Page 63 of Claimed By her Alien Prince

Azazel introduced us to her and quickly summarized how they met and that he had kept her hidden from Behlial.

Everybody found their spots and Seth brought me some refreshments, Ishtar took a deep breath, beaming from one of her sons to the other and making sure to include us maidens. Her eyes lingered warmly on me for a moment longer. She was a stranger to me, but one who had been good to me in the short time I knew her, and I regretted not being able to get to know her better. I felt as if I could have loved her like I had never been able to love my absentee mother.

"I wondered if I would ever see the day where my sons would unite against the king." She smiled. "One would sometimes challenge him, but never more, never united like you did. I can't tell you how proud I am of you, to have overcome your negative feelings for one another and banded together."

Seth looked at his brothers. "We never had negative feelings for one another, not like Behlial assumed. Much of it was acting for his benefit. It was you," he raised his goblet toward Ishtar, "who taught us better."

The other three copied Seth and raised their goblets toward the woman they had called mother for so long.

"Thank you, Mother, without you…." Grigori trailed off, leaving the rest of the sentence hang for all of us to fill in.

Ishtar nodded and took a drink after raising her own crystal glass toward her sons. "I tried. I failed so many times, I can't tell you how many times I failed."

"The old man let his guard down," Marduk remarked with a sneer.

"Maybe," Ishtar answered. "But don't underestimate him, he is still dangerous and despite the oath of fealty the nobles and guards swore, there are still some who will remain loyal to him."

"Duly noted, Mother. Thank you." Seth inclined his head.

Ishtar sank into a chair, lovingly gazing at her sons. "Well, what is your plan from here?" She looked straight at Seth.

"That depends," Seth's voice sounded challenging and expectant, "on what you can tell us about what the next step in this journey will be, would have been, had there only been one of us left."

"Of course." She sighed. "I'm not sure how much of a help it will be, but if you are ready, I will tell you the story."

I snuggled closer to Seth and pulled my feet up and under me in expectation of her story, which, from the look on Ishtar's face, wasn't going to be an easy one to tell, nor a fast one.

I nibbled on one of the honeyed cakes Seth had put on a plate for me among other delicacies and already felt some of my strength returning from the sweet gooeyness. Seth's fingers played with strands of my hair, but his body, which I was snuggled in, was stiff in anticipation.

Ishtar rose from her chair and walked slowly through the room. "Mind you, most of the story, I only know from Behlial. This was long before my time. Thousands, tens of thousands, of years ago."

A shiver moved through me at the realization that Behlial and his minions had influenced human history for this long, terrorized and killed millions of people and most of all, at the idea of how old Behlial was, which made me remember that I, too, now was immortal.

The honey felt heavy going down my throat and I realized too much was happening too quickly. But like an oncoming train, more was coming, and I had no choice but to lay back and let it happen. Later, I promised myself. Later, I would find the time to digest and process.

"The vampires, as you call them, or Daemons as they call themselves," Ishtar nodded at me, and I wondered how she knew this, began her story. "Have always lived on a planet called Elysian. Their greatest achievement was to reach immortality. How or when or why, was lost over the generations, but when they did, they lost the capability of reproduction, which wasn't a great loss to them, as they were plentiful, and with immortality, new births would have caused way too many problems for them."

She stopped for a moment and stroked Marduk's hair lovingly, who in turn looked up at her with adoration in his eyes. My heart warmed as I witnessed what kind of mother she had been to the men; she had loved and cherished each one of them.

"Now, the Nayphyllym have always been a warmongering, heartless bunch," she continued, making me raise an eyebrow at her statement, although in all my history books I had never found a reference to the actual character of the Nayphyllym, or Nephilim, it was always assumed that they werethe good guys. Ishtar noticed my incredulous expression. "Please remember that whatever I tell you here, comes from Behlial. I don't know anything about the Nayphyllym firsthand, and by that same token, whatever you know is probably thousands of years old."

Understanding her point, I nodded, and she continued. ""For whatever reason, the Nayphyllym left their home planet, Tartarus. We don't know if it was all of them or just a group. Anyway, they came upon Elysian. And when they found out that the Daemons were immortal, they desired nothing more than to learn their secret. A deal was struck, and the Daemons invited the Nayphyllym to live with them in exchange for their technology."

"Over the years, both races prospered with their agreement, and they also discovered that Daemon and Nayphyllym unions were blessed with offspring, something the Daemons hadn't seen in thousands of years."

"As time went on, they discovered many things, but the most important one was that a Daemon could please a Nayphyllym in ways previously unknown to them," she stopped and smiled at us. "Yes, sex. It all boils down to sex, doesn't it?

"Like I said, Nayphyllyms were cold, unfeeling and frigid. At least until they began to mate with the Daemons. They also discovered that any offspring created by both species, Tainted as they called them, were given immortality, creating a kind of symbiosis between the two species. But after a few generations, the Tainted lost the ability to reproduce."

"For centuries, everything went well. Daemons and Nayphyllym cohabitated Elysian, enjoyed the modified offspring, and in time the Daemons became quite adept at creating their own technologies based off what they learned."

"Alas. Like all good things, it didn't last forever. For one reason or another, a split occurred between the Daemons, Nayphyllym, and the Tainted. The old, original Daemons especially became resentful of the Nayphyllym, probably because their technology had advanced enough that they didn't feel like they needed the Nayphyllym any longer, or maybe because with the added Nayphyllym and the resulting Tainted, the planet was quickly filling up."

"She waved her hand as Grigori seemed to want to ask a question. "I know, I know, and they did, they did begin to build other colonies. But Daemons are a funny breed, they lived for so long on Elysian, that they had a hard time adapting to any new environment. They began to push their offspring out at first, reasoning that they were too young to have formed much of an attachment to Elysian and would be better suited to acclimatize to a new planet.

"They were wrong though. If anything, the Tainted seemed even more attached and revolted against the elders. The Nayphyllym, seeing their chance to take over Elysian, joined forces with the Tainted. The result was a bloody, all-out war, which neither side could win, especially with the technological advances the Daemons had made.

"Many alliances were forged and broken between the three fractions over the years, as the war continued for well over two centuries. Both sides lost great numbers of their people, which was the hardest for the Daemons since they couldn't reproduce without the Nayphyllym. Still, the Daemons seemed to win, and one day, the Nayphyllym took to their ships and left."

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