Chapter 3
Three
I stand in the center of Seraph's chamber, trembling, and watch him settle into one of those pristine white velvet chairs like he has all the time in the world.
Like I'm not falling apart ten feet away from him.
The lust is worse now. So much worse. It's been maybe twenty minutes since I absorbed it, and every second that passes makes it exponentially more unbearable.
My skin feels like it's crawling, like I need to shed it entirely.
My clothes cling to me, damp with sweat, and every shift of fabric sends another jolt of unwanted sensation through my body.
I'm going to lose my mind if this continues.
Seraph crosses one leg over the other with elegant precision. His silver eyes track my every movement, cataloging. Always cataloging. "You're holding up better than I expected," he says conversationally. "Most sin eaters would be on their knees by now."
"Fuck you."
His eyebrows rise. "Language, Raven. We're going to be living together for a year. Let's maintain some civility."
"Civility?" The word comes out as a snarl. The lust is making me aggressive, stripping away the careful control I usually maintain. Making me reckless. "You're torturing me and you want civility?"
"I'm testing you." He leans back, perfectly relaxed. Not a hair out of place. Not a wrinkle in his white suit. Even his wings are folded with geometric precision against his back. "There's a difference."
"There really isn't."
"Agree to disagree." He gestures vaguely at me. "You're free to continue suffering, of course. Or you can admit you need help and ask nicely for permission to purge."
Ask nicely. Like I'm a child requesting a treat.
The rage flooding me is sharp and clarifying. It cuts through the haze of lust enough for me to think. To see.
Seraph wants control. Wants me to break. Wants me to beg.
Well. Fuck that.
Grandmother taught me how to absorb sins. How to hold them, contain them, purge them through ritual and focus. But she also taught me something else. Something she only mentioned once, late at night after she'd had too much whiskey and was feeling nostalgic about her early days as a sin eater.
Sometimes, when you can't purge a sin yourself, you can share it. Push it into someone else. Make them feel what you feel. It's dangerous. It's intimate. And most sin eaters never master it because it requires more control than they have.
But you, Raven? You have enough spite in you to move mountains.
She'd smiled when she said it. That rare, genuine smile that made her look almost human instead of the marble-cold woman who raised me.
I never tried it. Never had reason to.
Until now.
I take a step toward Seraph. Then another. My legs shake but they hold. The lust pulses with each movement, demanding, insistent, but I channel it into my footsteps. Into forward motion.
"What are you doing?" Seraph's tone is still casual, but I catch the slight tension in his shoulders. The way his wings shift almost imperceptibly.
"You want to see what I can do?" My voice comes out rough, raw. "Fine. Let me show you."
I close the distance between us, maybe ten feet, maybe less, and his eyes narrow. Silver catching the candlelight from the crystal sconces. Reflecting my own flushed face, my dilated pupils, back at me.
"Raven..."
I reach for that place inside me where the lust lives. That burning, aching need that's been clawing through my body for the past twenty minutes. It's easy to find. Impossible to miss. A roaring fire that wants to consume everything.
And I push.
Not with my hands. With my will. With every ounce of fury and spite and stubborn refusal to break that I possess.
I push the lust out.
Into him.
The effect is immediate.
Seraph gasps, actually gasps, this perfect angel of pride who probably hasn't made an involuntary sound in centuries, and his silver eyes flash silver fire for a split second. His hands grip the arms of the chair so hard the velvet tears under his fingers.
"What are you..." He can't finish the sentence. Can't form words.
Because now he feels it too.
The client's desperate, aching need. The hunger that has no name but demands to be filled. The fire under the skin, the tightness in the chest, the pulse of want between the thighs. All of it.
I gave it to him.
Shared it with him.
Made it our problem instead of only mine.
"You denied me the ritual," I say, and my voice is steadier now. The pressure has eased, not gone, but distributed. Split between us. "So we'll do this together."
Seraph's breathing has changed. Faster. Shallower. His posture falters as he leans forward, one hand pressed against his chest like he can physically contain what I forced into him.
"You—" He stops. Swallows hard. When he looks at me again, there's something new in those mirror eyes. Something that might be shock. Or fury. Or unwilling arousal. "You can't—"
"I just did."
He stands abruptly, and the movement is all wrong.
Not his usual fluid grace. This is jerky, desperate, the motion of someone whose body is betraying them.
His wings flare, all six of them spreading wide in a display that's probably supposed to be threatening but reads as pure instinct. Pure reaction.
"Take it back," he demands.
"No."
"Raven!"
"You wanted to test me. You wanted to see what I could do." I take another step closer, and he actually retreats. This angel who's probably older than most civilizations, backing away from me. "Congratulations. Now you know."
The lust pulses between us. It’s in him now, through our bond, and whatever connection I created by pushing the sin into his body. It's not like the binding I share with Croesus. This is temporary. Tenuous. A bridge made of desperation and spite.
But it's enough.
His heart is racing now. Heat rising under his skin. Finally, his body is responding to the client's need, unwanted and undeniable. Every sensation I experienced, he's experiencing now. The too-tight clothing. The hypersensitivity. The clawing, aching want.
"This is—" His voice breaks on the word. Actually breaks. "This is highly inappropriate."
"You think?" I laugh, and it comes out slightly unhinged. "You made me hold this for twenty minutes while you sat there watching me suffer. Now we both suffer. Seems fair to me."
He's breathing hard now, his chest rising and falling in a way that makes the precise lines of his suit look almost rumpled.
His platinum hair has fallen slightly forward, no longer perfectly in place.
And his eyes, those mirror eyes that usually show nothing but reflections, are burning with something raw and real.
Want. Rage. Humiliation.
All of it at once.
"You will..." He stops. Runs a hand through his hair, an unconscious gesture, which is probably killing him, because Seraph does nothing unconsciously. "You will regret this manipulation."
"Will I?" I'm close enough now to see the pulse jumping in his throat. To smell that cold lily scent. "Because from where I'm standing, I only leveled the playing field."
His hand shoots out, fast, faster than I can track, and snatches my wrist. His grip is iron, and the touch sends electricity straight through my nervous system.
Not painful. Just intense. The connection between us flares, and suddenly I'm feeling what he's feeling on top of what I'm already feeling.
It's overwhelming.
His need layered over mine. His desperate attempt at control fighting against the lust I forced into him. His fury at losing his perfect composure warring with his body's betraying responses.
And underneath all of it: arousal. Sharp and undeniable.
Mine. His. The client's. All tangled together until I can't tell whose is whose.
"You," he says through gritted teeth, "are the most infuriating human I have ever encountered."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"I'll take it anyway."
His other hand comes up carefully, precisely, like he's moving through water, and cups my jaw. His touch is cool against my flushed skin. His fingers are trembling. Just slightly. Just enough for me to notice.
Seraph. The angel of pride. The embodiment of perfection.
Trembling.
Because of me.
"We have to purge this," he says, and his voice has dropped an octave. Rough now. Raw. "Both of us. Together. Or it will consume us both."
"I know."
"You realize what that means."
"I know," I repeat.
His thumb brushes across my cheekbone. The gesture is almost tender, which is wrong, which is dangerous, because there's nothing tender about what's burning between us right now. This is pure need. Pure desperation. The client's sin demanding release through the only avenue available.
"This is your fault," he says.
"This is your fault," I correct. "You forced me to hold it. So I found another solution."
His laugh is sharp and bitter. "Solution. Is that what we're calling this?"
"What would you call it?"
"A disaster." But his hand is still on my face. Still trembling. Still touching me like he can't help himself. "A miscalculation. A—"
I kiss him.
Or he kisses me.
Honestly, I'm not sure who moves first. Maybe we both do. Or the lust pushes us together like magnets with no choice in their attraction.
His lips are cool, angel-cold, like the rest of him, but they warm fast against mine.
The kiss is hard. Aggressive. All teeth and desperation and absolute fury.
There's nothing gentle about it. Nothing tender.
We're both angry. Both fighting for dominance even while giving in to what the sin demands.
His hand slides from my jaw to the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my short hair. The other hand is still around my wrist, grip tightening, pulling me closer.
I bite his lower lip. Not gently.
He makes a sound, low and shocked and involuntary, and then he's kissing me harder. Pushing me backward. My legs hit the edge of something solid: the bed, I realize distantly, and then I'm falling. Landing on silk sheets that are cool and perfect and completely wrong for what's about to happen.
Seraph follows me down, his body covering mine, and the weight of him is solid and real and present. His wings spread over us like a canopy, white-gold feathers catching the light from the chandeliers. Creating a private space. A bubble where only we exist.
His hand releases my wrist to brace beside my head. The other is still in my hair. He pulls his mouth from mine only enough to speak, and his breath is ragged against my lips.
"This changes nothing," he says.
"Obviously."
"I still think you're reckless and undisciplined."
"And I still think you're an arrogant asshole."
"Good." His silver eyes are molten now, barely any light left. All heat and hunger and something that might be grudging respect. "At least we understand each other."
Then he kisses me again, and the lust surges between us. No longer mine or his but ours. A shared burden. A shared need. A sin we'll purge together because I forced his hand and he's too proud to admit he can't handle it.
His hand slides down my side, mapping the curve of my waist through my shirt. My fingers find the buttons of his jacket, fumbling, clumsy with desperation. Nothing about this is graceful. Nothing about this is the perfection he demands in every other aspect of his existence.
This is raw. Visceral. Feral.
This is two people who despise each other being forced into intimacy by a sin neither of them wanted.
"I hate you," I gasp against his mouth.
"The feeling," he breathes back, "is entirely mutual."
And somehow that makes it easier. Knowing we both hate this. Both hate each other. Both wish we were anywhere else with anyone else.
But we're not.
We're here. In his perfect chamber with its perfect bed. Bound together by my spite and his pride and a client's desperate need.
And we're going to finish this.
Together.
Whether we want to or not.