I blew him an air kiss, and focused on his sister instead.

“Angela, this weekend is our first Fallen Army gig. Can you tell us what they’ll have us do, or are you magically gagged?” I asked, the fourth year.

Angela leaned forward, looking each of us in the eye. “The first time you go out, it’s just to get you used to the outside war zones. Desensitize you, so to speak.” A dark look crossed over her face, and she swallowed thickly. “But as the months dredge on, you’ll start to do missions,” she confessed.

I stared at her with rapt attention. She was gone a few weekends last year, but I’d never thought anything of it, and when she got back, she never spoke about it. She’d said she helped the Fallen Army out a bit, but she’d never said that the gauntlet was their admissions tool. Now that I knew everything, I was seeing those missing weekends in a whole new light.

“What kind of missions? Girl, you can’t leave it at that,” Shea pressed her, putting extra sass into the word ‘girl.’

“Most of it is just bringing aid to those who are trapped out there, food and water and stuff. Sometimes we’ve smuggled people out of hot zones, or fought down some serious baddies.”

My breathing slowed. “Hot zones?”

She nodded, looking dejected. “Places where the demons have… captured humans, and other free souls.”

Captured. She said captured.

“But they only ask for help with those missions from upperclassmen, third and fourth years. Only one time my second year, when they got low on soldiers, they asked us to help,” she amended.

Chloe took a sip of her water, brushing back a chunk of her bright red hair that had popped out from behind her hood. “I can’t wait to be a badass fourth year, ferrying free souls across the hot zones and into Angel City.”

Luke laughed. “You have a hero complex.”

She shrugged. “So what?”

Shea held up her hands. “All I care about right now is that Tiffany is stuck on a toilet somewhere.”

As I laughed, I looked around at my friends. I’d totally grown attached to this crew and to my new life. Worry for Mikey and my mom, and the fact that this devil mark was permanent nagged at my insides, but overall, I was counting my blessings.

After all the fuss we’d made, Tiffany never ratted us out. It might have helped that Shea slid a note under her door that read, ‘snitches get stiches’ in red paint that looked like blood, but the fact that she didn’t tell on us actually scared me a little. Was she plotting revenge? Either way, we’d made it through the week, and were now minutes from leaving on our first weekend out in the war zone as Fallen Army reserve soldiers.

“Got you a present,” Lincoln told me as we stepped out of his trailer. He had somehow snuck a box into his hands that I hadn’t seen before.

“A prezzie? For me?” I spun, and ripped the shoe box out of his hands. It wasn’t wrapped, which was so Lincoln. But he’d put my name on the top in pen with a small heart to dot the i. Again, so Lincoln. He was super romantic without trying too hard.

We hadn’t really gotten each other presents before. For my last birthday, he’d bought Shea and me dinner. Then for Christmas, he got me a glitter unicorn phone case, and drew black angel wings onto the horse with a Sharpie. I’d gotten him guitar picks.

“Eager much?” he laughed, as I ripped the lid off without fanfare.

When my eyes fell on the steel cuffs, I gasped. “Are these…?”

“Custom battle cuffs. Made with the same stuff as our shield armor, so you can stop a sword with them if you need to,” he confirmed.

My heart thumped wildly in my chest as I gazed at the man before me. Lincoln was my family. He’d lost his family, and moved out into this lonely trailer, until I shoved my way into his life, and now here we were. Whether he liked it or not, he was stuck with me.

“I’m going to marry you one day,” I said suddenly, then winked to make it more lighthearted than I truly meant it. But seriously, I needed to lock this dude down before he realized he could probably do better.

“Hey, I’m supposed to be saying those things,” he answered with a grin.

I scoffed. “Don’t be sexist.”

He rolled his eyes. “Woman, try them on. Do you have any idea how hard it is to measure your arms while you’re sleeping? You shove them between your legs!”

My laughter rang out, filling the air around us as I popped on my tiptoes to plant a kiss on his lips.

My mom told me once that your first love was dangerous. First love could make you, but also destroy you. If Lincoln was to be my destroyer, I was okay with that—it was worth the making of me.

I finally reached in and pulled the cuffs out, letting the box fall to my feet. Tilting my arm to the side, I slipped the cuff over it and then straightened it so it fit neatly in place.

“Like a glove,” I told him.

They were exquisite. The front had an engraved pair of angel wings on each cuff, with my name underneath. They shined in the sunlight, showcasing their fresh silver polish.

“They should save your ass on Fight Night.” He ran a hand through his hair, smoothed his shirt, and tucked it into his pants. We’d totally just had a quickie in his trailer, so he was trying to tuck in his uniform, hiding the evidence.

I smoothed my hair as well. “So, third year I get to move into the Fallen Army barracks, and I can keep those living quarters even after graduation?” I asked. I’d read the salary package with an eagle eye. Mostly because it was the best job I’d ever had, and I was going to need to take care of my mom and Mikey.

He ran a hand down the side of his trailer, looking at it fondly. “Yeah. Some students like to stay in the dorms if they have younger siblings there, like Angela and Luke, or you and your brother. I used to share an apartment in the barracks with Noah, but…”

I knew this shit was painful for him to talk about, but I wanted to know everything about him. Like why he was the only guy who lived on campus in a trailer.

“After my family died, I didn’t want to step foot in our family home. It was like a memory crypt. But this was our camping trailer. Just enough good memories that it wasn’t overwhelming.”

Oh God, I felt bad for asking.

I placed my hand over his. “It’s a pretty sweet little pad,” I told him.

He smiled, looking down at me with those crystalline blue eyes. Visually, Lincoln and I were opposites. Where my hair was blonde, his was dark; where my wings were black, his were white. But we couldn’t be more perfect for each other. When I didn’t want to kill him, I was madly in love with him. That was the most anyone could ask for, right?

He stroked my hair and tucked it behind my ear. “My mom would have loved you. She always told me, ‘Don’t settle. Wait for a strong woman and she’ll raise strong daughters.’ You’re the strongest person I know, Brielle.”

My heart melted at the compliment, and my stomach did flip-flops at his reference to his mother’s approval of me. He barely talked about his late parents, and never about his little sister, so it meant even more that he’d shared that part of himself.

“She was kind of a raging feminist.” He laughed, seemingly lost in the memory.

“Sounds like a smart woman. How did your dad keep her locked down?” I joked.

A genuine and open smile stretched Lincoln’s lips, one I’d never seen before. “He didn’t. Said that was his secret. Never try to cage the free bird.” He winked.

I’d officially lost count of how many winks he’d given me.

I wished I could have met his parents. Lincoln had only met my mom a few times when she’d come to visit, and while he was polite, I knew his cautious glances at her forehead meant he’d never fully trust her. Not until I could free her.

Before I could say something sickeningly lovey-dovey, the walkie-talkie on his belt loop squawked.

“Grey, you coming?” Noah urged through the device.

Lincoln smoothed his hair one last time, then leaned forward, and kissed me chastely. “See you soon. You’re on my team tonight,” he declared before he started to jog away.

“Do I have to call you, sir?” I screamed after him.

“Yes!” he yelled, and then he was gone.

Dammit. He was going to milk this ‘sir’ thing for a while.

I ran my fingers along the wing engravings on the cuffs and smiled.

We could pretend all day that he was in charge, but I knew the truth.

Chapter Seven

Shea’s face was pressed against the glass, looking out the window as we left Angel City, and made our way into the war zone.

“Tonight is just a drive-by. We want you to see what we’re up against, get a sense for the terrain. To hear the noises, see the risks, and then come right back,” Lincoln told us as he paced the aisle, holding onto the handrail above him intermittently. “You’re rookies. You won’t be doing missions for a while, so don’t ask,” he barked to our small group of nine second-year rookies and Noah, plus the driver.

Luke raised his hand. “So people, like, live out here? Why don’t we just ferry them into Angel City by the busload?”

Lincoln’s face took on a hardened expression. “Unfortunately it’s not that easy. A lot of the people out here are slave bound. Those who aren’t are trapped into some kind of deal with a demon that keeps them here. The demons out here run the war zones like a mafia. If you live in their territory, you have to pay protection money.”

“Oh,” Luke said and looked out at the desolate landscape. We were passing the area we’d done the gauntlet in. The broken-down neighborhoods and shelled-out buildings, some still smoldering, were depressing to say the least.

“Another issue is resources,” Lincoln continued. “Angel City is only so big, and we only have so much to go around. The demons outnumber us greatly, and they’ve taken so much of our land. We try to push back and take back certain parts, but when we finally do, they look like this.” He gestured to the windows.

Geez, I was very fortunate to be living in Angel City. They didn’t cover the war on the news or anything like that. The news was still run by the humans, and they mostly talked about things going on in Angel City, with an occasional story about Demon City, or beyond the wall. I’d never seen a news crew out here, or heard a Fallen Army soldier interviewed. We knew the war with the demons was ongoing, but we were safe in our little city and we had enough to worry about with the Awakening and all that stuff. I felt kind of selfish now, and was glad I had joined the cause.

“Now we’re going to be entering Inferno. It’s a town run by demons that’s unstable, but we’re close to taking it back. They don’t have walls up or guarded checkpoints, so we’re able to infiltrate it easier. Some of the more outlying towns, deeper into their hold, are much more secure,” Lincoln explained, as our bus crawled deeper into the smoky black night.