Page 47 of Angel's Vengeance

Freaking lovely.

As far as deep breaths went, Neela’s next one was pitifully shallow, but there was only so much available real estate in her chest at the moment.So what choice did she have but to finally offload some burdens?

“I won’t be intimidated by you,” she repeated, “because, for more years than I can count, I cared for you.”The truth lifted free from her throat and widened the opening of her heart to let long-buried memories come pouring out like water from a firehouse.“I didn’t know I could die because all my earliest memories following my inception were filled with so much confusion and agony that, even though I was told death wasn’t a possibility for me, Isowished it was.”

Rhode didn’t say anything, just held his stance by the door like some stone gargoyle poised for danger but unable to move.At least she had his attention, though.The way his eyes tracked her as she gained momentum pacing around the room was enough encouragement to continue.

“I won’t insult you by asking whether you have any idea of what it’s like to wish for such a thing.I can imagine you do, but that won’t stop me from enlightening you on my experience regardless.”

His jaw twitched.She’d struck a nerve.Good.

“When Cyro called for me after my inception and we discovered that I couldn’t portal like the others, I had no inkling of what that would mean for me.I only knew him as Cyro, my sire, our leader.Among the charmers, he wasn’t exactly paternal, but he wasn’tnot, if that makes sense.When you’re responsible for another life, no matter how that life came about, there’s still an element of care inherent in the relationship.Sometimes that care comes naturally and is nurtured.Other times, that care is acknowledged and then willfully abandoned, but that’s the thing, isn’t it?For a bond to be abandoned at all, it must first exist.”Those words hung there for a moment, heavy and expectant in the confines of the cavernous room.

“The look on Cyro’s face was so different after he realized the flaw in my design.I had always come to know his smooth mask of aloofness as his default setting.He never smiled, nor did he scream and rage.He just always ...was.Controlled, intentional, even-keeled.Until me.”

Neela paced along the wall farthest from where Rhode stood and imagined, as she sometimes did back home, that there was a large picture window illuminating her efforts.“I had no inkling of what his next step was going to be.No warning signs, no room set up.Nothing.I remember standing before him, unsure whether he was pleased with my performance or not.There had never been any discussion of what the desired outcome should be by me trying to portal.No hypothesis to test.He simply told me to do a task, and I tried to obey.”

Her throat began to tighten, but she pushed through, quickening her steps in response.“His hand came up first, and I remember being mesmerized by how long his fingers were.I didn’t have fingers like that and always wondered how he crafted my smaller hands, or my hair, for that matter.But I stopped thinking that the moment he snapped those long fingers and a hail of green magic leaped for me.My hair, my most identifiable feature aside from my sex, was the first thing to be engulfed in the flames, followed by my more delicate skin—earlobes, eyelids, and such.I don’t know how long I stood there screaming before I finally collapsed and lost consciousness.But when I woke with freshly healed skin and hair still brushing my shoulders, that was when we all knew I was different.”Neela stopped and glared at him.“The wrong kind of different.And it seems I’m still paying the price for that, even from my soul bond.”

Rhode closed his eyes and held the blink for two full inhales before his umber gaze found hers again.The balled fists were new, though, as was the skim-coating of shame that seemed to tighten his features.

“It went on like that.For days and weeks and years andeternities, until, through the power of sheer perseverance and having no fucking choice, Cyro just gave up on trying to kill me.For the first time ever, the demon ruler had to acknowledge true defeat.”Then her voice softened, and she looked around the room, wishing like hell there was something to hold while feeling so exposed—a curtain, a chair, anything.Because with her next breath, she scooped out what remained of those heartbreaking days.“And as a result of his defeat, I found you.”

Rhode’s eyes flashed.“What?”

“I asked you once whether you knew what it was like to care so deeply for something where you were the sole creature in existence truly capable of helping the other.”

“I ...Yes, you did.I remember.”His voice had lost some of the rasp but none of the enigma.

Neela nodded back her tears.“Well, you want to know what I remember?I remember feeling so alienated, so lost in a universe whose language I didn’t speak and among others who refused to teach it or really talk to me unless they had to, that the only way for me to exist was to find purpose elsewhere.I found that purpose in caring for you, Rhode.I remember you lying on that stone slab as I scraped off and cleansed from you whatever I could of the day’s ordeal.I didn’t know who you were, but given my experiences with my sire and the research notes I’d find each night near your cell, it didn’t matter.I could read between the lines and guess what was happening, what they were doing to you.”Her breath hitched.“What they were trying to make you become.”

“Don’t,” he growled, stepping toward her.

“No,youdon’t.It’s my time to talk, my time to stomp my feet and tell you the things you don’t want to hear.Because Iremember you!I didn’t lie to youbecauseI remember!I remember everything of what you used to be, limp and lifeless most of the time, desperate and disoriented the rest.I never touched you then because of what I knew they’d done to you, or how, in your lucid moments when I was in your cell, you would reach for me but never spoke or saw me.Imagine, the one being whose life depended onmefor survival, never being able to truly know me or even so much as open his eyes to see that I was right in his cell with him the whole time, that he wasn’t alone the way I had been for so long.”

There was no hope of putting the lava back into the volcano.Neela’s whole soul erupted with pent-up ferocity, and she was powerless to do anything other than rail at him.

“So imagine how fucking elated and devastated I was when you were rescued because I knew you were finally free,” she screamed, “but you were also finally free ofme!”

A thundering energy rattled through the stone around them as Rhode lunged for her with furious sparks lighting his eyes.“You want me to be free of you?”he roared, gripping her shoulders.

A pang of hurt struck her at the implication of his words.“That’s what you truly want, isn’t it?”Neela whispered.She didn’t know how to answer him but was pissed as hell that her earlier uncertainty hadn’t left town once her desperation had decided to unveil its narrative.“Deep down,youwant to be free ofme.”

Then his hand gripped the back of her neck, and the heat of his skin branded her.“I fear I will never be free of you.”

Rhode’s fiery lips crashed against hers, finally claiming what her heart could never truly deny him.

Chapter24

No amount of water could have extinguished the inferno boiling Rhode’s blood as Neela spilled every torturous detail of her existence.Rage would have been an easier thing to rein in.Rage had boundaries, clearly delineated borders that one knew what they were getting into once they’d crossed them.A short burst of fury, a roaring tidal wave of temper, and then it was expended as soon as it came on.Calm shores returned.Trees stood upright again.Life went on.

But not for him.Never for him.

He’d have ashes before he’d have her doubt or her fear.

Every word she said was another nail ripped up from a coffin he’d fabricated with sheer force of will.How she managed to unearth it, let alone find a way to bury him anew with her brazen truths, was a miracle of the mages.

No, he realized.A miracle herself.

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