7

With a crisp flick of Nero’s wrist, one of the Legion soldiers standing around the room moved in and carried the convulsing initiate away. The other Legion brats clustered together, the arrogance wiped from their faces. They seemed to have realized that if their ringleader could fall, so could any of them. The realization hit them hard. At least half of them looked like they were going to puke.

Nero turned to the room of initiates and said coolly, “Next.”

“What is in that goblet?” someone asked.

“Next,” Nero repeated.

The initiates exchanged nervous glances.

“Will he live?” one of the Legion brats asked.

“For a time,” said Nero. “What’s in that fountain will either kill you or make you stronger. The end result is entirely up to you.”

No one was moving a muscle.

“I’ll go,” I declared, my voice echoing through the ballroom.

It sounded so sure, so confident. So completely unlike everything I was feeling right now.

“You’re really brave,” Ivy whispered to me.

“No,” I told her. “I just don’t believe in putting off the inevitable.” With every passing second, my stomach was twisting up into an even tighter knot. If I didn’t do this now, I’d never be able to do it.

Nero motioned me forward. As I walked toward the fountain, all eyes were glued on me. The distance felt immense, and I held the angel’s gaze the whole time. His expression was unreadable. Like granite. No, marble. Cold, smooth, and not an emotion etched into it.

Nero handed me the golden goblet. My hand shook as I dipped it into the strange fluid, so I steadied it with the other. And then, taking a deep breath, I drank.

It didn’t taste like blood. An explosion of flavors tickled my tongue. It was sweet, by far the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted, but there was something else. My other senses were being bombarded with a whirlwind of sounds and sights and smells. Overcome with dizziness, I stumbled to the side. Nero’s hands flashed out, catching me. But before I could meet his eyes, he nudged me aside.

“Come on, initiates,” he said, loud and clear. “Form a line.”

As they marched to the fountain, single file and solemn, I leaned against the wall. Everything was zipping past me at five hundred miles per hour. My body rocked and then stumbled again, and I threw up everything in my stomach all over the floor. Wiping my mouth, I straightened and looked across the ballroom. The other initiates were shaking. Some were dying on the floor, convulsing even more wildly than Dallas had. A man near the back of the line gaped at the men and women on the floor—then he turned and ran.

He didn’t make it far. As he fled, one of the Legion soldiers pulled out her gun and shot him in the back of the head.

A hand touched down on my shoulder, and I turned to find Nero there, holding the goblet out to me.

“Drink,” he said.

“I did.”

“You threw it up before it could enter your bloodstream.”

He sounded like he was chastising me. Like it was my fault that I’d thrown it up.

I looked down at the man with a bullet through his head. “Did you have to shoot him?”

“He signed up for this. He chose to be here. Once you join, there is no leaving. One or two always try to run once they see what’s happening.”

His cold tone chilled me to my bones, even though I should have known better. After all, I’d been the one to tell him he’d lost part of his humanity.

As Nero set the full goblet into my hands, magic buzzed across his skin onto mine. It was an oddly enjoyable feeling, so much so that I was almost tempted to brush my hand against his again to repeat the sensation. Whatever magic had passed between us, it hadn’t been one way. Surprise flashed across Nero’s face before he quickly cooled his expression.

I lifted the goblet to my lips and drank. This time, the liquid went down more easily. My hands shook as I lowered the goblet from my mouth, but I managed to keep upright this time—and not throw up on his shoes.

“You’re stronger than you look,” he told me.

I allowed a small smile to touch my lips. “I know you didn’t mean that as a compliment, but I’m going to take it that way.”

“It’s a fact. You look so…soft.”

“Well, I’m tough.”

“Yes,” he agreed, taking the goblet back.

I suppressed a shiver when his hand briefly brushed against mine, igniting my skin with a rush of magic that felt better than I wanted to admit to myself. I had the odd feeling that he’d done that on purpose, but I couldn’t fathom why. Maybe he was testing me.

Nero set the goblet down on the edge of the fountain, then turned to address the twenty-four of us who remained. Twenty-four out of fifty. That was just insane. I scanned the crowd quickly for Ivy and Drake. Relief flooded me when I saw that they were among the survivors.

“Captain Somerset will show you to the barracks,” Nero declared. “Change and then report to Hall 3. You have fifteen minutes.”

The Legion brats followed right behind Captain Somerset. Six of them had survived out of eight. It appeared that having an angel for a parent significantly increased your chances of surviving whatever magic was in that fountain. The Legion brats chatted merrily along, as though two of their own hadn’t just dropped dead in front of them. I had a feeling that it was precisely this total lack of humanity that the Legion was looking for in its soldiers. Maybe this had all been a huge mistake.

But I kept walking, one foot in front of the other. I’d set down this path, and I was going to finish it. I was going to find my brother.

We followed Captain Somerset down the bright and shiny hallway. There were four rooms here, each one with six beds. The Legion brats immediately claimed one of the rooms for themselves. The rest of us divided up between the three remaining rooms. Captain Somerset left us to it.

“Not much for privacy, are they?” Ivy commented as she, Drake, and I claimed a room along with three other women.

I took a stack of neatly folded sports clothes from the shared dresser that barely fit between the beds. “Apparently not.”

I’d changed clothes with my sisters around and even my brother, but this was different. These people were strangers. On the other hand, changing in the open was the least of the problems we’d soon face.

“We have to hurry,” Ivy said, pulling off her shirt. “If you’re late, then Colonel Sexy Angel might march up and give you his piecing stare.”

“Colonel Sexy Angel?” Drake asked, amused.

He had the decency not to gawk at the half-naked women around him, but not all of them were returning the favor. He didn’t seem to mind, though. On the contrary, he was clearly basking in the attention. He shot one of our new roommates a wink, and she hastily looked away, giggling.

“Yes, Colonel Sexy Angel,” Ivy said. “At least the cloud of impending doom hanging over our heads will be a tad sweeter with him around. Yum.”

The other women expressed their enthusiastic agreement.

“I wouldn’t mind having him spank me,” one said.

Everyone nodded, except for me and Drake. He just rolled his eyes.

“What do you think, girl?” Ivy asked me as she slid on her sports tights.

“About what?” I asked, fastening the sports bra that had come with my new Legion clothing set.

“About Nero Windstriker, of course. Back in the ballroom, he was giving you a smoldering stare the whole time.” Ivy sighed.

“Yeah, he thinks I’m hiding something.”

Ivy twisted her hair up into a high ponytail. “Everyone is hiding something.”

“Ivy, that’s not how angels think,” Drake told her. “To them, secrets are meant to be exposed, minds cracked…”

“Bones broken,” I finished bleakly.

But Drake just grinned. “Precisely. Angels are the knights of justice, the voice of the gods. They always get what they want.”

Ivy tossed him his pile of sports clothes. “Less talking, more changing. I don’t think you would enjoy it as much as we would if Colonel Sexy Angel spanked you.”

Everyone laughed.

“But he’s actually right,” one of our roommates said, looking at me. “If Nero Windstriker has decided he will find out what you’re hiding, he will find out what you’re hiding. You might as well go to him now and confess your sins.”

The woman next to her slouched over. “They will break us.”

I tried not to think about it. I had to stay focused on my goal: to make it through the ranks, to get strong. And to do it without letting anyone find out about Zane’s powers.

“Don’t listen to them,” Ivy whispered to me.

I smiled at her. “Of course not. Let’s make a pact, you and I. A pack that we won’t break.”

“You got it, sister.”

But past the tough face I put on for the world, I was cold on the inside. The twenty-six people who had died today hadn’t even had a chance. One moment they’d been alive, and the next they weren’t. And they wouldn’t be the first to die. The culling ceremony was complete, but this was far from over.