Chapter 1 #2
But he can't intervene without undermining me completely. If he steps in now, Seraph will know I need protection. That I'm not strong enough to stand alone.
And Seraph will use that knowledge against me for the next twelve months.
Beside me, I feel Croesus's internal war: protect her versus respect her strength. Love versus strategy.
It makes my chest ache.
"Fine," I say, forcing my voice to stay level. "But I will need my tools. Ritual supplies. A purification chamber—"
"No."
I blink. "What do you mean, no?"
"I mean no preparation. No ritual circle.
No carefully controlled environment where you can hide behind ceremony and procedure.
" Seraph crosses his arms, and the six wings behind him shift slightly, catching the light, the soft sound of feathers rustling together.
They're beautiful in a way that makes you want to look away.
Too perfect. Too bright. "Croesus tells me you're exceptional. Says you can absorb sins that would normally kill other sin eaters.” His mirror eyes lock onto mine. "Prove it. Right here. Right now."
The hall is silent except for the client's ragged breathing and the faint whisper of air moving through this cavernous space.
My heart is pounding. The binding with Croesus is thrumming like a plucked string, vibrating with his tension.
"That's not how sin eating works," I say carefully, trying to keep my voice professional. Trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about even though panic is starting to claw at my throat. "The ritual isn't for show. It's for safety—mine and the client's."
"Then you'll fail," Seraph finishes. "And we'll all know Croesus's confidence in you is misplaced. We’ll know you're impressive in controlled conditions but useless when tested.
" He leans forward slightly, and I catch his scent again, lilies and ozone and something underneath like old stone or ancient bone.
"Or you'll succeed, and we can dispense with the tedious posturing and get to work. Your choice."
It's not a choice. We both know it's not a choice.
If I back down now, I'll spend the next year proving myself over and over. Every task a test. Every failure another excuse to grind me down, to reshape me, to break me into something more palatable to his exacting standards.
But if I do this, if I somehow pull this off, maybe I buy myself some breathing room. Maybe I show him I'm not someone he can casually dismiss.
Maybe.
Croesus's hand on my arm is iron-tight now. I can almost feel what he’s thinking: don't do this. It's too dangerous. He's trying to break you before you've even started. Walk away. We'll renegotiate—
But I'm looking at the client. At the desperation in their red-rimmed eyes. At their hands shaking. At the broken slump of their shoulders.
I know that look. I've seen it in every client I've ever worked with, every person desperate enough to make a deal with an angel and then desperate enough to want out.
And I'm thinking about the next twelve months in this pristine white palace with an angel who's already decided I'm insufficient. Who's already looking at me like I'm a project to be perfected or discarded.
Croesus is leaving. Soon. Maybe minutes from now. And I'll be alone here with Seraph and his impossible standards and his mirror eyes reflecting every flaw.
The thought tightens my chest. Makes it hard to breathe.
I don't want Croesus to go. Don't want to watch him walk back through the mirror and leave me here. Don't want to say goodbye to the one person in this entire fucked-up supernatural world who's ever looked at me like I matter.
But I signed the contracts. Agreed to serve all seven houses. This was always coming.
And if I'm going to survive it, I need to start strong.
"What sin?" I ask, and my voice only shakes a little.
"Pride," Seraph says, and his smile is all teeth. "What else? Were you even listening?"
At least it’s a thing I already have experience with, lingering in my system from Barnes' contract I absorbed months ago. The one that sometimes still whispers in the back of my mind: you're better than this, you're stronger than them, you don't need anyone...
I study the client again. Really focus on them. "You gave them your pride? Your confidence?"
"I amplified what they already had and made it impossible to ignore," Seraph corrects, his voice taking on a lecturer's tone.
Like he's explaining a particularly interesting phenomenon.
"All the power they wanted, wrapped in unshakeable self-belief.
" He pauses. "For the first three months, they thought they'd won.
Thought they'd found the cheat code to success. "
"And then?" I ask, though I already know.
"And then they realized they can never admit they're wrong. Never accept help. Never show weakness." Seraph's voice is clinical, detached. "But they can't stop. Can't back down. Can't let anyone see the cracks in their perfect confidence. The pride won't allow it."
The client is crying now. Silent tears streaming down their face, and they're not even trying to wipe them away. They stand there, weeping, while Seraph catalogs the destruction with academic interest.
"You did this to them on purpose," I say, and I can't keep the anger out of my voice. "Gave them exactly what they asked for, knowing it would destroy them."
It's what they all do—what they've always done. Even Croesus, and for a flash of a second I don't even want him to touch me. Just because we've become closer doesn’t meant change facts. He needs this. He needs to feed on these people.
"I gave them what they paid for," Seraph corrects.
"How they use it is their choice. They could have been moderate.
Could have used the confidence sparingly.
But humans never can, can they? Give them a taste of power and they gorge themselves until they choke.
" He looks at me with those mirror eyes.
"Does this make you uncomfortable? That I'm very, very good at my job? "
Croesus, beside me, is practically vibrating with the need to intervene.
His emotion crashes into me like a wave: fury at Seraph for this callous display, fear for what I'm about to do, and underneath it all, this aching sadness because he knows he's about to leave me here and that right this second I hate him for being what he is.
For turning humans into prey, into nothing more than base instinct and food.
I feel it all. Every piece of him.
And it makes me want to scream.
"You're a sadist," I say to Seraph.
"I'm efficient." He doesn't even blink. "I'm also the angel of pride, which means I have no patience for false modesty or pointless self-deprecation.
I know exactly what I am and what I do. My clients understand the terms. They choose to accept them.
That their choices have consequences isn't my fault.
It's the nature of free will." He waves a hand dismissively.
"Now. Are you going to help them, or shall I send them home to watch their lives continue crumbling?
I have other matters to attend to, and this is becoming tedious. "
I take a breath. Let it out slowly through my nose.
The binding with Croesus pulls so tight it feels like it might snap. He wants to grab me, pull me back, drag me through that mirror and take me home where it's safe.
But I stepped through the mirror of my own free will. Made my choices. Signed my contracts.
Time to live with the consequences.
"I need them to consent," I say. It's not really true, but if I can stop this without Seraph becoming even more of a dick, than I'm going to try. "Verbal consent, clear and uncoerced."
"Do you consent to this sin eater attempting to break your contract?" Seraph asks, not looking away from me.
"Yes," the client gasps. "God, yes. Please. I don't care what it costs. Just—please—make it stop."
"There," Seraph says pleasantly. "Consent obtained. Witnesses present. All very official and proper. Now show me what Croesus finds so valuable."
I step away from Croesus, and it’s like tearing off a piece of my own skin. The binding stretches between us, that golden thread that connects us, and through it I catch his grief. His love. His desperate hope I survive this.
I'll come for you, his thought whispers through my head. Whenever you need me. Just call.
I manage a tiny nod, not trusting my voice, and then I force myself to walk across the pristine white marble toward the broken client.
My boots echo in the vast space. Each step too loud, too heavy. I'm hyperaware of Seraph watching, of Croesus behind me radiating tension, of the client standing there shaking and crying and pinning all their desperate hope on me.
I stop in front of them. They're hunched over now, making themselves small.
"This is going to hurt," I warn them quietly, keeping my voice low enough in the hope Seraph won't hear the tremor in it.
They nod frantically, tears still streaming. "Anything. Please, I want to be myself again."
I crouch enough to grab the knife I'd secreted into my boot in case I needed it, and draw it out. Then I snatch their hand, and slice a line across their palm, quick and fast. I do the same to my own and press my hand to theirs.
Blood to blood. Bone to bone. Heartbeat to heartbeat.
The connection forms immediately, like grabbing a live wire. The chain of their contract constricting around them, and me in turn now that I've connected.
I take a breath and pull.
The sin slams into me like a truck.
But it's not pride.
It's lust.
Oh, fuck.