Page 20 of Wicked (Dark Delights #5)

They’d tried to convince him he could leave the guild, but it was just a fantasy. If he knew that logically, why was it so hard to shake off the way Shadrach had made him feel?

With a sigh, he undressed mechanically, laid down, and pulled the blankets over him.

He should probably shower and put on some pajamas, but he couldn’t resist the phantom touch of Shadrach’s hands on his skin.

He tucked the blanket around himself as though to hold the sensation closer and closed his eyes .

He made the right choice. He did .

The right choice always hurt, after all.

The cemetery stretched on as far as the eye could see, moonlight casting the world in indigo as Isaac stalked between the headstones.

The weight of his sword was familiar in his hand, the straps of the sheath a comforting press against his shoulders.

He did not fear the darkness around him, because this was where he belonged.

In the shadows between life and death, he thrived like a grim reaper, slaking his bloodlust with monsters from Hell.

A creature with black skin launched itself at him from the darkness, and with a few quick strokes from his blade, it collapsed at his feet, alive but wounded.

Rather than kill it quickly, he drew a knife and straddled the creature, pinning it to the ground.

It hissed and spat, but his blade sank through its skin like butter.

Black blood and viscera spilled from the wound as he unzipped the creature’s stomach.

It thrashed violently, unable to heal and unable to die.

When the wound began trying to close, he stabbed it in the heart and stood, rubbing his thumb against the tips of his fingers.

The blood between them was smooth, and he raised his blade to the moonlight, watching it gleam.

Demon blood could heal. Even this blood?

If he licked the blood from the blade, would it taste like Shadrach’s?

He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. It seemed…

wrong to drink any other demon’s blood. But he wondered if the other paladins knew it could heal.

Would they use it to give them an edge in battle?

Or would they consider it another depravity?

“You’re fucking incredible, you know that?”

As though summoned by his thoughts, Shadrach appeared through the darkness, walking toward him. He was dressed just the same as the last time Isaac saw him, in a white dress shirt and black trousers—albeit dry this time.

Was this Shadrach real, or just a figment of his dreamscape?

“You didn’t give me a chance to explain before you ran off,” Shadrach said, and Isaac’s mind adjusted. He was real.

“Explain what?”

Shadrach stopped in front of him, his black eyes reflecting the starlight above their heads. “You feel it, too, don’t you? This thing between us. Like a rope that’s pulling us closer and closer together.”

Isaac wasn’t sure that metaphor was accurate. “More like two trains,” he said. “Barreling toward disaster.”

A slow smile bloomed on Shadrach’s unfairly handsome face. “It seemed to work out for the others.” A furrow formed between his brows. “But you ran away.”

“You were holding me hostage. What’d you expect?”

Shadrach arched a brow. “I wasn’t holding you hostage when we were in that shower together.”

Isaac shuddered with remembered desire. “I know.”

“Then why?”

It took him a moment to find his voice. “It scared me.”

He’d rather chew glass than admit such a thing in real life, but here in his dream, all his quiet thoughts were right there on the surface.

His guard was down here, and he knew it.

That was why he’d wanted Shadrach to stay away from his dreams. He couldn’t hide the truth here. He wasn’t strong enough.

Shadrach’s hand lifted, brushing Isaac’s cheek. “Scared you how, killer?”

Killer. It sounded like such a fond endearment when Shadrach said it. Not spat with disgust or accompanied with a glare of disdain .

“Things that feel good, things that make me happy—those are the things I’m usually punished for.”

Shadrach’s hand flattened, curling around the side of his head. “Doing those things with me made you happy? Made you feel good?” He leaned in, his black gaze on Isaac’s mouth.

Isaac’s stomach flipped. “Made me forget you’re a demon who probably feeds me whatever lies will make me talk.”

Shadrach stilled abruptly. “You misunderstand me, I think.”

Isaac tried to swallow. It was unfair that his mouth could be so dry in a dream. “How so?”

“I’m not a ‘sentinel,’ as they call themselves.

I’m on the fringes of that group, really.

Talon called me in to help with you because he thought I was distant enough from the humans that I wouldn’t care if they were mad at me for torturing one of their paladin friends.

But then the paladin friend turned out to be you. ”

“Me? Why does that matter? What made me different?”

Shadrach huffed out a laugh. “I wasn’t sure at first. You know, a few months ago, Ira told me that I would find a human the way the others found theirs. That Talon and I would come to blows for the very first time over my human.”

“Your human?” Isaac repeated blankly.

Shadrach nodded. “You see, the demons at the Rink are all different than they once were. The moment they met their human, they were irrevocably altered. Their human was all they could see. All they could think about. All they wanted. I found the concept ridiculous. How could one human turn me inside-out like that? I’m over a thousand years old.

I’ve seen regimes rise and fall—had a hand in many, in fact.

I’ve bedded humans of every race, gender, and creed.

The idea that meeting one would change me so deeply was laughable.

Human lives were blips in time, and they were all meaningless to me. ”

Isaac scowled. Where was this going?

“But then I met you. One look at you, and I wanted you. One whiff of your scent and I was ensnared. One taste of your blood and I was changed. You’ve got a feral spirit and a lust for violence, and that’s how I know you were made to be mine.

When Ira told me I would find a human, I tried to imagine myself with someone like the Sentinels.

The do-gooders. But you, you’ve got shadows in your soul, and I’ve always preferred the dark. ”

Isaac tried to shrink away, but Shadrach wouldn’t let him, winding an arm around his back and bringing their bodies flush. “Because I was born wrong?”

“Is that what they tell you? No, no, killer. You were born just as you were meant to be. A natural predator. My perfect match.” He leaned in, his nose and lips grazing Isaac’s but not quite firmly enough to be considered a kiss.

“The others think I’m here to find out what you’re going to tell the guild, but the truth is I don’t care. ”

“You don’t?” Isaac went cross-eyed trying to see him, and Shadrach raised his head with a smile.

“No. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you choose, I’m here.

I’ll visit your dreams if that’s the only way to touch you.

I’ll watch you from afar to make sure you’re safe.

If you don’t want me, if this is all I’ll ever have of you, it’ll drive me crazy but so be it.

Anything is better than nothing. You’re all that matters to me. ”

Isaac could barely believe what he was hearing. “The guild will never accept that. If they find out about you, we’re both dead.”

“Who says they have to know? You can’t be punished for what happens in your dreams, can you?”

His eyes fell, and Shadrach didn’t miss it.

“Oh, killer, for fuck’s sake. They’ve punished you for dreaming wrong? ”

The demon he’d eviscerated was gone now, as was the knife and blood on his hands, but he looked in the direction it had been.

“When I was a teenager, they told me to keep a dream log. I wrote down all my dreams. Ones where I killed demons like that, slow and fun. Ones where I killed my roommate, who was an asshole that liked to make fun of me. Anything they deemed too dark was punished. They thought they could reroute my brain.”

“Not just idiots but cruel idiots,” Shadrach drawled. “Good to know.”

“They’re not ? —”

“They are, and don’t you fucking defend them to me.” His fingers wound tight under Isaac’s jaw, and his breath went shallow. This close, Shadrach heard it, and it drew a wicked grin to his face. “Do you like this? Do you like when I take control?”

Isaac closed his eyes. He did, and he hated that Shadrach could read him so well. He needed to put a stop to this. Casting about for something else to say, he asked, “What if I don’t want this? What if I don’t want to be yours?”

“Then push me away, killer,” Shadrach purred. “This is your dream. Send me away. Stab me in the heart and tell me you never want to see me again.”

Shadrach backed him up, until a headstone pressed against the back of his legs.

His arm was like a steel band around Isaac’s back, pinning their bodies together, and the brush of his fingers against the soft skin of Isaac’s throat was mesmerizing.

He should pull away, but Shadrach’s warmth was far too inviting to lean into.

His hands gripped Shadrach’s shirt tightly while he tried to screw up the courage to push him away.

“You don’t want to push me away because you feel it, too,” Shadrach whispered. “You want me as much as I want you.”

“It’s wrong.” Then why was he pressing closer, burying his face in Shadrach’s neck? Shadrach allowed it, his hand moving from the front of Isaac’s neck to the back, holding him close.

“No, it’s not. Ira’s seen this, killer. It was prophesied. We’re meant to be.”

A part of him wanted it to be true. A part of him was afraid of what it would mean. If he was made for a demon, then did that mean he’d been doomed from the very start? Was his soul already forfeit?

“Don’t turn me away,” Shadrach whispered, ducking his head to breathe the words against Isaac’s lips. “I’ll be so good to you.”

Isaac groaned, threading his fingers into the smooth strands on the back of Shadrach’s head.

“Kiss me,” Shadrach said, “and fuck everything else.”

He’d like that more than anything. An alarm still blared in his head that this was wrong-wrong-wrong , but nothing felt more right than the moment their lips touched. A subvocal rumble growled out of Shadrach, vibrating against Isaac’s sternum.

Shadrach clung to him like he was starving for him, and for the first time since he’d run, he didn’t feel pulled in two directions.

A feeling of rightness settled in his marrow, his every sense filled with Shadrach and Shadrach only.

It was a cruel twist of fate that he’d spent his life trying to be what the guild wanted only to find out it was a demon that made him feel alive.

Shadrach pulled away first, his hands cradling Isaac’s face firmly. “Come back to the Rink. Come back to me.”

Isaac gripped Shadrach’s wrists so tightly he felt the little bones grind together. “No, no, I can’t. I won’t go back into that cell.”

“No, not the cell. Fuck the cell. Come back to me . Leave the guild behind. Come live with me. I’ll make you happy, I swear. I can’t stand being this far away from you.”

“You barely know me.” It was too crazy to comprehend. They’d known each other for two days, and most of that time Shadrach was his warden. He couldn’t give up his whole world for a demon. He would be damning his soul to Hell. He felt the ghost of the whip against his back at the very thought.

“I know enough.” His teeth scraped against Isaac’s cheek, so reminiscent of the first time they met. “I know you’re mine. And I’m not giving you up.”

The world around them grew hazy, like a mist was creeping into the cemetery. Shadrach followed his gaze toward it and sighed.

“You’re waking up.”

His consciousness was fading, and everything was going fuzzy. His eyes unfocused, and he said, “I told them.”

“Told them what, killer?”

“Told them where it is.”

Shadrach’s face softened. “We’ll make do. Come back to me, okay? Come back to…”