Jaci Burton - Taken by Sin

“Celine was fifteen, the oldest child of four children. She was flawless. Beautiful, bright, innocent, but she was in love with someone else and they were going to be married.

“This older guy-Ratineau-owned the neighboring land. He bid for Celine’s hand but her father said no, that she was promised to another. Ratineau was furious. He wanted Celine and the Labeau land and he’d stop at nothing to get both.”

“Did you think this Ratineau was being influenced by the other side?”

Dalton nodded. “I was convinced of it. Celine was perfectly beautiful, possessed of magic, with a serene, ethereal quality about her. What man wouldn’t fall in love with her?”

Isabelle’s lips quirked. “Including you?”

Dalton’s gaze lifted to hers. “I wasn’t a man. I was an angel. I was supposed to be above those human emotions.”

“But you weren’t, were you?”

“No, I wasn’t. I fell in love with Celine. And it clouded my judgment.”

“In what way?”

“I was convinced Ratineau was possessed by darkness. And then he did the unthinkable. He killed Celine’s parents and her brothers, and kidnapped Celine. He chained her up in his cellar and told her she was going to agree to marry him. She cried, brokenhearted over her family. She refused and told him she’d rather die than have anything to do with a murderer. He was so angry at her. He tortured her, raped her. Over and over again. He told her he’d keep her there until she died, but she’d be his and so would her land.”

Isabelle covered her mouth. “Oh, God. No.”

Dalton nodded. “For the first time in my existence I felt fury. Hatred. The need for revenge. I had to save her. So I used my power to strike him down.”

Isabelle’s eyes widened. “How?”

Dalton hesitated, remembering the moment as if it had just happened yesterday instead of over a century ago. “I used my sword and ran him through.”

“You killed him?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Dalton. But what choice did you have if he was possessed?”

“Well, you see, that’s where I failed. He wasn’t possessed. Not by demons, anyway. Mad with desire, power-hungry, evil in his own right, yes. But the other side hadn’t taken control of him. And in my hazy, lovesick mind, I failed to see it. I only saw him hurting my beloved Celine and I had to save her. I was the one who decided that he had to have been taken over by darkness. I broke the rule.”

“But you loved her. And you saved her. Who knows what he would have done to her if you hadn’t. I’m so sorry, Dalton.” Isabelle crawled onto his lap, curled her fingers into the front of his shirt and held tight.

When she lifted her head, her eyes glistened with tears.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” She swept her hand across his face. “I love you.” She leaned in, pressing her lips to his in a gentle kiss that made him ache inside. “I always knew there was something special about you.”

He smiled. “I’m not special, Isabelle. I’m damned. I broke the cardinal law of the Guardians. I interfered. I took human life.”

“It was deserved.”

“That wasn’t my call to make. Only the Creator can do that.”

She shook her head. “So unfair. You did the right thing.”

He shrugged. “I had reached my limit. It was my weakness. Because I couldn’t stand to see those innocents murdered, even if it meant my own damnation. The guy deserved what I gave him. So even though I was punished for what I’d done, I was able to save Celine. That was good enough for me and well worth my punishment.”

“What was your punishment?”

“I was cast out as a Guardian, forced to live in darkness for one hundred years.”

“In darkness? What does that mean?”

“I served the Sons of Darkness.”

She leaned back, a look of horror on her face. “Oh, no. Oh, Dalton, I’m so sorry. From heaven into hell.”

“Something like that.”

“You spent a hundred years with demons? As a demon?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re … intimately familiar with the Sons of Darkness.”

“Yes.”

“How did you end up back here? Couldn’t you return to your life as an angel once you served your punishment?”

He shook his head. “Once I had served my time, I was doomed to live as an immortal, in neither light nor darkness, until the day I find redemption.”

She smoothed her hand over his chest. “So after all those years of living hell, you couldn’t go home.”

“No.”

“Wow. They take punishment pretty seriously, don’t they?”

“They take the rules seriously. Otherwise, there would be chaos, as you can imagine.”

“It must have been so hard for you all this time. Living as a human. But still, you’re not really a human, are you?”

“Yes and no. I don’t age or get sick and I can’t be killed.”

“Which is why when I shot you with the laser, you recovered so fast.”

“They want to make sure I serve out my sentence. Death is easy, you know.”

“What a lonely existence. Hard to make friends, since you can’t get too close to anyone.”

“Yeah, it can be difficult.”

“But you found the Realm of Light.”

He smiled. “I did. So now I can battle those I used to serve.”

“Is that your redemption?”

His smile died. “No, Isabelle, it isn’t.”

“What is, then?”

“I once took a life. I’ll be redeemed when I can save a life.”

She frowned. “But don’t you do that as one of the hunters? Don’t you save lives every time you kill a demon?”

“Indirectly.”

“So what is it going to take for you to earn your redemption?”

Her brows knit together as she pondered what he had said.

Come on, Isabelle. You’re smart. You’ll put it together.

He felt her tension as soon as she connected the dots. “Me. You mean me.”

“Yes.”

Isabelle slid off Dalton’s lap and backed away from him. Too much information to soak in all at once. First finding out he was an angel, putting all the pieces together about the white light she’d seen, the miraculous healing after his injury. Then hearing the story of his heroic deed, how he became damned, the terrible and beautiful sacrifice he’d made, and the unfairness of it all. And the hideous punishment he’d suffered because of it.

And now, to discover that he meant to obtain his redemption through her? Had he always felt that way, from the first moment he’d discovered she was a demon?

She stared at him, not knowing what to say. She wasn’t even certain what she felt.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He hadn’t moved from his spot on the chair. Part of her wanted to crawl back in his lap and give him comfort. What it must have cost him to tell her his story, the pain that had to be gutting him inside, the horrible memories his tale had dredged up.

The other part of her was afraid-because she realized she might be nothing more than a means to an end for Dalton, that he was quite possibly using her to obtain his own redemption, to once again become the angel he used to be.

She thought he felt something for her. That maybe he loved her, like she loved him. When she told him she loved him, she meant it.

Was she a fool?

“I’m thinking a lot of things,” she admitted.

He came to her, grasped her hands. Warm. Alive. Human. But he wasn’t, was he?

“Talk to me. Don’t let the questions eat you up inside.”

She let him lead her to the sofa and sat next to him, needing the comfort of his body next to hers. Weak, she knew, but right now he was all she had, even if his motives were suspect.