Page 40 of A House of Gold
“You requested it. We both know a request is just a nice way to pose an order for the next year.”
“True.” His hand moves from my shoulder to my neck, fingers spanning my throat gently. Not squeezing. Just resting there, feeling my pulse.
“Your heart is racing,” he breathes.
“You’re touching me.”
“Does that bother you?”
Yes. No. I don’t know. “Does it matter?” Besides Ash, I can’t remember the last time someone’s touched me so intimately. Goosebumps pebble my bare arms.
“Always so defensive.”His thumb brushes against my jawline, and I have to fight not to lean into the touch. “I can’t see you, Raven. Not the way you can see me. Touch is how I know things. How I understand the world. How I learn what’s beautiful and what’s not.”
“And?” My voice is barely above a whisper.
“And you’re beautiful.” He says it matter-of-factly. “The dress suits you. Makes you look dangerous and elegant at the same time. Like something worth protecting. Worth keeping.”
His hand drops from my throat, and I can breathe again.
“We should go,” he says, stepping back and giving me space. “The car is waiting.”
He heads for the door, and I follow on shaky legs, trying to process what just happened.
He touched me. Mapped me. Learned me through his hands because he can’t use his eyes.
And I let him.
Worse, I liked it.
I’m so fucked.
This time the portal trip is a little more disorienting. Croesus wraps a hand around my waist to help me to the car. It’s not the same building I entered when I arrived either. How many portals does he have?
I was bracing for something ostentatious—a limo, or some kind of vintage Rolls Royce dripping with gold accents. Instead, it’s a sleek black sedan, expensive but understated, waiting in what appears to be an underground garage.
The garage itself is disorienting. We left my room, walked through corridors that shifted and changed, and then stepped through a door that opened directly into this space. No elevator. No stairs. Just… an instant transition from the house to a garage that smells like concrete and motor oil.
Magic. It’s weird. Technically, what I do is magic, but it feels different seeing someone else’s so readily. I’ve only ever seen sins, and sin-eater magic. This... is something else.
A driver is waiting by the car; another servant, this one male, tall and silent. He opens the back door without a word.
Croesus gestures for me to enter first.
I gather the ridiculous dress and slide into the back seat. The leather is soft and creaks as I shift inside. It smells like a new car.
He slides in beside me, and the driver closes the door. The sound is solid, final, like a vault sealing.
The car pulls out smoothly, heading up a ramp that I swear wasn’t there a second ago, and then we’re on city streets. Real streets. Normal traffic and stoplights and people crossing at crosswalks.
The transition from the house to reality is jarring.
“You’re quiet,” Croesus observes.
“Processing.” I look out the window, watching the city scroll past. “How does that work? The door from the house to the garage?”
“The house exists in a pocket dimension, but it has access points, doors which lead to various locations in the mortal realm. The garage is one of them. More convenient than manifesting a car from nothing every time I need to travel.”
“So you can just... open a door and be anywhere?”
