by Casey Lane
“What are you?” I demanded, striking again.
“You know what I am.”
“A monster. You bring us here every night. You force us to fight for your amusement. Fern wasn’t the first one to die, was she?”
“Everything I did, I did for you, Nyx. For us.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I don’t even know you.”
“You did,” he said. “And as soon as I free your mind, you will know me again.”
He thrust out his hand, releasing a psychic blast that slammed hard into my body, hurling me across the Pit. My back hit the glass wall, knocking the wind out of my lungs. I crumpled to the floor, black spots dancing in front of my eyes. My head whirled and my bones creaked in protest as I stood.
“Maybe I don’t want to know someone who’s trying to kill me,” I said.
“I’m trying to free you from the curse on you.”
He darted forward, fast as lightning. My hand flashed out and knocked his fist away, then I swung again, landing a blow to the side of his head. As my skin brushed against his, a jumbled stream of mangled memories flooded me. I blinked at the man in front of me. I knew him. Somehow.
“You’re starting to remember,” he said, a smile touching his lips as a vision of us kissing flashed in my mind. “Just a little more.”
I shook my head, trying to focus. When my blurry vision cleared, the Pit was gone. Leon and I stood in the center of a ballroom awash with flowers and magic. I wore a backless red tango dress cut to my curves; he wore a black suit that stretched over his body like liquid darkness. A hint of that familiar sweet spice lingered in the air, electrifying my senses. Leon’s hand closed around mine, and he spun me into a sharp turn. A crisp staccato tango sang out from the orchestra.
Leon dropped me into a dip. “We’ve danced like this before, my love,” he said in a low whisper that hummed against my skin.
He pulled me back up, leading me across the floor. Music and magic popped inside of my head like tiny fireworks, each pulse delighting my senses. For the first time in five years, I felt awake. Alive. I’d only been going through the motions of life, existing but not really living. Something had been missing all along.
“Remember, Nyx. Remember us,” he said, brushing his hand along my side and then up my arm. It closed around my hand, snapping me into a tight spin. “Remember who you are.” His words fell against my lips.
In my mind, I saw us training together, fighting together. I kicked him down to the floor. When I leaned over to help him up again, his hand shot out, his fingers closing around my wrist. Before I could move, he slammed me to the ground. He pinned my hands with his and trapped my legs beneath his knees. His mouth came down hard and hot on my lips, ravaging the inside of it with the hunger of a starving man.
And then he was just gone, ripped away from me. A dark shadow stood over him, anger swirling like a firestorm around both of them. The shadowed figure turned to look at me.
Before I saw his face, I snapped out of the memory. The jolt made me misstep on the dance floor, and my ankles collapsed. Leon caught me before I fell.
“You’re almost there,” he said, his hand caressing my cheek. “Just a little longer until you remember.” His eyes darted to a spot past my shoulder. “One second, my love.” He pressed his forehead against mine, his voice dipping. “I’ll be right back.”
Then he turned and walked over to one of the princes standing at the edge of the dance floor. I squinted, noticing for the first time that those princes looked an awful lot like the bald guards from the Pit—just dressed up better and with a long mane of hair. The magic in the air was swirling around my mind, weaving a spell that made it really hard to think straight. I was…drunk. I guess that’s what this was. I’d never been drunk before, but there was something intoxicating about the magic of this place. It felt so good that I almost didn’t care. Beside the buffet tables, Leon and the prince were talking rapidly. Fragments of their conversation whispered in my ears. It was as though my senses had awoken after a long slumber.
“…breached the perimeter.”
“Who?”
“Legion…we don’t have long…master wants…if you have her?”
“Soon.”
The haze evaporated from my mind, and the sudden urge to get the hell out of here hit me hard. If only there were a backdoor to this nightmare.
“May I have this dance?”
I pivoted around, facing the man who was bowing to me. He was dressed like the other princes, in a suit made of richly-toned fabric, a sash across his chest, a crown set in his blond locks—but he wasn’t like the others. Not at all. He didn’t fit in. There was something off about him.
“You’re not a natural blond,” I said.
“No.” His dark eyes gleamed, burning with a ferocity that should have scared me.
Instead, I found it comforting. Talk about crazy. I began to laugh hysterically.
“Nyx,” he said, catching my hand. His skin burned against mine, like he was running a high fever—or was hiding a volcano inside of him. “You can fight it.”
I blinked in surprise. “Fight what?”
“The magic woven around this place is strong, but you are stronger.”
I blinked, and for a moment I saw a very different room: one created with dark magic, one in which the handsome princes were in fact devilish creatures woven from shadows. But when I blinked again, the room was as it had been before.
“What was that?” I asked, the after-stench of sulfur burning my nose. “Where am I?”
“In a nightmare realm.”
Now that was the truth. “Who are you?”
“Ronan.”
“We have to get out of here, Ronan,” I said.
A strong, sexy smile twisted his lips. “Indeed.”
We crossed the ballroom, zigzagging between the dancing couples. When we reached the back of the room, we slipped through the door.
“You’re from the Legion, aren’t you?” I asked as we entered the diamond grove. “You’re an angel.”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what…” The truth hit me like a stone wall. “A god. You’re a god.”
He inclined his head. “Yes.” The blond faded from his hair, replaced by hair blacker than mine. His princely attire melted away to reveal a suit of fitted battle leather. “Ronan, god of heaven’s armies.”
Which meant the Legion of Angels belonged to him. I was walking through a nightmare realm with the fiercest of all the gods. That really should have scared me, but it all felt so normal, as though the two of us had done this a million times before.
I looked at him, trying to remember his face. “Have we met before?”
“Yes, we met over two hundred years ago.”
Two hundred years? I’d thought I was missing a couple decades of memories, not centuries.
“I don’t look two hundred years old,” I said.
His eyes slid over me. “No.” Amusement tugged at his mouth. “You don’t.”
“Where was I all those years? And why don’t I remember anything about who I was?”
“You were trapped inside a dark curse. It held you prisoner for nearly two centuries.”
“What am I?”
“You are one of a kind, Nyx,” he said, his words echoing Leon’s. “You are the daughter of a god and a mortal. A demigod, a born angel.”
He paused in his step. His hands closed around my shoulders, and he turned me to face him. As his hands slid down my spine, a wave of power surged across my skin. Liquid fire shot through my body, igniting my magic. White wings dusted with gold blossomed out of my back.
“You were my First Angel, leader of the Legion of Angels,” Ronan said, his fingertips sliding softly across my wings.
Every nerve ending in my body awakened to his touch.
“And then you disappeared, swallowed by that dark spell.” His hand stroked my cheek. “I never thought I’d see you again. I feared…” He sighed, withdrawing his
hands, leaving my body cold.
“Something happened between us. I was more than just your First Angel, wasn’t I?”
“It’s complicated.” He stepped back, putting even more distance between us, as though touching me had been a relapse. “I’m going to get you out of here, Nyx. I promise you. I won’t leave you. Not again.”
Another flash crashed through me, that of me falling through an abyss. Above me, Ronan stood atop a ridge, fighting the five angels surrounding him.
Not angels, I realized. Dark angels, hell’s angels.
Leon was one of them, his wings as blue as his eyes. He jumped past Ronan, agony tearing across his face. Leon dove over the edge of the ridge, coming after me, but the abyss swallowed me up. Magic flashed, and then he was gone. Everything was gone. I was alone, trapped between folds of darkness.
I shook my head, snapping out of the memory. My hands trembling, I met Ronan’s eyes.
“You’re starting to remember.” He looked both happy and saddened by that. “Come on. I feel an exit nearby.”
We ran through the grove of diamond trees, passing the gold trees, and then finally the silver trees. Every time my foot hit the ground, a fresh memory pounded into me. I saw myself meeting Ronan. He trained me, making me into the warrior I would become. He used the magic in me, that perfect balance of divine and mundane blood, to figure out how to give magic to mortals. And that is how the gods gifted humanity with supernatural gifts. That is how the Legion of Angels was born.
The years passed, so many long years. So many almost kisses and proclamations that were never spoken. I could see the love in his eyes, but bending to the pressure of the other gods, he turned away from me.
The memory hammer hit me again. I saw myself taking comfort with another angel. Leon. We were lovers—until Ronan attacked him in a jealous rage, beating him to near death. Leon retreated from the gods, defecting to the demons. He became their first dark angel, his body infused with new power, the power of hell.
And that’s how Ronan and I ended up on that ridge, fighting Leon and the dark angels on the last day of my old life, the day I’d jumped into the abyss to stop the demons’ spell before it consumed the Earth. As that final memory played out, everything in my mind snapped into place. Those cloudy visions of supernaturals beating me bloody had not taken place in that alley in Portland. It had played out two hundred years ago in a battle that had determined the fate of the Earth.
Magic crackled like lightning through the diamond grove, and Leon was suddenly in front of us, barring our path. “Nyx.” He reached out with his hand.
I took a step back from him.
Leon’s gaze flickered from Ronan to me. “You remember.”
“I remember everything.”
“Then you remember what he did to you,” Leon said, glaring at the god beside me.
“I do,” I said, the hurt and heartbreak as fresh as the day Ronan had turned his back on me. A tear slid down my cheek, and I quickly brushed it aside. Cramming decades of memories into one thirty-second burst was a sure ticket to emotional overload.
“Nyx,” Ronan said, setting his hand on my arm.
I winced, retracting from him, from the pain that he’d caused me.
“He broke your heart,” Leon said. “He played with you as gods do, toying with your emotions. And then he tossed you aside.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I washed them away. I was an angel in the gods’ army. I did not cry.
“That’s not what happened, Nyx,” Ronan said.
But I couldn’t shrug off the memory of him turning around and walking away from me—of him telling me we couldn’t be together, not now, not ever.
“I was…afraid,” Ronan admitted, misery saturating his words. “The other gods told me our connection wasn’t right or natural. That we gods could not mix with human blood. Not anymore. And I went along with them. I followed the rules. I ignored my heart. And we both suffered for it.” He stroked small circles into my hand, his voice growing softer and gentler than I’d ever heard from him. “Forgive me, Nyx. I loved you then. And I still do.”
I blinked, clearing the sting from my eyes. “I don’t know if I can forgive you, Ronan.” My voice cracked, my breaths splitting across my sore throat. “Not just yet.” I touched his face.
Ronan set his hand over mine. “Give me a chance to make it up to you.”
“You don’t care about her,” Leon spat. “You threw her out like she was garbage, forcing her to sacrifice herself so you wouldn’t have to. You are a coward, Ronan.”
“No,” I said, reliving the rush of emotions I’d felt that day two centuries ago. “It was my choice. And I refused to let Ronan die. So I jumped.”
Shock rippled across Leon’s face. “How could you sacrifice yourself for him? How could you do that after the way he treated you?”
“Because even after all that, I still love him.”
Ronan’s dark eyes lit up with pure happiness. I’d never seen that look on a god’s face before, let alone the face of the god of heaven’s armies. I didn’t expect I’d be seeing it again anytime soon, so I soaked it up while it lasted.
“That spell was meant for Ronan,” Leon said. “He was supposed to throw himself into the black cloud to sacrifice himself. He was supposed to disappear into an abyss that would strip him of his magic and memories—not you, Nyx.”
“Things don’t always turn out the way we expected,” I told him with a sad smile.
I could feel Leon’s pain, intertwined with his love for me. He’d loved me so much that he’d been willing to sacrifice the Earth to have me.
“I searched for you, Nyx,” Leon said quietly. “I couldn’t find you, but I knew you were alive. I never gave up on you. I’ve spent the last two hundred years looking for you, scouring the Earth.”
“Stealing women in their dreams?”
“It was the only way. No other spell could find you. So I tracked down any woman with locked magic and put them through the trials. Each supernatural you defeated unlocked one of the powers lying dormant inside of you. I knew if you could unlock them all, you would free your magic—and your memories—from the lock that curse put on you.”
“How many women did you torture just to find me?”
“They don’t remember what happened.”
“Except the ones who did. Except the ones who died,” I said.
“I did it all for you.” He stepped forward.
“That doesn’t make it right,” I told him.
“We did worse things during our time at the Legion.”
“We did them for the good of humanity,” I said. “At least I did.”
“Come with me,” he pleaded.
I shook my head sadly. “I’m sorry, Leon. You’ve gone too far, then and now.”
I grabbed Ronan’s hand. Magic burst out from us, cutting through the shadows, exposing an opening in the folds of reality. The exit. It looked like a waterfall made of pure light.
Leon rushed us, but our combined light magic was strong, even here in this nightmare realm. As he hit our halo, he bounced back, unable to get to us. The waterfall of light rushed down, cascading over me and Ronan, pulling us out of the nightmare. The beautiful illusion shattered behind us. Magic flashed, and we landed in my living room. Ronan’s arms closed protectively around me, shielding me as we hit the floor. I tried to stand, but his hold didn’t loosen.
“I’m not letting you go, Nyx,” he said, his words soft butterfly kisses against my ear. “Not ever again.”
Chapter 5
My office in the Legion’s headquarters in Los Angeles had changed very little in two hundred years. Ronan had never filled the role in my absence; he’d only appointed a string of temporary heads. In his heart, I guess he’d never really given up on me. That was more romantic than all the flowers and chocolate in the world.
My office was full of flowers and chocolate too. Hundreds and hundreds of blossoms of three dozen different varieties and three dozen differe
nt colors sat on every free surface in the colossal room. Crates of chocolate boxes were stacked along the walls. There were enough sweets in there to feed me for a decade. When a god did something, he didn’t do it halfway. That went for waging war, as well as for acts of repentance.
Smiling to myself, I turned and looked out of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The Legion headquarters was by far the tallest building in Los Angeles. The city looked so magnificent down below, Magitech lights popping to life in every direction as the sun set below the ocean. Even through the glass window, I could taste the salt in the air. It danced across my tongue, the soft sizzle delighting my newly awakened senses.
The soldiers of the Legion had been surprised when I’d burst into the building this morning in my black leather, my white-and-gold wings spread out behind me. I’d strode down that corridor like I owned the place, my cat Twilight prancing beside me. Appearances were everything in the supernatural world and that went triple for the Legion of Angels. I’d been dead for two hundred years, and I had to show them I was as strong as ever. So I did my walk and watched them drink in the spell of my enchantment. Awe slid across their faces—awe and a hint of terror. I’d been a hard leader in my time. I’d had to be.
I touched the glass window, wishing I could touch the city itself. The scent of burning cinnamon and steel tickled my nose, and then magic boomed like an exploding bomb had gone off in my office. I turned to find Ronan standing beside my desk, silver smoke feathering up from him.
“I see your manners haven’t improved in the last two hundred years,” I commented, folding my arms across my chest. “Just popping in unannounced, making a big show of it with your flashy magic. So like a god.”
“Because I am a god.” He shrugged his massive shoulders and his battle leather creaked deliciously. He looked at Twilight, who was napping on top of one of the chocolate crates. “You kept the cat.”
“I figured it makes me seem more approachable.”
Gods didn’t snort, but I could tell Ronan was tempted to break that little rule. His gaze flickered from my cat to my wings. “You have your wings out.”
