“What do you mean?” I put on an innocent face.
“You’re not fooling anyone, Pandora.”
“What? I can’t want to snuggle up to my man?”
“You usually put up more of a fight. You enjoy this game.”
My mouth brushed his neck. “So do you.”
“Yes.” His green eyes swirled with gold and silver magic.
I gave his lip a final nip, then lowered down from my tiptoes. “Fine. I do need your help. I want you to step into that conference room, with your big, badass magic and big, badass body. And I want you to make those supernatural leaders behave themselves.”
“That’s your assignment,” he told me.
“I’m not a diplomat. And they are driving me mad.”
“You need to find a way to get through to them, to make cool heads prevail.”
“Do you know me at all? I don’t even have a cool head,” I shot back. “And after a day cooped up with them in that room, I’m ready to murder the whole bickering lot of them.”
He chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Being an angel isn’t just about setting your sword on fire and bashing heads. You need to be able to command. You have powerful siren magic. And I’ve found you can be very convincing.”
“If I were so convincing, you would have agreed to help me,” I pouted.
“See this as preparation for the next level, as a way to grow your mental magic. Telekinesis is a mental magic skill. You will need a lot of mental control to level up your magic.”
“Every challenge in life is an opportunity for more training?”
“Yes.”
“See, I have a better idea. An opportunity for you, if you will.” I traced my fingertips across the collar of his leather jacket. “You help me, and I’ll buy that lacy two-piece you want me to wear.”
“You misunderstand, Pandora.”
I planted my hands on my hips and smirked at him. “Oh, is that so?”
“Yes. If I wanted you to wear that lingerie, I’d buy it for you, and you’d wear it.”
I laughed.
But he wasn’t laughing. His mouth was hard, unforgiving. And his eyes burned with cold fire. My laugh caught in my throat, the smile dying on my lips. It was then that I realized he was right. If he told me to wear it, I would.
A feverish heat flushed my skin. Just thinking about it made me want to put it on now. I saw myself in front of him. Nero slipping his hand under the lace, sliding the strap off my shoulder. His mouth dipping to my neck, biting into my soft flesh. A surge of heat cascaded in me, drawing me under.
“Stop,” I choked out.
“Stop what?”
“Stop putting those images in my head.”
“Could you describe these images?” His voice hummed with a dark and ruthless sensuality. “What am I doing in them?”
I could feel him drinking from me, my pulse synching to his. I arched my back, pressing myself against him. Yearning for his touch.
Hot, heavy breaths puffed out of me. “You are a wicked man…Nero Windstriker.”
“And don’t you forget it,” he whispered into my ear.
The image in my head popped, but the feeling of intense longing lingered on. I was standing there, in the hallway where anyone could see us, my leg wrapped around Nero, my nails drilling into his back. I cleared my throat and stepped away from him.
Nero leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips. “I have work to do. See you later.”
Then he turned and walked back down the hall, leaving me in that raw, senseless state of arousal. He loved playing games all right.
“I’m going to get you for this,” I called out to him. Then I took a deep breath and entered Nerissa’s lab.
She sat behind her desk, bent over her computer. She was so absorbed in her work that I had to call out her name a few times before she looked up. On the bright side, at least that meant she hadn’t seen or heard me and Nero making out outside her office.
“How’s it coming?” I asked, trying to clear my head of Nero. Except thoughts of my revenge. I was going to get him good.
“These samples from the infected supernaturals are baffling,” Nerissa said. “I’ve never seen anything like Angel Fever.”
She’d been stuck in this lab for days, and she still knew the name? Well, she wasn’t known as the Legion’s queen of gossip for nothing.
“The cocktail of supernatural powers in Serenity was positively baffling,” Nerissa continued. “That is, until I had a good look at Charlotte. The witch’s body is changing. The magic in her blood is changing.”
“Evolving?”
“Yes, just like you said. Your instincts were dead on.” She rolled her chair to the other end of the desk. A collection of labeled vials were stacked there. “I have been tracking her. She is slowly getting new powers. One-by-one, they are changing her. Sound familiar?”
“Like a Legion soldier gains powers, one by one.”
“Yes.”
“You’re saying that some infection is changing supernaturals’ magic like Nectar or Venom does to us?”
“Like I said before, it’s not Nectar or Venom. There isn’t any of either in their blood. And no natural infection works like this. This is engineered. It is a spell designed to rewrite their magic, very similar to Nectar or Venom.”
“But who is behind it?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How can anyone have this kind of power? And what are they trying to do?”
“I don’t know.”
My hoped deflated. “Well, let me know if you find out anything else.”
I left Nerissa’s office, my mind swimming with possibilities. I sure had a lot to mull over. When I entered the ballroom, the supernatural leaders were already trading insults. Or still trading them. I didn’t know. Nor did I care. I slammed the door shut behind me.
That got their attention. They stopped bickering and turned to stare at me.
I debated how much I should share with them. The Legion wasn’t big into sharing because that tended to tip off the bad guys. But sometimes you had to go against the grain.
“Charlotte, the witch we’re holding, has been going through some changes,” I announced. “She is gaining powers one-by-one, going madder with each new boost in magic. This isn’t a natural occurrence. Someone has engineered it.” My eyes panned across my captive audience. “I invite the culprit to step forward and confess. You know the Legion will find out eventually.”
Shockingly, no one spoke up. I considered following Nero’s suggestion and using my siren magic to compel them. No one was wearing an anti-compulsion amulet today.
The doors to the ballroom burst open and Toren, a guy who’d been in my initiate group, rushed inside. “Angel Fever has spread to the Legion,” he told me. “Alec Morrows is infected.”
I just stared at him in shock. How could that be? The Nectar in our blood was the poison of all poisons. It should have made us immune to Angel Fever.
“How is Alec handling it?” I asked Toren.
“The angels have him contained. He’s obviously trying to fight it, but he’s losing the battle.”
“Do they know how the spell spreads?”
“They believe it might be spread through blood.”
The wild vampire had bitten Alec. Oh, shit. He’d bitten Drake too. I had to check on him. I rushed past Toren, sprinting down the hall and up the staircase. Drake had to be in our apartment. He was going there to change before his mission.
I kept running. Almost there. I zigzagged down the hallway, cutting around everyone I passed. I reached for the knob.
My apartment door exploded in my face.
20 Just Another Day
I rushed through the missing door into my apartment. Debris littered the floor. The sofa was in pieces. Ivy’s lovely moon charm decorations that had amused Nero lay burning on the floor. I stomped out the flames and made my way further inside.