Nero shook his hands, as though freeing himself from the mesmerizing effect of my blood. “That was a dirty trick.”
“Says he who got me drunk and then attacked me to prove a point. Why does everything with you have to be a test?”
“Tests help you push yourself to new limits.”
He moved in so quickly that one moment he was standing by the sofa, and the next he was right in front of me. He swung a punch at me, but he was slower than usual, and I evaded it.
“Let me heal your neck. It’s distracting,” he told me. Well, that explained his slowness.
I dipped my finger in the stream of blood dripping down my neck. “You must always stay alert, no matter what distractions are around you.” Smirking, I held out my finger.
“I’m very alert right now.” His eyes followed the stream of my blood down to my collarbone. Raw need burned in his eyes. He wanted my blood every bit as much as I wanted his, and I was going to use that to my advantage.
Or not. He might have been slower than usual, but he was still too fast. He caught my hand as I attacked, twisting my arm behind me. I tried to power out of his hold, but my back slammed into his chest.
“Well, this is nice,” I commented.
He didn’t dignify my flippancy with a response. Instead, he wrapped one arm more tightly around me, even as he traced his finger down my neck to my shoulder. His hand settled there, and a gentle warmth spread across my body, healing my wound. Then his mouth lowered to my neck, and he let out a slow breath.
A shudder rippled down my spine. My body jerked as his breath melted into my skin, drowning me in a rush of savage longing. I could feel my blood awakening with fire, rising up to him. His mouth dipped lower, and his tongue flicked out to lick the blood from my neck.
“Bite me,” I said, my voice somewhere between a rasp and a moan.
“I just healed you,” Nero said, but he slid my ponytail off my shoulder, clearing my neck.
I tilted my head to give him easy access to my throat. His mouth closed over my throbbing vein, but his fangs didn’t descend. He sucked hard, drinking in the blood still wet on my skin. A wave of fevered desire tore through me, consuming me from the inside out.
“Please,” I shuddered, reaching back to pull him closer to me.
I could sense every muscle in his body tensing as he teetered on the edge of losing control. “I shouldn’t.” His hand stroked down my arm, his touch feather-light.
A knock sounded on the door, and Nero dropped his hands from me, pulling back. With the heat of his body gone, I was left cold and shivering. I turned around to face him. His eyes were panning across the apartment at the mess we’d made during our short fight.
“Go to the other room,” he said so quietly I could hardly hear him. He pointed at a closed door off to the side of the living room.
“Who is it?” I asked in the same volume.
“The First Angel.”
Those three words froze what little heat still lingered inside of me. I didn’t think the First Angel would be happy to find me in Nero’s apartment—or to learn what we’d been doing here.
Nero walked toward the front door, the furniture settling back into place behind him. His perfect control over his psychic magic was both amazing and terrifying. It was one thing to blast someone across the room with raw power, and Nero certainly had raw power to spare. But the subtle control of silently moving the furniture around was quite another thing. I paused in the doorway to watch him for a moment, then I ducked into the room. My curiosity got the better of me, so I kept the door cracked open just enough to see.
Why had the First Angel come to see Nero here so late in the night? A knot formed in my stomach. I hoped she wasn’t looking for a little nocturnal angel-on-angel fun. Nero opened the door to his apartment, bowing, and Nyx glided past him with all the beauty and grace of an angel.
“I’ve read Dr. Harding’s report on the residue,” she said straight away, all business. “Sunset Pollen and Snapdragon Venom.” Her blue eyes pulsed once. “Both substances were recently developed by the witches of the New York University of Witchcraft. They are still highly experimental, and thus the witches do not allow them off the university’s grounds. My advisers want me to arrest every single person in the school.”
“Impractical,” Nero decided after half a second. “That is over two thousand people. There is no way we could secure them all. As soon as we started rounding up witches, both the innocent and the guilty alike would flee. That’s just human nature.”
Nyx’s mouth twitched. “It is indeed. Colonel Fireswift proposes we arrange an assembly for all students and faculty, then capture everyone at once.”
“With all due respect to Colonel Fireswift, that is an idiotic plan. The students and faculty make up most of the school’s numbers, but not all. There are gardeners, janitors, and all manner of other staff. How does he propose we invite them too without arousing suspicion?”
“He doesn’t. Colonel Fireswift does not believe any of them could possibly be responsible.”
“That’s where he’s wrong. You might need to be a witch to create potions and magic bombs, but you don’t need a sliver of supernatural blood in you to use many of them.”
“I agree with you, Nero. In our arrogance, we angels often forget that it doesn’t require great power to be capable of great evil.” Nyx sighed. “Besides, even if we caught the guilty party, I’m not sure we’d know it. I haven’t yet been able to get anything out of the last witches we captured. The demons put magic safeguards on them. They don’t break under torture. We’re still looking for a way to shatter that spell.”