Chapter 25
N eela’s body was still weathering the aftershocks of her orgasm when she sat up in Rhode’s bed and accepted a bottle of water from a mini-fridge she hadn’t noticed was tucked next to the nightstand.
It was the one concession he seemed to allow to any sort of comfort, and it was freaking spring water. Not even the mineral stuff.
Her heart flapped around like a fish on land while she twisted the cap off and took small sips. That was all she could manage when Rhode offered her one of his T-shirts and said they needed to talk before he headed to the bathroom, gloriously naked and heading in the wrong damn direction.
Absolutely no one, be they charmer or mortal, wanted to talk after sex. The few dalliances she’d had with other demons had been fast and fleeting but had scratched an itch that would flare up from time to time. And if what the mortals led her to believe was true, in their world, postcoital conversation had a shelf life directly tied to whichever partner had the lowest melatonin stores.
Neela fiddled with the cap and lifted the sheets higher against her chest, worrying about what would come at her from the other side of that door.
No, she refused to believe that what she’d just shared with Rhode was anything other than cell-altering. Or, in her case, soul-altering. So, yes, talking about it would be a good thing.
When his fire erupted around them again, it had felt different somehow. Mutely warmer and just . . . essential , almost like the stuff was as much a part of her as the hand she’d had in bringing it to life.
And if what Molly and Drea had told her about the soul bond was true, that fire would last for eternity, protecting Rhode through whatever might come his way. It didn’t matter that the metal he commanded and armored himself with was painfully brittle and essentially useless in hand-to-hand combat. If he had his full fire, he could live. He could thrive . No more time stamping his strength or requiring that he recharge beneath the mountain each night.
It was the greatest gift she could think to give him, one that would have saved him from untold torment had she known it was possible before.
Neela cut that train of logic off real quick because dredging up the past was hardly ever useful.
But he was finally well, healed physically, and fully powerful. If Cyro came for him again, her sire would be met with a far different being than the one he’d chained to a slab of rock.
Soft tears of thanks pricked her eyelids, but she blinked them away lest they fall and dampen Rhode’s sheets. Looking down to ensure no tears had already managed to escape her notice, she observed how the charcoal-gray bedclothes formed around her naked body. The hem of the flat sheet was cool as it draped over her breasts, the undersides of which rested on top of her ribs.
She had to laugh at that. She’d never seen one of her ribs in her life, let alone any of the muscles that showed up to work each day to pad her skeleton. They were there, of course, providing the structure for her frame and foundation.
But they weren’t what Rhode admired.
Mages, you’re perfect.
She could live an untold number of days and never get enough of replaying Rhode’s declaration about her while he feathered gentle kisses along her round stomach.
She wasn’t so na?ve to think he meant more than what that word perfect could actually entail. Perfect was perfect . Indisputably ideal, without flaws or faults. Lord knew she didn’t come close to that. But by the tender way he caressed her body, whispering little moans of approval and breathing in parts of her no one had ever bothered to linger near, let alone love on, he was speaking about a different kind of perfection.
Her angel had a preference for what her body alone offered him, and no amount of bathroom brooding was going to rob her of the perma-smile he’d put on her face because of it.
The door creaked open, and Rhode walked out wearing a pair of khaki-colored linen yoga pants, which swayed, loose and forgiving, throughout his hips and thighs, but cinched tightly around his ankles. The rest of him was blessedly bare and highlighted every rung of muscle that she’d yet to explore.
Better start making a to-do list . . .
Before her mind wandered too far from the earlier subject at hand, she asked, “Are we going to have The Talk now?” But when the mirth she was hoping to ignite in his eyes never appeared, a sinking feeling slammed into her gut.
He eyed the bed like a serpent in the grass. “May I lie next to you?”
Neela lifted the sheet. “If you have to ask, then I didn’t do my job right.”
Again, her joke didn’t land, but at least he climbed in. Progress, not perfection.
And that was when she noticed the compact mirror in his hand. “Are you going to do my makeup? Because if so, based on your complexion, I’m not sure I trust you to get the contouring right.”
Neela waited . . . and waited . . . Please laugh. Smile. Freaking blink. Something to tell me you’re in there and you’re okay.
When his strong chest lifted, she held her breath, anticipating something that would set the happiest moment of her life up in flames.
“I saw your tattoo,” he remarked as casually as one would comment on afternoon storm clouds rolling in.
Oookay . . . Not what she was expecting to hear. “Tattoo?”
“Behind your right ear.”
It was her turn to stare blankly. “Huh?”
Rhode gently turned her head to the left and positioned the mirror so she could see her ear. The soft glow from the nightstand lamp was enough to highlight the strange shimmering symbol that only seemed to appear when he moved the mirror at the right angle toward the light.
“What the hell is that?” Neela swatted at the back of her ear as though a family of mosquitoes had just taken up residence there, but she felt nothing. No raised bumps or indentations. Just smooth, warm skin.
“You’ve never seen it before?”
“How the hell is that even a question? No, I’ve never seen it before. I didn’t even know I had it.”
Rhode closed his eyes, inhaled slowly, and nodded before opening them again. “It’s a symbol of the Empyrean that only manifests in the light and can only be read by beings of the Empyrean, as it’s written in our celestial language.”
Using reflexes she’d never understand, Rhode snatched the uncapped water bottle from her hand seconds before it tumbled from her grip and soaked the sheets.
“Okay, back up several seconds. I need a shit ton more information, because what you said does not compute. Where did this come from, and why can’t I get it off?”
“Stop scratching at it or you’ll rub your skin raw and start to bleed. You can’t get it off because it’s a part of you.” Then he lifted her right wrist and turned it over beneath the light. “Just like this is a part of you now.”
As if calling down the secrets of the universe to explain himself, he rubbed a thumb over her wrist, which bore another shimmering symbol written in a language she didn’t recognize.
But that time, she wasn’t afraid. That time, she knew exactly what he was asking her to comprehend.
The soul bond.
“This says Axtar, doesn’t it?” Then she lifted a very insinuating, very condescending brow. “The name you yelled at me to never call you again.”
That got a reaction out of him. Rhode lifted her wrist to his lips, enclosed her palm within his, and rested their combined fists against his warm chest. “I was not in my right mind, perhaps.”
“But you are now?”
He squeezed her hand, impressing what felt like earnest yearning into their embrace. “Without a doubt. I can no longer deny the soul bond any more than I can deny my own name.”
Whatever hope that had fluttered in her chest in anticipation of what he was about to reveal suddenly had holes blown into both wings.
For Rhode, it wasn’t a choice, just an eventuality that finally came to fruition. One that, yes, he’d been far from enthusiastic about in the beginning but had finally accepted.
Accepted but not desired, no matter how perfect he found her body or how well the two of them fit together. To him, their relationship—situationship?—was the mortal equivalent of paying taxes.
Neela nodded, suddenly feeling far too naked to have any further conversation that required her to string more than one or two words together. So she did what she’d done her whole existence: deflected as best she could and tried to sink into the background while he said whatever he needed to.
“The tattoos?” she reminded him, eager to get it over and done with, despite however gnawing her curiosity might have been over the new marks on her skin.
“Because of you, I can now access all of my power.”
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. She should be. 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 could not say 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—or no clothing?
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?
Does it really matter?
“So I can die,” she murmured.
Rhode tightened his arm around her. “Yes.”
“Magic can harm me in the mortal lands.”
“Yes. But it can also save you. That’s why the soul bond magic works on you, Neela, because you carry part of Ciara’s Empyrean legacy within you, despite your charmer parentage. Empyreans live and thrive in all forms of light. We’re made of it.”
Neela took his words to heart and tried to concentrate to see whether she felt any warmer, any lighter, lying next to him.
She did.
“Cyro never understood that,” Rhode added.
“He didn’t?”
“No. If he did, he would have known that the true worth and power of any life can only be measured once it has ended.” Rhode painted idle circles onto her arm, and his voice seemed to drift further and further away. “You were wrong, you know.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
“I did know you were there,” he whispered.
Neela lifted up and rested her chin against his chest, but he was already staring down at her.
“A part of me did know, I think. When I was in that cell.”
Her heart slingshotted around her ribs. “You told me your name, but it was only during one visit. Right after they had brought you back from . . . Anyway, I wasn’t entirely sure how lucid you were. You kept chanting that word as part of a phrase but never opened your eyes or anything, even after I tried to wake you up, so I just assumed it was your name. It went something like ‘I . . . Axtar, not Tyrus.’ Or maybe it was something similar. I don’t know. It was a long time ago. I never figured out who Tyrus was, and you never mentioned either name again.”
The play of his fingers stilled, but he didn’t remove his hand. “Tyrus is Chrome’s celestial name.”
She sat up then and noticed the tattoo on his forearm, the one that was a mark of his office as a seraphim commander. Neela extended her hand toward it, but Rhode ducked his arm beneath the sheet. “What do those symbols mean?”
His eyes assessed her. “You can see them?”
“Yes . . .”
“Chrome branded me with the symbol himself, used his angel fire to etch it onto my skin when he appointed me to the post. The celestial eye affixed atop a flaming scepter. It’s only visible to the sentinels, the celestial mages, and my soul bond, apparently.”
She tried not to feel joy at the sense of belonging that thrummed within her, especially at the obvious sorrow it brought him. “Does Chrome know about what really happened?”
“No.” He shifted his gaze toward the wall. “No one does.”
“Why not? Why not explain and help them understand?”
Then Rhode swiped a hand through the air and lifted her off him. “Don’t do this,” he barked, then walked over to the trunk at the foot of the bed.
Neela wrapped the sheet around her more tightly. “But why, Rhode? They can help. We can all help.”
“Because I volunteered for Cyro’s treatments!” he snarled. “I injected myself.”