The chains snap into focus, bright and blinding even behind my eyelids. I can see the contract now, written in golden script across her soul, each letter perfectly formed and absolutely merciless: Devotion freely given in exchange for maternal restoration. Classic bait-and-switch.Freely given, my ass.She didn’t know what she was giving. They never do.
I wrap my will around the chains. They resist, coiling tighter around her like a snake that knows it’s about to lose its meal, and yank.
The lust hits me like a fist to the chest.
Oh, fuck.
It’s not just want. It’s hunger. It’s raw, desperate, an all-consuming need which claws up my spine and sinks teeth into my brain. I need to be touched. I need to be held. I 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 flesh trying to find it. Every nerve is on fire. Every inch of my skin feels 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.
This is what she’s been living with.For six months.Every waking moment.
The thought makes me want to find the angel who did this and shove my knife through his throat. But I can’t think about that right now. Can barely think at all. The hunger is eating me alive, turning me into something that’s just need with a pulse.
The girl gasps loudly and then scrambles out of the circle.
“Go,” I grit out. My voice sounds wrong. Thick. “Now.”
She runs. I knew she was a smart girl.
The door slams, and I’m alone with the hunger eating me alive.
I try to stand, but my legs won’t work. The concrete is cool against my palms. When did I end up on the floor? It doesn’t matter. I press my forehead against it, trying to breathe. The paint of the purification circle is rough under my cheek. I can smell the iron in my blood, the salt on the air, the faint residue of every sin I’ve ever purged in this room.
I need to purge it. Now. Immediately.
The ritual takes focus, takes intention, takes drawing a clean line between yourself and the sin. But I don’t have that. I have nothing except want. Except ache. Except the feeling that I’m going to die, really, truly die, if someone doesn’t touch me in the next thirty seconds.
Gramms would be ashamed. She could hold multiple sins at once and still recite Latin. Cold as winter, sharp as glass, and never let it touch her. Not really.
I’m not her.
Fuck the ritual.
I drag myself to my feet, stumble out of the ritual room and through the narrow hallway to my apartment proper. The walls are close here, painted a dull beige I’ve never bothered to change. My apartment is small —a studio, basically —with the ritual room carved out of the only closet. Futon against one wall doubling as couch and bed. Kitchenette with two burners and a microwave I never use. A window which looks out over the alley and the dumpsters below.
It’s not much. But the wards are strong, the rent is cheap, and no one asks questions.
My phone is on the kitchen counter, chipped laminate, circa 1987, and I grab it with shaking hands, nearly dropping it twice before I can pull up my contacts. My vision is blurring at the edges. The hunger is getting worse, not better. Sweat is running down my spine. My hands are trembling so hard I can barely hold the phone.
Ash.
I press call. Hold the phone to my ear. Count the rings. One. Two.
He picks up on the second ring. “Raven? It’s two in the morning.”
“I need you.” The words come out broken, desperate, and I hate it. Hate how I sound. Hate that I need this, need him, need anything I can’t do myself. But I can’t do this myself. That’s the whole fucking problem. “Now. Please.”
There’s a pause. Then: “Lust?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in ten.” He hangs up.
I sink to the floor, back against the cabinets, and wait. The kitchen tile is cold. I focus on that. The chill seeping through my jeans. The way my breath sounds too loud in the quiet apartment. The distant sound of sirens somewhere in the city. Anything to anchor myself. Anything to remind me that I’m still me underneath this borrowed hunger.
Ten minutes feels like ten hours.
I count the cracks in the ceiling. Trace the pattern of the water stain with my eyes. Think about the bills I need to pay. My sister Luna’s tuition that’s due next month. The grocery run I keep putting off. Mundane things. Human things. Things that have nothing to do with angels or sins or the way my body is trying to tear itself apart from the inside out.
