The train stopped, and I made the short walk from the station to Youngblood. Sam had started the club about ten years ago. The club and restaurant were both popular with Boston’s wealthy and influential, but the rest of the building was dedicated to recruiting and training an army of demon hunters. Sam had spent years pulling at-risk kids and teens out of bad situations and giving them purpose. He wasn’t as involved as he used to be since he’d moved to the country to raise his family, but it would always belong to him.
The lobby of Youngblood looked like something out of a vampire’s mansion, or at least that was how it had always looked to me. The chandelier that hung in themiddle of the room and the sconces along the walls couldn’t compete with the dark red wallpaper and dark wood wainscoting or the polished black floor.
It was perfect for Sam. Actually, everyone in the secret order and their wives had always looked at home here. Everyone except for me. This really wasn’t my vibe.
The gym on the third floor of Sam’s building could almost rival the training rooms in the secret order’s manor house in Heaven. There was a second gym with more normal exercise equipment for strength and endurance training, but this room had been designed with the sole purpose of practicing combat.
I bypassed the weapons and scarred dummies that lined the walls and headed for the locker room tucked into one corner, where I changed out of my scrubs and into a dress. It was one of my favorites with cap sleeves, buttons that ran down the front, a flowing skirt, and a bodice that was fitted around my rib cage. My brothers liked to make fun of me for training in dresses, but they were what I wore on a normal basis, so they were probably what I’d be wearing if I ever needed to use my fighting skills.
When I was dressed, I walked straight to the locked room in the back of the gym, right beside the medical room I’d frequented quite a bit since moving to Earth. Micah and Sam had built this room with the same technology as the training room in Heaven.
After setting up an exercise of demon simulations, I walked into the middle of the room, surrounded by empty white walls and plain wooden floors.
Unlike Sam or Nate, I couldn’t feel the demonicpower that radiated off the demon simulations. I only knew they were demons due to their dark pink skin and curved horns and the lack of colorful emotions around them that told me they weren’t human.
I reached for the collapsed bow I kept strapped to my leg and felt it extend in my hands. I still remembered the first time Sam had shown me how to collapse the weapon, the action appearing as impossible as retracting and extending our wings.
Four years in the secret order, and I still couldn’t use a sword to save my life. Literally. But from the second my fingers had first curled around a bow, it had felt like the weapon belonged in my hand.
I pulled back the string, aiming an arrow made of pure heavenly fire at the first demon simulation, and let it fly straight into the heart. The demon disappeared in a shower of sparks.
More demons came, and I kept shooting, getting lost in the action. There was something oddly therapeutic about target practice. It quieted my thoughts and made me feel safe.
“Danielle.” The voice cut through the room like a knife, making me jump. All the simulations in the room vanished, and I spun around to find Micah leaning against the doorframe, watching me.
Micah was everything you’d expect from an archangel—tall, dark, intimidating, gorgeous in a way that was almost too perfect. He was dressed in fighting leathers that hugged his muscular body like a second skin, pure black wings extending proudly from his back, sword strapped to his hip.
“What are you doing here?” Micah rarely left Heaven. He’d been leading the secret order for thousands of years before I was even born and pretty much only came to Earth for holidays or if something was wrong.
His gaze swept over my body in a cursory assessment, and his brows rose up his forehead. I couldn’t tell if he was amused or exasperated.
“What?”
“You’re wearing a dress.” His indigo eyes lowered to my skirt again.
I couldn’t hold back a grin. “Very observant.”
“Is there a particular reason you’re training in a dress instead of fighting leathers?”
I glanced down at my dress. There was nothing about it that restricted my movements, and it was much more comfortable than the tight leather outfits my brothers fought in. Plus it was pretty. The white fabric contrasted beautifully with my bronze skin, and vines of little pink flowers gave it a cute vintage look.
Lifting my eyes back to Micah’s, I shrugged. “I like it. Did you come all the way here to comment on my clothing?”
“No.” He ran a hand through his inky-black hair. “I’m meeting Sam here.”
“Oh.” I tried to ignore the way my heart dropped in disappointment. Of course Micah wasn’t here for me. This was Sam’s building, not mine. And Micah never needed me for anything. The last job he’d given me was regrowing Nate’s wings when I first joined the secret order.
Occasionally, Sam or Nate called me when theyneeded a healer for their wives, and all the demon hunters at Youngblood had my number on speed dial. But I wasn’t given real jobs. I was a healer for a group of angels who all healed almost instantly. Which meant I was practically useless.
“I didn’t know Sam was in the city,” I added.
“I asked him to meet me here. We need the room.”
“Okay.” I collapsed my bow and tucked it into the holster strapped to my right thigh. “I’ll get out of your way.” The sense of peace and calm I’d had while shooting earlier had completely abandoned me. All I was left with was the cutting feeling of not belonging.
I hadn’t fit into the seventh order, and joining the secret order wasn’t really any better. Even after years with them, I still felt like I was trying to claim something that didn’t quite belong to me.
It wasn’t my brothers’ fault. They were everything family was supposed to be—protective, supportive, and honest. They’d welcomed me into their fold and for the most part treated me like they did each other. But all the love and acceptance in the world couldn’t change our differences. They were warriors, and I… Well, I wasn’t. And because of that, they’d never understand me the way they did each other.
