Page 52 of Angel's Vengeance

Read: Because of our fate-mandated teamwork, I now have the power to level up.

“With my full angel fire, Cyro has no hope of touching me.With your help, it’ll be a cakewalk getting the relic back before he can use it to cause further harm.”

Read: You’ve got the cheat codes, and I’ve got the invincibility.Together, we can beat the game.

She didn’t want to hear any more, but she also couldn’t deny him the happiness he deserved after all he’d endured.

She could be happy for him.She really could.Sheshouldbe.And there was no reason they couldn’t still enjoy each other’s company.They were soul bonds.That constituted more than friends with benefits, right?

But as she tried to rationalize what her life ahead would look like and inadvertently began tuning Rhode out in the process, she shivered when he cupped the side of her face and ran his thumb over the mark behind her ear.

A mark she’d never known existed.

“I know this symbol, Neela, and I think I know why you’re not like any other charmer.”

She nodded her encouragement, still too raw to speak.“Hmm?”

“It’s also the reason why you’re like no other female I’ve ever met.”

Oh, boy, he couldnotsay that stuff to her, not when her world had yet again just been upended.She was plucking up the courage to say as much when another woman’s name fell from his lips.

“Ciara.This was the name of another seraph in my legion long ago.One of my best trackers.”A sadness ghosted through his eyes as he caressed Neela’s jaw.“We lost her on a patrol mission.Her body was never recovered.But seeing this now, and the way you’ve carried it on your skin this entire time, I’m willing to bet that the item Cyro recovered from that battlefield and used during your inception process was one of Ciara’s flight feathers.This symbol likely formed on you as a manifestation of Ciara’s spark.”

Neela pushed aside her sorrow to make sense of what he was saying.“Really?”

“Yes.To Cyro, it would have been just another seraph’s feather that he found, one that could be connected to the Empyrean but with no known origins beyond that.He had no way of knowing it was a female’s feather he stole, which is what, I suspect, contributed to your gender.”Then he lifted a brow at her.“Unless he used female seraphim feathers in other experiments?”

“No, he didn’t,” she confirmed.“But why did magic harm me earlier, when it never had before?”Then a horror struck her, and her cheeks heated.“I never got an opportunity to thank you, by the way, for saving my life.Again.”

His hand moved to her bare shoulder and rubbed soothing circles into it.“Consider us even.”

God, did he have to keep doing that?Touching her, consoling her as if they were anything other than essentially ballroom dance partners with more comfortable clothing—ornoclothing?

Or maybe that was how he viewed the two of them.Partners who were free to touch, to taste, to make love, but never more.

Then she looked into his hard face and was struck with a memory of how he’d looked when she first saw him.Skin so pale that every artery and vein track told a different tale of where he’d been abused and misused.Thickly matted hair down to his mid-back, which was originally blond but had been bleached to a ghostly white, devoid of every protein and mineral due to the experiments.A scraggly beard that was his only form of modesty, covering whatever body parts its unkempt length could reach.

Back then, he had been Axtar.He’d whispered that word to her once, in a fever dream of delusion, she suspected.But she knew.She knew it had been his name.

And now, he was Rhode.A fallen seraphim commander who was part of a team of warrior angels.A cohesive unit.A family.The thing she’d always yearned for.

The truth lay cloyingly thick in her heart as the path to certainty began to solidify in her mind.

How on earth could she deny him this?What he’d found, what she’d somehow managed to give him, was lightyears beyond a symbiotic connection to another.She’d given him health.A family.A home.

It was exactly what she’d dreamed of for herself, so why the hell would she begrudge him the ability to finally enjoy his life?

She wouldn’t.She couldn’t.That had become abundantly clear.

And if there was room for her in his life, in whatever small way the soul bond allowed, she would latch onto it with open arms and hang on for as long as her grip held out.

“To answer your question,” he said before dropping a kiss on her shoulder—damn him.“I believe you can be harmed in the mortal lands because all of Cyro’s attempts on your life were done in the shadow realm.”

Neela stilled, mentally retracing every horrid experience ever done to her.It was a practice she never did, for obvious reasons, but his conclusion, if correct, was too much of a bombshell to go unchecked.

“Oh my God, you’re right.”

Rhode nodded, opening his arm wide for her to sidle up to him, as if they both knew such a revelation couldn’t come without some measure of physical comfort.The call of his smooth chest was too irresistible, and she huddled closer, puddling her cheek to his hard pec and smiling to herself when his heartbeat kicked up.Was that reaction for her or a byproduct of the soul bond connection?

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