At least not when it came to Nero. The moment he’d landed at the festival, I realized how desperately I’d missed him.
Responding to my thoughts, he told me, “I missed you too.” He dipped his mouth to my neck, kissing me softly. “I could see only you in the crowd of hundreds.” His mouth paused before mine. “You are a light that blinded me to all else, that outshone everything, making it all fall away and disappear into the shadows.”
I smiled, basking in the light of his words, lapping up every seductive syllable.
“I’ve been dreaming of you,” he told me.
“I’ve been dreaming of you too.” Heat blossomed in my core at the memory of what we’d done in those dreams.
“We’re connected,” he said. “Our magic, our minds, our bodies are drawn together, wishing to be one. Always. In sleep, my mind reached out to you, calling you to me.”
And I’d come. Again and again, night after night, my mind had found him. In our dreams, we’d been free. Free from the Legion, free from the gods, free from humanity.
“Without borders or boundaries, no propriety, no rules,” he added to my thoughts. “Connected by love, driven by passion.”
His words were intoxicating. It was too easy to get caught up in them.
I cleared my throat. “What’s brought you to Purgatory, General? Chasing down rogues and thieves for the First Angel?”
Nero was Nyx’s second, the number two in the Legion of Angels. There were other archangels, but she trusted him the most. His work for her, all those trips all over the world, kept him busy. It felt like he was away more than he was home.
“No, I didn’t come here for Nyx. I came here for you.” He didn’t sound amused by my joke. “I came home to find you weren’t there.”
Nero and I lived together in an apartment in New York’s Legion of Angels office, where I worked.
“I left you a note,” I said.
“I didn’t want a note.” His voice was almost a growl. “I wanted you.”
If I hadn’t known better, I would have called the expression on his face a pout.
“What’s the matter? Was there no one to torture in training?” I teased him.
Training with Nero was torture. You gave it your all, and if you somehow managed to be on your feet at the end, he made you go again, declaring if you could still stand, you hadn’t trained hard enough. Of course, if you weren’t still standing, you also hadn’t tried hard enough, and he made you keep going anyway. That was Nero Windstriker in a nutshell. Nero loved me and was only trying to make me stronger, so I could level up my magic. I tried to remember that when I was cursing his name in training.
Nero leaned in and growled against my lips, “Are you mocking me, Pandora?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you how dangerous it is to incite an angel?”
My heart skipped as his hands closed around my shoulders. Smirking through my racing pulse, I said, “I seem to remember a certain self-serving angel lecturing me about that.”
“Self-serving?” he repeated.
I nodded. “Very.”
“Sometimes, Pandora, I don’t think you know what’s good for you.”
“You are good for me,” I said, looping my arms over his shoulders.
“No one in their right mind would fall in love with an angel.”
“Being in your right mind is completely overrated.” I took his hand in mine, giving it a squeeze. Then I met his eyes and said seriously, “Being right in the heart is much more important.”
I leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Tempting as seven minutes in heaven with Nero was, I needed to go find Calli and my sisters. They would be back from dropping off the Leech soon. And frankly, I didn’t think seven minutes was nearly enough time. Sex with Nero was not a quick once-off. It was a long, savoring affair.
I started walking back to the carnival, giving my hips a good sway. I threw a glance over my shoulder at Nero. “You coming?”
Nero didn’t follow me. He was just suddenly right beside me, as though he’d materialized there. Man, he moved fast.
As we walked, Nero didn’t hold my hand—that wasn’t very Legion-like—but he did glare at any man who dared to glance my way. I knew I should have felt bad for the poor guys, but I didn’t. I liked that I belonged to Nero and that he belonged to me. Besides, I might have given the panty-throwing women a glare or two of my own.
I scanned the crowd for my family, but they were nowhere in sight. They must have still been processing the Leech at the sheriff’s station.
A cloud of pink fluff attracted my attention. I cut over to a nearby food booth and bought the biggest bundle of cotton candy that they had. Then I handed it to Nero with a smile.
He looked down at the big fluffy bundle of pink cotton candy in his hands, completely perplexed. And so adorable.
“It’s cotton candy,” I said helpfully.
“I know what it is. The question is, Pandora, what is it doing in my possession?”
“Even angels have to eat. And what’s better than something light, fluffy, and sweet? Just like an angel.”
The look he gave me promised his revenge would be far sweeter. I almost shuddered thinking about our next training session. And yet it was so worth it. Nero was a very elegant, very proper guy. He’d been groomed to be an angel since he was born. Seeing him hold a bundle of pink cotton candy was priceless. I took out my phone and snapped a photo for posterity.
“I’ve killed people for less than this,” he grumbled, low. I wasn’t sure I was supposed to hear it.
I tore a piece off the cotton candy and ate it. “Oh, come on. You’ll want something to show your kids someday to prove you’re a fun, approachable kind of guy.”
He said nothing. The annoyance in his eyes went out. His face was completely blank.
I guess I’d hit a nerve, pushing him too far. You never knew with angels. One moment you were handing them cotton candy and the next they were chaining you to an interrogation chair. Time to move on.
“Let’s check out the games,” I said quickly. “Maybe my family is there.”
We walked in silence toward the flashing epicenter of the carnival, its highlight the gigantic, flashing, multi-deck carrousel. His silence was even more pronounced by its contrast to the cheesy, upbeat music.
Finally, as we passed the dunk tank, he broke that silence. “Angels don’t typically endeavor to be fun and approachable.”
I smiled. “Of course not. Quite the opposite, actually. The Legion puts angels on a pedestal, above everyone else. You are supposed to be unattainable, perfect, professional. And mercilessly lethal. Let’s not forget that one.”
I wasn’t being facetious. Not this time. I was dead serious. Nero was all those things. But he was also more. Much more.
“We angels can’t afford to show weakness. Not even to our children. For those of us who have them,” he added. His voice was clinical, detached.
Something compelled me to ask, “Do you want children?”
He met my eyes. “Yes.”
I blinked, turning away from the intensity of that emerald stare. Yet I could still feel him watching me, the weight of his eyes burning into me, as I scanned the game booths.
“Want to give it a try?” I indicated a tower of tin cans you had to topple by throwing a ball at them.
“No.”
Angels didn’t get to choose the person they married, the person with whom they had children. That was all arranged by the Legion and their tests— tests that predicted which pairings were most likely to produce offspring with the greatest potential to later become angels. I’d never really thought about what would happen when the Legion found Nero a magically-compatible soldier.
Ok, let’s cut the bullshit for a moment. I had not wanted to think about it. And nothing had changed. I still didn’t want to think about it.
I pointed at another game that involved hitting blinking lights with a toy foam sword. “How about that one?”
He looked offended at the suggestion.
“How else will you impress me with your manly prowess?” I teased him.
“I have better ways of doing that.” The look in his eyes was dangerous.