I looked him in the eye, my voice quivering. “What’s your point?”

“If you need anyone to talk to, I’m here for you.” Then he kissed my forehead and walked away.

I didn’t know if I wanted to wallow in sorrow alone or cry on someone’s shoulder. So I just stood there, staring across the beautiful pool of white and pink waterlilies spread out before me, and I tried very hard not to think. But try as I might, I could not block out the flood of images flashing through my head, the memories of what I’d done—and the blood on my hands.

“Leda.”

I turned around to find Nero standing behind me.

“So,” I said, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “Have you too come to see if I’m cracking?”

“No. I know you’re not cracking. You’re too strong.”

I let out a wretched, pained laugh. “No, I’m not.”

“This is not the first time you will have to kill,” he said. “Nor the first time you will do things you don’t like all in the name of the greater good.”

“Thanks for the uplifting pep talk.”

“I’m not here to sugarcoat anything or lie to you, Leda. It is the way it is. I warned you about this when you joined the Legion.”

“So you think I don’t belong here?”

“Only you can know that. Everyone who joins the Legion has their reasons. Everyone needs something, something they feel is missing inside of them. Some crave power, some need to serve, some wish to help someone they love.”

“Why did you join?” I asked him, my curiosity getting the better of me.

But he didn’t look offended by my question. “It was expected of me. I had two Legion soldiers as parents, both of them angels. When my father went rogue and my mother went hunting after him, another angel, a friend of theirs, took me in. He trained me. And he continued to do so after my parents died. He molded me into what I was supposed to be: the perfect Legion soldier. After I joined, I climbed the ranks quickly, more quickly than anyone ever had. I had been made for nothing else.”

“That’s kind of sad.”

“You feel sorry for me. Don’t. I was broken after my parents died. This angel, then the Legion, gave me purpose. That was my need. That is the hole the Legion filled inside of me.”

“You don’t ever feel like you never had a choice, that your life was never yours?” I asked him.

“We are all pawns in this world. Choice is an illusion.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Really?” A single eyebrow arched upward at me. “What were you doing before you joined the Legion?”

“Working as a bounty hunter.”

“For your foster mother,” he said. “Why did you choose that job?”

“My family needed me. And I was good at my job.”

“Because Callista groomed you for exactly that job. Just as I was groomed for the Legion.”

I shook my head. “It’s not the same at all.”

“And what about before that?” he asked, ignoring my protest. “Where were you before Callista found you?”

“Living on the streets.”

“That explains your scrappy fighting.” Amusement quirked his lower lip. “And why were you on the streets?”

“Because my previous foster mother died, killed by the gang who robbed her.”

“And your parents?”

“They died when I was a baby. I never knew them.”

“You’ve had a lot of loss in your life, a lot of pain. It made you strong. It made you resilient. It gave you that stubborn tenacity the Legion needs in its soldiers. Everything in your life led up to the day you joined the Legion.”

“No,” I said, denial springing to my lips. “That was a choice. I chose to come here. I chose to join the Legion.”

“Something prompted you to come. I don’t know what it is.” He looked into my eyes, as though he could read the story of my life in them. “Compassion. You’re here for someone. You don’t crave power, and you have too much of an independent mind to feel compelled to serve the gods.”

I didn’t speak, not wanting to give anything away.

He shook his head. “But it’s not important. Something happened, and someone you care about needs you. You’re gaining powers to help this person. It’s not all that uncommon, though less common than the need for power or affirmation. I can tell you that people with your motivation tend to make it further than others.”

“Now that’s more like a pep talk,” I teased him.

But he would not be deterred from this path. “Whoever prompted you to join the Legion is not important. If it hadn’t been that person, it would have been another. One thing or another would have eventually led you to our doors.”

“You sound awfully sure that I’m destined to be here.”

“Yes. It’s who you are,” he said simply.

“Then why did you not want me to join?” I asked.

“I saw an innocence in you.” He set his hands on my cheeks. “A beautiful innocence. The Legion strips away our innocence. It makes us hard. It makes us less human. I didn’t want to see that happen to you.”

“And yet you agreed to let me join.”

He leaned in, his hand brushing against mine. “I realized it was inevitable. The way you fought those vampires, three of them against just one of you. I saw your tenacity, that you weren’t going to give up, that one way or another you would join the Legion.”