“I just do.”
His magic wrapped around me like a blanket, warm and comforting. I didn’t resist. I allowed his magic to calm me. No, I couldn’t walk up to the district lord and punch him in the face. It would just land me in trouble. He would call in his thugs, and my family would rise to defend me. That would land them in trouble too. But someday, one way or another, I would put an end to this.
I tried to distract myself with the menu—and the exquisite smells wafting out from the kitchen.
Tessa was looking through the menu with delight, completely oblivious to the atrocity playing out behind her.
“Leda, these prices are outrageous,” Gin whispered to me.
“Not when you take into account how much it costs them to run this place.” Tessa glanced at the magic lights, the fire, the menu.
Gin wasn’t convinced. “Still, our last job paid well, but not this well.”
The way she looked around the room was analytical. Her delight at the posh surroundings faded to concern. Calli had been teaching Gin to do our bookkeeping. She always looked at how much something cost and then weighed whether or not it was worth it, whether or not the family could afford it. Tessa, on the other hand, appreciated things for the sheer luxury. She was not unaware that they were expensive. In fact, she was acutely aware of it, and she appreciated them even more for the fine details that added cost allowed. She just didn’t tend to dwell so much on how to pay for them.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told Gin as the district lord and his entourage left. “I’m paying, remember?”
“Leda, do you know how much—”
“I said not to worry about it. We haven’t all gone out together in a long time.”
And it wasn’t like I needed the money. The Legion paid well, a consequence of me putting my life on the line nearly every day.
I’d offered to set up my family somewhere safe and nice where they wouldn’t have to work, but Calli was too proud to take it. She had agreed to let me pay off Bella’s pricey tuition at the New York University of Witchcraft, but she hadn’t taken a single cent more from me. She’d said the girls had to learn to work for their own money.
Also, Calli and my little sisters refused to leave Purgatory at the mercy of the district lords. If they didn’t take the jobs of catching criminals, the district lords would sweep in and take care of it like knights in shining armor.
Except evil lay behind that armor. Every time the people of Purgatory took their help, the town became even more dependent on them. Soon, the district lords would reign supreme over all justice—which meant there would be no justice left to speak of.
Calli’s cause was a noble one for sure. So I didn’t tell her that I sometimes funded the bounties on the jobs she and my sisters took. I’d talked to the sheriff of Purgatory to arrange my secret donations. The sheriff’s office was seriously underfunded, so there wasn’t much money in the bounty kettle.
Tessa’s eager gaze scanned the menu. “Leda, you are my favorite sister.” She literally had stars in her eyes.
“For the next five minutes.”
Tessa beamed at me. “Five minutes? No, I figure your favorite sister status will last at least until the end of the meal.”
I snorted. At least Tessa was always honest.
The waiter came, and we ordered. Later, when our food arrived, Nero looked approvingly at his steak. He was clearly much more content with his fancy food than with the cotton candy I’d given him earlier.
“More to your liking?” I asked.
“Yes.” He added in my mind, You are to my liking.
The smirk on my lips died, a vision flashing through my head. Dessert. Two pieces of chocolate cake lay abandoned on the table. Nero’s fangs teased my neck. As they broke the surface of my skin, my breath stalled. Wildfire flashed through my veins, awakening my body. Every nerve ending tingling, I grabbed him and—
I shook my head, clearing the visions from it. Beside me, Nero gave me a knowing, self-satisfied smile. He’d projected those images into my head, and his ego was now basking in the consequences.
“Whoa, Leda, what is going on with your hair?” Tessa gasped.
Checking out my reflection in the windows, I saw that my hair was glowing. Again. Damn it. I patted it down with my hands, like I was trying to put out a fire. I really needed to gain some control over my hair. It was like a big flashing billboard advertising everything I was feeling to anyone who cared to watch.
“It’s just something it does sometimes,” I said, as the last of the glow faded.
“Around angels?” Tessa asked eagerly.
I looked at Nero. “Only when they’re aggravating me.”
He looked completely confident in his knowledge that he was at the top of the food chain.
“Angels,” Tessa sighed with doe eyes. “You should have invited more angels to dinner.”
She didn’t seem to realize that you didn’t invite angels. They came when they wanted to, whether they were invited or not. And they didn’t come when summoned.
Like most eighteen-year-olds, Tessa had stars in her eyes when it came to angels. She loved them. She read fan fiction about them. She religiously followed the angel sightings and gossip columns in the tabloids.
“Don’t go chasing angels, Tessa. They’re dangerous,” I told her.
“You’re one to talk.” Her gaze flickered to Nero, then back to me.
“That’s different,” I countered. “And I didn’t chase Nero.”
“You stole Calli’s motorcycle to chase off after him across the Black Plains,” Gin pointed out.
“To rescue him.”
“I fail to see how that’s relevant,” Tessa said. “Did you or did you not cross a monster-infested prairie and break into a rogue vampire stronghold to get to him?”
“I—”
“Did,” Gin finished for me. “And you disobeyed orders to go after him too.”
“How could you two possibly know about that?” I demanded.
Gin shrugged. “Calli told us the Legion would never send a newly-initiated soldier all alone to rescue an angel.”
I looked at Calli.
“Well, they wouldn’t,” she said. “It’s not privileged information. Everyone knows that, Leda.”
“Just as everyone knows the Legion disciplines their misbehaving soldiers.” Tessa turned her eager eyes on Nero. “Did you punish her for her transgression?”
“For which transgression? You’re going to have to be more specific. She transgresses every day.”
I glowered at him. “Haha. Very funny.”
“There’s nothing funny about disobeying orders, Pandora. Especially, when they’re my orders.”
Tessa fanned herself. Oh, good grief.
“But to answer your question, yes, I did discipline her for going across the Black Plains,” Nero told her.
“That’s kind of backwards, right?” Gin said. “She rescued you, and you punished her. You should have rewarded her.”
“That’s what Leda said.”
“So what was her punishment?” Tessa asked him. “Like running laps or something?”
“Among other things.”
“I heard he pinned her down,” Bella volunteered.
“Hey, not you too!” I protested, the bitter taste of betrayal thick on my tongue.
Bella was usually more reserved, less into teasing than the rest of us, but maybe engaging in the banter was just what she needed to counter the stress she was under. And it had been so long since we’d all been together.
Tessa and Gin looked at Nero with wide, adoring eyes, eager to hear more. When he did not oblige, they turned their gazes on me.
“He pinned you?” Gin asked me.
“To the ground?” Tessa added.
“Before you say more, wipe those smirks off your faces,” I said, blushing. “Nero sat on me, counting out my pushups as I performed them. Lots and lots of pushups. And if you two want to experience the specifics of that unpleasant exercise for yourself, I will sit on you while you do pushups. We’ll start with an easy five hundred and go from there.”
“You can’t make us do pushups,” Tessa protested, pouting out her lower lip.