Parking garage dude is also Bird Boy, who is also Steel? I guess that means the giant lion didn’t eat him after all.
Pity.
The fight has completely left me . . . and any minute, my breakfast may as well.
“Sick,” I manage to whimper-whisper.
“You’d better not,” Steel orders. “You already gave me a bloody nose. If you even think about throwing up on me, I’ll feed you to the Fallen myself.”
Who or what are the Fallen? I wonder—right before succumbing to the darkness.
Chapter Four
Light is the worst.
Grabbing a pillow, I shove it over my head to smother myself.
Oh, feather down. Comfy.
I snuggle into the softness, refusing to fully wake. It’s like sleeping on a cloud. I like.
Wait . . . I don’t have down pillows. I don’t even have a bed.
Popping up with a squeak, I promptly drop several feet and land with a muffled oof. I’m tangled in the bedding I pulled with me and my shoulder and hip throb from breaking my fall.
“Ow.”
Rubbing my bruised side, I peer up at a giant four-poster bed to my left.
“Who sleeps that far off the ground?” I mutter. “It’s unnatural.”
As I struggle to free myself from the bedding pretzel-twisted around my legs and torso, my mind scrambles to make sense of the situation.
Wannabe kidnappers. Getting chased by the shadow beasts. My would-be rescuer. A gigantic lion. An enormous bird. Getting dropped from the sky. A cocky jerk.
Yep, that about covers it.
Pulling a sheet off my head, I stand and suck in a lungful of fresh air.
“You must be feeling better.”
I yip and spin in a circle. Karen is watching me from an oversized chair in a darkened corner of the room.
Yeah, that isn’t creepy.
Standing up, she takes a few tentative steps toward me.
She looks . . . different.
Her hair waterfalls over her shoulders in sleek sheets. She’s ditched the mom jeans and sneakers for black leggings and ankle boots. The artfully distressed gray t-shirt she’s wearing—I’m an expert in what real distressed clothes look like—hangs off one shoulder. Her face is free of make-up except for a light dusting of blush, some mascara, and a rosy sheen on her lips.
The overall effect makes her appear ten years younger. She can’t be older than her mid-thirties. I don’t know how I ever thought she was middle-aged.
“Where am I?”
I scan the room, looking for something to use as a weapon. I’ve been taken against my will, after all.
The room looks like a fancy hotel suite. A glass vase is the most threatening object I can find. In a pinch, I can work with that.
I’m scrappy.
Karen sighs and indicates the bed. “Why don’t you sit down? It’s been a long day.”
Crossing my arms, I jut my hip to the side and stare her down. She’s right, it has been a long day.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on, Karen?” I practically spit the name, which I’m beginning to doubt is real.
“Right. Okay then. Fair enough.” Bringing a hand to her face, she pinches the bridge of her nose. “First off, my name isn’t Karen, it’s Sable.”
“And where am I . . . Sable?”
“We’re in the Rockies, about three hours from Denver. Glenwood Springs. It’s an old mining town. We brought you to one of our academies. As you’ve probably worked out, I’m not a waitress. I’m actually the headmistress of this institution—Seraph Academy. This is a safe place for people like you. People like us.”
I cock an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘people like us’?”
Karen—Sable—gestures to the bed again. I continue to glare and she sighs when it becomes clear I’m not planning on moving.
“People with the blood of angels. Everyone here—”
“The blood of angels?” I rear back. My foot tangles in the forgotten bedding balled on the floor and I go down hard.
Stepping over the mess, Sable offers me a hand up. When I’m on my own two feet, she continues. “Nephilim to be exact.”
“Nef-a-what?”
“Nephilim. Everyone here is descended from the union of a human woman and an angel of darkness.”
“Wait . . . you’re telling me my father is an angel? Or, an angel of darkness?” The phrase feels awkward and clunky. “What even is that?”
“You ready to take a seat yet?” Sable asks as she crosses her arms over her chest.
I nod.
Yep. I think it’s time to do that. Sitting sounds fantastic right now.
Wide-eyed and attentive, I drop my butt onto the soft bedding and gesture for her to continue.
Sable shakes her head and silky hair brushes over her shoulders. “The original couplings of disgraced angels and humans was just the start of our lines. It’s very unlikely your father was a fallen angel—those we simply call Fallen. The original hybrids were born several millennia ago. We haven’t heard of a child of a Fallen and a human woman in over two thousand years. Those of us that exist today are descendants of the original hybrids.”
She takes a seat next to me, the bed dipping slightly with her added weight. “There are academies like this one smattered all over the globe. Our young come here to learn and train until they are old enough to fight on their own. We’ve brought you to one of the safest locations for our kind. For your protection, and also to learn about who you are and what you can do.
“There’s quite a bit to tell you, actually. It’s going to take a considerable amount of time to get you caught up to speed, but for now you need to know that there is a war going on. One fought in the spiritual and mortal realms between angels of light, and angels of dark—the Fallen.
“Whether you knew it or not, you were born into this conflict, but you are not alone. Everyone here at Seraph Academy is like you—an angel-born child.”
My head still hurts. That was a massive information dump. Bringing a hand to my forehead, I scrub my palm down my face. If I hadn’t been accused of it so many times myself, I would have called her out as insane or a liar.
Could her story be just unbelievable enough to be true?
And . . . a war? I have a hard enough time getting through the day. I don’t need to be dragged into what appears to be an ancient grudge match between good and evil.
“So, you want me to believe I’m not . . . human?” That last word was a little hard to push out. I never felt as if I fit in, but not human? That’s a stretch.
“Exactly.”
“And that a fallen angel is lurking somewhere in my family tree?”
“Yes.”
I count to sixty as Sable and I stare at each other. I’m waiting for her to break. To yell “Just kidding!” or start crazy-laughing. But it never happens. She doesn’t so much as flinch, and it starts to make me nervous.
“I’m going to be honest. I have no idea how to react to all this.”
“I can only imagine.” Sable’s expressive eyes soften and she lays a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Most of our children grow up knowing exactly what they are. It’s very rare for a Nephilim child to be raised by non-angel-born. Your life up until this point must have been very challenging . . . as well as confusing.”