His lips dipped to my throat. Pain and pleasure—intertwined, inseparable—pierced me as his fangs penetrated my skin. A hard, agonizing throb pulsed deep inside of me, steadily building into an explosive crescendo. His magic swallowed me whole, turning the world inside out. I couldn’t see anything but him.
He captured both my hands as they plunged down his back. “Later,” he hissed in my ear. “After this competition is over and I know you don’t want me for my priceless immortal artifacts.”
I watched him walk away, my heart pounding, my body flushed. “Is that a promise?”
“Absolutely.”
Still shaking, I returned to the gods’ hall. The moment I stepped through the door, Colonel Fireswift was at my side.
“You shouldn’t leave the hall until the gods dismiss you,” he chastised me.
“Sorry. I was on a mission.”
“Sleeping with General Windstriker will not help us win this competition.”
“Well, we won’t know that until we try, will we?”
He glowered at me.
“I didn’t sleep with him.” Unfortunately.
“There’s blood on your mouth.”
I slid my tongue over my lips, licking up the precious drop of Nero’s blood.
“Nothing you do surprises me at this point, but Windstriker…” Colonel Fireswift shook his head in stern disapproval. “An angel should know better than to fraternize with the enemy.”
“Nero and I aren’t enemies.”
“He marked you again. Did you realize that?”
I lifted up my arm and gave it a sniff, inhaling the spicy, deliciously masculine scent of sex and angel. I sniffed my hand next. Colonel Fireswift was right. My whole body smelled like Nero’s magic.
Nero was good. Really good. I didn’t think it possible, but he’d managed to mark me using only a few drops of his blood.
I looked at Colonel Fireswift, snorting. “Nero is feeling a tad possessive, you know, with all the quality time you and I have been spending together lately.”
He looked like he’d just bitten down on a spoiled orange. “He didn’t only leave a magic mark. He left a notable physical one as well. I can see precisely where he sucked on your neck.”
I brushed my fingers across my throat, feeling the uneven lumps Nero’s fangs had left there. An angel hickey. How embarrassing. He’d forgotten to heal me.
No, not forgotten, I realized. Nero didn’t do anything without a reason. He’d left them there for Colonel Fireswift to see.
“Aren’t you going to heal that?” Colonel Fireswift demanded, impatience staining his words.
Heal it? How? My brain clicked back on. He expected me to heal the marks with my fairy magic—the fairy magic I was supposed to possess. Shit. Nero’s need to prove a point to Colonel Fireswift was going to get me into trouble.
I could use a potion to heal the marks. They weren’t that bad. But then Colonel Fireswift would wonder why I was going through all the ordeal of mixing and using a potion when I could simply tap my finger to my neck and heal the marks in two seconds with Fairy’s Touch.
Colonel Fireswift’s eyes narrowed. “Well?”
“I think I’ll leave it,” I said, smiling. “I like keeping a piece of Nero with me at all times.”
I was aiming for sweet and lovestruck, but Colonel Fireswift looked at me like I was some sort of weird sexual deviant who got off on bite marks. I supposed that was better than him realizing I wasn’t using my fairy magic because I didn’t have any. This was really starting to become a problem, and I’d only been hiding my weird experience with leveling up—or not leveling up, as it were—for a few days. I needed to get this sorted out stat. Before I was exposed.
And I needed to change the subject. I reached into my jacket and pulled a plump red grape out of my sleeve.
“What are you doing?” Colonel Fireswift demanded as I waved my hand over the grape.
“You’ll see.”
Magic rippled across the grape, shifting it into Maya’s necklace. Colonel Fireswift’s jaw dropped. He gaped at me. He was completely speechless.
“What is it?” I flashed him a grin. “Do I have something in my teeth?”
“You stole the necklace from Windstriker.”
“Of course. I told you I was on a mission. So I turned my grape into a replica of the necklace and swapped it with the real necklace.”
When Nero had caught my hand, I’d already slid the real necklace—in the shape of a grape—up my sleeve. Nero got the grape in the shape of a necklace. Too bad he’d caught my hand before I could swap his other two artifacts.
Across the room, Nero was watching me. He held a grape in his hand, and he looked really sour about it. Dangling the necklace between my fingers, I blew him a kiss.
“You are even more cunning than I’d thought,” Colonel Fireswift said. “Your underhanded skills could be pruned and polished to serve the Interrogators well.”
“Have you ever thought that my methods work because they are neither pruned nor polished?”
“I have just the assignment for you lined up,” he continued, as though I hadn’t spoken at all.
I didn’t bother pointing out that I wasn’t an Interrogator—or that I still had time to get out of becoming one. He was too busy planning my bleak future to listen.
“Soldiers of the Legion,” Faris’s voice pierced the chatter of the hall. “Your next challenge is about to begin.”
17
The Dreamer's Mirror
I hadn’t even caught my breath after the last challenge, and now it was time for the next one? When this was over, I was treating myself to a week-long nap.
“The challenge will be different this time,” Faris told everyone. “It will be a game. I know you are all familiar with the game of Legion.”
Legion was a card game its makers had marketed as a faithful representation of the Legion of Angels. Featured on the playing cards were every kind of supernatural—and every Legion rank from lowly initiate to archangel. The angel cards featured actual angels. Whoever had illustrated Nero’s card had given him a body almost as good as the real thing; and a ridiculously long sword that no one could wield, no matter how much magic they possessed.
“This is a game of wits, not magic. It will show who you really are inside.” Faris’s words were downright foreboding. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”
He gestured toward the only glowing mirror in the hall. The other frames were dormant right now. For the first time, all seven teams passed through the same mirror together.
It transported us to a posh lounge, a room full of rare and expensive collectables. Several cozy fireplaces were cut into the four walls, and a vibrant rainbow fire burned inside each of them. In front of the largest fireplace, a big beastly cat slept, snoring lazily. The cat was a very appropriate pet for the Goddess of Witchcraft.
The other players gave the beast cat a suspicious look and a wide berth, except for me. I moved in closer. Sure, the cat looked like a monster, but it didn’t act like a monster. It was so calm and gentle, even docile. I petted it softly on the head. It blinked its blue eyes and purred like a house cat a fraction of its size.
Beyond the cat, Athan the Everlasting stood beside a great round table with fourteen chairs.
“Place the gods’ items that are in your possession onto the table now,” he said. “The winning team of each round will claim one artifact.”
So much for my cunning play to steal Nero’s item. I shouldn’t have even bothered. We were all relinquishing our artifacts now anyway.
Colonel Fireswift placed Maya’s necklace and Zarion’s hairbrush on the table. Nero set down Aleris’s glasses and Valora’s crown next to them. Finally, General Spellsmiter slipped a slim silver mirror out of his jacket and added it to the other four items. That must have been Meda’s object.
“You will be playing the partner variation of the Legion card game,” said Athan. “Your teammate is your partner. To prevent cheating, al
l telepathic angels in the room will now drink a potion that blocks your ability to read thoughts.”
Six shot glasses with dark liquid waited on the table. All the angels except Harker took a shot glass. He was the newest angel, the only one here who hadn’t yet gained the power of Ghost’s Whisper.
I’d been feeling like an outsider this whole training. At this moment, I realized that I wasn’t the only one. Like me, Harker was not from a Legion legacy family. And like me, his magic level was lower than his peers. I wondered how he felt about that. Did he feel as out of place, as out of his league, as I did? I couldn’t tell from his expression. He had the stony angel face down pat.
“You now have five minutes alone with your partner to plan your strategy,” Athan said once the six angels had emptied their glasses.
Seven doors, each one positioned between two fireplaces, whispered open. Each team walked through one of them.
* * *
Five minutes of furiously-paced strategy planning later, Colonel Fireswift and I returned to the room of many magic fireplaces and took our seats across from each other at the fancy round table. The six other teams did the same. Harker sat on my right, Jace to my left. Considering all the psychopaths sitting around the table, I could have fared much worse. At least I liked the two of them. And neither one wanted to kill me.
Granted, Harker had once tried to give me pure Nectar that I likely wouldn’t have survived; and Jace might still succumb to his upbringing and push me under the bus to win the honor of becoming an angel first. But other than all that, we were the best of friends.
Still standing, Athan dealt out cards to each of the fourteen players around the table. “There will be five rounds. Each round, you will be competing for one of the gods’ possessions.” He set five cards in front of himself. He flipped over one of them. “The first prize is Maya’s necklace.” He tapped his finger on the illustrated card face; the drawing was a very faithful representation of the real necklace.
The first move was Colonel Fireswift’s. He played a witch coven leader card, a solid mid-level card, powerful enough to spark our opponents’ interest but not strong enough to ward off their attacks. Just as we’d discussed in our five-minute strategy session.
“You have an angel in your hand,” Colonel Silvertongue told him.
His face remained inscrutable—up until Leila’s tentacle plant monster card hit the table. Then he just looked annoyed. The plant monster card couldn’t win the round, but it could keep him busy for the next eight turns as his witch fought off its tentacles.
The hint of a smile twitched Colonel Silvertongue’s lower lip. “That didn’t work out as you’d planned.”
“Oh, shut up,” he snapped.
Colonel Silvertongue played the Sea Dragon card, one of the Legion’s most powerful elementals.
“I think your face is broken, Fireswift. There’s something resembling an expression on it.” General Spellsmiter’s Fire Dragon subdued his sister’s Sea Dragon.
General Spellsmiter and Colonel Silvertongue will go for an aggressive opening, a show of force, Colonel Fireswift had said during our strategy session. They are very competitive with each other. If we can keep them focused on fighting each other, they won’t last long. They’ll be locked into this cycle of escalation, not realizing there are other threats before it’s too late.
And so far it was working exactly as Colonel Fireswift had planned. Kiros Spellsmiter and Desiree Silvertongue were coming out so strong that they didn’t realize Colonel Fireswift was playing them, right down to his sour face. They should have known better than to believe the cold, unfeeling Interrogator was having a tantrum because they were poking fun at him. Only I had the talent for annoying people that much.
Nero, on the other hand, was clearly not fooled. He played a lowly Legion initiate, the weakest card in the deck. Even Leila’s plant monster was more useful. The initiate card’s sole purpose was to annoy the other players—or maybe to throw it at a landmine if someone played one of those.
Nyx glanced at the growing pile of cards. Then she played an angel card. Colonel Fireswift had been right about her too. She was playing aggressively. This whole training had threatened her power and credibility as First Angel. She had to reestablish both.
The next players’ turns were rather bland. It was clear who had won this round—at least it was to everyone here except Delta. She countered Nyx’s angel with one of her own. Arius added his angel to Nyx’s, and the two of them annihilated Delta.
“That was a stupid move,” Nero told Delta coolly. “Stick to the plan.”
Delta watched Nyx claim the necklace, her eyes quivering. She wasn’t thinking with her head right now. She wasn’t thinking at all. She was reacting instinctively. She’d forgotten all else but claiming the necklace that represented her father’s body. Colonel Fireswift had predicted that as well. The angel’s ability to deconstruct people was eerily accurate.
Athan flipped over the second of his five cards to uncover the next round’s prize: Zarion’s hairbrush.
Jace considered the cards in his hands carefully.
“Staring at them won’t suddenly turn them into better cards,” I teased him.
“I don’t know about that. Maybe with a little magic.”
I glanced down at the pink fairy card he’d just played. “You were just waiting to get that card off your hands.”
He scowled at me.
“I can’t imagine why. She has such a great outfit. It’s just so pink.” I winked at him.
Jace pretended to be fascinated by the card Andrin Spellsmiter had just played.
I snorted. “You might be a superstar in the Legion, Jace, but you really suck at the card game.”
“His father always forbade him from playing ‘such a ridiculous mockery of the real thing’,” Siri said, making her move.
“You all talk too much.” Delta narrowed her eyes at me. “Especially you.”
“At least I can talk and play at the same time.” My gaze fell over the card she’d just played. “Unlike some people.”
Nero’s face was distinctly blank. He obviously wasn’t impressed with Delta’s move either.
When it was Colonel Fireswift’s turn, he played a two-handed flaming sword, an angel’s weapon.
“What are you plotting, Xerxes?” said Colonel Silvertongue.
“Xerxes?” I repeated. “That is your name?”
“That’s Colonel Fireswift to you,” he snapped at me. His gaze slid over to Colonel Silvertongue. “And deciphering my so-called plot will cost you.”
Colonel Silvertongue flipped over an angel card. General Spellsmiter followed that up with an angel of his own. He didn’t seem able to help himself; he was almost compelled to counter every move his sister made.
Nero overpowered them both with his own angel card. “My thanks, Fireswift,” he declared, sliding the sword card toward his own card. “For the sword.” He showed Colonel Fireswift the angel card with his face on it. “And for the helping hand.”
Nero had defeated Colonel Fireswift with his own card. A laugh buzzed on my lips, threatening to burst out of my mouth. I resisted, a feat made damn near impossible by the sour expression on Colonel Fireswift’s face. He wasn’t faking his annoyance this time.
He and Nero glared across the table at each other for two more turns. That was when I slapped my angel card down. It featured a very muscular Nero Windstriker carrying a very long sword—and he wasn’t wearing many clothes either. It was almost a shame to give him up, but the real Nero’s expression made it all worth it.
“Pandora.” His deep voice reverberated somewhere between a purr and a growl. “You did not just defeat me with my own card.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Why, yes I did,” I replied brightly. “And I got this cool sword too.” Meeting his smoldering eyes, I grabbed the pile of played cards—and the prize from the middle of the table.
“There will be consequences,” Nero warned me.
�
�I look forward to it.”
Magic crackled between us, ricocheting off the pile of gods’ artifacts. My whole body pulsed, completely in tune with whatever Nero’s magic was doing to me right now.
“It’s your turn,” Harker said, nudging me.
That was when I realized the third round had already begun. I looked at the big pile of cards on the table. In fact, the round was almost over. I met Nero’s smug gaze. Despite his angelic halo and heavenly decorum, he truly did fight as dirty as I did. No wonder I was completely under his spell.
I looked over the cards that people had already played. I had a Legion major in my hand that beat every one of them, but there was still one player to go: Jace. Did he hold a card in his hand that could beat mine?
“What’s the first thing you’ll do when you become an angel?” I asked him.
“What?” he said, the question throwing him off guard. His eyes dipped to the Nero card at the top of my winning stack.
“Never mind. Think about it. And tell me later.”
I played my major card. It was the strongest major in the deck. An angel was the only card that could beat it, and Jace didn’t have one. If he’d held an angel, his gaze would have dipped to the angel card in his hand, not my Nero card which was further from him.
Jace set a card down. A potion? What the hell? My gaze snagged on the demon mark on the potion’s label. Venom. Oh, shit. Jace slid the card over to my major, poisoning her. That put me out of the fight. Leila’s captain, the next highest card on the table, won the battle.
“That wasn’t nice,” I told Jace, frowning as Leila claimed Valora’s crown. “And you’re supposed to be a terrible Legion player. Where did you learn a move like that?”
“Morrows has been giving me lessons,” Jace admitted, his face almost sheepish.
Delta kicked off the fourth round of Legion, playing a card whose sole purpose was obviously to annoy Nero.
Her actions will be driven more by emotion than logical reasoning, Colonel Fireswift had said of Delta.
Fairy’s Touch: Legion of Angels: Book 7 Page 16