I dug my fingers deep into her scalp, scrubbing at the base of her head.
Alexis moaned groggily, this time with pleasure. Her shivers subsided and it felt like I could breathe again.
“You’re so perfect,” I whispered.
My beliefs were cracking around me and I didn’t know what to think.
Women shouldn’t have to fight in war. It was fundamentally wrong, but it didn’t escape me that Alexis had nearly decimated two Titans withwings, all by herself.
How someone so delicate could be so powerful was beyond my understanding.
I struggled to get my thoughts in order.
Instead, I scrubbed at Alexis’s scalp for long moments, as if the tenderness could replace the last hour of her life, and the memories that would surely haunt her.
She tilted her head to the right, and I stilled my ministrations as she looked at me through heavy lashes.
“Thank … you,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from screaming.
I smiled softly. “Of course … I’ll always be there to take care of you.”
She sighed at my words, eyes closing, her head once again lolling forward as she trusted me to take care of her.
Her back was a mess of ruined skin.
And she was thanking me.
The smile fell from my face. Eyes blurring, I cleaned her hair gently, biting down on my lower lip to stifle a sound of distress.
Angelus Romae, indeed.
The humans had seen the truth of her. I’d seen it in their reverent expressions and heard it in their choked voices. They’d seen her for what she was.
Unlike most Spartans, Alexis cared for others, even to her own detriment.
She protected everyone—but who protected her?
We should have.
Tears streamed down my face.
Months ago, Kharon and I had immediately recognized her goodness.
I’d seen it during the crucible.
She’d spent every free minute hunched over a textbook, calmly helping Drex understand Thagorean.
She’d been much smarter than the idiot Olympian boys, but she never bragged, even though she had the type of mind that scholars searched for centuries to find.
Pine would never admit it aloud, but while half starved and delirious, she’d solved complex Thagorean problems that even he couldn’t. And he’d spent over a century teaching Thagorean at thehighlycompetitive Rhodes Olympian University.
Her intellect was astonishing.
Pine had whispered with awe that she was a prodigy, the likes of which he’d never seen.
Alexis was an enigma.
An angel.
