Page 15 of Angel's Vengeance

Rhode walked over to the bar and poured himself two fingers of whatever amber liquid happened to be closest.He was going for the burn, not the bouquet.“I can’t believe Brass allowed her into his home, a space he shares with his soul bond, no less.”Rhode knocked back the liquid, but the stuff did little to mimic the banked fire that still sat unsettled in his core.

Fucking hell, he wanted to punch something, if for the sole reason to have a controlled action to be responsible for.His muscles still obeyed him.His precision, strength, focus, all of it had slowly come back under his command during the labored months of physical therapy with Drea and then were honed with the grueling training he’d run through on the mats.The relief and utter internal elation at his body not only responding to his requests but carrying them out with relish and a newfound purpose was a win he’d never thought himself capable of achieving again.

And then, with a single leap off a building, it’d all come crashing down before him.His work, his time and attention, his fuckingplans, all blown apart byher.Cyro’s get.Who he was inexplicably linked to.

Once again, he was afforded no choice, no option, no allies or prime mages to turn to.There was no help for him whatsoever.

In so many ways, he was right back where he damn well started, wasn’t he?

He was just about to pour himself another drink when Chrome’s charged voice boomed through the great hall, threatening to shatter the glass in Rhode’s hand.“As long as we’re talking about what should and shouldn’t be allowed, why don’t we open up the floor, huh?I’m in a learning mood.And you know what they say: ‘When you’re green, you’re growing.When you’re ripe, you rot.’”

Iron lifted a brow.“Did you just quote the McDonald’s dude?”

“You bet your ass I did, and as always, it’s applicable.Timeless, even.And speaking of time ...”Chrome sauntered into the cavernous space as if the profundity of his words was owed entirely to the sheer quantity of firearms strapped to his body.

His one-time brother, within the safety of their sanctuary, was dressed for battle, and the arrogant asshole was making it perfectly clear to all the sentinels that Rhode was the one who had given him the reason to armor up.

If Rhode had any remorse left to offer, he’d have burned off the tattooed seal of the seraphim commander adorning his forearm that Chrome had placed there.

But regret had been shown the door long ago, and something much darker had moved in instead.Something that had grown far too wild to tame, despite all the love he had for every single sentinel, as well as their mates.

That wild thing clawed at the cage, and Rhode had to remember just why the hell it was best to keep his mouth shut.

Chrome held up a small jar with a shard of what looked like metal trapped inside.“I could give a flying fuck whether you choose to share or not share what we risked our lives to free you from, but that doesn’t meanIhave to keep quiet.You see, ussentinels”—the sneer encasing the word might as well have been a brand for the hiss Rhode’s fire recoiled with—“have been living on this rock for too fucking long not to take precautions.This right here?”He rattled the jar.“It’s a missing puzzle piece with a mouth that’s bigger than mine.”

Tungsten pointed a finger between the angels.“I will have civility or so help me mages, I will throw you both into the nearest volcano and let the fires sort it out.My soul bond is here, sleeping not far from this room.”

The sizzling threat lingered in the air, making the atmosphere even more stifling, but Chrome barely flinched.

“If we’re talking rip-roaring fires, then Rhode and I should be evenly matched, as both of our metals have similar melting points.See, it’d be fun for the whole family!”

Titan and Tung fell silent while Iron lowered his beer from his mouth and said, “Metal?What metal?Rhode doesn’t command any.”

And that was when Rhode realized that, during the fight, none of the angels had truly seen his wings up close.

Rhode ignored Iron, then bared his teeth at Chrome through the shocked stillness of the room.“Shut.Up.”

“Nah, I don’t think I will, unlessyouwant to finally tell the good people what your wings are made of.You know, since you finally decided to reveal them at all.”The dusty silver in Chrome’s stare was a challenge that Rhode’s fire responded to with all the ferocity of a lion cub roaring in the face of a very adult, very male lion.

Trapped.Again, Rhode was trapped.In the absence of any true power and surrounded by a group of angels who would have him on his ass faster than he could inhale, he held his tongue while Chrome’s motormouth drove them both off a cliff.

“Thought I was seeing things when this little puppy winked back at me from one of the ash piles in the parking lot earlier.A single sliver of metal that had been left behind.It didn’t look like one of our metals, and I got worried the charmers were doing tests on metal manipulation again, so I swiped it and did a little chemical analysis.”Chrome shook his head.“The color’s off, far too bright to be from Tung, Steel, Titan, or myself, and Steel and I are the only ones with metals close enough in color who had actually been at the fight regardless.But then I took a second look at your lovely wings, and things started to connect.The metals panel I ran finished off the picture for me.”Then he slammed the jar down on the table.“This is rhodium.Hard.Durable.Unaffected by air and water, except at temps that don’t support mortal life anyway.Inert against corrosion and most aggressive chemicals.And oddly enough, it has the exact same silvery-white patina as that of your brand-new set of wings.”

Then Chrome reached into his back pocket and popped a square of peppermint gum into his mouth as though he hadn’t just lit Rhode’s world on fire.“I’m willing to bet that dear old Cyro worked some prime mages-level magic and tried to make you his little super soldier, an angel of the Empyrean who can command the one metal that would withstand whatever corrosive shit Cyro could cook up that would take the rest of us down.”Those silver eyes narrowed, and every ounce of hatred came dripping off Chrome’s words—words of smug pride fired with wounding precision.“And I’m also willing to bet that, given the similarities, that fucked-up mix of mutated power and the Eternal Flame’s spark gave you our angel fire but put it on probation like it did with the rest of us before we soul bonded with our mates.But unlike the rest of us,” Chrome added, “we had a family to work through it with.”

The implications of his words arced through Rhode so deeply, his muscles couldn’t even work up the time to form a protective barrier around the darker depths of his soul.The parts that, in another life, during another era, might have truly cried out for anything other than gnawing vengeance.

Instead, he let his former intelligence master rage on and watched the confusion on his once-brothers’ faces as it morphed from disbelief to wariness to full-blown mistrust.

Fucking perfect.

“Let me make this perfectly clear,” Chrome added, as if his performance hadn’t already brought down the damn house.“There is zero room for lone rangers in this war, especially for ones who straddle the line because they don’t trust their own.”

Chrome strode for the door before Rhode’s fury even had a chance to formulate a plan.By the time Rhode had pushed off from the bar and Iron and the others had stepped in front of him, Chrome’s parting shot over his shoulder was an echo within the trapped cavern of Rhode’s mind.

“It sucks having the world ripped out from under you, doesn’t it?Especially when the ones who built your fucking foundations are left holding nothing but empty supports.”

Chapter8

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