About halfway along our journey back to town, I’d begun to have flashes of broken, bloody images. At first, they were just short bursts, disconnected and fleeting. But with every passing moment, the images grew more sustained and the sensations more painful. I was chained, beaten, and cut. Every lash of the whip drew a fresh pulse of pain, every slash of the knife etched agony into my quaking body. Someone was torturing me. And yet when I looked down, my clothes were intact and my skin unbroken.

They weren’t torturing me, I realized. They were torturing Nero. When I’d drunk from him, when I’d taken his blood into me, something must have happened between us. We were linked. I’d heard about this in vampires, but I hadn’t realized it happened to soldiers of the Legion as well. It appeared my temporary lapse in sanity was good for something after all. Maybe I could use this link to find Nero.

But how? I began to pace around the Legion office, trying to think things through. According to what I’d read, a blood bond between vampires was dependent on both place and time. In other words, the closer the linked pair of vampires were, the stronger it was. And the more time that lapsed since the blood exchange, the weaker the bond grew.

If our magic worked the same as the vampires’ did, I could follow Nero’s ‘signal’. The closer I got, the more I should feel of what they—whoever they were—were doing to him. After the initial burst of sensations, my link to him had quieted down as we’d moved closer to the town. I wasn’t keen on following the path of increasing pain, but this was no time for cold feet. Our connection was winding down by the minute. If I didn’t leave now, I might lose his trail completely. I couldn’t leave him to that torture.

With that decided, I turned to Jace. “Call the Legion. Tell them what happened.” I looked at the vampires. One was stirring. I drew my gun and shot him full of more tranquilizers. “I’m going after Nero. You’re in charge now.”

This time when Jace looked at me there was no hatred in his eyes nor a sneer on his lips. He looked at me as though I’d lost my mind to want to go back out there, but he just nodded.

“It’s dangerous on the Black Plains,” Lucy piped in.

“It is,” I agreed. “But I’ve tracked out there before.” There had been a time when we were desperate for money and would take any job, even those on the Black Plains. “I know the area. I will find Nero. And I’ll bring him back.”

“We should come with you,” Toren said.

I shook my head. “No. You need to stay here and watch the vampires. That is the mission. If they wake up, these bars might not hold them. There are a lot of people living in this town, and the local sheriff’s department isn’t equipped to handle nineteen wild vampires.”

“We might not be able to handle them,” said Lyle.

“I’ll send you help,” I promised, moving toward the door.

As I made my way toward the Legion motorcycle I’d spotted parked outside, I pulled out my phone and dialed Calli.

“Leda,” she answered immediately. “Are you all right?”

“I’m here in town.”

“I take it this isn’t a social call.”

“No,” I told her, waving over one of the Pilgrims.

When he came to me, I pantomimed my need for the motorcycle’s keys. He blinked once, as though he were starting to place my face, but he didn’t let any memory of me stand in the way of him doing his job. He dropped the keys into my hand.

“The Legion sent us to apprehend some vampires who’d escaped onto the Black Plains,” I told Calli. “Nineteen of them are sleeping in a jail cell in the local Legion office, guarded by five Legion soldiers with one month of training apiece.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Do you think you could head over there to be their backup?” I asked her. “I know this isn’t your job, but I’d really appreciate—”

“I’m heading over there now,” she said.

“Thanks. I have to head back onto the Plains, but I’ll see you soon.” I hoped.

“Why are you going out there again?” she asked, a hint of reproach in her voice.

“I have to save our commander.”

Reproach melted into curiosity. “Is that all he is?”

I didn’t mention the blood drinking. Or anything else I’d done to Nero. It was just too embarrassing.

“I don’t know, Calli,” I said. “I have to go.”

“Be careful, Leda. Angels are every bit as dangerous as monsters.”

I hardly needed the warning. I knew how dangerous angels were. Or did I? Anyone in their right mind wouldn’t even dream of talking back to an angel, let alone teasing one. I’d done both—multiple times. And I would continue on doing both as soon as he was back. Gods, Nero was right. I really didn’t have any sense of self-preservation.

Well, I’d need that lack of fear out on the Plains, I decided as I hopped on the motorcycle and drove it toward the wall that separated civilization from chaos.

I followed my link to Nero for about an hour, gritting my teeth against the steadily increasing waves of agony besieging my body, igniting pain receptors I hadn’t even known I’d had. By the time I stopped outside an old castle beside a raging waterfall, the pain had reached tsunami levels.

On the plus side, I hadn’t met any monsters on my way here. And I was freakishly stubborn. That was helping me bear the pain.