Chapter Four
Lucas
Kael stood at the edge of the porch in front of our cottage, his silhouette carved against the dim glow of the lantern we’d left burning outside.
Annika hurried to him, her breath catching as she threw her arms around him. Kael let out a soft grunt of surprise before returning the embrace.
I approached them more slowly, watching the way she clung to him. I noticed how her fingers curled into the fabric of his cloak almost as if she were afraid that he might vanish again.
Memories of what we’d been through flooded my mind. It was something I couldn’t forget, something none of us could ever forget.
When Annika pulled back, I could see tears in her eyes. I kept my approach steady even when he turned his gaze to me. His golden eyes were sharp as ever, unreadable.
“What?” he teased. “No hug?”
A smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth. “Next you’ll say you want a kiss, too.”
He huffed a quiet laugh, and for a moment, the weight of the past didn’t feel so heavy.
I extended my hand, and Kael clasped it. A firm shake. Not quite warm, but not cold either. There was too much history between us for anything as simple as cordiality.
“I’ll admit,” I said, releasing him, “you picked a hell of a time to show up.”
His expression darkened, as the amusement slipped from his face like a thin veil. “I know.” His gaze flicked between me and Annika. “That’s why I’m here.”
Annika stiffened beside me. I felt the shift in her, the way her body tensed as she exchanged a glance with me.
I nodded toward the door. “Come inside.”
Kael didn’t hesitate, stepping past me and into the cottage. Annika followed, and I finally closed the door behind us, leaving the empty night behind.
Kael immediately headed for the chair, allowing his body to slump down onto it. He looked tired. Then again, we all did. The years had changed him in a way that made my chest tighten. Was that how we looked to others as well?
But when he looked at me, there was something familiar in his gaze.
“I went to Rowena for a healing potion,” he explained.
“What happened?” I asked.
Kael shrugged. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.” He exhaled, shaking his head. He looked even wearier now. “But she told me about the rune.”
“Then, you know,” Annika whispered.
He nodded. “I do.” He glanced over at me again. “I came as soon as I could.”
I swallowed hard. “Do you know what it is? What it means?”
Kael hesitated. That alone made my pulse quicken.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’ve seen something like it before.”
“Where?” I demanded to know.
Kael met my gaze evenly. “During the war. In the north.”
A breath caught in my throat.
The north. It was the place where my father died. A war I was not strong enough to fight in back in those days.
And the mention of that war, brought back more memories. The ancient demon. The slumbering nightmare. The one we had buried in the ashes of our last battle, believing… no, hoping, that he would never rise again.
I clenched my jaw, forcing the name past my lips. “You think this has something to do with him?”
Kael’s golden eyes flickered with something unreadable. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But the rune… it looks like the ones his followers used.”
Annika sucked in a sharp breath beside me. I glanced at her, seeing the fear she tried so desperately to hide.
“Rowena said they were seals,” she whispered. “Bindings. Or… tethers.”
I didn’t like the way that word felt on my tongue now, knowing what Rowena had called it.
Annika rubbed her arms, as if trying to chase away a chill. “We locked him away. We sealed him. It shouldn’t be possible.”
Kael sighed. “The world isn’t what it was back then. Magic shifts, old wounds reopen. If someone—”
“If someone is trying to wake him again, they’re dead before they take their next breath,” I growled, able to feel fury curling in my chest like smoke.
Kael arched a brow but didn’t argue. He knew. He had been there. He had seen what Aurelius was capable of. The devastation, the carnage.
Annika, though… her fear was deeper than just starting another war.
She swallowed, her voice barely above a whisper. “If he is waking… this time, he won’t just come for me.” Her fingers curled into fists. “He’ll come for Aiden.”
The words hit me like a blade to the gut.
No.
I would burn this world to the ground before I let that happen.
I reached for her hand, gripping it tightly. She was trembling.
“It’s not him,” I said, forcing the words to be steady. “We don’t know that.”
Annika nodded, but her grip on me didn’t loosen.
Kael leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly. “Then we find out.” He met my gaze, serious and sharp. “Whatever this is, whatever’s coming, we end it before it might reach him.”
Before it reaches Aiden.
A moment later, Kael pushed the chair back, the legs scraping against the wooden floor. “We should be out there searching, not sitting here talking about ghosts.”
He was right. But before I could answer, something small and dark slipped from his coat pocket, drifting to the floor between us.
Annika reached it first.
She bent, fingers closing around the fabric, but the moment she turned it over in her palm, her breath caught.
I knew that look. The way all the color drained from her face. The way her fingers trembled as she whispered words that felt like a blow. “This is Aiden’s.”
My stomach turned to stone.
Kael frowned, glancing down at the scrap in her hands. “What?”
“This—” She lifted it, voice unsteady. “This is from his shirt. The one he was wearing when he disappeared.”
For a heartbeat, none of us moved.
Then something snapped inside me.
I was on him before he even registered the movement.
Grabbing Kael by the front of his cloak, I slammed him back against the wall, hard enough to rattle the shelves. A candle flickered dangerously beside us. Wax spilt onto the wooden table.
“What the fuck is this doing in your pocket?” I snarled, fangs bared, my forearm pressed against his throat.
“I… I found it,” he managed to muster, nodding toward the fabric Annika was still clutching. “Not far from town…” He swallowed heavily, then he tried to cough.
Annika’s hand brought me back, pulling me out of the storm of rage.
“Lucas, please,” she whispered. “Let him talk.”
I was hesitant to let him go. But then I remembered how he had helped us. He was there for us when we needed help the most. Could it be that all this time, we trusted the enemy?
Slowly, I released my grip. I took two steps back, making sure to stand between him and Annika.
“Talk,” I snarled.
His hand reached his throat, rubbing it, but it probably did little to soothe the sting.
Good.
“I… I tried to track the scent,” he continued. “But I lost it. I’m no vampire, no shifter. I meant to bring it to you. But by the time I got here, everything with Rowena and the rune… I forgot. That’s the truth.”
I didn’t answer right away. I was just watching him very carefully.
He had fought beside me. I had trusted him with my life back then. But trust was a fragile thing, and time had a way of breaking it apart.
Annika, however, was looking at him with something different in her eyes. There was doubt, yes, but also a desperate hope. She wanted to believe him.
Kael let out a humorless chuckle. “I swear to you, I’m on your side.” He met my gaze directly. No hesitation, no wavering. “I would never hurt Aiden. You know that.”
Damn him. Because a part of me did know it.
But there was still something wrong, something that had been gnawing at me for years.
I took a slow step forward, my voice quieter this time. “Then answer me this.”
Kael straightened, his golden eyes sharp and focused on me.
I studied him, the way his muscles coiled, the way his expression gave nothing away.
“You’re not a vampire,” I said. “You’re not a shifter.”
He didn’t move.
I narrowed my eyes. “Then what are you?”
Annika tensed beside me. There was fear in her eyes. I hated to be the cause of it, but I needed to know.
Kael hesitated, his jaw tightening.
For years, I had let this question sit in the back of my mind, unanswered. Because back then, it hadn’t mattered. He had been an ally, a warrior. I never questioned how he fought the way he did, how he healed faster than a human but not like us.
But now, with my son missing, with old horrors creeping back into our world—I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
Kael exhaled, tilting his head back slightly, as if weighing his words. Then, finally, he revealed his true identity.
“I am a Nephilim.”
Annika inhaled sharply, her fingers gripping the fabric so tightly her knuckles turned white.
I stared at him.
A Nephilim. Half-angel, half-human.
Ancient. Rare.
Dangerous.
It made sense. his strength, his speed, his ability to withstand magic better than most. But it also meant that there were secrets he had never told us, truths he had kept buried.
Annika was the first to speak. “You—” Her voice cracked. “You never told us.”
Kael’s golden eyes darkened. “Would it have changed anything?”
I didn’t answer. Because the truth was, I didn’t know.
“Nephilim…” Annika echoed, as if she was seeing him for the first time. “You’re part angel.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “That’s what they say.”
I clenched my fists, my mind still trying to catch up with what this meant. The Nephilim were myths, whispers of an ancient bloodline long thought extinct. I had fought alongside Kael, bled beside him, and never once had he breathed a word of it.
“You lied to us.” My voice came out low, dangerous.
His golden eyes flickered. “I didn’t lie.”
“You withheld the truth. That’s the same damn thing.” My mind was swirling as I spoke.
Kael held my gaze, unflinching. “It didn’t matter before.”
I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “And now?”
His expression darkened, and when he spoke again, there was something colder in his voice. “Now it does. Now, it is the price of your trust in me.”
I hated that he was right.
“I’ve never met a Nephilim,” I said, watching him carefully. The underlying message was clear, but Annika chose to voice it.
“Are you the last?” she asked.
Kael let out a slow breath. “I don’t know.” His fingers curled into fists. “I’ve never met another one either.”
That admission struck me harder than I expected.
Never? Not in all these years? Not even during the war, when creatures of every kind had risen from the shadows?
I understood us never having met one, but him… one of his own kind? Strange.
Annika frowned. “But if you—”
“I keep it a secret for a reason.” Kael’s voice was low, almost a murmur to himself. A confession, maybe? “Nephilim were never meant to exist in large numbers. We were made to serve a purpose, to fight a war that wasn’t ours. And when that war ended…” His lips pressed into a thin line, making them invisible. “We were no longer needed.”
I understood what he wasn’t saying.
They were hunted.
Whether by those who had created them or by the monsters they were meant to destroy, it didn’t matter. They had been erased, wiped from existence until only he remained.
I studied him, searching for any sign of deceit, but there was nothing. Just an old, lingering weight in his expression, the kind of pain that settled deep in the bones, impossible to shake.
Annika took a small step forward. “Kael…”
His shoulders stiffened slightly, but he didn’t move away.
Kael was right. If we had known what he was before, that wouldn’t have changed anything. But now… I wasn’t so sure.