Page 32 of Angel's Vengeance

“Idon’t know whether anyone’s ever told you this before, but you guys need a better war room.”Neela picked at a dried red spot of something on the scratched-up farmhouse table in the middle of the angels’ great room and wondered, not for the first time, whether what she’d discreetly gathered under her fingernail was ketchup or blood.With the nearby sectional sofa arranged around a condensation-ring-laden coffee table positioned only a smattering of feet from a breakfront weapons arsenal that small countries would kill to have, she wondered at the strange sort of balance the angels had managed to find in their underground utopia.

Breakfast omelets and military artifice.Freshly baked cinnamon buns and celestial armament.To be among the press of shoulders and literal boulders as they all cupped their French press coffees and, in Iron’s case—and she could not believe she was about to say this—an espresso demitasse cup, while she sat hunched over a table that could have easily been thrifted from any decent estate sale, she was slapped with no small amount of irony.

As odd as it might appear, this was a family.It was in the subtle ways condiments were passed while the angels pored over no fewer than half a dozen tablets or how Tungsten never even so much as dropped a single breath in his conversation as he scooted back from the table just enough to allow his mate, Tammy, to join him on his lap.The kitchen was, likewise, a thriving hub of activity but was anchored with more purpose and enjoyment than the servitude Neela was used to.

Eggs puddled with goat cheese and sprinkled with neat flecks of chives had just as much of a place at this table as the news she’d recently shared regarding Cyro’s latest hideaway location.She might as well have told them that Cyro had figured out how to have Mount Vesuvius release its Pompeii sequel all over Italy, and they’d probably just start triangulating flight trajectories and weapons schematics while still criticizing the rise time on that morning’s batch of sourdough bread.

The whole thing made her heart squeeze to previously unclenched levels.

This was a home, in all its unabashedly peculiar and admittedly dysfunctional glory.Silence was only awkward because of what itdidsay, rather than what it omitted.It was never expected or, even worse, endured.There was no tolerating another’s presence simply because they couldn’t be removed from the equation.

No, judging by the tepid tension in the air and the empty seat she’d been told was usually occupied by Chrome, there was always the expectation that shit would be worked out and they could get back to their sausage and strategy sessions like it was any other Tuesday.

Except the subtle glances toward the noticeably absent party’s usual place setting and the rows of several stony jaws begrudgingly chewing around that fact made the crater-sized hole she’d caused bloom to galaxy-sized proportions.

The unit these angels and their mates formed was a precious commodity, and there was no escaping the awful truth that she’d had a hand in the events that brought them to where they were: fractured, untrusting, and on the brink of whatever looming terror her sire had planned.

That ended right the fuck now.

Bronze heaped another pile of scrambled eggs onto his plate and nodded appreciatively at whatever was on Iron’s screen while still addressing Neela.“Nah, there’s no need for any fancy meeting place.We’ve got the best lighting right here.I mean, have youseenthose mortal interrogation rooms, with their harsh fluorescent bulbs?”His shoulders shuddered in mock offense.“No thanks.I don’t need that crap stealing my highlights and making all this au naturel auburn look like it came from a box.Besides, it’s a bitch to move the espresso bar, and I amnotsettling for fucking drip coffee.”

“Is it that much of a pain to move it?Aren’t those just countertop things?”Neela asked, genuinely curious, and then instantly regretted it when every pair of eyes in the room looked at her as if she’d just announced she liked to kick puppies or shave kittens for fun.Even Rhode, who’d eaten nothing all morning and seemed to prefer propping up the cavern’s most sizable granite wall, regarded her with an eyebrow arch of derision.

Steel shucked off his apron and plopped down a fresh tray of hashbrowns.“Our kitchen uses water from the hot springs deep below the mountain.Moving the espresso bar would mean we’d have to change the water source for the coffee.”

“So, no, it’s not moving.”Iron lifted the petite cup to his lips, where his russet beard almost swallowing the porcelain seemed like a warning in and of itself.

Neela swallowed.“Point taken.”

Titan leaned forward and swiped a finger across his tablet.“I can’t believe Cyro’s new hideaway has been below that Wonders of the Wilds theme park this whole time.”

Bronze shoveled some eggs into his mouth before saying, “I also can’t believe how big of a hard-on the creators of that place had for Disney.Did they really build an entire faux utilidor below the park?How the hell did Disney let them get away with that?”

“They didn’t,” Iron clarified.“One of the original investors of this place knew the facility managers over at the Orlando park back when the Mouse’s House was first built and offered up their knowledge of the underground tunnel system for an entirely unkosher cut of the new park’s profits.It’ll come as a surprise to no one that nondisclosure agreements were deeply violated, the other investors found out, and the tunnel system below Wonders of the Wilds was promptly shut down shortly after the foundations were put in.Now the workers have to schlep garbage and take their breaks next to ugly HVAC sheds like at the rest of the theme parks in this country.”

Neela shifted in her seat, growing increasingly uncomfortable at the way they unknowingly described her previously lived reality—as some abandoned lair that only existed in the first place due to another male’s scheming.They weren’t wrong, per se, but the analysis and obvious analogy hit a little too close to home on many fronts.“Yeah, well, one person’s trash?—”

“Is the relic there?”Rhode cut in, expressing about as much interest in the hows and whys of her home’s origins as he’d expressed about anything since she’d seen him that morning.

“Yeah, it’s there,” she confirmed, for some reason both grateful and irked by his abrupt change in topic.“The tunnels run the entire span of the park below ground, but the entrances have long been sealed off to mortals.They’re still magically warded but far less so in the wintertime when the park’s not operational.If you all are to go in, I’d recommend entering from the portion of the park that sits above my greenhouse.From there, that leads to, first, my private suite of rooms and then the rest of the complex beyond that.If we go in that way, it’s less guarded.Because magic doesn’t work on me, my quarters always had to be physically patrolled, instead of spelled, and well, let’s just say monitoring my whereabouts wasn’t always the choicest task when security assignments were handed out.”

“They’re not going.Only I am.”

Neela had never heard the collective slamming of an entire service-for-twelve set of serving ware, ceramic mugs included, hit a table all at once, but she was nothing if not primed for a constant barrage of firsts in her life these days.One by one, every gruff voice in that cavernous hall rose up in an auditory wave to crash upon the sole sound of objection from the man who had yet to move from the wall he’d claimed since he’d first arrived.

“Out of the question?—”

“We’re ateam, or have you forgotten?—”

“If Chrome was here, he’d sure as shit have something to?—”

The thunderous clapback of Rhode’s rage was the only answer he provided, and it was enough to glue Neela’s butt firmly back to the bench she’d commandeered.

Irises of deep umber morphed into the silvery-white flames she’d last witnessed when she’d been crushed beneath Rhode’s powerful chest—a chest that was seemingly growing in size to match the tension in the room.

“You doubt me?You all doubt me still?I am aspy.Have I not bestowed enough?Bled enough?Fought hard enough?If I’ve given you no other reason to trust me, at least trust in that.No one, mybrothers, has a record of service to match the length and breadth of mine, I assure you.”Then that opulent metal armor snapped over his skin in a display of not only strength but offensive will.Weapons were drawn—more of those sickle blade things—and tendrils of blue flames swirled around his arms.

Shit.Not good.So very not good.

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