Chapter 14 #2
I want to hit him, to storm out, anything except stand here feeling exposed and angry and confused about why my pulse is racing and my skin feels too warm where he touched me.
Instead, I cross my arms and force myself to sound calmer than I feel. “You were explaining why you need this. The collection. The deals. All of it.”
“Ah, yes.” He turns away, moves back to the center of the room.
The moment breaks, and I can breathe again.
“Angels were made to serve. To worship. To exist in the presence of divine grace. When we fell, when Lucifer fell, and we fractured, that connection was severed. We became beings of pure want with no way to satisfy it.”
He picks up a golden chalice, turns it in his hands.
“This is from the Last Supper. Or so the cardinal who sold it to me claimed. Real or not, it cost him his soul and his faith. He wanted power in the church. I gave it to him. He gave me this.” He sets it down.
“Do you know what I felt when I acquired it?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He looks at me, and for the first time, I see something like pain in his expression.
“Absolutely nothing. I remember the transaction. The negotiation. The moment it became mine. But the satisfaction? The joy of possession?” He shakes his head.
“Gone in an instant. Less than an instant. By the time I placed it on this shelf, I was already hungry for the next thing.”
“That’s horrible.”
“That’s greed.” He moves through the collection, touching things at random. A painting. A sculpture. A jeweled dagger. “I take and take and take, and I never feel full. Never feel satisfied. I feel nothing except the hunger for more.” He stops, looks at me. “Until you.”
The air between us feels charged again. Electric.
“Don’t,” I warn.
“Don’t what? Tell you the truth?” He moves closer, and I force myself not to back away.
“You asked when I last wanted something. Really wanted it. Not the reflexive hunger of my nature, but actual, genuine desire.” He’s in front of me again, close enough to touch.
“The answer is: you. You’re the first thing in centuries I’ve wanted that makes me feel something other than empty. ”
His hand comes up again, and this time I catch his wrist. Stop him before he touches my face.
“No,” I say firmly. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to make me part of your collection by claiming I’m different from it.”
“You are different from it.” He doesn’t pull his wrist from my grip.
Just stands there, looking at me with those too-bright eyes.
“Everything else in this room is dead. Acquired. Mine. But you?” He turns his wrist in my grip, and suddenly he’s the one holding me.
His fingers interlock with mine, and the touch is warm and solid and dangerous.
“You’re alive. You fight. You choose. You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted that wants me back. ”
“I don’t want you.” But my voice wavers.
“Your heart is racing.” His free hand comes up to my chest, palm flat over my heart. Not grabbing, not groping, just there. Feeling the proof of my lie. “Your breathing is shallow. Your body knows what you’re refusing to admit.”
I should push him away. Should remind him about boundaries, about consent, about the fact that he owns me for a year and anything between us would be coercion by definition.
But his hand is warm over my heart, and his eyes are gold, and some traitorous part of me wants to see what happens if I stop fighting.
“This is the curse talking; you want me because you can’t have me. That’s all this is.”
“Maybe.” He doesn’t deny it. “But doesn’t that make it more interesting?
I’ve never wanted something I couldn’t have.
Never felt a desire that couldn’t be satisfied with gold or power or time.
You’re unfamiliar territory for me, Raven.
And I find myself very curious about what it would take to make you want me back. ”
“Nothing.” The words rush out. “There’s nothing you could do or say or offer that would make me want you.”
“Another lie.” His thumb traces small circles over my racing heart. “But I appreciate the commitment to it.”
I grab his wrist with my free hand, pulling his palm away from my chest. Now I’m holding both his wrists, keeping his hands away from me, and he allows it. Just stands there with that infuriating almost-smile.
“Why are you doing this?” I demand.
“Because I’m curious,” he says simply. “About you. About this.” He nods to where I’m gripping his wrists. “About what would happen if I kissed you again. Right now.”
“I’d bite you.”
“Probably.” His smile widens slightly. “But you’d also kiss me back. For just a moment, before you remembered to be angry. And that moment would be...” He leans in, voice dropping. “...fascinating.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m an immortal being made of greed and hunger who hasn’t felt genuine want in three thousand years.” He’s close enough now that I can feel his breath against my lips. “Insanity is relative.”
For a heartbeat, just one, I consider letting go. Consider seeing what would happen if I stopped fighting, stopped lying to myself, stopped pretending that his proximity doesn’t affect me.
Then I remember the vault and my grandmother’s entry in the ledger: upon completion or death, the soul belongs to the House of Gold.
The soul.
I release his wrists and step to the side, putting space between us.
“No, whatever this is, whatever you think you’re feeling, no. I’m not interested in being your experiment in desire. I’m not here to teach you how to want something. I’m here to serve my time and to protect my sister. That’s all.”
For a moment, his expression is unreadable. Then he steps back, gives me space, and the mask of casual indifference slides back into place.
“As you wish.” His voice is smooth again. Controlled. “I simply thought you might appreciate understanding why I do what I do. Why the deals, why the collection, why any of it matters.”
“I understand,” I say. “You’re starving. You’ve been starving for three thousand years. And everything you consume turns to ash in your mouth the moment you swallow it.”
He goes still. “Yes. Exactly that.”
“Then I feel sorry for you.” And I mean it. Despite everything, the vault, the contracts, I really do mean it. “But that doesn’t change what you are. Or what I am. Or that any desire you feel for me is just another kind of hunger you can’t satisfy.”
“Perhaps.” He turns away, moves back to his collection. Picks up a small sculpture, which looks Greek, a woman with flowing robes. “But I’m going to find out anyway. I have you for a year, after all. Plenty of time to see if this particular hunger is different from all the others.”
“It’s not.”
“We’ll see.” He sets the sculpture down, looks at me over his shoulder. “You should go. I have business to attend to.Thank you for being honest. For not pretending. For seeing me as what I am instead of what I appear to be.”
I don’t know what to say about that. So I just nod and leave, rushing through the maze of priceless treasures until I reach the door.
Just before I step through, I hear him speak. Quiet. Almost to himself.
“When’s the last time I wanted something? I’m still trying to remember what wanting felt like before you.”
I close the door behind me and lean against it, heart racing, skin tingling where he touched me.
This is dangerous. More dangerous than the sins I absorb, more dangerous than the angels I’m stealing from. Because Croesus isn’t just interested in me as a tool or a curiosity.
He’s interested in me as something he might actually want.
And I’m terrified of what happens when he figures out I want him back even more than he keeps suggesting.
I find Nat in the library an hour later, hunched over a book. He glances up when I approach, and whatever he sees in my face makes him close the book.
“What happened?”
“Croesus showed me his collection.” I sink into the chair across from him. “And then he tried to... I don’t know. Seduce me? Test me? Figure out if I want him?”
“And do you?”
“No.” It comes out too fast, too defensive.
Nat raises an eyebrow. “Remember, I see lies.”
“Fine. Maybe. I don’t know.” I run my hands through my hair, frustrated. “He touched me. Asked when I last wanted something. Told me I’m the first thing he’s wanted in centuries that he can’t have. And part of me, a stupid, traitorous part, wanted to let him keep touching me.”
“That’s normal.”
“It’s not normal. He’s an angel. A monster. He has hundreds of souls locked in a vault. He’s holding my sister’s safety hostage. I shouldn’t want anything to do with him.”
“But you do.” Nat’s voice is gentle. “Because he’s not just a monster. He’s also a prisoner. And you see that. You see his pain and his curse. And the sin eater part of you wants to ease that.”
“I can’t ease it. No one can. That’s the whole point of him. Isn’t this some kind of divine punishment? Isn’t he supposed to be suffering?”
“Maybe.” Nat leans back, studying me again.
I should hate it. I should stop it, but he said he can’t control his gift.
“Or maybe you’re the first person who could.
Because you’re not trying to give him what he wants.
You’re just...being honest. Being real. Being someone who can’t be bought or claimed or added to his collection. And that’s what he actually needs.”
“I’m not here to save him from himself.”
“No. But you might anyway.” He opens his book again.
“Just, be careful. Angels like Croesus don’t fall in love.
They obsess. They possess. They consume.
If he decides he wants you, really wants you, not as a curiosity but as something essential.
..” He looks up. “It won’t be gentle. And it won’t let you go. ”
I think about Croesus’s hand over my heart. His thumb tracing circles. His voice in my ear: but you’d also kiss me back.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I’m starting to figure that out.”