Page 20 of The Nephilim's Finesse

“I don’t hate you.”

She rolled her eyes. “All right. Why do or did you resent me so much?”

I sighed. “Sit down.” She glared at me. “Please. It’s a long story, and I don’t want to stand the whole time.”

She nodded and walked back to her chair. I sat down on the bed. I needed space from her if I wanted to talk about my feelings. Additionally, she would have a picture of me in her bed, see me there, and picture other things than talking.

"Twelve years ago, we Nephilim fought against you. You had ‘acquired’ some new properties and threatened the humans to move out or be food.”

I glanced at her and saw that she squinted her eyes, trying to remember. Victorija closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and pressed her fingertips to her temples. She recalled the details of the incident I had shared with her: the Nephilim in front of one of those houses, the vampires standing guard, the face-off as we tried to reason with her, the chaos as vampires and Nephilim stormed at each other, the panicked screams; the thunderous crash of metal as swords collided with poles from street signs that the vampires had ripped out of the pavement; our victory, and her hasty escape as all other vampires lay dead before us. She shuddered as the realisation swept over her. Slowly, she nodded.

“You killed a Nephilim that day.”

She looked at me with questioning eyes, clearly not recalling.

“She had blue eyes and long, shining blond hair. She fought with a spear. You killed her. She was my mate.”

Victorija looked at me, waiting to continue. What should I add to this? Wasn’t it clear enough for her?

“Do you remember her?”

I knew that I wasn’t allowed to ask a question, but maybe Victorija wouldn't notice. Victorija closed her eyes and wrinkled her forehead, as if trying to force a memory from the depths of her mind. She held her breath, eyebrows arched in concentration, for what felt like an eternity before finally letting out a weak sigh of defeat. She shook her head. Anger flashed in me; I straightened up, not able to sit anymore.

“How could you not even remember her?”

Victorija got up, too, her pose tense. Her jaw tightened, and she narrowed her eyes. “Why should I? She was my enemy. Do you remember every enemy you killed, every vampire you had slain that night? Do you remember every face of every man, woman and creature that you killed?” She waited a moment for my response, but I kept silent. “Of course not, and neither do I.”

Deep breaths. She was right. I had killed so many vampires; their faces blurred together as one. The countless jackals and lesser demons—I couldn’t even estimate how many I had killed in the last decades.

Victorija’s voice ripped me from my thoughts. “What happened afterwards?”

“You fled London and came back just last year. I think you can answer this question better than me.”

She rolled her eyes for a moment before they became soft. “I mean, what happened to you?”

I mourned Luthriel. She was my life; we lived together for over five years. Five happy years, and then she was gone from one minute to the next. I had been going insane from all the pain. I had tried to track Victorija down, kill her slowly, and make her suffer like she had made me suffer. I had sworn that she would pay for her crimes. Then, when I couldn’t find her, I started drinking. Since Nephilim were partly immune to alcohol and sobered up quite fast, I drank a lot. In the beginning, it dulled the pain somehow, but I needed more and more.

Eventually, after Azariel woke me up with fear in her eyes, I went to Asasel. He threw me in a cell, and I quit cold turkey. Afterwards, Mehael, our healer at headquarters, talked to me over and over again in my rehab. I needed to sort my life anew. I joined Alcoholics Anonymous and learned to find new goals in life. Afterwards, I studied to be a substance abuse social worker and, since then, have helped people like me.

“That was your third question.” Even I heard the hurt in my voice.

I turned around and walked to the door.

“You didn’t ask me how many questions I have.”

I turned and raised one eyebrow. We both knew the answer to that question. So why was she stalling?

She bit on her bottom lip, and I balled my fists so as not to go to her and kiss her hard to punish her for what she did to me. I was shocked: for years, I’d imagined ripping off every single finger of hers to make her wriggle in pain. And now my idea of punishment was to kiss her hard? To press her against the wall and bury myself deep into her? To give her pleasure when my cock filled her again and again?

“If it’s worth something…” She looked down for a moment, looking vulnerable for a brief second, before she strengthened herself, and her eyes got hard and unemotional again. “I killed endless people. I can’t count how many. She was one of many.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Should this comfort me in any way?”

She shook her head. “I mean, it wasn’t personal. I know for you it was, but not for me. She was another enemy. We have been at war for centuries, vampires against witches, Nephilim, and fae. We fought to survive, killing everyone who stood between us and our freedom. Nobody is innocent in this. Not me, not you.”

I stared at her for a long time. She tried to look hard, unemotional, but her eyes pleaded for understanding, for me to see her side of this. And I could. For as long as I could remember, we were told that this war was black and white. The vampires and demons were the evil creatures we had to fight to keep the humans, the magical community, and the city safe. While the witches had decreed them unlawful and sentenced them to death if they were spotted and acted strangely—whatever that meant—the vampires were simply struggling for their survival. Over the last few years, this decree was treated very laxly as we didn’t want to put up a fight at every corner. However, they couldn’t feel safe. We were their enemies; they had to kill us or be killed.

“I know,” I said and walked out of her cell.

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