Succubus Dreams Page 0,61

guess how that was working out. Horribly. Nephilim were the offspring of angels and humans. Those angels were now demons, of course. You couldn't sleep around with hot humans and still play for heaven's team - as I'd noted with Yasmine. It was why Jerome had fallen. In what had to be the most unfair deal in the world, many nephilim had been hunted and killed by angels and demons - even their own parents. Heaven and Hell viewed nephilim as dangerous abominations. The fact that nephilim tended to have unruly natures and poor impulse control didn't really help their reputation.

As a result of their persecution, nephilim usually walked the earth disguised, hiding the full brunt of their power - which rivaled their parents' - as well as the immortal signatures that could give them away. And while I felt bad for them, they nonetheless scared the hell out of me. Many of them held grudges against angels, demons, and anyone else immortal. Jerome's son Roman was like that. He had come to Seattle a few months ago and embarked on a revenge killing spree. Looking at Vincent now, I wondered if I was dealing with the same sort of thing.

"Does...Yasmine know?" I asked after several more awkward moments.

His eyes flicked back to me. "Of course." He said it with the same matter-of-fact tone he'd used when we'd talked about their relationship. It was a tone that implied how could she not know? Like it was absurd that he would keep anything from the woman he loved.

"It kills her," he said with a sigh. "It's eating her up inside."

"Because...of...what you are...?"

"No." His eyes were so sad that I almost forgot he came from a race of uber-powerful psychopaths. "She doesn't care about that part. What she can't stand is that it's a secret. That she has to hide everything. You know they can't lie...but she's not exactly telling the truth either. It's deceitful, and she hates that. And I hate that she hates it. I've tried to end our...thing a couple of times, but she won't do it because..."

"Because she loves you," I finished.

Vincent shrugged and looked away from me again.

"I'm sorry," I told him at last. And I was. How horrible. Yasmine loving anyone was dangerous enough, but for her to love one of the most despised creatures in our world...well, yeah. That took it to an entirely different level. An angel should have been reporting Vincent's existence, not hiding it.

Vincent turned his attention back to me. "Who will you tell? Carter? Jerome?"

I stared into those dark, dark eyes, those eyes filled with so much sorrow and so much love. I stopped being afraid of him. He wasn't Roman.

"No one," I said quietly. "I'm not going to tell anyone."

He turned incredulous. "Why? You know what I am. You know you could get in trouble for hiding me. Why wouldn't you tell?"

I thought about it. "Because the system is fucked up."

I went back to Seth's room after that, and when I stepped out into the hall later, Vincent was gone. He wasn't at my apartment when I returned home that night.

Seth was released the following morning, and I stayed home from work with him.

"I don't need to be coddled, Thetis," he told me gently - though I could swear there was the tiniest hint of annoyance in his voice. "I'm fine. I won't break."

We were sitting in his living room, side by side on the couch. He had his laptop, and I had a novel. I folded a corner of the page I was on and shut the book.

I wanted to tell Seth that he would break, that that's what it meant to be mortal. I wanted to tell him a thousand things, just like I'd wanted to in the hospital, but once more I swallowed my feelings.

"You just need to take it easy," I said. "And I want to make sure you don't do anything too crazy."

"Right. Because my usual lifestyle is so physically vigorous."

He had a point. Most of his days were spent sitting and writing. He wasn't too likely to burst another artery that way.

"I just want you to be careful," I said obstinately. "You were shot last night, remember? That's not the same as falling on the ice."

"You overreacted to that too."

"Is it so wrong to care about you?"

He sighed and returned to his work. I had a feeling I wasn't the only one biting back angry words. We spent most of the day like that,