Page 53 of Angel's Vengeance

Does it really matter?

“So I can die,” she murmured.

Rhode tightened his arm around her.“Yes.”

“Magic can harm me in the mortal lands.”

“Yes.But it can also save you.That’s why the soul bond magic works on you, Neela, because you carry part of Ciara’s Empyrean legacy within you, despite your charmer parentage.Empyreans live and thrive in all forms of light.We’re made of it.”

Neela took his words to heart and tried to concentrate to see whether she felt any warmer, any lighter, lying next to him.

She did.

“Cyro never understood that,” Rhode added.

“He didn’t?”

“No.If he did, he would have known that the true worth and power of any life can only be measured once it has ended.”Rhode painted idle circles onto her arm, and his voice seemed to drift further and further away.“You were wrong, you know.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“I did know you were there,” he whispered.

Neela lifted up and rested her chin against his chest, but he was already staring down at her.

“A part of me did know, I think.When I was in that cell.”

Her heart slingshotted around her ribs.“You told me your name, but it was only during one visit.Right after they had brought you back from ...Anyway, I wasn’t entirely sure how lucid you were.You kept chanting that word as part of a phrase but never opened your eyes or anything, even after I tried to wake you up, so I just assumed it was your name.It went something like ‘I ...Axtar, not Tyrus.’Or maybe it was something similar.I don’t know.It was a long time ago.I never figured out who Tyrus was, and you never mentioned either name again.”

The play of his fingers stilled, but he didn’t remove his hand.“Tyrus is Chrome’s celestial name.”

She sat up then and noticed the tattoo on his forearm, the one that was a mark of his office as a seraphim commander.Neela extended her hand toward it, but Rhode ducked his arm beneath the sheet.“What do those symbols mean?”

His eyes assessed her.“You can see them?”

“Yes ...”

“Chrome branded me with the symbol himself, used his angel fire to etch it onto my skin when he appointed me to the post.The celestial eye affixed atop a flaming scepter.It’s only visible to the sentinels, the celestial mages, and my soul bond, apparently.”

She tried not to feel joy at the sense of belonging that thrummed within her, especially at the obvious sorrow it brought him.“Does Chrome know about what really happened?”

“No.”He shifted his gaze toward the wall.“No one does.”

“Why not?Why not explain and help them understand?”

Then Rhode swiped a hand through the air and lifted her off him.“Don’t do this,” he barked, then walked over to the trunk at the foot of the bed.

Neela wrapped the sheet around her more tightly.“But why, Rhode?They can help.We canallhelp.”

“Because I volunteered for Cyro’s treatments!”he snarled.“I injected myself.”

Chapter26

Rhode yanked a sweatshirt from his trunk and punched his arms into it.No fucking way was he going to have this conversation while so much of him was exposed.Hell, a damn hazmat suit wouldn’t have offered him enough coverage.For some wounds, no amount of protection could ever be enough to prevent the gashes from splitting wide open again.

Rhode ran his fingers through his short hair and tried not to think of what it once looked like.And the worst part was that Neela knew.Sheknewhow infested with lice and fleas it had been.How the vermin had gnawed at his scalp so terribly that the only relief he could expect to find was scraping his head against the stone and hoping the salt of his blood was enough to starve the pests to death.

It had never worked.Nothing ever had.

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