Page 52 of Forging Darkness

I grit my teeth. I don’t want to be questioned; I want answers. I want to know why I’m different from even my own kind. I want to know everything.

“I’m not asking to be evasive.” Frustration must be written over every part of my face. “To properly explain, I have to know how much you already understand.”

“Little. I understand very little,” I grind out behind clenched teeth. “Especially after what I witnessed today.”

Something flashes in his gaze.

“You’ve most likely been told there were no seraph angels cast out of heaven during the uprising.”

I nod. That was an early lesson at the academy.

“Do you know that isn’t written in the Book of Seraph? The belief that no seraph angel was cast out of glory was verbally carried down from one generation of Nephilim to the next.”

I don’t consider myself an expert on the Book of Seraph, only having scratched the surface of the text myself—studying giant tomes in a language I only half-comprehend is not my idea of a good time—but I assumed the bit about seraph angels was written in the text somewhere.

“No, I didn’t know that. But it’s not as if it’s verifiable.”

“I’ll provide you with a copy of the Book of Seraph if you’d like,” he offers.

“No thanks.” I know what he’s hinting at—that there are seraph Fallen—but I’m curious to know how he plans to prove his claim.

It’s a beat before he responds. A calculated gleam lurks in the depths of his gaze when he does.

“You know you’re different. Even if your physical appearance wasn’t dissimilar from the others, you feel it inside.” He presses a hand to his chest. “The desire to belong yet not quite being able to fit in any particular place. The longing you most likely struggled to ignore while being raised by humans.”

Leaning back, I cross my arms and pin him with a stare. “That’s not a hard thing to guess about me. I’m assuming you looked into my background and know how I lived the majority of my life. No one could grow up like I did and not feel that way.”

He nods in acknowledgement. “That’s true. Those are the typical responses to being abandoned by your parents and race and forced to grow up relying on the charity of strangers ignorant to what you really are.”

I flinch at his blunt words. His description of my childhood is accurate, but I don’t like feeling as if it’s being thrown in my face.

“But it’s not only that, is it? Don’t you wonder why you still feel that way even though your eyes have been opened to the real world? The pressure of living with a group of Nephilim who will never quite understand what it’s like to be you? Feeling like, yet again, you are on the outside looking in. You want to be one of them, but you can’t rid yourself of the nagging voice inside that tells you you’re not.”

His words feel manipulative, but I can’t deny he’s right. How many times have I questioned why I still don’t feel complete?

“It’s because you don’t truly belong with them. You belong with someone of your kind. Another child of the mighty seraph. You belong with me.”

Ignoring the protest from my shredded thigh, I stand, shoving my chair back, and it tumbles to the ground. I teeter a bit, putting weight on my uninjured leg.

“Are we siblings?” My gut is a knot of emotions as I wait for his response. I can’t decide if I want his answer to be yes or no.

Surging to his feet as well, he shakes his head. “No. We are not brother and sister.”

“Cousins? Aunt and uncle? Half-siblings twice removed?”

“Twice removed?” He stares at me like I’ve lost it, and perhaps I have. “No. We’re not related at all, at least not in that sense.”

My brain doesn’t quite know what to make of that. The sharpened tips of our feathers, our blond hair and dark eyes. We have too many shared physical characteristics to not have some sort of familial connection. “So you’re saying we’re both descendants of the seraph line, but have different parents?”

“I’m saying we both have seraph sires, not watered-down lineage like the rest of the Nephilim. I’m saying we are the only two beings in existence with seraph blood running through our veinsandthe ability to phase into and out of the mortal realm at will. I’m saying we are superior to our Nephilim kin and weren’t born to serve the human race or any other, but rather created to rule.” His aura flares. The dark lightning zaps through the white.

A shiver skates down my spine at his words, and my wings bob twice before settling. Nothing good ever came from someone claiming to be a superior race.

Electricity dances along my arms. Sparks shoot off my fingertips as I retreat another step. He moves forward, gobbling up the space I just created.

“No, no. Don’t take another step.” I hold my hands out in front of me like I know what to do with them. This is definitely one of those times I ache to have control of my powers. Random sparks and adrenaline-fueled fireballs aren’t going to protect me unless I have mastery of them. Frustration flares in my chest like a flash fire.

“I’ve seen this movie, read this book. There’s no way I’m becoming your queen of darkness and bearing the heir of the apocalypse or whatever sort of weirdness you have planned. I want no part of your creepy evil scheme.”

---