Chapter 1 #3
The need hits me low and hard in the gut.
An overwhelming, all-consuming hunger flooding every nerve ending.
I need to be touched. Need to be held. Need skin on skin and breath in my lungs and someone's hands on me right now or I'm going to crawl out of my own body trying to find it.
Every nerve is on fire. Every inch of skin is too tight, too hot, too empty.
Like I'm dying of thirst in the middle of an ocean, drowning and parched at the same time.
My knees buckle, and I would have hit the marble if the client didn't catch me. Their hands on my arms send electricity through my skin. Yes, touch, more, please, and I have to force myself to shove them away before I do something horrifying.
"What—" I gasp, but I can barely form words. The lust is eating me alive, turning me into something that's only need with a pulse.
Behind me, Seraph laughs. Light and genuinely amused.
"Oh, this is delightful," he says. "Did you really think I'd make this easy for you? That I'd give you exactly what you expected?"
I try to turn toward him, but my legs won't work right. The client has stumbled backward, free of their contract, the chain dissolved the moment I pulled the sin into myself, and they're staring at me with horror and relief warring on their face.
"Pride is what I promised them," Seraph continues, moving closer.
I can hear his footsteps, perfectly measured, perfectly controlled.
"But lust is what I gave them. Amplified their every base desire until they couldn't think past wanting.
Made them obsessed with pleasure, with sensation, with need.
" His voice is right beside me now. "The pride kept them from admitting what was really wrong. Made them too ashamed to ask for help. A rather elegant trap, I thought. You didn’t know we can dip into each other’s sins? "
I'm on my hands and knees on the white marble, shaking, and every point of contact with the floor sends sparks through my nervous system. Cold stone. Hard surface. Textured. Everything is too much and not enough at the same time.
I need to purge this. Now.
I try to remember the words. Try to focus past the screaming need in every cell.
"Ex carne mea, te expello," I grit out. From my flesh, I cast you out.
But the words fall flat. Empty. Without the ritual, without the circle, without the proper preparation, they're just sounds. Just syllables with no power behind them.
The lust doesn't even flinch.
"Oh dear," Seraph says, and there’s a smile in his voice. "It seems your Latin isn't working. How unfortunate."
Through the binding, Croesus rages. All terror and desperate need to intervene, but he can't. Won't. Because Seraph is right. If I can't handle this, if I can't prove I'm strong enough, the next year will be unbearable.
"Ex anima mea, te solvo," I try again, forcing the words through clenched teeth. From my soul, I release you.
Nothing. The lust only burns hotter, clawing at my insides.
I can't do this. Can't purge without the ritual. Without the structure. Without—
"Having trouble?" Seraph crouches beside me, and his proximity makes everything worse.
Makes the need spike until I can barely breathe.
"You rely too much on ceremony. On ritual.
On the comfort of your little circles and candles and Latin phrases.
" He reaches out, but doesn't touch me, only hovers his hand near my face, and even the almost-contact makes me want to scream.
"What happens when you don't have those things?
When you're forced to work without your safety nets? "
"Fuck you," I manage.
"Maybe later." His laugh is soft and cruel. "Right now, you need to purge the lust before it consumes you. Before you lose yourself completely. Can you do that, sin eater? Can you prove you're worth keeping?"
I glare up at him through my hair, and his mirror eyes reflect back someone I barely recognize. Flushed. Desperate. Breaking.
And then I glance past him to Croesus.
Croesus is standing exactly where I left him with his face carved from stone. Absolutely expressionless. But through the binding, I feel everything he's not showing: rage and fear and helplessness and love, all tangled together into something that tastes like ruin.
He can't help me. Won't help me. Because if he does, Seraph wins.
I'm on my own.
The realization cuts through the lust. A tiny sliver allowing me to think. To remember.
Grandmother didn't always have ritual chambers. Didn't always have perfect conditions. Sometimes she had to purge in alleys, in cars, in bathrooms at gas stations in the middle of nowhere. She taught me the words, yes. Taught me the structure.
But she also taught me that the ritual is a focus. A tool.
The real power is inside me. In my will. In my refusal to let someone else's sin become mine.
I close my eyes and press my forehead against the cold marble. And instead of trying to speak the words, I just push.
Not with my voice. With everything else. With the part of me that's been swallowing sins for eighteen years. The part that knows how to take poison into myself and survive it.
The lust fights. Claws. Screams inside my head.
But I'm stronger.
I grab it with mental hands, with will and fury and sheer stubborn refusal to break, and I shove it down. Down into that dark place where I keep all the sins I've absorbed. The place that never quite empties. The place where fragments linger.
It doesn't want to go. Doesn't want to be contained.
But I don't give it a choice.
Slowly, agonizingly, the pressure eases. The need fades. The hunger recedes.
I can breathe again. It’s not gone, but it’s enough to think a little more clearly.
I stay where I am for a long moment, my forehead pressed against the cold marble, while I shake. My whole body feels like it's been wrung out and hung up to dry. There's blood on the floor, mine and the client's, mixed together where our hands met.
But I'm alive. Still myself. Still here.
"Impressive," Seraph says, and he actually sounds genuine.
"Most sin eaters would have died. Or worse, begged for release before trying to purge.
But you..." He stands, accompanied by the rustle of wings.
"You compressed it. Contained it. Locked it away without the ritual.
" A pause. "That's not sustainable, you know.
You'll need to purge it properly. Soon."
"I know," I rasp.
"But you survived the initial shock and proved you can work under pressure. Now I know you’re able to adapt when your comfortable structures are ripped away." He extends a hand toward me. "Well done, little sin eater."
I glare at his hand for a long moment. Then I ignore it and push myself to stand on my own.
My legs shake, but they hold.
Seraph's smile sharpens. "Stubborn. I like that. You'll need it."
Behind him, the client has already fled. Smart. Get out while you can.
I wish I could do the same.
Croesus surges toward me, having held himself back as long as he could manage. He needs to touch me, to check that I'm whole, to pull me against him and never let go.
But Seraph steps between us.
"No," he says pleasantly. "She's mine now, Croesus.
Your territory ends at my door." He looks at me, and in his mirror eyes I see myself: exhausted, shaking, but still standing.
"We should discuss terms. You'll need a purification chamber.
I'll have someone show you where it is. But first," he gestures to my bloody hand, the client's blood still wet on my palm.
"You should tidy yourself up. Can't have you tracking blood through my halls. It's unsightly."
"And you'll stay in my chambers," Seraph continues. "No separate room. I want to observe how you work. How you process sins. How you handle pressure without your rituals." His smile is sharp. "Consider it research."
"Absolutely not—" Croesus starts.
"I wasn't asking for your permission." Seraph's voice is pleasant, but there's steel underneath. "She's mine for the year. You can see yourself out."
The dismissal is clear and cruel.
Croesus looks at me. Just looks, and I feel everything through the binding: I'll come for you. Whenever you need me. Just call.
I manage a tiny nod.
And then he turns and walks back toward the mirror.
I watch him go, feeling the binding stretch and strain but never break. It hurts. Every step he takes away from me is a small knife in my chest.
The mirror ripples. He places his hand against it.
He's gone.
Seraph takes my arm, that same firm, impersonal grip, and starts pulling me deeper into the House of Ruin.
"Now then," he says conversationally. "Let's see if you can survive purging that lust without killing yourself. That would be such a disappointing end to our year together."
I'm trapped in a palace of white marble with an angel who tricked me into almost killing myself within thirty seconds of my arrival.
And I'm full of lust I'm barely managing to contain.
This was a mistake. Coming here. Agreeing to this. All of it.
But there's no backing out now.
What a welcome to the House of Ruin.
Let's see if I survive it.