Seven Sins System Chapter 818. Personal Microphone
Seven Sins System Chapter 818. Personal Microphone
“Azrael, Azrael.”
Someone prodded the edge of my consciousness like poking a sleep-paralysis demon with a chopstick. In the dark, silk-soft blackness of the penthouse bedroom, I mumbled into a pillow that smelled like detergent and sin, “Five more minutes or I will burn the city.”
The whisper dipped closer, warm against the shell of my ear. “El.”
Okay, that was definitely a capital-E with a girl’s voice. Luci never digs up my childhood nickname unless he’s trying to irritate me, and he definitely doesn’t whisper it like some shy confession.
But the voice? Familiar in that feather on skin way angels have when they’re trying not to wake the whole cosmos.
I cracked one eye. Moonlight poured through the curtains, wrapping the figure at my bedside in silver. Halo glow, white nightgown brushing bare ankles. Puriel. Fully angelic, zero percent Luci.
A slow grin tugged at my mouth, the cocky one. “Miss me already? Wanna bang?”
Her eyes widened, cheeks warmed. Before she answered, I reached out, snagged her wrist, tugged with a sleepy devil’s gravity until she toppled onto the mattress beside me with a soft ‘poof’. Downy blankets swallowed her wings like a pampered trap.
“El—not like that.”
I loosened my hold, one arm still crooked over her waist like a question mark. “Then what? Midnight karaoke? Try the minibar, it’s alphabetized. I can lend you ‘my personal microphone’.”
She fussed a strand of hair behind her ear, glow dimming to apologetic ember. “I… I couldn’t sleep.”
“Insomnia club meets the devil.” My tentacles flexed lazily under the sheets, half-dreaming of wrapping her in the world’s weirdest weighted blanket. One blade-tip poked out, offered a gentle pat to illustrate ‘I can knock you out’.
She swatted it with saintly indignation. “Not like that!”
“Then spell it out. Sleepy devil grumpy.”
Her shoulders slumped. “After what happened today… I finally understand how you think.”
That yanked me half-upright. “Huh? You drop in at 3 a.m. with an epiphany?”
She nodded.
“I just watched the coverage,” she murmured. “You rescued those children. Helped the wounded. But the broadcasters still painted you, Luci, and Algan as the villains.”
I snorted. “First day on MortalNet?”
“They slandered you,” she pressed, frustration wrinkling. “Calling you the architect of a criminal cult. Blaming you for the hybrids.”
“That,” I said, collapsing back onto the pillow, “is Tuesday.”
A moment stretched. She folded her legs beneath her, nightgown slipping down a moonlit shoulder. Vulnerable. Thoughtful.
“I always assumed devils invite hate,” she whispered, “that you thrive on it. Tonight I saw you save the people. And still they cursed you.”
My laugh was low, raspy. “I’m a devil, Puriel. There’s a script. They need a villain so they can sleep at night.”
Her gaze softened, pity wrapped in starlight, and that stung more than any slur on mortal media. I preferred the curses, easier to ignore.
I shifted, propped on one elbow, studying her face. Worry lines she never let mortals see, a sadness that didn’t match her propaganda posters. “Why does it bother you?”
“Because,” she breathed, “you saved them and they refuse to see it. It isn’t justice.”
Justice.
Cute word.
I reached out, brushed a thumb over her cheek. Warm. Too warm for a creature of pristine light, anger hiding under guilt. “You feel angry,” I said softly.
She leaned into the touch before catching herself. “Maybe.”
“First hit’s free,” I teased. “Wrath has options.”
“Don’t recruit me.”
“Offer stands.”
She managed a shy smile, then squared her shoulders. “I came because I didn’t want to be alone with that feeling.”
Ah. There it was. Angelic insomnia via righteous fury. Like caffeine, but holier.
I scooted over, patted the luxurious pillow next to me. Sheets rustled. My tentacles retreated to polite distance. “Stay.”
She hesitated, glancing at the door as if heavenly auditors might burst in. “Won’t Luci—”
“Pride’s drunk-cuddling a bottle older than this realm. Algan’s on guard, pretending not to eavesdrop. Or sleeping. But he is my soldier. We’re safe.”
A tiny nod. She slipped under the duvet. The bed dipped, heat mingling, angel-cool against devil-warm, static crackling where grace met sin. She lay on her side, watching city lights blink through half-open curtains.
Silence, but comfortable. I inhaled the scent of her hair. Storm over cedar, crisp and innocent, nothing like the sulfur tang I carried. My pulse slowed.
She spoke, almost a sigh. “I see why you hide behind that bite, turn everything into a snarl so it hurts less than this.”
I let out a low laugh.
“You’re talking like I’m hurt,” I murmured, eyes half-lidded as I stared at the ceiling lights bleeding silver through the curtains. “Like I’m not literally the devil.”
My fingers traced lazy circles against the small of her back through the thin fabric of her nightgown.
“Like we weren’t nemesis hundreds of years ago.”
That one lingered between us.
Heavy.
Old.
Puriel went quiet after that.
Not awkward quiet.
Thinking quiet.
The kind where her lashes lowered slightly and her body relaxed against mine without her realizing it. I could feel the warmth of her thigh pressed near my leg beneath the blanket, the soft brush of skin every time she shifted.
I huffed softly through my nose.
“Don’t think too hard about it,” I muttered. “I love being a villain.”
Her eyes lifted toward me again.
“I mean it,” I continued. “Villains have privileges. I can do what I want without worrying about reputation.”
A grin tugged at my mouth.
“I’m bad. So people expect bad things.”
I shrugged lazily.
“Simple.”
Puriel stared at me for a few seconds too long.
Like she was trying to decide whether I actually believed that or just repeated it enough until it became convenient.
Slowly, her fingers touched my chest.
Bare skin.
Warm.
Gentle.
Not saintly.
Not distant.
Just… curious.
The contact dragged a quiet breath from me.
Huh?
Okay.
That felt nice.
I looked down at her hand spread over my chest, fingers brushing slowly through the skin and lean muscle. Her thumb traced lower, careful, almost absentminded.
“Is this also in your package?” she asked softly.