6

Nero and I took the staircase up. Each step was made of glass. Transparent, almost invisible, they seemed to float up to the next floor, where Damiel was staying in his ‘gilded cage’, as he liked to call it. And he was indeed staying in a very luxurious prison.

The entire floor was a single room with majestic ceilings so high and vast that two teams of angels could comfortably play a game of football in the air. Large windows looked out on the city. Like downstairs, they were made of enchanted glass. Damiel could see out, but no one outside could see in. It was an essential precaution since most of the world, the Legion included, thought Damiel had died long ago.

We passed through the magic barrier that kept Damiel inside the open apartment. It also kept everyone out except for Nero, Captain Somerset, and me. The barrier was completely invisible. Only the low hum of the Magitech generator powering it betrayed its presence.

Damiel stood behind the cooking island of the open kitchen, a spatula in his hand. At first glance, he looked a lot like Nero. He had the same hair as his son, if not a bit more bronze than caramel. And his eyes were blue instead of green. But other than that, the two angels might have been twins. They had the same body type: hard, flexible muscle filling out a set of wide shoulders and a chest cutting down into a narrow V waistline. Their hair was cut short with a little extra length in front. They both wore the same stern expression on their faces—especially when they looked at each other. And they both looked the same age, forever frozen at twenty, when they’d drunk the gods’ Nectar for the first time.

Damiel had changed his clothes since his return from the Wilds. Instead of black leather, he now wore a t-shirt and jeans. He wore them comfortably, as though he’d dressed like this every day of his life instead of donning the Legion’s battle leather. But there was something that wasn’t quite right. Even though Damiel’s outfit consisted entirely of egregiously expensive high-end designer clothes—probably stuff of Nero’s that he never wore because he preferred to be in uniform—the clothes looked shabby compared to the elegant angel wearing them. He was a king in peasant clothes. The king shone right through. Or in this case, the angel.

“Hello, hello,” Damiel said, his stern expression evaporating the moment his eyes met mine.

Thank goodness he was speaking aloud this time. I can’t even begin to describe how unsettling it is to have someone poking around inside your head.

“Pancakes?” Damiel asked brightly, flipping a pair of them onto a large plate.

“It’s three in the afternoon. It’s too late in the day for pancakes,” Nero told him.

“It’s never too late in the day for pancakes.” I watched with morbid fascination as Damiel poured maple syrup all over the pancakes. “There’s enough sugar on them to kill a fairy.”

“One of the perks of immortality. You can survive most things that kill others.” Smiling, he handed me the plate. “Dig in.”

“So, sixty-five vampires captured. That’s quite an impressive catch. Have any of them spilled their secrets yet?” Damiel asked casually as he poured more pancake batter into the pan.

I pushed a piece of pancake into the pool of maple syrup. “How do you know how many vampires we captured?”

“I eavesdropped.”

Of course he had.

“If you’re reading my mind, you know everything I know,” I said.

“I stopped reading your mind five seconds after you entered the building. That’s when you started thinking about my son naked.”

I almost choked on my pancake. I coughed, trying to dislodge the piece stuck in my throat. Damiel calmly handed me a glass of water. I glanced at Nero, who had a rather smug expression on his face. Naturally. Angels didn’t get embarrassed. Modesty wasn’t even in their vocabulary. Things that would make any decent person flash bright red, they just regarded with cool indifference. Or pride. Apparently pride wasn’t a sin if it was well-deserved.

“As far as I know, the vampires haven’t spilled their secrets yet. We shot them full of sedatives before loading them into the trucks, so they’re probably only now waking up in an Interrogator’s chair.”

Damiel smiled fondly as he flipped a pancake. “I do miss the days of brutal interrogations.”

I looked at him in shock. I really shouldn’t have been shocked, not after all I’d lived through in the Legion. Angels were not human. When would I finally remember that?

“Have you had any luck activating the armor and weapons of heaven and hell?” Damiel asked me.

“I haven’t tried again recently. I’ve been too busy.”

Damiel looked disappointed. He thought the armor, which had once belonged to the Guardians, was the key to contacting them. Since they lived outside our dimension, separated from us, it wasn’t easy to get their attention. Damiel believed his wife Cadence was with them. Raven Rhodes was supposed to confirm that, but he’d turned out to be a pretty worthless source of information. All we knew now was that Raven had been a despicable human being long before he’d become a despicable vampire.

There was actually another thing we’d accomplished this morning: Nero now knew his father hadn’t killed his mother. Raven had seen Cadence alive after she’d supposedly died in the fight with Damiel. I’d known from the start that Damiel hadn’t killed her. The way his eyes lit up when he spoke of her was undeniable. How could Nero, an expert at reading body signs, have missed it? It seemed that even angels had blindspots and Nero’s father was his. He was convinced that Damiel was perpetually up to no good.

“I couldn’t get the armor and weapons to work when I tried them at Calli’s house after our return from the Lost City,” I told Damiel. “I think I need to level up my magic more.”

“You got them to respond before,” Damiel pointed out.

“That was under extreme circumstances, extreme stress.” The stress being a psychopath trying to kill me, Nero, and Damiel. “I’m not even sure how I did it. And I can’t repeat it.”

A calculating gleam slid across Damiel’s eyes. I had the sinking suspicion that he was thinking up a plan to recreate the horrible conditions that had allowed me to access the power to control the immortal artifacts. I certainly wouldn’t put it past him. He’d done it before, tortured me to force me to unlock the memories that opened the doorway to the armor and weapons.

Damiel was quite possibly the scariest angel I knew, maybe even scarier than Nyx. He seemed like a great guy on the outside, but then he could switch just like that. I saw it in his eyes. He was crueler than Colonel Fireswift, more calculating than Nyx, and darker than Nero. He was fueled by his desperation to find his wife, the love of his immortal life. And that desperation stemmed from his guilt. He’d promised to find her after they’d put on a good fight for the Legion, but he’d never seen her again.

His guilt and desperation had blended together, hardening into a cold shell. It had made him very, very dangerous. He was looking for Cadence with the same chilling brutality that he’d once used to execute the gods’ justice.

“Have you had any more visions from the Guardians?” Damiel asked me.

“No, but I have been having nightmares.”

Nero looked at me. “How long has this been going on?”

“Pretty much since we got back from the Lost City.”

A worry line formed between his eyes. He thought I was cracking under the stress of the trauma I’d experienced in the Lost City. And maybe he was right.

“What happens in these nightmares?” Damiel asked.

“I am stuck in a volcano, being slowly boiled alive.”

“You’re worried about your training with the Dragons,” Nero said.

“I know.” It didn’t take a degree in psychology for me to understand that.

I was leaving today for Storm Castle to undergo elemental magic training that would prepare me for the next level. I’d heard stories about Storm Castle, stories of being subjected to the elements in extreme, magical conditions far beyond the ordinary. It was the Legion’s tried and true way to prime our magic, to build up our resistance, to increase our chances of surviving the gods’ fourth gift. The gift of elemental magic.

“But I’ll be fine,” I said quickly. “What doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger, right?”

I flashed him a big, confident smile to cover up my complete lack of confidence. The wound I’d received from an immortal weapon was interfering with my training. Whenever I pushed myself too hard, it flared up. That meant I was slower and weaker than I needed to be. I wasn’t ready for intense training, training that would likely open up old wounds—and create lots of new ones.

Then again, when would I ever be ready? I had to train, to level up my magic so I could gain the power I needed to find Zane. I’d joined the Legion for that single purpose, and I was not about to allow a pesky immortal weapon wound to stop me.

“And how are your preparations for your level ten trials coming along, Nero?” his father asked.

Nero said nothing. His default response to his father was no response.

“The trials will be difficult, like nothing you’ve ever faced before. The gods—”

Nero lifted his hand, interrupting his father.

“Have you asked Damiel for help?” I asked Nero.

“No.”

Damiel flipped the pancakes, a resigned look on his face.

“You really should. He’s been through it. He can help you,” I said.

“I don’t trust him. He’s hiding something.” He looked at his father. “I can feel it.”

Damiel clicked his tongue. “I can feel you trying to break through my mind, Nero. You aren’t strong enough. Not yet. You need to grow your magic. You should listen to Leda. I can help you survive the trials.”

“The last time you offered to help me, I nearly died. You are not a good teacher.”

“That was centuries ago, Nero.”

“You haven’t changed. You’re incapable of changing,” said Nero. “No, I will do this alone. You aren’t supposed to tell me anything anyway. It’s forbidden to speak of the trials.”

“The Legion holds no sway over me. Not anymore.”

Nero’s eyes were as hard as green diamonds. “You might have turned your back on everything we believe in, but I have not. My answer is no.”

I didn’t want Nero to die. He had to survive, Legion be damned.

“A few tips wouldn’t hurt, right?” I said to him.

He shook his head. “I don’t break the rules.”

“We’ve broken quite a few rules lately.”

Our mission to the Lost City. Keeping the secret about my brother’s powers and my ability to control beasts. Hiding the weapons and armor of heaven and hell. The list just went on and on.

“I did what I had to in order to protect you,” Nero said. “But I won’t cheat on a test for my own personal gain. There’s no honor in that.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I want to protect you? That I don’t want the trials to kill you?”

Dipping his forehead to mine, he wrapped his arms around me.

“You made a good choice. I didn’t expect this of you, Nero. So impulsive. So angelic. So incredibly unlike you,” Damiel said with an approving nod.

I met Nero’s eyes. “What is he talking about? What choice?”

“Nothing.” He glowered at his father.

“He’s marked you as his, my dear.” Damiel inhaled deeply. “I can smell him all over you.”

“Marked me? What does that even mean?”

“He’s marked you with his scent, his magic. Anyone with supernatural senses can smell it. It’s especially potent to other angels. He’s broadcasting that you’re under his protection. That you belong to him. And that anyone who hurts you will answer to him.”

I lifted my arm and sniffed. Damiel was right. I smelled like Nero. But when… Just now, I realized. Those kisses. I brushed my hand across my lips. The blood exchange that had felt better than any we’d had before. I dropped my hand to my neck. He’d marked me. Without asking.

“Why?” I choked out. My shoulders shook with anger.

“Nero gave you a book on angels,” Damiel said. “You should know how territorial we are. Why do you think Nyx has only one angel assigned to each territory with a lot of space between us? It’s because when we get too close, we start fighting over property.”

“And marking your property,” I said in a whisper.

“He’s telling Colonel Fireswift to piss off and leave you alone.”

I looked at Nero.

“I told you Fireswift’s scent was all over you. He must have marked you during training.”

I shook my head slowly. This was not happening.

“He was sending me a message. I had to respond.”

“Why…” No other words came out. Colonel Fireswift had marked me. Just to annoy Nero.

“Angels do this sort of thing all the time,” Damiel told me.

This was unbelievable.

“By marking you, Colonel Fireswift was declaring you to be one of his,” Damiel said. “Like his children. Under his protection.”

I felt sick. I’d seen firsthand just how well Colonel Fireswift treated his son. He’d tortured him to teach him a lesson. I didn’t want his so-called protection.

“Nero had to respond,” Damiel continued.

That was angel logic at its finest. And thanks to that dubious logic, I was now caught in a power struggle—a mind game—between an angel who wanted to kill me and one who wanted to claim me.

“How does an angel mark someone?” I asked Nero quietly. If I didn’t whisper, I’d scream. I was surprised by how steady my voice was, how calm. Nero looked surprised too. He must have expected me to blow up at him. That might still come. I was so furious.

“Through a blood exchange usually.”

Colonel Fireswift had thrown me against the wall. I’d bled from multiple places. And he’d hit those wounds. He could have put his blood into me that way.

“But there are other ways,” Nero said.

“Sex,” Damiel told me. “He means sex. Plus a blood exchange on top of that. That’s the recipe for the strongest mark. A mating mark.”

“Your blood is in me,” I said to Nero.

“I drank your blood and changed it, giving it back to you when you drank from me.”

I knew that blood exchange had felt different than the ones before. Better. No, not better. I didn’t want it to be better. Nero had done this without asking me.

“So Colonel Fireswift marked me as his property to piss you off, and you decided to do the same?” I said. “I’m not a bone you can fight over. I’m a person.”

“He wanted every person you met to think you belonged to him.”

I gritted my teeth. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about that psychopath and his games. Let him mark me up all he wants. That doesn’t make me his property.”

“You are naive, Leda. In our world, it means exactly that. If I didn’t challenge his claim, I would be accepting it.”

“So you just marked me without asking?”

“As your reaction proves, you were not going to be reasonable about this.”

“I am no one’s property,” I snapped. “As soon as I get back to the Legion, I’m going to find a potion to remove this mark.”

Damiel chuckled. “There’s nothing on this Earth that can remove an angel’s mark. Nothing but another angel’s mark. Or the mark of a god.”

“Then how do I get it off?”

“You can’t,” Damiel said. “This happens all the time. Angels marking their family, their mate, those they wish to protect. I’m surprised Nero did it, though. He thinks himself above such things.”

I frowned at Nero. “Well, it looks like he’s not above anything.”

“Be silent. You’re not helping,” Nero told his father.

I jutted my finger in Nero’s face. “Remove your mark from me.”

Nero glanced down at my finger. “As my father said, it doesn’t work that way.”

“You’re intelligent, creative, and determined. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

“There is nothing. And even if I did remove my mark, Fireswift would just mark you again.”

Despair stretched my lips into a hard smile. “He’s going to do that anyway when he sees me, isn’t he?”

“My mark is potent. I was quite thorough.”

An involuntary shiver shook my body at the memory of just how thorough he’d been.

“Unless you sleep with Fireswift, he won’t be able to cover Nero’s mark,” Damiel added helpfully.

The thought of sleeping with Colonel Fireswift made me ill. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. Like all angels, he was beautiful. But that beauty could not hide the ugliness inside. He had the personality of an assault rifle.

“This is ridiculous. I’m not some tree to be peed on,” I declared.

“Actually, an angel’s mark is considered to be a pleasant scent. Some consider it an aphrodisiac,” Damiel said.

I scowled at him.

“This is why I won’t ever accept your help,” Nero told him. “Your help isn’t help at all.”

“I could mark you myself if you don’t want to be caught in the middle of their power struggle,” Damiel offered. “My magic is stronger than theirs. It’s unlikely either of them will be able to cover my mark.”

A gust of magic and feathers shot past me. Nero grabbed his father, hurling him across the room. Damiel somersaulted in the air, slowing down. His wings burst out of him, and he hovered there for a moment. Nero shot straight up into the air, tackling him hard. Damiel’s back hit the ceiling with a wretched crunch. The angel didn’t seem to notice. As fast as lightning, he slipped out of Nero’s grasp, circling around him. He slammed his hand against Nero’s shoulder. A sharp crack signaled that Damiel had broken his shoulder. Three more cracks sounded as Damiel snapped three of Nero’s ribs.

Nero kept fighting. The two angels flashed across the room, fists flying, feathers falling. Despite the world of pain he must have been in, Nero wasn’t holding back. He grabbed Damiel by the foot and slammed his head against the wall. He’d lost all control.

I’d seen him like this before, two weeks ago in the Lost City when he’d seen his father again for the first time in centuries. That same savage ferocity had consumed him then too. No thought, no control. Only instinct.

His father was his trigger. They had a long history of distrust and hatred. As they’d just reminded me, angels were prickly and territorial. Having two of them so close to each other wasn’t helping Nero’s mood. Especially not after Colonel Fireswift, another angel, had pissed him off by marking me. Not that I was excusing Nero’s behavior. There was no excuse for this.

I glared up at the warring angels. I needed a shower and a nap, not this nonsense. Nero hit the ground right in front of me. Damiel dove down after him. I planted myself between them.

“Enough,” I snapped, packing that single word with as much magic as I could. “There are more than enough enemies in this world to fight without resorting to hurting each other. You need to start getting along now, or this won’t work. You’ll never find Cadence.”

The blind fury in Nero’s eyes went out at the mention of his mother. He was returning to his senses, so I pressed on.

“She wouldn’t want you two to fight,” I told them.

Nero’s fists were still clenched. “Stay away from her,” he growled at his father.

Finding Cadence without Damiel might be possible, but it would be easier with an extra angel on our side. Nero had to see that.

“You will never pass the gods’ trials like this,” his father said. “You need more control when it really matters. When everything is at stake. When they tear you apart from the inside, taking everything you are, everything you have, everything you care about. Nero, you are in control when it doesn’t matter, and you lose it when it does. I’ve been telling you that since you were a child.”

I feared Damiel was right. Nero wasn’t in control. If his father could make him lose it with just a few words, I could only imagine how easily the gods could break him.

Nero folded his arms across his chest and glared at Damiel. Damiel glared back. Tessa would have fainted if she’d been here to see the two angels with those ‘smoldering’ looks, as she liked to call angels’ battle eyes. My little sister often mistook murderous for smoldering.

“I don’t need yet another angel marking me,” I told Damiel.

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He didn’t look bothered. If anything, he was amused. The barely perceptible twitch of his lip gave him away. Even angels had weaknesses. Even they had their telltale signs.

“Come with me,” I told Nero and turned to take the very long staircase upstairs, not even looking back to check if he was following me.

The stairs spilled into a room that resembled a king’s bedchamber. The ornate canopy bed alone, with its gem-studded posts and gold-thread curtains, must have cost as much as a car. It was enormous, large enough for two angels to sleep there side-by-side with their wings extended.

“That was Cadence and Damiel’s bed,” I realized.

“Yes,” Nero said right behind me, making me jump. I needed to outfit myself with a proximity alarm. Though I somehow doubted it would work against angels.

I looked out the window at the city. The cold rainclouds had parted. A rainbow shone over the airship station at the end of the street, setting the station’s bronze beams aglow. They reflected the rainbow, sending it into a hundred different directions. There was a innocent beauty to that magical light. But I couldn’t enjoy it. Not right now.

“You should have told me that Colonel Fireswift marked me,” I said, trying to keep the judgment out of my voice. And the anger. I was so pissed off right now. “But instead you just did whatever you wanted without consulting me.”

He looked at me, infuriatingly silent.

“Nero, I want this to work. I want us to work,” I told him. “But you need to stop making decisions for me.”

“Something in me snapped when I smelled him on you. I couldn’t help myself.”

“You, with all the willpower in the world.”

“This goes beyond willpower,” he said. “It’s instinct. It’s the way we are.”

“Said every man in the history of the world ever.”

“You misunderstand. This isn’t about men or women. It’s about angels. Both male and female angels mark what is theirs. In fact, the female angel’s mark is far more potent. This is what angels are, Leda. It’s how we act, how we tick. If you can’t accept that, this won’t ever work. We can’t work.”

“So you’re saying you will only remove your mark if we stop this…”

Whatever this was. We weren’t dating. Not really. We hadn’t even finished our first date. But the way I felt about him meant something to me. He meant something to me. But even if he felt the same way about me, what did it change? He was going to keep acting however his angel programming told him to. I should have known better than to get involved with an angel. They weren’t human. They didn’t think like we did.

“Fireswift is a dangerous angel, Leda,” he said. “Whether or not you accept him, everyone will accept you are his if his mark is on you. If you think you’re hurting now under his command, just wait to see how much worse it will get when you are one of his. Like his children.”

I shuddered to think of what Fireswift had done to Jace. He’d basically crucified him to the wall to make a point, to teach his son a lesson.

“You are in our world now, Leda. The world of angels. You joined the Legion willingly. You went into this with eyes open.”

“Not this,” I said, throwing my hands up in frustration. “The work, the magic, the training. The very real possibility of death. Yes, I signed up for that. I didn’t sign up to be marked by warring angels.”

“It’s all part of the same thing,” he said with a patient sigh. “I am trying to protect you. The fact that you expected to continue your life in the same manner as you had lived before joining the Legion shows how naive you are. You are no longer human, Leda. You need to stop thinking of yourself as such. You have to make some adjustments to our culture. You won’t survive otherwise. And you won’t ever be happy.”

Loneliness swelled up inside of me. I felt so lost, so out of place. The world of angels, the Legion, the path to becoming an angel myself—it was so different from everything that I’d ever known.

I missed my home. My family. The familiar smells from Calli’s kitchen. Waking up next to my sister. Sharing that stupid tiny bathroom between the six of us. Laughing over meals. Teasing each other. I missed it all. It made my heart hurt to think of everything I’d given up.

But there was no going back now. I’d thought the hard part of joining the Legion would be surviving the Nectar. The trials, the training, the monsters. The constant exhaustion and stress that pushed me to the breaking point.

I’d been wrong. The hardest part of joining the Legion was everything I’d had to leave behind—and this whole new world I’d blindly flung myself into. I’d read a book about angels, but I didn’t understand them. I didn’t even understand my place in the world anymore. I wanted to bury my head in my knees and rock back and forth, humming loudly until it all went away. But I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t all go away. I knew it wouldn’t. This was my life now. The best I could hope for was to hold onto as much as my humanity as I could, like Captain Somerset had.

“Please. Remove the mark,” I pleaded with Nero. “If you care at all about me, you will.”

“I did this because I care. Fireswift did it to hurt me by hurting you. I’d rather you hate me and be safe than be a slave to him.”

My heart was a twisted clump of joy and pain. “I know why you did it, but you should have asked me.”

“We both know you would have refused. And that your refusal would have been a foolish decision. You still don’t understand our world, Leda.”

He was right. I didn’t understand this crazy world of angels and gods. How could I? It was all so alien to me.

He looked at me, his expression softening slightly. “There is a way to remove my mark. It hasn’t spread far. I can still drink it out of you.”

“Please do it.”

I thought I caught a flash of pain—of betrayal—in his eyes, but it was gone so fast that maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me. I didn’t want to hurt him.

Nero lifted his hand to my face. He brushed the hair off my neck, and my pulse sped up in anticipation. I was so hopelessly addicted to him that it was hard to think straight. But I had to. I had to wrap my humanity around myself like a shield, just as Captain Somerset had.

His fangs penetrated my skin, but this time when he drank from me, it didn’t feel good. I didn’t feel anything in fact, except for a dull pain from the wound. There was nothing sensual about it. He drank carefully, draining his mark from me with surgical precision.

Finally, he pulled back and said, “It is done.”

“Thank you.” I reached into one of my pouches for my healing powder, which I dabbed over the puncture marks on my neck.

“Fireswift will just mark you again,” he warned me.

“I will handle him. Now that I know his game, I can stop him.”

Nero didn’t respond. His expression proclaimed he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Maybe he was right, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

Nero turned away. “I have to go.” His voice was so cold.

I caught his arm. “Removing the mark isn’t about you.”

He glanced back at me. “Leda, don’t insult both of us by lying to yourself. This is entirely about me. And it’s about you. You joined the Legion. This is your world now, your culture. You just haven’t accepted it. And you haven’t accepted me for who I am.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he spoke first. “It’s the truth. You want to become an angel, to gain our powers for your own use, but you want nothing to do with who we are. You can’t have it both ways, Leda. And you can’t have me both ways either. If you want to be with me, you have to accept me for what I am. I’m not going to lie to you. A lot of what angels do isn’t pretty. Humans paint us in shining halos, but we aren’t that way at all. We are vicious and stubborn and simply don’t think the way humans do. We can be cold-hearted bastards, but we always protect those we care about.”

“I do care about you, Nero.”

“The angel and the man are one person. Intertwined, inseparable. It is who I am. Can you accept that?”

“I…”

I stopped myself. This was important. Could I really accept all of the angel politics, the games, the power plays? Nero was right. It was part of him and his culture. I couldn’t ask him to stop being who he was. I wouldn’t even respect him if he did.

I took a deep breath. “I need some time to think.” To decide if I could really get involved with someone who was so different from me, from someone who would do whatever he had to in order to keep me safe—at the expense of my own freewill.

“Let me know when you’ve made your decision.”

His face was as hard as granite, not a single emotion present on it. He brushed the back of his hand softly across my cheek. A gust of wind shot through the room, and then he was gone, leaving behind a single dark feather.