“Oh, is that so?” I replied, breathless.

His lips came down hard on mine, devouring the inside with insatiable hunger. It was like kissing a lightning storm.

“Leda.”

Calli’s voice brought me back down to the Earth. I ducked under Nero’s arm.

“I found what you were asking for three nights ago,” Calli said.

Three nights ago? It took a few moments for my head to clear. And then I remembered. I’d asked Calli if she knew anything about my past.

“What did you find?” I asked her.

Calli’s gaze darted to Nero.

“It’s fine. We can trust him.”

“He’s an angel,” Calli said.

“An angel who has kept our secret, even from the Legion. An angel who is training me so I can gain the power I need to find Zane. An angel who helped me catch a glimpse of Zane to know he’s safe.”

Calli sighed. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Leda.”

So did I.

“Julianna Mather was an alias,” Calli said. “Your foster mother’s real name was Aradia Redwood.”

“I know that name,” Nero said.

I looked at him in surprise. “How?”

“Major Redwood was a soldier in the Legion of Angels. She died in battle about twenty years ago.”

“Around the time I was born.”

Calli showed us a photograph of a red-haired woman in a Legion uniform. Julianna…no, Aradia. That was the woman who’d raised me until she died.

“Why was she hiding her true magic?” I asked, not directing the question to anyone in particular. “And why did she fake her death? Why was she raising me? Who were my parents?”

“I don’t know. That’s all I could find,” Calli said.

“Thank you.”

“Be careful, Leda,” she said, then walked back upstairs.

She wasn’t just talking about being careful out there on the Black Plains. She was telling me to be careful with Nero. And when looking into my past.

I glanced at my watch. “Let’s go.”

We hurried down the tunnel. Just as we stepped into the old abandoned house on the other side, Calli’s distraction went off. Paranormal soldiers ran past the grimy windows, chasing after the loud music playing on the next street. A trashcan exploded, drawing more soldiers. And that was just the beginning.

A woman danced naked on the rooftop of the Witch’s Watering Hole. The soldiers were real quick to check out that disturbance. A few blocks over, a drunk was shouting out profanities. A street fight closed down an entire block. A motorcycle gang drove in front of the wall, singing lewd songs and throwing empty liquid bottles.

Someone with a pale blonde ponytail jogged toward the wall. She saw the soldiers, then turned back around and ran away. They took the bait.

“Your mother sure knows how to create a distraction,” Nero commented.

“She’s a pro,” I agreed.

This wasn’t a distraction; it was a whole freaking symphony of distractions. With the soldiers distracted, and the rest of the town in a state of chaos, no one noticed the two shadows rushing toward the wall.

We climbed, keeping close to the stones. The soldiers in their towers over the wall were watching the gate, as if they expected something to happen there. They didn’t see us slip over the edge of the wall and climb down the other side.

Alarms blasted, and alert screen turned orange. Magic slid across the wall, enveloping it in a golden light, electrifying anything touching it. That included me. I let go quickly, falling the rest of the way down to the ground. Nero landed beside me, also in a low crouch. The guards still hadn’t seen us. I unlocked the shed and rolled out Calli’s motorcycle.

“Why does your mother keep a motorcycle on this side of the wall?” Nero asked me.

“It’s her contingency plan in case we ever need to flee into the Black Plains and disappear."

“She really has planned for everything.” He looked impressed.

“Now comes the hard part,” I said. “How to turn on the engine without attracting the soldiers’ attention.”

“Look out there.” He pointed across the blackened plains.

An Orange alert meant monsters had been spotted in the distance. I saw them now, a stampede of buffalo-like monsters.

Nero pulled me on the motorcycle behind him. “We need to direct the monsters here, then when they are all around us, we start up the motorcycle. The monsters are so loud that the soldiers won’t hear the engine starting up. And then we ride with the herd out onto the plains.”

“How do we get the monsters to surround us?”

“We compel them.”

“That works on monsters?” I asked, surprised.

“It works very well on monsters.”

“I’ve never seen that.”

“The monsters were made by gods and demons. They were made to be controlled. It’s built into them. Their minds are simple,” he explained. “Long ago, they changed, evolving. So now we can’t control them passively, but as long as you are concentrating on them, you can actively control their movements.”

Cool. “How many of them at a time?” I asked him.

“It depends. Together, I believe we can control them all. We should be able to handle simple direction changes when they are in herd mode like right now, but don’t try to make them do anything fancy. We have to direct the herd like it is one being. Got it?”