Dragon's Storm (Legion Of Angels #4)(49)

I buried my face in my hands. “I don’t remember.”

“Ask me.” The hint of a plea hid beneath his facade of pure arrogance.

“Do you promise to behave?”

“No.”

Ask a stupid question…

He was smiling, waiting patiently.

“Have you ever marked anyone else before?” I asked.

“No.” His answer was immediate.

Oh.

“Never before have I known someone I wanted to declare mine.”

He knew just what to say. But the thing was, I had no doubt he was completely serious. Nero never lied. He was honest. Too honest sometimes. He didn’t lie to spare anyone’s feelings, and he didn’t lie to his advantage.

“You were expecting a different answer?” he asked.

“I was hoping for that one.” He’d always been honest with me; I owed it to him to be the same. “I’m sorry. I know it’s really hypocritical of me.” I didn’t want to be marked, but at the same time, I wanted to be the only one he’d marked.

“It’s all right. It’s not so simple. Nothing with angels ever is. We are painfully difficult to tolerate, let alone get along with.”

He wasn’t pushing me. He was letting me work it out on my own. He wouldn’t be with me until I got myself ok with this, until I reconciled myself with his angel ways. That was the right thing to do, the proper one. Either I was ok with how he was, or I wasn’t. It was my choice.

He sure was being awfully mature about this. It was annoying. It would have been so much easier to hate him if he’d tried to force me to accept his ways. But, no, he was understanding of the fact that not everyone wanted the drama that came with angels.

“Damn you for being so reasonable,” I muttered.

“Would you rather I be unreasonable?”

“Yes.”

He chuckled. “I’ll remind you of your words the next time you train with me.”

The cavern rumbled. Fire sprayed up. Nero jumped at the fiery geyser, freezing it solid. A dozen more fire pillars exploded into the air, merging together, trapping him behind a solid wall of fire. A second quake shook the mountains, throwing me into a deep chasm.





15





Darkness Descending





The fire pit swallowed me whole. Only this week’s extensive elemental training at Storm Castle—which had involved being set on fire, continuously—kept me from burning up. As soon as my boots hit the ground, I ran straight out of the fire pit into the adjoining cavern. My elemental resistance had very real limits. I could only withstand the heat for so long, and I had no intention of being burned alive.

I followed the rocky tunnel. It felt as hot as hell down here, so close to the raging lava pools. The hiss of steam echoed like screams in my ears. The solid walls blurred and shifted. I blinked, but my vision didn’t clear. I stumbled down the wide tunnel, avoiding puddles of burning lava. Suddenly, my nightmare of drowning inside a volcano felt very real. I had to get out of here before it came true.

“Leda,” a voice whispered over the hissing steam.

I paused at a fork in the path, looking around in every direction. A blurry figure streaked down the left tunnel, its wings trailing smoke. I ran after the angel.

“Colonel Starborn!” I called out.

The angel kept running.

“Leila!”

She didn’t stop running until the tunnel ended. Then she turned around slowly. I gasped when I saw her. Her feet were bare and dirty. Her wings, a beautiful blend of white and pale gold feathers with sunset accents, hung limply. Their tips dragged on the ground. She wore only a black tank top and boy shorts. Slashes cut across the front of her top. Soot smudged her face. Her pale orange hair, stained with blood, brushed the tops of her dirty shoulders.

“Help me,” she said through cracked lips.

I looked into her trembling pale blue eyes. “What happened to you?”

She choked out a terrified gasp, then pushed past me and ran back down the path. I followed her to the fork. She took the other tunnel this time. I felt a rush of wind and looked up. Two dark angels, dressed in the shining armor of hell, flew high above us. In a flash of movement, they swept down like a flock of attacking crows. I never saw their faces. When the smoke cleared, Colonel Starborn and the dark angels were gone.

I’d reached a dead end. Sheer rocks towered in front of me. They were as smooth as satin. I couldn’t climb them. Dozens of lava pools bubbled and popped all around me. They were spreading, rising like the ocean’s tide. Soon, this entire cavern would be covered in burning lava. I blinked, and the lava disappeared. I blinked again, and it was back. What the hell was going on?

The two dark angels appeared once more overhead, their faces masked in smoke and haze. They swept down to the ground and snatched Colonel Starborn. The scene played out again and again, every time just the same.

“She’s not really here,” I realized. “At least not anymore.” I looked at the blurry lava that wasn’t really here. “This happened days ago.”

“You are seeing what I saw,” a voice echoed.

It sounded distorted, like words spoken underwater. Or words caught on the wind, carried to me from far away. I didn’t recognize the voice. I couldn’t even tell whether it was a man or a woman.