THEODON

Theo was one of the first angels I ever met.

From the outside he looks exactly like what you’d expect from a Throne — controlled, disciplined, built for war. Theo doesn’t waste words, doesn’t startle easily, and doesn’t need to raise his voice for people to understand exactly what he is.

Most people would call that intimidating.

They wouldn’t be wrong.

Theo was born into one of Heaven’s warrior bloodlines, but whatever childhood he had ended the day the Ashen slaughtered his parents. He witnessed their deaths himself. The Ashen were eventually destroyed, thankfully, but that didn’t change what Theo had already seen.

After that, he was raised and trained by a mentor who shaped most of the warrior he became.

Turns out has a strange sense of timing, because was also .

Neither of them knew that when they first met.

Theo fights with twin celestium daggers, and he fights like someone who has been preparing for battle his entire existence. Precision first. Hesitation never. If Theo is moving, someone is about to lose.

He rarely fights alone. His closest teammate is Sage, another Throne who seems to exist purely to prove that Heaven has a sense of humor. The two of them move like warriors who have spent centuries watching each other’s backs.

Because they have.

Sage apparently also enjoys stealing Theo’s phone whenever the opportunity presents itself. One memorable incident resulted in Theo’s phone ringing while an image of Theo sprinting across the screen appeared with the words Big Sexy written across it.

According to Sage, that’s Theo’s nickname.

Theo was not amused.

For all his discipline, there’s more feeling in him than he likes to admit. For centuries he convinced himself that duty and distance were the same thing. Paralyum helped with that.

Turns out emotional suppression only works until the right person walks into your life.

Liv proved that faster than anything else could have.

Theo was also among the first angels to realize something most of Heaven had only treated as legend.

The was real.

And of him.

The shock of that realization would have been enough to break most warriors.

Theo adapted.

Somewhere between the orders, the bloodshed, and everything that happened once Liv’s Theo became something Heaven probably never intended him to be.

He became .

He made to walk away from.

And the moment Theo started choosing for himself—

he .

That matters, because Theo is not some minor warrior drifting at the edge of the coming war. He is the kind of force that shifts outcomes. The kind of warrior others follow whether they mean to or not.

Which means Heaven may eventually have to face a very uncomfortable truth.

If the day comes when Theo

I already know which side he’ll be standing on.