Love Bites Then it Sucks by Julie Steimle (best self help books to read .TXT) 📕

“And forget Eve?” Hanz bristled. “I can’t.”

“Or you won’t,” Andy said.

“Fine.” Hanz marched up the steps. “I won’t. I don’t want to. Yeah, seeing all that demon stuff freaked me out. And yeah, I would love it if Eve were just an ordinary human girl with albinism. It would make her life easier just as much as mine. But that is not the case. And when I decided I wanted to be with her, I accepted all of what she was—from a nocturnal being with wings and fangs, to a pale girl who can’t abide the sun long, and can never have a baby with me….” He breathed hard, shaking his head. “I love her. And I won’t give up.”

I was in tears. Beautiful, wonderful Hanz was never going to quit looking for me, and that just endeared me to him more. Watching Andy, that guy they called Art, and Hanz from almost flight below, I didn’t dare get close in case the gray angels could sense I was about to speak to my beloved. I had a feeling they had a way of tracking certain people, especially my contact with Hanz. I just didn’t know how.

I heard Andy say, “But you might have to.”

And damn, he was probably right too. Andy could not see me. None of them could. Tom and Matthew had gone way ahead, trying their darndest to keep their friend Troy from committing his stupid suicide. I would have to talk with the idiot before the night was out, if I could. It all depended upon when the gray angels claimed me. I could sense them searching for me in the area, but I had a feeling they actually would not look for me in the stairwell, which was absurd to me. Then again, what use would I have for stairs normally?

“Don’t say that,” Hanz said, responding to Andy.

Andy shook his head, him imps screaming for him his slap Hanz on the forehead and call him a love-sick fool, which wasn’t much of an insult. “But you know it is the most likely end. Eve could be a reaper for hundreds of years.”

“She… what?” Art got that confused look on his face again.

Hanz colored. “I don’t care.”

“But what if Eve has moved on?” Andy asked.

I stared up at him, cringing. Why would he say that to Hanz?

Hanz bristled. “Moved on in that she has forgotten me?”

“I would never forget you,” I said, watching them. Hanz for a second turned his head as if he heard me.

“No,” Andy halted again. “I’d doubt that.”

That was a relief. I had started to get mad at Andy for suggesting such a thing.

“But she may have accepted that there is no way out this but through it,” Andy said. “And the only way through this trial might take the duration of her life—and you know that is about three hundred years.”

A knot formed in my throat. I had been afraid that was true. I gazed to Hanz who clearly had worried about that as well. He said nothing.

“Do you intend to search for her for the rest of your life?” Andy asked.

Painfully, Hanz closed his eyes and nodded.

“Why?” Andy watched his face, amazed and yet also distressed. Art looked especially intrigued as if the idea of one true love forever was impractical. I wondered what kind of upbringing Art had. He clearly wasn’t a romantic.

“How can I possibly move on after her?” Hanz said. “She really was the woman of my dreams.”

Andy sighed, nodding.

“You might have to,” Silvia Lewis said, walking down the steps, echoing Andy’s previous remarks.

All three men stared up at her, Andy especially annoyed by her, though Hanz frowned, wishing Silvia gone. His imps were suggesting some rude things to say to her.

She said, “You should take a lesson from Howie Deacon about love. Oh—that’s right. You call him Rick.”

Andy raised his eyebrows and peeked at Hanz thoughtfully. I could see a new argument coming, but I was intrigued over what Silvia was suggesting. She wasn’t talking about that she-wolf Daisy, was she? Rick didn’t want to be with her. That was something more primal, like an addiction. His situation was entirely unrelated.

“Rick has a major thing for this gal named Audry—”

Was that the same Audry Jessica had invited to the wedding as a bridesmaid? The one who went to Africa? I had not heard about this one.

 “—and he had to let her go, as the supernatural world was too dangerous for her,” Silvia said.

Oh. I started to wonder about that. Rick was always embarrassed around me when it came to his relationships with women. It was as if he felt he was betraying me for liking someone else.

“I’m going to have to agree with ol’ A.B. here and say you should just let Eve go. Perhaps those ‘angels’ who kidnapped her were right,” Silvia said. “You are a normal, healthy guy without any—”

“No.” Hanz shook his head. He solidly met Silvia’s gaze. “I could have severed all connection with Eve ages ago. We could have just been passing acquaintances. But I decided back when I saw her again that I wanted to give us a second chance.”

Silvia rolled her eyes. “But what if that chance is over?”

I stared up at her. The worst part was, she was probably right. It probably would be best for me to let Hanz go. Best for him. He should have a sweet, innocent kind of gal at his side, one who would do all those homemaker crafty things that I was not adept at, and give him lots of kids, just like his mother. He deserved that. He deserved his dream future, not something like me. I was, even as a vimp, death incarnate. I was ‘barren’ and would forever be. And adoption was out of the question. I would never be allowed. Hanz would become a great doctor, but really, what would I be contributing to our relationship except putting him in danger by being the one and only vimp.

“It isn’t over,” Hanz said. He met Silvia’s gaze, marching up the steps toward her. “Where there is life, there is hope—and she is not dead yet.”

I loved him for that, but I was now worried his hope would make him miserable. Perhaps the letter had been a bad idea. What had I done to him?

Silvia watched him as he passed her, going toward the roof. I heard her sigh when Andy walked toward her with Art.

“I tried.” She shrugged, hands up.

But Andy shook his head. “He’s not going to give up. And it is going to drive him mad.”

“Oh crap…” Art stared up after Hanz.

“Hey.” Andy pulled him aside. “I need you to help him out. I had no idea you and he were friends, but now that you’re here, we need you.”

“Yeah…” Art nodded. “Maybe we can both see a shrink.”

Silvia smothered a snort, but nodded while smirking at Art whom I was sure she did not know nor had she met until tonight.

Poor Hanz. He really was a wreck. How could I help him? There was no way I could come back now, not with all the wounds I had in me. It would devastate him. I was beyond mortality, and there really could no longer be an ‘us’. It broke my heart to admit it, but I had to. Andy was right. I could be a death angel for the next couple hundred years. All of them would have passed away, and Hanz would have wasted his life looking for me instead of living. I could not do that to him. I needed to think of way to convince Hanz to forget me and move on—even though I knew I would never get over him.

But first I had to deal with Troy the idiot.

They all emerged up on the hospital roof together. Hanz had gone ahead to where Matt, Tom, and the rest were with their suicidal vampire. Troy had chosen a rooftop structure to lean on while the others sat around him trying to talk him out of it. I stayed in the stairwell, just in case angels were watching from above, searching for me.

And we all waited for the dawn.

“Where is she?” Out from the long silence shouted a voice that I did not want to hear, coming from straight above and directed at no one on the roof. “She would be here.”

Tom turned around and sharply looked up to the dark sky. “Go away.”

“What’s that?” Peter turned around and looked to where Tom was looking. Above he saw nothing more than nearly black sky, the stars blotted out from the light pollution the city was making.

“We weren’t talking to you,” that nasty-smooth angel voice said. It was not Gollum-wocky, but it did sound like one of those jerks who followed Asahel.

“I don’t care whom you were talking to,” Tom snapped back. “Go away.”

“What’s there?” Matthew asked, getting close to Tom while Peter backed away, his eyes raking over the dark sky.

“What is there?” Daniel stood up, looking to where Tom was staring.

Growling, Tom muttered, “Death angels.”

Troy turned around but did not see them. But then vampires couldn’t. I wondered if he could still see me, or if it was too late to talk to him. I certainly could not go out and talk to him now.

“Where is she?” a different death angel said to Tom. The voice, I did not know.

I could tell Tom was shaking, but he did not take his eyes off the death angel as he said, “Like I would tell you if I knew.”

The way Tom reacted to the death angels above, I could tell they bristled at him. They must have been especially upset that Tom was not backing off. I realized then that it was the first time he ever did that. Of course staring death in the eye was not something any normal mortal could do, and even half-imps felt their mortality.

“Are they looking for Eve?” Matthew asked, still searching the space for the angels, not seeing either one.

But then Silvia walked up and made a gesture in to the air, chanting.

The death angels let out a sound akin to a screech. I did not dare look to see who they were—because if I could see them, they would most likely be able to see me. But I knew they had backed off.

“Witch!” one death angel snapped. He then shouted at Tom, though his voice came at a distance. “You would align with a witch?”

“She comes in handy,” Tom said with a mocking shrug.

Silvia smirked at Tom, but her hands were trembling. And Daniel rushed up to her, hissing in her ear, “Don’t tempt them.”

I realized almost immediately what he meant, and I could feel a peculiar familial feeling happening, as if Daniel were like my brother Will trying to protect me. I doubted Daniel could feel the presence of the death angel—at least not the same way he could feel the presence of someone like Tom or Rick, or me once—but I started to believe that perhaps he could the pressure in the air as I could. As a member of the Holy Seven, he would be sensitive. The reapers were getting agitated, and that was dangerous.

“What do you want with Eve McAllister?” Andy called to the air, not quite in the direction of the death angels. “Why do you think she is here?”

“You?” One angel almost snarled. “You are supposed to be the leader of the Holy Seven! How dare you align with a witch!”

I could almost hear that voice in my fleshy ears. And so, for that matter, could the rest of them. They stood all up.

“Silvia