Page 49 of Sinner's End

The human might like to pretend he’s normal, but his dark streak will be his undoing with Adreana. I know this as much as I know Bowen’s disturbing words are true. But I cannot force myself to act on them.

Yet.

“How long?” I murmur, tracing one of the green, fluid-filled tubes with a fingertip as Mana deflates visibly before my eyes.

One finger flicks on the arm of the wooden chair that used to suck souls from this world via the conduits of electricity and a steel arm situated above his head, all in the name of therapy and lies. Now, it serves as a torture chamber for a demon who made a deal he cannot unmake.

The longer I stay on this plane, the greater clarity I gain, the more truths I understand.

My own penance for falling in love with the creature I am supposed to protect.She will die here.Now that I’ve heard those words, I will not easily forget them. But neither do I understand their meaning. Bowen, of course, chose not to illuminate mebefore he left Harken to do only deity knew what.

Adreana slept when I looked in on her, and I was loathe to wake her resting form. Her body draped over Kaleb’s, and the human half-spawn winked at me as he toyed possessively with her hair. A growl embedded itself in my chest and I turned away before I ripped him apart, one hair at a time. By the time I stopped staring he passed out beside her, his humanity a weakness that left him vulnerable at such a time.

But shredding him would only earn me a tortured place beside Mana, and not with her.

My touch drifts from the tubes attached to the mechanical equipment draining the demon and over Mana’s dulled flesh, the contact giving me the answers I seek with a finality that makes me want to rip my hand away. But he chooses to suffer alone, and that gives me a sort of pause that makes me want to stay and share his pain.

“It’s as much an addiction for you as it is for them, isn’t it?” I muse, brushing his thick, black hair back from his face.

A rumble of visions slides across my mind like a broken film: Adreana becoming a twisted puppet like her sister, unable to act for herself, dancing for him, with the crowd in his nightclub, each only an empty vessel. Losing herself over and over, giving more of herself to him until there is nothing left of the woman I protect.Of the woman I love.

The demon gliding through her home at Sinner’s End but unable to step foot across the hallowed ground beyond, bound by the tethers of the agreement with his master. A weakness amongst a plethora of strengths.

Mana stares up at me through listless eyes, and I wonder if he sees what I see. Regardless, I make my decision on the spot.

“She is so beautiful, but she’s not for you. You understand that, don’t you,” I whisper as the Chemist does his rounds, making his passes across Mana’s body, collecting hispayment from the demon’s body. He pays me no nevermind, as though he is not there at all. Even his body shifts, gliding semi-transparently across the floor. “He is not our concern,” I wave him away as Mana’s eyes seek out the only other assistance in the room that will not help him. “I’m taking what you want most, and you will not be able to reach her. You’ve shown yourself to me, you see.” I touch his forehead in a sort of benediction, a blessing. “You can’t cross by the graves beyond the house. And so that’s where I will take her. Beyond your reach. And you will live this life and die without her.” I press a kiss to his temple and whisper in his ear as his body flattens beneath mine, depleted.

“I won’t let her die here because of you.”

I walk out of his dungeon, the place where Mana has trapped himself with his little Chemist’s toys, and stop to scoop Adreana from beneath Kaleb’s arms. A light prayer carries an unnatural, deep sleep as I wish the human spawn sweet dreams, and carry her unscathed out of Harken to where Bowen has placed a car with a note tucked into the windscreen:I’ll see you soon.

I smile at no one at all as the sun rises high above Harken Asylum and shake my head, tucking Adreana into the back seat and wrapping a blanket around her prone, exhausted form. She curls into my touch, a sweet sigh eliciting from her tainted lips as I kiss her gently.

“No, Fallen. You won’t.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Mirror, Mirror

Kaleb

Addi winds herself around me, her body sinuous and sweet as she glides against me, skin to skin, finally in my bed. I moan into her mouth, twirling my tongue with hers in a sensual dance. Her honeysuckle and vanilla taste twines with a spritz of lime from that first night in the club, a memory that lingers over us.

Warm, soft, all the things I love about her … she’s right there beneath me where she belongs. I pump my hips in time with hers, enjoying the simple pleasure of making love to the woman I adore.

“Aw. That’s cute. Did you learn to do that in grade school?” Mana’s caustic brand of sarcasm breaks into my peace.

“What?” I rouse out of the vision of her where I swear she’s still beneath me, my cock encased in her liquid, warm heat, and spit out a mouthful of dank feathers from the old pillow on the mattress we used last night. “What the fuck…?” I freeze, looking down and find myself humping a puddle of Mana’s leftover slop. “Jesus Christ.” I swipe a hand over my cock, knowing this shit will never come off. Likely it’ll stain my soul. “What the fuck is wrong with this place?”

Mana and Bowen burst into hysterics at my side, the shitty, deranged-as-fuck angel rolling around on the floor beside the bed. “Oh, human. That was funny. Do it again,” he begs, sitting up like a puppy.

I lash a foot out at him that he catches instead of dodging, and he licks one of my toes while I try to wriggle free, then sucks one. My cock, still covered in Mana’s cold cum that reacts to the angel’s fuckery and death grip, rises with a heady dose ofunwanted arousal.

“Stop that. Fuck,” I gasp.

My mouth hangs wide, recalling the last time the angel performed his dark magic on my body, though I’ve not had the destructive pleasure of his touch firsthand, until the last twenty-four hours. I yank at my leg while Mana watches, smirking and doing nothing, the fucktard, but Bowen refuses to release me, sucking and licking.

The image of him exactly where he is on his knees licking our balls while we fucked Addi senseless in a frenzy the night before is too much. I blow all over the angel’s face, adding to his filth, and he licks my cum from his lips.

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