Page 113 of The Death Wish

‘I care little if you are naked.’

‘No, apparently not.’ Pitch widened his stance, assuming the position as directed. His taste for churlishness was done quickly. ‘Did we ever fuck at all? Or were those instances I recall just a conjuring of your making? Did I ever find any pleasure in your company?’

‘You are stalling.’

Well, he’d not argue with that. This room held a dank energy, as though all the dancers had been in throes of movement the second before he stepped through the doors. The air was faint with a hint of exertion, sweat, and, oddly, the ripe odour of the sea. Not entirely pleasant, and yet bracing at the same time. Base and…he struggled to find the word in his mind…primitive.

The quartet struck their first notes, tuning their instruments. The coarse notes had Pitch wincing. He licked at his lips, nerves jangling. The hint of Jacquetta’s potion remained on his skin, and his downturn in mood plummeted further. Gods, let this be done with.

‘Your pleasure was not, nor is now, my concern.’ Seraphiel answered a question Pitch no longer cared about. ‘Your strength is what occupies me. Now, rid yourself of this ridiculous melancholy, Vassago. Focus on the task at hand.’

Well, the angel could fuck himself very briskly. Pitch would make his pleasure Seraphiel’s concern whether he liked it or not; just for old time’s sake, and because he’d like to make the Seraph’s life difficult, even if in the smallest of ways.

‘I’ll focus as soon as you find me something decent to wear.’

‘What by the all the Celestials are you on about?’

‘You heard me. Or is your hearing as far gone as your mind?’

Twin moons, brighter than all the dazzling lights and jewels in the room, fixed on Pitch, a serious mouth tight. ‘Your appetite for the vanities of this world has not changed then.’

‘I’m surprised you noticed any of my appetites at all.’

To his great surprise, Seraphiel’s gaze shifted away from him. ‘I noticed everything about you, Vassago. Why else would I have chosen you? You were not hard done by here.’

Pitch scoffed at that. ‘You Seraph have a strange idea of excellent treatment.’

‘You believed yourself endlessly fornicating, pleasured until your incubus blood was brimming –’

‘But I wasn’t, was it? I was being worked upon in harsher ways. I was kept chained in a lie.’

‘I serviced you when necessary for your needs. You were sated, I assure you. It was simply not so often as you recall. And I have given you a power that the Lord Enoch himself would envy.’

‘Oh, so now you favour blasphemy? Enoch would be proud.’

The dancers shifted, fine materials rustling, polished shoes creaking. A thud came from the orchestral balcony. Seraphiel tightened his grip, and for a brief moment, Pitch wondered if he’d be traipsing into Blood Lake with Angelic injury on his person. Though really, what more could Seraphiel do to damage him?

‘What colour?’

Pitch frowned. ‘Colour of what?’

‘Clothes. Shall you be happy with gold?’

‘Dare it and I’ll scream.’ His mind went to a time of great pleasure, and what he’d worn in those stolen moments at the Crimson Bow. ‘Grey. I want grey taffeta, and its corset must belined with diamond buttons. There should be lace at the collar and cuffs.’

‘I’m not partial to lace. But the rest can be worked with.’

The angel’s hand slipped from the small of Pitch’s back to the nape of his neck, and a soft hush of air moved against Pitch’s cheek as the angel whispered a summons of his divine magick.

Warmth ran over Pitch’s skin, and a tug came at his clothing, down at his shirt’s hem. He glanced down. Half expecting to see Scarlet there.

But there was no rainbow light.

Nor, though, was there a plain linen shirt and oversized trousers covering his body.

His clothing was transformed. Not quite the same shade of grey as his gown at the Crimson Bow: this was lighter in hue, French grey as opposed to the cloud-grey he coveted, but lovely just the same.

A sudden tightening came at his waist, a cinching of unseen laces to force his figure into the lines of the hourglass. The simurgh nudged against the intrusion into its space.