Page 36 of Wicked (Dark Delights #5)

“No.” Nathan tipped his head back thoughtfully.

“I think they pulled over on the side of the road as soon as they were away from HQ. They laid me out in the seat of Storm’s truck, dug the bullet out of the wound, and then Storm fed me his blood.

It heals us quickly, as you know, so I was mostly fine after that.

Groggy from blood loss, which seems to be one of the few things it can’t replace right away, but mostly whole. ”

“Sloan blames you guys for that attack. Says you must have told the demons how to breach the wall, because it had never been done before paladins started joining the demons.”

Nathan scoffed. “That doesn’t surprise me. His hatred for all of us is insidious. It’ll eat the whole guild alive if he doesn’t stop it. ”

Perhaps it would. Isaac didn’t know where the hatred stemmed from. Was Sloan too prideful to let them go peacefully? Was it a blow to his ego that some of his soldiers had walked away to find happiness with what he perceived to be the enemy?

“What do you think will come of all this?” he asked. “If they don’t stop hunting us, where will that leave us?”

Nathan smiled. “Us.”

“What?”

“You said ‘us.’ Shadrach won you over, after all, didn’t he?”

Isaac turned away, flushing with embarrassment. “No,” he said defensively, then realized he didn’t mean that at all. “I mean—he did, I guess, but I don’t?—”

Nathan chuckled. “It’s okay. It wasn’t that long ago that I was in your position, you know.”

“You and Storm?” he prompted, eager to hear if it was as messy and confusing for someone else as it had been for him.

“Yep. I asked Sloan to give the ‘traitors’ a chance, and he allowed it because I think he wanted more information about them. And they tasked Storm with being my point of contact. The moment I laid eyes on him, I felt differently. I’d never even thought about men like that in the past, but something about him drew me right to him. ”

Isaac hummed, and Nathan glanced over at him.

“The same for you?” Nathan guessed.

Isaac bobbed his head from side to side. “Not the men thing, no. Sex in general, really. I’ve always found it… weird. Uncomfortable.”

Nathan laughed lightly. “It definitely can be, yes.”

“Shadrach just blew past all my defenses somehow. Right away, he saw the best and worst of me. I didn’t feel exposed or uncomfortable with him. Or—I did, but it didn’t feel like a bad thing. Letting those walls come down with him felt like a relief.”

He looked up to find Nathan studying him curiously.

“What?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak this much before, that’s all.”

Isaac frowned. “You get treated like a freak for long enough, you stop trying to make friends.”

Nathan’s face fell. “Did Maxwell really diagnose you with psychopathy?”

“No, but only because that’s not an actual diagnosis. He put it in my file anyway, because the guild doesn’t really care about what the rest of the world says. It was true to them, and that was all that mattered. Shadrach doesn’t believe it.”

“I’m not sure I believe it, either.”

“They used it as justification for the things they did, though. The punishments. The hard lessons.”

Nathan’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “My concern is that they did that for another reason.”

Isaac’s thoughts tumbled to a stop. “What? What kind of reason?”

“It seems strange to me that they would let you into the program if they genuinely feared you would harm the people around you. I wonder if they were using you more as… an experiment, if you will.”

Isaac’s stomach swooped at that. “What kind of experiment?”

“New training methods, or ways of ensuring compliance, maybe. For example, I believed in the cause because I believed in doing the right thing. I believed God wanted us to protect people. I still do, I suppose, but I no longer believe it has to be under the guild’s banner.

But somehow I don’t think that’s what they taught you to believe, was it? ”

Isaac scuffed his shoe on the pavement. “No. Sloan’s word was law.

There was no higher authority for me than him.

Even Hawley and Maxwell would do what he said.

If he told Maxwell to cut a therapy session with me short, he would do it without question, even if it was against his medical advice.

If I disobeyed, I was punished harshly. Guilted with threats of eternal damnation, whipped until it hurt to sit back. ”

“Shit,” Nathan murmured. “Sloan ruled you with fear.”

“He did.”

“That really concerns me. If he starts teaching new generations to behave that way, we would have a cult of zealots on our hands—no offense.”

“None taken. I think there are probably already some zealots in the guild’s ranks.

People are falling for Sloan’s new, hateful ways too easily.

And sometimes I still don’t feel like I’ve completely shed that mentality.

” At Nathan’s concerned look, he quickly added, “I’m not going back there, don’t worry.

But I still catch myself questioning whether I’ve made the right choices.

Whether I’ll go to Hell for what I’ve done. ”

Nathan smiled at that. “I worried about the same thing. I don’t think Hell is something we have to worry about anymore, in that sense. And we know first-hand now that demons aren’t actually as bad as the guild believes.”

That was true, and hearing it from someone he respected soothed the undertow of anxiety that had taken root in him when he fled HQ.

He didn’t believe any of them would be there if they thought doing so would damn their souls, and he also didn’t believe any of them were going to Hell.

They were all too good, still filled with holy righteousness not in spite of their demonic partners but maybe because of them.

Because disregarding even demons wasn’t in their nature.

Perhaps demons were God’s creatures just like everything else, and that made them worthy of love and respect.

“Are we okay, you and I?” Isaac asked. He’d never been able to put his finger on why it bothered him that he was being forced to report on the dissenters, but now he suspected it was because some part of him had known they would have the same reaction Nathan had.

They’d think him a traitor, a bootlicker, and that didn’t sit right with him.

“We are,” Nathan said after a beat. “I understand why you did what you did, and I don’t blame you for focusing on survival. And knowing what I know now, I’m just glad you broke their hold over you and got away. No one deserves to be treated the way you were.”

Whatever quiet doubts Isaac still harbored fell away at those words, not because he believed them but because Nathan did.

Nathan was always one of the best paladins.

Isaac had always been a little jealous of him, how self-assured he was in his choices.

He did the right thing, made the right calls, and he knew it.

Knowing he believed in Isaac was bolstering.

He could do this, forge his own path with Shadrach away from the guild, if he had good men like Nathan in his corner.

One day maybe he wouldn’t need the others to act as his moral compass, but for now, it was reassuring to know they were there.

“Aw, how touching,” an unfamiliar voice sneered.

Nathan and Isaac drew their blades in unison as five figures materialized out of the darkness. All of them had red eyes, but somehow Isaac didn’t think they were going to be as friendly as the ones at the Rink. The one in the middle held a revolver, aiming back and forth between them.

“Neither of these is Talon’s human,” one of them said.

“Then we’ll take these two and demand an exchange,” the one in the middle said. “These humans are bleeding heart paladins, right? They won’t want us to keep them.”

“Like hell I’m getting involved in another hostage situation,” Isaac murmured.

“Another?” the third halfling repeated, nose wrinkling in confusion. “Did we kidnap one already?”

Isaac tilted his head toward Nathan. “Go left,” he hissed.

“What?” the gun-wielder said, interrupting his companion, who was still talking. “What did you just say? Don’t move a fucking muscle, holy man.”

Isaac clicked his tongue, and he and Nathan burst into motion at the same time.

He went right while Nathan went left, and just as he expected, the gunman didn’t know who to aim at.

He had a split second of indecision, wheeling from one to the other, and that was all it took for Nathan to pivot and slam into him.

Isaac rammed into one of the others, slicing the halfling’s throat and turning as another approached.

He threw one of his daggers, and it sank into the halfling’s chest.

“Isaac!”

He spun. Nathan had an arm around the gunman—though the gun was thankfully nowhere in sight, having been knocked out of his hand—and the other two halflings were closing in on them.

Isaac leaped into action, his blood singing with adrenaline.

The halflings tried their best, but he had a sword and a bloodthirst that wouldn’t be denied.

He cut one of them to ribbons, stabbed him in the heart, and watched his body fall.

As he advanced on the remaining on, Nathan turned away from the gunman, who collapsed to the ground.

“Isaac—”

Isaac barely heard him as he laid into the last halfling standing.

It was stupid of them to only bring one gun.

The halfling punched him, and the pain buzzed in his jaw as his blade entered the halfling’s chest, all the way up to the hilt.

Hot black blood spurted across his knuckles, and the body fell from his sword, leaving him panting in the silence.

“ Damn it, Isaac,” Nathan said.

Isaac turned toward him in surprise. “What?”

“I wanted to keep one of them alive. We could’ve questioned them.”

Isaac frowned. “Questioned them about what?”

Nathan sighed. “I guess this is our fault. We should’ve explained. There are some things you should know. The paladins aren’t the only ones with a grudge against us right now.”

“Oh?” Isaac prompted.

“The halflings,” Nathan replied, gesturing to the slowly decaying bodies. “ Other halflings.” He sighed heavily. “Come on, let’s head back. I’ll explain on the way.”