resisted his compulsion.
I stomped toward him, my fists clenched. If an angel had tried to steal my free will, I would have been angry.
Say something, Damiel.
He pushed me back with a psychic blast, right into an enormous web. At first, I couldn’t see the web that held me at all, but the more I struggled, the more I could see its strands—and the stickier they became. I was stuck in his trap.
The Fever. He took a step toward me. When did this happen?
I think it started around the time of our dinner with my father. I didn’t realize it until the next day. I guess that’s why you couldn’t keep your hands off of me.
Cadence, I can’t ever keep my hands off of you, Fever or no Fever, he said seriously. And I will never let you go. When this is over, I will find you. I promise.
I held back tears.
Don’t, he told me. Let them flow. It will make it look real.
A tear splattered my cheek. It is real, Damiel. Now speaking aloud, I snapped, “You fight like a street vagrant. Without honor.”
I was following the script.
And he continued that script. “Honor is an excuse, a superficial cape worn by self-important men.” His brows lifted as his eyes panned down my body. “Or women.”
“Damiel, I am just—“
“Don’t say ‘following orders’. Because we’ve been through too much for that to matter.”
All eyes were on us.
“Yes, we’ve been through a lot.” I struggled against the magic web. “And so when you betrayed the Legion, you betrayed me too.”
“Come with me.” He extended his hand to me. “It’s not too late.”
“It is too late,” I said loudly. “Far too late for us. I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
He lifted his dagger high in the air, so high that no one could miss that bright sparkling-blue blade. It looked just like his Sapphire Tear, which everyone knew to be an immortal dagger. In truth, it was nothing but a mundane weapon he’d cast a spell on.
Damiel stabbed the blade through my chest. Pain clenched me. Blood soaked my clothes. The wound in my chest might not have been dealt by an immortal weapon, but it still hurt like hell.
It just didn’t hurt as much as the cry of furious anguish as Nero came running across the courtyard toward us.
“Traitor!” he screamed at Damiel. “Murderer!”
“It’s time to go, Nero. Now,” his father said calmly. “Say goodbye to your mother.”
My father had coated the dagger’s blade in a powerful paralyzing potion: the Living Death, which gave me the appearance of death. But I could still hear everything. See everything. Feel everything.
Nero’s gaze swept across my supposedly dead body—then locked on to Damiel. “You killed her!” He knocked the dagger from his father’s hand.
Damiel looked at him with mild annoyance. “I said, it’s time to go.”
Nero’s angry eyes narrowed. “I am not going anywhere with you.” He grabbed the fake immortal dagger off the ground and proceeded to fight Damiel with it.
What’s going on?
This is all part of your father’s plan, replied Damiel. General Silverstar said it was essential.
Essential…
To make Nero a hero himself.
It was supposed to be Colonel Holyfire who killed you, I protested.
It has to be Nero, Princess. It will secure his future, his place in the Legion of Angels. And that will give our son the magic he needs to fight hunters—and to hide his true magic from them.
Nero stabbed the dagger through his father’s chest. Damiel dropped to the ground, paralyzed by the same Living Death potion that had inflicted me. But to all eyes, he appeared as dead as I did.
Nero’s gaze shifted from his father’s body, to mine. He froze. The dagger slipped from his fingers. It hit the stone ground with a resounding clang.
No one said anything. Our shocked audience was completely silent.
Anguish marred Nero’s smooth face. He thought both of his parents were dead.
My heart was breaking. I wanted nothing more than to hug him, to tell him that everything would be all right, this whole farce be damned. But I couldn’t move.
My father marched across the courtyard with seven of his elite soldiers. He stopped beside Nero. “Be strong. No tears.”
Nodding, Nero wiped away his tears. His mouth quivered.
“You are a hero,” my father told him. “And you will be a great angel. I will train you, and someday you will be stronger than either of your parents. You will be strong enough to protect the Earth, to save the Legion from traitors. Your mother’s sacrifice will never be