Glory of the Nephilim

Chapter 2

August 10, 2009

I huffed as I walked through the airport. My phone had been stuck to my ear for the past thirty minutes with Emmett's very persuasive voice coming from it. He had been trying to convince me not to go to the meeting. Over the phone, it was just a tad easier to turn down his offer of all three meals to be served in bed, both of us unclothed for the whole day and, more than likely, the rest of the night.

"Are you sure you want to go alone?"

I smiled and even through the phone, I knew he was pacing around his apartment. "I won't be alone, Em. Charlie is coming with me. It's literally his job to make sure I come out of situations alive."

"Charles will be with you, I know," he sighed.

He wouldn't be satisfied with that answer. As trustworthy as Charlie was and as apt at his job as he was, he wasn't Emmett. In my husband's eyes, the only person who could truly protect me was my husband. He was also wary of Charlie. The uneasiness certainly wasn't to the degree of Charlie's toward Emmett, but it was still there. It was probably the amount of time my primary spent with me, the proximity we were forced to be together. I had a feeling if I weren't in the scenario, the two could easily get along. They had a common enemy after all in Charlie's father and Emmett's ex-lover. Even if I were never to have shown up in either of their lives, they had that connection. Their mutual hatred of Jean-Claude.

"Why did you have to do this, angel? Why you?"

"I'm the queen and apparently, I can't just sit around with a sparkly tiara on my head."

"Pity," he scoffed. "I'd prefer you with nothing but a sparkly tiara on your head."

Heat rushed to my cheeks. "You're incorrigible."

"You could corrige me," he murmured.

"Pretty sure that's not actually a word and I'll do my best... tonight when I come home." He growled. "It's not like you didn't know about this."

"You thought you could distract me with hours of romping and I'd be okay with this?" he asked.

There was a lightness to his voice, but that hint of something far less forgiving had me aching to go home. That darkness caressed my own and made promises of euphoria and I knew it could deliver. He'd been the one to teach me not to be afraid of that side of me. I learned quickly from masterful, but gentle hands that that darkness could be harnessed for many things, including endless pleasure.

Nils had called my power an abyss once. We had no idea what I'd be capable of. While the Line of Galoria was always the home of Nephilim blood, I was the only one to present Nephilim power. Galoria herself had an immense amount of power. Back in the day, she'd ended wars or waged them with a simple thought. Potentially, I had that somewhere in me. I could feel my power grow, awaken from an early age. It never felt more evident than when Emmett showed up. When people felt my power, they seemed to deflate slightly, cower almost. He hadn't. He would push back on it, tease it. I had no idea what was going on and neither did my power.

His darkness was everything to my power. It practically bowed or flared up depending on the whims of his power. When it was just the two of us, he would let me play with my power, find its depths. I was beginning to find myself more and more afraid of my own power as he helped me explore it. It was like being in the middle of the ocean and finding yourself at the edge of one of those cliffs. You were already in dangerous territory, but there was that deep, dark, and incredibly terrifying unknown space. Luckily for me, I had a megalodon of power waiting to help me over that precipice. Emmett had been endlessly patient with me as I resisted jumping fully into my power. I wasn't ready yet.