by Ella Summers
“Could you stop that?” I whispered.
“Stop what?”
“Breathing.”
“You want me to stop breathing?”
“It tickles.”
His eyes twinkled with amusement.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“You’re ticklish. That wasn’t in your file.”
“It’s not something I like to advertise.”
He nodded. “I understand. It’s a weakness. You want to hide that.”
“Right.”
“And yet you told me.” The delight still hadn’t faded from his eyes.
“I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he agreed. “An angel cannot afford to show weakness.” His voice dropped. His head dropped too, to whisper into my ear, “But I’m glad you confided in me.”
His breath sent hot shivers across my skin.
“Ok. Well, then.” I realized my hand was touching his back. I dropped it. “Now that that’s cleared up, could you stop breathing?”
He snorted. “You make bold demands.”
“I know you can hold your breath.”
“I can, but with my breath held, I can’t smell all that well. And then how will I know when the patrol has passed?”
“You can hear them.”
“I prefer to hold on to as many of my senses as possible. I don’t wish to unnecessarily cripple myself. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course.” I didn’t sigh, not even a little. We were standing so close, he would have felt it.
“Unless there’s another reason, besides your ticklish face, that being so close to me makes you uncomfortable.” His brows lifted, inviting me to elaborate.
“No. Not at all.”
“Is your neck as ticklish as your face?” His eyes dropped, his gaze following the contours of my throat, the motion so smooth that it felt like a visual caress.
My heart stuttered. “I beg your pardon?” I managed to croak out.
“You could turn your back to me. Then I wouldn’t be breathing on your face,” he explained.
The thought of Damiel behind me made me nervous, and not because I was afraid he’d stab me in the back.
“But if you were behind me, you’d be breathing down my neck. Which is also ticklish.”
His brows lifted. “What bizarre weaknesses you have.”
He turned his back to me. I was behind him now.
He wasn’t breathing on me any longer—or, worse yet, looking at me. But now I had nowhere to put my hands. This small cave was a tight fit, and he filled all the space in front of me. I couldn’t wrap my arms around him and hug him from behind. Nor could I put my hands on his shoulders. I couldn’t fold them in front of myself; that would have put my hands level with his butt, and then he might think I was trying to cop a feel. I didn’t want to press my chest against him, which I’d have to do if I folded my arms behind myself.
So I settled for folding my arms across my chest, which meant I was poking him in the back. It wasn’t ideal, but at least it also wasn’t intimate.
He snorted softly in response to my decision.
I suppressed a sigh, which he surely felt at our close proximity. Things had been so much simpler when I’d been afraid of him, when I hadn’t had this ridiculous crush on him. My feelings, my attraction to him, was making me second-guess and overanalyze everything I did.
We passed the rest of our time in the cave in silence. Eventually, the Hive patrol passed us by, and so Damiel and I emerged from our hiding spot and climbed to higher ground.
The patrol was nowhere in sight, but what we saw was far more unsettling. We stood in the middle of a wilderness, right at the border between sea and land. Behind us, the water stretched on as far as I could see. And before us, across the prairie, an enormous pillar of light shot up high into the sky.
Magic. Magic was swirling in the sky. The Hive was brewing up one hell of a spell.
12
Before Gods and Demons
Magic swirled overhead like a growing storm. This was definitely not your everyday, ho-hum, natural occurrence. The magic pillar of light that shot into the sky was coming from the direction of the city Illias had described to us. That city was a good place to start trying to figure out what was going on here—and to find a way into the Hive’s fortress. Chances were good that fortress was at the epicenter of this magic spell.
And so Damiel and I traveled across the prairie expanse, toward the city. People sometimes said the road to hell was paved with good intentions, but this road was paved with more traditional materials, namely asphalt. The hot sun bounced off that asphalt, drenching me in sweat. I might have been fireproof—most of the time—but even angels sweated.
Damiel glanced at me as we walked. “I bet this isn’t how you pictured your honeymoon: on an enemy world, dressed and armed for battle.”
“It’s a very different sort of honeymoon,” I agreed.
“But somehow very fitting for an angel.”
“Yes.”
I liked this part of Damiel, the lighter, more humorous side. The side that only came out when he let his guard down and opened up to me, when he showed me the man inside, the man behind the angel mask.
After what he’d done for me in the guardian spirits’ test, I knew he was honorable, but honor wasn’t everything. I liked that Damiel had humor as well as honor.
“No, this isn’t how I pictured my honeymoon,” I told him. “I thought I’d know the groom better, but I hardly know anything about you.”
“What would you like to know?”
“About your family. You’ve never mentioned them.”
“It was from a different life, Cadence. A life before the Legion.”
I could have sworn I’d caught a hint of sadness in his voice as he spoke.
“They are all dead,” he told me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I shouldn’t have pried.” I hastily looked away.
“Wait.”
I turned back to meet his cerulean stare.
“You should know,” he said.
“If it’s too painful…”
He chuckled darkly. “Hasn’t the Legion taught you anything? Pain makes us stronger.”
“You don’t have to be strong, Damiel. Not about this. Not about losing your family.”
But he was undeterred. “I want you to know about my past. It might help you make sense of who I became. The angel I am today.” He drew in a deep breath, his chest heaving, like he would need all the air on this world to tell me his tale. “I remember the Earth that was, an Earth before the gods and demons brought their Immortal War here, an Earth before the monsters came.”
Wow. He was old. Much older than I’d thought.
“I was just a child back then, when the demons came to the Earth. They were the first deities we saw. I later found out that some of the gods had made secret visits to the Earth for years, watching us, studying our world. The demons learned that the gods were here, and so they sent in their army. Unlike the gods, they didn’t do it with any amount of secrecy. They made their presence known to humanity and to the gods alike. And that is how the Earth became just another battlefield in the Immortal War.”
“My father has told me of these days, the days of old Earth,” I said. “He was twelve when the war came to our world.”
“I was five,” Damiel said. “Where did your father live when the war came?”
“Berlin, just as he does now. But he says the city was very different then.”
“The whole world was different then. I lived in old New York back then—a New York before gods and demons, before monsters and Magitech walls. And then the Immortal War came to our world. The demons knew the gods wanted our world. They didn’t know why, but they made full use of the gods’ need to own the Earth in order to lure them in. And then the demons sprang the trap.” His face hardened. “It was magic explosives. Soon, only ruins remained where New York and five o
ther major cities had once proudly stood. The demons’ traps killed only a few gods, but they killed many humans. Millions died in that attack. My parents died in that attack.”
I set my hand on his. “I’m sorry.”
He did not draw away from my touch. “My parents died, but my brother Evander and I survived. We climbed out of the rubble that had once been our home. We hitched a ride on a train. Back then, the tracks ran all the way across the country. Back then, there were no plains of monsters. At least not yet.”
“Where did you and your brother go?”
“We went north, away from any large cities. Evander was thirteen, several years older than I was. And he was smart. The demons and gods clashed a few times while we were traveling, their battles lighting up the skies in all directions. Evander knew the demons were targeting the cities. So we hopped off the train and hiked deep into the woods, away from everything. We lived there for many years, safe from the battles. Hunting and foraging. He took care of me.”
Damiel went quiet.
“What happened?” I asked him.
“The gods and demons had brought their battle beasts with them to Earth, animals under the deities’ control. Every god or demon soldier had at least one battle beast. Beast and deity fought side-by-side on the battlefield, against their enemies. They’d been using the beasts for centuries. They’d had them completely under their control for centuries.
“But then something happened. It was several years after Evander and I fled the ruins of New York. Somehow, the gods and demons lost control of their pets. The beasts went wild, feral. They streamed across the lands, killing anything and everything they found. Destroying cities, towns, and villages alike.
“At the same time, the lands grew wild themselves. The Earth’s weather turned on its head. There was pouring rain in the desert, blizzards in summer, scorching heat in winter. Jungle vines spread across the desert, covering the sands completely with green foliage. In one place, the ocean rose up and swallowed hundreds of islands; in another, the rocky land spread across the sea, drinking up the water until there was none left. Fires burned across the prairies, scorching the land black. And everywhere you looked, there was death.
“The woods where Evander and I lived were no longer safe. Nowhere on Earth was safe. Monsters attacked our cabin. My brother died defending me. He could have run away if not for me, but I was too slow. Too weak. He held them off to give me time to get away. He shouted out for me to run. And I did.”
Guilt marred Damiel’s beautiful face.
“If you had stayed, the monsters would have killed you too,” I told him.
“Maybe. I spent years going through that day in my head, over and over again, trying to find something I’d missed. Some way I could have saved him. In that way, the two of us are a lot alike.”
“Because I like to torture myself?” I gasped.
“Because like you, I don’t believe anything is truly impossible. I could have found a way to save Evander. But I was too weak. Too stupid. And because of that, the only person I had left in the world was gone. I was twelve years old. I had no one and nowhere to go.
“But I wasn’t the only one. The war had left thousands of children orphaned and homeless. I’d heard of a nearby camp of humans, a safe haven where monsters didn’t go. We feared it was a myth, but Evander and I were about to go there when we were attacked by monsters. I made my way there alone now. And what I saw shocked me.”
“What was it?”
“A wall of magic that repelled the monsters. The beasts stalked before it, but they never came close enough to touch it.”
“The first Magitech barriers,” I said.
“Yes. The generators were enormous then, and the walls were small, hardly large enough to protect a few buildings. The monsters prowled in front of them for most of the night, but many of the beasts slept during the day. The people of that town let me in while the monsters were sleeping. And I lived there, in that tiny haven of civilization, for the next few years. Over time, our witches learned to make more powerful Magitech machines. The town grew. And so did other havens of humanity. Years passed. I was eighteen now.
“And then one day, all the monsters outside our wall burst into nothingness. They dissolved before our eyes. Some time later, we heard the monsters had been exterminated from many cities and pushed back from others. We learned that walls had been built over the years to block the beasts, walls powered by generators much bigger than our own. Humanity had reclaimed a small part of our fallen world. Our town was within one of these reclaimed territories. When the wall went up, the monsters were purged instantly.
“There were victory celebrations. We had only taken back a small piece of what we’d lost, but hope blossomed inside the ruins of humanity. Slowly, the natural elements on the right side of civilization fell back into harmony. Beyond the walls, the monsters and weather was still as wild as ever, but we had reclaimed something.
“There were cheers for the gods, who’d finally sent the demons away. The gods had put a wall between us and the monsters. We’d all forgotten that some of the monsters who’d ravaged our world had once been the gods’ beasts; people only remembered that the demons had brought the monsters to Earth. The Pilgrims, voice of the gods’ message, told humanity that the demons had set the monsters on us. That the demons had destroyed our world. They said the gods had saved it—and saved us along with it.
“People spoke of an important new organization, the gods’ earthly army. The Legion of Angels. The Legion had been instrumental in pushing back the monsters.
“The Legion’s soldiers had once been human, just like most of us, but the gods had given them magic. It was supposed to be a grueling, difficult process that many did not survive, but I didn’t allow that to deter me. I had to join. I had to gain power to be strong, to take care of myself and anyone I cared about. I had seen too many people die. I’d been too powerless for too long.
“I wanted to fight the demons who’d ruined my life, my family, and my world.”
So that was why Damiel had joined the Legion of Angels: to protect himself and others, to get revenge on the demons, and push them out. Even now, the urges which had brought him to the Legion guided his actions. That’s why he hunted down any and all traitors to the Legion.
“I traveled far to the Legion of Angels, which back then was only a single office in Los Angeles. However, Nyx would not allow me to join until I was twenty-two, when my body would be ready to receive the Nectar.”
The Legion had long since determined that twenty-two was the optimal age for a soldier to join. At that point, the human body had the highest chance of surviving the gods’ Nectar and gaining magic.
“Nyx sent me away, but I was persistent. I refused to leave. Finally, I managed to convince her to let me stay. To train and work and serve the Legion before sipping the Nectar. So for four years, I cleaned and cooked and squeezed in any training whenever I could. They thought I would give up and go away, disgusted with these menial tasks. But I kept going. And the day I turned twenty-two, I took my first sip of the gods’ Nectar and became a soldier in the Legion of Angels.
“The Legion had grown a lot in the four years since I’d gone to them. The First Angel had two other angels already. One was Leon Ironfist. He taught me, trained me. He was like a big brother to me, in many ways so much like my own brother Evander. Leon was the reason I became an angel. He trained my body and mind. He made me ready. His betrayal was unexpected—and it cut deep.
“And so many of the Earth’s cities were rebuilt, but some things couldn’t be fixed.”
Like himself, he meant. He thought he couldn’t be fixed.
I finally truly understood why Damiel didn’t trust anyone. He’d thought of Leon Ironfist as a brother, as the one he owed everything to, the one who’d made him who he was—and then Leon had betrayed him.
“Not everyone is a traitor,” I told Damiel.
“Hasn’t our experience with Colonel Spellstorm tau
ght you anything? You can’t trust anyone.” He cleared his throat and turned a flirtatious grin on me. “Well, except me. You can trust me. I’ll look out for you, Princess.”
Damiel’s hand brushed against my arm—a quiet, ruthless sensuality that ignited my senses.
“Stop it,” I snapped.
Every word was a lie. I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted him to continue. I wanted to see what he’d do next.
“Stop what?” His smile was crooked and charming.
“Stop flirting with me. You’re using it to cover up your pain.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He touched my arm again, and it felt like a kiss of fire caressing my skin.
“You need to confront your feelings.”
“Gladly.” His brows arched and his gaze slid down the length of me.
“Not those feelings. I’m talking about your fear of betrayal.”
“How about we instead discuss your fear of commitment?”
We stopped moving. His hands closed around my arms, his skin hotter than the sun-scorched asphalt.
“Fear of commitment?” I asked.
“To me.”
“We’re married, Damiel. You can’t get much more committed than that.”
“Our marriage was an assignment, Cadence. The Legion ordered us to marry, so you did it. But I sense your heart isn’t really in it.”
“Is yours?” I countered. “Is your heart really in it?”
Chuckling, he leaned into me. “When I kissed you back in Darkstorm’s fortress, you liked it.”
“I…”
His lips were so close to mine, all I had to do was move in an inch closer. My head was spinning.
Damiel set his hands on my face. “I liked it. I liked the blush of your cheeks. The taste of your lips. The feel of your impatient hands on me, of your nails digging into my back, pulling me in.”
My heart rattled my ribcage.
“The pop of your heartbeat pulsing through you, into me.” He pulled me closer, and my chest slammed into his. “The blossom of blood rising beneath the surface of your skin.”
“Damiel, you’re changing the subject,” I said, my voice uneven, my breaths strained. “You’re trying to distract yourself and me from your pain, instead of facing it. You don’t have to distrust everyone. You can trust me. You can share with me.”
