Angel's Flight (Legion of Angels Book 8) Read online

  Angel’s Flight

  Legion of Angels: Book 8

  Ella Summers

  ANGEL’S FLIGHT

  Legion of Angels

  Book 8

  Copyright © 2019

  Version: 2019.05.29

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  Contents

  Story Summary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Author’s Note

  Books by Ella Summers

  About the Author

  Story Summary

  The old saying is true. Knowledge really is power, especially when angels and gods play the game.

  The original Immortals, masters of magic, once reigned over every world in the known universe—until they suddenly vanished. The gods and demons have been fighting over the remains of their fractured empire ever since.

  Millennia later, new angel Leda, a soldier in the gods’ army, is recuperating from her transformation. Her recovery is cut short, however, when a curse strikes New York City, a spell targeted directly at the Legion of Angels. Even as the Legion’s soldiers succumb to wrath, jealousy, and fear, the beasts on the plains of monsters are growing in numbers and power. And the longer Leda and her archangel lover Nero investigate these phenomena, the closer they come to the ancient secret that destroyed the Immortals—and that now threatens to tear the Earth apart.

  Angel’s Flight is the eighth book in the Legion of Angels series.

  1

  Visions of Angels

  Faris stood before me, his armor shimmering in the light that streamed in from my apartment window, his mouth curled into a superior, godly smile. The people of Earth knew him by many titles—the God of Heaven’s Army, King of Sirens, Slayer of Demons—but to me he was also something else. He was my father. Not Dad or Daddy or anything that would imply warm, fuzzy feelings. I wasn’t even sure Faris was capable of any. I harbored no delusions about my origin. I was a product of war, not love. Faris had created me for one reason and one reason only: to be his greatest weapon, a warrior who possessed both the gods’ light magic and the demons’ dark magic.

  “You think you can trust Nero Windstriker?” Turning away from the glass window that looked down on the city of New York and all its people, he glanced back at me. “Then ask him why he interviewed you the day you came to this office to join the Legion of Angels. Ask him why he oversaw your training. Or did you think it’s common for an angel, the head of a Legion office and a large territory, to concern himself with a lowly initiate?”

  I opened my mouth to rebuff his words, but that protest died on my lips. Honestly, it was strange that Nero had overseen my initiation training. I’d been too enamored with him to see it back then, but now that Faris pointed it out, I couldn’t deny that he had a point.

  “There is much more going on here than you know, child,” Faris told me. “And Nero Windstriker is entrenched neck deep in it all.”

  And with that said, Faris vanished into thin air.

  “You will be hearing from me,” his voice echoed, filling my living room.

  As the echoes faded, Nero reappeared beside me, standing precisely where he’d been the moment Faris had spelled him away.

  “What’s wrong?” Nero asked, stepping toward me.

  I just stared at him. He looked no different than before. His hair shone the same shade of caramel; his hard, unyielding emerald eyes had the same magic-charged glow. He still wore black leather armor, a suit that perfectly hugged every muscle in his body, a body built for battle, honed over the centuries.

  In every way, he still looked completely like my Nero, the archangel with whom I shared my apartment—and my heart. And yet, there was something different about him. Was my mind playing tricks on me, brought out by Faris’s words? Or was I simply seeing the real Nero for the first time?

  “Leda?” Nero took my hands.

  I withdrew.

  His brows drew together. “What did Faris do to you?”

  “It’s not so much what he did, as what he said.”

  “He threatened you.”

  “It wasn’t a threat. It was a warning.” I took a deep breath, then met his eyes again. “About you.”

  He folded his arms over his chest, his face impassive. “He told you not to trust me.”

  I braided my sweaty fingers together. “Nero, why did you interview me the day I applied to join the Legion of Angels? And why did you take charge of my initiate class? Angels do not train initiates.”

  I watched and waited for Nero to respond.

  “Faris is trying to isolate you from everyone who cares about you. So he can control you.”

  “I know he is,” I said, frowning. “But that’s not the answer to my question.”

  “The answer is complicated.”

  My heart thumped erratically. My whole life, everything I knew and felt to be true, was in danger. It was at the brink of collapse. “Is that a refusal to tell me?”

  “No,” he said cautiously. “I have no secrets from you, Leda. I’ve wanted to tell you this for a while, but I thought you might react badly.”

  “Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

  Ok, so that was not at all true. If Nero told me he’d been manipulating me all this time, that he didn’t really love me, that I was just a tool to him, just as I was to Faris… I took a few calming breaths. No, I couldn’t handle that.

  But I didn’t think it was that at all. The love in his eyes, the caring caress of his hand, the concern in his voice—they were all too real, too true.

  “Good or bad, I have to know, Nero.”

  “Very well,” he agreed. “The night before you walked into this office and applied to join the Legion, I had a dream about you.”

  “You had a dream about me?” I blinked in confusion. “But we hadn’t met yet.”

  “No, we had not,” he said. “But in my dream, we knew each other very well. I had very strong feelings for you, feelings that felt completely real, that didn’t fade away when I awoke. I had never experienced such strong feelings, so much love for anyone, even in real life. And in this dream, I felt so much love for you that I couldn’t shake the feeling.”

  A happy ache in my heart replaced the sad, heavy ache. “What exactly happened in this dream?” I winked at him.

  He chuckled, deep and dark. “Nothing like that, Pandora. In my dream, we fought side-by-side, united against a great invading army. You were an angel.”

  “That must have piqued your interest.”

  He brushed his hand down my cheek. “You always pique my interest.”

  I smirked at him. “I don’t get it, Nero. This sounds like a great dream—well, minus fighting the impossible army. Why did you think I would react b
adly?”

  “Because of what we were fighting for: to protect our daughter.” He watched me closely for my reaction.

  “Our…daughter?” My voice cracked.

  “In my dream, she looked about seven or eight years old, and the world had gone to war over her,” he told me.

  “Why did we need to protect her? Who was after her?”

  “Everyone,” he said. “She already had wings, Leda.”

  “She was a child angel? A born angel?” Which meant she was unimaginably powerful, to have enough magic from birth to be born an angel. My anxiety returned, bringing all-out panic along for the ride. “But it was only a dream, right?”

  Nero’s mouth tightened into a hard line.

  “Right, Nero?” I asked, my voice barely breaking a whisper.

  “The day after my dream, your application form crossed my desk,” he said. “I recognized your name. I had to know if you were the same Leda. When I walked into that office where you were waiting, I saw the Leda from my dream staring back at me. I knew right then that my dream would come to be.”

  “You believe you saw our future in your dream?”

  “Yes, I do,” he confirmed.

  “But is that even possible?”

  “There are people who can catch glimpses of the future,” he replied. “It is a rare magic some powerful telepaths possess.”

  “And you have this power?”

  “No,” he said. “I believe someone with that power sent me future visions of you.”

  “But why?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Someone obviously wanted us to meet. This someone wanted me to take a closer look at you. And I did. As you noted earlier, I don’t usually train initiates.”

  “Someone is playing us. They pushed us together.”

  Nero took my hands, gently unfolding my clenched fists. “No, someone merely nudged me in your direction. But it was you who ensnared my heart, Leda. And what I’d thought were overwhelming emotions in my dream, now pale in comparison to how you make me feel in real life.” His lips brushed softly against mine. “You are my destiny. One way or the other, dream or no dream, we would have ended up together. The dream just brought me to you sooner.”

  I smiled against his lips. “You’re such a romantic, General Windstriker.”

  When he chuckled, his chest buzzed delightfully against mine.

  My smile faded. “But why did this mysterious someone want us to meet?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I tried to think it through. “Faris said you are neck deep in this. But you don’t even know what this is.”

  “Faris sows discord. He breaks people apart, as our recent training demonstrated,” Nero reminded me.

  I hardly required the reminder. In those training challenges, Faris hadn’t simply pitted the angels and soldiers of the Legion against one another; he’d exposed the other gods’ secrets and turned them against one another as well.

  “True,” I said. “But this feels different. It doesn’t feel like Faris’s doing. You did take an unusual interest in me. Faris is right about that. We’re both playing this game; we just don’t know what the game is. But Faris does.”

  “You can’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth, Leda. Everything he says is carefully crafted to manipulate everyone.”

  “Oh, I know,” I laughed. “I know exactly how Faris is. He likes to hold all the pieces, and he plans and plots until he does. He manipulates everyone. But two can play at that game. I will find out what he knows.”

  Nero looked at me, pride pulsing in his eyes. “I believe the God of Heaven’s Army has finally met his match in you.”

  “You bet he has,” I declared. “Faris, I’m coming for you.”

  A knock sounded on the apartment door.

  I frowned. “That was a quick response to my challenge.”

  “It’s not Faris,” Nero told me.

  He was right. Faris wouldn’t have bothered with doors—or knocking, for that matter.

  Nero walked to the door and opened it. Harker stood on the other side. The two angels exchanged a loaded look, then Nero stepped aside. As Harker walked across the living room, his eyes honed in on me—and more specifically, on my wings. Like my hair, my wings changed color to reflect my magic and mood. Right now, they were predominantly ivory white, with dark pink tips, as though I’d dipped them in a paint bucket.

  “Pandora, you’re a vision in white and pink—and angel wings,” Harker told me.

  I’d only just become an angel. Most people, Harker included, hadn’t seen my wings yet. And with every passing moment that he continued to stare at them, I grew more and more self conscious. A red flush touched my cheeks, spreading down my hair and across my wings. My whole body was blushing.

  “You have the most badass wings, Leda,” Harker said.

  “If only I could control them,” I sighed. “They keep popping out when it’s not convenient.”

  Harker shrugged. “Control will come with time.”

  “Says the guy who’d already figured out flight two seconds after he became an angel.”

  Harker winked at me. “You have other skills. Like being snarky. And defeating your opponents in battle by tossing water bottles at them, or setting their shoelaces on fire.”

  I planted my hands on my hips. “Be nice to me, or I’ll set your shoelaces on fire.”

  Harker chuckled.

  “Careful, Sunstorm,” I warned him. “I’m an angel now too. I can totally kick your ass and not even get punished for insubordination.”

  Nero’s brows arched. “Since when have you ever worried about the implications of your insubordination?”

  Harker laughed so hard that his wings popped out.

  I glowered at them both.

  Nero patted Harker on the back. “What brings you to our doorstep?”

  “Besides catching my first glimpse of Leda’s wings, I have a message for you, Nero. From Nyx.”

  The humor faded from Nero’s face, leaving only a hard, unapproachable mask. It was the sort of expression that every sane person on the planet hoped they’d never see on the face of an angel. Because it spelled calamity for them.

  “Nero, why is the First Angel sending me to deliver your new orders to you?” Harker asked. “Why doesn’t she send them directly to you?”

  “She likely feared I would ignore any message from her.”

  Harker’s eyes went wide. “You’re ignoring messages from the First Angel?”

  “Only her last thirty-six.”

  Harker looked at Nero like a stranger lived inside of him. “What’s going on between you and Nyx?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Harker’s gaze shifted to me. “This is about Leda, isn’t it?”

  “What makes you say that?” Nero said casually—too casually. He only ever sounded so calm when he was burning with anger.

  “There’s only one thing that could possibly incite you, the perfect soldier, to insubordination,” Harker said. “And that’s protecting Leda.”

  “As I said, it’s a long story,” Nero replied.

  Anyone else would have seen the look on Nero’s face and abruptly ended the conversation right then and there. But Harker wasn’t just anyone. He was Nero’s best friend.

  He turned to me now. “Leda?”

  “It was Nero and I who found the weapons of heaven and hell, back in the Lost City,” I told him. “The recent training revealed that Nyx and Ronan stole them from Nero before Faris stole the immortal artifacts from them. Nero isn’t overly pleased with either of them right now.”

  “And?” Harker prompted me.

  “And what?”

  “This has something to do with Faris.”

  “Yes, Faris stole the weapons from Nyx and Ronan. I said that already.”

  “No, this has to do with Faris’s secret,” Harker pressed on.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I know.”

  “Know what?
” I asked.

  Harker pulled an object out of his pocket. It was roughly the size of a blueberry and silver in color. The silver orb rose from his open palm. When it was hovering a few feet above our heads, it began pulsing with yellow light.

  “I’ve cloaked the area from prying eyes and ears,” Harker said.

  “Where did you learn that spell?” I asked him.

  “Bella made it for me.”

  “Did she? My sister must be warming up to you.”

  His forehead crinkled. “Actually, I paid her to design it.”

  “Why did you do a stupid thing like that? You should have paid her to help you design it. Then you could have worked with her, spending time with her.”

  Harker chewed on his lower lip, considering my idea. “You’re right.”

  “Too late now. Now you’ve set a precedent of her working alone on your projects, not together with you.”

  “Leda, you are attempting to sidetrack me,” Harker said firmly.

  “I was trying to help you, Harker. But if you’d rather not have my help in winning Bella’s heart…”

  He scowled at me. “You don’t fight fair.”

  “No,” I laughed. “I absolutely do not.”

  “This is important.” Harker looked from Nero to me. “I know what you are, Leda. The daughter of Faris and Grace.”

  I laughed.

  “I’m serious.” His voice scraped like gravel. “We all saw what Faris was trying to do: create a living weapon with light and dark magic, with access to the entire spectrum. More powerful than a god or a demon. That’s you.”