To Kill An Angel (34 page)

“Shh,” he said, pressing his fingertip to my lips this time.  “No buts.  I thought you’d be happy.”

“I am.  I mean…I am!  I just don’t want you making sacrifices for me.”

“You mean like throwing myself in front of a bullet or a train or a…sword made from a feather?” he asked pointedly.

“That was different.  I knew that you would die if I didn’t.”

Bo sat up, too.

“What did you think would happen to me if you had died, huh?  How did you think I would survive without you?”

I had no answer for that.  I had no idea how Bo felt, but if it was anything close to what I felt for him, I knew that survival would be nearly impossible, not to mention earth-shatteringly miserable.

“I did what I had to in order to save you.  I’m sorry if it didn’t turn out the way that you’d planned.”

“Are you kidding?  It couldn’t have turned out more perfectly, but the point is that you didn’t
know
how it would turn out.  Ridley, you willingly gave your life for mine.”

I cast my eyes down, embarrassed by him making such a fuss over it.

“I know, but I couldn’t stand the thought of a world without you.”

Bo put a finger under my chin.

“And I feel the same way, but now we don’t have to worry about that.  Ridley, we can be together forever.  Forever,” he repeated meaningfully.

As I looked into his beautiful eyes, I felt all the doubts and insecurities, all the fear and uncertainty melt away like early morning mist.  My life wasn’t going to be full of misery and grief, of pain and loss.  Bo and I would be together forever.  We would go to college and buy a house.  We would get married and have a baby.  We would live, just like regular people.  Well, almost. 

Leaning forward, I pressed a tiny kiss on Bo’s lips.

“You make me whole, you know.  You are the only thing I need to live, the only thing I need to be happy.”

Bo put his palm on my chest and pushed me back onto the bed, rolling smoothly on top of me.  He rested his weight on his forearms as he stared down at me with his fathomless eyes.

“Why don’t we concentrate really hard and see if we can get a glimpse of that future again, like we did last time.”

Images of Bo’s naked body pressed to mine, the remembered feel of his lips on my skin and his hands bringing me to passionate life, flooded my mind as his kiss brought my blood to an instant boil.

With a finger to my chin, he held my face in place as he positioned his throat near my mouth.  My fangs slid out in anticipation.

“I love you, Ridley,” he said, his body shifting against me as he awaited my bite.  “My blood is yours.  My body is yours.  My heart is yours.  My life is yours.  Take it all.”

With a happier, lighter heart than I could ever remember having, I sank my teeth into Bo’s artery.  As I let the blood of our life, our love and our future pour over my tongue, I realized that this was the first bite of a million more to come.  Forever is a long, sweet time.

THE END

A FINAL WORD

A few times in life, I’ve found myself in a position of such love and gratitude that saying THANK YOU seems trite, like it’s just not enough.  That is the position that I find myself in now when it comes to you, my readers.  You are the sole reason that my dream of being a writer has come true.  I knew that it would be gratifying and wonderful to finally have a job that I loved so much, but I had no idea that it would be outweighed and outshined by the unimaginable pleasure that I get from hearing that you love my work, that it’s touched you in some way or that your life seems a little bit better for having read it.  So it is from the depths of my soul, from the very bottom of my heart that I say I simply cannot THANK YOU enough.  I’ve added this note to all my stories with the link to a blog post that I really hope you’ll take a minute to read.  It is a true and sincere expression of my humble appreciation.  I love each and every one of you and you’ll never know what your many encouraging posts, comments and e-mails have meant to me. 

http://mleightonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/06/when-thanks-is-not-enough.html

Other books by M. Leighton

Blood Like Poison: For the Love of a Vampire

Blood Like Poison: Destined for a Vampire

Caterpillar

Madly & Wolfhardt

The Reaping

Wiccan

Follow me

Blog:  http://mleightonbooks.blogspot.com

Facebook:  M. Leighton Author Page

Twitter:  mleightonbooks

Goodreads:  M. Leighton, Author

Contact me

[email protected]

If you like a little more darkness with your romance,

TURN THE PAGE to read an excerpt of
Wiccan

WICCAN

By M. Leighton

CHAPTER ONE

“Tonight I’m not Lisa.  I’m Tony,” the girl said. 

Her suggestive tone was met with a throaty chuckle.  Though she wore a thin, fake goatee, there was no mistaking the feminine beauty of her face. Lisa, as she’d called herself, had big brown eyes and short black hair.  The pixie cut was disheveled as if she’d recently run her fingers through it.  Thick grass framed her head in a spiky halo and the top two buttons of her dress shirt were undone.  A dark blue tie hung loosely around her neck, lying off to one side.

Her lips curved into a sultry smile and her lids were heavy with passion as she looked up into her lover’s face.  She reached up and twisted a lock of dark red hair around her finger. 

“I love it,” she said huskily.  “It makes me feel so dirty.”

Her eyes drifted closed as two black-gloved hands came up to cup her face.  Her lover leaned forward and long fiery hair dropped down like a curtain to conceal them both. 

I could hear the soft wet sounds of their lips as they kissed and then her partner leaned back and I saw Lisa again.  Her expression was one of dreamy desire as the gloved hands of her lover slid down to her throat.  Lisa tipped her head back to let the long fingers stroke the pale skin of her neck. 

When the fingers wound around Lisa’s throat and began to squeeze, she grinned as if she was enjoying an inside joke.  But when they continued to tighten, Lisa’s smile began to waver.  It faded completely when the creak of stretching glove leather broke the silence.  The hands sunk deeper and deeper into her flesh, squeezing tighter and tighter, and Lisa’s sober expression quickly turned to a mask of terror.

Her face reddened as she struggled to breathe.  To no avail, Lisa’s fingers clawed at the hands squeezing her airway shut.  She opened her mouth to scream, but it was nothing more than a hoarse croak that barely stirred the stillness.  Her lips worked themselves open and closed in several futile attempts to breathe.  

Lisa began to shake her head back and forth, back and forth, in a final and desperate effort to free herself.  Her lover simply bore down, subduing her easily.  Red hair swung forward and thumbs bit into Lisa’s flesh.  Her eyes watered and darted around frantically.  Her tongue protruded grotesquely as she flailed. 

My pulse throbbed in my ears when I saw a white ring appear around her mouth.  It looked clown-like against the purplish red of her face. I knew what it meant, though.  Lisa was suffocating. 

Little by little, Lisa’s struggles waned until she finally went limp.  I watched the life fade from her eyes as the seconds ticked by.  Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t move.  I was tied to the scene until the murder was complete. 

By the time the hands finally loosened and pulled away from her neck, Lisa’s eyes were open and glassy, staring past me, out into oblivion.  Now the earthy brown orbs were nothing more than windows into the hollow darkness of death.

Right before my eyes, the vision drifted away like early morning fog as the clarity of the present swept in.  I took several deep calming breaths and reminded myself that it was just an image, that’s all.  There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing to feel bad about.  There wasn’t anything I could’ve done to help her. 

My visions, while terrifying, were always like that—pretty much useless.  They were glimpses of past events that flooded my mind when I walked over the site of a violent attack, an attack that most often resulted in a homicide. 

But as usual, despite the irrationality of it, I had a moment of intense sadness.  I felt sorry for the girl, for what she’d suffered and who she’d left behind, for the fact that no one had helped her and neither could I.  It didn’t make any sense, but I’d learned to accept it.  Well, somewhat anyway.

I was still in the grass beside the sidewalk when I heard the rhythmic sound of heavy footfalls.  Blinking several times, I looked around and saw a runner jogging toward me, his feet thumping steadily on the concrete. 

The sidewalk behind me was old and cracked and snaked through a little patch of woods that decorated the northwest corner of campus.  It was well hidden and out of sight and, as far as I knew, only used by joggers.  I had to admit, it was a great place for murder.  The only reason I’d come this way to school was because my house was just through the trees and on the other side of the river.  Now I was going to have to find a different route to take.  This one was forever spoiled.

I looked to my left, toward the quad up ahead and my final destination, Fisk Hall, just beyond it.  I knew I should get going, but my eyes were drawn once more to the grass where I’d seen Lisa take her last breath only moments before.  Quickly, I was lost again in the images that were still fresh and vivid in my mind. 

“Are you alright?” 

The deep voice startled me.  With a gasp, I put my hand to my chest to steady my runaway heart. 

“Sorry.  Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.  It was the runner.  He’d stopped and walked across the grass to check on me.

“No, no, you’re fine.  I was just, uh-.  Sorry,” I said, shaking my head.  “I’m just a little preoccupied.  The first day of school and all.”  I shrugged my shoulders in what I hoped was a casual gesture.

“Freshman, huh?”