Two Legion soldiers trailed him: Harker and Jace’s sister Kendra Fireswift. With her long golden hair, eyelashes that kissed her cheekbones, and full rosy lips, Kendra had the face of an angel—and the ego to go along with it. She wasn’t an angel yet, though. From the metal pin of a flower on her jacket, I saw she’d leveled up since last we’d met, so it wouldn’t be long before she realized her angelic destiny.
When Kendra saw me, her nose, so perfect that sculptors would have killed to immortalize it, turned up. She was her father’s daughter through and through. She had the same hard, unwavering personality and the same sense of absolute superiority.
We all stopped in the hall and stared at one another.
Harker was the first to break the heavy silence. “A bit brash, aren’t you, dragging Leda off into dark corners?” he said to Jace.
“Actually, she dragged me off.”
Nero’s jaw cracked, echoing off the silence that had taken hold in the hallway, freezing everything.
“I mean she wanted to talk to me about my mission,” Jace said quickly.
Nero gave Jace a look that promised he could kill him where he stood without lifting a finger. Harker had gotten it into Nero’s head that Jace had a thing for me, which was ridiculous. But angels weren’t always rational. Or reasonable, for that matter.
Kendra looked torn between disgust and anger. She wasn’t my biggest fan, and she certainly didn’t want to believe her brother was pining for me.
Harker was the only one who was completely at ease. In fact, he looked amused by the situation, especially at Jace’s discomfort. Jace had gone a bit pale, but he was making a valiant effort not to look too intimidated by Nero. He bowed before the angels, as though he’d just remembered procedure. Immediately, some of the color returned to his cheeks; he took comfort in the routine.
“Pandora, you could learn some respect from your friend.” Harker’s eyes were laughing at all of us.
But I was looking at Nero. You can’t kill him, I thought loudly. He’s my friend.
I was not telepathic, but Nero was. I knew he’d heard me from the slight tug on his lip, a tug that said, oh, yes I can.
“I need to speak to you in private,” he said aloud.
He turned and walked to the nearest room. I followed him. I was about to shut the door when I felt Nero’s magic brush past me, pulling the door closed.
He watched me closely, drinking in my expressions, my mood. “What happened, Leda? What’s wrong?”
And then the dam gates broke. I told him about the attack in Purgatory, about how my sisters were taken, and our journey to the Doorway to Dusk.
I’d only been teasing him before by holding back information. Inciting him a little. And, ok, yes, flirting with him. But now that he was here, I didn’t want to play games. I needed him. I needed to confide in him, to spill my soul to him. He would understand. I knew he would.
So I told him everything, no matter how much it hurt. I admitted to interrogating the werewolf and the fire elemental. Interrogating—that was just a euphemism for torture. I’d killed one man, and I’d nearly killed the other. If Calli hadn’t shot the fire elemental, my magic might have done him in anyway.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” I finished.
“Nothing is wrong with you. It’s the price we at the Legion pay to ensure that the world is safe. We sacrifice our lives, our identity, our family, everything—so others can live in peace. But we find a new family: the Legion.”
I hardly heard his last words. I was trying not to think about it, about what I’d done, especially not the feeling of the power flowing through me, the high I’d felt while I’d been in the middle of the interrogation. And the low afterwards when I realized what I’d done. Honestly, I wasn’t sure which one was worse.
Nero set his hands on my arms. “You did nothing wrong, Leda. You did what any of us would do to save those we love.”
There was emotion in his voice, conviction. Like he would have done all that and much more to save me. I could feel his magic wrapping around me like a warm blanket, trying to comfort me.
“I don’t want to be calm, Nero,” I said, shrugging off the comfort of his magic. “I want to stay sharp and save my sisters, to end this before more families are torn apart. Before more innocents are hurt.”
“I wish I could help, but I have an emergency of my own. The Magitech wall in the south is weakening. If it collapses, monsters will flood through the gates and swarm our cities.”
“How is the wall weakening? I didn’t think that was possible.”
Magitech walls were supposed to be unbreakable.
“Neither did I,” he said. “But I suppose if you hit a magic barrier with enough opposing magic over the centuries, it eventually begins to break down.”
“When do you have to go?” I asked him.
“I was on my way out now. I came here to gather the last of my team to repair the wall—and fight the monsters if necessary.”
“Who is coming?”
“Harker, Major Fireswift, Major Singh, and Basanti, among others.”
Wow, those were some heavy hitters.
“If things had been different, I would have come,” I told him.
“And I would have wanted you by my side,” he said. “But you needed a break. You were supposed to be on vacation.” There was a hint of rebuke in his voice—and a lot of frustration.
“Life doesn’t throw me breaks or vacations, only obstacles. I have to save my sisters.”
“I’ll come back and help you when the wall is repaired. In the meantime, be strong and remember to practice your telekinetic resistance. Get Jace Fireswift to hit you with psychic attacks.”
“You mean, nudge me in the ass with magic like you do?”
“No, Pandora. Only I get to do that,” he said seriously. “And I will kill anyone else who does.”
I laughed. “I was just kidding.”
“But I was not.”
I could see in his eyes that he was dead serious.
“Killing my friends is not the best way to endear yourself to m—”
He swallowed my words—and my breath—with a kiss. Magic, hot and insistent, rolled down my body, melting into my skin. He was drowning me in his magic. I opened up, lapping up his magic greedily, wanting more. I craved the sweet nectar of his magic, a force as powerful as the gods’ Nectar.
“Leda.” Nero’s voice dipped lower, reverberating against the sensitive skin of my throat. “I’m already late.”
A strangled, incomprehensible sound broke my lips. I couldn’t even think straight, let alone speak.
He stroked his hand down my face. “Oh, Leda. If only we had more time.”
“Make time.” I was proud of myself that the words had come out. And that I’d sounded so firm, so commanding.
He chuckled. “Not now, love. I have no intention of rushing it.” His hand traced my side slowly, so torturously close to my breasts. “Indeed I will torture you many times over before the night is through.” His mouth brushed against my neck.
“Is that a threat or a promise, angel?” I choked out, my voice a tormented, inhuman growl. I resisted the urge to throw him against the wall and give into the agonizing hunger that was consuming me, that was threatening to burst out with every deafening throb of my pulse.
“Each gift of magic comes with new powers. Magic we use in battle to kill monsters and defeat our foes.”
Where was he going with this? And why wasn’t he touching me?
“But that is only one side,” he said. “Each magic gift, each power, opens up new ways to make love.”
Like the water elemental magic in the pool at Storm Castle, I remembered. The memory was like a phantom, fiery kiss, a wicked twist of pleasure uncurling inside of me.
He held my chin between his fingers and whispered hotly against my face, “When I return, I will give you a lengthy demonstration.”
“Lengthy?” My legs shook.
“Oh, yes. I expect it to last hours.”
I hiked up my skirt, hooked my fingers under the band of my panties, and tossed them to the ground at his feet.
His eyes looked at the lacy red panties, then slid across my body. “You’re tempting me.”
“You’ve proven amenable in the past,” I said without a shred of shame.
A breeze kissed my skin. Soft and hot, it ran along the inside of my thigh with excruciating slowness. A soft moan broke free of my lips. Gods, I had to have him and it had to be now.
“What is that?” I gasped.