“Because you’re obviously incapable of taking care of yourself,” I teased.
“No jokes. Tell me why you did it.”
“Because it was the right thing to do,” I said.
“Perhaps, but it wasn’t the right thing for you to do as a soldier of the Legion. I need my soldiers to obey me, and time and time again, you refuse. You know you need to follow the rules to survive the Legion, to receive more of the gods’ gifts of magic, gifts you need to save your brother. This is essential. And yet you still disobey me. Why?”
“Zane wouldn’t want me to turn off my compassion to save him. He wouldn’t want me to stop being who I am. When I see my brother again, I want to be able to look him in the eye and not hate what I’ve become.”
Nero was quiet for a few moments, then he said, “You are a good person.”
“Thank you.”
“But you are a lousy soldier,” he added. “How am I supposed to help you when you don’t even listen to what I say? How will I get you to the ninth level?”
He seemed to be talking to himself, but I answered anyway. “I guess you have your work cut out for you.”
“Yes.” He frowned.
“Nyx wants me to be an angel,” I added.
“How do you know?”
“I heard you talking to her.”
“That conversation wasn’t for your ears.”
“Embarrassed?”
“No, I have not hidden anything from you, Leda. You know how I feel.”
“You want to sleep with me.”
“That is what I want. It’s not how I feel.”
“Is there a difference for you?” I asked.
“Yes, a big one. There’s something between us, Leda. It’s not just raw attraction. That is merely a consequence of our connection.”
“So you do have feelings,” I said, smiling. “Amazing. I thought angels were immune.”
“Not immune. Not at all. Just as our senses are stronger, so are our feelings. We feel more—deeper—than others. Which is why we must control our feelings.”
“Well, when I’m an angel, I’m going to feel everything.” I smirked at him.
“Yes, I think you will. You will tear the heavens asunder.” He set his hand on my cheek. “And I’m helping you on that catastrophic path.” He shook his head slowly, as though he couldn’t believe what he was doing.
“Nyx wants you to help me,” I told him.
“Nyx is…an unusual angel. She feels too.”
“So the Legion didn’t squeeze that out of her.”
“She didn’t work her way up the ranks.”
I looked at him in confusion.
“Nyx wasn’t made an angel. She was born one,” he explained.
“I didn’t know that could happen.”
“She is the only demigod ever born.”
And that explained a lot about Nyx—and her complex, often contradictory personality. She was of two worlds, of heaven and Earth.
“But I didn’t want to talk about her,” Nero said, standing.
“You wanted to talk about my punishment.”
“I will have to punish you. There is no way around it. I cannot allow everyone else to think they can disobey me.”
I offered him a small smile. “Pushups?”
“I think we are beyond that, Leda.”
“I know,” I sighed. “So what will it be?”
“You will clean the Legion’s common area toilets once a day for a week.”
“That’s not a very supernatural punishment,” I pointed out.
“Sometimes the simple ones are the best.”
“Or the worst.” I crinkled up my nose. I could almost smell the public toilets from here. “I’d rather take the pushups. Or how about I fight those hell dogs every day for a week?”
“You don’t get a choice in your punishment. That defeats the purpose. Punishments aren’t meant to be pleasant.”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to hope the toilets don’t fight back.”
He gave me a strange look. “I don’t want to hurt you, you know.”
“I know.” I set my hand on his. “Vile as the toilets may be, they won’t kill me. If you really wanted to hurt me, you would have assigned me extra training.”
“You will be receiving that as well. Starting tomorrow, you can look forward to getting up half an hour earlier.”
“So much for not wanting to hurt me,” I muttered.
“That is not a punishment. I want you to train more because I know you can do better if I just push you hard enough.” He intertwined his fingers with mine. “Even though it hurts me. Every punch. Every time I hit you when we’re training.”
“Maybe you need to learn to punch better,” I teased him.
“Not that sort of pain, Leda.”
I looked into his eyes and saw something unexpected. “You have feelings for me. Like real feelings.”
“Yes.”
“But that’s so…human of you.”
“I know,” he said. “I can’t afford to be human. To feel. To doubt. To be irrational… On the airship, when you lost consciousness, I had to go to you. I had to heal you, even though I was not fully healed myself. I needed every bit of magic in me to be an effective soldier, and I gave some of it to you. It was a decision devoid of reason.”