“I don’t need blood to shift, ignorant boy. Nor am I a demon. I’m something more.” The man let his robes fall open. Blackening flesh hung on his bones. And in the center of his chest, a massive hole gaped, a raw and ugly wound. Beyond the bone, gristle, and muscle, a pathetic and shriveled heart barely pumped. “I am fallen. I am Amaros.”
A fallen angel. Bloody perfect.
Amaros closed his robe. “I am decaying. But you are going to help me fix that.”
“Don’t see how.” Jack gave a wry look down at his gut, where a thick shaft of iron stuck out of him. It was agony, but he was damned if he’d let that show. “I’m a bit hung up at the moment.”
The sores along Amaros’s neck gaped as he tilted his head and looked Jack over as though he were a piece of prime meat on a hook. “I’m rotting away. Unable to die, only to live in agony. For a millennium I’ve wasted away. And then I tasted you, Jack.” Cold fingers raked Jack’s cheek, and he flinched, much to Amaros’s delight. “Slowly I began to heal. Imagine my happiness when I thought that the blood of a shifter could heal me. But it was only you. Your gloriously rich blood. It can heal me.”
Through his pain Jack choked out a laugh. “Right. It’s done a bang-up job.”
A blow set Jack’s teeth rattling and blood pooling in his mouth. With an exaggerated sigh, Amaros leaned against the spike in Jack’s gut. Jack gnashed his teeth to hold in a scream. Amaros didn’t miss the reaction, however, and sighed. “It doesn’t have to be like this. We can help each other.”
“Your idea of help,” Jack ground out through shallow breaths, “is a little lacking, mate.”
“But I have been helping. I was the one, you realize. Who took you.”
The fact that this putrid thing had been his main tormentor made Jack’s skin crawl.
“And yet when I might have tormented you further,” Amaros went on, “I set you free from your captivity.”
“Set me free?” Jack laughed. “I was saved, you deluded prat.”
Slowly Amaros shook his head, as if Jack were daft. “I suppose it never occurred to you just why Mary Chase was able to waltz into that barge and rescue you? Without a fight? Without one guard left to watch over you?”
Jack swallowed against the thick lump in his throat. Bloody hell, but it made sense. “Why let me go?”
“Because your blood was weakened by the iron needed to hold you captive. I needed you to heal, to grow strong.” He grinned his off-kilter grin again. “But then I discovered what you are.”
“Oh?” Jack coughed, a loose and rattling sound deep within his chest. Christ, that spike hurt. “And what am I?”
“You are one of the Nephilim. The offspring of an angel and a human.”
Jack stilled. “You’re bamming me.”
“I do not know what that means.” Amaros’s eyes gleamed darkly. “Have you not paused to wonder why it is that you sprout wings when roused?”
“I am a shifter.” Jack knew he was being stubborn. Even so, he suddenly felt overset.
Amaros uttered an annoyed snort. “Shifters, angels, and Nephilim can change appearance at will and are weakened by iron. And Nephilim do not show their true selves until they reach full maturity, which, by the look of you, did not happen until this year.”
Jack was twenty-six, but it was true, he had only just grown into his full strength. And he’d never sprouted wings until now. “I don’t believe it,” Jack said.
“Neither did I at first. Your kind is rare. Before you, one had not been born in two millennia.” Amaros’s expression turned earnest, save for the mad light in his eyes. “Shrouded in myth. Even for the supernaturals. Only the fallen truly know your kind.”
“My kind.” Jack sneered. “And you’ve decided to tell me this out of the goodness of your heart.”
“No. To whet your appetite. I can give you something that you’ve always wanted. Your heritage. The name of your true family.”
Jack’s heartbeat thundered in his ears, but he remained silent.
“You think I don’t see the hunger in your eyes?” Amaros whispered. “You, the lost boy that no one wanted. You want to know, want to belong somewhere. Even if you deny it with every breath.”
There was a part of Jack that thirsted for what Amaros was offering. For too long he’d wandered, not belonging anywhere.
The fallen’s gaze grew soft, inviting trust. “I gave you the names of your tormentors, did I not? Give me what I want, and I will give you that knowledge.”
Jack looked into the fallen’s eyes and saw an abyss. It would never end. The bargaining. The bartering of his pride.