Page 155 of A House of Gold
"I hate that you're right."
"I know." I lean my forehead against his. "But that's what we have. So instead of spending tonight listing all the ways this could go wrong, let's..." I trail off, unsure what I want to say.
"Let's what?"
"Let's just be here. Together. While we still can."
I feel his emotions as they shift, terror giving way to something softer, more desperate. Need.
"I don't want to share you," he whispers. "I know I have to. I know it's necessary. But I don't want to."
"I know."
"After tonight, you'll be connected to all of them. You'll feel Seraph's pride. Kael's wrath. Lysander's–" He stops.
"Lust," I finish for him, though I did not want to have this conversation again. "Yes. I'll feel all of it."
His jaw clenches. "And they'll feel you. They'll know when you're happy, sad, afraid. They'll know when you want them."
"Will they?"
"The bonds won't lie, Raven. Whatever you feel, they'll sense it. And I..." His voice breaks. "I'll feel them affecting you. Through our bond. I'll know."
I pull back to look at him properly. "Good."
He blinks. "Good?"
"You don't get to hide from this. If I have to be connected to all of you, if I have to feel everyone's emotions constantly, then you don't get to pretend you're not affected." I trace his jaw with my thumb. "We're in this together. All of us. For better or worse."
"Mostly worse," he mutters.
"Probably." I smile despite everything. "But at least we'll be suffering together."
He almost laughs at that.
Then his hands come up to frame my face, and suddenly the air between us changes. Becomes charged with something other than fear.
"I need to tell you something," he says quietly. "Before the ritual. Before everything changes."
My heart stutters. "Okay."
"I've wanted many things over three thousand years." His thumbs stroke my cheekbones. "Treasure. Power. Souls. More, always more. That's what greed is, endless wanting, never satisfied."
I wait, barely breathing.
"But I've never needed anything. Never felt like I'd die without something. The curse made sure of that, I can want endlessly, but needing? Needing is vulnerability. Weakness. A crack in the armor."
"Croesus..."
"Let me finish." His voice is rough. "You came here a couple of months ago. Defiant, angry, terrified but hiding it. Younegotiated when you should have submitted. You challenged me when you should have obeyed. And I hated it. Hated you, maybe, for making me feel things I didn't want to feel."
Through our binding, I feel the truth of this, the confusion, the frustration, the slow transformation from irritation to fascination to something deeper.
"But somewhere between the first contract break and now, between watching you fight and watching you survive and watching you choose to face an archangel rather than run..." He stops, swallows hard. "I stopped wanting you and started needing you. And that terrifies me more than anything Heaven could send."
The words settle into the space between us, heavy and true.
"I love you," he says simply. "I don't want to. I wish I didn't. But I do. And tomorrow when you bind yourself to six other angels, when they start affecting you the way I do, when you start feeling things for them, "
