Page 29 of Angel's Vengeance

“What situation?”

The sigh Drea let out was so deep, Neela nearly felt it echo around the hollow in her own chest.“The one where the man who I’d literally do anything for wants nothing to do with the man who, for some reason, let me, of all people, care for him when he had every reason in the world to give up on life.”

Neela tried to absorb that idea but couldn’t reconcile the heat she’d just experienced beneath Rhode’s touch with the ice he’d practically cut her with as he flew off.

“The man gives me whiplash,” Neela admitted.“I can only imagine what it must have been like for you when you were caring for him.”

“Here’s the thing, though—and believe me, it took me for-fucking-ever to realize this—but his circumstances don’t really have anything to do with me.Rhode and I share a connection, sure, and Chrome and Rhode absolutely have a Mt.Everest-sized reckoning barreling toward them at some point, but it’s not my place to try and worm my way inside his past, except to give the hard parts of it a soft place to land when the pieces start breaking free.Look, beyond what the others have already shared, we don’t know more about Rhode’s prior situation.He’s claimed memory loss since day one, and even though Chromelovesto call bullshit on that, I don’t care if that’s the party line Rhode feels he needs to tote to keep himself safe.None of us can imagine what he’s been through and what he’s had to overcome mentally to even fly or fight again.”

I can imagine.Far too well, I can imagine.

When Neela didn’t say anything, Drea flicked on her blinker and pulled them into a strip mall parking lot.

“Why are we here?”

“Because retail therapy does a far better job of topping off the dopamine than bedroom sulking.”Then she jammed the gear shift into park.“Besides, friends don’t let friends wear the same outfit for more than a day in a row, unless it’s, like, thegoodpair of jeans.”

Shopping.As in, walk through a store, browse the racks, and—Neela’s lower lip curled under her teeth—try onclothes in a fitting room.It was the most mundane of mortal tasks but something she’d always longed to do.

Neela’s throat quivered.“I didn’t know?—”

“Save the questions.We’ve only got another hour until these places close, and if you want to feel like a new woman beforegentlyhanding Rhode his ass for the way he treated you, I suggest we walk and talk.”

“Wait.”Neela had already swung her car door open, but her hand froze on the handle.“What are you talking about?”

Drea was out of the vehicle and sauntering up to the first shop, her long braid swaying with canine-like enthusiasm.“I know where Rhode likes to go when he needs space away from the others, and I’ll tell you where that is, if you promise to try on that hunter-green sweater dress in the window.Ooh and the brown calf-length boots!”

Neela barely made it through the boutique’s door before her arms were piled high with garments and gratitude.

Chapter14

It was close to ten thirty in the evening when Rhode pushed himself off the cinderblock wall of the Happy Hands, Happy Paws animal shelter.After finally having enough of the sole parking lot light’s sad interrogation technique, he used his power to disable the rhodium-coated electrodes in the facility’s alarm system and ducked inside.

Not gonna lie,thathad been a neat trick once he’d learned how to do it.

The shelter was one of the few animal rescues in Aurora that had a physical building to house dogs available for adoption.Most of the other rescue operations in the area lacked such funding, so the proprietors usually relied on volunteers to foster the dogs until the animals got swept up into (hopefully) loving homes.

The concept made about as much sense as non-dairy cheese.Apparently, having keepers withmoremoney and resources meant you got to spend your days and nights in a cage, save for the few mandated potty breaks and some cuddle time that was more for the shelter volunteers’ enjoyment and community service hours than the dogs’ satisfaction.But if your caregivers hadnomoney?Well, that got you a nice, warm home with free-roaming privileges, a few toys, canine friends to commiserate with, a couch to lounge on if you were lucky, and a kitchen full of scraps to snuffle off the floor.

That was the thing about gilded cages.The exact makeup of the bars was entirely irrelevant.

Because the best, most efficient jailors always knew that even if those doors were flung wide open, no inmate would budge.The true prison was always a mental one, and that facility was unfailingly locked up good and tight.

Rhode pushed through the back hallway, being careful to stay far away from the dim sepia-toned emergency lights that did far more to remind the poor animals of what they couldn’t see than what they could.Even the temperature controls in the place managed to hitch another car to the nightmare train of canine psychological warfare.The thermostat for the main floor was just a hair shy of health-department healthy and tended to unexpectedly dip below sixty degrees Fahrenheit when the thing was operating on the programmable schedule.

Which, conveniently for the mortals, only ever happened at night when the animals were in the building alone.

But they had fur, right?And as long as the building’s pipes never froze and they never failed an inspection, the nonprofiters could just keep on nonprofiting in the name of altruism.Because they were saving lives— No, what did the mortals call it again?

Ah, yes.They were finding the dogs theirfureverhomes.

The chorus of soft snores and canine whimpers swelled against the rattling heating system that was doing its level best to show up for a job twenty years too late.Among the symphony of slumbering dogs, one kennel in particular always stood silent, as if its occupant insisted that, even during sleep, best behavior was still rewarded.

And he’d be right.

Rhode stalked past an assortment of terrier types and doodle mixes until he came to the single cell he always sought out whenever his mind got too full of his problems, not the least of which was his most recent Cyro hallucination.

Or the golden-haired demon who simultaneously gifted him power and robbed him of it.

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