1

An angel stood behind me, his arms locked across mine in an iron grip. I pulled and pushed and heaved, but he didn’t budge an inch. Angels were stubborn like that.

“I have you right where I want you,” I told him, yanking on his arms.

“And where is that?” Nero didn’t move. He was like a mountain—a mountain of muscle and infuriating willpower.

I looked up at the high ceiling of the gym, searching for insight that didn’t come. I had no idea how I was going to get out of this situation, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. Fake it until you make it.

“Give me a moment, and you’ll see,” I declared.

I continued to push against his hold. I had the strength of a vampire, but while that gave me the edge I needed against humans, it was wholly useless against angels. They had the strength of vampires too—and then some.

“I’m waiting,” he said, a hint of amusement breaking through the hard shell of his words.

“Almost there,” I puffed out. “And it’s going to be epic.”

“Take your time,” he chuckled.

Apparently, my useless attempts to free myself were enormously funny. I tried to shift my weight to slide my arms out of his grip, but he wasn’t having any of that. No matter what I did, his hold didn’t relax, not even for a second. As I slammed my back into him, I became acutely aware of the hard contours of his chest. My eyes dipped to his arms, thick and tight around me. I was hit with the sudden urge to see the rest of him—to touch and taste the rest of him. I shoved that thought right out of my head. There would be no touching and absolutely no tasting.

I had an unhealthy addiction to Nero’s blood. It was like a drug, a drug I couldn’t get enough of. Even now, I could feel his pulse popping against my skin, tempting me. I blamed the vampire magic the Legion of Angels had given me. I wasn’t a vampire per se, but I did have their abilities and their hunger. If I lived long enough, I’d receive the magic of a whole bunch of other supernaturals too.

“You might want to rethink your strategy, Leda,” Nero said, his breath hot on my neck.

Gods, he was making it hard to concentrate. Not that he was doing anything—well, besides standing there, slowly squeezing the air out of my lungs. His scent flooded me, the scent of angel and sex. I shook my head. Whoa, where had that come from? It must be the delirium setting in as my body screamed for oxygen. I had to get free.

I tried to push back, to slam him against the wall. His feet remained planted to the ground. He was too strong. I kicked back at his shins, but he blocked me with his feet. How could he even move that fast?

“You aren’t making this easy,” I growled, stomping down on his foot. At least I tried to. He moved his foot aside, and my heel thumped against the gym floor.

“That’s the point.”

I threw back my head, slamming it into his face. He still didn’t budge, even though that must have hurt like hell. Well, it had hurt me. Spots danced in front of my eyes, rapid and blinking. Breathing was getting difficult.

The next thing I knew, I was facing Nero, his hands locked on my arms, holding me up. I blinked back blackness, trying to focus. I’d passed out. Again. That was the third time today, and it wasn’t even dawn yet.

Nero stepped back. “Again.”

I groaned. Just the thought of fighting him again made every bone in my body scream in protest.

“That is not an attitude befitting a soldier of the Legion,” he lectured me. “We must be strong, dignified, unerring.”

“It’s hard to be any of those things at five o’clock in the morning.”

“So you wish to stop our training sessions?”

“No.” I shook out my arms and legs. “I can do this.”

Nero had been working with me every morning before everyone else got up for normal training. He was helping me get strong, and I did appreciate it—ok, maybe not so much when I was stuck in the middle of that help, which often felt more like torture.

A busy angel like Nero had better things to do than babysit a first level soldier like me. And yet here he was, waking up early too when he could have just slept in. Instead he was spending this time with me, training me. I didn’t want to disappoint him. And more than that, I couldn’t afford to give up. Getting knocked around the room a few times was nothing compared to what lay before me. I needed to be ready.

He motioned me forward, and I began walking toward him.

“Stop,” he said.

I froze. “What?”

“What have you learned?”

“To follow your orders.” I’d tried to maintain a perfectly serious face, but mischief must have sparkled in my eyes because he sighed.

He stepped around me, locking me in that unbreakable hold again. “Your opponent has you trapped like this. What do you do?” he asked me.

“Stomp on your feet. Kick your shins,” I said immediately. “But you are too fast.”

“What else?”

“Slam my head back into your face.” For all the good it had done me last time. Nero was too stubborn to flinch. If anything, he’d held on even more tightly. “None of that works on you, though. You’re too big. Too strong. Too heavy.”

“Use that against me,” he said, each word vibrating with delicious warmth as it fell on my throat.

My pulse popped hard against my skin, the blood rushing like a burning river, searing my veins, begging him to bite me. I thought back to the last time he’d bitten me. The memory shot a ruthless, primal desire through me, stripping away all propriety and reason. The rational part of my brain was hanging on by a thin strand.

But I had to hold on. I cleared my throat and said, “How do I use your strength against you?” My voice creaked as pitifully as my sore bones.

“Lean over,” Nero said, hardly above a whisper.

He pressed his body harder against mine, the pressure making me bend at the waist—and think really indecent thoughts.

“Use my own weight to throw me.” He straightened, but the pressure remained. He’d committed most of his weight forward. “Now.”

I moved quickly, using his weight to pull him over my shoulder—and sure enough, I was able to throw him. My victory was short-lived, however. Even as he fell, he didn’t let go of my arms, and so I fell too, landing on him. Before I could move, he flipped us over so that he was on top of me. I tried to struggle free, but of course I couldn’t. The damn angel had pinned me to the floor. I glared up at him.

“Glaring is not an effective attack,” he said smugly.

I imagined his head exploding. I broadcast that picture to him, loud and clear. He had telepathic magic, so he might just pick it up.

His mouth curled into a smile. “Yes, that attack would work better. If you had such an ability. As it is, you’ll just have to make do with what you do have.”

“What’s the point of telling me how to get out of your hold if I can’t actually get out of your hold?” I demanded.

Nero rolled back, sliding up to his feet. “Because it will work on most of the opponents you face. Even if it doesn’t work on me.” He extended his hand down to me, pulling me up.

“You’re really arrogant, you know.”

“I’m an angel.”

“Yeah, I know. Arrogance comes with the wings.”

“This isn’t about arrogance. Angels are faster and more resilient than other people. As you well know.”

Yeah, I did know. I had learned a lot from Nero—and used it on my opponents in training. Like he said, the things he taught me were effective against most people. In fact, they worked really well.

“You could let me win once in a while,” I said.

“And what purpose would that serve?”

“It would make me feel better.”

“It would make you feel better to know that I let you win?” His eyebrows crept up.

“Yes,” I said stubbornly.

“That’s not how we do things here.”

I sighed. “I know.”

The Legion of Angels was a do-or-die kind of place. Our magic was gifted to us by the gods, a new power every time we advanced up the ranks. It was kind of like a really twisted real-life video game. With each new level, Legion soldiers received the powers of a different supernatural, boosts like the physical abilities of vampires, the potion-brewing power of witches, and the healing magic of fairies.

The catch—and oh, yes, there was a big one—was if your will wasn’t strong enough to absorb the gift, it killed you outright. Just two months ago, I’d watched over twenty people die during my initiation ceremony into the Legion. Even more of my fellow initiates had died when we’d all drunk from the Nectar of the gods to receive our first gift, Vampire’s Kiss.

The Legion took all kinds of people—those who wanted to prove themselves, those who craved power, and those who were simply desperate. I was of the glorious latter category. I’d joined the Legion to gain telepathic magic, a skill called Ghost’s Whisper. It would give me the ability to link into the minds of my loved ones, and that power was my only chance of finding my kidnapped brother.

The only problem was Ghost’s Whisper was a level nine ability in the Legion. It order to gain it, I’d have to survive all the trials before it. That included getting my wings and becoming an angel. It was called the Legion of Angels because the angels commanded the gods’ army, but there weren’t many angels in the world. Very few made it that far up the Legion. But I had to. My brother was counting on me to beat the odds, and if there was one thing I excelled at, it was my unwavering stubbornness. So I stared that angel down and resolved to kick his ass.

Nero nodded in approval. “We’ll go again.”

I began to circle around him. “Will I ever be able to defeat you?”

“After you’ve gained more powers.”

“And before that?”

His face was unreadable, as cold as marble. “Perhaps.”

“How?”

“You have to find my weaknesses and exploit them.”

“Care to share?”

He remained silent.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

He wasn’t going to hand me anything. He was going to make me fight for it. I swung a punch at him, but he caught my fist, holding me back.

“You know, you are really aggravating,” I told him.

He said nothing, but I thought I caught a hint of amusement on his face—just a second before his grip tightened and he flipped me down to the floor. I rolled, jumping up.

“I need a weapon,” I commented.

“The rules of this match are quite clear. No weapons.”

“Yeah, I know. You love your rules.”

Sometimes we fought with no weapons. Sometimes we fought with just one particular weapon. Nero defined the rules of each match very clearly. He wanted to make sure I was a master of any weapon—and that I stopped using found objects to fight. I wasn’t allowed to knock my opponent upside the head with a trashcan lid, even if that lid was lying right there just begging to be used. Apparently, such tactics weren’t very dignified. And soldiers of the Legion were always dignified.

“How about I get a weapon and you don’t?” I suggested, smirking at him.

“There is little value in teaching you to fight only in situations where you are at an advantage over your opponent.”

“Instead I should always be at a disadvantage,” I muttered.

“Besides,” he continued, as though I hadn’t said a thing. “I don’t think giving you a weapon would be the advantage you think it is.”

“Because you would just steal it and use it against me,” I realized.

He nodded.

“And you claim you are civilized. You’re just as dirty as I am.”

His eyebrows arched.

“You know what I mean,” I said, flushing.

He swung at me. I ducked, avoiding his fist. Ha! I wasn’t as strong as Nero, but I was quick. Just not quick enough. Moving so fast that his hand was a blur, he followed up with a punch that knocked me to the floor.

“Get up,” he said over my aching body.

Rather than get up, though, I just lay there this time, pretending to be unconscious. Nero might have been a hard ass, but he was helping me. He was training me and not because he liked hurting me. He knew about my brother, knew that he was a telepath, but he was keeping it from the gods, who would try to find Zane themselves and force him into their service. Nero was doing all of this for me. Maybe I was his weakness.

So I waited until he bent down to check on me, then I quickly kicked out, knocking him down. As soon as he hit the floor, I jumped on top of him, pinning him down. I opened my mouth to laugh out in victory, but the angel knocked me off of him with a blast of telekinetic magic.

“Hey!” I shouted, scrambling to my feet. “No magic. That’s not fair.”

“Since when has war ever been fair?”

“So I have to play by your rules, but you don’t?”

“Yes.”

I glowered at him.

“And pretending to be unconscious was not befitting of a soldier of the Legion,” he said.

“But it wasn’t against your rules.”

“It was implied.”

He was so close now, almost within striking distance. Before I could contemplate the recklessness of what I was about to do, I surged forward, straight at him. My impulsiveness paid off. I landed a blow to his stomach. Nero’s eyes flashed in surprise, but he quickly recovered. I didn’t get in another hit. He grabbed me and slammed me to the ground. My back hit the floor with the resounding thump of defeat, and he pinned me down for the fifty-third time today.

“I hate you,” I growled up at him.

“I warned you that you would hate me before this was over.”

“I will get back at you,” I promised.

He stared down at me with perfect calmness. “And how are you going to do that?”

By sabotaging the hot water on the twenty-third floor so you get only ice water when you turn on your shower. Or by sneaking into your apartment and spreading superglue all across the insides of your clothes.

“I would have to punish your transgression,” he warned me.

I clenched my jaw. “Get out of my head.”

Usually, I could keep him out so that he only saw what I chose to broadcast to him.

“Your emotions are running hot right now. Your thoughts are so vivid that it’s hard to ignore them,” he said, his hands tightening around mine.

I trailed my gaze up the hard, merciless muscles in his arms, all the way up to his chest, which was taut beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. It was a good thing my hands were pinned over my head because I would have had a hard time resisting the urge to scrape my fingernails across his chest and down his back.

“That would be inappropriate,” he told me. And yet he leaned in, inhaling deeply, as though he were drinking in my scent.

There were a lot of things an angel with his heightened senses could tell from my scent, things I didn’t want him knowing anymore than I wanted him inside of my head. I swallowed hard, trying to shield my mind and calm my racing pulse. I didn’t care much if he caught me fantasizing about playing pranks on him, but I didn’t want him to see me fantasizing about less innocuous things. Naked things.

A sexy smile twisted Nero’s lips. Shit. He’d heard that too. But he didn’t say a thing. He just stared down at me, his mouth dangerously close to mine, his chest brushing against me each time he breathed.

The door to the gym hall closed loudly. I turned my head and looked at the woman who’d just entered. Dressed in a black leather Legion uniform that was as black as her chin-length hair, she was gorgeous. Between her dark hair and pale skin, she looked like Snow White—well, if Snow White were a soldier of the Legion rather than a fictitious fairytale princess.

“Colonel Windstriker,” she said, her words pulsing with strength beneath the melodic lilt of her voice. “Am I interrupting something?” Her blue eyes darted to me.

“No.” Nero rose quickly, hurrying toward her. Then he dropped to his knees before her. “My apologies, First Angel.”

So this beautiful stranger was an angel. No, not just an angel—the top angel of the Legion, the leader of the gods’ army. What was she doing here?

The First Angel lifted her hands. “Rise.”

Nero did as she’d asked, but he didn’t say anything. He simply looked at her, waiting for her to speak again.

Her gaze flickered to me once more before settling on him. “Come with me, Colonel. We have much to discuss.”

He walked with her across the gym hall, stopping at the door to call back to me, “Get moving. Captain Somerset is expecting you in Hall Four in half an hour.”

Then he turned and followed the First Angel out of the room.