I pushed out with my magic, punching it against the Magitech barrier. Cracks formed. I hit it again. The cracks multiplied, ripping the threads of magic apart. The barrier shattered.
“Sonja will be so pleased,” Soulslayer said with a dark smile.
The marble wall I was pinned to zapped me with a massive jolt of magic. The shock tore across my back, shooting down my legs, sending my body into convulsions. My chains popped open, and I dropped to the ground in a heap. The whole room was spinning. I couldn’t see straight, couldn’t focus. And I couldn’t pull myself off the floor.
Get up! I mentally shouted at my battered body.
Soulslayer grabbed me by the neck and slammed me hard against the wall. New chains flew out of the holes in the marble, locking me down. The dark angel tore off the remaining sleeve of my jacket and threw the rag of tattered leather onto the floor. Then he grabbed a syringe and injected a potion into me. I tried to move and found myself unable to even twitch. He’d completely paralyzed me.
As I dangled there limply on the wall, frozen, Soulslayer pulled out his phone and began to type. I must have been really delirious because the first thought that flashed through my head was: I wonder how the phone reception is in hell.
Black spots danced before my eyes. Through those splotches of darkness, I could vaguely make out the silky stride of Sonja stepping into the dungeon. She and Soulslayer were talking, but my ears were so clogged that I couldn’t hear anything but muffled noises. Sonja lifted a syringe from the side table and moved toward me. She was going to draw yet another blood sample.
I couldn’t move a single muscle, but I collected my telekinetic magic into a point and punched out with it, flicking the syringe to the ground. Sonja picked up another one and tried again. I flicked that one away too. This time, I heard the syringe clink against the marble floor. My ears had finally cleared.
“Must I remind you that I am the Mistress of Telekinesis?”
Her magic caught the next syringe I flicked away. I countered with light magic, wrestling for control over the tool. Demons were weak against light magic, but after all these weeks or days or however long it had been, I didn’t have much strength left in me.
“Now, that’s quite enough of this nonsense,” Sonja said.
She tightened her telekinetic grip on me, wrapping it around my whole body. Her hold was so tight that I couldn’t push against the magic with my own. My magic winked out, and a moment later the needle pierced my arm. Sonja took a sample of my blood, and looked at it under her magic microscope.
“Your magic has blended beautifully,” she said. “Dark and light are complementing each other nicely. You are everything I’d hoped for. Such a perfect blend.” She looked up from the machine and asked, “You never had any magic before you joined the Legion?”
Not really. All I’d had was my weird hair that mesmerized vampires—and my hair was only growing more bizarre the more magic I gained.
“Curious,” she commented.
There was no point in devoting my overspent magic into blocking my thoughts right now. Sonja already seemed to know everything I knew and then some.
The demon smiled. “True.”
“Then why don’t we stop playing games, and you just tell me what you want from me? Why do you want to grow my magic? Is this about finding my brother?”
“Your brother is certainly intriguing, but no, this isn’t about him. This is about the future of the Dark Force. That future is your magic—and making more soldiers like you.”
Tessa and Gin possessed powers that even the gods and demons did not. So of course Sonja wanted to find a way to give their magic to her soldiers. But I didn’t have any rare powers. All of my abilities were the standard Legion of Angels powers.
“You’re thinking about this all wrong,” Sonja told me. “This isn’t about your abilities, Leda. It’s about the nature of those abilities, the source of your power. It’s about your balance of dark and light magic, your ability to absorb Venom and Nectar and to access the entire magical spectrum.”
“So you’re going to bottle my magic, just like you did yours. And then you’re going to give it to your soldiers,” I guessed.
“No, I’m not going to bottle your magic. I’m going to breed it.” Her eyes were glowing like turquoises. “I’m going to breed you to create the ultimate super soldiers, soldiers with the power to use and resist spells across the entire dark and light spectrum.”
“That will take centuries.”
She shrugged. “You’re immortal, and I’m willing to wait.”
Nero’s mother Cadence was an angel, and it had taken the Guardians centuries to equalize her light and dark magic. I wasn’t willing to spend my life in a cage. And I sure as hell didn’t want to be part of a demon’s breeding program.
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Sonja told me. “After all, it’s nothing different than what the Legion already does to its angels. They decide who the angels will marry.”
I glared at her, daring her to try to breed me like some race horse.
“So you thought you’d become an angel, save your brother, and then live happily ever after with your angel lover Nero Windstriker? Life isn’t that simple.” Her laugh was too delicate to have come from a demon. “Oh, I see.” She met my defiant glare. “You didn’t think that far ahead, did you?”
I had to admit to myself that I really hadn’t. Well, sure, the thought of my and Nero’s future had crossed my mind, but I’d always pushed those thoughts away. I’d always told myself it was because I didn’t have time to think about such things.
Sonja gave me a pitying look. “You are young. You might not have thought decades ahead, but I can assure you that Nero Windstriker has. He knows the day may come when the Legion finds you’re compatible with someone else and marries you to that soldier.”
“That’s none of your business,” I snapped.
But looking back, the signs were there. Nero was glad I was moving up the Legion, but he often seemed troubled by my progress—almost helpless. He’d told me I was going up the ranks so fast. Was it too fast for him? Did he fear my becoming an angel because he knew it would tear us apart?
Sonja was right. Nero must have thought about this future at least once or twice, a future he believed to be inevitable. It must have hurt him, but he still always helped me. He pushed me to grow my magic, even if that meant it would ultimately drive us apart. He really loved me.
The thought of not being with Nero hurt. That’s why I’d never dared to consider our future. I was scared. Scared that the Legion would drive us apart. Scared that I’d lose my nerve and stop pushing myself to level up my magic, just so we could stay together.
“So this is the point where you promise Nero and I can be together if I just help you.” My throat was tight, my eyes hot.
Sonja’s laughter danced off the cold marble walls. “No. I don’t make promises I can’t keep. Your magic is too valuable to risk on an imperfect mating.”
“There’s more to being with someone than magic, you know.”
“Oh?”
“Yes,” I said, her amusement sparking my defiance. “Like love.”
Sonja snorted. “Love is such a trite stereotype. It’s an illusion, a moment of misguided insanity that leads you to do very stupid things. And those stupid things tend to have disastrous consequences. Your conception was the rare exception to the rule, a magical fluke.”
All at once, I forgot myself, that I was tied to a dungeon wall being experimented on by the Demon of the Dark Force. “What am I?” I asked eagerly, latching on to her words. “Am I from another world like my sisters?”
Sonja met my eyes, her arrogance fading away. “No, you’re not from another world. You’re not from any world as you know it.”
“I don’t understand.”
Sonja sighed. “Of course you don’t, child. There has never been another like you, an immortal soul born mortal with the powers of light and dark.”