“Try again,” Knox said encouragingly as he showed me how to push my shoulders back. Now that I had earned my wings, the angel captain was nothing but pleasant and positive.
In fact, he made it a point to be nice to everyone in the camp.
His attitude differed vastly from how he’d acted during the Legionnaire Games, and contrasted with the haughty arrogance of the rest of the angels.
They used the term grounders frequently.
They sneered when we gave them instructions.
Case in point, Rina huffed loudly at Knox’s proclamation, and she flopped back against a tree with annoyance. The men and women angels around her did the same.
They grumbled and shuffled with boredom.
Glared at me with disgust.
I hated to say it, but I got where they were coming from. It seemed like the gods had made a mistake naming the shifter and academy legions as champions.
We were chaotic, unorganized, and prone to falling apart. Not the best candidates for leading a war.
I wouldn’t want to listen to me either.
But the angels could fly.
They were majestic and elegant, full of confidence, and seemingly unfazed by the ungodly’s violence.
Meanwhile, I still hadn’t stopped spiraling.
Arthur made a comment under his breath, and a female angel laughed beside him.
I ignored them and focused on Knox’s encouraging smile. Whatever his reason was for suddenly acting nice, it didn’t matter to me. If he wanted to pretend to respect us, then I’d take it.
I pushed my hands off my knees and staggered into a standing position.
Thighs trembling, pain screaming across my shoulder blades, I lifted the wings high at my sides.
Blue-white crystals clattered.
Flexing with everything I had, I gritted my teeth.
Closed my eyes.
Focused on moving the new heavy appendages quickly and pretended it wasn’t like trying to sprint straight up a cliff.
Sweat poured down my face.
I yelled through gritted teeth and strained with everything I had, hands fisted as pressure pounded in my skull from the force of my concentration.
My combat boots sank deeper into the snow as my wings pulled me downward instead of upward.
Cartilage and feathers chained me to the dirt.
Tied me down.
The temperature dropped, and when I opened my bulging eyes, the shades of gray had become shades of black. Emptiness expanded into a chasm within my chest.
“You are nothing but a failure.” Mother straddled my writhing form. Blue flames tortured me as I screamed in pain.
I’d failed as a fae, and now I failed as an angel.
Pressure intensified behind my eyes, and liquid dripped down my cheeks, thicker than tears.
“That’s enough. She’s had enough training for today. Everyone, leave.” Luka’s voice cracked like a whip through the forest, and his tone brimmed with violence.
For the first time, Rina had nothing to say.
“Pull your wings in, Aran,” John said in my ear.
I hadn’t seen him approach.
He grabbed my arms and used his strength to tug me up while he wiped his fingers across my cheekbones. They came back stained with blood.
At least, that was what I assumed the black substance was. My vision wasn’t picking up most of the color spectrum.
Shadows coalesced around me.
I choked, unable to draw the frigid air into my lungs.
“Pull your wings in. Now,” John ordered in an uncharacteristically angry tone.
I complied.
The crushing weight became manageable, and suddenly the chains pulling me to the ground disappeared.
I felt bizarrely light, like I could float away as a shaky trembling permeated through my muscles.
“Whoa, steady.” John wrapped his arms around me.
He grinned down at me with his dimples on full display. His dark eyes twinkled as he took in my questioning expressions and pulled me flush against him.
Pinpricks of pain raced down my spine.
I loved his smile.
“Yes.” John grinned. “I pretended to get mad to make you obey. Reverse psychology. I’m a genius.”
“You’re an idiot,” I huffed as I leaned into his embrace, relieved in ways I couldn’t put into words.
There were two constants in the realms: John was good-natured, and I was depressed.
It was who we were.
Intrinsically.
Two halves of a whole.
His arms wrapped around me squeezed punishingly, and I relaxed for the first time in hours.
He mumbled into my hair, “Let’s get you inside and warm.”
“I think we can still work—”
Knox was cut off by Scorpius shoving him in the chest and sneering menacingly, “She needs to rest.”