Chapter 4 #2
His hand slides between my thighs, and I arch into the touch despite myself. Despite everything. The lust doesn't care about my pride or my hatred or the fact that I'd rather be anywhere else with anyone else. It just demands, demands, demands.
Croesus feels that touch. Feels my body's response. Feels the pleasure that spikes through me, unwanted and undeniable.
I'm killing him.
And I can't stop.
"Ex carne mea, te expello," I gasp out the ritual words, even though there's no ritual circle, no candles, no proper structure. Just the words Gramms taught me. Just the will behind them. From my flesh, I cast you out.
Seraph goes still above me. "What—"
"The purging words," I manage, my nails digging into his shoulders.
Through the bond, I feel Croesus's small relief that I'm at least trying to purge this properly.
That I'm not just giving in. "They might help.
Ease the—" I can't finish. Can't form words as Seraph's fingers move, finding exactly the right spot with devastating precision.
He watches my face for a long moment. Then, slowly, deliberately, he repeats the words back to me. "Ex carne mea, te expello." His accent is different, older, speaking Latin like it's his native tongue instead of something he learned. From my flesh, I cast you out.
The words shimmer in the air between us. I feel them more than hear them. Feel the way they acknowledge the sin. Begin the process of separation. It's not enough, won't be enough without the full ritual, but it's something. A small easing of the pressure. A promise that this will end.
Eventually.
He shifts, positioning himself, and I feel the hard length of him pressing against my entrance. The last barrier of fabric between us suddenly unbearable. Wrong. In the way.
I reach down, shove my underwear to the side with shaking hands. He does the same with his remaining clothing. And then there's nothing between us except the sin we share and the hatred we can't quite hide and the guilt eating me alive.
Croesus knows what's about to happen. Feels my anticipation mixing with my horror. Feels the exact moment when—
"Ex anima mea, te solvo," I breathe as Seraph pushes inside me. The stretch is intense. Too much. Perfect. Wrong. Everything and nothing. From my soul, I release you.
Croesus feels me being filled by someone who isn't him. Feels my body adjust, accommodate, welcome the intrusion despite my mind screaming that this is wrong.
His pain is a knife in my chest. Sharp and gutting and deserved.
Seraph echoes me, his voice rough and breaking. "Ex anima mea, te solvo." A pause. A shudder as he seats himself fully inside me. Then he's moving, and I'm moving with him, and we're caught in the same desperate rhythm. From my soul, I release you.
There's nothing graceful about this. Nothing beautiful.
We're both fighting for dominance even while giving in.
Both trying to maintain some shred of control in a situation where control is impossible.
His wings arch over us, creating a canopy.
His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise.
My nails rake down his back, drawing blood.
Not much, just enough to mark. Enough to punish him for making this necessary.
He hisses at the pain but doesn't stop. If anything, it spurs him on. Makes him move faster, harder, more desperate. Each thrust drives deeper, hits something inside me that makes stars explode through me in a wash of sensation. The pleasure is sharp and violent and absolutely devastating.
Croesus feels all of it. Every thrust. Every spike of unwanted pleasure. Every moment of my body betraying my heart.
I sob, torn between the physical pleasure and the emotional agony. Between the lust demanding more and the guilt demanding I stop. Between my body's response and my heart's breaking.
"I'm sorry," I gasp out, not sure if I'm talking to Seraph or Croesus or myself. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm—"
"Don't." Seraph's hand slides to the back of my neck, holds me in place. Forces me to look at him. To see him. "Don't apologize. This isn't...we're purging. That's all. Just purging."
But it's more than that and we both know it.
"Non sum libido," I force out between thrusts. I am not lust.
"Non sum libido," he repeats, his forehead pressed to mine. His breath mixing with mine. His body moving in perfect, terrible harmony with mine. I am not lust.
Through the bond: Croesus repeating the words too, from wherever he is. Trying to help me purge even while I'm destroying him. Even while every thrust is a betrayal. His love is almost worse than his pain right now.
"Non sum concupiscentia," I continue, my voice breaking on the Latin. On the truth of it. On the guilt that's threatening to drown me. I am not desire.
"Non sum concupiscentia." Seraph's hand slides to the gold chain at my throat, wraps around it. Not pulling. Just holding. Acknowledging that even now, even like this, I belong to someone else. I am not desire.
The words help. I feel the lust loosening its grip. It’s not gone, but beginning to separate. Beginning to understand that it doesn't belong here. That it's borrowed. Temporary. Someone else's need that we're purging through the only avenue available.
But it's not enough yet. Not nearly enough.
The pleasure builds despite everything. Despite the hatred and the anger and the wrongness of it all.
Despite Croesus's pain echoing through the bond like a second heartbeat.
My body doesn't care about any of that. It just responds to touch, to friction, to the way Seraph knows exactly what he's doing even in this. Even now.
His thumb finds my clit, circles it with devastating precision, and I cry out. The sound is broken. Desperate. Half pleasure, half grief.
Croesus feels that cry. Feels what caused it. Feels me getting closer to the edge with someone who isn't him.
"I hate you," I gasp, not sure which of them I'm talking to anymore. Maybe both. Maybe myself.
"I know." Seraph's rhythm changes, becomes harder, more punishing. Like he wants to fuck the guilt out of me. Or into me. "I hate you too."
"Good."
His wings shudder, feathers rustling. He's close. I can feel it in the tension of his body, the desperation in his movements. And I'm close too, the pleasure coiling tighter and tighter in my belly despite everything.
"Redi ad originem tuam," he grits out, and I realize he knows the rest of the purging ritual. Return to your origin.
"Redi ad originem tuam," I echo, my voice shaking as I get closer to the edge. As the lust demands its final release. Return to your origin.
"Redi ad dominum tuum," we say together, our voices tangling, and something clicks. The words take hold. The purge begins in earnest. Return to your master.
The lust moves. I feel it shifting, separating, pulling away from my core like a parasite being forced to release its host. It hurts. God, it hurts. But the pleasure is right there too, building, cresting, and I can't tell where one ends and the other begins.
Seraph's rhythm falters. His perfect control cracking as the sin purges from him too. As we both chase the release that will finally free us from this borrowed need.
"Ex carne mea, te expello," I gasp out again, repeating the words. Layering them. Making them real. From my flesh, I cast you out.
"Ex carne mea, te expello," he echoes, and his voice is wrecked. Destroyed. All that arrogant polish gone. Just raw need and raw pain and raw relief as the purge works. From my flesh, I cast you out.
The orgasm hits me like lightning. Sharp and violent and absolutely devastating. I cry out, a sound somewhere between pleasure and anguish, and through the bond, Croesus feels it. Feels me coming apart around someone else. Feels the exact moment of my release.
His pain peaks with mine, and I feel something in him break.
Seraph follows a heartbeat later, his body going rigid above me, his wings spreading impossibly wide, his hands bruising tight on my hips. He makes a low and broken sound, and then he's spilling inside me, and the lust purges with his release.
I feel it leave in a rush: the client's desperate need finally finding release, finally burning itself out. It pours out of us both, dissipating into nothing, leaving us gasping. Shaking. Trying to remember who we are without it.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. We just lie there, tangled together, breathing hard. His wings are still spread over us. His forehead still pressed to mine. His body still buried inside mine.
But the lust is gone.
And in its absence, reality crashes down like a tidal wave.
Croesus's pain blindsides me, no longer masked by the urgency of the lust. Raw and bleeding and present. He felt everything. Every moment. Every thrust. Every betrayal.
And he's still there. Still connected to me. Still bound to me despite what I just did.
The guilt is suffocating.
"Croesus," I whisper, tears finally spilling over. "I'm so sorry. I'm so—"
He sends me a complex wave of emotion. Pain, yes. But also understanding. Forgiveness, somehow, even though I don't deserve it. And beneath it all: love. Still there. Still present. Still his, even after this.
It makes things so much worse.
Seraph pulls away carefully, slowly, like moving too fast might shatter something. His wings fold against his back, no longer a canopy but a barrier. Creating distance even as we occupy the same space.
I watch him sit up, run a hand through his platinum hair. It's the first time I've seen it mussed. Out of place. Imperfect. I almost like him better for it.
He looks devastated by it.
"That was..." he starts, then stops. Searches for words and apparently can't find them.
"A mistake," I finish for him. My voice comes out flat. Empty. I feel hollowed out. Wrung dry. Like I've purged more than the client's sin. Like I've purged something essential from myself. "That was a mistake."