Page 54 of Angel's Vengeance

Rhode finally settled on the edge of the trunk, making damn sure no part of that bed was touching him.Neela was too much of a distraction, and he knew himself, knew that if he felt even her pinky toe through the covers, he’d lunge for the opportunity to sink into her again and avoid the responsibility of telling his soul bond the truth in favor of the responsibility of giving her pleasure.

“Before my capture, Chrome and I were responsible for overseeing a defensive mission against Cyro and his advancing armies.They were getting too close to the Empyrean’s gates, and every spy legion I sent out for information came back in pieces.Wings and limbs would be dropped from magic portals that Cyro and his charmers opened up in our territories.The bastard was stretching us too thin, splitting our armies into directions we couldn’t sustain with our numbers.Now I know why.”

“Why?”

“We never knew how he made more of your kind, only that for every one we took out, half a dozen would sprout in its place.If he was creating armies from his own person, with his dark magic, and then regenerating, well, it makes sense now why we were never able to keep up with him.”

“Hindsight’s twenty-twenty,” she said.

“So it is.At any rate, I soon learned that an intelligence breach was the reason my entire legion of seraphim scouts had been slaughtered and their mutilated bodies returned to us outside our gates.They weremyangels.I sent them there.And Chrome trusted my judgment.”Rhode shook his head, hoping to fling the memory a thousand miles away from his also-too-trusting soul bond.

But he couldn’t.He owed her and promised her as much.

“The night before the Sealing?—”

“Sealing?”

“The sentinels’ final act of salvation.An all-or-nothing op.Using magic bestowed on them by the celestial mages, all the sentinels stood outside the gates of the Empyrean and drained their power to seal off the gates so no one—neither Cyro, souls, nor the sentinels themselves—could ever enter Heaven again.Not until Cyro and the entire threat to the Empyrean had been eradicated.Unbeknownst to the sentinels, however, enacting the Sealing blasted them out of Heaven and sent them plummeting to the mortal realm with little hope of returning.”

Understanding stilled Neela’s movements.

“Anyway, the night before, I insisted Chrome send me on a final mission to hunt down the source of the breach.He refused, of course, most colorfully, I’ll add, but I didn’t give him a choice, and he knew it.Our numbers were dwindling, and if we couldn’t stop the bleeding, we might as well have opened the fucking doors for the charmers regardless.So I left with a promise not to fail him.”

Rhode swallowed down the bitter memory and the lie it had turned into.“Before I reached the shadow realm, a portal opened above me, and I was shot down.But because I was by myself and not among a legion of seraphim, the charmers that apprehended me surmised what I was there to do and brought me to Cyro, who recognized me instantly.”

Mages, his head was heavy.His neck, his temples, everything throbbed with a renewed ache that had only ever truly ebbed when Neela had begun to run her fingers through his hair.

But, no.He had to get through this.

“Like any good commander, Cyro was after information.”

“What sort of information?Battle plans and such?”

“No, not battle plans.The battle planner.”

A curious crease formed between her brows.“But wouldn’t that be?—”

“Chrome.”

Neela sucked in a breath, and no matter how hard Rhode tried, he couldn’tnotturn to her, nor could he stomach keeping things to himself any longer.Mages, he was so damn tired.

“Cyro wanted Chrome, our intelligence master, and since I had zero interest in giving him up, we struck a bargain,” he gritted out.

“A bargain?Why would he offer one if he already had you captive?”

“Because if he had my cooperation on a particular matter, he assured me that he’d have no more need for Chrome or the desire to locate his whereabouts.”

“I see.And you agreed to this right away?”It was clear Neela was trying to parse out the timeline of events, a glimmer of hope sparking in her eyes that perhaps the worst of his suffering had been condensed to just the time she’d known him.

How it hurt to break her heart again.

“You know I did not, little demon,” he said gently.When she closed her eyes, he wished he could close his as well.“It was eons before such an offer was presented to me.Prior to that, well, I won’t give you the details, but suffice it to say, when the time had come to consider giving up the torture I had known in exchange for a new sort of torment, one that Cyro himself admitted was experimental in nature, there wasn’t much left in me that could refuse.”

“To protect Chrome?”

Rhode nodded.“He was—had been—my brother.When I tell you that I would have died a hundred thousand deaths if it meant keeping him safe, know that I speak from experience.So Cyro’s bargain wasn’t really much of one, if you ask me.As long as I’ve known of Cyro, I knew that he’d always been on the hunt for a way to breach the Empyrean’s gates, and as you know, aside from you, charmers cannot exist in the light.He’d been ravenous for a workaround, and then one day, he came to my cell and told me that after many failed attempts, he might have found one that would work.”

Before Neela could latch onto the wordsfailed attemptsand let them drag her down into darker places, however, Rhode intervened and smiled.“Just so you know, you are by far the best failed attempt that the world could ever hope to know, and I’m quite glad I was able to experience several of your failures firsthand.Perhaps we can even engage in more of them.”

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