When that whirlwind of a kiss stopped, we were standing in a bedroom. Draped in silk and satin, it was a room worthy of an emperor—or an angel. The suite’s highlight was the canopy bed, a triumph of carpentry large enough to comfortably fit four people. Its four wooden posts were as thick as tree trunks and embellished with etchings of scantily-clad angels. Luxurious gold curtains were drawn up over the sides. A footstool with matching gold fabric sat under the windows.

“You shouldn’t be thinking about the furniture, Pandora,” Nero chided me softly.

He zipped down the front of his torn leather vest, revealing smooth, soft skin over a hard, sculptured chest. He peeled the torn garment off of his body and tossed it to the floor. Diffused light filtered inside through the gauzy curtains that rippled across the windows, basking his skin in a soft glow.

I just stood there, mesmerized by his stunning perfection.

Nero lifted his hand to me, his fingertips a soft whisper as he traced the sensitive spot on my neck. He circled tightly around me, his caress dipping between my shoulder blades to follow the curvature of my spine. His fingers closed on the clasp of my sport top and paused. A soft gasp broke my lips as the bundle of fabric fell to my feet.

He faced me, his gaze drinking me in from tip to tip. His green eyes lit up with gold and silver sparks, devouring me with the ferocity of a starving man. “Gorgeous.” The word kissed his lips like a lover’s caress.

The room smelled of vanilla and orange blossoms. The curtains around the bed were rippling in the wind, though the window was closed. It was like magic.

“It is magic,” Nero told me.

The magic breeze kissed my skin. It whispered down my arms, cresting my breasts.

“What are you doing to me?” I gasped, his magic touch igniting the fire in my blood.

“Magic is very versatile. It can be used to make war…”

Warmth poured down my bare back like a river of fire, sparking a symphony of sensations.

“…or to make love.” His voice dipped lower.

He besieged my body with elemental magic, and I didn’t even try to fight it. I spread open the gates of my magic, inviting him in.

“Next time, you go off risking your life…you’re taking me with you,” I said, my breaths short and stuttered.

“You can come with me whenever you like.”

Heat trickled over my hips, down my thighs, kissing my curves. A desperate ache was building between my legs. I bit my lip, holding back a moan.

“Don’t ever hold back anything from me,” Nero said, his voice rough with lust.

I met his gaze and saw my own desire reflected in the embers of his eyes. An intense, relentless desperation took hold of me. I grabbed him, my fingernails digging deep into his back.

A ruthless, sensual growl rumbled deep in his throat, a promise of dark and sinful fantasies. His hands locking around my hips, he tugged me roughly against him, and my breasts slammed against the hard wall of his chest.

He met my eyes for a moment, and he declared seriously, “I love you.” Then his mouth closed over mine, ravaging the inside with such savage, insatiable need that it left me breathless.

His mouth dipped to my neck, teasing my throbbing vein between his incisors. Every flick of his tongue, every nibble of his teeth, fueled my desire, feeding me and making me hungrier all at once.

I heard the sharp, satisfying pop of his fangs breaking the surface, the burst of pain trailed immediately by a deep, aching desire. My lips found his neck. Too impatient to tease, my fangs penetrated his skin. His blood spilled into my mouth. Hot, spicy, smooth, and as sweet as honey, it slid down my throat, setting my tastebuds on fire. He tasted like Nectar, the food of the gods, a little drop of heaven.

We drank deeply from each other, our hunger fueled by our passion and fear, by our relief at seeing each other again. I gave all of myself and took all of him in return. His blood burned through my body like a wildfire, consuming me. Ripping apart and rebuilding, burning down and building up—every draw of his mouth sent a shock wave of pleasure crashing and cascading through me.

A soft, desperate moan parted my lips. “Nero.”

He tugged the shorts off my hips and my panties along with them.

“If I’d known magic could be this much fun, I’d have trained mine even harder,” I said.

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

“I don’t think that would be appro—”

His magic crashed over me, drowning me in aching bliss. Desperate for more, I slid my siren magic over him, projecting my desire onto him. Making what was mine—everything I felt—his.

He froze.

I paused, cautiously meeting his eyes. Had I broken some unspoken angel rule?

“Are you all right?”

“No one has ever dared project their magic onto me.”

I held my breath.

“You should dare more often.” He grabbed me by the hips and threw me down onto the bed.

I looked up at him and saw he was now as naked as I was. His huge, hard body loomed over me, those gorgeous wings spread wide, a stunning canvas of black, green, and blue. The sight of them made me feel so small.

He grabbed me roughly, flipping me over. As my hands and knees hit the mattress, his hand traced my inner thighs, spreading them. A single finger dipped inside of me, tracing, teasing. Heat surged between my legs, consuming me in a whirlwind of fierce sexual longing. A second finger slipped in. A third. Oh gods, more. I arched my back and tilted my hips back, opening myself up to him. His hand stroked harder, faster, drowning me in hot, slick pleasure.

Then, suddenly, he pulled away. I growled out a complaint. A gasped moan swallowed my protest as he thrust hard into me.

“Show me what’s inside of you, Leda,” he said, his breath burning against my neck. “Share everything you feel.”

I cried out as he took me harder, completing me body and soul. Pleasure pooled between my legs, blossoming, swelling. I shook, tense, balanced on the precipice of release.

“Please,” I moaned. “Oh, gods, Nero, please.”

His restraint shattered, unleashing the untamed primal force that lurked beneath the angel armor. I ground myself against him, meeting his rough strokes with desperate fervor. My legs were quivering, a blind searing heat pulsing through me, building and twisting back on itself. I dug my fingers into the sheets, shuddering as my body contracted, exploding in a wave of pure ecstasy.

“Oh, I missed you so much,” I sobbed out, the aftershocks rocking me.

I poured out my magic. I shared my feelings, my emotions, my desire—I opened up everything to him, bared myself. It was just me, unfiltered and unshielded. He’d seen me without my clothes, but he’d never truly seen me naked, stripped of everything. I showed him every secret, every dark corner of my mind and soul, giving him all that I had. That was the power of Siren’s Song. There was nothing better than this, nothing more intimate.

He showed me how wrong I was when his magic hit me like a high-speed train. He’d opened up a window into his soul, just for me and no one else. I experienced the full force of everything that he was, the endless labyrinth of delightful complexity; the torn soul, a firestorm of light and dark, of strength and of fear. And of his love for me, so deep it made me dizzy with desire. I had to have him again.

And he wanted me. I could feel the intense longing in his emotions, in the pulse of his body, in the way that he filled me so deeply. He began to move gently inside me, teasing my soft, sensitive flesh swollen with desire.

His mouth brushed down my neck in soft butterfly kisses. I squirmed impatiently. I didn’t want him to be gentle; I wanted him to release the shackles of propriety and take me hard and rough.

He flipped me over. Looking down on me, he set his hand over my heart and declared, “Your soul is so beautiful.”

I met his eyes. “So is yours,” I said solemnly, without smirk or sass.

He leaned down and kissed my forehead softly. Hot, sweet anticipation swelled inside of me as his hands gently parted my thighs. He gripped my hips and thrust once into me—then he pulled back, his muscles hard and tight as he loomed over me, his eyes alight with dark delight.

“More,” I moaned, my fingernails digging into his back in wild, feverish desperation. I arched my back, tilting up my hips.

He slammed me back down on the mattress. His hands locked around my wrists, pinning me to the bed, he plunged deeper into me, each movement forceful and relentless. I cried out, swept up in a blur of pleasure that blinded me to everything but Nero.

The bed shook and groaned under us. Lust, raw and unbridled, burned in his eyes. He was so close. I wanted to see him lose that last shred of control, for that final thread to snap.

Blind, savage desire rocking my body, I moved with him, synching to his rhythm. Nero’s shoulders locked up, his muscles tensing as he gripped me tightly, pulling me up to meet him. His whole body shook, and he groaned deeply into my mouth. Like a storm of fire and lightning, ecstasy crashed through me again and again, devouring me.

When my eyes could focus again, I looked around at the ruins of the bed we lay on. The canopy beams were broken, the bed curtains drooping.

“We destroyed your beautiful designer emperor bed,” I said, breathless, my heart still pounding hard in my ears.

“It won’t be the last time,” Nero said with a self-satisfied smirk. “Don’t worry about it.” Yawning lazily, he wrapped his body around mine and held me.

I snorted. “I love you, Nero Windstriker.”

“Of course you do,” he said with even more smugness, kissing my neck.

I laughed again. Then I closed my eyes and fell asleep in his arms.

* * *

When I woke up, Nero was still lying beside me. I held him close, stroking my hand across his, so afraid that I was going to wake up at any moment and find this had all been nothing but a Nectar-induced dream. And that Nero was still missing.

I’m here, Nero spoke inside my mind. This is real.

If this were a dream, you’d say exactly that.

His lips brushed my shoulder. “I heard about your encounter with the Pioneers. You get into all kinds of trouble without me.”

I snatched hold of his hand and kissed his fingertips. “I get into even more trouble with you, angel.”

Nero’s laugh rumbled against my back.

I turned to look over my shoulder at him. The way he was looking at me was simply breathtaking. It was the glow in his eyes, the love in them. I could scarcely believe that this was all real. Just a year ago, I’d been living on the Frontier of civilization, hunting escaped convicts. Now I was a soldier of the sixth level in the gods’ army and the lover of an angel.

Tears pooled in my eyes, my heart swelling. Nero wiped the tears from my face, watching me closely, silently.

His gaze was so intense, so…world-shattering. Yes, that was the word. He’d changed my whole life.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I said, succumbing to my desperate need to fill the silence, to know what he was thinking.

Nero looked me over, his hand tracing the curvature of my hip. “Your magic is so strong now. With each level that you gain, your magic magnifies. It’s intense, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It is not a single strand or a single flavor or scent of magic. It’s not light or dark. It’s a rich, complex blend of both light and dark magic.”

“So you want to eat me?” I teased him.

“Each and every moment of every day,” he said solemnly, silver and gold swirls glowing inside his emerald eyes.

My heart jumped a beat. “Ronan paid me a visit while you were gone.”

The glow faded from his eyes, and they went hard. “Oh?”

“He talked to me about magic and counter magic. It was his potion that helped me build up my telekinetic resistance.”

“Be careful with Ronan,” Nero cautioned me. “He might be our ally, but he is still a god.”

“Oh, I don’t trust him that much.” I paused, then added, “I talked to Jace too.”

Nero continued to stroke his hand up and down my arm. “Did you?” He sounded perfectly calm, like a tiger right before it pounced and tore you to shreds.

“Jace told me how his family has been trying for centuries to create offspring of perfectly balanced magical potential. Basically, they want all the magic without any of the counter magic.”

He snorted. “They have certainly been trying. But sometimes the less you try, the better things turn out.”

I wondered if he was thinking about his own parents, who had married for love rather than for duty—and had become the only two angels to ever have a child together.

I glanced back, smiling. “Well, I think you turned out all right.”

His brows arched. “All right?” he repeated, as though offended.

“Spectacularly then,” I amended.

He nodded. “Better.”

Then he fell oddly quiet. His hand stroked my side absentmindedly, but his eyes were drifting. His mind was a million miles away.

“Where are you, Nero?” I asked him.

He met my gaze. “It’s been a long few days.”

I saw the darkness in his eyes, the guilt. His people had died on the Memphis mission. But it wasn’t just guilt that I saw in him; it was anger and hunger for revenge against the people who’d engineered the massacre. The Pioneers.

Unfortunately, the Legion Interrogators had gotten nothing useful from the prisoners we’d captured at Hardwicke’s fortress. We didn’t know who the Pioneers were, where they were, or what their end game was. That had left Nero with an enemy he longed to strike back against, but as it stood now, he had nothing to strike at but empty air. The Pioneers were nowhere and they were nothing. They were phantoms you couldn’t see or hit.

“Gin and Tessa are among the kidnapped people still missing,” I said.

My words drew him out of his own mind. “Frankly, I’m surprised Colonel Fireswift promoted you instead of locking you up as a potential traitor.”

“Jace wanted to lock me up.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him I wasn’t going to turn against the Legion. What I was going to do is hunt down the Pioneers and make them pay for everything they’ve done.”

“You must have been convincing.”

“You know, I really was,” I said. “It didn’t hurt that I put a little magic behind my speech.”

“Cheating again, Pandora?”

“Simply using the resources at my disposal,” I countered.

“Good,” he said, his eyes twinkling with approval. “But grand speeches aside, Leda, you need to be prepared for the possibility that the Pioneers will try to use you. They might dangle your sisters’ lives in front of you in exchange for your cooperation.”

“The Pioneers won’t kill Tessa and Gin. They didn’t take my sisters so they could control me. They took them for their magic.”

Surprise flashed in Nero’s eyes. Apparently, he hadn’t realized they had magic either.

“What kind of magic do they possess?” he asked me.

“I don’t know. All we do know is that their magic is not of this world.”

He frowned. “That is vague.”

“I know. ‘Not of this world’ could mean any number of things,” I said. “But I think it means literally not-of-this-world. As in, magic we do not have on Earth, something from some other realm in the magical cosmos.” I paused. “We should ask Damiel.”

Nero looked at me as though I’d suggested that we march off into the depths of hell and challenge a demon to a duel.

“Damiel has traveled,” I continued. “He’s been around a lot. He has seen things none of us have, especially during his many years in hiding. He traveled to other worlds.”

“I don’t question his knowledge but rather his intentions,” said Nero. “Are you sure you want to trust him with the information about your sisters being special?”

“Haven’t we been through all of this already? Damiel is not our enemy. What he did—his time in hiding, staging his death before your eyes—was for you.”

“Damiel might not be our enemy, but he is an angel,” Nero said. “He has a habit of using sensitive information against people. You don’t know what he will do with this knowledge, but you can be sure that he will do something. Information is a weapon, and my father wields it far too well.”

“We have to trust some people,” I told him. “And hasn’t Damiel earned our trust?”

“You know better than to trust an angel, Leda.”

“You are an angel, and I trust you.”

“I love you. I would move heaven and earth for you, so our interests are aligned.”

I felt the sincerity ringing in his words, the passion and conviction resonating in his voice. Even his skin seemed to glow a bit brighter as he spoke. The raw, brutal romanticism of it all was almost enough to bring me to tears.

“Then we need to make sure Damiel believes his interests are aligned with ours too,” I said. “And we’ll start with what it is that he wants most of all from us.”

Nero nodded in approval. “Now you’re thinking like an angel.”