Mine, I broadcast silently to them.

The women hastily looked away. Nero captured my hand in his. He’d obviously liked my show of outright, territorial force. Such were the ways of the angels.

“You two are creating quite a stir,” Harker commented. “Everyone is staring at you.”

I smirked at him. “They are just admiring Nero’s wings.”

Nero’s new wings were simply stunning, even more gorgeous than they’d been before. New patterns had formed in the tapestry of black, blue, and green feathers. He’d explained to me earlier that Nectar changed the swirls and patterns in an angel’s wings. Great battles and bursts of powerful magic could change them too. They were the story of an angel’s magic.

Harker chuckled. “At least some of that attention was for you, Lieutenant.” His eyes flickered to the pin on my jacket. “I must say that the gods’ magic becomes you. You’re positively glowing. And I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”

He glanced at a group of male soldiers who were casting appreciative looks my way. Nero met their eyes with a cold stare, and they all suddenly became very interested in their breakfast plates.

“You can’t blame them, Nero,” Harker said. “Look at that halo. She is practically lighting up the whole room.” His eyes slid over me with appreciation.

“She is mine.” Nero’s voice was deceptively calm.

Harker met his eyes. “Oh, you’ve made that abundantly clear. Your mark is screaming at me. You are anything but subtle, Nero.”

He’d marked me again upstairs, burning his archangel magic into me. I could still feel it pulsing, absorbing into my blood and magic. When I’d marked him too, he’d given me a very satisfied look and told me that my mark was growing more powerful with my magic.

“Your magic is growing beautifully, Leda,” Harker continued. “I look forward to helping you grow it further.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you hear?” He smiled at me. “I am in charge of training you now.”

Nero was very quiet. He was watching Harker like his former best friend was going to pull out a vial of pure Nectar at any moment and force it down my throat.

Don’t worry. I can take him, I told Nero.

Do not underestimate him, Leda. He is an angel now. He is much more powerful than before.

I looked at Harker. “Your training me—this is Nyx’s orders?”

Harker braided his fingers together, looking very pleased with himself. “This comes straight from the Gods’ Court.”

It seemed our little meeting in heaven had caused the gods to take an interest in me. That wasn’t a good thing. As Nero had reminded me earlier, the gods saw us as little more than cogs in the cosmic machine. Their interest had nothing to do with helping me and everything to do with using me. One of the gods was already interested in using my connection to my brother Zane to hunt him down. That was the god who’d given Harker pure Nectar and instructed him to make me drink it, not caring if I died in the process.

But which of the gods was pulling Harker’s strings? Which god was trying to manipulate me to find Zane? Was it the same one who’d tried to poison me with Venom? It could have been one of the gods who’d voted for me and Nero to live so that I could fulfill that purpose.

But then again, the gods were deviously divine. Harker’s patron god might have voted against me and Nero because he knew how the votes would fall. Or she. Could it be Valora? She did what was best for the gods, humanity be damned. I could totally see her commanding Harker—and him following her commands. She was the Queen Goddess, after all.

Then again, it could be any one of the seven gods. It could even be a god not on the council.

“You are speechless,” Harker said to me.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about him training me. We’d once been friends. I wanted to trust Harker, but he’d already betrayed me. And I would be naive to think that he wouldn’t do it again. Fundamentally, he was a good person. I knew he was. But his ambition was too strong; it drove his actions. What I really wanted was for Nero to train me. I trusted Nero.

The doors to the canteen swung open with a bang, and a soldier stormed into the canteen, running to the head table. He stopped before Harker and declared, “The ocean is rising fast. It’s going to flood the city.”

11 Magic Gone Wild

Harker looked at the soldier. “Who is responsible?”

He asked that because natural weather disasters weren’t our job to fix. The elementals handled them. But stopping the supernaturals behind threats to the Earth’s people was very much our job.

“A water elemental was spotted at the shore,” the soldier reported.

The way he said it made it clear that the water elemental wasn’t trying to stop the tidal wave.

“She is waving her arms around,” the soldier continued. “She is coaxing it, conducting its movements.”

Harker looked at Basanti. “Captain Somerset.”

Harker was putting Basanti in charge of the team, a good choice given her powerful elemental magic.

She nodded, standing. “Claudia, Morrows.” She pointed them out in the crowd. Her eyes found Drake. “Football.” That was his nickname because before joining the Legion, he’d been a star football player. Basanti looked at me. “You too, Pandora. You’re almost as good at averting disasters as you are at causing them.”

It was a compliment. I think.

We rushed out of the room, running to the garage. Claudia hopped into the driver’s seat of a big white truck and immediately revved up the engine and switched on the siren. The garage door slid up, and our truck shot out onto the street. Traffic parted before us. People always made way for the Legion. They knew we were saving lives. Plus, they were afraid of us. People who got in the way of Legion missions were considered as guilty as the criminals we hunted.

In the back seat of the truck, Alec Morrows was sorting through his sizable gun collection. How in the gods’ names did he expect to carry all of those?

When he saw me staring, Alec smiled and petted his enormous pitch black block of a gun. It didn’t look like a usual weapon, but when you saw it, you knew you were staring your own mortality in the face. “Like what you see, Leda?”

I should have known better than to respond, but I just couldn’t help it. “Where did you get that Hellfire?”

The Hellfire was a 20mm RPG that shot magic bullets. Literally. The metal for the bullets had been mixed in the fires of hell, a magic fire hotter than any on Earth. The weapon had powerful dark magic. It wasn’t standard Legion issue. Our magic weapons were powered by light magic.

“I took it off a soldier of hell,” he told me. “I nabbed it before he got off a single shot, so it’s fully loaded.”

That meant ten shots.

“What will you do when you run out of magic bullets?” I asked.

Alec’s grin grew wider. “Kill another soldier of hell.”

He had a very uncomplicated outlook on life. I often wished that I could see the world in such simple terms.

Alec gave the gun a long, affectionate stroke. “She shoots like a demon.”

To Alec, all guns were female.

“We could hit the shooting range when we get back. It will be fun.” He hit me with a cherubic expression. “I’ll even let you shoot my gun.”

“Be careful, Alec,” Drake warned him.

“With what?”

“When flirting with Leda.”

“General Windstriker isn’t here,” Alec said.

“No, but he has eyes everywhere.”

Alec frowned and looked around, as though he’d find Nero hiding in the corner of the truck.

“It’s not General Windstriker you need to worry about, Alec,” Claudia told him. “It’s Leda. If you annoy her, she’ll kick your ass, and there’s nothing you can do to stop her.”

Alec opened his mouth to protest, but then he must have remembered the last time we’d trained together. He was strong and hit like a wrecking ball, but I fought dirty. I grinned at him.