Page 36 of The Devil's Dilemma

I wasn’t bulky, didn’t have defined muscles, but I was fit enough.

“What’s that?” He pointed to my birthmark, a weirdly shaped mark on my left breast.

“It’s a birthmark.”

He reached out his hand but faltered at the last moment.

I looked down. Yep, it was the same as always. Grandpa had said it was the kiss of the angels, and if you squinted a bit, it resembled an abstract angel.

I’d been self-conscious of it in school, but as the years passed, I’d forgotten it was there.

I fingered the mark. Nope, nothing different at all.

I looked back at Dante. Was that a note of worry on his face?

“You can touch it if you’d like. It doesn’t hurt. See?” I took hold of his hand and pressed his fingers lightly to the mark.

A sudden surge of what I could only describe as electricity passed through his fingers into my chest.

He jumped backwards, and I fell to my knees as pain seared through me.

“What the fuck?”

I groaned and clutched at the mark.

God, the pain was more than I’d ever felt. I could barely hear, barely breathe, barely see straight.

“Who are you? What are you?” Dante’s voice reached me as through a fog. “It can’t possibly be.”

Be what? I didn’t understand. My vision went dark, and I slipped into oblivion.

Was this the end?

Chapter nine

Dante

What the fuck washe?

From the first moment I saw him, I’d known he wasn’t human, but I hadn’t been able to figure out what exactly he was. But after touching the mark—the mark of the angels—everything had become clear.

The birthmark would have been put there to protect him, to shield him from the likes of me. If we’d never met, he would have lived the rest of his life unaware of what he was or the power he could wield.

This was why I was drawn to him. Like attracted like. But while he’d been placed on this earth for whatever purpose, I’d fallen from grace, banished here many, many years ago for all eternity.

My story was well known, but many thought it was a myth, a fairy tale told in years gone by to strike fear into the hearts of men, women, and children.

Little did they know it was true.

I’d gone by many names, performed many roles. People mistakenly thought I lived in hell, and I’d visited on occasion, but my home had always been here on earth, condemning unfit souls, those that were unworthy to ascend to the lofty heights of heaven.

I couldn’t leave him on my floor, nor could I take him back to the basement. Not like this, and for once in my life, I was afraid.

Afraid to touch him.

Was he dead? Had the shock killed him? I bent and tentatively placed my hand on his back. He looked so pale, all colour seeming to have left him.

The gentle rise and fall of his breathing moved my hand up and down.

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