You’ve always hated flying.

Not in planes (those are fine). You hate yourself in the air. Your powers are made for ground combat, for quick reactions, not for trusting the open sky. The last time someone insisted you train midair, you passed out cold three minutes into the drill. And swore it wouldn’t happen again.

It happened again.

You’re barely conscious at first. Just enough awareness to register the wind roaring past ears, tugging at your hair like a thousand tiny hands, limbs weightless, stomach somewhere around your throat. Then—arms. Arms around you. Strong, warm, steady.

You blink groggily, lashes are heavy. The sun is blinding above. Clouds blur like gauze behind someone's shoulder. A bare neck. Strands of golden hair catching the light. Eyes—ice-blue, impossible to read. And… wings.

Your heart drops harder than your body ever did.

“Please tell me I’m hallucinating,” you think.

Warren glances down at you with that smug, infuriating, jawline-from-Olympus expression.

“Nice of you to rejoin the mission.”

You squirm instinctively, but he tightens his grip to keep you from tumbling out of his arms and plummeting to your death.

“Oh no no no no—put me down.”

“You passed out midair,” he replies, almost too casual. “In the middle of a Sentinel dodge-run. Mid-taunt, actually. I think your exact words were ‘I don’t need wings to—’ and then you faceplanted into the sky.”

You groan.

The wind rushes louder as he banks right, taking you through a break in the clouds. It should be terrifying, but there’s something steady about the way he flies—like he knows the sky personally. Like he never doubts it’ll catch him. Or anyone he carries.

The worst part is how your brain keeps noticing things though: the heat of his chest under his uniform, the rhythm of his breathing, the way his wings arch and pivot with elegance that’s almost beautiful.

You make a strangled noise. “This is a humiliation. Just drop me into the nearest tree and I’ll crawl back to the Mansion.”

“Tempting,” he says. “But you’ll owe me.”