A Vampire's Christmas Carol

“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**king 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.”

The guard was leading Miles out of the cell. Ben hurried to follow the two men. This was a mistake. A huge, f**king 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…”