Chapter 12
Twelve
Two weeks after the night with Croesus and we still haven’t talked about any of this. Neither of them have talked to me about it. In the meantime, I've learned three things.
One: Seraph fights like he does everything else. With brutal, relentless precision that makes me want to scream.
Two: I'm actually getting better at this. Not good. Not even close to good. But better.
Three: He's been angry about something for days, and he won't tell me what.
"Your guard is dropping," Seraph says, circling me on the training room floor. "Again."
I reset my stance, arms up, weight balanced just like he's drilled into me over countless bruising sessions. The training room is all white marble and mirrors, because of course it is. Wouldn’t want to fall on my ass on something soft to keep from bruising.
Everything in this house is designed to show me exactly how imperfect I am.
"My guard is fine," I say. "Your expectations are unrealistic."
"My expectations are the bare minimum for survival." He moves like water, like smoke, like something that was never meant to be contained in a physical form. "When Heaven sends their hunters, they won't pause to let you reset your stance."
"When Heaven sends their hunters, I'll improvise."
"You'll die."
"Optimist."
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. Almost.
Through the connections, the other angels are background noise.
Kael's simmering aggression pulses hottest during these training sessions, like he can taste the violence from wherever he is.
Idris watches with cool amusement. Lysander radiates bored disinterest. Dorian's hunger is a distant ache.
Caspian is nothing, a void where feeling should be.
And Croesus.
Croesus is a wall. Has been for two weeks. Ever since that night when Seraph watched us, when everything got tangled and wrong and complicated. I've stopped reaching for him. It hurts less when I don't try.
"Again," Seraph says.
I attack.
He blocks easily, redirects my momentum, and suddenly I'm stumbling past him. But I've learned this move. I plant my foot, spin, and my elbow catches him in the ribs.
Contact.
Actual contact.
His eyes flash with surprise. Or approval. With Seraph, it's hard to tell.
"Better," he admits.
"Was that a compliment? Should I mark the calendar?"
"It was an observation. Don't let it go to your head."
We circle each other. I'm breathing hard. He's not even winded, the bastard. Weeks of daily training and I still can't make him break a sweat.
But I can make him react. That's something.
"You're distracted today," I say, watching his footwork. Looking for tells. "More than usual."
"I'm not distracted."
"You've been snippy all morning."
"I don't get snippy."
"You literally critiqued the way I poured water earlier. The angle was wrong, apparently."
"It was inefficient."
"It was water. In a glass." I feint left, go right. He catches my wrist and pulls me off balance. I end up pressed against his chest, his arm locked around my waist. "See? Snippy."
His breath is warm against my temple. This close, I can smell him. Lilies, sharp and clean underneath the ozone tang of power. His hand flexes on my hip, fingers pressing just hard enough to feel through my thin training clothes.
The gold chains at my throat and wrists pulse against my skin and his eyes drop to them.
And there it is. That flash of irritation he's been carrying around for days.
"Those are impractical for combat," he says. "You should remove them."
"No."
"They're a liability. Someone could grab them, use them against you."
"Then I'll deal with it."
"You're being stubborn."
"I'm being loyal. There's a difference." I pull back, and he lets me go. "Is that what this is about? The chains?"
"I don't care about the chains."
"You keep staring at them."
"I keep staring at the tactical weakness they represent."
"Sure you do."
We face each other across the training floor. Something's building in the air between us. Something that's been building for two weeks, ever since that night with Croesus. Ever since Seraph watched me fall apart and catalogued every moment like the cold, calculating creature he is.
He attacks without warning.
I barely block in time, stumbling back under the force of it. He's not holding back anymore. His strikes come fast and hard, driving me across the floor. I block, dodge, block again. My arms are screaming. My lungs are burning.
But I'm not losing. Not immediately.
Two weeks ago, I would have been on my back in seconds. Now I'm lasting minutes. Now I'm actually making him work for it.
He sweeps my legs. I hit the ground hard, and before I can roll away, he's on top of me. Forearm across my collarbone. Hips pinning mine. His face inches away.
"Yield," he says.
"No."
"You've lost."
"I've lost rounds before. Doesn't mean I yield."
His silver eyes search my face. Up close, they really are mirrors. I can see myself reflected in them, flushed and defiant and breathing hard.
The position is compromising. His weight on top of me, my legs tangled with his, his forearm pressing just below my throat. If I shifted my hips, I could feel exactly how compromising.
I don't shift my hips.
I don't.
"You're stubborn," he says quietly.
"You mentioned."
"It's going to get you killed."
"Hasn't yet."
Something flickers across his face. That anger again, the one he's been carrying around. It surfaces for just a second before he shoves it back down.
But I see it.
"Okay." I go limp beneath him, stop fighting. "What is it? What's been eating at you?"
"Nothing."
"Liar. You've been wound tight for days. Just spit it out so we can move past it."
His jaw tightens. The forearm across my collarbone presses harder, just for a moment.
Then: "Did you enjoy it?"
I blink. "Did I enjoy what?"
"Pretending." His voice is cold, precise, like a scalpel. "That he satisfies you."
Oh.
Oh, so that's what this is about.
Something bubbles up in my chest. Hysteria, or fury, or the dark humor that kicks in when everything becomes too absurd to process.
I laugh.
Actually laugh, right in his perfect face.
His expression flickers with surprise, then irritation. "I fail to see what's amusing."
"Two weeks." I'm still laughing, can't stop. "You've been holding onto that for two weeks?"
"I don't know what you're—"
"The brooding. The snippiness. The way you've been looking at me like I personally offended your ancestors." I grin up at him, sharp and mean. "You've been workshopping that line, haven't you? Waiting for the perfect moment to deploy it. Very dramatic. Very you."
His eyes narrow. "I was waiting to see if you'd address it yourself."
"Why would I? It's none of your business."
"Everything that happens in my house is my business."
"You were there, Seraph." The laughter dies, replaced by something harder. "You watched. You didn't just watch, you participated. You were in his head, in my head, feeling everything we felt. You don't get to play wounded now."
His weight shifts on top of me. Not pulling away, but adjusting. His thigh slides between mine, and the friction sends a jolt up my spine that I aggressively ignore.
"I'm not wounded," he says. "I'm observing."
"Observing what?"
"The fact that you came alive when I was watching. When both bindings were active." His head tilts, those mirror eyes reflecting my flushed face back at me. "And you didn't with him alone. The binding doesn't lie, Raven. Your body doesn't lie. You needed more than he could give you."
"That's not—"
"Stop." The word cracks through the air. "Stop lying. To me, to yourself, to him. It's exhausting to watch."
"I'm not—"
"You want me." He says it like a fact. Like a mathematical certainty. "You've wanted me since that first purge. Every time we train, every time I touch you to correct your form, every time I push you harder than you think you can go. You want me."
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. "I love him."
"Love isn't the question. Need is." He leans closer, and his breath ghosts across my lips. "He's holding you back. I'm pushing you forward. Which do you need more?"
The words land like intended, sending shrapnel in sharp stinging shards through me. Because he's not wrong. That's the worst part. Some twisted part of me does need his push, and how he demands more than I think I can give, and how he refuses to let me be comfortable.
But admitting that feels like betrayal. Feels like losing something I won’t get back.
"You don't get to tell me what I need," I whisper.
"Someone has to. You're certainly not honest enough to tell yourself."
The bonds pulse. Croesus, still walled off, but I feel his pain like pressure behind glass. Kael's aggression flares in response to my rising anger. Idris is watching, always watching. The others stir with vague interest.
And Seraph, above me, around me, mirrors reflecting mirrors into infinity.
"Get off me," I say.
"Make me."
Something snaps.
Not in my body. In my head. In the tangled web of bonds that connects me to seven fallen angels.
Kael's wrath floods through me like wildfire.
I move before I think. Faster than I should be able to move, stronger than I am. I buck my hips, twist, and suddenly our positions are reversed. Seraph's back hits the marble floor and I'm straddling him, one hand fisted in the collar of his shirt, the other drawn back to strike.
My vision is edged with red. My blood is singing.
"You don't know anything about what I need." My voice comes out wrong. Layered. Deeper. Like there's thunder underneath the words.
Seraph stares up at me, and for the first time since I've known him, he looks genuinely caught off guard. Not afraid. But surprised. His silver eyes are wide, his lips parted, his composure cracked.
"That," he breathes, "was Kael."
The red recedes. The strength drains out of me like water, leaving me shaky and disoriented and still straddling the angel of pride on his own training room floor.
"I didn't mean to—"