Chapter 33
The ritual is set for midnight.
I spend the hours before in my room, trying to rest. Trying not to think about what's coming. Trying to ignore the weight of dread that's settled in my chest like a stone.
It doesn't work.
Every time I close my eyes, I see the vision, seven figures overlapping, bleeding into one. I hear that voice speaking in harmony: the fallen must be reunited.
And now I'm about to bind myself to all of them.
Permanently, probably.
The thought should terrify me more than it does. Maybe I'm just too exhausted for proper terror. Or maybe some part of me has already accepted that my life stopped being mine to live the way I wanted the moment I opened those seven letters.
A knock at the door pulls me from my spiraling thoughts.
"Come in," I call, sitting up.
The door opens. Croesus.
He's changed from his earlier formal clothes into something simpler, black pants, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His hair is loose, falling past his shoulders, and in the soft light of my room he looks... younger. More vulnerable.
I’d been spiraling, so hadn’t noticed his closeness, but now I feel his turmoil. His fear. His desperate need to touch me, to reassure himself I'm still here.
"Couldn't sleep either?" I ask.
"No." He closes the door behind him, leans against it. "The others are preparing. Gathering what we need for the ritual. Warding the space. I should be helping, but..." He trails off.
"But you needed to see me."
"Yes." His gold eyes find me unerringly despite his blindness. "One last time. Before everything changes."
The words hang heavy in the air.
I pat the bed beside me. "Sit."
He moves across the room with his usual prowling grace, settles on the edge of the bed. Close but not touching. The space between us feels charged, electric.
"Are you afraid?" he asks quietly.
"Terrified."
"Good. Fear will keep you careful during the ritual." His hands are clasped in his lap, knuckles white with tension. "There are things that can go wrong. If the bonds form too quickly, if you pull too much power–"
"Croesus."
"--or if any of them lose control during the binding, if their sin overwhelms the ritual–"
"Croesus."
"--you could die. Or worse. You could survive but be permanently damaged. I've seen bonds go wrong, seen what happens when–"
I take his hand, thread my fingers through his. I feel his terror spike at the contact, then slowly begin to ease.
"I'm going to be fine," I tell him.
"You can't know that."
"No. But I can choose to believe it." I squeeze his hand. "And you're going to be there. All of you. You won't let me die. Hopefully."
The joke falls flat. "What if we can't stop it? What if the magic is too strong, too unpredictable?" His voice cracks. "What if I lose you because I agreed to this insane plan?"
I pull him closer, cup his face with my free hand. "Look at me."
His gold eyes meet mine, blind but seeing in ways that have nothing to do with sight.
"You're not going to lose me," I say firmly.
"Tomorrow, we kill an archangel. Tonight, we create bonds that might save my life.
And yes, it's dangerous. Yes, it's terrifying.
But it's also our only option without breaking the treaty which keeps everything balanced.
Even the human world would suffer if Heaven and you fought. "
"I hate that you're right."
"I know." I lean my forehead against his. "But that's what we have. So instead of spending tonight listing all the ways this could go wrong, let's..." I trail off, unsure what I want to say.
"Let's what?"
"Let's just be here. Together. While we still can."
I feel his emotions as they shift, terror giving way to something softer, more desperate. Need.
"I don't want to share you," he whispers. "I know I have to. I know it's necessary. But I don't want to."
"I know."
"After tonight, you'll be connected to all of them. You'll feel Seraph's pride. Kael's wrath. Lysander's–" He stops.
"Lust," I finish for him, though I did not want to have this conversation again. "Yes. I'll feel all of it."
His jaw clenches. "And they'll feel you. They'll know when you're happy, sad, afraid. They'll know when you want them."
"Will they?"
"The bonds won't lie, Raven. Whatever you feel, they'll sense it. And I..." His voice breaks. "I'll feel them affecting you. Through our bond. I'll know."
I pull back to look at him properly. "Good."
He blinks. "Good?"
"You don't get to hide from this. If I have to be connected to all of you, if I have to feel everyone's emotions constantly, then you don't get to pretend you're not affected." I trace his jaw with my thumb. "We're in this together. All of us. For better or worse."
"Mostly worse," he mutters.
"Probably." I smile despite everything. "But at least we'll be suffering together."
He almost laughs at that.
Then his hands come up to frame my face, and suddenly the air between us changes. Becomes charged with something other than fear.
"I need to tell you something," he says quietly. "Before the ritual. Before everything changes."
My heart stutters. "Okay."
"I've wanted many things over three thousand years." His thumbs stroke my cheekbones. "Treasure. Power. Souls. More, always more. That's what greed is, endless wanting, never satisfied."
I wait, barely breathing.
"But I've never needed anything. Never felt like I'd die without something. The curse made sure of that, I can want endlessly, but needing? Needing is vulnerability. Weakness. A crack in the armor."
"Croesus..."
"Let me finish." His voice is rough. "You came here a couple of months ago. Defiant, angry, terrified but hiding it. You negotiated when you should have submitted. You challenged me when you should have obeyed. And I hated it. Hated you, maybe, for making me feel things I didn't want to feel."
Through our binding, I feel the truth of this, the confusion, the frustration, the slow transformation from irritation to fascination to something deeper.
"But somewhere between the first contract break and now, between watching you fight and watching you survive and watching you choose to face an archangel rather than run.
.." He stops, swallows hard. "I stopped wanting you and started needing you.
And that terrifies me more than anything Heaven could send. "
The words settle into the space between us, heavy and true.
"I love you," he says simply. "I don't want to. I wish I didn't. But I do. And tomorrow when you bind yourself to six other angels, when they start affecting you the way I do, when you start feeling things for them, "
"It won't change this," I interrupt. "What we have. What we are."
"You can't know that."
"Yes, I can." I lean forward, kiss him softly. "Because I love you too. I've been trying not to. Trying to keep walls up, keep this transactional. But I love you. And that's not going away just because I'm going to be connected to the others."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I'm choosing you right now. In this moment. Before the bonds, before the battle, before everything gets complicated." I kiss him again, deeper this time. "I'm choosing you."
His control breaks.
He pulls me against him, kissing me. Desperate, consuming, trying to memorize the taste and feel of me before I belong to more than just him.
I kiss him back with equal desperation. Because tomorrow everything changes. Tomorrow, I become a weapon. And in a mere few hours, I bind myself to seven deadly sins.
But right now, this moment, I'm still just me. Still just Raven choosing to be with Croesus.
And if this is the last night we have like this, the last time it's just us before six others intrude, then I want to make it count.
"Stay," I whisper against his mouth. "Until it is time…. Just stay with me."
Through the binding, his love crashes over me like a wave.
"Always," he breathes.
We don't rush.
There's no frantic tearing of clothes, no desperate urgency. We've done desperate. We've done angry and possessive and claiming.
This time is different. This is goodbye to how things were and hello to something unknown.
Croesus undresses me slowly, reverently. Each piece of clothing removed with careful attention, like he's unwrapping something precious. His hands trace my skin, learning it, memorizing it, marking it with touch alone.
"You're beautiful," he murmurs, and through the binding I feel that he means it. Not in the way he finds his treasures beautiful, valuable, precious, to be hoarded. But beautiful in a way that hurts. That makes his chest ache. That reminds him what it means to want something beyond his reach.
"I'm right here," I tell him.
"For now." His hands slide up my sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake. "Soon, you'll be everyone's. But right now..." He leans down, presses a kiss to my collarbone." Right now, you're mine."
"I'm always yours." I work at his shirt buttons, fumbling slightly. "The others won't change that."
"Won't they?"
I get his shirt open, push it off his shoulders. His skin is warm under my palms, solid and real. "No. Because what we have, it's more than a bond. More than proximity or necessity or any of the things that will tie me to the others."
"What is it, then?"
I trace the muscles of his chest, feel his heart beating strong beneath my fingers. "Choice. I chose you. I keep choosing you. And I'll keep choosing you even when there are six others."
He pulls me close, skin against skin, and I feel his fierce possessiveness warring with his love. He wants to keep me isolated, wants to be the only one I need. But he also wants me to survive. And survival means sharing.
"I'm going to be terrible at this," he warns. "Jealous. Possessive. Probably violent toward them when they touch you."
"Yeah, yeah. I know. I recall you mentioning it once or twice." I push him back onto the bed, climb onto his lap. "But you're going to try anyway. Because you love me more than you hate sharing."
"Barely."