Angel Fever (Immortal Legacy #3) - Ella Summers Page 0,1
matter.”
I glanced back at Nero. It was like looking at a younger version of Damiel. Nero’s hair was more caramel than bronze, and his eyes were green rather than blue, but from forehead to jaw, both father and son shared the same face.
“Time to get changed for dinner,” I told Nero. “Your grandfather will be arriving soon.”
Nero went to his room, and I followed Damiel into the kitchen.
“He’s only ten, Damiel. And you’re teaching him the basics of street fighting.”
His eyes twinkled. “He’s moved well beyond the basics of street fighting by now, Princess.”
I sighed.
“Nero might be ten, but he’s not getting any younger.” Damiel wrapped his arms around me.
I dropped my head to his chest. “At least my father didn’t arrive at that very moment to witness our son’s fantastic display of disorderly fighting.”
Damiel kissed the top of my head. “It was pretty fantastic, wasn’t it?”
I looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re going to get our son into trouble.”
“No, I’m teaching our son to get out of trouble. So that the next time some hotshot Legion brat attacks him to prove his heavenly value to himself and his angel parent, Nero can put all doubts of who is best to rest. And all attacks too.”
Legion brat. What had once been a derogatory slur was now a term of respect for the offspring of an angel. Back when I’d been a child, I’d been the only one. But now there were many more. None of them had to live with the dubious distinction of being the first and only offspring of an angel.
That didn’t mean the Legion brats didn’t fight amongst themselves as each one tried to prove who was the worthiest. They saw themselves as better than everyone, as practically angels already. Even though they had yet to sip the gods’ Nectar and earn their first gift of magic.
Those kids had it all backwards. Being an angel was not about power; it was about sacrifice. The Legion granted powers to its soldiers so we could protect the Earth, so we could serve the people of Earth. But that power came with a very real price. Once you joined the Legion, your life wasn’t truly your own anymore.
“Nero is the only child ever born to two angels,” Damiel said. “And that makes him a target to every other Legion brat out there. Their parents have all told them that Nero is the person to beat.”
I knew Damiel was trying to protect Nero. And that he was doing it in the best way he knew how, pretty or not. This was about survival, and Damiel would do whatever it took to ensure Nero’s.
“You’ve lost faith,” I said, holding my husband tightly to me.
“I’ve lost a lot more than that, Cadence.” His voice was rough, sandpaper and spikes wrapped over a raw, wounded soul.
Damiel had never been completely polished around the edges, but in the twenty years we’d been married, those edges had grown rougher. The turning point had to be the tragic death of his best friend Jiro during Damiel’s archangel trials ten years ago. Damiel had played by the gods’ rules and lost.
And as time went on, Damiel had to deal with the Legion’s ever growing paranoia more and more. As the Master Interrogator, it was his job to hunt down every faint whisper of treason. The investigations were ceaseless, the interrogations brutal. It was all spreading Damiel so thin. He’d lost faith in the Legion, in what we were doing.
“Not everything is perfect,” I said. “But we are all—the Legion of Angels, we as parents—doing the best that we can. Perhaps we are all failing at perfection, but we keep going. We keep trying.”
Damiel had once told me that the only reason he stayed at the Legion was because of me and Nero. Otherwise, he would have left long ago, freeing himself from ‘the Legion’s corruption’ and from the gods. He said the gods were not saviors. That they were no better than the demons. And that this world would be better off without either of them.
But all he said to me now was, “You are my light. My life would have been so different without your love and faith in me. I would have been different. Without you, I would have been nothing more than the Legion’s weapon, the terrible, monstrous Master Interrogator who relished the act of sinking his arms elbow-deep in the unholy murk that swirls around us all.”