by Ella Summers
Hissing, Angel jumped straight up through the burning pages and landed on the floor. She turned around in sharp, agitated pivots, her back arched, her tail up, ready to attack whatever phantom force had made all the furniture and tabletop accessories suddenly go berserk.
Everyone stared at me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded, glaring at Nyx.
Colonel Fireswift glowered at me. “How dare you speak to the First Angel in this manner of—”
“It’s all right, Colonel,” Nyx said, cutting him off. “The Fever is known to bring out uncontrolled emotions in even the most disciplined angel.”
Colonel Fireswift frowned. He certainly did not consider me one of those highly-disciplined angels.
Nyx stepped forward and addressed me, “We have only one week at most to find you a compatible mate and bring him here.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “I already have a mate.”
“Leda,” Nyx said patiently. “We have to be realistic here. Nero is an angel. You are an angel. You know angels are rarely magically compatible with each other.”
“Nero’s parents were magically compatible,” I pointed out. “But that’s beside the point. You are not going to marry me off to someone simply because my magic is dinging like an oven timer.”
“This is how we do things at the Legion,” she told me. “It’s how we safeguard the Legion and the people of Earth. The Legion needs soldiers with high magic potential. That means the children of angels. Your children, Leda. You’re an angel now. You have a responsibility, a duty to the people of this world. Now more than ever, as gods and demons are clashing, edging closer to an explosive confrontation. The Earth is sitting at the center of the immortal war. The gods have this world. The demons want it. And both sides are fully prepared to tear it apart to keep it out of the other side’s hands. Centuries ago, when gods and demons first came here, they clashed, and the Earth suffered. That clash gave us the plains of monsters. Are you willing to wait and see what catastrophe rocks the Earth next? Are you truly that selfish?”
I really had to hand it to Nyx. She was a master guilt-tripper. Even knowing that she was manipulating me into following the path she’d laid out for me, I couldn’t help but feel how horribly selfish I was being for wanting something else, like I was a truly terrible person.
“Well, what would you do in my place?” I demanded, planting my hands on my hips.
“I think you already know the answer to that.”
“And Ronan would just be all right with you marrying someone else?”
“No, he would most definitely not be all right with that. But it’s never come up. I’ve never had the Fever.”
“Not in all this time?”
She was the First Angel, the Earth’s first angel. She’d been around before any of us. Before the Legion of Angels. She should have been fertile at least a few times by now.
“Female angels’ fertility is unpredictable and rare. And that’s why we can’t pass up this chance.” She glanced at Nerissa. “Have all the male angels tested too. Just in case.” As Nerissa nodded, Nyx returned her attention to me. “I will contact Nero myself. He’s deep within the plains of monsters right now, out of contact. Our last communication was two days ago, so I can’t promise he’ll be here in time. Or that your magic is compatible with his.”
I shot her a defiant look. “Maybe my weird magic isn’t compatible with anyone’s.”
Nyx laughed. “If that turns out to be the case, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.” She pointed at Colonel Fireswift, then at Harker. “I’m putting you two in charge of chaperoning Leda. Don’t let her out of your sight.”
In other words, they had to make sure I didn’t run away and escape the Legion’s plans for me. Wow, two angel chaperons. Nyx must have been really worried that I’d run.
I supposed it made sense. Right now, I was potentially the most valuable asset the Legion had: a fertile female angel. Well, unless I turned out to be completely incompatible with anyone. Then I was just a dud, the Legion’s very own lemon angel.
“I don’t need chaperones,” I told Nyx.
“Of course you do.”
“What if I have to use the toilet?”
Her response was immediate and unapologetic. “Then they go with you to the toilet. No exceptions.”
She favored me with a sharp, do-not-bullshit-me look. She was telling me that she wouldn’t be fooled by such an obvious trick. It figured. At the Legion, male and female initiates bunked together in large open rooms. We learned to shed our modesty along with our humanity. Nyx fully expected me to pee under supervision.
I moved toward the door. Angel strutted after me, her tail held high. She turned up her nose at the debris on the floor, then shot me a withering look, like she knew the mess was all my fault.
“As though you don’t ever make a mess,” I laughed.
She meowed in protest.
“After you dragged a wild turkey into Demeter, there were feathers all over the floor,” I reminded her.
She licked her paw and began to groom her coat.
“That’s your excuse?” I snorted. “That you can clean the turkey off your own fur? Well, what about the canteen floor? Who’s supposed to clean up that mess?”
She meowed again.
“My own messes are beside the point,” I replied.
“Why are you talking to your cat?” Harker asked me, his blue eyes twinkling with amusement.
“Because she’s the only one who makes even a lick of sense in this madhouse.”
Angel meowed again to punctuate my point. Then she followed me out of Nerissa’s office.
The two angels trailed me through the doorway, matching me step for step. They kept pace behind me, one on either side, matching even the slightest shift in my speed or direction, like we were all moving in a tight attack formation. This was ridiculous. They were so close that I could feel them breathing down my neck.
I spun around, looking back into the room. “Is this really necessary?” I asked Nyx.
Her face was humorless. “I think we both know the answer to that, Pandora.”
Yeah, we did. I didn’t want to marry some random Legion soldier, and Nyx knew it.
I had to get out of this. I had to escape my chaperones and find Nero. I had to contact him myself. We’d promised each other that we would always stick together and not let anyone break us apart, even if that meant fleeing the Legion.
I just hadn’t expected this to come up so soon. I’d thought we had all the time in the world.
I’d been so wrong. We had only a week—one week before my immortal future was set in stone.
13
Ms. Revolutionary
With my two zealous chaperones on the job, there wasn’t anywhere to go, so I visited the canteen. I was starving, annoyed, and consuming large quantities of sugar made me feel better. I asked my angel chaperones to carry the loaded plates for the duration of the walk back to Nerissa’s office.
“I am not a server,” Colonel Fireswift snapped.
“No, you’re a leader,” I replied. “But you don’t want to endanger my fragile fertility by being mean to me, do you? The First Angel would not be pleased.”
His mouth opened in outrage, but he snapped it shut again immediately.
I gave him a pleasant smile that seemed to bounce right off him. Looking rather sour, he picked up two of my loaded plates. Harker took the other two plates, and we made our way back to Nerissa’s office.
When we reached it, Angel trotted in first to check for threats. She found a few bugs throwing their bodies against the glass window in a futile attempt to get outside, and she promptly busied herself with the task of catching them. As I ate my nutritious meal of cookies and ice cream, I watched my kitten launch her tiny body high into the air, mouth open and ready to swallow the first bug. Launch and swoop. It was thus that she rid the office of the insects, one by one, with perfect accuracy. She didn’t mi
ss a single one.
“That cat isn’t normal,” Harker commented. “She jumps like a spider.”
“No, not a spider. An angel.” I grinned. “She can fly.”
“Ridiculous.” Colonel Fireswift sneered. “A cat cannot be an angel.”
“Oh?” I slid my tongue across the top of a mini cupcake, licking the icing right off. “And why is that?”
He glared at me—and the cupcake. “A cat cannot be an angel because it cannot survive the Nectar. It’s impossible.”
“It’s also impossible that an angel catches the Fever right after her transformation, and yet here we are,” I pointed out with a sigh.
Harker pulled a large box out of a drawer. “Fancy a game of War?”
I glanced at the brightly colored game box. “War?” I snorted. “That’s sure a creative name for a game.”
“I didn’t make the game, Leda.” Harker pulled the game board out of the box. “I just found it.”
“I think Sergeant Jarden designed that game last year when he was cooped up in here for a month with a particularly virulent case of Pooka Pox,” Nerissa said.
“What are Pooka Pox?” I asked her.
“Very unpleasant. Pray you never find out,” she replied.
I could either try to figure out what she meant by that, or I could play a game of War with Harker. Hmm, decisions, decisions.
“I’ll play,” I declared, hoping Sergeant Jarden’s game was long.
I needed something to keep my mind off things while we all waited for Nerissa’s magic tests to determine my fate. I really hated sitting by and doing nothing. At least playing a game was doing something.
Harker handed me a small tray with beautifully crafted and painted wooden pieces. “How about you, Colonel?” he asked Colonel Fireswift.
“I don’t play games,” he stated coolly.
I grinned at him. “Why not? Afraid of losing?”
“I am not afraid of losing or anything else.”
“Really? Is that so?”
“Leda,” Harker warned me.
But this was too much fun. “You’re not afraid of anything?” I asked Colonel Fireswift. “Not even a mission report rife with spelling mistakes? Or a wardrobe stuffed full of only dirty uniforms? Or maybe if someone were to set back all the clocks in your office building by precisely one minute? I bet that your soldiers have tried that prank on you once or twice.”
“They wouldn’t dare.”
“Not even on April Fool’s Day?”
“No.”
“On your birthday? The Gods’ Feast? Halloween?”
“Absolutely not,” he ground out.
“Your soldiers sound like a real dull bunch,” I told him. “Don’t they ever have any fun?”
He puffed out his chest in indignation. “Of course not.”
“Well, that has got to change. Next time I’m in the area, I’ll stop by the Chicago office and throw you all a party.”
“You will do no such thing.”
“Sure I will. You’ll love it. I promise.”
“Be careful, Leda,” Harker said.
I gave my hand a dismissive flick. “Oh, I’m just teasing him.”
“I don’t think Colonel Fireswift has a sense of humor.”
“No, I most definitely do not,” Colonel Fireswift agreed.
I smiled at him. “Now, I just don’t believe that, Xerxes. May I call you Xerxes?”
“No,” he growled.
“Oh, come on. Let’s drop protocol for a moment. In fact, let’s throw it right out the window.”
Colonel Fireswift looked positively scandalized.
“We’re all angels here.” I propped up my elbows on the tabletop and balanced my chin atop my braided fingers. “Well, except for Nerissa.”
Nerissa was anyway too caught up in her work to pay any attention to us.
“Babysitting Leda is a long and tedious task, Colonel.” Harker spoke like he was slowly and carefully defusing a bomb. “And sitting idly by is very unbecoming of an angel.”
Colonel Fireswift grunted in agreement. “What is the goal of this game?” His eyes fell over the big box.
“Taking over the world.”
“Such a goal is definitely worthy of an angel,” I added.
“Very well. I shall play.” He said it as though he were doing us an enormous favor.
“Wow, Leda, that’s a lot of food,” Nerissa commented, pulling her head out of her work long enough to notice the plates of food in front of me. “When did you notice your increased appetite?”
“Why do you ask?” I said, my suspicions piqued.
“Angels with the Fever eat a lot. It fuels their peaking magic. I’ve read all about the Fever, but I’ve never seen it in an angel with my own eyes. Fascinating.” Her eyes were glowing with excitement. Hell, her whole body was glowing. “Maybe I should write a paper about it.”
“You are not writing a paper about this calamity.”
Angel had just finished catching all the bugs in the room. She looked around for something else to hunt.
“That cat is very efficient,” Nerissa commented. “Those bugs have been bothering me all day.”
Having found nothing else worthy of an angel cat huntress, Angel pranced over to me and plopped down on my lap. She ate what was left of my last piece of cheesecake, so I slid one of the other plates across the table toward me.
“Why do you let her eat your desserts?” Harker demanded. “You drove a fork through my hand when I tried to do the same.”
“Well, she always brings me gifts,” I said, petting her fondly.
“She brings you dead birds,” he pointed out.
“It’s the thought that counts.”
“So if I brought you a dead bird, you would share your cake with me?”
“Maybe.” I grinned at him. “But why don’t you try it with Bella instead?”
“Bring her a dead bird?” He frowned. “I don’t think she’d appreciate that as much as you would.”
“I guess that depends on the quality of the bird.”
“The quality of the bird?” he repeated. “Ok, now I know you’re joking.”
“Girls like gifts,” I said solemnly. “Look at how much I’m enjoying Angel.” I scratched my kitten under her chin, and she purred in appreciation.
“Last time I tried bringing Bella a gift, she overreacted,” he sighed.
“I know. She called me in a state of total panic.”
“What did you tell her to do?”
I smirked. “To blow into a bag and count to ten.”
“Very funny.”
I laughed. “I told Bella angels are crazy and not to let it get to her.”
“Wow, Leda, thanks for the help. No wonder she’s been avoiding me.”
“She hasn’t been avoiding you,” I told him. “She is studying for exams. And I happen to know that she is in desperate need of a set of Red-tipped Inferno Bird feathers for her chemistry exam.”
Surprise flashed in his eyes. “You were actually serious about the bird.”
“Am I not always serious?”
“No,” he said, deadpan.
“Red-tipped Inferno Birds are highly magical, but they’re damn near impossible to find, let alone catch. You’d have to go to the Black Plains to find one. I know Bella would really appreciate the feathers.”
A cynical crinkle formed between his eyes. “You’re trying to get rid of me by sending me off on a wild goose chase.”
“Not a wild goose chase. A wild Inferno Bird chase,” I corrected him.
“Nice try.”
I shrugged. “You wanted to know the way to Bella’s heart, and the answer is Red-tipped Inferno Bird feathers. What you choose to do with that information is entirely up to you.”
He looked thoughtful.
“Don’t listen to anything that silver-tongued siren is saying. She is trying to manipulate you,” Colonel Fireswift told him.
“Yes, I realize that, Colonel,” Harker repl
ied. “And it won’t work.”
“Just be sure that it doesn’t. I will be watching you. And if your personal feelings make you negligent in your duties, I will act accordingly.”
Harker shot me an exasperated look. “You’re always getting me into trouble, Leda.”
Smiling, I took a big bite of strawberry cake.
“Back to your question, Leda started eating her weight in food a few days ago,” Harker told Nerissa.
“Hey,” I protested. “Stop helping her make me the subject of a magic research paper.”
“Why?” He flashed me a wide grin. “You could be famous.”
“I am already infamous. And that’s good enough for me.”
“She started eating her weight in food a few days ago, Doctor,” he repeated, adding on, “But by now, she’s eating my weight in food.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway, Harker?”
“On the side of science, of course.”
“Your revenge is swift and merciless.”
His nod was crisp and satisfied. “You bet it is.”
“See if I ever again give you tips on the way to Bella’s heart,” I grumbled.
“Abnormally-increased appetite,” Nerissa said, oblivious that our conversation had left the station without her. “Interesting.” She scribbled down some notes.
“Hey, who do you think you’re calling abnormal?” I demanded. I leaned back in my seat, trying to catch a glimpse of the paper she was scribbling notes on. “What are you writing about me?”
She buried the piece of paper beneath a notebook. “Nothing of any consequence to you.”
“Not of any consequence to me? It’s about me!”
“I’ll change your name in the paper,” she promised. “No one will ever know.”
“Everyone will know,” I countered. “In the Legion’s long and glorious history, just how many angels have gotten the Fever immediately after getting their wings?”
The answer was one: me.
Nerissa gave her hand a dismissive wave. “It will all work out.” She eyed my dessert plate. “Are you craving sweets in particular?”