Dragon's Storm (Legion Of Angels #4)(13)

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Damiel said brightly.

A flash of light flared up, as bright as a star. I shielded my eyes. When I opened them again, all that remained of Raven’s companions was a cloud of ash floating slowly down on him like black snow.

I frowned at Damiel. “You weren’t supposed to kill any more vampires.”

He shrugged. “They were witnesses.”

I looked at Nero.

“He’s right. They saw him. They had to die.”

Nero was a lot more like his father than he cared to admit. He was channeling his inner angel now, watching Raven with the cool patience of a predator stalking its next meal. By the time Nero spoke, the vampire was hyperventilating, impressive considering that vampires didn’t need to breathe.

“Tell me about Cadence Lightbringer,” Nero said.

“The angel?”

“You saw her nearly two hundred years ago, days after her supposed death.”

“I was human back then.” The vampire’s left eye twitched erratically. “Memory’s a bit fuzzy.”

A psychic blast shot out of Nero, slamming Raven against the wall. “Where did you see her?”

“I saw her wandering in the Western Wilderness. Dehydrated, starving, and dirty. Her body was covered in cuts caked over with dirt and blood. Her frayed wings dragged on the ground. She didn’t have the strength to fly. She didn’t even have enough magic left to retract her wings again.”

I recognized the calculation in Raven’s eyes. I knew his kind. He was the sort of person who built his fortune on the misfortune of others. He had neither morals nor compassion.

“You captured her. You were going to sell her like some animal, weren’t you?” I realized, my eyes burning with anger.

“Your hair,” he gasped. “What the hell is wrong with your hair?”

I glanced down at my glowing braid. A red light was spreading up from the tips.

“Never mind that. It does that sometimes.”

The vampire definitely minded. In fact, he couldn’t look away from my glowing hair. His eyes were locked on it, transfixed. It was a good thing Nero’s magic had him pinned to the wall, or he’d have probably tried to bite me by now.

“What happened to Cadence Lightbringer?” I asked him.

His eyes were dilated. He didn’t blink. “She escaped her cage one night. I followed the trail of blood, but when I reached the end, she was gone. She’d vanished. I never saw her again.”

He spoke the words in a dull monotone. There was something weird going on with my hair, and it wasn’t just the glow. I felt my magic growing stronger. I’d somehow managed to compel a vampire who didn’t want to be compelled. In his situation, he should have fought my mental control every step of the way. I could feel a spark of resistance in him, but it didn’t make it through the trance my hair had put him in. I knew he was telling the truth. Right now, I had him so far under my spell that he couldn’t have lied to save his life.

“That was remarkable,” Damiel told me as the red light faded from my hair.

I swayed to the side, barely staying on my feet. I felt like I’d just run back-to-back marathons. Compelling the vampire had used up every drop of magic in me, and my body was screaming in protest, a hammer pounding inside of my head.

“I must admit I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

The fact that an angel of Damiel’s age had never seen anything like my glowing hair worried me. What was I?

“Well, this was fun.” Damiel drew his sword and severed the vampire’s head in a single slash of his burning blade. “And now I believe Nero and I must be going. Your friends are on their way.”

I caught Nero’s hand as he began to lead his father away. “Be safe.”

“You too. Try to stay out of trouble.” His hand brushed softly across my cheek. “I’ll see you in New York.”

I couldn’t stop the smile that was spreading across my face. “You’ll be there?”

“Race you there,” he said with a wicked twitch of his mouth.

Then he and Damiel were gone. And not a moment too soon.

“What happened here?” Drake asked as he came around the corner with Captain Somerset and Jace.

“The vampires didn’t come willingly,” I said.

Drake’s brows arched. “So you burned them to ash?”

“Captain Somerset set my sword on fire before she ran off to save your asses,” I said.

I hated lying to my friends, but Nero’s secret wasn’t mine to tell. Besides, if Jace found out about Damiel, I wasn’t completely sure he could keep it to himself. He might tell his father. That’s what the Legion would want him to do. But doing the right thing in the Legion’s eyes would get Nero and Damiel into hot water—not to mention me and Captain Somerset.

“You need to be careful with that sword, or you’ll set your pretty hair on fire,” Captain Somerset told me with a smirk.

“I’ll try to remember that,” I replied. “So, how did you fare?”

“The castle is clear. Thirty-two vampires captured, including Charles Rune himself,” she told me. “The other teams are also done with the other castles, so let’s get these rogues down the mountain.”