5

As soon as I heard it, I realized Rose was right. The gods bestowed powers on the soldiers of the Legion. One of those powers was Ghost’s Whisper, the ability to connect telepathically to those close to you, no matter how far away they were. No other ghost in the world could help us find Zane because no other ghost knew him. So I would just have to gain the ability I needed myself. The solution was so simple, and yet so impossible. So dangerous, so deadly, so insane. It might just work.

But Calli would never go for it. Not in a million years. Which was why I wasn’t going to tell her.

Bella came back with a glass vial. She was crouching down to give Rose a few drops from the bottle when the ghost began spasming. I held to her hands, trying to steady her, but her convulsions were too wild. I couldn’t hold her still. The drops splattered across her face, never making it into her mouth.

Calli hurried into the room with two paranormal police officers and a trio of witches. They were too late. Calli stood by in stone-faced silence as her friend breathed out her final breaths—and then she was just gone.

Beside me, Bella was weeping sadly. I wrapped my arm around my sister, hugging her to me. She’d always been sensitive. So sweet, so kind. It made her perfect for the job of healer, but it wouldn’t help her in the Legion. Of all of us, only I could join. I was the only one with any chance of making it in the Legion. Calli had always said I was stubborn and hardheaded. That stubbornness might be my only chance of surviving the Legion. Many of their initiates never lived past the first stage. No, best not think about that. I needed to use that strong, stubborn will of mine, to wrap it around myself like a cloak, like a shield. And never let anything pierce it.

We stood there for another few hours as the police questioned us. Calli did the talking. She didn’t mention anything about Zane or dark angels, only that we’d come to see an old friend before bringing Bella to school. They didn’t question us further. They expressed their sympathies, then the witches carried away Rose’s body.

The sun was rising on New York by the time we finally stepped outside again. We headed over to see Calli’s friend Sam, who was looking after Tessa and Gin. Sam lived above a diner she owned, and when we arrived, the former bounty hunter was frying up pancakes. We joined her and the girls for a solemn sunrise breakfast, then walked over to the New York University of Witchcraft.

The city’s premier school for witchcraft was awash with style. The campus was made up of five buildings situated around a flower garden in the middle that grew all the ingredients the students might need. Each building looked like a very large mansion—or a small castle. We took a path lined with rose trees and a pond of sculptures on our way to Building 3. The sculptures dug and dipped, scooping up water and spraying it out in a dance of mechanical movements.

Inside Building 3, which housed the dormitories, a glossy wood floor shone in the morning light pouring in from the windows. Twin grandiose staircases embellished with red runners arched up to the next level. A standing vase exploding with colorful summer flowers stood on either side of the staircases, and gold bannisters curved gracefully along the edges. Chandeliers alight with enchanted flames dripped down from the high ceilings. I felt like I was inside of a fairytale.

Except this wasn’t my fairytale. It was Bella’s. My path led in a very different direction.

We brought Bella upstairs, quickly finding her room. It was modest compared to the grand entrance hall downstairs, but I liked it even more. The pieces of furniture were all antiques. Each and every one of them had a history, if only you could find it. There were two desks and a bed on either side of the room. A small bathroom lay between, decked out with a myriad of complex shower appliances.

“I wonder when my roommate will arrive,” said Bella, looking around with excitement. “And if she’ll like me.”

“Everyone likes you,” I told my sister. “But just try not to snore.”

“I don’t…” A smile curled her lips. “You’re teasing me again.”

“I have to get it all out of my system now. I won’t be seeing you for a while.” If ever.

Bella watched Calli and our younger sisters step onto the balcony, then she turned to me. “Leda, what’s wrong?”

Oh, nothing. I’m just about to give up my life. But all I said was, “I’m sad to see you leave.”

Bella smiled at me. “I will never leave. I’ll always be your sister. Our bond is stronger than blood, stronger than magic. You remember that.”

Then she gave me a look that made me swear she must have had some inkling that I was about to do something crazy. She was right.

“Hey, Bella, you have got to have a look at your balcony,” Tessa said, coming back inside. “It’s so grand. So romantic. You’ll be like a princess in a castle, looking down on your kingdom.”

“A kingdom of Fairy’s Breath and Dragon’s Bark,” said Calli, smiling. “It’s a lovely view.”

“The windows are resistant to attacks both magical and mundane,” Gin added with a shy smile. “And there’s a spyglass that allows you to look all across the grounds and even into the city.”

Gin often helped Calli out in the garage, taking care of our vehicles and weapons. She had quite a knack for the work.

I gave Bella one last hug, then stepped back, my eyes stinging with unshed tears. “You’re going to do great.”

Gin, then Tessa, then finally Calli hugged her too. After that, we left her to settle in before the school’s orientation session began.

“I have a few supplies to pick up before our train leaves,” Calli said as we returned to the street.

We’d decided to go home and think up a plan to save Zane. Well, actually, Calli had decided, and I just hadn’t said anything. I already had a plan, but if I shared it, Calli would try to stop me. My plan was the only way, even though it meant going back on my promise to take over more of the family business. Zane was family too. I couldn’t just let the demons have him.

“You go along,” I told Calli and my sisters. “I want to check out the Armory.” I tapped the glass window of the shop in front of me, one of many in a chain that had locations all over the world. “The New York Armory is supposed to be the largest one in all of North America. They’ve got to have a great selection. After my run-in with the vampire last night, I want to take a look at their latest in anti-vampire weaponry.”

I thought my lie was convincing enough, but Calli gave me a funny look.

“What’s my budget?” I asked her hastily, hoping that would make my story more plausible.

Calli continued to watch me for a moment before she said, “Try to stay below five hundred dollars.”

“Will do,” I replied, then turned to pretend to look at the weapons featured in the display window.

I waited until Calli and the girls turned the corner, then I hurried off toward the Promenade. Gods, I felt like a teenager again playing out a deception.

The Promenade was a street full of towering office buildings that housed branches of many of the world’s major organizations. The League, the worldwide bounty hunting company, occupied a slate—nearly black—building next to the blue glass skyscraper that was home to the paranormal soldiers. And past that, smack dab in the middle of the Promenade, was a sparkling white obelisk, the east coast headquarters of the Legion of Angels.

I took a deep breath and walked toward the front door with a confident gait, as though I were not completely scared out of my mind.

The obelisk’s interior did not live up to the outside’s foreboding architecture. It wasn’t as sparse as the paranormal soldiers’ buildings either. The lobby was opulent, drowning in heavenly tones of gold and white with occasional accents from all across the color spectrum. Like in the long hall of the train station, paintings of grand and powerful gods covered the ceiling. Painted angels stood at the edge between ceiling and wall, guarding the border. Vampires, shifters, fairies, and many other supernaturals came next, filling the walls.

Two Legion soldiers in brown khakis, tank tops, and heavy boots cut across my path, pulling a struggling, shackled, shrieking vampire toward the back. The people working behind the large, curved reception desk didn’t even look up. This must have been a regular occurrence around here. The twin doors leading to a back area swooshed open. The soldiers and their vampire passed through, and then the doors closed, swallowing the vampire’s screams.

Two Legion soldiers, both dressed in black leather, walked side-by-side toward the doors—each one with a sword on his back, each one donning a small metallic insignia of a fire symbol on his chest.

I returned my attention to the reception desk. There, another Legion soldier was getting a chocolate chip cookie from the plate on the counter while she made smalltalk with the secretary about dragon sightings. I walked up to the desk, my steps faltering as I crossed the icy marble expanse. I waited at the desk until the secretary was done chatting with the cookie-loving Legion soldier.

“Yes?” the secretary asked, locking her stern eyes on me.

“I’d like to join the Legion.” I tried to sound strong as I said it, but my voice just came out so weak and pathetic.

The secretary and the cookie soldier looked me over, as though assessing me, then they exchanged amused looks. It appeared they weren’t impressed with what they saw.

“Sit over there and fill this out.” The secretary passed me a clipboard over the desk. “Bring it back when you’re done.” Then she turned away from me and started up a conversation with the cookie soldier about recent vampire attacks.

Thus dismissed, I headed over to the seating area. There were five other people sitting here, each of them busily filling out their own forms. Except my forms were yellow and theirs green. I seemed to remember green was the color for those petitioning the Legion for aid. Yellow was…I don’t know, a warning. But I guess it was better than red. Or putting a skull and crossbones on the cover sheet.

The people with the green sheets looked even more nervous than I felt, if that were even possible. The thing was anyone could petition the Legion of Angels for aid, but very few received it. The Legion was more selective about which petitions they took than which initiates they welcomed into their doors. They knew the weak initiates wouldn’t survive the first month anyway.

Stop thinking like that! I chided myself as I began filling out my application.

Ten pages and one hundred questions later, I handed the clipboard back to the secretary, then went back to sit and wait on my really uncomfortable but very pretty chair. I shook out my hand. It was sore from all the writing. These weren’t multiple choice questions. Each one was like an essay, an exposé into a corner of my life. They wanted to know everything: health, history, education, magic. I didn’t know why they bothered. The Legion had never rejected any application to join their army. But they were a government agency, and the one thing government agencies were united in was their love of bureaucracy. It must have made them feel good to file away another big stack of papers.

The minutes bled by. One by one, the petitioners were called into the back. Most of them returned looking distraught. Their petitions had obviously been rejected. One person came back looking happy, the lucky guy of the day.

Finally, when there was no one else left in the seating area, a man in a business suit waved me forward. I followed him into the back, and we walked in silence past closed doors until we reached an open room at the end. He waited for me to take a seat in front of the unoccupied desk, then without a word, he turned and left, closing the door behind him.

Trying not to feel like I’d been called into the principal’s office for bad behavior, I tapped my heels against the chair and waited. Again. My stomach growled in protest. Those pancakes felt like eons ago.

After a few minutes, I swiped a pen from a glass jar full of them. I didn’t see any paper to doodle on, so I began tapping against my chair instead. Something told me the Legion frowned upon desk graffiti.

Two-hundred-and-sixteen taps later, the door opened.

“Finally,” I said, sighing. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“We do not forget anything,” a man’s voice said, crisp and proper, each word pulsing with raw power.

I turned and looked up into the face of an angel. Literally.

I didn’t know how I knew what he was. After all, he didn’t have his wings out. But I just knew. Magic slid off of him like a cloak, igniting the air between us. My skin buzzed, goosebumps prickling up. Whatever vibes he was putting out, my body was two hundred percent tuned in. I just couldn’t decide if I was intrigued or scared shitless of him.

He certainly was handsome. No, not just handsome—astonishingly beautiful. And frightening. Just like all of the angels. His hair shone like caramel. It fell partially over his eyes, just long enough to be charming without turning disorderly. He wore the standard Legion uniform: a leather bodysuit. As black as ink, it looked like it had been melted onto his body. Every dip, every curve of muscle was visible beneath it. I couldn’t help but cast a long appreciative look down the length of him, and for one moment I almost forgot how dangerous angels were.

But then reality set in. Some men worked out so they’d look good. This man worked out so he could kill people. He looked strong enough to snap me in half over the desk if he decided to—and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. He had a body no mortal could possess—and a soul so hard that it burned cold and unyielding from behind his emerald eyes. As his gaze met mine, I froze, mesmerized.

“Why do you want to join the Legion?” He sat down opposite me, sliding the pen from my frozen fingers.

I felt like I was in a daze. That’s what people said about angels. That they put you into a trance. I snapped myself out of it.

“I wrote it all there,” I told him, nodding toward the clipboard in his hands. My application was snapped to it.

His perfect brows drew together like he was surprised. Maybe people didn’t ever talk back to him.

“You wrote that you want to keep the world safe from rogue supernaturals,” he said.

I folded my hands together and smiled at him. “That’s not a good reason?”

“It is a reason,” he replied. “In fact, it’s the reason roughly seventy percent of applicants write on their form.”

I kept on smiling, even as my teeth began to hurt. “That’s me. Conformist, obedient, toeing the straight and narrow line.”

He looked like I’d just spit acid in his gods-ordained eyes. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

I struggled to hold onto the smile. “No.”

“You work for a bounty hunting company called Pandora’s Box.” His eyebrow twitched up at the name, almost like he was amused. Or maybe he was just allergic to me.

“My Mom and sisters and I run it. Estrogen-fueled, you know.”

His eyebrow twitch didn’t repeat. Apparently, I wasn’t all that funny after all.

“Your foster mother, Callista Pierce. And foster sisters, Bellatrix, Tessa, and Ginnifer Pierce.”

“You looked me up. Aw, I’m flattered. And I don’t even know your name.”

“Your foster brother Zane Pierce is also a member of the business,” he continued on.

I struggled to remain calm. Talking about Zane would just make trouble. I tried to sidestep the issue with a smile and a joke. “We call Zane the Wild Card, the only man in the group.”

The angel’s face was carved from granite, a statue of bone-crunching might. Like the statues of angels in the town halls and city centers.

“Why do you want to join the Legion?” he repeated his question.

“I already told you.”

“There’s more to it,” he said. “I can feel it.”

“Well, your angel senses must be backfiring because that’s all there is. You’ve seen my record. I help people, even when I’d make more money if I didn’t. I can’t help myself.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Your record does seem to confirm that.”

“See?” I said, continuing to smile. Man, I really needed to work out those facial muscles. My endurance was crap. “As I said, I’m a loyal—”

“You have never expressed interest in joining the Legion before,” he cut in. “How old are you?”

My smile wobbled. “My birthday is listed right there.”

“I know. I want to hear you say it.”

“Twenty-two.”

“And?”

“And what?” I sighed.

He just looked at me, daring me to defy him.

“Twenty-two and five months,” I told him. “Should I scribble my cup size on there too while I’m at it?”

Proving that angels weren’t human, his eyes didn’t even dip to my chest. “No need. You will be measured by our staff for your uniform.”

“So that means I’m in?”

“Not yet.”

Geez, the Legion didn’t reject anyone. Why was this guy giving me a hard time?

“The Legion accepts initiates starting on the first day you turn twenty-two,” he said coolly. “Why wait five months if you’re so eager to serve?”

“Sorry I’m late. I wanted to see my sister off to school before I left. Which I did early this morning, then came straight here.”

He didn’t look like he was buying my load of bullshit. Damn, I’d had it all worked out. It had sounded so convincing in my head.

“Why do you want to join the Legion?”

I was beginning to hate that question with the fury of a thousand burning hells. “I hear angels are great in the sack,” I told him, proud of myself for keeping a straight face as I said it.

My words made him pause for a few seconds as he stared at me in silence. “I will find out what you’re hiding,” he said calmly, lacing his fingers together. “You can be sure of that.”

“Honey, I usually save interrogations for the second date.”

His nostrils flared, and the air crackled with magic. “If you’re to survive the Legion, you will need to watch that mouth.”

“Does that mean I’m in?”

He continued to stare at me for a few seconds, then he stood from the desk and opened the door. “Follow me,” he said over his shoulder.

I followed him back down the hall, wondering what this was all about. Maybe I’d mouthed off too much this time. “Taking me outside to shoot me while the city looks on?” I asked.

“No.”

He led me through the double doors into the lobby, then out the front door. We walked for a few blocks, the crowds parting before him. Either they were as scared of him as I should have been, or he was using his magic to influence them.

He stopped in front of a club with a flashing sign out front. Their logo appeared to be a heart with a wing flapping on either side. Whatever this place was, it was popular. It was—I glanced up at the nearest clocktower—ten in the morning, and the line into the club extended around the block. My angelic companion walked right to the front. The bouncer took one look at him, then waved us inside. The bouncer seemed to know him. Of course he did. There weren’t a lot of angels in the world. If this angel was stationed here, everyone in the city must have known who he was.

Even though it was full daylight outside, inside the club, night was in full swing. Disco lights spun and flashed in every direction, bouncing off the gyrating bodies of the dancers on the dance floor. A few of the women stopped to smile and wave their panties at my angel. What the hell kind of place had he brought me to?

“I was just kidding about the date, you know,” I said as we sat down at the bar.

He gave me a frosty look. “This isn’t a date.”

Something in his eyes made me blush. I couldn’t explain it. It must have been more angel magic at work.

“You brought me to a club,” I pointed out. “That seems like a date to me.” I just couldn’t help myself. My mouth was running away with me again.

“This is your interview,” he stated.

“Here?” I looked around at the club full of daylight-shunning partiers.

“Yes, here. A lot of rogue vampires have been popping up in the city over the past few months. Someone is making them outside of the system.”

Uh-oh. The gods didn’t like that. They crushed all vampire-turning operations outside their control and punished the responsible party. Without mercy.

“I just captured one of those vampires who got away,” I told the angel.

“I know. That’s why I’m confident this test should be no problem for you.”

Just how much had he read up on me? We hadn’t reported Zane’s disappearance for obvious reasons, but what if the Legion had other sources? They’d start asking why the dark angels took him. And I didn’t have a good answer for them.

I tried to cover my nervousness with a smile. “So confident in my abilities? If I didn’t know better, I might think you’re flirting with me.”

“Then it’s a good thing you know better. You’re obviously smarter than you look.”

I didn’t know whether or not to be offended by that comment, so I said nothing more. In the meantime, the angel celebrated my silence by motioning to the exhausted bartender. The poor guy looked like his shift had been over for a long time, but my companion’s attention woke him right back up. He quickly put down two glasses of silver liquid in front of us. It didn’t look like alcohol—or anything else that I’d ever seen. It rippled strangely, like it wasn’t entirely liquid.

“There’s a rogue vampire in the bathroom, sipping on the replacement bartender’s neck,” the angel said, swirling his drink around with total calmness. “You will apprehend him. Apprehend, not kill. I want him alive.”

“I don’t have the right gear on me to take on a vampire,” I protested.

“You have everything you need.”

He looked across my body. I might have thought he was checking me out, but he’d had plenty of time to do that already and hadn’t even tried. Besides, his gaze was more assessing, calculating. Like he was looking at a weapon. I paused uncertainly.

He pushed the second drink at me. “Drink.”

“What is it? Some kind of angel drink?”

“It’s vodka. With a little magic added in.”

I stared into the glass. Good enough for me. I threw back my head and emptied the magic vodka down my throat. It burned even worse than regular vodka.

“This is some nasty shit,” I told him, coughing.

“Do hurry,” he replied. “The girl doesn’t have much time before the vampire kills her.”

“Then why don’t you help her? That’s your job.”

“And this is your test,” he said coldly.

Cursing the inhumanity of angels, I pushed away from the bar and headed for the door that led to the bathrooms. He just sat there, watching me. Growling under my breath, I opened the door into a dark hallway. As I entered the ladies’ room, I heard a wet slurping noise. I could see feet shuffling in feeble protest under one of the stalls. I paused in the doorway, considering my options.

If I attacked him outright, the victim might get hurt. I had to lure the bloodsucker out of the stall. And to do that, I needed to present him with a more appealing target. With that decided, I allowed the door to slam shut, then I walked across the bathroom, my boots echoing off the tiled floor.

The slurping ceased. I stopped in front of the sink and turned on the water. I heard the brush of fabric, like he was wiping his mouth against clothing. He slid out of the stall, and I turned around. He was blocking my view of the inside of the stall. I hoped the woman was ok.

The vampire swaggered toward me, smiling. He had that glow vampires got after feeding, like their skin was shining from the inside.

“Hey, darling,” he said, trying to dazzle me with his charming smile. I didn’t see any blood on his mouth, so he must have wiped his mouth on his victim’s clothes. Yuck.

He was moving like he was a bit drunk. Must have been a new vampire. It took more than sipping on one victim to get an older one drunk. And this one was clearly drunk. Good. It would make him slow and sloppy. Maybe I would even survive this.

“Hello,” I said, smiling back. “Looking for a good time?”

I brushed my hair off of my neck. His gaze darted from my throat, to my hair, then back to my throat again—around and around again, like he couldn’t decide which one he wanted more. His eyes did eventually hone in on my pulse. Which was really pounding fast right at the moment. I tried to calm myself. Getting nervous would just make my blood pump faster, which would only excite the vampire even more.

He glided forward, closing the distance between us in an instant. Some people would have been impressed, even awed by that, but those people were too blind to see vampires for what they really were: monsters.

The monster before me reached out, brushing his hand down my hair. “So beautiful. Like a silver waterfall.” A smirk quirked his lips. “Shame I have to stain it.”

He dipped his head to my neck with leisurely slowness, apparently confident that I would be easy prey. I loved to prove people wrong. Before his fangs had descended, I smashed my knee hard into his groin. As he doubled over, I sidestepped and pushed him headfirst into the mirror. Glass shattered, pouring all over the sink. Dazed, the vampire stumbled back. I grabbed one of the mirror shards and stabbed him in the neck. He howled with rage, blood gushing out of the wound. He staggered forward like a beast, and I ducked to avoid the heavy swipes he swung at my head.

“You will pay for that,” he snarled, tearing the shard out of his neck.

He rushed forward, trying to grab me, but he was still too dazed and drunk. Though the rage was quickly burning off the blood high. I didn’t have much time. I grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and sprayed him in the face. Sometimes a strength could be a weakness. The vampire’s enhanced senses meant he felt the pain that much more. He howled in agony, blindly scratching at his eyes. I swung the fire extinguisher, hitting him hard over the head. He crumpled to the floor.

I was about to check on the victim when two more vampires entered the bathroom from the other door.

“Hey, Derek, are you done suck—”

The new arrivals froze when they saw the unconscious vampire at my feet. I had a split of a second, and I took it. I barged out of the first door, sprinting down the hallway to enter the main club area. The vampires were hot on my heels, shoving dancers and drunks aside to get at me. The crowd scrambled, people fleeing for the exit, knocking over speakers, chairs, and one another in their mad dash to be the first one out the door.

The vampires went straight for me. I jumped at the bar. The bartender had abandoned his post when the mayhem hit the dance floor, so the bar was empty. I slid over the top and ducked for cover as a vampire’s fist swung at me. I smashed a bottle down on his hand, drenching him in liquor. Then I reached for the matches under the counter and set that bloodsucker on fire.

He stumbled back, then ran for the nearest wall, trying to put out the flames by banging himself against it. Repeatedly. I left him to it, and poured another bottle of alcohol over a dish towel, which I set ablaze as I tossed it over the other vampire’s head. He tried to pry it off, but the flames had already spread across his body.

The two vampires ran around the now-abandoned club, howling and shrieking and burning. The flames wouldn’t kill them—they were too resilient for that—but it did keep them busy. I grabbed a hot saucepan from the cooking area and knocked one, then the other, over the head with it. They fell to the floor.

A slow, steady clap echoed in the empty room, punching through the silence. I turned to see the angel walking toward me and the two sleeping beauties at my feet.

“Thanks for helping,” I said with a fake smile, tossing the saucepan aside.

He looked from me, to the unconscious vampires, to the debris of glass and fire all across the club. “What the hell was that?”

I stomped down a flame on one of the vampires. “That’s how I fight.”

He was shaking his head like he’d never seen anything so inappropriate. So uncouth.

“We don’t have time to argue about my fighting style. We need to help the woman in the back.”

I hurried to the bathroom, surprised when he followed me. I knelt down in front of the woman, feeling for a pulse. She still had one!

“Move aside,” the angel told me.

I did as he asked, and he lowered down beside her. As he set his hands on her stomach, magic glowed from them, washing across her whole body. The woman’s wounds healed before my eyes. She blinked down a few times, her eyes slowly focusing.

“An angel,” she gasped, adoration washing across her face as she stared up at the glowing angel.

She was positively mesmerized, so much so that if he’d asked her to stab herself in the chest, she’d have done it without hesitation. Honestly, I didn’t see the appeal of the man. Sure, he was handsome—ok, so he was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen—but he was also an asshole. I didn’t tell the woman that this beautiful angel had been prepared to just let her die. She had suffered enough for one night. She deserved a moment of happiness.

The angel stood, leaving me holding the woman. I helped her to her feet.

“Are you all right?” I asked her as the object of her undying devotion left the bathroom.

She glanced down at the sleeping vampire on the floor and shuddered. “Fine.”

“You should get out of here,” I told her.

She nodded and walked toward the door, giving the vampire a wide berth. I shot the bloodsucker at my feet a look of pure loathing. He’d tried to stain my hair red with my own blood, and he’d nearly killed a woman tonight. Scum like this deserved to have his head smashed in with a fire extinguisher. Instead, I dragged him out of the bathroom. The angel in the other room had plans for him.

I continued to drag the vampire, making my way down the hall, wishing I were strong enough to throw him over my shoulder. But I wasn’t, so I just kept pulling him along. Finally, I made it to the edge of the dance floor, where I deposited him next to his two buddies.

My angelic audience was waiting there, watching me struggle. In fact, he’d probably heard me struggling the whole time and hadn’t lifted a finger to help.

“There were three vampires,” I said. “You told me there was one.”

“Yes, I did.”

“That was a test?” I growled.

“In the Legion, you will often be put into unknown situations. You will have to adjust,” he replied with calm indifference.

I glowered at him.

“There’s no need for that,” he said. “You managed adequately enough, though your methods were…unconventional.”

“I told you I wasn’t armed to take on vampires. In fact, I wasn’t armed at all. You should be pleased by how well I adapted.”

“You are indeed scrappy.” He said the word as though he didn’t know how he felt about it. “Is that from your time as a vagrant on the streets?”

I marched right up to him and stared him in the eye. “This is all a game to you, isn’t it? Humans are just toys, props.”

“It is our job to protect humans.”

“But you don’t really see us as the same as you, do you? I saw the cool way you looked at that woman, like you were healing her because it was what you were supposed to do. You don’t care about us.”

“If you’d seen what I have, you’d learn to stay detached,” he said. “Too much death, too much pain. If you don’t turn it off, you go mad. You will learn that.”

“Never,” I hissed. “Compassion is what separates men from monsters.”

He looked down at me. “So you think I’m a monster?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” he allowed. “Perhaps, you can only survive the Legion if you lose a piece of your humanity. But this is what you’re signing up for. Are you sure this is what you want?”

I saw Zane’s face in my mind, as clearly as if he were right in front of me. He needed me. He was counting on me to save him. I was the only one who could.

“Yes,” I told the angel. “I am sure.”

His voice dipped low, and I felt that same magic swirling around me, trying to mess with my head. “Why are you joining?”

I shook off his magic. It hurt when it broke against my skin, but I wouldn’t let him see that. I kept my face hard, my tone cool as I said, “To save people. And I’ll do it without losing who I am, without losing what makes me human.”

He held my gaze for a moment longer, then he pulled out my application form. He set it down on the counter of the bar, signing it before handing the paper back to me.

“Congratulations, initiate. Welcome to the Legion of Angels.”

“I’m in?”

“You’re in,” he confirmed. “Bring that form with you when you return to your new home in two hours.”

Leaving me there at the bar, he headed back over the vampires. He tied them all together. With that done, he lifted them as one onto the counter, his muscles bulging under the combined weight of three vampires. Holy shit, he was strong. I began to turn away, to move toward the door, but his hand flashed out, catching mine.

“Leda Pierce, I will be watching you,” he promised as six Legion soldiers marched into the bar to carry away the vampires.