Devil of Dublin

by B.B. Easton

That gap-toothed grin destroyed me. Ran me through with medieval brutality. It wasn’t clean. Or quick. It was slow and jagged and splintered as it pierced my heart, twisting on the way in, dragging on the way out. It left a million brittle shards behind, ensuring that I would never ever forget who that organ belonged to. Darby Collins. The only person who ever smiled when they saw me.

Her eyes lifted to mine, round and sweet, and without a word, without a plan, without a clue as to why we would do such a thing, Darby and I pressed our bloody palms together. And kissed. The moment her lips touched mine, the same still blue presence that had beckoned me into the water returned. It wrapped around my mind like the tail of a cat, warm and soft and cautiously curious. Then, it spoke. “Is fíor bhur ngrá,” it purred. “Tugaim mobheannacht daoibh.”

I wasn’t letting anything take her from me again. Not even God himself.

Because I didn’t belong in heaven and I certainly didn’t belong with her. Darby was an angel in the flesh, and if the rumors were true, I was the spawn of Satan himself. But I didn’t give a single solitary shite. If the Devil wanted to drag me back to hell now, he was going to need a fucking body bag.

Fuuuck. I had the skills necessary to take a life with my bare hands or from thirty meters away, but nothing had ever made me feel more powerful than discovering that I had the ability to make Darby Collins make that fucking sound.

I was no longer human or demon or even fucking breathing. I was simply hers—mind, body, and cursed black soul.

The need to fill her overwhelmed me. And it didn’t stop with my body. I wanted to give her everything I had. My fucking life. My splintered heart. My hateful, hell bound soul. She could do with it what she pleased. I didn’t care. None of it belonged to me anymore, and it hadn’t since I was ten years old. “I’m in love with you, Darby,” I said, pressing my lips to her shoulder. “Always have been. And if I had a fucking birth certificate, I’d ask you to marry me right now.”

“I’m in love with you too, Kellen Donovan,” she whispered, rolling her hips as I swelled inside of her. “Always will be.”

“All I want—all I’ve ever wanted—is for you to look at me the way you’re lookin’ at me now.”