Peter's smile grew into the wide, thin grin Gabriel resented.
"You've learned to bite," he murmured, voice a velvet blade. "But you still don't know where the teeth should go."
Then the air shifted.
Gabriel felt it before he saw it, ether, cold and precise, sliding over his skin like invisible wires. The grip on his neck loosened, but not out of mercy. A surge of pressure wrapped around his chest, his arms, his ribs, a crushing force that never left a mark. The wall behind him vibrated with the hum of it, the faint ozone bite of charged wards crawling through the air.
His body arched against the invisible hold, breath ripping short, as Peter's fingers released him entirely. No bruises, no fingerprints, just the relentless squeeze of ether pressing into bone and sinew like it was carving him from the inside out.
Peter stepped back a pace, watching him with the calm detachment of a man pruning a tree.
