Gypsy set her hand on my back. “We’re already much closer to solving this.”
“Thanks to me,” Jinx declared, rising from his barstool. “You’re welcome. Expect my bill in the mail.”
“Saving the world isn’t a for-profit business, Jinx,” I told him.
“It is the way I do it.” He took a bow, then left the bar.
Our next round of drinks had arrived.
“So, are you going to pay him for his help?” Gypsy took a sip of her bright blue cocktail.
I frowned at my drink. “I really don’t like Jinx.”
“But are you going to pay him?”
“Honestly, I haven’t decided yet. He did help.” I looked at her. “Why? Are you expecting a payday too?”
“No, I don’t expect to be paid.” A sly smile drew up her lips. “But I wouldn’t mind. A girl’s got to eat, you know.”
“You’re doing all right. I count fourteen weapons on you right now.”
“I packed light because this is supposed to be a fun girls’ night out.”
“My point exactly. You are obviously doing well enough to afford weapons.”
She chuckled. “My money goes first to weapons, then to food.”
“Interesting priorities.”
She shrugged. “Having food won’t help me if I get killed on the job.”
“And all the bullets in the world won’t save you from starvation,” I pointed out.
“If I had all the bullets in the world, I’m sure I could trade a few for a sandwich.” She picked up a chicken wing and bit into it. “Or some chicken.”
Angel meowed.
I passed my cat another deep-fried chicken wing. Then I told Gypsy, “I’ll cover your dinner.”
She licked the grease off her fingers. “In that case, I think I’ll go completely crazy and order some dessert too.” She opened the menu.
“It’s a date,” I laughed.
She glanced at me over the top of the menu. “You sure your archangel won’t mind?”
I sighed.
Gypsy ordered her dessert, a large piece of chocolate cheesecake, then said to me, “You’ve got to fix that, girl, and pronto.”
“I don’t know how,” I admitted.
“See? Magic isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You’re an all-powerful angel, and you can’t even mend your broken heart.”
“An angel isn’t supposed to have a heart.”
“But you do,” she told me. “And it bleeds and breaks as surely as any human’s heart.”
“Truer words were never spoken.”
“What happened between you and Nero Windstriker?”
“It’s a long story.” I sipped from my glowing green cocktail. “The short of it is, I made a decision for the both of us without talking to him about it, then I hoped he would never find out.”
“I take it he did find out. And reacted badly.”
“Of course he reacted badly.” I emptied the remainder of my drink into my mouth. “I’d have reacted badly too. Now he’s not talking to me. I want to fix things between us, but I don’t know what to do.”
“So you’re doing nothing.”
I frowned at her. “I wouldn’t say nothing. I’ve tried talking to him, but he’s ignoring all my messages.”
“And you let him ignore you.”
“What should I do: fly up to his house, chain him up, and force him to listen to me?”
She arched her brows. “Isn’t that what angels in love do?”
“If you want the other angel to declare war on you, sure.”
“If Nero Windstriker wanted to declare war on you, Leda, he’d have done it already.”
I expelled a puff of exasperated air. “I’d rather he declare war on me than this…silence. This nothing. He’s put up a wall around himself, and he won’t let me in.”
“He’s alone and hurting. You’re alone and hurting,” she said. “But you need to heal together. Go to him. Stay with him. Talk. Cry. Laugh. Do whatever it takes to fix things between you. I was once in your place, and I didn’t do what it took. Things got tough, and I didn’t try to keep the man I loved. I lost him. Though I haven’t seen him since then, I think about him each and every day—and of what I’ve lost.”
I set my hand on her arm. “I’m sorry.”
She brushed away a tear and smiled at me. “The only thing you have to be sorry about is that you’re still sitting here with me when you should be with him.”
I jumped off the stool. “You’re right. I have to fight for me and Nero. I have to fight for our love.” I took a few steps toward the exit, then hurried back to slap money on the counter to pay for dinner. “Thank you,” I whispered to Gypsy.
She rose her glass to me and drank.
I hurried out of the bar, Angel on my heels. My purse buzzed.
“Of all the worst timings,” I muttered as I fished out my phone.
But it wasn’t a message from Lucy, summoning me to another crime scene. It was a message from Nero.
“He’s asking me to come to his house,” I told Angel.
She meowed.
“He wants to talk.”
I refrained from jumping with excitement because my heels might have snapped off, but I did spread my wings.
Angel meowed again.
I looked at her. “Oh, all right.” I reached down to pick her up. “This time, I’ll bring you along. But just be warned that I’ve never flown with a cat in my arms before.”
She purred against my chest.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
I kicked off the ground and flew off toward Nero’s house. I was going to fix things between us. I had to.
19
The Best Laid Plans
Earlier, I’d considered paying Nero a visit under the pretense of asking him to identify a magical relic, like the vampire’s gold lion head ring, but his message had saved me from trying to pawn off that flimsy excuse.
I didn’t fly up to the roof of Nero’s house and come in through the bedroom like we had on our wedding night. Maybe I should have, but I wasn’t feeling that bold right now. He’d said he wanted to talk, not jump into bed together and pretend the whole fight had never happened.
Our fight had left me shaken, no denying that. I used to say I didn’t give a shit about what people thought of me, but the truth was I did care what Nero thought. I cared so much that it hurt.
I stepped up to the front door and raised a shaking hand to the doorbell. The seconds stretched on to eternity. Eventually, there was a low buzz and the door opened. As I entered the house, Angel by my side, I tried not to feel hurt that Nero hadn’t come down to show me in himself.
I climbed the stairs, growing more nervous with every step. At the top, I passed through a wide open archway to enter the living room. And that’s when I saw him. It had been days since we’d been in the same room together.
For years, I’d kept a picture of Nero in my head, which I took with me always, wherever I went.
The shimmer of his glossy black feathers, highlighted with blue and green; his were the most beautiful wings I had ever seen.