Free Forbidden (The Preternaturals) by Zoe Winters Page A

“I’m scared. I haven’t
died in a long time.”
    He squeezed her hand. “I know.”
    “You could have been a great vampire, but you had to go and turn out to be
good.” She injected extra disgust into the word good as if
even the smallest measure of moral fortitude was no better than a
rash.
    “Who says I’m good? Goodbye, Angeline. May God have mercy on your soul.”
    He went inside and latched the door shut. On his way to his chambers, he
spotted the things Angeline had come back for. Curious, he crossed
the creaking hardwood floors and untied the ropes on the black velvet
handbag.
    Hadrian hissed, his face taking on the demonic visage as his hand jerked away
from the offending object that had burned it. He dumped the contents
of the bag. There were only two things inside: a folded piece of
parchment with a hand-drawing of the virgin mother, and what must
have been a centuries-old rosary. He wasn’t sure when she’d
gotten or made the drawing, but he had no doubt the rosary had been
hers when she’d been human.
    His gaze went back to the door. He took a step toward it, having second
thoughts, but he stopped himself. It was a better life for her if she
could start over and bury all this. He put the parchment and rosary
back inside the bag, careful not to let the cross touch his skin
again. He took the bag and her cloak back to his chambers. The last
thing he heard before he fell dead for the day were the screams of
his maker.

    Forbidden

    Chapter One
    Present Day

    Angeline’s gaze panned
up to take in the full imposing force of the Las Vegas church.
Hadrian’s church. The austere gray stone had lost its polish and
shine over the years but had yet to be demolished. It clung to life
with a single weekly morning mass while the vampire lay dead for the
day. Midnight mass had long since been abandoned, and confessions
were only heard on Saturday afternoons. Not by him.
    She’d known Hadrian would return to this place to lick his wounds in peace.
He always returned here when he was hurting. He’d been in hiding
for nearly a year now, since his banishment from the vampire king’s
court. Angeline should have come to warn him much sooner. The king
had grown more determined for retribution.
    She stopped outside the giant wooden doors and reached to take the
handle, then pulled back as if burned by it.
    You can do this. You must do this.
    From the moment she’d returned to this plane, she’d watched over him
as the guilt clawed at her. That night wouldn’t stop replaying—the
night she’d turned him into a monster. Her twisted words and the
depravity of desecrating his church played over and over in her
private mental theater. Every time she went to sleep, she dreamed of
it only to wake struggling for air, remembering that searing moment
of death when the sunlight had touched her face for the first time in
over two hundred years.
    Now more than ever, she wished she had some liquid courage. Though blood
repulsed her, she still remembered how an addict’s vein could take
her out of herself and make her brave enough. Sometimes too brave.
    She breathed in the magic that surrounded Our Lady of Mercy . Every
decade or so Father Hadrian paid someone to put up new wards. It
shielded the church from preternatural beings to offer him true
sanctuary when he needed it, when innocents needed it. It allowed
only him… and her.
    After all, who could bar an angel from a church?
    The smell of incense filled the air as she pushed the door open. He sat
on the front row before a statue of the virgin mother, his head in
his hands. She smelled the salt of his tears as she glided down the
aisle to him.
    No. She couldn’t do this. She turned and went back up the aisle as
quietly as she could.
    “I can smell you, you know.”
    She froze. If she kept walking, he’d never know it was her. Once she
cleared the door, she’d release her wings and fly far from here. It
was better to watch from a distance and intervene on his behalf