Page 62 of Angel's Vengeance

Rhode rolled his eyes.“Thanks.It’s good to be back.Neela will be relieved to hear it.She, uh, was the one who made me realize I finally needed to speak to you.”

“Smart woman.”

“The smartest.You know,” Rhode said, leaning back against the bench and propping his arm up along the rim, “it’s taken me quite the journey to wrap my head around, but I think this partnership she and I have?—”

“Hold up.”Chrome raised his hand.“Partnership?”

“The bond.”

Chrome’s face twisted into pretzel proportions, and Rhode wondered whether the sweat smell was truly coming from him or the bench.“That’s not how this works.”

“She is my partner,” Rhode asserted.

“Nah.Oh, man, is that how you’re looking at your mate?As a partner?”

It was Rhode’s chance to turn on the confusion.“Neela is?—”

“Not a fucking lawyer who’s trying to get her name on the same bill as yours.She’s yourmate.Your other half.”Then he leaned forward and held out his hands as if he were trying to explain trigonometry to a kindergartener.“Look, with Drea and me, when she breathes in, I breathe out.When she wakes up, I’m not letting her feet hit the floor without making sure she’s already got a smile on her face.And when she’s off with Molly or one of the other girls doing something, my trigger finger doesn’t stop twitching until I have her in my arms again, even though, logically, I know she’s fine and, though I still can’t conceive of it, probably having the time of her life without me.”

Chrome paused to let his words sink in, but Rhode couldn’t respond right away.All he could think about was every single interaction he and Neela had shared.How there wasn’t a single thing he’d done for her that he didn’t look on as part and parcel to their arrangement.He’d just assumed that what he’d felt for her hadn’t been his own feelings but had somehow been generated by the magic of the soul bond.

But if he took the bond away…

“If you took the bond away, would you still want her?”Chrome finished for him.

Rhode’s jaw tightened.“Don’t fucking ask me that question.Of course I would want her!I always want her.She’s ...she’s ...”

The reason he had a brother and a family again.

The reason he had lived through the experiments.

The reason he was more powerful than Cyro could imagine.

And he’d treated her like a coworker instead of the constant source of light and joy she had become.

Chrome leaned back against the bench and folded his arms across his chest.“Oh, man, you are so fucked.”

“I have to go.”

“Yeah, you do.”

Rhode bolted from his seat and was out the door before the pins fell down again.But as he took flight, the crashing sound chased him far into the sky, bolstering him in a way he’d never experienced before.

It was the sound of a perfect strike.

Chapter30

In a turn of events that would surprise no one, Neela’s assumption that Molly’s restaurant would be nearly abandoned on a Tuesday at eight o’clock in the morning and thus serve as a quiet haven of caffeine consumption was the furthest thing from the truth.It was the weirdest mix of clientele but one that also introduced her to another hobby she’d never thought she’d enjoy: people-watching.

Neela blew the steam off her coffee and decided that, yeah, she could definitely appreciate this life, warts and all.Near the window, a group of two seniors huddled by the baseboard heaters for warmth.One woman, a blond who wore enough costume jewelry to fill a museum exhibit, stirred a cup of woefully oversteeped tea while her friend, a redhead with more fuchsia lipstick on her teeth than her coffee mug,thunkeda tote bag onto the table, pulled out her body weight’s worth of fashion magazines, and began searching the dog-eared pages.

Huh.Good to know someone’s still funding those things.

Then a heated conversation ensued involving a lot of acrylic nails pointing out articles where some obscene trend or another clearly offended them.Either that or they were arguing over the price of jewelry they could never afford anyway.

And that was just at one table by the window.The rest of the dining room featured a revolving kaleidoscope of customers: some regulars, judging by the way they knew the menu, and some tourists, judging by the way they didn’t.Either way, they were all smiling over the morning’s light snowfall and sharing their collective joy around Molly’s newest menu items: gingerbread buttermilk waffles and the roasted pumpkin, bacon, and egg breakfast sandwich.

Whatever it was, Neela loved it.It was as mundane as mundane got, and she’d never realized just how vital the simple things had become for her lately.They weren’t just a foot in the door to living among the mortals but her entire leg being hurled over a ledge with one foot dangling behind her.

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