so dark it was difficult to distinguish the irises from the pupils. You stared at me intently, and I wondered if you were attempting to memorize my features already.
“Is he very old?” I asked. Your level of attention seemed advanced for a newborn. Different in a way I couldn’t articulate.
“Only a few days,” Santiago said quietly as his gaze shifted away again.
“Do you want to hold him?” Xavier asked.
He offered me the bundle of blankets, and I cautiously took you in my arms. I drew you close to my chest—such a small, warm comfort. Mine, said the primitive part of my brain. My soul, which had felt like a lead ballast for so many months, began to lighten at last. This was where you belonged, with our hearts so near they could beat in time.
“Hello, cucciolo,” I whispered as my eyes stung with tears. “I’ve missed you.”
Your solemn eyes tracked mine faithfully. You squirmed a little in your swaddling clothes, and I loosened the wrap so that you might stretch your limbs. Your tiny lips bowed as though searching for a breast to suckle.
“Has he been fed recently?” I asked the two men. If you were only days old, you would need to eat frequently.
“We’re working on that,” Santiago said. I hadn’t expected them to be quite so doltish. If I’d known they were ill-prepared to accommodate you, I’d have secured provisions myself.
“You knew this child was coming, and you did nothing to make him more comfortable?”
“We did what we could, Henri, but this baby—”
“Xavier,” Santiago silenced his lover with a sharp note.
My attention returned to you, not wanting to stray too long for fear that you might vanish or expire right there in my arms. Of all the animal kingdom, human babies seemed most frail. But you appeared to be healthy, your heart and lungs fully functioning. And your sensory abilities were exceptional. Your skin had a slightly yellow pallor. A bit of jaundice? Or was there some other malady I could not readily identify?
You blinked. Your long, black eyelashes framed your big eyes, making them look like a doll’s. Funny that was the first time I noticed you blink, so intense was your concentration. Was that normal?
“He’s not sick, is he?” I felt your forehead. No fever. You wiggled your arms free from the blanket and stretched them above your head in an adorable pose before settling down again with a little yawn. I put my finger to your mouth so that you might have something to suckle until your nourishment arrived.
That’s when you bit me.
Tiny teeth pierced the thick calluses of my finger, and your expression was suddenly bright and alert. Your puckered mouth sucked with an insatiable pressure. Threads of amber blazed in your wide eyes, their starburst pattern alerting me to a physiological response I knew all too well.
“How…”
I studied your angelic face as your pursed lips extracted my lifeblood with inhuman strength. Your rounded cheeks blushed pink, and your skin darkened to a more robust shade of brown as your swallowing increased in fervor. You shouldn’t be able to get so much heme from only my finger, and yet the sensation of losing blood only strengthened as my pulse thundered in my ears and my head fogged. A small spool of blood mixed with saliva escaped the corner of your mouth.
“Is he…”
Realization dawned as I remembered the flushed look of Lena’s body during our last dream encounter. Her all-knowing smile when I told her I would love you in whatever form you took.
We shall see about that.
“Yes, Henri,” Santiago said with more compassion than I thought him capable. “The body which harbors your soulmate is Nephilim, a bloodborn just like you.”
2
Henri
Just like me.
Santiago’s words echoed in my mind as we waited for Azrael to arrive. You finished feeding and drowsed in my arms. Your breath created small raspberries on your lips, tiny bubbles tinged pink with my blood. I saw it now—your advanced awareness, the smell of your skin, the sense of kinship I felt toward you. You were Nephilim. My mother Lena’s own bloodborn child. Our mother. She’d stolen your humanity and made you…
A monster?
My love for you was fierce and unconditional. You were no monster, only an innocent soul born into the body of a half-demon. Or half-angel, depending on whom you asked.
“Henri.”
I glanced over to where Santiago sat, but it wasn’t Santiago communicating with me anymore; it was Azrael, my master and possessor of the answers I sought.