I stood on the balcony of the apartment I shared with Nero, a great suite which sat atop the sparkling white obelisk that held the Legion’s east coast headquarters. It was the perfect angel residence. The view over New York was simply breath-catching, but I didn’t have much breath left in me to spare. I was still catching it from our dash through hell. That had been two days ago, and even though I’d slept every moment since then, I was still tired.

Bella stood next to me. She was dressed in one of her school outfits: a high-collared, cream-colored blouse with a black opal brooch at the collar; and a pencil skirt with a cute ruffle along one side. Her ankle-high brown leather boots matched the belt around her waist. Her nails were brushed with pale pink polish, her strawberry-blonde hair braided and pinned to her head, milk-maid style. A leather handbag hung from her shoulder, large enough to hold a few spell books.

“Calli visited while you were sleeping,” Bella said. “She’s feeling guilty. She tried so hard to protect Tessa and Gin from the pain of their past. She had Zane wipe their memories to give them a fresh chance at life, but she only made it worse. She says she left Gin and Tessa helpless, without the memories of their magic or how to use it to protect themselves. I’m not sure Calli will ever forgive herself.”

“Parents often make horrible mistakes while having the best of intentions.”

I looked back to find Damiel standing in the open doorway between the living room and balcony. “Aren’t you supposed to be hiding your face?”

Magic rippled over Damiel’s masculine body, shifting it into something else entirely—something decidedly more feminine. A tall and sexy supermodel now stood before me wearing a black bandage dress and silver stilettos. Her glossy dark hair shimmered in the sunlight like black diamonds.

“Better?” the model said in a sultry voice.

It was a good disguise, a seamless magical spell of shifting magic. Even knowing I was looking at Damiel, I could only see through his spell if I concentrated really hard—and concentrating that hard gave me a spectacular splitting headache.

I didn’t know how many people knew Damiel was still alive, but I doubted the knowledge extended far beyond the First Angel. He was Nyx’s secret weapon, someone she used to take care of all the unspeakable things even the Legion couldn’t admit to doing.

That was assuming Damiel continued to help Nyx once he got what he wanted, which was to save his wife Cadence. Angels were a bit self-serving like that. And Damiel had been waiting to save his wife for two hundred years. Nero didn’t completely trust his father, but I had a feeling Damiel would pull through in the end. He was a better person than either of them could admit.

A small smile twisted Damiel’s lips. “How many times must we remind you, Leda? We aren’t people. We’re angels.”

He was reading my mind again, but I didn’t tell him off. I just chuckled. This time, I’d let him listen in.

Since our return from hell, I’d been keeping my mind carefully closed. I didn’t want to confront what I’d learned about my origin. I was having trouble coming to terms with it all myself. I needed to process it. Maybe it would get easier with time.

The other reason I was keeping my thoughts under lock was I didn’t want anyone to know what had happened in that dungeon—that I’d crushed the dark angel’s mind and body. And that in my power high, I’d dreamt of ruling supreme over all the known realms.

Bella smiled at me. “It’s good to see you laugh. You’ve been so serious since we returned from… Returned home.”

She didn’t say ‘hell’. Clearly, it was tough for Bella too. After all, she’d only recently learned that she was a demon’s granddaughter.

If only she’d known what I was, the daughter of a demon and a god. I was a magical anomaly, a monster. When I closed my eyes, I saw the dark angel’s mind cracking under the force of my power. I heard his screams. I saw his head hitting the ground and the lifeless look on his face as he lay there dead.

My wounds were healed on the outside, but inside I was broken.

Bella hadn’t asked what I was, though she must have realized that I’d found out. She was giving me time to be ready. I wondered if I ever would be.

“I’m going to find Calli’s friend,” I said, changing the subject. “The one who led her to all of us” I kept talking. Everything would be fine if I could just keep talking. “I have to know why he wanted Calli to take us in.”

“You’ll find him,” said Bella. “You always do.”

Nero stepped onto the balcony. He stopped as soon as he saw Damiel in the body of a woman. A hint of surprise flashed across his face, but it was soon swallowed up by hard, cold composure.

“That’s not funny,” he told his father.

Damiel smiled demurely. “Your lady asked me to put on a disguise.”

Nero opened his mouth, but before he could speak, a knock on our apartment door drew him back inside. Damiel summoned a tube of lipstick out of thin air and began applying it to his mouth.

“You’ve got some on your teeth,” Bella told him helpfully.

Damiel’s teeth squeaked as he wiped away the excess lipstick with his index finger. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”

“Being a woman?”

Damiel pulled out a mirror and tried in vain to wipe off the wayward lipstick. “I should have just shifted into a tiger,” he grumbled.

Nero and Harker stepped onto the balcony. Harker saw Damiel—and he just froze.

“It’s Damiel,” Nero told him.

Harker blinked. “It looks just like her.” His eyes panned across Damiel’s disguise. “Right down to the—”

Nero elbowed him in the ribs.

Harker lifted his gaze and glanced over at Bella and me. “Eyes.”

Damiel giggled. It was a distinctly non-angel sound, contrasting starkly with his previous assertion that he was an angel, not a person. He certainly was making an effort to stay in character.

“Who is Damiel supposed to be?” I asked Nero and Harker. They obviously knew her.

“Sergeant Jordan. She was our trainer back when Nero and I first joined the Legion.” Harker added with a smirk, “Nero had a huge crush on her.”

Nero’s face was unreadable, but I was pretty sure that right now he was fighting the urge to murder his best friend. He watched me for my reaction.

But I didn’t even feel jealous. Maybe this ghost from the past didn’t bother me, or maybe I was just still too numb from everything that had happened recently.

My gaze flickered from Nero to Harker, finally settling on Damiel. “She has nice eyes.”

Harker coughed, swallowing an emerging laugh. Nero’s face remained impassive.

“How is it you can so perfectly replicate a woman from nearly two hundred years ago?” I asked Damiel. “You weren’t even around here back then.”

“I might have been in hiding, but I always kept an eye turned toward Nero.”

Nero didn’t look impressed. The silence stretched on. I could practically picture the tumbleweed blowing across the balcony.

“Leda,” Harker said, finally breaking the silence. “This is for you.” He handed me a leather-bound folder. The gold Legion of Angels monogram on the cover made it look very exclusive.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Your registration packet for the Crystal Falls Training. It commences next week.”

Already? I’d lost so much time in hell. The Crystal Falls Training was upon me, a long and intense magic workshop for level six and level seven Legion soldiers. I wasn’t sure I was ready to dive back into training just yet.”

Nero walked around behind me. He set his hands on my shoulders and gave them a supportive squeeze.

“One of the level seven soldiers from this training will become an angel to fill the void left by Colonel Battleborn’s death,” Damiel said lightly, as though we were discussing tea parties and cupcakes, not angels and death.

The Crystal Falls Training was supposed to be one of the hardest the Legion had, and it would be even tougher for me. I was a new level six, and I’d be training alongside hardened soldiers who’d been at level seven for years—soldiers who would do anything to become an angel. If they wanted to succeed and gain their wings, they couldn’t afford to lose to anyone, especially us level sixes.

“Nerissa told me tales I wish I could forget, stories about soldiers poisoning and sabotaging the competition.” I looked at Nero for confirmation that it wasn’t true.

“Don’t eat anything another candidate offers you,” he said.

“And always sleep with a knife under your pillow,” added Harker.

Laughter burst from my lips. “You two aren’t any help at all.”

Damiel stretched out his arms, yawning loudly. “Well, children, I’d best be going. The First Angel’s prisoners won’t torture themselves, you know.”

The completely casual way that he said it made me hope he was joking, but I wasn’t counting on it.

Damiel transformed from the brunette model into the sunset-haired angel Leila Starborn. Then he jumped over the handrail and flew off across the city on gorgeous white and gold wings.

After he was gone, Bella turned to me and said, “I have to get back to the university now.”

Harker stepped forward. “I’ll walk you out.”

Their light chatter trailed them as they left our apartment and entered the stairwell. The last thing I heard was Bella diplomatically rejecting his latest attempt to ask her out. Something about that made me laugh. After everything we’d all just lived through, I guess it just felt good to see a sign that some things were back to normal.

We stepped back inside, Nero watching me every step of the way, just as he’d been doing since our return from hell. As promised, he’d never let me out of his sight. He’d never been further away than the next room, close enough to storm in and grab me if a portal to hell spontaneously opened up under my feet. Gods, I loved him.

“You know you can’t come to the Crystal Falls Training with me,” I told him.

“Says who?”

“I’d imagine says Colonel Dragonblood, the angel in charge of the training.”

“I outrank him.”

“So?”

His voice dipped lower. “So he can’t tell me what to do.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“It is as simple as this: if Colonel Dragonblood has a problem with my presence, he can take it up with me.”

“But the rules—”

“Since when have you cared about the rules, Pandora?”

Fair point.

“I love you,” he declared solemnly. “And I’m not ever letting you go.”

His hand curled around my neck, drawing me in closer. He swooped his mouth over mine, capturing my breath. Hard and hungry, his tongue thrust between my lips, ravaging the inside, drowning me in his magic. He was pouring all of his emotions—all of himself—into that kiss. I’d never experienced anything like it before.

“I should have been there for you.” His lips brushed against mine. “I should have kept the deserter from taking you.”

“It’s not your fault. I ran into that.”

His hold on me tightened, like he was afraid to let me go. “I could have saved you from that suffering.”

I’d told him and the others about how Soulslayer had tortured me in the arena and hurt my sisters, but I’d stopped there. I hadn’t told them what I was. I hadn’t told them how I’d killed the dark angel by crushing his mind. And I hadn’t told them the worst of it all: that a part of me had fed off of that rush of power. That part scared me most of all.

But I had to share it all with someone. The weight of this secret was crushing me.

“We have to talk about what happened in hell,” I said.

He waited for me to continue.

“I told you what happened with the dark angel, how he tortured me and my sisters,” I kept talking, not pausing to breathe. I had to get this all out before I lost my nerve. “Soulslayer tortured us at the bidding of Sonja, the Demon of the Dark Force.”

Nero’s face was hard. Something cracked loudly, and I jumped in surprise. I looked down. One of our barstools had shattered in his hand.

“But I didn’t tell you everything Sonja did to me.”

Nero took my face in his hands, his touch so gentle. It was hard to believe that these were the same hands that had just pulverized our barstool.

He dipped his forehead to mine. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

But I had to tell him. I couldn’t keep this secret to myself. It was eating away at me.

“She injected me with Venom. Twice. She was bringing my dark magic up to the same level as my light magic. If you hadn’t come when you did, she was going to inject me with a dual dose of Nectar and Venom.”

His touch was soft, but I could hear the angry beat of his pounding pulse.

“She would have kept going until she made me an angel with both light and dark magic.”

Which was blasphemy according to both the gods and demons.

“I am not surprised,” Nero said. “She obviously found out about your ability to absorb Nectar and Venom, and she wanted to use it for herself—to figure out how you work and how she could exploit that special power.”

“See, the thing is, Nero, she didn’t need to figure out anything,” I told him. “She already knew how I can use both light and dark magic. She told me where I came from, and then I saw for myself firsthand. I am a monster.”

“Leda—”

“I killed the dark angel.” My heart hammered in my chest. The icy fingers of fear gripped me, bringing me back to that dungeon—and everything that had happened there. “I didn’t just break Soulslayer’s mind, I destroyed it, shattering in into a million pieces. I got so caught up in my own magic, so blind with power lust, that I broke his neck without even realizing it.”

“He tortured you,” Nero said.

But I wasn’t looking for excuses to assuage my guilt. “A part of me enjoyed breaking him.” Tears poured down my cheeks. “Did you hear me, Nero? I’m sick, just as sick as the dark angel who relished in torturing me and my sisters. I am a monster.”

“No.”

“Do you know what I was feeling as I crushed Soulslayer’s mind? It wasn’t guilt, or even something as innocent as relief that his reign of terror was over. It was excitement. I was so enamored of my grand and mighty magic, which had brought a dark angel to his knees, that I started to wonder what else I could do. How high could I go? I fantasized about taking on the gods and demons. Once I crushed their minds, I would rule supreme over all the realms. From their ashes, I would build my empire.”

“You were lost in the moment,” Nero said. “It happens to everyone, especially to those who’ve gained so much magic so fast.”

“I can’t control it, Nero.” I wiped my tears away. If only I could wipe away the stain on my soul. “And it’s getting worse. One day, I really will lose my mind, and then the monster within will take over, a cruel fiend who destroys everything that stands in my way.”

“That’s not you.”

“It is me. That’s what I’m telling you, Nero. When the monster takes over, I want to challenge the gods. I want to destroy every single one of them to make way for my reign and embrace my so-called immortal destiny. You have to put me down,” I sobbed. “It’s what the Legion does to monsters and threats to humanity and heaven. I am all of the above.”

“No,” he said, his voice harsh and angry. He caught me by the shoulders. “Look at me, Leda.”

I swallowed back my sobs and met his eyes

“I’m not going to kill you. No one is going to kill you.”

“Soulslayer—”

“Had it coming,” he growled. “After what he did to you and your sisters, he didn’t deserve to die quietly. If you hadn’t killed him, I would have. I guarantee it would have hurt him a hell of a lot more than what you did—and that I would have enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than you did.”

Gold fire burned in his eyes. He was not exaggerating.

“I am more of a monster than you’ll ever be,” Nero told me. “You are kind and caring. And you have a frustrating habit of throwing yourself into danger to save the people that you care about. Is that the profile of a monster?”

“But you don’t know—”

His hands stroked down my cheeks. “I know.”

“No, I mean you don’t know what I am.”

“I don’t care what you are, Leda. I only care who you are.”

His words were so romantic, so sweet, that it hurt. Here he was professing his love, and he didn’t even know the full truth of it. I had to tell him.

“I don’t even know how I destroyed the dark angel’s mind when his power is so much stronger than mine,” I said quietly. “If my magic grows, if this power grows, could I do more? Could I really destroy a deity? While I was chained up in the demon’s dungeon, Zane came to me in a dream. He said the Guardians call me a god killer and demon slayer. If the gods and demons find out, they will kill me.”

“No one is killing you. I won’t let them.” He folded his arms around me, wrapping me in his hard embrace.

He was offering himself as a shield against anything and everything that might hurt me. I would have been a fool not to accept. But, still, he had to know what he was getting into.

“My mother is a demon.” I watched his face for his response. “And my father is a god.”

“I had considered the possibility.”

It wasn’t the response I’d expected after dropping that bomb on him.

“And it doesn’t bother you?” I asked. “The gods and demons would call me a disease, a scourge of unnatural, unholy magic.”

“Of course it doesn’t bother me.” He shot me an offended look.

My heart skipped a beat. “That’s how I can absorb both light and dark magic, both Nectar and Venom.”

Nero was just listening. And I couldn’t stop talking.

“Sonja wouldn’t tell me who my mother and father are, but I’m going to find out.”

“That way lies danger, Leda.”

I sighed. “I just have to know. And I have a plan.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to march into heaven and hell, demanding answers.”

He knew me all too well.

“Pretty much.” A hard, determined smile stretched my mouth. “After all, we are long overdue for a family reunion.”