Nero seemed to gather the gist of my thoughts. “You need this knowledge. You cannot advance further in the Legion without it.”
“I’m still working on the vampire skills. And you want to pile on witchy stuff now?”
“You wanted me to help you advance quickly, and this is how it works. Did you think this would be easy?”
No, not really. The Legion of Angels wasn’t known for its easygoing attitude. He was right. If I wanted to find my brother Zane, I had to work harder. And I had to work fast. Wherever my brother was now, he seemed safe, but it was only a matter of time before either the gods or the demons found him and exploited him for his power.
“With each level in the Legion, you need to improve your current skills and the new ones,” Nero continued on. “It’s a constant effort to better yourself.”
I glanced at the salmon ladder in his living room. My head panned up the many levels of metal. It was a good thing his ceiling was so high. It looked like he was striving too.
“It all sounds so exhausting,” I commented.
“It is.” He walked over to the bookcases that covered one wall. He pulled out a book in a single, crisp movement, as though he knew exactly where every book on his shelves was. “Start with this one while I prepare a list for you from the library.”
I glanced down at the front cover. It was a basic monotone blue background with the title written in white block letters. The Basics of Magical Chemistry, was it? There was nothing basic about it. The book weighed more than the weights Nero had been making me bench press. I’d hate to see the followup book.
“I’m too exhausted for mental gymnastics right now,” I told him. “I haven’t even eaten yet.”
“Then let’s take care of that.”
Smooth as a silk ribbon on the wind, he moved over to the dining room table, which I only now realized was set for dinner. Dinner for one. Nero placed a second plate and set of silverware across from the first. Oh gods, was Nerissa right? Was he trying to seduce me?
“I didn’t expect the lab analysis to take so long,” Nero said.
“Is this an apology?”
He shot me a hard look. Ok, apparently not. He probably thought apologies were for people too stupid to make the right choice the first time. Yeah, that would totally be Nero logic.
“I was working in my office. By the time I realized how late it was, the canteen was closed,” he said. “So I had the kitchen staff send some food up to me.” He lifted the lid from a very large platter, revealing a dinner that could have easily left four people stuffed. “They always send way too much,” he said in response to my gaping eyes. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn a hint of sheepishness flashed across his face. But it couldn’t be. That was an emotion unbefitting of an angel.
He pulled a wine bottle and two glasses from the other side of the bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room. Wine too? All that was missing were the candles and the mood music. The reasonable, rational part of me battled it out with the little tramp who wondered what it would be like to pour that wine all over Nero’s chest and then lick it up. I was frozen in place, caught between running toward him and fleeing the other way.
“Do I need to order you to sit down and eat?” he demanded with a hint of impatience as he sat.
The purely callous way that he said it allowed hunger to finally tip the scales. This wasn’t about seducing me. This was about feeding me so he could torture me again tomorrow. Expelling an internal sigh of relief, I took the seat across from his.
As soon as I was seated, the three candles on the table flickered to life, and the room lighting dimmed. My mind flashed back to the last time I’d been in his room with candles lit all around us—and to the blood exchange we’d done so that I could catch a glimpse of my brother by linking to Zane through Nero’s magic. Just the sight of Nero’s blood had turned me into a crazy nymphomaniac who made that little tramp inside of me—the one who’d wanted to lick wine off of Nero earlier—look like a saint. Thinking about Nero’s blood now sent a rush of heat through my entire body.
I crossed my ankles, folded my hands, and most certainly did not watch the shift of muscle in Nero’s arms as he poured the wine. I cleared my throat, trying to clear my mind of wicked intentions too. If those thoughts made their way to Nero, he might punish me. Or worse yet, he might play out my darkest desires. What was with the candles anyway? Was he trying to seduce me or test me? I drew in a deep breath to steady my nerves, but my own scent betrayed the need burning inside of me. But at least my fangs didn’t descend this time, which meant I was starting to get some control over them.
I winked at Nero. “I always knew you wanted to ask me out on a date,” I said, trying to cover my sudden mood shift with a joke.
“Is that what this is?” he said, his voice perfectly neutral.
“Uh…” I reached for the dinner rolls just to have something to do with my hands. Nero filled my glass with wine.
“Trying to get me drunk, angel?”
His face remained impassive. “That’s not hard.”
“It’s Nectar that gets me drunk. I can hold my liquor,” I boasted.
Two bottles of wine later, I was eating my words. I’d have been eating Nero’s words too if he’d only asked. But though he’d drunk one of those two bottles himself, he looked no different than usual. I, on the other hand, was so relaxed that I was practically melting into his sofa. We’d moved there after a dinner that had left me satisfyingly stuffed.