by Ella Summers
“Probably not,” he laughed. “But I happen to be on very good terms with the Master Interrogator, so I think I can avoid being declared a traitor.”
I laughed too. It was a quiet laugh, born from my own uncertainty.
“During your first mission, Damiel fell in love with you,” Jiro told me, his face serious now. “And there was no chance of talking him out of it, even knowing that two angels are never found compatible enough to be married to each other. But it seems that you two beat the odds. It’s almost like it was meant to be. Fate, you know.”
“I’m not sure I believe in fate.”
“There are so many wondrous things in this universe that can’t be explained by mere dumb luck.”
“Maybe they can’t be explained by dumb luck, but how about hard work?” I pointed out.
“Spoken just like General Silverstar’s daughter,” he chuckled.
Jiro’s mention of my father made me wonder once again if he truly was my father. All these years, he’d been manipulating me for his own purposes. And I didn’t really know anything about my mother, nothing besides the story my father had told the Legion, which could have been a lie.
Damiel stepped into the garage and glowered at Jiro. “Are you working or gossiping?” he demanded.
“Hold your horses, your holiness,” his friend replied. “The magic here is all out of whack because of the weird magic shit the towers are shooting up into the sky. It will take awhile for me to calibrate the magic in all these devices.”
“How long?”
“The rest of the night. They should all be ready by morning.”
“I want them ready an hour before first light.”
Jiro sighed. “Of course you do. Yes, sir.” He saluted, then returned his attention to the device he was calibrating.
Damiel hovered over his shoulder and watched.
“There’s nothing you can do, Damiel, to make it go faster, except to get out of my hair. Take your wife out on a date. I packed you something.” He nudged a box toward Damiel with his foot.
“Ammunition?”
“No, a picnic dinner, you psychopath,” replied Jiro, his face horrified. “Why the hell would you bring ammunition on a date?”
“In case monsters attacked. Or dark angels.”
“I’m sure you can handle monsters or dark angels without boxes full of bullets. You’re an angel, after all, and you have magic. Now go show your lady a good time.”
Damiel folded his arms over his chest. “We are in the middle of preparing for a battle operation.”
“And you have a magic dagger that can take you anywhere you want to go. Have it take you far away from me, so I can work in peace.”
“I should supervise. It would be inappropriate for me to leave.”
“Be gone.” He winked at me behind Damiel’s back. “If you want these devices done in time.”
“You really are an insubordinate lout,” Damiel told him.
“And you’re a pain in the ass,” countered Jiro. “Go now, or I’ll tell your beautiful bride every embarrassing story I know about you.”
They locked menacing stares for a few seconds, then laughed.
“Let’s get out of here before he makes you hate me,” Damiel said to me.
“I doubt that’s any longer possible, not after all we’ve been through.”
“Trust me. You do not want to hear Jiro’s stories.”
“No, actually, I think it’s you who doesn’t want me to hear these stories.”
He glossed over that. “Since we’ve being exiled from the garage, take us some place isolated and quiet. Before a battle, I like to calm my mind.”
“I know just the place,” I said.
Then I opened a passage to my favorite secret place on Earth.
Damiel’s eyes scanned our surroundings. “The Silver Shore,” he identified it immediately. “You do realize that this place lies firmly within the plains of monsters, don’t you?”
“And yet monsters never venture out here.” I smiled. “I used to come here as a child. It was close to…to General Silverstar’s territory. It was so tranquil and quiet—a peaceful, safe bubble within the sea of monsters.”
And that was what I needed right now: a place of peace.
“After overdosing on betrayal, I guess I’m in desperate need of a sanctuary,” I told him.
“To be betrayed by the ones you care about…it doesn’t get any easier.” His hand twitched, likely in response to his mind revisiting an old memory. “But you do get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to that.”
I turned to gaze at the Silver Shore. It was the most beautiful place on Earth. The sand on the shore sparkled like silver glitter. It looked so soft that I couldn’t resist. I kicked off my shoes, giving in to the need to feel the sand between my toes. It was velvety, truly as soft as I remembered. I smiled as I dug my toes deeper into the sand, remembering the peace of so many good memories here, drinking them all in.
All the while, Damiel watched me. He didn’t move.
“Take off your boots,” I encouraged him. “Join me.”
“I don’t like sand in my boots.”
“You won’t get sand in your boots, just on your feet.”
“And then the sand on my feet will get into my boots,” he said practically. “And I’ll never be able to get it out again.”
Laughing, I spread a picnic blanket I’d found inside the basket Jiro had packed for us. I set our dinner on the blanket and sat down. Carefully avoiding a tiny pile of sand, Damiel sat down beside me.
“Haven’t you ever had to march through the desert?” I asked him.
“Yes.”
“And how did you keep the sand out of your boots then?”
“I didn’t. I just endured,” he told me. “But now I’m an angel. I don’t have to march across deserts or beaches. I can fly over them.”
“What if you have to march with me?”
“You can fly now.”
“Yes, I can fly. But let’s say I couldn’t. What would you do? Would you let me march alone on the ground as you flew over me?”
“If you still couldn’t fly, then yes, I would do exactly that,” he replied. “Maybe a little sand in your boots would encourage you to learn how to fly so that you wouldn’t have to suffer from sand in your boots anymore.”
I smiled at him. “And what if I don’t mind sand in my boots?”
“Everyone minds sand in their boots.”
“True,” I laughed. “Well, if I had to walk across a sandy expanse, I suppose I’d just take off my boots.”
His forehead crinkled up. “You have an answer to everything, don’t you?”
“Absolutely. It used to confound my teachers, you know. Even if I didn’t know the answer to one of their questions, I could make my creative answer sound very convincing.”
“I bet that never happened.”
“What?”
“Your not knowing the answer,” he clarified. “You were always so clever. Always at the top of the class.”
“Read that in my file, did you?”
“Yes.”
I chewed on that nugget of information. Did my file really state that I was ‘perfect’, or had he simply concluded that from everything in there?
“Does that bother you?” he asked.
“That you’ve read my file?”
He nodded once.
I thought about it for a moment, then said, “No. At least not anymore. You know more about me than I do about myself, but only because I don’t really know myself at all. My life is a lie.”
“Your life is not a lie,” he said. “There have been lies in your past, but this here is real. What we’re doing is real.”
“It’s just another mission, Damiel.”
“I wasn’t talking about the mission, Cadence.”
Jiro’s words echoed in my head: during your first mission, Damiel fell in love with you.
I cleared my throat—and that tho
ught from my head. “Are Jiro’s stories about you really so bad?” I asked Damiel.
“Mostly they are just embarrassing. I wasn’t particularly clever in my youth.”
I couldn’t stop the grin spreading across my face. “Well, now I absolutely must hear these stories from him. I bet they could keep me entertained all night. I should go back right now and demand that he tell me every story he has about you.” I reached for the Diamond Tear.
Damiel caught my hand before it touched the hilt. “You don’t want to do that.”
“No, you don’t want me to do it. I, on the other hand, can hardly contain my curiosity.”
“About me?”
I nodded.
“Why?” he asked.
“Well, we’re married. So we might as well learn all of each other’s dirty little secrets.”
He seemed to mull that over. Finally, he said, “There’s no need to bother Jiro. Ask me whatever you want to know.”
“Anything?”
“Yes.”
I rested my chin on my raised knees. “And you swear to answer truthfully and in great detail any question that I ask?”
“If you will swear to abide by the same conditions.”
“All right. I agree.” I rubbed my hands together. “That wasn’t very clever, Colonel. This deal is entirely in my favor. You already know all my secrets. You knew them even before I did.”
“We shall see,” he replied calmly.
I tried not to feel worried by his absolute serenity. After all, he did know all about me. And though I’d gotten to know him better than most anyone else did, there was still so much I didn’t know about him.
I uncapped a glass bottle and sniffed it. A sweet, potent magical scent flooded my nose. Diluted Nectar drops. Legion soldiers consumed them when they wanted to unwind. Jiro hadn’t put them in our picnic basket by mistake. He was trying to help us break down our barriers, to open up and get to know each other.
I offered the Nectar bottle to Damiel. He shook his head.
I had to admit I was disappointed that he didn’t want to lose control.
“What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?” I asked him.
“I once asked Nyx out on a date.”
Pineapple juice shot out of my nose.
He calmly handed me a napkin.
“And what did the First Angel say?” I asked, wiping up the pineapple juice.
“She turned me down, of course,” he replied instantly and without a shred of emotion, like the confession didn’t bother him at all.
“Did this happen recently?”
“No. The incident transpired a few months into my voluntary four years of servitude at the Legion, before I could officially join,” he said, as though delivering an official mission report. “I was growing restless from the waiting and thought I could speed up the process.”
“By propositioning the First Angel?” I asked in surprise.
“It wasn’t my proudest moment. I had been training hard and was quite fond of my physique. I’d had some success charming a number of ladies, so I was overconfident. Even arrogant. I thought I could charm an angel. Nyx made it clear how very wrong I was.”
“Maybe she was tempted by your offer,” I suggested.
“I highly doubt it.” He spoke without inflection. “Ok, my turn.”
“Fire away, Colonel,” I said and took a bite from my dinner roll.
“What was your first thought when Nyx ordered you to marry me?”
I nearly choked on my roll. “Getting the easy questions out of the way first, I see.”
“Do you wish to be released from our agreement?”
I swallowed down the rest of my roll. “No, you answered my question, no matter how impertinent it was. I’m not going back on my promise.”
“Good.” He folded his hands together and waited.
I uncapped the glass bottle and took a few drops of the Nectar I’d offered Damiel. Well, it turned out that I was the one who needed it.
“How did I feel when Nyx ordered me to marry you… I was shocked, of course. And then, well… I guess I was glad that at least I was being married to someone I could stand…no, wait. That’s not what I mean.
“What I meant to say is you looked out for me, you protected me, even though it was your duty to turn me in. And I know that was all an illusion, but we both thought it was real. It did show what kind of person you truly are inside. And I liked what I saw. I wanted to see more of that person, to get to know you better.
“So I guess I was glad when Nyx ordered us to marry. And I was also kind of scared. Because you’re…well, you. You have this big, bad reputation, and even though I know you’re a good person, I wasn’t sure you’d want to get to know me, if maybe you’d view my presence as annoying. I didn’t know if you’d only protected me because you thought it was the right thing to do, not because you cared about me at all. Or at least not in that way.
“And I figured I would probably just make a fool of myself if I asked you about it, which I just can’t do. That’s not me. I’m supposed to be perfect. I’m supposed to always say the right thing, always do the right thing.
“And then I did make a fool of myself after our mission on the Sienna Sea, when I kissed you just like that. Or at least I thought I’d made a fool of myself until you kissed me back.
“But then again, maybe you were just humoring me. Or, worse yet, you were toying with me, making fun of me for being so…so not perfect and not at all collected and composed. And for having this ridiculous, girlish crush on you.
“I was thinking of you in those days since our first mission. You were in my thoughts, and I just didn’t know why. And here I am again making a fool of myself.”
I knew I was babbling, but I couldn’t seem to stop once I’d started. And only at the end, when the waterfall of words stopped gushing out of my mouth, did I dare lift my gaze to meet his eyes.
After a long silence that seemed to stretch into the middle of the night, he finally opened his mouth to speak.
And I cut in before he could say anything. I didn’t know what had gotten into me. I couldn’t seem to help myself.
“But I dared to hope when Jiro told me…told me…”
My spectacular interruption fell flat.
“Told you what?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I’m sure he was just joking.”
“Tell me.” His voice was quiet, subdued, packed with none of the usual magic. He wasn’t commanding me, and he wasn’t compelling me. He was asking me.
“Well, I did promise to answer truthfully and fully, and so that’s what you’ll get. I bet you now wish you weren’t getting the truth.” I looked down at the Nectar bottle in my hands and laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have drunk so much.”
“You wouldn’t have spoken so freely if you hadn’t.”
“True.” I took another sip, then continued speaking, “Jiro told me you’re in love with me.” Slowly, I lifted my gaze, meeting Damiel’s eyes.
His expression was masked. “Jiro is…”
“Mistaken? Teasing me? Trying to humiliate me? Though I’m doing a damn fine job of that myself right now.”
Damiel captured my fidgeting hands in his. “Jiro is trying to help. It’s what he does and why he’s the only person in this whole wide world besides you that I care about. He tried to help, but he upset you. I will speak to him.”
I blinked. “I’m confused.”
“Clearly,” he chuckled.
“The Nectar seems to have muddled my mind, Damiel. You need to spell it out for me.”
“I will speak to Jiro about upsetting you. You see, speaking to someone is what we’re doing right now.”
“I know what ‘speaking’ means, thank you.”
He shot me a wicked look. A cat who had run away with a stolen tuna fish sandwich could not have looked more pleased with himself.
“Except in Jiro’s case, our conversation will be decidedly more one-sided. I will t
ell him off for upsetting you.”
“I’m upset?” I asked.
“Aren’t you?”
I frowned. “Is this some kind of interrogation mind trick?”
“You tell me.”
“You’re making my head hurt,” I growled.
“That’s the Nectar.”
“My mind’s not so hazy that I don’t realize what you’re doing.”
“Which is what?”
“I’ll tell you once I can remember.”
“Let me clear up something right now, Princess.” I’d never seen his face more serious, not when interrogating a prisoner, not even when commanding his soldiers. “I am displeased with Jiro because his confession was not his to make. It was mine. Cadence Lightbringer, I am in love with you.”
18
Confessions of an Angel
I am in love with you.
Damiel’s words echoed in my ears.
I blinked. “What?”
“So deeply have I fallen, in fact, that after our mission, when I investigated your father and learned he was setting you up to marry one of his men, a Legion officer in his pocket, a spy for him, I had to act. I was sure you wouldn’t believe me about your father’s machinations if I told you. I knew General Silverstar was actively working to turn you against me.
“So I did the only thing I could: I had the Legion test our magic. Considering our shared magical peculiarities, our Immortal heritage, I knew there was a reasonable chance we were magically compatible, no matter that angels weren’t ever compatible with each other. And if you married me, you wouldn’t be married to one of your father’s spies. You would be free. And I was right. We were compatible. When the First Angel saw our results, she predictably ordered us to marry.
“And so I manipulated the Legion, the First Angel, everyone—all for my own selfish reasons. Because I didn’t want your father to marry you to one of his spies. I had to do it, even if, after learning what I’d done, you decided that you never wanted to see me again. At least I could save you from General Silverstar’s scheme.”
My throat tightened. “Damiel…”
“But I hoped I would see you again. I selfishly hoped for a chance to win your heart.” He lowered to his knees before me. “I have wronged you. I manipulated everyone and everything in order to marry you. And I now await your judgment.”
