They gave me a mop and told me not to speak unless spoken to.
The mop was nicer than anything I'd owned in life. Polished wood handle, pristine white fibers that probably cost more than my monthly rent used to. Everything in this place was like that: excessive, beautiful, and completely wasted on its purpose.
Kind of like the angels themselves.
I pushed the mop across marble floors so polished I could see my reflection, watching other gray-robed servants scurry past like frightened rabbits. Nobody made eye contact. Nobody spoke. We were furniture that occasionally needed to move.
"You're new."
I looked up. The girl who'd mouthed 'I'm sorry' stood nearby, pretending to dust a column that definitely didn't need dusting. She was young, maybe twenty-two, with brown hair tied back and eyes that had seen too much.
"That obvious?" I muttered.
"You're still looking around like you think this is temporary." Her voice was barely a whisper. "It's not. I'm Ayla."
"Kai."
"Don't get comfortable, Kai. And whatever you do, don't attract attention. Especially not from—"
"YOU there!"
Ayla's face went pale. She immediately dropped into a bow so deep her forehead nearly touched the floor.
I turned.
An angel strode down the hallway, and my brain short-circuited.
I'd thought the ones I'd seen earlier were beautiful. This one was... different. She radiated authority, her white and gold robes flowing around a body that my traitorous mind immediately catalogued in excessive detail.
Blonde hair fell in perfect waves past her shoulders, catching the light like spun silk. Her face was aristocratic, all sharp cheekbones and a mouth that curved in natural disdain. But it was her eyes that got me: ice blue, bright and cold and looking at the cowering servant in front of her like he was something she'd scraped off her shoe.
"I said bring me COLD water," she said, her voice musical and dripping with contempt. "This is room temperature."
"I-I'm sorry, Lady Seraphiel, I—"
She dumped the entire pitcher over his head.
The servant just knelt there, soaked, trembling.
"Try again," Seraphiel said. "And if you disappoint me twice, I'll have you cleaning the waste pits for a month."
She turned to leave, and that's when I got the full view.
Oh no.
See, I'd always had a thing. A very specific thing that I'd never admitted to anyone, barely even admitted to myself during my lonely nights with a laptop and an incognito browser.
I liked purity.
Not the metaphorical kind. The aesthetic. The untouchable, perfect thing that seemed to exist on a different plane from regular mortals. Ice queens. Princesses in towers. The kind of beauty that came wrapped in frost and dignity and an aura of 'you could never have this.'
And then imagining making them fall.
Seraphiel was that fantasy given form and set loose in reality.
Her robes hugged a figure that defied physics. The fabric draped across her chest in a way that suggested curves that were generous without being excessive, the kind that would fill hands perfectly. The cut of her outfit left her shoulders bare, pale skin that seemed to glow with its own light, smooth and flawless in a way that made me wonder what it would feel like under my fingers.
But it was everything else that really got me.
Her waist tapered sharply, the robes cinched with a golden cord that emphasized the swell of her hips. And those hips... they moved with each step in a way that was completely unconscious and utterly hypnotic. The fabric clung just enough to suggest long legs underneath, the kind that went on forever.
Then there were the wings.
Pure white, massive, folded against her back but somehow making her seem even more untouchable. Bright feathers that caught the light, not a single one out of place. They shifted slightly as she walked, a subtle flex that drew the eye.
And above her head, slowly rotating: a halo of solid golden light.
The symbol of her purity. Her divine nature.
My bastard brain immediately wondered what it would look like cracked.
What the hell is wrong with me?
She was cruel. Sadistic. Had just humiliated someone for bringing water that wasn't cold enough. And here I was, mentally undressing an angel who'd probably set me on fire if she knew what I was thinking.
But I couldn't help it. There was something about the combination: that perfect, untouchable beauty wrapped in absolute authority and casual cruelty. She'd never been told 'no' in her existence. Never been challenged. Never been anything but worshipped and feared.
She was pure in every sense of the word.
And I wanted to ruin her.
The thought came unbidden and I immediately tried to shove it down. This wasn't some fantasy. This was real. She was dangerous. Powerful. Could probably kill me with a thought.
But my body didn't care about logic. Heat coiled low in my stomach as I watched her move, the sway of her hips, the arch of her back, the way her hair shifted across those bare shoulders.
I wondered if she'd ever been touched. If those wings were sensitive. If that halo would flicker if someone made her feel something other than contempt.
If she'd ever moaned.
Stop. Stop thinking about this.
But I couldn't. Because buried under the fear and the rage at how she'd just treated that servant was something worse: pure, undiluted desire.
I'd always been a pervert. I knew that. Accepted it. But this was different. This wasn't just attraction to a pretty face. This was something darker, something that whispered in the back of my mind that I wanted to see this perfect angel fall.
Wanted to be the one to make her fall.
Wanted to hear her beg.
Seraphiel stopped mid-stride.
My blood ran cold.
She turned, slowly, and her ice-blue eyes swept across the room. Past Ayla. Past the other servants.
And locked directly onto me.
For one long, horrible moment, we just stared at each other.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, like she was trying to figure out why I wasn't bowing. Why I was standing there like an idiot with a mop, looking at her when I should've been prostrating myself.
A small smile curved her perfect lips.
Not a nice smile.
A predator's smile.
"You," she said, her voice cutting through the silence. "What's your name?"
Every instinct screamed at me to look away. To bow. To grovel.
I didn't.
"Kai."
Her smile widened a fraction. "Kai. How... mundane." She walked toward me, each step measured, purposeful. "You're new, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"'Yes, Lady Seraphiel,'" she corrected, stopping close enough that I could smell her: jasmine and something else, something clean and sharp. "I do hope you'll learn proper respect quickly, Kai. I'd hate for you to end up in the waste pits."
Up close, she was even worse for my self-control. I could see the faint pulse at her throat, the perfect curve of her collarbone, the way her chest rose and fell with each breath.
"I'll try my best... Lady Seraphiel."
Something flickered in her eyes. Surprise? Interest? I couldn't tell.
"See that you do." She reached out, one finger tilting my chin up slightly. Her skin was warm. Soft. "I'll be watching you."
Then she was gone, sweeping down the hallway with her wings rustling softly.
I stood there, frozen, heart hammering.
Ayla grabbed my arm. "Are you insane?" she hissed. "You don't talk back to them! Especially not her!"
"Who is she?"
"Seraphiel. Cherub-class angel, Lumira's enforcer. She's the worst of them, Kai. She actually enjoys making us suffer."
Yeah.
I'd figured that out.
What scared me was that even knowing that, even seeing what she was capable of, I couldn't stop thinking about her.
About making that perfect, cruel angel.