And it worked. Every human at the festival was one hundred percent fixated on Nero. They were so enthralled by him that they didn’t realize how unnatural it was for the skylight to move with him, like a spotlight framing an actor on stage.
A few overly enthusiastic young women were moving toward him. Their eyes wide with appreciation, they took in the sight of his immortal beauty, of his larger-than-life body and his dark, glossy wings. In a few more seconds, they’d throw their panties at him.
A low snarl tugged back my lips. I felt a rush of heat, of adrenaline-pumping jealousy. All for no reason, I told myself. Nero was mine. I couldn’t tear these women to pieces for looking at him, and I certainly couldn’t blame them. Nero was a sight to behold, as gorgeous as he was deadly.
But my rational brain was having a hard time reconciling with the dark, deeply possessive instincts of my primal brain. I didn’t like the way they were undressing my angel with their eyes. I could smell the hormonal shift in the air, the thick musk of lust wafting off them.
“Pandora,” Nero said. My nickname flowed off his lips like a little drop of heaven.
His eyes met mine, lit up by magic, shining like a forest after a rainfall.
And then I saw nothing else. No one else. His admirers faded away. Everything faded away except Nero. I moved toward him, as though there were an invisible string between us, an irresistible force drawing me in.
I stopped in front of him. He lifted his hand and brushed it softly down my face, his touch like a million tiny fireworks going off under my skin. It had been entirely too long since I’d seen him. He’d been away on a mission for weeks.
Nero didn’t kiss me. He hardly touched me; his hand was as soft as a feather on my cheek. As it dipped lower to trace my neck, my pulse quickened, pounding beneath his fingertips. His eyes dropped to my throat, to my throbbing vein. From the subtle flicker of silver in his eyes, I knew he wanted to drink from my well, to merge our blood and magic. I wanted him too. My blood burning, I wet my lips. I felt myself turning, presenting my neck to him. The silver in his eyes glowed stronger.
He was close, so close that I could feel his pulse tearing through me, rocking me. The rhythm of my heart synched with his. His hand caught on the strap of my halter top, lingering there for a moment. I arched toward him, an invitation. And a demand.
But he stepped back. “I saw what happened with that bounty hunter.”
There was no reprimand in his voice. There was only amusement, as well as a little pride. After all, he’d been the one to teach me how to make the Legion’s rules work to my advantage.
The thought of Jinx was enough to snap me out of my daze. I was suddenly very self-conscious about the scene we were making—and even more so, about all the eyes trained on us. No, on Nero. The whole crowd was frozen, bewitched by the angel in their midst. And I’d been bewitched right along with them. I gave myself a mental slap for getting so caught up in Nero’s aura. It’s just that he was such a beautiful diversion.
“You are beautiful,” he told me, his hand tracing down my throat. He caught the end of my braid between his fingers. He spoke the next bit, low, intimate, the words only for me. “And your hair is glowing.”
Damn it. My hair had always been somewhat of a nuisance. Back before I’d had magic, it used to glow just a little, enough to mesmerize vampires. I’d never figured out why it did that. To be honest, it wasn’t a great superpower. It meant I couldn’t stay around a vampire for too long before he inevitably tried to open up my throat and drain me dead.
But since I’d joined the Legion, since I’d drunk the gods’ Nectar and gained their gifts of magic, things were changing. I was changing. And my hair was changing right along with me. It glowed brighter now, the pale blonde changing pink, blue, and any number of other colors. It did that when I used too much magic or my emotions were running hot. It wasn’t hard to guess which one was the culprit this time.
In the last year, I’d learned to control my thoughts better, to hide them. Angels were telepathic, after all. But my hair didn’t hide anything. It changed to show exactly how I was feeling, like a mood ring, a window into my soul. Nero liked it. He’d learned to read the colors and glow, to gauge what I was feeling from the tone of my hair.
“Your hair is beautiful, Leda,” he told me. “But you need to calm it. You need to make it go back to normal.”
I swallowed hard, even as my face flushed hot with embarrassment. He was right. I was making a complete fool of myself.
“You’re not making a fool of yourself,” he said. “You’re mesmerizing everyone. And if you don’t dim your halo, I will have to kill those men.”
I followed his hard glare to a group of men gawking at me, their eyes dilated wide. They were entranced. That was my siren magic at work. Humans had no resistance to it. I hadn’t even realized that I was projecting my mood, that I’d dipped into my magic.
“You can’t kill people for how they’re looking at me,” I told Nero.
Nero gave me a pitiless look that said he could and would do just that.
“There are rules,” I said. “You can’t attack humans who aren’t a threat to the gods’ order.”
Nero was unrelenting. “As you just demonstrated, I can attack them if they attack me first.”
“You fight dirty, General Windstriker.”
“You’re rubbing off on me,” he replied, his words loaded with wicked intentions.
My thighs clenched at the rush of heat that crashed over me. Cruel, hard reality hit me like a train: there was too much space between us, too much clothing. Even though every fiber of my being, every cell in me, every instinct, was screaming at me in desperation to do something about that, I stayed perfectly still. I held my hands at my sides as what precious little remained of my rational brain tried to put the reins on the impatient, insatiable nymphomaniac who’d taken hold of me.
Nero leaned in closer. “Pandora, if you don’t tone down your magic, I can’t be held responsible for the consequences.”
His voice was deep and dangerous, teetering on the edge of civilization, between man and beast. I was sorely tempted to not tone down my magic, to not get it under control. Just to see how long he would hold out—and what would happen when the dam of his self-control finally broke.
But that would be irresponsible with all these humans here, not to mention unprofessional. So I concentrated and reeled in my siren magic, retracting the invisible tendrils of enchantment that had wound around the crowd. Of course, Nero wasn’t making it easy, not with the way he was looking at me. Putting away my magic felt wrong, unnatural, like the rub of sandpaper on raw flesh, but I clenched my teeth and bore it. I took several long, deep breaths, and the light in my hair went out.
“Now come with me,” Nero said.
I followed him away from the crowds, behind a row of buildings to a quiet street. There wasn’t another soul in sight. By the time we’d walked a few blocks, the carnival music started up again, conversations resumed, and the clinks and clanks of the games were more numerous than ever. It was as though Nero’s arrival had never happened. Had he wiped the memory from everyone’s mind?
We reached the end of the street. He turned to face me and just waited.
I folded my arms across my chest. “I am not having sex with you in a dark alley.”
“Your thoughts say otherwise,” he said in a silky voice.
“I do have some shame.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” I said defiantly.
His hand darted out, and my breath caught in anticipation. An easy, arrogant smile twisted his lips as he plucked a leaf out of my hair.
“You didn’t feel that way back in New York,” he said. His hand was on my back now, stroking it gently.
My face went hot at the memory of us having sex in a dark alley. “Ok,” I admitted. “You’ve got me. I have no shame.”