by Ella Summers
But thinking about it now, I realized that I did want it. I wanted to be with Nero forever. And that’s what marriage was. Well, maybe that wasn’t the Legion’s idea of marriage; they used it to create future soldiers with the potential to become angels. But that’s what it meant to me. I wanted Nero to be mine and only mine. I wanted every woman who dared look at him to know what would happen to her if she made a move on him.
“Whoa, Leda,” Harker said, stepping back. “Where did all the wrath suddenly come from?”
I realized rage and wrath and jealously were burning inside of me. That was the Fever, spiking my emotions. My feelings were bleeding off me again, and Harker had caught a whiff of them. It was safe to assume Nero had too.
I wondered what Nero thought of my insanity. There was no one here, no one who had incited these emotions. It was just my own mind, considering the possibility that someone might try to take Nero from me. The thought of it made me murderous.
Gods, the Fever was making me crazy. Nyx had been right. With every passing hour, my emotions were growing more turbulent. And I had five days to go of this. Right now, I could resist. My mind was stronger than my emotions. But how long would that last?
“I hate the Fever,” I growled.
“I heard it’s not all bad.” Harker winked at Nero.
Nero watched me, the magic in his eyes swirling. And just like that, in an instant, my anger and wrath and jealousy melted away, replaced by pure, undiluted lust.
“I was wrong,” I told Nero. Every hard throb of my pulse pumped that lust through my body, from the soft flesh of my lips, to the tingling tips of my toes.
His brows lifted. His lips twisted into a sexy smile.
“Five days is an eternity,” I moaned.
Harker cleared his throat and moved between me and Nero.
I swallowed hard and took a step back from Nero, trying to allow my head to settle. My pulse was still pounding, my skin tingling, like I could feel every whisper of the gentle breeze coming down the corridor, every particle of dust. Every brush of Nero’s lips against my… I stopped, shaking my head. No, that hadn’t happened. I realized I’d taken a step toward Nero again, so I moved back, putting some distance between us.
“You two can’t even keep your hands off each other under normal circumstances. And Nyx wants me to keep you apart when Leda has the Fever.” Harker shook his head like the task she’d set him was impossible.
Maybe it was. Every part of me, every inch of my body inside and out, every beat of my magic, wanted Nero. To be one with him. To join with him. To mark his body and magic and soul as mine. So that everyone knew he belonged to me and me alone.
“I prefer your hard training sessions to this agony,” I told Nero earnestly.
His eyes shone with wicked promises. “A hard training session can be arranged.”
“How hard?”
His voice dipped lower, darker. “As hard as you need it to be.”
Every word he spoke was a whisper of fire across my feverish skin. Any training we did would have to be harder and tougher than ever before. I had a lot of lust to work off.
“How can we train if we’re not allowed to touch?” I gasped.
“I have a sword,” he proclaimed silkily.
My eyes slid down his hard body, tracing every hard muscle, every ridge and valley, as my tongue flicked out and slid slowly across my lips.
“Leda.”
The sound of my name on his lips set off an explosive cascade inside of me. My wings burst out of my back, a sunset tapestry of dark pink and orange and yellow. His dark wings unfolded from his back. The tips of our feathers kissed, and a splash of liquid fire rippled down my wings, igniting every nerve ending in my body. I gasped.
“Oh, for the love of the gods,” Harker grumbled and gave us each a rough shove backward.
I looked up and down the hallway. Seven soldiers were within sight, and they were all watching every move that Nero and I made. That realization jolted me back to Earth. My hair and wings turned as red as my cheeks. I couldn’t believe I’d nearly had sex with Nero in the corridor.
We’ve had sex in more public places, he said in my mind.
Stop it. You’re not helping.
Then how can I help you, my love?
The thought of him helping me out of my clothes was particularly appealing.
A satisfied smile curled his lips. That would be acceptable.
Gods, if I made it through these five days, they would have to declare me a saint.
We were almost at the canteen. As we approached the doors, Angel closed in beside me, strutting like the queen she was.
Nero glanced at her. “That cat has grown considerably since I shipped her to you.”
“It’s all the fine cuisine available here,” I said. “Fish. Seagulls. She’s even caught a wild turkey.”
Nero nodded in angelic approval. “A worthy hunter.”
His approval dissolved the moment his eyes met the track of dirty footprints Angel was leaving on the marble floor. “What has that cat been getting into?”
I gave her a fond look. “Trouble, of course.”
He frowned. “She isn’t even white anymore. You must wash her immediately.”
“Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Try harder.”
“You try getting a cat into a bathtub. The harder you try, the less successful you are.”
“I am completely confident in your ability to command a cat,” he said.
“Wow, great. I’m glad you’re confident. That really helps a lot.”
I took my usual seat at the head table. I frowned at Harker when he moved between me and Nero, claiming the seat between us. He merely shrugged and smiled.
“Cats are notoriously independent, but you have tamed her well,” Nero said to me as Angel sat down at my feet. “Just as you tamed those beasts on the Black Plains.”
“You heard about that?” My heart sank. My mood soured, washing the lust right out of me.
“The whole Legion has heard about it by now,” said Nero. “And the gods too, I’m sure.”
Nero had warned me not to show anyone my unusual ability to control beasts. He’d warned me that the gods would take me captive to use me if they found out what I could do. They’d been trying to regain control of the beasts for centuries without success. They would not pass up the opportunity to realize their goals.
“I didn’t have much of a choice,” I said to him, my voice low. “It was either compel the beasts, or let them eat me and my team. What are the gods going to do about it?”
“Nothing for the moment, but now the cat is out of the bag.” Nero glanced at my cat. “Eventually, the gods will react. And we have to be ready when they do.”
“I’m always ready,” I said. “In fact, I’ve been in a state of constant readiness since I joined the Legion.”
Nero reached for my hand, a sign of support and comfort for what I’d been through—but he froze, then withdrew his hand. Harker was watching us. We weren’t supposed to touch. Kisses, hugs, and even comforting hand squeezes were forbidden. It felt like there was an invisible wall between me and Nero, a wall we could not cross.
“This sucks,” I sighed.
And I wasn’t just referring to my unsatisfied desire. I wanted Nero to be allowed to offer me a comforting squeeze or a pat on the back. And I wanted to do the same for him.
“I can’t wait until the five days are over,” I said.
“Neither can I.”
Right now, his mind wasn’t thinking of comforting squeezes or pats on the back. I could see it in his eyes, the promise of what would happen when the wait was over: the two of us, together, and days of passion as my Fever peaked. He was anticipating it, wanting it. I felt it through the bond that connected us—and it spiked my magic, and my desire.
I cleared my throat. “How was your trip? Did you figure out why the monsters’ numbers are swelling?”
“No,” he replied. “I thought the pat
h would lead to Meda, considering her experiments on monsters and magic, but I found no evidence of her involvement. I did track a monster dealer to the Frontier town of Judgment, and from there onto the plains of monsters. I caught up with him there and interrogated him.”
“What did he say?”
“After several minutes of proclaiming his complete innocence, he admitted to selling monsters to wealthy humans in need of guard animals.”
“People buy monsters as guard animals?” I just couldn’t get my head around that kind of sheer stupidity. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am completely serious, Leda. In fact, two of the monster seller’s clients live right here in New York. And tomorrow morning, we’re going to pay them both a visit.”
16
The Cauldron District
I walked beside Nero in the Cauldron District of New York. A change of pace from the city’s tall skyscrapers, the Cauldron District was an old-money neighborhood populated by wealthy witches living in white stone villas with tall metal fences designed to keep anyone and anything out.
“They must have forgotten that angels can fly,” I commented to Nero.
“Well, at least some of us can,” Harker teased me.
I glanced back at him, frowning. “I can fly. Sort of. I just can’t control which way I fly.”
Ivy, Drake, and Alec laughed. Along with Harker, they made up my chaperone squad.
Honestly, I was surprised that Nyx had let me out of the office to track down monster buyers with Nero, even with this heavy escort. On the other hand, she must have realized I needed to do something, or I’d go stir crazy. And if I got agitated, my emotions would bombard her ward around me, which would reduce its longevity. If Nyx’s ward fell, my emotions would spill out and affect other Legion soldiers in New York and beyond.
“No fence could keep an angel out, flight or no flight,” Nero told me.
I didn’t know about that. A Magitech bubble could keep out an angel, but those required a lot of energy to run. And right now, there weren’t any Magitech generators outside the Legion’s control. We were diverting most of the power to the walls that separated civilization from the plains of monsters. It kept the monsters out and humanity safe. The fate of humanity was definitely a much higher priority than a single person trying to keep out his nosy neighbors.
I surveyed the neat and trim hedges beyond the street-facing fences. They were thick and high enough to keep prying eyes from peering inside.
“The fence might not keep an angel out, but those hedges would slow us down,” I commented.
“They are not mere plants,” said Nero. “They are hedge monsters.”
“The branches move, grabbing and choking anyone who gets too close,” Harker added with unnatural enthusiasm. “And the thorns on the branches are poisonous.”
A moment ago, the hedges had looked so nice. Now they appeared rife with hazards. Clean and proper on the outside, feral on the inside.
“Are hedge monsters actual monsters, or is that just a fanciful name?” I asked.
“They are monsters,” Nero replied. “In fact, they are among the most common monsters sold by monster breeders and traders.”
I shook my head. “I still can’t believe there’s an actual business in selling monsters.”
“Wealthy humans buy them to guard their properties, believing they can control them,” said Nero.
“The gods can’t even control the monsters. What makes these people think that they can?”
Nero shrugged. “Hubris.”
When it came to capital offenses, hubris ranked even higher in the gods’ eyes than buying monsters on the black market.
“Does Wildfoot sell hedge monsters?” I asked Nero.
Wildfoot was the name of the monster trader Nero had interrogated on the Black Plains. He’d obviously given himself that fanciful title, likely considering it a very clever name for a monster merchant.
“Wildfoot used to sell hedge monsters,” said Nero. “But he’s since moved on to more mobile beasts.”
I nodded. “Yes, I’d imagine you can’t very easily redeploy hedges.”
Behind me, Alec snorted.
I turned around to look at him. “Something funny?”
The sunlight bounced off his shiny white teeth. “I never thought I’d see the day where an angel talked about redeploying hedges.”
I flashed him a grin. “Just you wait. I expect I’ll shock you at least five times over before the day is up.”
“I can hardly wait. I love missions with you, Leda.” Alec’s gaze flickered to Nero, then he hastily amended, “Uh, I mean Pandora.”
Legion protocol was pretty strict on these things. You weren’t supposed to call an angel by their first name. Since I didn’t have an angel name yet, that complicated matters somewhat. People were mostly just referring to me as ‘Pandora’ since that’s what I’d put on my jacket. I wondered how long Nyx would allow that to continue. Probably until she could come up with an angel name that fit me and instilled fear into the hearts of our enemies. I didn’t envy her the impossible task of coming up with a name that made people fear me. I could imagine it was giving her a massive headache.
“And what is it you enjoy about my missions so much?” I asked Alec. “Well, besides the enormous honor of being in my presence and basking in my angelic light?”
Ivy made a choking sound.
“Too much?” I asked her.
“You passed ‘too much’ by about twenty times,” she told me.
“I thought I was being ironic.”
“Angels aren’t supposed to be ironic. They’re supposed to take everything completely seriously.”
“Oh, I take a lot of things seriously. Like ice cream.” I glanced at Nero and Harker, an angelic expression on my face. “And doing my wing pushups every morning.”
Neither of them laughed—we were in public, after all—but I knew they really wanted to. I’d found that humor was helping me keep my wild moods under control. A joke here and there deflated the burgeoning tempest of Fever-induced emotions.
Alec was laughing, though. “I enjoy your missions so much because they usually deteriorate into chaos within the first half hour.”
Drake glanced at his watch. “Twenty minutes to go.”
The light caught his watch as he turned it to read the clock face. Angel pounced at the reflected flickers of silver light on the sidewalk.
“Good girl, Angel.” I smiled at my cat. “You show that wayward light who’s boss.”
“You named the cat Angel,” Nero commented, his face impassive.
“You told me to rename her. And I can think of no name more befitting of an angel’s cat than Angel.”
Nero said nothing.
“I don’t think General Windstriker appreciates irony,” Drake told me.
“Nonsense, he has a fantastic sense of humor.” I glanced at Nero. “Show them, honey.”
Nero’s face was deadpan.
Sighing, I shifted my gaze to the monster hedges. “So, all of the people who bought the monster merchant’s guard monsters live in this little slice of privilege tucked away inside the city?”
“His hedge monsters are popular,” said Nero. “Most of the Cauldron District residents bought them, but only two of them splurged on his experimental new monster guard dogs. And Maxwell Plenteous is one of them.”
I read the gold plaque fixed to the iron fence of the house we’d stopped in front of. The gold letters read ‘Maxwell Plenteous’.
“Maxwell Plenteous?” I snorted, which was admittedly not particularly angelic or regal. “He totally made up that name.”
Nero rang the bell. Roughly half a minute later, the gate doors parted. Through the opening stepped a woman dressed in a navy-blue business suit and a wide-brimmed hat with a big navy-and-white polkadot bow. Her high-heeled shoes clicked against the beige cobblestones.
Her eyes widened when she saw us, three angels and their three soldiers. She must never have seen
that many angels in one place. Unable to speak, she merely stared at us. She might have been a bit less shocked if she’d known that Harker was only here to babysit me. Then again, there was nothing comforting in the knowledge that I and my wild magic were more of a threat right now than any monster.
“Do you know who we are?” Harker asked the witch at the gate.
“Yes,” she said cautiously. “Harker Sunstorm. Nero Windstriker.” Her gaze shifted to me. “And the Pandora.”
Oh, I was the Pandora now, was I? I tried to decide whether that was a step up or down.
“We are looking for Maxwell Plenteous,” Nero told her.
“My husband died last night.” Her voice broke. “His dog went berserk and killed him.”
And now I felt bad for mocking Maxwell Plenteous’s name, even though it was his own fault for buying a monster.
“This dog was not a dog at all,” Nero said, undeterred.
The witch’s lip quivered in fear.
“It was a monster, smuggled past the wall into the city,” Nero continued.
Maxwell’s widow looked like she didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make everything worse.
“Where is the beast?” Harker asked her.
“Dead.” She swallowed hard. “Maxwell shot the beast as it jumped on him. The creature died of its wounds shortly after Maxwell did.”
“When did Mr. Plenteous purchase the beast?” Nero asked.
“Last Thursday. The beast was completely obedient—until it went suddenly berserk last night.”
“We need to see your husband’s and the beast’s bodies,” Harker told her.
She stepped aside. “This way.”
We followed her past the gate, following the cobblestone path that cut through the garden. The toolshed behind the house was splattered with blood. A giant furry dead beast was floating facedown in the pool. Maxwell Plenteous’s corpse lay propped up against the fence.
“I was afraid to move them,” the widow said, her voice shaking.
“We’ll take care of it,” Harker assured her. He was already on his phone, calling in a team to come pick up the bodies.
