Taken by Sin dh-4

by Jaci Burton

  “But you weren’t, were you?”

  “No, I wasn’t. I fell in love with Celine. And it clouded my judgment.”

  “In what way?”

  “I was convinced Ratineau was possessed by darkness. And then he did the unthinkable. He killed Celine’s parents and her brothers, and kidnapped Celine. He chained her up in his cellar and told her she was going to agree to marry him. She cried, brokenhearted over her family. She refused and told him she’d rather die than have anything to do with a murderer. He was so angry at her. He tortured her, raped her. Over and over again. He told her he’d keep her there until she died, but she’d be his and so would her land.”

  Isabelle covered her mouth. “Oh, God. No.”

  Dalton nodded. “For the first time in my existence I felt fury. Hatred. The need for revenge. I had to save her. So I used my power to strike him down.”

  Isabelle’s eyes widened. “How?”

  Dalton hesitated, remembering the moment as if it had just happened yesterday instead of over a century ago. “I used my sword and ran him through.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Dalton. But what choice did you have if he was possessed?”

  “Well, you see, that’s where I failed. He wasn’t possessed. Not by demons, anyway. Mad with desire, power-hungry, evil in his own right, yes. But the other side hadn’t taken control of him. And in my hazy, lovesick mind, I failed to see it. I only saw him hurting my beloved Celine and I had to save her. I was the one who decided that he had to have been taken over by darkness. I broke the rule.”

  “But you loved her. And you saved her. Who knows what he would have done to her if you hadn’t. I’m so sorry, Dalton.” Isabelle crawled onto his lap, curled her fingers into the front of his shirt and held tight.

  When she lifted her head, her eyes glistened with tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for.” She swept her hand across his face. “I love you.” She leaned in, pressing her lips to his in a gentle kiss that made him ache inside. “I always knew there was something special about you.”

  He smiled. “I’m not special, Isabelle. I’m damned. I broke the cardinal law of the Guardians. I interfered. I took human life.”

  “It was deserved.”

  “That wasn’t my call to make. Only the Creator can do that.”

  She shook her head. “So unfair. You did the right thing.”

  He shrugged. “I had reached my limit. It was my weakness. Because I couldn’t stand to see those innocents murdered, even if it meant my own damnation. The guy deserved what I gave him. So even though I was punished for what I’d done, I was able to save Celine. That was good enough for me and well worth my punishment.”

  “What was your punishment?”

  “I was cast out as a Guardian, forced to live in darkness for one hundred years.”

  “In darkness? What does that mean?”

  “I served the Sons of Darkness.”

  She leaned back, a look of horror on her face. “Oh, no. Oh, Dalton, I’m so sorry. From heaven into hell.”

  “Something like that.”

  “You spent a hundred years with demons? As a demon?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re … intimately familiar with the Sons of Darkness.”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you end up back here? Couldn’t you return to your life as an angel once you served your punishment?”

  He shook his head. “Once I had served my time, I was doomed to live as an immortal, in neither light nor darkness, until the day I find redemption.”

  She smoothed her hand over his chest. “So after all those years of living hell, you couldn’t go home.”

  “No.”

  “Wow. They take punishment pretty seriously, don’t they?”

  “They take the rules seriously. Otherwise, there would be chaos, as you can imagine.”

  “It must have been so hard for you all this time. Living as a human. But still, you’re not really a human, are you?”

  “Yes and no. I don’t age or get sick and I can’t be killed.”

  “Which is why when I shot you with the laser, you recovered so fast.”

  “They want to make sure I serve out my sentence. Death is easy, you know.”

  “What a lonely existence. Hard to make friends, since you can’t get too close to anyone.”

  “Yeah, it can be difficult.”

  “But you found the Realm of Light.”

  He smiled. “I did. So now I can battle those I used to serve.”

  “Is that your redemption?”

  His smile died. “No, Isabelle, it isn’t.”

  “What is, then?”

  “I once took a life. I’ll be redeemed when I can save a life.”

  She frowned. “But don’t you do that as one of the hunters? Don’t you save lives every time you kill a demon?”

  “Indirectly.”

  “So what is it going to take for you to earn your redemption?”

  Her brows knit together as she pondered what he had said.

  Come on, Isabelle. You’re smart. You’ll put it together.

  He felt her tension as soon as she connected the dots. “Me. You mean me.”

  “Yes.”

  Isabelle slid off Dalton’s lap and backed away from him. Too much information to soak in all at once. First finding out he was an angel, putting all the pieces together about the white light she’d seen, the miraculous healing after his injury. Then hearing the story of his heroic deed, how he became damned, the terrible and beautiful sacrifice he’d made, and the unfairness of it all. And the hideous punishment he’d suffered because of it.

  And now, to discover that he meant to obtain his redemption through her? Had he always felt that way, from the first moment he’d discovered she was a demon?

  She stared at him, not knowing what to say. She wasn’t even certain what she felt.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  He hadn’t moved from his spot on the chair. Part of her wanted to crawl back in his lap and give him comfort. What it must have cost him to tell her his story, the pain that had to be gutting him inside, the horrible memories his tale had dredged up.

  The other part of her was afraid-because she realized she might be nothing more than a means to an end for Dalton, that he was quite possibly using her to obtain his own redemption, to once again become the angel he used to be.

  She thought he felt something for her. That maybe he loved her, like she loved him. When she told him she loved him, she meant it.

  Was she a fool?

  “I’m thinking a lot of things,” she admitted.

  He came to her, grasped her hands. Warm. Alive. Human. But he wasn’t, was he?

  “Talk to me. Don’t let the questions eat you up inside.”

  She let him lead her to the sofa and sat next to him, needing the comfort of his body next to hers. Weak, she knew, but right now he was all she had, even if his motives were suspect.

  “How do you know I’m the one you need?”

  “The life I save has to mean something. Saving you from the Sons of Darkness … stealing you from their grasp … that’s meaningful.”

  “Okay. That makes sense.” So was she his target? Had she been since that night in Sicily? Maybe he was using her. Then again, maybe she was using him, too. Maybe she needed this redemption as much as he did. But could you build a love based on ulterior motives? Did that even matter anymore? How could they even have something together now, knowing what she knew about him? And what happened …

  “What happens if I am your redemption? If this works and you …save me?” she asked. “Do you become an angel again and disappear forever?”

  He looked at her for a while before answering. That meant she wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

  “Ideally, yes. When I redeem myself, I become a Guardian once again, and everything that entails.
It means I’m invisible to the human realm.”

  She would not cry. It wouldn’t be the first time she lost someone she loved. She’d get over it. She’d be human again. Or at least human enough that she’d have control over the demon inside her. That’s all she wanted, right? “I see.”

  “No, you don’t see.” He picked up her hand, squeezed it. “I hadn’t counted on any of this when we started.”

  “What?”

  “Falling in love with you. I love you, Isabelle. I don’t want to leave you. But it may be the only way to save you. So what do I do? Let myself love you and let the Sons of Darkness have you? That would be the ultimate selfish act, and it would only allow us to be together a short period of time.”

  Damn. He loved her. Or maybe he was just saying that to get her to agree to all this. Why couldn’t she believe in him, or in herself?

  “You don’t believe me,” he said.

  She almost laughed at the look of shock on his face. “I do. I mean I’d like to. Oh, hell, Dalton, it’s not like I get declarations of love every day.”

  He pulled her against him, swept her hair away from her face. “You should. Goddammit, you should.”

  He kissed her, and she sensed his anguish, his un certainty, and all his regret. It equaled everything she felt, which somehow eased her. She leaned into him, wrapped her arms around him, needing to lose herself in something that had nothing to do with what was going to happen between them in the future, and everything to do with right now.

  All she wanted, all she could handle, was this moment. She no longer wanted to think about the future. The future didn’t seem full of hope and promise, or full of anything to fear. It was simply a place she didn’t want to go-not if that future was without Dalton.

  She loved him. No matter what his reasons for being with her, for saving her, for bringing her here for whatever kind of otherworldly merger he had concocted with Georgie, she loved him. That wasn’t going to change. And if the demon inside her could give him his redemption, she’d make that sacrifice. For him.

  As she moved against him, touching him, memorizing every part of his body under her hands, she was filled with a sense of wonder.

  So this was love, this all-encompassing sensation of being filled to bursting with so much emotion she felt she couldn’t contain it all. She felt like she could explode, like she couldn’t sit still, yet there was nowhere else she wanted to be but right here next to Dalton.

  They spoke no words, just pulled at each other’s clothes. Isabelle wanted only skin against her, his heat touching hers. Consumed by a sense of urgency, she wanted access to his body. Who knew how little time they had left? The clock ticked, the sound echoing in her mind.

  When he stood and dropped his shorts, she scooted in front of him, rolling her palms over the angled planes of his hips and buttocks.

  “I should have known you weren’t human,” she said, her voice a whisper in the darkness. “No man is this beautiful, this perfect.”

  There wasn’t a single mark on him, nothing to mar the perfection of his body. The wound on his stomach was gone, as if it had never happened. She’d never noticed before that he didn’t even have scars on his body. He really was perfect. Ideal coloring, ideal body shape, and as she encircled his shaft and it slid into her hand, pulsing with life, she smiled.

  “Yes. Perfect.”

  She stroked him with both hands, deriving the greatest pleasure at watching his head roll back, his lips part and a wild groan escape his lips. And when she took him between her lips, he focused on her with a fierce gaze of utter possession, his hand cupping the back of her neck to guide her movements. He was like satin over steel, the softest skin over hard stone. She cupped the sac that hung between his legs, squeezing him gently while she rolled her tongue over his shaft.

  Dalton muttered an oath and pulled away, knelt down and pressed her against the sofa, then spread her legs with his shoulder. He kissed her inner thighs, his silky hair tickling the skin there.

  But she didn’t laugh. Not when his warm breath caressed her sex, not when his mouth covered her. She gasped, arching upward against all that wet, hot delight, reaching for more of that sweet pleasure. He held her hips and licked her, his tongue loving every part of her until she was shaking, hanging on a ragged edge. And when he slid his finger inside her, she rolled over that edge, gripped his wrists, and bucked against him, completely out of control.

  Dalton didn’t let her regain an ounce of that control. He flipped her over on her knees, her face against the sofa, and slid inside her with one swift thrust. She tilted her head back, embedded in sensation as he rolled his hips to give her the perfect angle.

  He bent over her, his chest pressed to her back, and nibbled her ear.

  “I love you, Isabelle.”

  The words whispered were dark, inviting, his fingers threaded through her hair and pulling as he pushed.

  “You’re mine. No matter what happens, you’re mine.”

  Thrilled by his possession of her, she couldn’t speak, could only react with her body, pushing back against him with every move he made. Every time he sank into her, he drove his meaning home.

  She was his. She would always be his, body, heart, and soul.

  “Yes,” was all she could manage as he licked the column of her throat, his fingers tight in her hair, refusing to let her budge, possessing her in every way possible. He lifted her up and one hand covered her breast, surrounding her nipple and tweaking it with soft, measured strokes until she cried out with delight. He moved his hand down, over her ribs, her belly, stroking her hip and moving inward to cup her sex, rolling over the taut bud to massage the burgeoning ache that threatened to devour her from the inside out.

  Gripping, swelling, she was only pleasure now. Whatever Dalton wanted from her she would gladly give. Lost in sensation, she was mindless against the assault of his body, his mouth, his teeth grazing her shoulder as his hand worked its magic along with the rhythmic strokes of his shaft. It was too much; unintelligible words spilled from her lips as she catapulted into orgasm. Dalton pressed tight against her and shuddered, going with her over that wave as they held together in a wild ride where nothing existed but the two of them.

  When they collapsed against the sofa and the white light surrounded them, she felt no shock. This time, she was at peace with the knowledge that this man was something incredibly special.

  And he was hers.

  For as long as it lasted.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Mandy sat in the corner of the seedy bar appropriately named The Bomb, scanning the activity around her, soaking in a bottle of beer and the atmosphere, and trying to avoid her own muddled thoughts.

  Grounded. Banned from work. Michael thought she was frozen with fear and unable to pull the trigger.

  Ha! Bullshit. She’d show Michael she could get the job done. All she had to do was find a demon. And what better place for a demon to hunt for victims than a bar that catered to the drunk and senseless? Easy to take them down when they weaved their way out of the club and into the parking lot.

  She’d scouted all the hot spots over the past couple days. Nothing better to do, since Michael wouldn’t let her work-though she’d kept her eyes and ears on the pulse of Realm activity, so she knew what was going on. Through their investigations the hunters had discovered some strange attacks that could denote demon activity, both in this area and in others. Fortunately not yet as widespread as they’d feared, but definitely growing. Mandy had feigned disinterest, but oh, she’d been listening, especially when the report zeroed in to this area specifically. One body had been found a block from here, the corpse seemingly emaciated, as if it had been drained of every liquid. And finger marks were noted on the victim’s throat. Cause of death was listed as strangulation, but the Realm knew better. Mandy had snuck in and studied the files when Michael wasn’t around. It appeared another victim had turned up a few blocks away, right behind The Bomb’s sister club, The Shelter.

 
She rolled her eyes at the irony of the name. Hadn’t provided much shelter for the poor dead victim, had it? Autopsy reports indicated hard-pressed impressions of fingers on the throat, including puncture wounds, which the police surmised were caused by some kind of small tool like an ice pick.

  Or a demon’s sharp claws, but the coroner hadn’t guessed that, unsurprisingly.

  So there she sat in her perfect spot in the darkened corner, her gaze pouring over every table, every patron seated at the long, scarred bar, searching out anyone who just might fit a demon’s profile. She picked out what she thought might be a few suspicious characters, and kept an eye on them. Tall, dark, and handsome types who seemed cold and aloof, with the kinds of smiles that didn’t quite reach their eyes. Then again, that could be just a normal guy thing. How would she know? Still, worth a try anyway. She did her best to throw off signals that made herself approachable, but not too easy. And she made it appear as if she’d been drinking. A lot.

  Which in the eyes of a demon looking for food made her prey.

  When one of those types approached her, she leaned back in the booth and propped one of her booted feet up on the threadbare vinyl seat.

  “You alone?” he asked.

  “You blind?” She shot it back dripping with sarcasm, not wanting to appear too available.

  Not at all deterred by her attitude, he slid into the booth alongside her and held out his hand. “I’m John.”

  How nondescript. She slid her hand in his, noting the icy cold fingers barely touching hers before he pulled away. Bingo. “I’m Mandy”

  “So what are you doing here tonight, Mandy?”

  She decided she’d play it like a woman who’d just gotten dumped and was looking to rebound in a hurry with some anonymous guy. She gave him a half smile. “Getting drunk, John. What about you?”

  He lifted his beer. “Same. Not much action, though.”

  She gazed around the bar. “It’s a slow night. Are you looking for some action?” She made a point of giving him the once-over, hoping she could fake some glimmer of attraction.