A Vampire's Christmas Carol by Cynthia Eden Read Free Book Online Page A

floor. “We can’t. Not now.” The minutes were ticking past too quickly. Her shoulders squared. “Time is running out. Get dressed. We have to go.”
    He rose slowly. Had he missed the whole “time is running out” part?  He dressed, never taking his eyes from her, then Ben stalked toward Simone. She exhaled on a relieved breath. “I move fast,” she told him. Simone figured he needed the warning. Her wings spread behind her. “So just hold on to me. You can even close your eyes, if you want. When you open them, we’ll be at our first stop.”
    “Screw that,” he said as his fingers closed around her and he pulled her against him. “I want you to stay right—”
    Her wings flapped. She locked her hands on him and shot into the air, nearly ramming into the roof of the cabin. Her hold jerked Ben up with her. 
    “Shit,” Ben muttered. “
Shit.”
    Simone almost smiled. Then she flew them right through the nearest window and out into the night. 
    ***
    Ben’s feet slammed into the ground and he nearly fell to his knees as his stomach finally left his throat and returned to its normal position. “What was that?”
    Simone pushed back her long, blonde hair and grinned at him. “Angel speed.” Her dark eyes seemed to shine.
    He never wanted to experience angel speed again.
    “It’s how we can get to so many places in moments.” She snapped her fingers together. “Just like that.” 
    No, he thought it was more like the speed of light.  Ben heaved out a breath as he straightened.  The last thing he wanted was to look weak in front of Simone.
    Simone.
Her sweet, vanilla scent filled his nose. He could still taste her on his lips. She was real. Not some desperate dream. And he’d had plenty of desperate dreams about her over the years.
    She wouldn’t tell him where she’d been. But he would find out. It was only a matter of time. He’d find out all of her secrets, and then Ben would never let her go again.
    Her wings were gone now as she approached the cell—an actual prison cell. She’d flown into an open window in the prison. They shouldn’t have fit through that window, but she’d worked some kind of magic and—
bam
—they’d gotten inside. Ben didn’t know why Simone had brought him to that dim prison but—
    “I’m innocent!” A man yelled. Ben saw the guy’s bloody fists curl around the prison bars. “You’ve got to believe me! I didn’t hurt anyone!” 
    Ben took a few fast steps forward. He knew that voice.
    “Don’t worry,” Simone said softly. “He can’t see us or hear us.”
    The
he
in question—the man behind the prison bars—was Miles Gavin.  Ben’s lips peeled away from his fangs as a snarl built in his throat.
    “It’s an angel trick,” Simone added. Her fingers slid over Ben’s arm, as if she were trying to soothe him. “Angels usually move on the astral plane, and that’s why humans don’t see us.”
    The astral plane? That bit of info actually succeeded in temporarily pulling his gaze away from Miles.
    Simone licked her lips. “I was granted…special permission so that my magic would cover you, too. We’re in the astral plane right now—that’s how we managed to fit through the window. Space and time distort here.”
    Well, at least that was one mystery solved. Or semi-solved. He still didn’t understand half of the shit that was happening.
    “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