7

I held the dark blue angel feather between my thumb and index finger. There was magic in it. Nero’s magic. It melted through my skin like a warm snowflake dissolving into my soul. I zipped open my jacket to put it inside, but I stopped.

A skeptical voice inside of me screamed that this was just another angel game. Nero hadn’t left the feather there by mistake. He’d wanted me to have something of him with me always. It was just another way of marking me.

What is so bad about taking something of him with me? I asked that voice. That’s what people who care about each other do. They give each other mementos. I tucked the feather inside my jacket and invited the skeptical voice to go take a hike.

When I got back downstairs, Damiel was still standing at the kitchen island, making buttermilk pancakes. And eating them. He must have the metabolism of a race horse.

“More pancakes?” he asked, offering me a small stack.

I waved the plate away. I wasn’t feeling very hungry anymore.

“Chocolate?”

I looked at the piece of dark chocolate in his hand. Chocolate was different. I was always hungry for chocolate. I took the tiny piece into my mouth, allowing the rich flavor to slowly melt into my tastebuds.

“So Nero figured out how to remove the mark.” Damiel dumped a small bowl of strawberries over his pancakes. “I figured he would if sufficiently motivated.”

“So, you knew it could be removed?”

“Yes.” He looked offended. Of course he knew. He knew everything about angels. Nero really had to put aside his pride and ask his father to help him prepare for his promotion trials.

I plopped down on the barstool across from the stove. “Yes, Nero was sufficiently motivated to remove it.”

“I couldn’t help but overhear.”

I cringed. Somehow the fact that he’d overheard my serious conversation with Nero upset me much more than him eavesdropping when we’d been making out downstairs. What we’d spoken of up there as we bared our hearts and souls was deeply intimate.

“Nero is right, you know,” he told me.

“Thanks,” I said darkly.

Damiel shrugged. He was an angel and Nero’s father. The two of them had a lot of views in common, more than Nero and I had, in fact.

“You have to be sure you can accept the angel and the man,” he said. “Best to head this off now before you break his heart.”

Break Nero’s heart? My heart was in far more danger. Angels took many lovers, but they didn’t love. Not easily. Most of them had one true love in their entire immortal life and that was it. Everyone knew that, even the girls who lied to themselves that they would be the one, the love of an angel’s life—right before they threw their panties at them. I blushed, recalling that I had thrown my panties on the floor of Nero’s office. But I’d been high on Nectar. That was different.

I wasn’t in this for fun. I wanted something else. But could I even have that with Nero? He’d only been gone a few minutes, and I missed him already. But the thought of that archaic angel tradition of marking whatever you’d deemed to be yours… It just made me mad! How many other bizarre angel traditions were there that I didn’t know about?

“A lot of them,” Damiel told me.

I looked up sharply. “You need to ask before you intrude on someone’s thoughts.”

Damiel gave me an unrepentant smile. “I like you, Leda.”

I didn’t know why that offhand comment made me feel better, but it did. A little anyway. But a little wasn’t enough. Not even close.

“You are torturing yourself,” Damiel said.

It was a comment, an observation. Not a judgment. An angel would never judge someone for torturing themselves. They believed self-flagellation built character.

I rose from my seat. “I have to go.”

“Come back soon. It’s horribly dull here.”

I left Damiel in his gilded cage. Outside, the clouds were back. There wasn’t a rainbow in sight. The frozen rain had slowed to an icy drizzle. It spilled down my neck. My boots squelched against the slushy pavement.

I couldn’t run fast enough to the Legion office. When I got there, the reception area was as full as I’d ever seen it, packed with soldiers hauling in prisoners and bodies. One of the soldiers was arguing with the secretary about whether he was allowed to bring in a werewolf who smelled of garbage. The werewolf had apparently been hiding for weeks. His injuries coupled with the tight security around the city had prevented him from ever making it out of New York. So he’d been eating out of trashcans to survive.

“He smells,” the secretary declared. “Colonel Fireswift will hold me personally responsible if I allow that werewolf and his stench past the reception hall. You shouldn’t have even brought him inside.”

“I cannot leave him unattended. He’s very good at escaping his restraints.”

“You could have waited with him.”

“In that freezing rain?”

“It is the lesser of two evils.”

“Only for the person who is standing warm and dry inside.”

“You would only have to wait there until the decontamination team arrived.”

The Legion took decontamination seriously. As soon as the team smelled the werewolf, they would burn off his clothes and give him a telekinetic shower that fried the muck off of him, down to the last dirty particle.

The secretary and soldier were still arguing over the werewolf when I passed through the door that led past the reception hall. Back here, it was just as full as up front. Soldiers in workout suits, soldiers in uniforms headed to or from missions. Lately, there hadn’t been any downtime at the office. Train, work, level up your magic or die. That was pretty routine for the Legion, but there were usually a few bright spots in between. Nights off, drinking Nectar drops, music, and dancing—just a little fun here and there to forget about all the horrible things in the world.

I was passing by my friend Nerissa’s lab on the way to my apartment when raised voices attracted my attention. Colonel Fireswift was in there. Ignoring my body’s desperate plea for a warm shower, I stopped. The Colonel was a jackass, and he was terrorizing my friend. I couldn’t abandon Nerissa now.

“Eight soldiers have come to me, each one with a note signed by you, Dr. Harding. A note that declares them too unwell to participate in the upcoming promotion ceremony.”

“It is against the Legion’s regulations to force sick soldiers to drink the gods’ Nectar,” Nerissa said.

“Sick soldiers,” Colonel Fireswift repeated with disgust. “There is nothing wrong with them besides their cowardice. And you are covering for them.”

Colonel Fireswift was an ass, but he wasn’t wrong. He’d made it his mission to level up the magic of as many soldiers as possible, no matter the cost. He considered the people who died in the ceremony to be casualties of war. He was a firm believer of thinning the herd. To him, those people would never have made it to a high enough level to be useful. The problem was Colonel Fireswift had a really narrow view of what constituted as useful.

Nerissa had a mission of her own. She was going to save anyone she thought wouldn’t survive the Nectar. She saw it as her duty as both a doctor and a decent human being. Her plan and Colonel Fireswift’s were fundamentally opposed.

“I have had enough of your incessant meddling and rule-breaking, Dr. Harding. The time you waste interfering with the smooth operation of the Legion could be put to far better use. You need to worry about yourself instead.” He waved his hand in the air, and a magical projection lit up the space in front of him. “You will head to Storm Castle with the other candidates for level four. Let’s just see if the Dragons’ training can’t cure you of your penchant for pissing me off.” He added her name to the end of the list etched in golden light, then swiped the magical projection away.

Nerissa just gaped at him, speechless.

“What’s wrong?” he asked smugly. “No snappy comeback?”

“Leave her alone,” I told him, putting steel into my voice.

Surprise froze Colonel Fireswift for a moment, but he quickly recovered his arrogance. He turned and walked out of the room, leaving Nerissa to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. I could see it in her eyes. She was sure she was going to die. Well, not if I could help it.

“Your impudence is rubbing off on your friends,” Colonel Fireswift told me. He towered over me like an ogre. “The First Angel thinks you’re special.” He made a derisive noise. He didn’t share Nyx’s opinion. He’d told me that countless times. “What’s this?” His nostrils flared. “Windstriker,” he spoke Nero’s name as though it were a curse.

He must have smelled Nero on me. Nero’s mark was gone, but his scent was still all over me. Colonel Fireswift could probably smell him in every spot he’d kissed me.

“As I thought.” His nose crinkled with disgust. “It must be exhilarating for a nobody like you to have an angel enthralled with you. You might think you’re filling that sad, hollow hole in him left by his dead parents. But you never will. You are nothing. A nice piece of ass, a way to pass some time, but in the end, nothing. Trash is trash.” He lifted his hand toward me.

My hand darted down to my whip. The electrically-charged cord hissed, catching his hand before he could make contact with me.

“You won’t lay a hand on me,” I ground out through clenched teeth.

“This is insubordination.”

“By not letting you mark me? Again.”

His eyebrows drew together. “So you know.”

“Yes,” I said. “This isn’t insubordination. It is self-defense.”

“You are out of line.”

“No, you are out of line, Colonel. I am not your property.”

“But you are Windstriker’s?” A cold smile spread across his lips. “You are nothing. A mere distraction, a tiny pawn in a game of giants. A game you do not even understand.”

Pawn. He used that word like he knew it would be the one to strike the right cord. He was right.

Colonel Fireswift pushed against my whip, reaching for me. He was going to mark me again. I felt it with every drop of magic in me. And there was no way I was going to let that happen. I stepped back and pulled, tightening the whip’s hold around his arm. Lightning sparked, singeing his skin. He didn’t wince, didn’t blink. Not even a little.

He didn’t care about me, neither as a lover nor as property. He hated me. He thought I was trash. He just wanted to mess with Nero. And he knew Nero did care about me.

Streams of lightning shot up Colonel Fireswift’s arm, swallowing it. The whip was hitting him with more lighting than anyone should be able to take. I hoped it didn’t lose its charge. I couldn’t cast elemental magic on weapons myself. The electric whip was powered by a tiny Magitech battery. It needed to be recharged by a larger Magitech generator. The whip was powerful, supposed to last the whole day under normal combat. Which meant it might last a couple of minutes against an angel.

“Stop,” I warned him. I kept my voice hard and cold, trying to cover up my fear that the magic would go out on the whip. That whip was the only thing standing between me and Colonel Fireswift’s plan to send Nero a message by kicking my ass. “I will take off your arm.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“That just goes to show that you don’t know me at all. I would dare a lot of things.”

Colonel Fireswift pushed against the whip’s hold. He was going to wait it out until its magic failed. Bastard. The hum of the lightning was growing weaker. It wouldn’t last much longer. I had to change tactics. Colonel Fireswift knew he could beat me in a direct fight. He wasn’t afraid of me. He wasn’t even afraid of Nero. But there was someone he was afraid of.

I pulled out my phone. “Shall we have the First Angel settle this? I have her number saved.”

Colonel Fireswift looked at me with those cold, inhuman eyes. Those eyes that had tortured thousands in his centuries as an angel. He was trying to psych me out. I met his eyes and didn’t back down.

“The First Angel does not get involved in such trivial matters as lowly insubordinate sergeants,” he finally said.

“Maybe not, but she does get involved in angel disputes.” I was showing him I knew exactly what this game was about.

“You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m refusing to be dragged into your spat with Nero.”

“Windstriker will eat you alive, you stupid little girl. And he will spit you out in pieces. That’s what angels do. You are nothing to us. Playthings, distractions. This is our game, and you don’t even know you’re playing it.”

No. Nero didn’t want to be with me unless I knew what I was getting into, unless I accepted the rules of the game. Colonel Fireswift wasn’t giving me a choice. Nero was. That was one of the many, many differences between them. If I decided I didn’t want to play, Nero wouldn’t push me.

“Do you think you’re the first naive girl who’s caught his eye? There have been hundreds just like you,” Colonel Fireswift told me.

I smirked at him. “There’s no one like me.”

His eyes swept over me. “You’re right. The others were prettier.”

I resisted the urge to punch him. Firstly, because that wouldn’t be self-defense; it would be attacking an angel, a superior, out of anger. And secondly, because he would kick my ass.

When I didn’t take the bait, he lowered his hand. I held in a sigh of relief as I slowly retracted my whip. But I wasn’t putting it away. I had to be ready in case he attacked. Colonel Fireswift could kill me before I could call Nyx. He must have been thinking the same thing because he started to move toward me again.

“Wow, you sure will be in an awkward position when Nero is promoted and outranks you,” I said quickly.

That froze Colonel Fireswift, right down to his icy eyes. “If Nero doesn’t survive, you will be in the awkward position. And I will be waiting.”

He looked me over like I was already dead, then turned and walked down the hall. As soon as he was out of sight, I took a deep, calming breath. I unclenched my fists and went into the lab to speak to Nerissa.

“He really is an ass,” she commented.

“No kidding.” I set my hand on her back. “Are you all right?”

Nerissa let out a pitiful laugh, then dropped her head to her desk.

I shifted my phone to my right hand. Colonel Evil put Nerissa on the list, I typed to Ivy. Hurry down to her lab. She needs you.

Be right there, she wrote back immediately.

Ivy had a talent for talking to people. If anyone could cheer up Nerissa, she was the one.

“I should have hit him,” I said to Nerissa.

She lifted her face off her desk just far enough to give me a censuring look. “That would have been foolish.”

“Probably. But it would have felt really good. Well, at least for the split second before he hit me back.”

Nerissa didn’t laugh. Clearly, my attempts to distract her weren’t working.

“The Colonel is a calculating bastard,” she said, leaning heavily against her arms. “The cold kiss of vengeance doesn’t come swiftly. It is agonizingly slow. The worst part is watching death come for you, knowing there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

“Don’t talk like that. You’ll be ok.”

“Leda, I’ve spent years doing only the minimum physical and magical training required by someone in my position. It’s enough to keep me fit and battle-ready if the apocalypse knocked on our door tomorrow. It isn’t enough to push me higher. Nero was fine with me where I am.”

“You do a splendid job where you are,” I told her.

“Yes, I did, didn’t I?”

She was already talking about herself in the past tense. That was not good. Not good at all. Where the blazes was Ivy? I wasn’t good at calming people. I was good at inciting them. Maybe I could try to compel Nerissa into a state of calmness, but even if it worked, it wouldn’t be real. Ivy could calm people even without magic.

“Hello, ladies,” Ivy declared, sweeping into the lab like a beautiful summer butterfly, her long red hair bouncing against her back, her heels clicking like a runway model. “Nerissa, I’ve asked Soren to mentor you. He’s on his way. Everything will be all right.”

Captain Soren Diaz was Ivy’s former beau. They’d split up just last week after dating for a few months. The breakup had been amiable, just like all of Ivy’s breakups. She was friends with all of her former boyfriends. Everyone loved Ivy. She was like sugar-sprinkled strawberries. Everyone loved sugar-sprinkled strawberries.

“I have to go pack,” I told Nerissa. “Will you be all right?”

“I’ll take good care of her,” Ivy promised, wrapping her arm around Nerissa.

I gave them a final wave, then hurried toward my apartment. I checked the time. There was barely enough time to pack—and only if I ran all the way. I sped up. I guess that meant no hot shower for me. The story of my life.