Chapter Forty-Four: Nephilim

Helaine

Sitting naked on the wooden chair felt awkward, and I wrapped my wings around my body as I shivered in the air’s chill.

Valek had no such issue, confidently striding naked through the room to stir the cauldron that emanated a delicious aroma that reminded me just how hungry I was. I couldn’t help feeling exposed, but there was something about the way that Valek wore her own skin that gave away just how ancient she was.

Unbound by societal convention for the simple fact that she predated it. By a long shot.

Her body was gorgeous, as though she was a work of art carved from pure snow, but I didn’t get the feeling that she was in any way trying to seduce me. Being naked was just natural to her—the leather scraps she wore as clothes before hastily thrown together almost as an afterthought.

It probably helped that she was an undead creature, and most likely didn’t feel the chill in the air.

The whole atmosphere held an eerie air of domesticity as she ladled stew into a wooden bowl before setting it in front of me. The steam was warm against my face and I inhaled deeply, my stomach growling urgently in response.

“You need to eat,” she ordered, handing me a spoon. “Your body used a lot of energy to create those wings.”

“Thank you.” My voice was quiet, but Valek’s eyes narrowed on me like she could hear the trembling in my voice.

Even with my wings around me, I was still cold—the wings themselves were cold and trembling, and the fact that I wasn’t used to feeling them made it that much worse.

“Stay here. Eat.” She walked out of the small kitchen, leaving me alone with my stew.

Cradling the bowl in my hands, breathing in the steam, all I was focused on in that moment was basking in the stew’s warmth. When Valek returned, she was unfolding an enormous woven blanket, one that looked much too big to drape over my shoulders at the dinner table.

But I was proven wrong when she wrapped it around me and it fell comfortably, bathing me in a soothing warmth.

Oh right, the wings.

When I took my first bite, my eyes fluttered closed in appreciation as the creamy, flavorful bone broth coated my tongue and the texture of the barley popped between my teeth.

For as much as I always loved stew, it had been a long time since I’d eaten it. When I did make it, it was usually when I was having friends around. Money got too tight to be hosting dinners when my rent when up, and after that there’d just been so much chaos since Evan and I got together that I really didn’t know how to face my old friends.

As grateful as I was to have had someone like Evan by my side, I missed them. Del and Roman especially.

I missed getting together on the weekends and watching movies in the underpass. I missed holing ourselves up in someone’s house and watching shitty D-list horror movies just to make fun of them, and finding the hidden gems that were slandered in the reviews.

All of that was gone now. Even if I could reconcile risking their lives by hanging around them knowing what I was, these wings would be impossible to hide.

It would shatter their minds to know that creatures like me—or even vampires like Evan—existed.

I couldn’t stop myself from fixating on it. About how they’d react if they saw me like this.

About how Evan would react.

Nothing about the way Evan made me feel suggested that he would ever abandon me, but he didn’t sign up for this.

It was impossible to pretend I was human with these monstrous things protruding from me.

Valek sat across from me then, without pouring any stew for herself, and I wondered if she even ate real food at all. The way she stared at me, watching me eat, was unnerving. But there was a certain curiosity in her expression.

Evan had said he could eat food if he wanted to, but he didn’t need to. If he bothered, it’d be out of habit or nostalgia, but would Valek even have had a reason to try it if she was born this way?

Just because she was shaped like a human didn’t mean she was accustomed to the same universal needs we had. It was uncanny, watching her sit across from me and knowing that she was something completely . . . other.

I tried to ignore her as she openly stared, and my mind swam with thoughts of Evan, and what might happen when he finds me—Valek assured me that he would.

She didn’t say anything to suggest that she’d hurt him when he did finally find us, but then, it was hard to trust anything about her after seeing her toss my father around like a rag doll, especially when Evan was so deeply afraid of her.

I’d become so lost in thought that I didn’t catch Valek’s words when she broke the silence, so I just looked up at her dumbly. “W—what?”

“Is the stew good?” She eyed me curiously as I stared back at her, my spoon hovering halfway between the bowl and my mouth, dripping sumptuous broth into the bowl with every second that passed.

Staring at her for a moment longer, I finally answered, “Yes. Do you . . . cook often?”

It occurred to me that it was odd that she was able to cook such a delicious stew if she didn’t typically eat food herself, unless she had practice.

“I used to,” she answered, a certain melancholy flashing in her eyes. “I had friends . . . once. I learned for them.”

My brow furrowed, trying and failing to conjure up the image of Valek with friends of her own, doing the sort of things I did with my friends. It didn’t seem possible. “What were they like?”

“They were a lot like you.” A small smile tugged at her lips, making her face look wistful. “They were nephilim.”

“Nephilim . . . ” I repeated, the word cumbersome on my tongue. “The children of angels and humans.”

Like me . . . the daughter of the fallen archangel, Lucifer.

“The very same.” She nodded. “I spent a long time alone. When I was born, I was the only one of my kind. Too hellish for Earth, and too mortal for Hell. When my half-brother was cursed, I thought he’d be a natural companion, but he was too wrapped up in his hatred for what he’d become to see me as anything but a . . . monster.” Her lips curved into a grimace. “I’ve found most vampires to be that way—grieving a humanity that I never had in the first place.”

It was impossible not to feel some degree of empathy for her story, especially when I felt so alone now. As old as she was, it must’ve been that much harder to exist with no one to lean on.

“The nephilim were similar, too mortal for Heaven, too divine for Earth . . . they were a people born lost, and they accepted me for a time.” Her eyes were fixed on me, but I got the sense that it wasn’t truly me she was looking at, but the nephilim who came before. “But then they procreated with the humans, and over time their offspring became less and less monstrous, and I was left behind again.”

Pulling the blanket tighter around myself, I tried in vain to conceal my massive wings, feathers poking out from underneath. “I didn’t ask for any of this—to be this.”

“Neither did I.”

“I just . . . there’s so much about my life that has to change—everything really. It might’ve been easier if I were born like this, but I lived my whole life thinking I was—”

“Human?” She interrupted, and I nodded sheepishly.

“There’s just so much I can never get back with these damn things in the way.” I flexed my wings, uncaring about my nudity beneath as I tossed off the blanket. “I wish I could hide them, at least pretend to be normal.”

“You can.” She leaned forward, an almost sly quality to her smile. “You just need to get in touch with your power.”