“Yes.” It comes out as a hiss. “Just fucking help me get these clothes off.”
He helps me then, lifts me just enough to strip my jeans down, his own following. And then his hands are on my bare hips, skin on skin, and the relief is immediate. The hunger recognizes what’s coming and eases just from the promise of it.
“Slow,” he says, even though his voice is strained. “We go slow.”
But slow is impossible when you’re drowning. I shift to get him exactly where I need him and sink onto him in one movement, taking him fully, and the sound that tears from my throat is half sob, half moan.Full. Finally full.The emptiness recedes, just for a moment.
“Fuck,” Ash breathes, fingers digging into my hips. “Raven.”
I move before he can say anything else. Rock against him, chasing the relief, the release, the way his body in mine makes the hunger finally quiet. He matches my rhythm, hands guiding me, helping me take what I need.
It’s desperate. Messy. More necessity than pleasure, but pleasure comes anyway, crashing through me in waves as I move faster, harder, chasing the edge that will finally make this stop.Grinding my pussy hard onto the top of his cock to shoot little bolts of pleasure through my clit.
“That’s it,” Ash murmurs against my neck, one hand sliding up to cup my breast through my tank top. “Take what you need. I’m here.”
And I do. I use him, his body, his touch, his presence, to burn through the lust like fire through paper. Every thrust, every point of contact between us feeds the hunger and exhausts it at the same time, until finally...
Finally.
The orgasm hits like a breaking wave. I cry out, nails digging into his shoulders, body clenching around him as the lust purges in a flood of heat and relief and blessed, blessed emptiness.
Ash follows a moment later, groaning my name into my hair, holding me tight as he comes. Hot and deep inside me.
And then it’s over.
The lust is gone, burned out finally, leaving nothing but ashes and exhaustion. I collapse against his chest, trembling, completely spent, small rivulets of sweat tickling my neck.
I wakesix hours later with Ash still in my bed, one arm slung over my waist like an anchor holding me to the world. I feel scraped hollow. Every muscle aches as if I ran a marathon. My head throbs in time with my pulse. There’s dried blood on my palm from where I cut it for the ritual, cracked and brown. My mouth tastes like copper.
Standard Tuesday.
The room is gray with early morning light filtering through the thin curtains. The city is waking outside: traffic, voices, someone’s car alarm going off three blocks away. The soundsof normal people living normal lives. Lives that don’t include angels or sins or waking up feeling like you’ve been beaten with a bat from the inside out.
I ease out from under Ash’s arm, careful not to wake him. He’s done enough. More than enough. I pull on a t-shirt from the floor, his probably, as it’s too big, and pad out to the kitchen, barefoot, my feet silent on the cold tile.
I stop dead.
There are seven letters on my kitchen table. Ones that weren’t there last night.
My heart, which was just settling into something like a regular rhythm, kicks into overdrive. Ice slides down my spine despite the warmth of Ash’s shirt against my skin.
I didn’t put them there. I didn’t even get mail yesterday. But there they are, lined up in a neat row like soldiers at attention, each one sealed with blood-red wax. I can see the symbols pressed into the seals even from here: a coin, broken chains, a weeping eye, a sword in flames, a crown, an open mouth, a closed eye.
The Seven Houses.
Every sin-eater knows those symbols. They’re burned into our collective nightmares. The boogeyman stories Gramms used to tell me to keep me in line: cross an angel and they’ll find you. Break the wrong contract, and they’ll come calling. And when the seven houses send for you, you don’t say no.
“No.” The word comes out flat. Empty. My voice sounds strange in the quiet apartment, like it belongs to someone else. “No, no, no.”
I cross to the table, my legs moving on autopilot even though every instinct is screaming at me to run. To grab Ash and my emergency bag and disappear into the city before the sun fully rises. But I can’t run. Running gets you killed. Running makes them send collectors, and debt collectors don’t leave survivors.
I grab the first letter. The wax is still warm under my fingers, like it was just sealed moments ago. Like someone was here, in my apartment, in my space. The violation makes my skin crawl. The fear makes me want to vomit.
I break the seal and unfold the paper. My hands are steadier than they should be. Years of practice, I guess.
The handwriting is elegant, old-fashioned, like you see in museums or historical documents. Gold ink on black parchment, because of course it is. Angels have never met a dramatic gesture they didn’t love.
Raven Vesper,
