Chapter 1

Igazed at my reflection in the mirror stuck to the door of my open locker. "My name is Leda Pandora," I told it. "Former bounty hunter, the current Angel of Chaos, and Heaven's Emissary to Hell."

That last one was a recent title, only a week old. The gods' ruling council had tasked me with negotiating an alliance—at least a temporary one—with the demons, their sworn enemies. For millennia, gods and demons had been fighting one another in this immortal war, so most people would find my current assignment nothing short of impossible.

I wasn't most people. As I'd just told myself—and had been telling myself for a week now—I was the Angel of Chaos. I had been cheating my way out of impossible situations since long before I'd had wings, and becoming an angel had only magnified my innate stubbornness.

"I am Leda Pandora," I reminded myself once more.

"Why does she keep repeating her name?" asked Arabelle, the female soldier behind me. The two of us were the only women on this team.

There were six of us in the locker room right now, but I was the only angel. The other five were gods, soldiers in Heaven's Army.

"She keeps repeating her name because she's crazy," Octavian said as I turned away from my locker to face them. "All angels are." He slanted a smirk my way.

Octavian was a tall, slim soldier with long, fiery-red hair—and an even fierier disposition. Had he been human, I'd have labeled him impulsive. For a god, he was outright reckless.

"As opposed to the epitome of sanity the gods represent," I countered, matching Octavian's smirk.

"Indeed we do." Peals of laughter rolled off his words. "That's why we've been fighting this immortal war for millennia. And we will continue fighting it forever more."

"This is hardly a laughing matter," Devlin chided him. "It is not our duty to question the council's decisions, only to carry them out."

Our team leader was serious, professional, and quiet. He only broke his silence when he had to dispense mission-critical material—or scold us for going off-task.

"Relax, boss, we aren't in a firefight right now," said Arabelle. "And we're gods. I'm sure we can gossip and lace up our boots without getting our tongues tied up in our shoelaces."

"At least some of us can." Octavian glanced at the soldier seated on the bench opposite him, a man everyone called Punch.

Punch had two heads' height on me, and he was built like a tank. His dark skin was inked with colorful symbols to commemorate his victories. His gold eyes were alight with explosive fervor. He was the kind of guy you pointed at a problem—any problem—and then you stood back to watch him blast it to bits. I'd seen him tear off a monster's head with his bare hands, knock over an enemy watchtower, and punch a sizable hole in an airship's hull.

Right now, Punch was holding a very battered pair of boots in his hands. The sandy soles were torn halfway off, and the laces were burnt black, courtesy of yesterday's mission, which had pitted us against a very enormous, very ill-tempered desert dragon.

"Here, Punch, take these," said Patch, the soldier seated to his left side, and passed over a new pair of boots.

The twins Punch and Patch were identical in appearance, right down to their tattoos, and yet they were completely different. Punch was a doer, Patch a thinker. Punch was a frontline fighter, clearing paths for the rest of us and making big messes. Patch kept to the rear; he focused on providing support for the team and cleaning up all those big messes. He always looked out for us all, especially his brother.

"Thanks, bro," Punch said with a grin and took the boots from Patch. "I forgot my boots got so torn up yesterday."

It was a testament to Punch's unwavering, push-forward-and-never-look-back attitude in battle that he hadn't given a second thought to his destroyed boots, not even the necessity to fix them. It was a good thing Patch had him covered.

Octavian looked down at his own footwear. "I wouldn't mind some new boots myself."

"Waiting for you in your locker," Patch told him. "I already swapped out the regular laces for the thin ones you like."

Octavian glared at him. "You make it really hard to mock you, you know."

"I know." Patch flashed him a bright smile.

Octavian gave him a hearty slap on the back, then glided over to his locker, chuckling all the way.

I panned my gaze across the locker room and my five godly comrades. When Faris had sent me here, to Heaven's Army, I hadn't expected this.

I'd met gods before, and they were, unfailingly, arrogant and conniving beings who believed that everyone and everything in the universe existed merely to serve them. The gods didn't even trust one another; they were often too busy scheming against their allies to effectively fight their enemies.

Or so I'd believed. Until Faris, the God of Heaven's Army, had sent me here to train with his soldiers.

At first, I'd been annoyed. After all, I was supposed to be playing emissary to the demons right away. But instead of forming an alliance of gods and demons against the Guardians who planned to destroy us all, Faris had stuck me here. I'd come to realize that ‘right away' meant something entirely different to the gods than it did to me. To Faris, ‘right away' meant ‘right after you go through basic training with Heaven's Army'. Because my Legion of Angels training was apparently ‘not nearly enough to prepare you for what you will face on the way to the demons' council through enemy territory'.

I wasn't sure who was most offended by Faris's statement: Nero, my first trainer at the Legion and now my archangel husband; Nyx, the First Angel, who led all the other angels on Earth; or Ronan, the god of Earth's Army and Lord of the Legion.

My annoyance at Faris's detour, however, quickly shifted to surprise. The gods I'd met here in Heaven's Army were nothing like any god I'd ever met before. Arabelle's irreverence. Octavian's sarcasm. Devlin's quiet, almost shy professionalism. Punch's simple, straightforward motivations. Patch's motherly manner. I hadn't encountered any of these traits in the seven gods on the ruling council.

Apparently, the gods were more complicated than I'd thought. My comrades in Heaven's Army had tons of magic, but they didn't have any political power. They did not enjoy the prominence that the Seven did. And that made them surprisingly down-to-earth, surprisingly normal. And surprisingly a lot like me.

"If Octavian is finished petting his fancy new boots, might I suggest we get a move on?" Arabelle pulled a leather jacket out of her locker, then shut the door.

"What do we have tonight anyway?" Octavian wondered.

"Babysitting duty," she told him. "At the Lords' Gala."

"Another one? They had a gala just last week. It's always the same dull lords doing the same dull things. Don't they ever do anything interesting?" Punch griped.

Patch set his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Maybe monsters will crash the party."

Punch grinned. "Now that would be interesting."

"But unlikely," said Octavian.

"Don't ruin my fun," Punch snapped back.

Octavian stiffened. "I am not ruining anything. I didn't choose this assignment." He looked around. "Who chose it anyway?"

"Faris," Devlin said. "So you'd all best watch what you say."

"Why would Faris put us on stupid babysitting duty again?" Punch demanded.

"We're supposed to be watching what we say against our awesome and amazing mission," Arabelle reminded him.

"Faris isn't dumb," replied Punch. "He knows babysitting galas is boring as shit. That's why a team doesn't get stuck with it more than once a month."

Arabelle winked at him. "Maybe our gracious Lord Faris, King of the Gods, didn't like the way you killed the desert dragon yesterday, so he saw fit to punish us."

Punch frowned. "What's wrong with the way I killed it?"

"You shoved a stick of explosives up its nose and then ran away like your ass was on fire."

"Of course I ran away like my ass was on fire. If I hadn't, then when that beast blew, my ass really would have been on fire. And my hair. And my feathers. My wings have finally healed up from our mishap with that forest of carnivorous weeds on Moonstorm, and I'd like to keep them in one piece."

"Then you should be pleased with our next mission," Octavian told him. "No danger of setting yourself on fire at the Lords' Gala."

"I might just set myself on fire out of sheer boredom," replied Punch. "Standing there, watching those lords scheming… I can already feel my muscles atrophying. Why would Faris do this to us?"

"For her training." Patch glanced at me. "We've brought her along to fight beasts and demons and anything else she might need to kill on the road to hell. But she hasn't done peacekeeping duty yet, and Faris told us he wants her to have a complete education."

Punch glowered at me. "Don't take this the wrong way, angel, but I wish you weren't here."

I shrugged my shoulders and grinned back at him. "Admit it. Things weren't half as much fun before I showed up."

Punch rubbed his chin in reflective silence. The bomb-up-the-nose-tactic had been my crazy idea, and he was surely remembering that right now.

"Regardless of the reasons for it, this is our assignment, and we will perform with all due excellence expected of soldiers in Heaven's Army," Devlin said.

Octavian looked at me. "Who's on angel chaperone duty this time?"

A smirk twisted Arabelle's mouth. "Are you volunteering?"

He snorted. "No way. I've never met such a magnet for chaos. I'd have more luck keeping Punch out of trouble than keeping her out of trouble. And Punch's daddy won't smite me if he dies under my watch. Hers will."

Only because Faris needed me, though. The King of the Gods wasn't the sentimental type, and he didn't see me as his daughter so much as his weapon.

"I'll watch her."

My comrades all turned to look at the soldier who'd just stepped into the locker room, and so did I. I knew that voice.

"Glad to see you again, sweetness," Stash said to me with a wolfish grin.

I'd met Stash shortly after joining the Legion of Angels. I'd only been a lowly level-two soldier back then, and he'd been a werewolf outcast earning a living doing all kinds of odd jobs, anything from tending bar to arm-wrestling for dollars.

Things had changed a lot since then.

It turned out that, unbeknownst to him, Stash was actually a demigod, and his father was none other than Zarion, God of Faith, Lord of the Pilgrims, a member of the gods' ruling council. That discovery had changed Stash's life. Instead of serving drinks for pocket change, he now served as a soldier in Heaven's Army.

My life had taken a few twists and turns too. I was an angel now. And it turned out my mother was the demon Grace and my father the god Faris. Faris was Zarion's brother. I guess that made me and Stash family.

I opened my arms, Stash opened his, and we crashed together in one big hug.

"Glad to see you too," I told him. Truth be told, he was more like family to me than either of my parents.

I pulled back to get a better look at him. Stash was tall, muscular, and possessed the kind of rugged handsomeness that attracted countless admirers of the opposite sex. His chin-length hair was as messy as ever, and he still sported a two-day beard. Though he looked much like he had the first time I'd met him, something about Stash had changed. It wasn't just that he'd traded in his t-shirt and jeans for a soldier's uniform. Something deeper had transformed, something inside of him. I could see it in his eyes. Though a playful spark still lit them up, that spark was harder now, more serious. He'd clearly been through a lot.

"Nice of you to finally join us, Stash," said Octavian. "We thought we'd be short a man on this truly essential mission."

"Babysitting lords," someone said under their breath. It sounded like Punch.

"Glad to be here." Stash's grin lit up his eyes. "I hope you all watch my back better than you did Theon's."

"Theon's injuries were minor. And, unfortunately, unforeseen. He got himself caught in some…" Arabelle glanced at me. "…exploding dragon crossfire."

"Hey, why are you looking at me? Punch's role in blowing up the dragon was every bit as big as mine," I protested.

"It was your idea. And you positioned one of the two bombs."

"You might have a point," I admitted.

"Leda, are you blowing up monsters again?" Stash made a valiant effort not to laugh.

"Yeah, well." I shrugged. "You know how it is. Shit happens. We were supposed to take care of the dragon, so I took care of the dragon. Problem solved, mission accomplished, and everyone is happy."

"Everyone except for Theon," Octavian pointed out.

"What happened to him?" Stash asked.

"He broke his ankle when he jumped into a hole," I told him.

"A hole he jumped into to avoid the shockwave of exploding dragon you set off," Octavian added.

"You're exaggerating. There was no shockwave. It was only a minor tremor," I said. "And Theon is a god. He'll live."

"Yeah, he is a god. And gods are resilient." Stash frowned. "So how'd he break his ankle by just jumping into a hole?"

I shrugged. "It was a really deep hole."

"More like a really deep cavern," said Arabelle. "It really was impossible to overlook. Theon must have been pretty distracted by Leda's shockwave."

"Tremor," I corrected her.

"I do believe Theon has outsmarted us," Patch observed quietly.

"How do you figure that?" Punch asked him.

"When I saw him last, he was sitting comfortably in a hospital bed, watching soap operas and sipping on Nectar. Whereas we are headed to the Lords' Gala."

"You're saying Theon fell into that hole and got himself injured on purpose?" Octavian asked him.

"Yes."

Octavian frowned. "There is no honor in that."

Arabelle chuckled. "You wish you'd thought of it, don't you?"

"Of course. There isn't much honor in the Lords' Gala either."

"Enough," Devlin told us. "The Lords' Gala is our current assignment, and there's no use in complaining about it." He leveled a cool look at Octavian. "Or in trying to scheme your way out of going."

"I wouldn't dream of it, boss," Octavian replied with a saintly smile.

"Good."

"I must say, this isn't at all how I pictured Heaven's Army," I whispered to Stash as the other soldiers packed up.

"Neither did I," he replied. "The day I came here, it certainly changed everything I'd thought I knew about the gods."

"They're so normal."

"And yet not normal at all. Never forget, Leda, that they are all gods. Because they will never let you forget it."

"And yet you've decided to stay," I said.

"There is no place for me back on Earth." Stash shook his head. "I am a demigod, forever caught between worlds."

"So is the First Angel. She's made it work for her."

"Nyx has found her place on Earth, and I've found mine here, in Heaven's Army."

"And we're glad to have you." Octavian winked. "Even though you're a halfsie."

"But he makes a heavenly Nectar cocktail," Arabelle said. "Best I've ever had."

I grinned at Stash. "Nice to hear you're putting your bartending skills to good use."

He returned my smile. "Gods need to drink like anyone else. Especially gods in Heaven's Army."

"I'll definitely need something strong to survive tonight," Punch grunted.

Devlin shut his locker and turned to face us all. "All right. You can braid each other's hair later, girls. Right now, we have a job to do."

Magic sparkled in Stash's eyes, excited and a little devilish. "Try not to blow up anything this time, Leda."

"I can't make any promises. Monsters might crash the party. Demons might attack."

"Dishes might spontaneously combust," suggested Octavian.

I nodded. "These things do tend to happen when you invite the Angel of Chaos to a party."

Punch rubbed his hands together. "You know, for the first time, this gala is starting to sound not half-bad."