by Ella Summers
I decided to take that as a sign that he’d surrendered himself to my chaos.
“You know how you didn’t want to do anything ‘dangerous’?” I said.
Nero looked down at my hands, which were squeezing his butt. “Given your condition, I didn’t think it prudent,” he said cautiously.
“Don’t use words like ‘prudent’ when I’m trying to seduce you, Nero,” I chided him. “It’s not sexy.”
His halo crackled with amusement.
“You see, since our bodies are not really here…” I quickly pulled off his shirt. “It’s not even dangerous.”
“You want to have telepathic sex with me?” He looked totally perplexed.
“Nero, I’d like to have any and every kind of sex with you that I can get,” I replied solemnly. “My hormones are through the roof, and my body is aching for you.”
Silver flashed in his eyes. He looked like he was seriously considering my proposal.
“Uh, I guess I’ll just be leaving then.” Arina flickered out.
I looked coyly at him through lowered lashes. Then I grabbed my black tank top and tossed it down. It fell at my feet.
Nero leaned into me. “Pandora, behave yourself.” His words fell gently against my lips. His eyes ensnared mine.
“I always behave.” I licked my lips. “Behave badly.”
Nero captured my lips with his, and he kissed me, savage and hungry. Dark, deviant desires uncurled inside of me. I clutched him closer. Close was not close enough.
“We should stop,” he said between kisses, but he made no move to do so. “It’s against the rules.”
“It doesn’t count,” I whispered. “We’re not breaking any holy rules of pregnant angel celibacy because our bodies aren’t really here.”
Nero’s chuckles buzzed against my lips. “You are a temptress.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Yes, it is. But right now, I just don’t care.” His voice was a soft caress, his hands rough.
“I’ve been wanting you for so long, Nero.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” he said with a sexy, self-satisfied smirk.
He ran his hand slowly, lightly, along the inside of my thigh. A gasp parted my lips. This felt every bit as real as in real life.
“Enough fun,” Nyx’s voice barked.
I snapped my head around to find the First Angel standing beside us. Arina must have sent her consciousness here.
“Windstriker, Pandora, put your clothes back on,” she commanded us. “We have important work to do.”
25
A Moment of Magic
Breakfast the next morning in the airship’s garden library was a crowded affair, now that Nyx’s team of angels had joined us. I wondered when the last time was that so many angels had gathered in one place. I really hoped they didn’t start killing each other. Angels could be rather snippy.
Basanti smirked at Nero over the top of her teacup.
“Why are you smirking at me?” Nero demanded.
“Have you stopped to consider that your daughter and sibling will be the same age?” Basanti replied.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And I try not to think about it,” he told her.
Basanti was grinning from ear to ear. “They are going to get each other into so much trouble.”
“Perhaps they will support each other in achieving higher levels of holiness,” he said calmly.
“Your daughter has the Angel of Chaos for a mother,” Basanti laughed. “More likely, she’ll be wreaking havoc on the world before she can even walk. And roping everyone around her into her shenanigans. Just like her mother.”
“Hey, leave me out of this,” I protested.
“Little late for that, hon,” Basanti told me. “Angel of Chaos, Mother of Mayhem.”
Mother of Mayhem. Yet another nickname to add to my ever-growing list. The sergeant with the booming voice was going to run out of breath before he could even finish introducing me.
“Chaos. Mayhem,” Nero said to Basanti, his eyes hard. “You look entirely too pleased about that.”
“Well, yeah, actually. You have to admit that things were pretty boring around here before Leda joined the Legion.”
“Basanti, don’t hope for the apocalypse,” Leila sighed. “You might just get your wish.”
The door opened, and the First Angel entered, ushering in discussions of a more serious nature.
“Lightbringer, I’m assigning you command over Colonel Silvertongue’s territory of East Australia.” Her gaze shifted to Damiel. “Dragonsire, you’re getting General Spellsmiter’s West Australia.”
Damiel dipped his chin. “As always, you demonstrate your divine wisdom, First Angel.”
“Stop kissing my ass, Dragonsire.”
Damiel chuckled.
“Windstriker, I’m making you Head of the Vanguard,” Nyx told Nero.
“As you wish, First Angel,” he replied. “But are you sure you want to trust Damiel with commanding people?”
The air around Damiel crackled with magic. “I was commanding soldiers long before you were born, junior.”
“Sure, but there was that whole traitor-to-the-Legion vacation you took for a couple hundred years,” I reminded him.
“Damiel was innocent,” Cadence protested.
“I know that,” I told her. “But the rest of the world doesn’t. Nor do they know about the deaths of General Spellsmiter and Colonel Silvertongue.”
“That will be announced to the Legion shortly, and then to the rest of the Earth. I won’t be able to keep it secret for much longer, and I do need an angel to command each of those territories. And you two are the only available angels I have.” Nyx looked expectantly at Cadence and Damiel.
Cadence set her hand over her heart. “We will serve the Legion as is befitting of an angel.”
“Oh, I know you will,” replied Nyx. “But because this is a delicate matter, especially concerning Dragonsire’s past, I’ve decided to do things differently. Lightbringer, your title will be the Angel of East Australia. And Dragonsire will be named the Angel of West Australia. But the two of you shall command the two territories together. That arrangement should smooth over any complaints.”
Nyx meant complaints from the other angels. Two angels had never before commanded any territory jointly. That was because angels didn’t share well with others. I didn’t think sharing would be a problem for Cadence and Damiel, though.
“It’s a pretty clever solution actually, Cadence and Damiel ruling together. Because she is legendary…” I winked at Damiel. “…and he is notorious.”
“Careful, Pandora. All these compliments will go to my head,” Damiel warned me.
“I’m not worried. Your head is already full of so much hot air that there isn’t even room for it to grow any bigger.”
Damiel howled with laughter.
Nyx scowled at me. “Fireswift was supposed to teach you to deal with other angels.” Her gaze snapped to Colonel Fireswift.
“I do know how to deal with other angels,” I said quickly, before Fireswift could complain about me. “But not all angels are the same. Damiel likes it when I tease him.”
“She’s not wrong.” Damiel’s eyes twinkled with amusement.
“So does Colonel Fireswift,” I added. “He’s just too proud to admit it.”
“I most certainly do not enjoy being teased,” Colonel Fireswift said with indignation.
I smiled. “Nice try, Colonel. But we can all see you blushing.”
Colonel Fireswift’s face had turned decidedly red, though it was more likely out of fury than anything else.
Damiel chuckled. Even Nero’s lips curled a little.
But Nyx was all business. “In any case, Pandora is correct.”
I perked up.
“About Dragonsire,” Nyx clarified. “But do stop poking Fireswift, or he might bite back.”
Jace cleared his throat, swallowing the laughter that he�
�d almost allowed to escape. He’d joined us for breakfast, and I was glad. As much fun as it was poking fun at his father, Jace was actually fun.
“From a PR perspective, Dragonsire cannot rule alone, even though he has been cleared of all wrongdoing. You have all accepted him…” Nyx glanced at Colonel Fireswift. “Most of you have accepted him.”
Colonel Fireswift looked like he’d sooner accept me as an angel than he would accept Damiel.
“But many of my other angels are not so welcoming of his return,” Nyx said. “And we cannot afford to be weighed down by in-fighting. Not now. And so Dragonsire will rule with Lightbringer. If anyone has a problem with that, they can sit out our war against the Guardians locked inside a Legion dungeon. Times are dangerous, and we’re short on angels. The Legion needs Dragonsire’s experience and magic.”
Nyx was explaining herself much more than usual and her temper was short. She must have already had this conversation many times already, with one angel after another. She did look particularly tired this morning. Her hair wasn’t swirling around in the air as weightlessly as usual.
“I don’t have a problem with Damiel,” I spoke up. “He makes the world’s best pancakes.”
Nyx laughed, which was exactly why I’d said it. I could tell that she’d really needed a good laugh.
“All right, back to business.” But most of the tension had gone out of her voice. “Where are we with Gaius Knight, Pandora?”
“Neither Arina nor I have had any luck contacting him or tuning back in to the visions the Vault was sending me,” I said. “We have no idea whether it was indeed the Guardians who interrupted our conversation with Gaius, nor whether they have taken him prisoner and now control the Vault. We only suppose that this has happened.”
“So you have no idea how much time we have until the Guardians unleash their plan to gain magic and make a move to steal your daughter?” she asked.
“No.”
And it made me sick to my stomach. That wasn’t just pregnancy hormones making me queasy. It was dread.
“We must proceed as we anyway would, not second guess ourselves because of these possible futures,” Nyx decided. “Trying to change the future might very well make things worse.”
Easier said than done. It was my child at the center of the Guardians’ plans.
“Windstriker, I’m putting you in charge of the mission to track down the angel slayers. Assemble your team,” Nyx commanded him.
Nero nodded.
The Legion’s Interrogators hadn’t gotten anything of use out of the prisoners Nyx and the other angels had captured. Apparently, they’d just been clueless decoys put there to throw the investigation off track.
“I will be staying here, on board the airship,” Nyx said. “Furthering our plan to gain the confidence of the Earth’s people so that more might join the Legion of Angels.”
Nyx definitely didn’t look happy to be stuck here with us. Like all angels, Nyx had a very hands-on personality, not a sitting-on-her-hands personality.
“We’re making progress,” I told her.
My statement did nothing to brighten Nyx’s mood.
“Dr. Harding has some new information.” I waved at Nerissa.
She stepped forward. “Unfortunately, I haven’t yet had any luck in finding a way to decrease the Nectar’s fatality rate without also decreasing its potency, its ability to bestow magic.”
“You know, we might be going about this all wrong,” I said. “Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to modify the Nectar. Maybe we should be looking for another solution altogether. Humans can gain some supernatural powers without Nectar. For instance, a human can become a vampire.”
“Vampires are not as powerful as Legion soldiers,” Colonel Fireswift said impatiently, as though I didn’t already know that.
“So what?” I demanded. “Maybe we could use another substance to bestow a weaker form of magic on people. Not everyone needs to have angel powers. Most Legion soldiers never become angels, Colonel.”
“You’re suggesting we create another tier of Legion soldier,” Leila said. “With a weaker tier of powers.”
“Yes, I am. People can contribute to the Legion without the full-blown set of powers.”
“It’s preposterous.” Colonel Fireswift’s voice was scathing.
I shrugged. “My ideas usually are.”
“Yes, they are.” He was sitting so stiffly on the sofa that a tiny breeze might have blown him over. “The Legion cannot abandon its tried and true methods.”
“Even if those tried and true methods are having diminishing results?” I countered. “Fewer people are joining the Legion of Angels with every initiation cycle. Something has to change, or soon there will be nothing left of the Legion. Change. That’s why Nyx assigned me this task. Because I’m not weighed down by what’s tried and true. I know how to think out of the box.”
“Pandora.” Nero’s voice was quiet—and yet it cut right through the room like a knife.
I smiled at him. “Yes, lover?”
“Maybe there is a solution somewhere between the current way and a complete-and-total upheaval of everything we know.”
“Maybe,” I allowed.
“Everything in moderation,” he said.
I guiltily set down the very large slice of chocolate cake I’d just cut myself. Moderation. Right.
“I’ll try to find a middle-of-the-road solution,” I said.
“I think that would be an easier sell to all of us boring, rigid angels,” Nero told me.
“Just try not to get run over while you’re hanging out in the middle of the road, Leda,” Basanti added.
I made a face at her. “Very funny.”
Basanti grinned at me and took a bite of her cake, which made me feel a little less guilty about digging my fork into my own cake.
Arina spoke up, “The angels politics’ and future soldiers are all very exciting, I’m sure, but how about you deal with the more immediate problems? Like my kids.” She shot me an accusatory glare. “You promised you’d help me rescue my kids.”
“And we will,” I said. “But we’ll need to break into the Guardians’ Sanctuary to do it.”
“Which we need to do anyway to stop the Guardians,” Cadence said.
“Right.” I licked icing off my fork. “I’ve been thinking about that actually. And I wonder if we can use Faith’s idea to find the Guardians.”
“I hope you’re not referring to killing anyone on Earth who has magic.” Nyx’s voice was humorless.
I waved her concerns away. “No, not that part of her idea. Faith said the passages to the Guardians’ Sanctuary are everywhere.”
“Yes, there are multiple ways in and out of the Sanctuary, spread out across the Earth,” said Cadence. “I have used several of them myself, but I know there are many more.”
“Ok, so Faith wanted to kill everyone with magic so she could silence all the magic on Earth, except for the magic of those passages to the Sanctuary,” I said. “Because Faith couldn’t wield enough power to find the Sanctuary when the rest of the Earth’s magic was chugging along at full blast. There is another way.”
I looked down at my cat.
“It’s just a matter of brute force,” I told them all. “If I could channel enough magic through Angel, I could find the Sanctuary without silencing all of the other magic on Earth. With Angel’s help, with that spell magnified by a million, I could find the passages into the Sanctuary and break my way inside. With Angel’s help, I don’t even need everyone in the world to stop using their magic.”
“Your cat could indeed channel enough magic to perform such a feat,” Cadence told me. “But, Leda, you yourself don’t have that much magic to channel through Angel.”
“And you would need a lot of magic,” Leila added. “It’s a relative matter. In Faith’s plan, the very low level of magic on Earth during her spell wasn’t just about using the non-turbulence to find the Sanctuary. It also meant she needed to push through less magi
cal resistance in the surroundings to break down the Sanctuary barrier. On a world with no magic being used by others, your magic would also be more powerful. Because there’s less resistance in the environment. Fewer things to interfere.”
Leila was pretty smart.
“Like when you always run with weights, it’s easier to run when you do it without them; you’re faster,” she said. “It’s the same with magic. If you go to a world with little or no magic, your magic packs more of a punch.”
“Do any of the worlds in the Immortals’ former empire have much less magic than here?” I wondered. “I thought the Immortals created them all to have roughly the same amount of magic, even if the magic might be of a different kind.”
“They did,” Damiel said. “But there are other worlds out there where people live, worlds not changed and seeded by the Immortals. On some of those worlds, your magic practically explodes out of you. On others, you feel like every spell has to be forced out of you.”
“Yes.” Cadence turned to Leila. “I’m impressed you figured that out, not having ever been on any other world than Earth.”
“It’s logical.”
Cadence grinned, obviously very proud of her former protégé.
“Ok, but with Angel, I have a way to channel enough magic to break the Guardians’ barrier, right?” I asked, trying to bring us back on track.
It was Cadence who answered my question. “Yes. Angel is a magic vessel. She can hold pretty much infinite magic, allowing you to channel it, control it.”
“So the problem is I just don’t have enough magic?” I asked. “What about the way we defeated Faith? What if we all combined powers?”
“I spent a long time stuck inside the Sanctuary,” Cadence said. “The barrier is very powerful. It drains the magic out of anyone. Instantly. That is the Guardians’ magic, Leda, that of negating magic and magic users themselves. The Guardians use all the magic you throw at them, all the magic you throw at their barrier, in order to fuel the barrier. Getting out of the Sanctuary was next to impossible. I only accomplished it by using a potion that made me appear dead, for all intents and purposes, both physically and magically.