Dragon's Storm (Legion Of Angels #4)(9)

“Yes.”

“How did you do it?”

“I tied his shoelaces together before the fight.”

Laughter burst out of my mouth. I didn’t even try to hold it back. Nero was as sexy as sin, but Captain Somerset was my hero. She was everything I wanted to be. She was a good soldier who knew the rules better than anyone. She followed them too—well, most of the time. But she also knew how to get her hands dirty when she had to. She was strong, but she often won by outsmarting her opponent.

I’d had to learn the same thing back when I’d lived on the streets: winning by fighting dirty, by using tricks and traps. When you were the smallest kid on the street, you got smart or you got dead.

Nero was not like us. He fought with honor, dignity, and precision. And he won by being a better fighter than anyone else. His presence was overwhelming. You knew when you faced him in battle that he would destroy you—and that there wasn’t a damned thing you could do to stop him.

He’d trained my initiate class for that first month after we’d joined the Legion. Everyone had been so afraid that he would call on them when he was demonstrating something. Some of my fellow initiates decided to hide in the back of the crowd. Naturally, that was a surefire way to encourage Nero to call on you. He didn’t suffer a coward; he wanted us to confront our fears and to push through them.

One time, I’d had enough. I did the unspeakable: I volunteered. I don’t know what possessed me. Maybe I just wanted to prove he didn’t scare me. Maybe I wanted to show everyone that they shouldn’t be scared of him either. If that was my goal, I failed miserably. Nero didn’t take it easy on me because I’d volunteered. If anything, he’d taken it harder on me. I’d cursed his name back then, thinking he relished breaking people. But that didn’t stop me from volunteering again the next session. The look on his face when I came back for seconds and thirds and fourths… It was priceless. And it was worth every bump, bruise, and broken bone.

I later realized that he didn’t enjoy torturing me. He was impressed that I could hold out for so long, that I didn’t give up. And he wanted to help me reach my magical potential. The more I could take, the higher my chance of surviving the Nectar. That was the true reason he pushed us so hard. That’s why he didn’t show mercy and didn’t let up.

“If you’re done chuckling over my pranks, let’s move on,” Captain Somerset said to me.

I nodded, swallowing the last laugh. Charles Rune and his house of rogue vampires needed to be stopped. The Legion had taken out their hideouts in several cities, but they just kept coming back stronger than ever. Not being choosy about what lowlives you turned into vampires was a quick way to build an army, but fear and a twisted sense of loyalty to the man who’d given them supernatural powers would only go so far. It was just a matter of time before someone snitched. Mr. Farrows had been that snitch.

We followed the trail up the mountain. Vampires had run along this path recently, but the heavy snowfall was quickly covering their tracks. In a few minutes, the tracks would be gone completely. The vampires hadn’t chosen this location at random. It was easy to be invisible out here, here where snow fell like goose down from the heavens. Here where the cold dulled the vampires’ scent trail, and the sweet aroma of fresh needles diluted it further.

The path cut through the rocky forest. I swiped my hand across my scarf, breaking the thick crust of icicles that had glued it to my mouth. A stone castle peeked through the pine trees, tall and imposing. The vampires were living in a castle. They sure had delusions of grandeur.

A cloak of slow, steady decay hung over the castle. Broken bricks jutted out at awkward angles from its weather-warped exterior. We snuck up on the castle, stepping softly. Or at least trying to. It wasn’t easy to step softly through a foot of snow. There were no guards keeping watch outside. They thought they were safe, that no one would find them out here on the snowy shores of winter.

Captain Somerset pointed at a passageway into the dungeon blocked by a cage of vertical metal bars. Then she pointed at me. She didn’t speak because we didn’t want the vampires inside to overhear us, but that simple gesture was clear enough. She wanted me to make an opening for us to pass through. I gripped the bars and heaved. Predictably, they didn’t move. They were made of hard, heavy iron.

I shot Captain Somerset an annoyed look.

She waved at the bars.

I pantomimed setting off explosives.

She shook her head. She pointed at me, then flexed her biceps.

I rolled my eyes.

It was amazing the conversations you could have without speaking a single word. She could have broken those bars already five times over, but she’d left it entirely up to me. With Nero gone, she saw it as her job to make me stronger.

I grabbed the bars again and pulled, trying to move them apart. They didn’t budge. I tried again, this time thinking warm, liquid thoughts. I’m not sure if it was my burgeoning elemental magic skills or if I’d simply put more muscle into it, but the bars began to separate. I kept pulling, widening the opening until there was just enough space for me to squeeze through. I moved into the dreary castle dungeon. I’d taken only a few steps when the soft clink of metal jingled behind me. I looked back to find Captain Somerset stuck halfway through the opening in the bars.

She motioned for me to draw the bars further apart.

I responded with a series of rapid hand movements.