Page 13 of Legendary

“We’ll be sure to bring Isabel back for you to finish on your own terms.” Elise wiped her hands on her thighs and jumped off the counter. “I’ll be happy to see oneblondeget fucking ripped apart.” She narrowed her eyes at Reese as she walked past him, ramming her body into his before she made her way to the couch.

“I will be so fucking happy when your ass gets handed to you downthere and I can just sit and watch, deciding whether to help you.”

Elise blinked innocently at him. “Oh alright. How do you plan to defend yourself down there without your pretty weapons? Heard they got rid of all the weapons left on the lawn after the fight.”

Reese opened his mouth to fight back but I placed a hand on his chest, stopping him. “She makes a point.”

Elise stuck her tongue out at my best friend who was literally fuming.

“I wouldn’t say that just yet,” my father chimed in, as he rounded the couch, wagging his finger. He disappeared down the hall and I heard him climbing the stairs. I caught Daya and Alex’sattention.

“Don’t look at me,” Alex shook her head, letting her eyes travel to her mother. Daya lightly pressed her fingers to her mouth, but a smile peeked out. I turned to the sound of my father entering the room again. He held out his hands to each of us, a weapon dangling from his fingers.

“Oh my fucking god!” Reese shouted, grabbing the sleek wood bow from my father’s hand. He ran his hand over its arch, the rich maple wood coloring coming through and let his fingers glide across the silk string. It was pristine and looked brand new. I blinked over to the sword in my father’s other hand. He reached out and grabbed my hand, placing the sword in it.

It had weight that I was used to, but I hadn’t held a sword in what felt like forever, so the muscle memory was slowly coming back. The steel blade seemed to almost sparkle in the sunlight. The hilt was black leather wrapped tight and strong. I twirled the sword in my hand, missing this feeling so much. “Dad, I don’t know what to say.”

“A thank you sounds pretty normal to me,” Dani offered, watching us as she sat back on the couch cushions.

“Well yeah, thank you.” My father shrugged off both of our thanks and placed his hands on his hips. “I just knew the guy to do it, Daya is the one who designed them.” Daya clapped her hands in front of her chest.

“Now they’ve been infused with angelic magic already. Of course, if you want to add your own, by all means,” my father suggested.

“Oh, they’ll need all the help they can get,” Elise added, sarcastically.

I let my eyes glaze over the sword some more, letting my own angelic magic out and felt the hum of the already infused magic mix with my own. It was heady, the feeling of angelic power being heightened through the use of a catalyst. I was still looking at my sword when I said, “so when do we leave?”

“I think bright and early tomorrow will do. Unless you are eager to get started,” Natalia answered.

Reese snorted. “Oh yeah, I’m totally excited to go into demon territory with not only Lilith on our asses, but soulless demons and a raging sociopathEnchanter.”

“You could have just said, tomorrow is fine,” I said, shaking my head. He pulled his hair into a messy bun and shrugged playfully.

“You follow our lead while we’re there and behave, so that I don’t have to kill you myself and make a bigger mess than necessary. Got it?” Elise grumbled moving past us as she headed towards the bathroom down the hall.

Placing my sword against the couch, I shuffled around the coffee table to Natalia. I’d had something playing on my mind for quite some time, but seeing as I hadn’t had any real time to talk to her for a while. She looked at me expectedly. “Can we talk?”

“Of course, Nicholas,” she answered, almost floating as she followed behind me as I guided us to the hallway and right in front of my bedroom door. I leaned against the wall, exhaling. Natalia didn’t look impatient as she waited for me to start talking.

I ran my hand over the back of my neck. “I wanted to talk to you about what you said when I was in Oculus, during the whole ‘figure out Dani’s situation’ mission I was on.”

She nodded gracefully as if she was sure she knew where I was going with this but wanted me to complete my thought before she interjected.

“You said that there were things missing from my head. That’s not something you just forget, but I had to at the time. Now, despite everything happening it’s becoming something I’m wondering about, and I didn’t know if you’d had any time to look more into it.”

Natalia licked her bottom lip before also leaning against the wall, her arm making a soft thud. “Nicholas, I can promise you I have not forgotten and in between my other duties I’ve tried my best to look into that when I could. I haven’t found anything of merit. Nothing I’d want to bring to your attention.

“What I can say is that I would need to see into your mind in greater lengths. Whether I come to you, or you come to Oculus, but without your presence I can only do so much. Whoever did what they did knew exactly what they were doing.”

I wasn’t necessarily feeling defeated at her words, but having an explanation about something having to do with me would have been great right about now. This trip to Purgatory would be the biggest distraction from my current investigation into my life, then again, focusing on the mission would be just a tiny bit difficult with themostattractive distraction I’d ever seen.

I felt Natalia touch my shoulder, causing me to blink back over to her. Her honey-colored eyes were soft and inviting. “I know you’ve had a hard few months, so I didn’t push. Whenever you’re ready to proceed, I’m here.When you come back and this is all finished, we’ll start to figure this thing out.”

“I like the sound of that. The confidence in us coming back is always nice to hear.” I smirked at her, causing her to giggle.

She reached towards my face and held my cheek, letting her thumb slide over my skin. Her hand was warm and comforting. “And maybe while you’re there, you can release some of this sadness you’re harboring.”

My heart stopped and my breathing fell off course. I reared back from her touch as if she’d just shocked me. Sadness? I didn’t feel sad, I couldn’t. Not when we were about to go right into one of the darkest places I’ve read about. I needed to be focused and on guard. I had to steel myself for what was to come. I couldn’t cry and fall apart right now.

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