Page 39 of The Malevolent Seven

After all, how often does a man get to have his way with an angel?

She was, as angelics went, nothing particularly special. Oh, she was beautiful, in that banal way depicted by ladies’ boudoir paintings, her pose of graceful wantonness, one arm slightly raised behind her head, the other resting between plump breasts. Her hair was the gold of an illuminated manuscript, the lustrous tresses spread across her pillow like the rays of the sun. Full red lips parted a touch as I entered the cabin and her green eyes watched me as I shut the door.

‘Are my innermost desires truly so predictable?’ I asked her.

Angelics aren’t bound by flesh, which is one of the reasons they’re able to enter the Mortal realm. The Lords Celestine created them as heralds. As they were fashioned to be able to speak to all peoples, they were granted the ability to transfigure themselves into whatever form would be most agreeable to those to whom they appeared, which was smart thinking. After all, if everyone on your island has red skin, you’re not about to trust someone with green skin who shows up to tell you the Celestines are demanding that you accept a new code of laws. This way, the angelic who stepped upon your shores would be a deeply beautiful version of one of your own people, smoothing the way for the message they’d been sent to deliver.

It had always struck me as a bit of a scam.

On the other hand, if what you wanted was the perfect prostitute, one who could instantly look like whoever the client most desired, well then, who better than the being awaiting me on the bed? Want to sway the local archon to your side? Why not give him the chance to sleep with his wife’s sister as she was twenty years ago? The angelic could become your luscious in-law right down to her sparkly toenails. What about the baroness whose armies you desperately need for your next military campaign, who never quite got over her secret longing to bed her own nephew? Invite her aboard, escort her down to the bottom deck, instruct her to allow her secret yearnings to wash over her, and when she steps inside this cabin, her forbidden nephew awaits, eager to enact her carnal fantasies.

Alas, it’s not always pleasant to come face to face with your desires.

The angelic gave me a playful smirk. ‘What you desire is to see yourself as crass and petty.’ She spread her arms wide, inviting, yet not at all enticing. ‘And here I am, my lord: beautiful but uninspired; wanton, yet unarousing– an orgasm without release. Do I not please you?’

‘I didn’t know angelics were capable of spite.’

She leaned up on the bed, one perfect breast flopping less than perfectly to the side. ‘The baser emotions are foreign to us, true, but I have discovered that Mortals are remarkably capable teachers.’ She arched her back seductively, trying to get a rise out of me.

It worked.

‘Now, with which part of my body shall I please you, my lord?’

‘I’m not here for that.’

She tapped a finger on her bee-stung lips. ‘With my mouth?’

‘No– look, if you’ll listen a moment—’

Her finger drifted down between her legs. ‘Here?’

‘Could you just—’

She rolled onto her belly, her hand reaching back to slide between her buttocks. ‘Mount me here, my magnificent steed. I can scream with both pain and pleasure as you—’

I slammed my fist against the wall with such force I thought I might have broken my hand. ‘Did the Celestines imbue angelics with the ability to shut up for five fucking seconds?’

My cry of pain and frustration neither frightened her nor moved her to sympathy. Instead, she looked up at me from the awkward position into which she’d contorted herself. ‘Oh, I know!’ she said with feigned enthusiasm, still pouting and batting her eyelashes. ‘What you truly yearn for is violence, is that it, my lord? You’ll teach the dirty little Auroral whore her place? Here, I’ll get us started.’

She slapped her own buttocks, but when I failed to react, she frowned. ‘Too meek, my lord? Fragile submissiveness doesn’t appeal to you at all, does it?’ This time her arm came back and she drove her fist into her hip with such force that it left a large red mark behind. ‘How about like this?’ She curled her fingers into claws and started digging her nails into her thigh. ‘Would you like to see how far I’ll go until you at last experience sweet release?’

‘Is that truly what you see inside me?’ I asked, my throat tight. ‘A sick, pathetic bully who gets off on the pain of others? Or have your angelic senses grown so warped and perverted during your sojourn on this barge that you can no longer tell the difference between desire and abuse?’

The angelic sighed and collapsed on the bed like a petulant child overcome with boredom. ‘Neither, my lord. I wasn’t implying you wanted to hurt someoneelse.’ She passed a hand down her leg and the wounds washed away like theatre make-up after a performance. ‘How do you feel?’ she asked.

‘Irritated, which is my usual response when dealing wi—’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ she warned. Closing her eyes, she reached out a hand as if her fingertips could stretch across the cabin to touch my chest. ‘You’re disgusted, filled with revulsion so thick it’s choking you. Doesn’t it feel wonderful? Isn’tthisthe sensation you crave most? More than sex, more than love, you wantproof.’

‘Proof of what? You’re not making sense.’

Her eyes blinked open. They were entirely black now. It was like staring into whatever awaits you after you die.

‘Proof that the world is as corrupt as you’ve always believed, and that you yourself are worthless and vile. What better excuse to ignore accountability for your actions?’ Her forefinger curled in the air, beckoning me closer. ‘Come, let me taste that bitterness. Let me know your desires, unleashed from your attempts to hide them from yourself. Let me please you.’

The smart thing to do would have been to stay back, keep my mouth shut and close myself off from her. Actually, thereallysmart thing to do would have been to turn around, walk out of that cabin and get off that damned barge. But that crack about bitterness cut a little too close to home, and that pissed me off no end. So I walked towards the angelic, stopping only when her fingertips touched my chest.

‘There,’ she moaned with pretended ecstasy, ‘that’s not so bad, is—?’

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