Page 27 of Wicked (Dark Delights #5)

“Yeah. You might be mine, but I’m also yours.

I’m uniquely, acutely, completely devoted to you and only you.

If you’d stayed with the guild, I would have been miserable, but nothing in the world could’ve made me harm you.

I might’ve burned the whole guild down one day to reach you, and you would’ve been the only thing left standing in the wreckage.

No matter what happens, no matter what you do, no matter what choices you make, I’ll be by your side. ”

Isaac’s mossy green eyes flickered with emotion. “No one’s ever…” He stopped, his throat bobbing. “What if I don’t want to be?”

“Then I’ll be your shadow until the day you die.

The moment I met you, there was no turning back for either of us.

” He shrugged. There was nothing he could do to break the connection he felt toward Isaac, and he wasn’t sure he’d want to if he could.

Before he’d felt it, he’d expected to be averse to being so wholly consumed by his feelings for another.

Now, he couldn’t imagine going back to the empty existence he’d maintained before .

He hoped Isaac felt the same way. Why else would he have gone to the lengths he did tonight?

“Why did you come back?” he asked, desperate to know.

Isaac lowered his head, fingers fidgeting with the hem of the sheet that pooled around them. “I told Sloan almost everything. I told him about the Rink, about your questions, and about the way you made me feel. How you tempted me. How I wanted to let you touch me. He sent me to Father Hawley.”

Shadrach couldn’t stop the growl that pitched out of him, and Isaac glanced up briefly at him before lowering his gaze once more.

“I had a meeting with him tonight. A session, he always called it. But he didn’t get the usual whip when it was time for my punishment. He ordered me to get on my knees, and then he ordered me to take his belt off.”

Shadrach’s hand shot out, wrapping around Isaac’s wrist. “Did he…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish.

“No. I think he was planning to, though. He wanted to hurt me first. He liked hurting me. But when he hit me with the belt, it healed before his eyes.”

“Oh shit,” Shadrach said. That hadn’t occurred to him.

Isaac huffed. “Yeah. So I told him the truth. You’d given me your blood, and it healed me. He said that kind of healing would be a miracle, said it was impossible for demon blood to do such a thing.”

Shadrach snorted.

“Then he told me Sloan arrested the members of the council who had been voting against attacking the traitors.”

Shadrach gaped, and Isaac smiled lopsidedly at his expression.

“That was kind of my reaction, too. Anyway, Hawley said Sloan was sending paladins after you guys, and he’d sent a powerful artifact with them.”

“Those stones,” Shadrach deduced.

Isaac nodded. “They have Enochian sigils on them. It’s a holy light that burns away evil.

They’re apparently extremely rare, and they aren’t used much anymore.

He said they’ve been locked away in a vault.

The possessor battle probably would’ve gone very differently if they’d been able to access them.

It would’ve killed you all. I didn’t know how to stop it, so I hoped grabbing him and getting him outside was enough. ”

“And it was. We’d all probably be dead if you hadn’t come.”

Isaac raised a hand to his face, rubbing his forehead like it was an excuse to hide behind it.

“I’m sorry I ran. I’m sorry I chose wrong.

I fucked up. They taught me right from wrong, and I still don’t know if I’m choosing right.

I just knew I couldn’t let you die. And when Hawley tried to stop me from leaving, I lost it.

I bashed his head in and ran.” His voice was thick with emotion.

“Is killing people to protect demons right or wrong? I don’t know . ”

“I’m going with right, because I don’t fancy dying.

” When Isaac didn’t respond to his quip, Shadrach sat back against the headboard and pulled Isaac against his chest, pleased when Isaac went without protest. “Come here, killer. I’m sure most humans prefer a healthy sense of morality, but I like you just the way you are.

If you’re ever truly worried about making the wrong choice about something, talk to Ira. I think he probably has the best idea.”

With his head in the crook of Shadrach’s neck, Isaac said, as though it was only just occurring to him, “Ira is a prophet. ”

Shadrach frowned at the non-sequitur. “Yes?”

“Prophets receive their visions from God.”

“Supposedly.”

“Ira’s with a demon. Ira’s seen all of us with our demons.”

“As far as I know, yeah.” Where was this going?

“Does that mean this is all part of God’s plan?”

Shadrach’s brows rose. He hadn’t really considered that, and it was far above his pay grade, to be sure. “You’ll have to take that up with him, I’m afraid. I would assume that’s correct, though.”

Isaac was quiet for a moment, and when he pushed himself upright to meet Shadrach’s eyes, his own were tainted with confusion and loss.

“What do I do now?” he asked. “I… I have nothing. My apartment was on the grounds of HQ. I ran with nothing but the clothes on my back and whatever happened to be in my car.”

Unfamiliar hope took root in Shadrach’s chest. “Stay.”

Isaac stilled, looking painfully uncertain. “Really?”

“ Stay ,” he said again. “I’ll take care of everything. You can go to work with the Sentinels. You can keep hunting demons if you want. You can take out killers and gangbangers too, if it would please you. Hell, I’d let you kill anyone you wanted, but the Sentinels might protest.”

Isaac snorted out a laugh. “Really? You barely know me. I barely know you . We met while you were holding me hostage and torturing me for information. How can this possibly work?”

“It worked for the others,” he said. “I know enough to know we fit together. Everything else will sort itself out.”

“I—” Isaac stopped, laughing. “What do I do ? I have no clothes. I don’t even have a toothbrush.”

“Use my toothbrush for now—actually I probably have a spare in the closet. I’ll buy you a wardrobe, just tell me your sizes.

I’ll buy you a new car, so there’s no way the guild can track your current one.

I’ll buy you a new phone and laptop and a goddamn house if you don’t like that this place has no windows.

Just stay .” He was well and truly showing his hand here, but he didn’t care.

Isaac was so close to being his he could taste it.

All he had to do was agree to stay. Agree to give them a chance. Give Shadrach a chance.

Isaac blew out a breath. “Okay.” He frowned again. “I still feel like this isn’t going to last, somehow, but it’s not like I have anywhere else to go. You understand they’ll hunt me down for what I did, right? There’s no way they won’t know I was the one who killed Father Hawley.”

“I’d like to see them try,” Shadrach swore. “And as for the rest, only time will ease your fears. I intend for us to have plenty of that. Just trust me.”

Isaac sighed. He still looked speculative, but he reached over and turned off the lamp, settling against Shadrach with an arm and leg thrown over him.

“I don’t know what’s next,” Isaac said, his warm breath soft against Shadrach’s chest, “but I don’t want to regret this.”

Shadrach’s arms tightened around him. He wouldn’t regret this. Shadrach would make sure of it.

The church. Shadrach should’ve known he would find him here. It seemed to feature in a lot of Isaac’s unhappy dreams. He’d hoped Isaac was having pleasant dreams tonight, now that they were finally together and on equal footing.

But Isaac wasn’t on his knees and breathing through lashes and lectures this time.

Instead, he had a strip of leather—a belt—wrapped around Hawley’s throat.

Shadrach had missed the lead-up to this moment, but given what Isaac had told him, that was probably just as well.

He didn’t want to see Isaac on his knees for this man ever again, not even in a revisited memory.

As he watched, Isaac’s powerful body swung, unbalancing Hawley and tipping him over. His head crashed against the armrest of the oak pew beside them. Crumpled to his knees, it was easy for Isaac to haul him back and slam his head into it a second time. And a third. And a fourth.

After the fifth time, Hawley’s face was unrecognizable. Isaac was a strong man, and it was obvious in the way Hawley’s head and face had caved in against the sturdy wood. He let the body fall, his freckled skin dappled in fresh, bright blood.

Isaac laughed, a high-pitched little giggle that brought a smile to Shadrach’s face.

“That’s too fast for him.”

Isaac blinked over at him, his gaze dreamy and distant. While he was lucid in his dreams more often than most, he wasn’t always. Shadrach’s presence would help, but they would need to be touching for him to fully understand where they were.

“It should’ve been slower,” Shadrach said. “Messier. He deserved a hell of a lot worse than that.”

Isaac drifted closer, reaching for him. As soon as their hands connected, Isaac blinked as though coming awake.

“Haven’t I told you not to come into my dreams?” Isaac chided, though he was smiling.

“That was when you didn’t like me. I assumed it didn’t still apply.” He drew Isaac into his arms. “Are you dreaming about killing your demons?”

“Killing my demons,” Isaac repeated, chuckling. “Yes. I was too panicked when it happened to properly savor it.”

“What would you have done differently, if you could redo it?”

Isaac tilted his head back, and Shadrach’s eyes tracked the pale column of his throat. “What was it you said when you appeared? Messier. I would’ve done something messier.”

Shadrach draped an arm around the back of Isaac’s neck. “I once filleted the skin from a man. That seems like a fitting end for the asshole priest.”

“Did he deserve it?”