Sweet Evil(31)

I nodded for him to continue, hanging on his words. “What will happen?”

“What do you think? You’re dead.”

My stomach dropped. Patti had known this kind of danger was out there when she made me promise to stay away from him. How could I have been so reckless? I walked into a demon’s den! What if Pharzuph checked up on me and found out I was still a sober virgin?

“I don’t get why it’s such a problem that I’m a virgin, or why you have to be the one to...”

“Would you prefer another?” He spoke seriously, but there were undertones of amusement that irked me.

“No, I mean, it’s not that. If it’s the two of us, how is that supposed to be a bad influence on humans?”

“It would be part of your training to make you well-rounded in your sinful nature, so you can lure more humans. I don’t think it’s worth the risk to stay a virgin. I understand you’re afraid of becoming addicted to the drugs, but what’s your reasoning behind not having sex?”

Geez, could this conversation get any more personal? I squirmed a little in the seat.

“I want to wait until I’m married,” I admitted, crossing my legs and uncrossing them again.

He laughed at that. Loudly. I shot him a look.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that the thought of a Neph being so pure, getting married, and having a normal human life is...” He stopped laughing when he looked at me. “It’s not possible.”

This could not be happening. In the course of an hour my life had been altered drastically. My entire future would be forever skewed and shadowed.

“Even most humans don’t wait until marriage anymore.” He glanced at me through choppy brown hair that hung in his eyes. “Look. It’s not time to worry yet. Why don’t you tell me this big secret of yours?”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. I was not entirely safe with Kaidan. I knew that. So why wasn’t I scared of him? His father was a terrifying and disgusting piece of work, but Kaidan was a different story. I wanted to trust him. I wanted him to trust me.

“My mother was an angel,” I blurted. “A guardian angel.”

There. I prayed I wouldn’t live to regret it.

He looked away from the road to study my face.

“But angels of light aren’t permitted to possess humans.”

“I guess she broke the rules,” I said.

He ran a hand through his hair, letting it flop back down across his brows.

“That’s unheard of. Definitely something you should not tell anyone else. Wow.”

Kaidan began to chuckle then.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“You. You’re a walking contradiction. Horns and a halo. I don’t believe it.”

I gave a deadpan “ha, ha” at his jibe. Meeting his father had stolen my sense of humor.

“Are there a lot of other people like us?” I asked. “Nephilim?”

“Not really. More than a hundred. Used to be thousands, but that’s a story for another day.”

I sat there marveling at the thought of others out there who had spent their childhoods developing unusual powers, as I had.

Kaidan slowed at the exit for Cartersville and we both quieted as I pointed directions. He pulled into my neighborhood and parked outside of the apartment building. He looked up at it with skepticism and cut the engine. I wasn’t ready to get out yet.

“What does it mean to be Nephilim?” I asked. “How much are we like our fathers?”

He leaned his seat back a few inches and laced his fingers behind his head.

“We feel a pull in the direction of their sinful natures. We’re viewed as their property, their pawns. Nephilim work to advance the demonic cause, promoting sin among our peers.”

He said it matter-of-factly, as if he had no opinion or feeling about this atrocity whatsoever.

“That is sick.”

He ignored me. “The demons have specific jobs. My father is the Duke of Lust. Your father, Belial, is the Duke of Substance Abuse.”

His words smacked me, leaving behind a sting. Even though I’d had a feeling about my nature, it still made me ill to hear it. And the son of Lust? He just went up a few notches on the danger scale.

“I can’t believe this. It’s so wrong.”

He continued to ignore me, scrunching his eyes as he’d done at his house. “Which one of these places is yours?”

I looked up at our apartment and pointed.

“Can you not hear that? Or do you never listen? There’s a woman crying in there.”

“Patti!” I said. I flung off my seat belt, jumped out of his car, and sprinted for the building, leaving Kaidan without a good-bye.