Sin of the Saints (Between Delusion and Sobriety Duet #2)

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Bartimaeus

I crumble to my knees and gasp for breath. My muscles cry out in protest at their abuse, but I welcome the pain and the burning. This heavy breathing is a habit I can’t shake. My blood doesn’t need the reviving element humans need, yet my lungs still long for flavorless air, seeking comfort in the wrong place.

Just like my heart. It calls out the name of she who will never be mine.

The Pope said her awakening was revealed to him. And if Lilith is awake, I can only conclude that Belle is gone. It’s the way of our world, and of demons as well. Marked humans are just vessels for the souls of the angels and demons reincarnated into the lands of Adam. As it was, so it ever shall be.

To avoid giving away my grief for she who was never mine, save for a few stolen and unsatisfying moments, I bury myself in training from dawn to dusk.

Every morning, in the twilight hours, I look at the bleeding heavens and think of her. I don’t see it, but I feel the virginal light stinging my skin. It’s the moment in which the light defeats darkness.

“This is my favorite time of day,” she’d whispered. Her big, gorgeous eyes, so black they could swallow everything she looked at. Including me. And her tears kept falling, drowning me in her sorrow.

I force myself to step outside at sunset as well, to feel that darkness can vanquish the light as well. And when the sun is swallowed up by the horizon and dusk spreads, as darkness banishes the light, my skin is finally at ease and I let out a sigh of relief.

Humans fear the darkness, the monsters lurking in the shadows, the ones I should be hunting and banishing. ‘Should’ being the key word. Yet I find myself enchanted by this time of day most of all.

An angel waiting for sunset, a demoness waiting for sunrise. Irony at its finest.

“You’re out of shape, brother.” Ellis pats my back and I’m almost strangled by the force of the blow.

“Turns out being buried for three years has that effect.” I hear him yawn out of boredom, like this training session took nothing out of him. Show-off.

“Our training isn’t just meant to bust your ass, it’s supposed to help you sharpen your other senses until the light in your eyes returns to you,” he says. I don’t need a reminder that I’ve been cursed with blindness. Silence lingers between us, until Ellis says: “I’m hungry.” I cringe. Since being pulled from my grave, I haven’t fed. The Pope is the only one who knows about that, after all, he’s in charge of feeding arrangements.

“You can go, I need to rest a bit before I can move my legs.”

He mumbles something unclear and heads for the private chapel, where the feedings take place, unaware of my avoidance of the subject.

I finally manage to pull myself together, and head for my room in the domestic staff’s residential quarters at the Palais des Papes. My room is simple, modest. It has a single bed, a simple wooden dresser, a closet and a small washroom. Humility in the full sense of the word, unlike the extravagance in the rest of the palace. They try to instill lives of modesty for us while the Church’s key members hold incalculable wealth. Works of art, gold jewelry studded with gems, real estate and more. Religion is the most profitable business in the world, after all. And we, the lower castes, even the guardian angels, live modestly, lightyears away from those who hold positions of power, who preach to us about it without ever knowing meagerness.

I lie in bed and close my eyes. Belle’s image flashes before me, blurry and distant, yet so close at the same time. She hovers over me, as she did before disappearing when I was buried in darkness.

“Belle…” I can almost smell her. She has a scent that’s unique to her alone. A scent of smoke, embers and roses in full bloom. And the smell of the nectar between her legs, when I buried my face there… like maddening divine liquor.

The blood in my veins surges as thoughts of her flood my mind, hot currents on the verge of boiling, draining down between my legs and making my cock stand to attention. Hard. Needy. Desperate. Sinning . I banish the empty moralizing lectures from my mind, along with the idiotic warnings, everything I seem to have stopped believing in. Fuck them all. It’s a terrifying, unstoppable natural force and I willingly give in to it. I cling to it like my entire existence depends on it. There’s no forgiveness powerful enough to banish the taste of the forbidden fruit. That which was mine for a single, singular moment, that which I’ll never have again. All I have left is a memory that will haunt me until it’s my turn to evaporate from this world.

I caress my erection with long, slow and agonizing strokes. Imagining her, always just her, and my body starts vibrating with the lust that’s taken over me.

“Take me… ” she pleads.

“I’ll take you, sweetheart, I’ll take all of you.”

“More, more!” she screams with pleasure. The pleasure I give her as I strum her body.

“I’ll give you anything you want, Belle, beloved. Do you like it?” My grip on my cock tightens. The strokes grow clumsy as I seek an anchor in her. A point to hold onto in this madness.

“Yes, yes!” she wails. And the tears, they keep falling, crushing my heart. Crushing the damned soul I sold for her.

“Look at me with your beautiful eyes, I want to drown in you, in all of you.” I rub myself energetically. My stomach muscles are cold steel, my arms still aching from the intense workout, but I ignore the pain. Nothing can ruin this imaginary moment of mine, which I pray will come true. She opens her eyes, windows into her soul. She’s so wounded, the cracks are just gaping wider and wider, threatening to swallow me up, and I don’t know why. “What do you want, Belle?” I groan. The pressure is building, flooding me, and I tighten my ass muscles to hold on. Just a little more, just a little bit more…

“You,” her lips whisper voicelessly. “Your light.”

All my muscles clench and I come with paralyzing intensity.

“Holy shit.” I spill onto my stomach. A wave of pleasure chases a wave of agony, and the ferocity of my release rocks me to my core, to the depths of my soul. “Fuck!” I drop onto the pillow, my breathing wild.

What was that? The memory continues to change itself. Every day another element is added to the fantasy I’m building in my mind. But I can’t let go of the feeling that it might not be a fantasy at all. I look at my hand, gripping my still-hard-as-steel cock. No matter how many times I climax, I still long for her. The aura around my hand is shining in all its splendor, and only grows stronger as my seed drips onto it. Her scent lingers in the room as though she were actually here next to me, my skin burning with the haunted memory of her touch.

“Belle?” I whisper, scanning the room. Not a sound, no response. Just darkness and emptiness.

It’s ridiculous. If Lilith has awoken, Belle is gone. So how could her presence be stronger than ever? I close my eyes and cover my face with my other hand. I’m committing the sin of lust in the very heart of the holiest of holies. The Pope was very clear in his last speech, he left no room for doubt. We mustn’t break the most severe taboo. And yet the last thing I feel is shame or remorse.

The truth is it’s not lust I fear; what puts me in more danger than anything else is love. My love for Belle might drag me straight to Hell. And she’ll burn me, consume me, reduce me to ashes.

And when she’s done with me, she might burn the whole world too.