Chapter 10

"How on Earth did this happen?" Nerissa asked me as she patched up the myriad of cuts all across my back.

I would have healed the wounds myself, but I couldn't reach those places. Nero could have done it too. However, considering I was also suffering from a broken wrist and a minor concussion that caused me to see spots whenever I tried to count past five, he'd ordered me to go see a real doctor. And at the time, I hadn't been in any condition to argue with him.

"It happened at family dinner night," I told Nerissa.

"What kind of parties are you throwing, Leda?"

I winced as she pulled the fifty-seventh marble sliver out of my back. "This was totally not my fault."

"Oh, really?" Nerissa walked around me to start work on my broken wrist.

"Yes, really. Demons crashed the party and tried to kill us all."

She gave me a flat look. "Don't try to bullshit me, Leda."

I offered her a smile. "Wouldn't dream of it, Doc."

"Demons can't come to Earth, remember?" She poured a potion over my wrist; it burned for a moment, then the bones mended. "So they can't very well crash your family dinner."

"Oh, right. There is that."

"So what really happened tonight?"

"I tripped over Angel and fell onto the coffee table during a game of charades," I admitted sheepishly.

"Now that I believe."

"Thanks for your vote of confidence."

"It baffles the mind, Leda, how you managed to make it through a demon assault unscathed, but you couldn't make it through family dinner night."

I sighed. "My family isn't like other families."

"Then maybe you should start wearing armor to dinner."

"Maybe I should." I glanced at Nero, who hadn't left my side since I'd lost my battle with the coffee table. "What do you think, honey?"

"I think you should watch where you're going." He was looking at me like I was made of glass.

"I probably should," I agreed. "But I'd hate to rob you of the fun of chivalrously carrying me to the medical ward."

He grunted in amusement.

I looked around at Nerissa's office. When I'd taken command of Purgatory, as my base of operations the Legion had given me several opulent villas that had once belonged to the town's former district lords. The buildings were havens of debauchery and sin, and the interior design reflected that. There were more bathrooms than bedrooms, and every single one of them had a hot tub big enough for at least a dozen people. There were treasure rooms filled with jewelry and garages filled with luxury cars. There were more closets and garment racks than in a clothing store, and more saunas and daybeds than in a spa.

Nerissa had set up her office in one of those relaxation rooms. She'd kept the massage table and the serenity fountain, but she'd removed most of the other furniture to make room for her massive desk. She'd also had Drake and Alec knock down a few walls to expand her office into the neighboring rooms. That had opened up space for some more desks.

She was rolling a cart out from under one of those desks now, a cart filled with magic testing equipment that I recognized all too well.

"No," I said so firmly that the shelves on the walls rattled a little.

"You've been avoiding me, Leda."

And for good reason. As soon as my Fever had ended, Nerissa had lured me into her office and then pulled out that testing cart. She'd tested my magic every other waking hour on the first day, and every hour on the second day. Thankfully, on the third day Faris had dispatched me to Heaven's Army before Nerissa could poke and prod me some more. That had bought me a week without needles, scanners, or any other kind of magical testing equipment.

"You don't know when to give up, do you, Doc?" I grumbled.

"The First Angel does not give up." Nerissa took a needle from the cart. "Nyx is not satisfied with your last twenty-four test results."

"Being dissatisfied won't change reality."

"I'm just doing my job, Leda," she said, the sympathy in her voice overshadowed by the merciless way in which she jammed that big needle into my arm.

"Ow!"

"You're a badass angel, Leda. Stop bellyaching."

"Then stop poking me with big-ass needles." I scowled at her. "You know this is pointless anyway. Test number twenty-five isn't going to be any different than tests one through twenty-four."

"The First Angel is an eternal optimist." She pulled out the needle.

I rubbed my tender arm. "The word you're looking for is sadist, Nerissa. Because even at this point, even the universe's biggest optimist would be waving the white flag in surrender. No, Nyx is punishing me. Punishing me for not living up to her grand plans for me."

These tests were all looking for one thing: the telltale magic signature that showed an angel was pregnant. Nerissa's instruments could detect this signature within a few days of conception, and they were perfectly accurate.

Well, they weren't showing a thing, and Nerissa and I both knew why. During my Fever, the once-in-a-decade-or-two time of a female angel's fertility, I'd taken a potion to make me infertile. Angel birth control, if you will.

Nyx wasn't the only one holding her breath for my and Nero's child. The offspring of a god-demon angel and an angel with Immortal blood was a hot commodity, and everyone wanted a piece. Faris had even come out and admitted he planned to use my child as a weapon, and considering what Grace had done to me before I'd even been born, she'd try to steal our daughter too. Then there were the Guardians who threatened our very existence, and the gods and demons who'd thrown us right in the middle of this war.

I wanted nothing more than to have a child with Nero. But I couldn't do that. Not now. It wouldn't be safe for our future daughter. I wasn't sure I'd be able to protect her from everyone who wanted to steal, kill, or otherwise abuse her.

And so I'd taken the potion. I didn't have any regrets about it either. Our daughter was too important to me to risk her life and freedom.

"I have to keep testing you, Leda, as long as the First Angel orders me to do it," Nerissa said. "Eventually, she will accept that your Fever was not successful."

"I'm not sure that she will accept it because it ruins her plans to gain the second-ever offspring of two angels for the Legion."

Nerissa sighed.

Nero looked at her, at me, then he declared in a low, angry hiss, "What have you two done?"

I met his eyes, and the look in them told me he knew. He'd just figured out what we'd done. I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say.

"You are going to get yourself killed, Leda," he growled. "This is treason."

"We've broken the rules before, Nero. For the greater good. This time, I did it for our future daughter's good. We can't bring her into a world of danger, where she will be hunted down by gods, demons, and Guardians alike."

His voice dipped lower. "It was not your choice alone."

That's what this was about. That's why he was angry. Because I hadn't consulted him before acting.

"There was no time," I told him. "And I wasn't even allowed to see you alone. The Legion kept us apart during my Fever, remember?"

"You could have found a way. You always find a way, Leda, even when it seems impossible. So that can only mean you didn't want to find a way. You didn't want to see me." His voice broke, and my heart along with it. "So you could decide alone, decide for the both of us." His mouth hardened. "You are becoming more and more an angel every day."

This time when he said it, he wasn't paying me a compliment. No, this wasn't like all those other times. He wasn't engaging in playful banter; he was telling me in no uncertain terms that I'd hurt him.

"Nero, I was trying to give our daughter her best chance at life. I want her to come into the world when it's at peace, not be born a pawn in a war she doesn't even understand." I clenched my fists in desperate anger. "I'm not going to let anyone jeopardize my daughter's life."

"Even me," he growled.

"Yes, even you, Nero," I snapped. "I was born a pawn in this immortal war, caught between heaven and hell. My entire existence is nothing but another ploy. Another move on some big galactic chessboard. I'm a tool. A weapon. You can't begin to understand what that feels like."

"Can't I?" His laugh was almost a snarl. "My mother was ordered to hunt down and kill my father because the Legion thought he'd betrayed them. I'm every bit as much caught in this struggle between heaven and hell as you are. My whole existence, in fact, came to be because of some psychotic so-called Guardians on the hunt for magic. So don't tell me that I don't know what it's like to be a pawn in this immortal war, Leda."

Then he turned on his heel and stormed out of the room.

"Damn you, Nero Windstriker!" I shouted out.

I lifted Nerissa's chair over my head and threw it at the door. When that didn't make me feel any better, I knocked over a few desks too.

Nerissa just watched me coolly and asked, "Are you done punishing the furniture?"

I looked around at the enormous mess I'd made, and all I could do was laugh. It was a desperate, miserable laugh.

"So, you've finally cracked," Nerissa said.

My chest still shaking with miserable laughter, I slouched forward. "I really screwed up this time."

Nerissa's gaze panned across her ruined furniture. "Yep."

"I can't believe I shouted at him like that." I rubbed my head. "I was just so angry."

"You're all worked up trying to protect your daughter."

"A daughter who does not exist yet."

"She exists to you, Leda." Nerissa gave my arm a comforting pat. "And she exists to General Windstriker."

I straightened. "I need to talk to him. I need to fix this." Uncertainty weighed on me. "But how? What's done is done. And, you know, I'd do it all over again to keep her safe." I clenched my fists. "I have to make Nero understand that."

"In my experience, you can't make an angel do anything they don't want to do."

She wasn't wrong.

"I have to try," I said.

"Good luck," she called out as I left her office.

I pulled out my phone and texted Nero. I tried not to feel discouraged when he didn't answer. Nero was right about one thing: Leda Pandora did not give up. I had to make him understand why I'd done what I had. Since I wasn't sure how I was going to do that yet, maybe it was good he hadn't answered any of my texts.

"Way to see the silver lining, Leda," I muttered encouragement to myself.

I refrained from thanking myself for the encouraging words. That would have just been crazy.

I continued walking the halls of my office building. Nero must have been long gone by now, but it didn't matter. Walking calmed my turbulent spirit. Training would have been even better, but there weren't any other angels around. Damiel, Cadence, and General Silverstar had left after the ill-fated charades game. Harker had left for New York even before dinner. And now Nero was gone too.

I was all alone.

In absence of another angel to fight, maybe I'd go clear some monsters from the Black Plains at my doorstep. Sure, they kept coming back, no matter how many times I cleared them out, but it would keep me busy for a while. I knew Nerissa had instructed me to take it easy for a few days following my coffee table accident, but right now, I felt like my body could handle a lot more than my aching soul.

I was about to turn and head to my apartment to change into something that was still in one piece, when my assistant Lucy found me.

"There's been a disaster at the Legion base in Desert Rose," she reported.

Lucy's temperament might have buckled under the strain of battle, but as an angel's administrative assistant, she had nerves of steel. She was the perfect orderly counterpart to my chaos. Thanks to her organizational skills, my territory was running smoothly.

"What happened?" I asked her. "Is the Magitech barrier down at Desert Rose?"

Desert Rose lay on the Elemental Expanse, and there were a lot of pretty feral monsters just beyond the wall. If it went down, the monsters would flood the expanse—and send the Earth's elements spiraling into disarray.

"The state of the Magitech barrier is unknown," replied Lucy. "And neither the base at Desert Rose nor Storm Castle is responding to our calls."

"That can't be good. Ok, I'll go check it out," I told her.

She frowned. "Alone?"

"Don't give me that look. I'll be fine. If I need reinforcements, I'll give you a call."

"That is hardly reassuring, Leda," she replied. "Desert Rose called for help, and now the whole Elemental Expanse has gone silent."

"You worry too much."

"It's my job to worry about you."

"Don't worry too much, or you'll have a heart attack. And then who will keep my todo list organized?" I flashed her a grin.

She humphed. I winked at her, then ran for the exit. It was actually my duty as the Angel of the Plains of Monsters to check out disasters along the wilderness border. That's why I had to go: duty. Certainly not because I needed an excuse to get my mind off of Nero.