Chapter 7 #2
The enormity of it tries to crush me, seven years of this, seven years of serving angels, seven years of my life gone, but I shove it down. Lock it away. I can’t afford to think about that right now.
“Right. Seven years. My mistake.” I’m being mouthy, and I know it, but I can’t help myself, still running on my old standby of turning fear into sarcasm and bite, into anything except the raw terror that’s trying to claw up my throat. “Should I curtsy? I feel like maybe I should curtsy.”
Shut up shut up shut up. You’re going to get yourself killed.
His head tilts slightly, and again I notice he’s not quite looking at me. His gaze is focused somewhere near my face but not on it. Near my eyes but not meeting them as if listening more than looking.
It’s strange. Disconcerting.
“You’re nervous,” he says.
Understatement of the century.
“I’m standing in a room with an angel who collects souls for a living,” I shoot back. “Nervous seems like a reasonable response.”
“And yet, you’re hiding it behind sarcasm. Interesting.” He takes a step closer. Then another. Now he’s only three feet away, well within my personal space, towering over me with those broad shoulders and that perfect suit and those impossible gold eyes.
I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. Or the illusion of it, anyway.
My hands are trembling. I clasp them behind my back so he won’t see. Won’t know just how scared I actually am.
“Most humans who enter this house are weeping by now,” he says, his voice dropping lower, more intimate. “Begging. Offering me anything I want if I’ll just release them.”
I can picture it. Can imagine how many people have stood in this exact spot, terrified and desperate, willing to promise anything to escape. How many souls he’s collected just by standing here, being what he is, letting humans destroy themselves with their own fear.
The thought makes me angry. And anger is better than fear. Easier to work with.
“I’m not most humans.”
“No,” he agrees, and something in his voice shifts. Interest, maybe. Or hunger. “You’re not.”
He reaches out then, and I tense, ready to dodge, to fight, to do something, but he doesn’t grab me. His hand moves past my shoulder, and I hear the soft rustle of fabric. When he pulls back, he’s holding my bag. The one I dropped by the door when I came in.
I didn’t even realize I’d put it down.
“You travel light,” he observes, weighing the bag in his hand.
“Most inheritors arrive with trunks full of belongings. Photographs. Keepsakes. Desperate attempts to hold on to their old lives.” He sets the bag on a nearby chair with a little too much casualness.
“You brought a knife, a change of clothes, and a photograph. That’s all. ”
“I figured if you needed me to pack something specific, you’d have told me.”
“Really, how trusting?”
“No, I’m practical.” I keep watch on him as he returns his attention to me, his face angled toward mine but his gaze still not quite landing. “I figured whatever I brought wouldn’t matter much, anyway. Can’t exactly fight my way out of here with a duffel bag full of underwear.”
Another laugh, this one genuine. “I like you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.” He moves again, circling me slowly. I turn to keep him in my line of sight, but he’s moving just fast enough that I have to work at it. “I know you’ve been a sin eater for eighteen years. Forty-four successful contract breaks. An impressive record.”
“You’ve been doing your homework.”
“I always research my acquisitions.” He completes his circle, ending up back where he started, between me and the door.
“I know your mother died when you were nineteen. Car accident. You raised your half-sister alone with the help of your grandmother. And now you put her through school while building your reputation as a sin eater.”
“That’s not creepy at all.”
“I know you’re protective of your sister.
That you’d do anything to keep her safe.
Including walking into my house and serving a debt you never agreed to.
” He pauses. “I know Ash Malik visits your apartment at least twice a month. That he has a key. That he’s helped you through some difficult purges. ”
The mention of Ash makes my stomach drop. “Leave him out of this.”
“Why? Is he important to you?” Croesus tilts his head again, that strange not-quite-looking gesture. “Does he make your heart race the way it’s racing now?”
“My heart is racing because I’m standing in a room with an angel who’s listing off my personal information like he’s reading my diary. That’s not attraction. That’s fear.”
“Are you sure?” He takes another step forward.
Now he’s close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, can see the faint shimmer of gold in his eyes, deeper than the full effect of up close, can smell the metal and smoke on him.
“Your pulse is elevated. Your breathing is shallow. You’re afraid, yes.
But there’s something else underneath it. ”
“Yeah. It’s called anger.” I force myself not to step back, not to give ground. “You’ve been spying on me. Watching me. Cataloging my life like I’m some kind of asset you’re gaining.”
“You are an asset I’m acquiring.” He says it matter-of-factly, without heat. “For the next year, you belong to me. Your time, your skills, your service, are all mine. I’d be a fool not to know exactly what I’m getting.”
“I don’t belong to anyone.”
“For the next year, you absolutely do.” He reaches out again, and this time his hand finds my chin.
His fingers are warm, his touch gentle but firm as he tilts my head up.
“Let me be very clear about the terms of your service, little sin eater. You will live in this house. You will break the contracts I assign you. You will go where I tell you, when I tell you, and you will do so without complaint. In exchange, I will protect your sister. I will ensure she remains safe, ignorant, and untouched by our world. That was the agreement.”
His thumb brushes against my jaw, and I realize with a start that he’s reading me. Not with his eyes, those gold eyes that don’t quite focus on anything, but with his hands. Learning the shape of my face through touch.
The realization clicks into place.
He can’t see me.
Not with his eyes, anyway.
I go very still, and he must feel it because his mouth curves into a small smile.
“There it is,” he says softly. “You’ve figured it out.”
“You’re blind.” I whisper it, carefully, not sure if acknowledging it will offend him.
“In the traditional sense, yes.” He doesn’t sound bothered by the observation.
If anything, he sounds almost pleased that I noticed.
“I can sense gold, sense value, sense the worth of things around me. But visual sight?” He releases my chin, steps back.
“That particular sense was taken from me when I fell. A fitting punishment for the Angel of Greed, don’t you think?
I can acquire anything, possess everything, but I’ll never see it. ”
“That’s...” I search for the right word. Horrible seems too sympathetic. Fitting seems too cruel.
“Ironic?” he suggests. “Poetic? Deeply, cosmically unfair?” He moves back to his desk, running his fingers along the edge with casual familiarity. “I’ve had three thousand years to make peace with it. I manage.”
“By cataloging everything through other means.”
“Precisely.” He turns toward me again, and now that I know he can’t see me, the way he orients himself makes more sense.
He’s tracking me by sound, by scent, by the shift in air when I move.
“I can hear your heartbeat from across the room. I can smell the iron in your blood, the magic in your bones, the fear you’re trying so hard to hide.
I can sense the value of every object you carry.
That photograph is priceless to you, worth more than gold.
The knife is purely functional. The clothes are cheap but well-maintained.
” He pauses. “And I can tell, just from the way you’re breathing, that you’re attracted to me. Even though you don’t want to be.”
Heat floods my face. “That’s—”
“Don’t bother denying it. I can smell arousal. It has a very distinctive scent.” He sounds amused. “You’re angry, yes. Frightened, absolutely. But underneath all of that, there’s desire. Your body is responding to proximity to an angel, even if your mind is screaming at you to run.”
I want to argue and tell him he’s wrong, that he’s reading me incorrectly, that whatever he’s sensing is just adrenaline or fear or anything except attraction.
But I’d be lying.
Because he’s right. Standing this close to him, breathing in that scent of wealth and smoke and power, feeling the heat radiating off him, my body is responding.
My pulse is racing for reasons that have nothing to do with fear.
There’s a pull, magnetic and undeniable, that makes me want to step closer instead of backing away.
And I hate it.
“This is going to be a very long year,” I mutter.
“On the contrary.” Croesus’s smile widens, and it transforms his face from merely beautiful to devastating. “I think it’s going to be fascinating.”
He moves to his desk, settles into the chair behind it with the fluid grace that speaks to centuries of practice. Gestures to the chair across from him. “Sit. We have terms to discuss.”
I want to refuse on principle. Want to stay standing, to maintain some illusion of control in this situation where I have absolutely none.
But I’m exhausted. The walk through the maze of hallways, the weight of the last few days, so quick after my last purge, and the sheer overwhelming presence of him, are all catching up with me.
I sit.
The chair is more comfortable than it looks. Expensive leather, the kind that molds to your body. Of course, it is. Everything in this place is expensive.