Page 10

Saeran

He smells like home. My heartbeat. My soul. I wish I could forget like he has, take this pain away.

It takes a few disorienting seconds to settle back into being flesh and bone. When I open my eyes, Tiernan is standing over me with a scowl.

“Don’t do that again. If they find out we’re manipulating their recordings, they’re going to do much worse than stick us in a cell,” he hisses. “Is it not good enough that you’re under his roof?”

The bench is uncomfortable under my back, and I sit up, swinging my legs over the side. It’s unbelievably cold down here, and not even my Fae genes can keep me from the worst of it. I assume they do it on purpose. One of their more subtle torture techniques. “You think I did this on purpose? I was trying to help.” It’s all I’ve ever done.

“They would have found him on their own.”

“I didn’t know that.” If Gluttony and the others hadn’t shown up, we would have rescued Greed. That alone is a risk I’ll always take. Either way, one of theirs has returned, and I won’t regret my decision.

“Would it have changed anything?”

I’m smart enough not to answer that. My loyalty will always be to Gluttony first and then to everyone else. I may have sacrificed us both to keep my people alive and safe, but I would never do it to him alone, and not if it means his suffering. He thrives here, and it’s the only reason I haven’t changed trajectory. He doesn’t remember me; the past doesn’t hurt him.

It destroyed what little was left of me to stand back and let the Sins fight the last battles with the Light on their own. To watch from the shadows as the Light threw so much at them that whole continents were nothing but ash and death in the end. The only reason I stayed my hand was that they weren’t throwing everything at the Sins. It was nothing compared to their might when they attacked us long ago. And the Sins won their fight.

I couldn’t risk the Light discovering that some of us live. That I, specifically, live. They’d never stop hunting me if they knew. It would put everyone in danger. In many ways, my passing will give them more breathing room, give them more time to build something in relative safety. As much as I protect them, in this state I also damage them.

The last left, and the one the Light would burn everything down to get to. They can’t ever know I still exist. That means staying far from Gluttony. Something that I’d managed until now.

The discovery of Deacon and who he is, along with Conor—who I hope with everything is who I think he is—means that things are changing. Whether they’re good changes or not remains to be seen. They’ve started an avalanche, with no way of knowing who it will land on.

“You need to leave, escape,” Tiernan says adamantly.

“How?” I ask, frowning. “I don’t think they’re letting us just walk out of here.” Not without a fight I’m not willing to engage in.

“Use the shadows. To get out properly instead of looking for your lover. Get help.”

Not an option. There’s no way in hell I’m leaving him here by himself. I lift a foot up onto the bench, the metal cold under my bare skin, and rest an elbow on my bent knee. “Then they’ll know that we aren’t what we seem. We being plural. They’ll know you’re something else, and they’ll torture you to find out.” Throw Tiernan to the wolves in order to leave? No, not happening.

“And risking exposure just for a visit is worth it?”

“That isn’t fair.” Rubbing a hand down my face doesn’t help alleviate the tension. “Can we not do this now?” The knife already twisted in my heart causes me to suffer every day of my life; I don’t need help to shove it deeper.

Every muscle in my body tenses at the sound of footsteps.

Gluttony appears moments later, and everything inside me comes to life. I can still feel him under my fingers. Even the short, not-real contact has bolstered my magic in a way nothing else ever will. Not enough to make a difference, but enough to feel it. What I would do with this man if we had even one more lifetime together.

My knuckles turn white from the strength I grip with. What is he doing here?

Gluttony searches our faces, and I do my best to keep mine neutral instead of tracking all of his features, soaking them in and refreshing my memories of him.

“Get up,” he says, gesturing at me. “You’re first.”

First for what? I don’t have many pieces of my heart left, and being physically hurt—intentionally hurt—by the man who holds all of them will destroy the rest.

“No,” Tiernan stands, putting himself between us. “If you want to know something, I can tell you.”

“Sit the fuck down, or I’ll do it for you. Get up .”

Urging Tiernan back, I push myself ahead of him, with a hopefully reassuring smile. I can’t ignore an order from my Sin. Whatever happens, we’ll get through it. We always do.

“What’s your name?” Gluttony asks, grasping me by the elbow and jerking me forward so abruptly I almost trip. Everything stills. His skin is on mine. His real skin. I almost forgot what it feels like. Warm. He’s so much bigger than me. Even as hard as the grip is, there’s nothing in it for me but pleasure. Pathetic. Dangerous. Perfect.

“It’s Seth,” Tiernan answers for me.

“I wasn’t asking you.”

“I’m not Seth. He is. My name is Tristan.”

“Still wasn’t asking you.”

I swallow hard, my heart beating out of rhythm. Speaking will give the game away. My voice isn’t masked in the shadows, and Gluttony isn’t an idiot. He’ll easily put two and two together.

Gluttony sneers, his face twisted in such anger that it physically hurts me, my stomach clenching in response. “Fine. You want to do this the hard way?” He half throws me in front of him. “Move.”

Tiernan’s terrified face follows me. He’s worrying about more than my physical health. If Gluttony and I connect again, it spells the end for all of us. I wish I could say or do something to reassure him. I have no idea what happens next, or where we go from here.

I’m scared too.

“Please, he doesn’t know anything. If you have questions, I can answer them.”

“The more you argue with me about this, the more intrigued I am.” Gluttony hauls me against him. It takes everything in me not to beg him to keep going. To kiss me. How long has it been since I felt his lips against mine? Too long. And they’re right there. Thick and surrounded by his beard, a perfect shade of pink. Made to kiss me. Made for me. “You care about him, which gives me a weapon. I’m going to ask him a few questions, and he’s going to answer me.”

“He can’t talk to you.”

“He can talk just fine.” His grip tightens, and a whimper slips out, the pain increasing. The brief look he shoots me before turning back to Tiernan is one of undisguised glee. He likes it. He likes hurting me.

He doesn’t know you. Even if he goes further than this, even if he breaks the fragile pieces holding me together, it’s not him. It’s not my Gluttony. That makes all the difference. I’ll survive this, so that he can survive it.

“You think we can’t see you? I’ll make him talk. How uncomfortable that gets is up to him.”

I don’t like the way his attention is centered on Tiernan, like I’m not even here. Look at me. I want his eyes on me, always.

“We can help you,” Tiernan blurts out. “We know about Conor and his organization. We know where you can find him.”

What is he doing? I mouth “stop it,” but he’s not looking at me. There’s an ugly emotion twisting in my chest at the way Tiernan and Gluttony are focused on each other.

“Do you, now?” Gluttony drawls. The grip on me eases but in no way becomes pleasant. Escape isn’t going to happen. That he hasn’t let go only feeds the parts of me that need him. “Isn’t that interesting? We never said anything about Conor.”

“You think we didn’t know where we were, or who held us?”

“You do an awful lot of talking for him”—he shakes me gently—“but I’m not hearing anything useful.”

“Let him go, and I’ll tell you what we know.”

Gluttony throws his head back and laughs. I shiver under the sound even as Tiernan flinches. “You think you have a right to make any demands of us? That’s brave of you. And stupid. This isn’t a negotiation or a barter. Seth is going to tell me what we want to know, not you.”

Hope flutters in my heart like a butterfly desperately trying to survive. He’s fixated on speaking to me specifically. Does he feel the pull like I do? That greedy urge to be close all the time?

“You can torture us until we’re nothing but the husks you use to do your dirty work,” Tiernan says, a tiny waver in his voice that belies his words, “but we’ll never tell you what we know through coercion or torture. And since you don’t have Pride right now, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Gluttony tenses, eyes narrowing dangerously.

Horror spreads. Tiernan reveals too much. The Sins will never let us go now. Not to mention we don’t have the information Tiernan is attempting to bargain with. We know where Conor has been, not where he is now. Always too late to catch him. For someone who hasn’t come into his Dark magic and has no idea what he’s doing, he’s surprisingly adept at evading notice. Even at full power, I might have had trouble finding him in this mess. The human world has so many distracting scents and sounds; sifting through it can be difficult at the best of times.

“I’m very interested to know how you know anything about Pride. And Conor.”

Tiernan finally looks at me, but it’s too late. He’s already said too much. How am I supposed to fix that? Gluttony has his claws dug in now.

“You think playing games with me is a smart idea? When you play with a Sin, you lose.”

Lazarus appears behind us, silent as an assassin. “Gluttony.”

“What?” Gluttony snaps.

“Greed is awake. Put him back in the cell; we can deal with him later.”

Gluttony growls low in his throat, the sound going straight to my groin, making my knees weak. He leans in, lips so close I can feel his breath. My own trembles. I hope he thinks it’s fear and not what it really is: arousal and all-encompassing need. I want him to throw me down right here on the floor and remind me how it feels to have him inside me. How it feels to be wanted by him.

“I’ll be back for you. I dare you to try something before then. In fact, I encourage it.”

The only thing on my mind has nothing to do with escaping.