It took more energy than Samandriel thought he had for him to be able to make eye contact with Carrick, not when his grace was calling to him.
"My darling, Spartan," he said, shifting forward to cup the ancient vampire's cheek in his hand. "I've had my fill of food and sleep, of nightmares and unfortunately necessary bodily functions, of being cold and afraid." He licked his lips and looked down briefly at his Grace before he met the Spartan's cold gaze again. "Just because I am wholly myself doesn't mean I can't experience pain, Erastes. It just means I won't succumb to it as easily."
He smiled sadly as he pulled his hand away. "You heard I had a fondness for blades, no doubt from your precocious little fae's digging where perhaps he oughtn't've been. We fight with bladed weapons in Heaven. You are not the first to have taken me apart and put me back together again, but you are the first I basked in it for, and the only to touch me with such artistry as a human. I've thought about what I'm doing, and all I want is to be myself again." He let his thumb rub against the wrist of Carrick's hand not holding his Grace. "We had an agreement. If you honour it in full, perhaps last night was only a taste of the pleasures you could experience not simply with another slave boy, but with an angel. As old as you are, the opportunities to have something completely new must be so very rare."