
The humans threw Simone’s body in the grave. Her body and her head.
His eyes squeezed shut.
Why don’t you have a Christmas tree? Her voice whispered through his mind. She’d loved those damn trees so much.
And…she loved me.
She’d been so giving. So open. I want to help you.
She’d looked him in the eyes. I love you.
She had. An angel, loving the monster he’d become.
Ben opened his eyes and saw that the men had started shoveling dirt onto her body.
“See?” Jamison asked as he slapped a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “You’re together forever.”
Ben’s heart stopped beating. “I’m really the skeleton in that grave?”
“Um, yes, you are. Simone didn’t wind up saving you, but you…you sure introduced her to the darkness.”
Welcome to the darkness.
“Simone couldn’t handle the darker urges of her vampire side. Not once her wings were gone.”
The men kept shoveling dirt onto Simone.
“Christmas Day,” Jamison said. “She lost the last of her wings then. They were her gift to you, because she knew…” Jamison walked around the grave. “She knew that you’d wind up here. See, after you killed Miles—”
“I didn’t kill him!” William had stopped him before he’d taken the human’s life.
Jamison smiled. “Are you sure about that?”
Ben sucked in a sharp breath.