Page 15 of Azriel

“I’m human, but your Father said he was an angel.”

All of the reassurances Vali had fed himself while cooking fell away. “And you hid this from me? Mother, what the fuck?”

“Like I needed my son telling everyone that he’s an angel, or a nephilim actually. Once you got older, it grew harder and harder to tell you. I wanted you to have a normal life for as long as possible.”

He made a noise of frustration as he sat in his chair.

“What made you ask?” She approached the table to give him a suspicious look.

Even if she knew about angels, she might not take so kindly to the fact he had one in his room right now who was still dead to the world as if he hadn’t slept in days. Oh, and Vali had sucked his cock last night and loved it.

“I was thinking about my hair,” he fibbed. “That and the tail seemed too odd, and I grew so slowly. I thought I was just small for my age, but…the more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed. It’s been bugging me for a few days now.”

“That’s why you were quiet?”

“Yeah,” he lied again, and he felt a little prick of guilt because he was normally honest with her. “I’m fucking ugly, and I was born like some sort of freak-”

“You’re not ugly.”

“Yes, I am, and now I find out that I’m not even human. I really am a freak, and you hid it.”

She clutched the back of a chair. “I had to keep you safe. Imagine if you were five and you went outside to play with your tail tucked in your trousers, but you decided to take it out to show other kids, and then-” She rubbed the bridge of your nose. “The last thing I wanted is for you to be viewed as some devil child with an orange tail!”

“Am I going to sprout wings now? Maybe I’ll get a set of horns and a halo to hang off of one.”

She shook her head. “You’re too old to grow any extra parts now. You’ll never have wings or anything else, and not all angels can fly. Your Father couldn’t, but he had a tail that he kept tucked down a leg to hide from the humans. He also had very similar hair, but he could pass for human.”

“So what happened? He told you he was an angel, showed you his tail, and you decided, ‘Let’s have a hump and hope I don’t have an oopsie baby.’”

“Watch your mouth.” She turned to the stairs. “I’ll tell you when I come back down.”

He fumed as he got up to check on the potato and onion pie he’d made.

Mother told him while they ate. Or more like, she ate, and he picked at his food.

Levenall seemed like a human to her at first, and he started talking to her on Sundays at church. He hadn’t been around for very long, but she had been taken with him even with his orange hair. His eyes had been sort of a yellow-ish green, but of course, she had thought it was simply a strange quirk.

Not everyone had been nice to him because of his odd hair and eyes. A few people had said there was something unnatural about him too. Since Mother hadn’t minded, Levenall ended up talking to her more and more. Eventually, they started sneaking off, and one thing led to another.

Surprisingly, he had let her in on his secret. Vali figured the angel really wanted to get some of that energy and a pearl, but they must not have known any way to hide the smoke. He kept quiet since that wasn’t something he should know about, and he wasn’t going to reveal Azriel’s presence.

Levenall seemed even more grand in her eyes. He explained things about his realm and said he left because of the war. He’d fought in it and deserted during his last stint because he didn’t want to be fodder for something that never ended, and he'd had enough. He'd only been on Earth for about six months when he told her. He said when they had the sex, the smoke that formed gave him energy for magic.

It wasn’t long before she was pregnant, and she thought he’d stay with her. He said he didn’t want any babies, and since he was only about sixty, which wasn’t that old in angel terms, he definitely wasn’t marrying a human woman. She’d die long before him.

He had quite a bit of money, gold, and some jewelry, although how he’d gotten that was a bit of a mystery. Perhaps he’d done some thieving when he first came to Earth, and it wouldn’t have been hard with his magic and strength. What human was going to fight him off? After making sure she was set moneywise, he left. Mother couldn't hide her pregnancy forever, and her parents kicked her out.

That was why they had come to Riverview in Camaday and stayed here. When Vali was born with a tail, it was cut off, and his hair and eyes were explained as a quirk. She wasn’t sure if angel babies grew slowly or if that had been a human issue. Levenall had only said her baby wouldn't have any magic ability.

“You’ll live for about two hundred and fifty years,” said Mother. “The human blood dilutes the angel, so nephilim never have any real powers. The most you get is that you’re a bit stronger than other humans, you’re a little sturdier, and you don’t get sick so easily.

Vali thought of all of the little odd things that he’d always brushed off. He wasn’t as strong as Azriel, but he didn’t find it that hard to lift crates and such when he’d worked at the shop. When he’d skinned his knee or gotten a bruise from playing as a child, it had always healed rather quickly. He never got sick either.

Those things were so simple, he’d never thought much about them.

He stared at the remains of his food which had grown cold. “So you’re going to die way before me, and I’ll have to move around forever?”

“No.” Mother hesitated. “There’s a place you can go.”

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