“How about I get a weapon and you don’t?” I suggested, smirking at him.

“There is little value in teaching you to fight only in situations where you are at an advantage over your opponent.”

“Instead I should always be at a disadvantage,” I muttered.

“Besides,” he continued, as though I hadn’t said a thing. “I don’t think giving you a weapon would be the advantage you think it is.”

“Because you would just steal it and use it against me,” I realized.

He nodded.

“And you claim you are civilized. You’re just as dirty as I am.”

His eyebrows arched.

“You know what I mean,” I said, flushing.

He swung at me. I ducked, avoiding his fist. Ha! I wasn’t as strong as Nero, but I was quick. Just not quick enough. Moving so fast that his hand was a blur, he followed up with a punch that knocked me to the floor.

“Get up,” he said over my aching body.

Rather than get up, though, I just lay there this time, pretending to be unconscious. Nero might have been a hard ass, but he was helping me. He was training me and not because he liked hurting me. He knew about my brother, knew that he was a telepath, but he was keeping it from the gods, who would try to find Zane themselves and force him into their service. Nero was doing all of this for me. Maybe I was his weakness.

So I waited until he bent down to check on me, then I quickly kicked out, knocking him down. As soon as he hit the floor, I jumped on top of him, pinning him down. I opened my mouth to laugh out in victory, but the angel knocked me off of him with a blast of telekinetic magic.

“Hey!” I shouted, scrambling to my feet. “No magic. That’s not fair.”

“Since when has war ever been fair?”

“So I have to play by your rules, but you don’t?”

“Yes.”

I glowered at him.

“And pretending to be unconscious was not befitting of a soldier of the Legion,” he said.

“But it wasn’t against your rules.”

“It was implied.”

He was so close now, almost within striking distance. Before I could contemplate the recklessness of what I was about to do, I surged forward, straight at him. My impulsiveness paid off. I landed a blow to his stomach. Nero’s eyes flashed in surprise, but he quickly recovered. I didn’t get in another hit. He grabbed me and slammed me to the ground. My back hit the floor with the resounding thump of defeat, and he pinned me down for the fifty-third time today.

“I hate you,” I growled up at him.

“I warned you that you would hate me before this was over.”

“I will get back at you,” I promised.

He stared down at me with perfect calmness. “And how are you going to do that?”

By sabotaging the hot water on the twenty-third floor so you get only ice water when you turn on your shower. Or by sneaking into your apartment and spreading superglue all across the insides of your clothes.

“I would have to punish your transgression,” he warned me.

I clenched my jaw. “Get out of my head.”

Usually, I could keep him out so that he only saw what I chose to broadcast to him.

“Your emotions are running hot right now. Your thoughts are so vivid that it’s hard to ignore them,” he said, his hands tightening around mine.

I trailed my gaze up the hard, merciless muscles in his arms, all the way up to his chest, which was taut beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. It was a good thing my hands were pinned over my head because I would have had a hard time resisting the urge to scrape my fingernails across his chest and down his back.

“That would be inappropriate,” he told me. And yet he leaned in, inhaling deeply, as though he were drinking in my scent.

There were a lot of things an angel with his heightened senses could tell from my scent, things I didn’t want him knowing anymore than I wanted him inside of my head. I swallowed hard, trying to shield my mind and calm my racing pulse. I didn’t care much if he caught me fantasizing about playing pranks on him, but I didn’t want him to see me fantasizing about less innocuous things. Naked things.

A sexy smile twisted Nero’s lips. Shit. He’d heard that too. But he didn’t say a thing. He just stared down at me, his mouth dangerously close to mine, his chest brushing against me each time he breathed.

The door to the gym hall closed loudly. I turned my head and looked at the woman who’d just entered. Dressed in a black leather Legion uniform that was as black as her chin-length hair, she was gorgeous. Between her dark hair and pale skin, she looked like Snow White—well, if Snow White were a soldier of the Legion rather than a fictitious fairytale princess.

“Colonel Windstriker,” she said, her words pulsing with strength beneath the melodic lilt of her voice. “Am I interrupting something?” Her blue eyes darted to me.

“No.” Nero rose quickly, hurrying toward her. Then he dropped to his knees before her. “My apologies, First Angel.”

So this beautiful stranger was an angel. No, not just an angel—the top angel of the Legion, the leader of the gods’ army. What was she doing here?

The First Angel lifted her hands. “Rise.”

Nero did as she’d asked, but he didn’t say anything. He simply looked at her, waiting for her to speak again.

Her gaze flickered to me once more before settling on him. “Come with me, Colonel. We have much to discuss.”