Nikola, wait!” Sadik was rushing after Nikola, who had nearly made it to the door when Sadik finally cornered him. “I need to know! What are you?”

Nikola shook his head and made a step back, back pressing to the door.

“I am what you see. You had no right!” Nikola was hysterical. It was not every day that one found out their life was a lie. Sadik gripped Nikola’s arm and delved back in the man’s mind, searching for clues.

He first searched for the hunting accident. Only not to find it. He nearly snapped at Nikola for lying to him, but then, when he searched for the wound, he found a haze there.

Sadik mercilessly tore through it, and Nikola began clutching at his head again.

“Get out!” Screamed Nikola and Sadik ignored him. He saw it, clear as day, a five-year-old Nikola taking a knife to his torso and falling unconscious. He counted three days until the wound festered. Then, the man who had left Nikola at the Asenov house came to him and healed him. But the scar remained. 

He saw Nikola ingest washing solution, yet he did not die. The man came, healed him, wiped his memories clean, and disappeared again. That repeated itself until Nikola began going to church. Something settled his mind, then. And he stopped attempting to kill himself. Forgetting the reason altogether.

Sadik searched for that reason. It was one thing to see a memory. Another to attempt to delve in someone’s mind in the memory. Still, Sadik did it. His head felt like splitting in half. Nikola fell unconscious from the pain. And then, Sadik heard it.

I killed my mother. Freak. Monster. Nephilim.

Sadik immediately went out of Nikola’s head. Nephilim? Like the half angels? That would explain why the man could vanish into nothing. He stared at Nikola, who was slumped against the door, a treacle of blood dripping down his nose.

Sadik cursed. He checked for a pulse. He found it and was happy for it. Furthermore, he didn’t know what he would have done if there was nothing for him to find. If he had killed Nikola.

Could he, even? Nikola had tried when he had been small. When he had known the truth. Only to fail. Time and time again. Was the intervention of the mystery man even needed? And who was he?

Had he pissed off an angel? Sadik gulped. Stories about angels smiting the sinners, of columns of salt where there once stood cities, of their power and fearlessness, flooded his mind. Granted, before he had thought that it was all a religious nonsense.

Yet, in his very house, was a half-angel. One who looked pale as a ghost. Deciding that the hard floor was not doing Nikola any favors, Sadik scooped him up and returned him to the bed.

Tucking him in, he slipped between the sheets with him. He didn’t dare close his eyes. What if Nikola suddenly disappeared on him, like his father? Was the man Nikola’s real father? Nikola’s real mother must have died when she gave birth to him, which explained the myths that told Sadik much the same.

Nikola stirred in five hours. His puffy eyes locking into Sadik with something akin to desperation.

“Why did you make me see these things? I asked Uriel to make me forget. And you brought them back up,” Sadik searched his mind for this Uriel. The angel that presided over the dead, he was sure.

“Is he your father?” Sadik attempted to sound calm, but he was excited. He had an angel, half, in his arms. And he wasn’t letting go.

“No. My father was found guilty of siring me and executed. I should have been, too,” Sadik groaned.

“Lamb, don’t speak such nonsense. You were just a baby. You didn’t ask to be born. If anything, it was your father’s fault,” Nikola looked unconvinced and Sadik placed a hand over his cheek. Nikola attempted to edge away.

“We had a deal, Uriel and I. I would stop attempting to come to him, and he would make me forget. And you made me remember,” there was hatred in Nikola’s voice — now. Sadik felt the power before he felt the pain. He retracted his arm and looked at it. It was burned slightly.

“Lamb, you don’t want to bear your fangs. What if I bear mine?” But Nikola glared at him.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t smite you?” Sadik blinked. Was Nikola, kind, goody-two-shoes Nikola, threatening to kill him? Sadik laughed and flipped them around so that he was pinning Nikola to the mattress. 

“Do you want to know why you won’t do it?” Hissed Sadik, fangs extending. “Because you are mine. You have been mine ever since Abraxas pointed you to me. And, do you want to know something else? I don’t give two shits about your threats. I know you won’t go through with them.”

Sadik sunk his fangs back in Nikola’s flesh. He drank. Now that he was seeking something in the blood, he found it easily. The blood hummed with power. It was not like his own. It was something lighter. But then again, Nikola was not a creature of the night.

When he distanced his mouth from Nikola’s neck, he saw that Nikola was glaring at him. Not even a little under the spell of the bite.

“Sadik, that is enough. I won’t be with you! I don’t want to!” The words cut straight into Sadik’s heart.

“Why did you come here for, then?” Yelled the Turk, hands gripping Nikola’s wrist with a punishing grip. “Am I a toy to you? You know I love you, damn you!”

Nikola leaned as far away from Sadik as the mattress would allow. Sadik closed the distance and kissed him on the lips. It was a harsh kiss, a bruising one. He bitts Nikola’s lips until they bled. Until Nikola finally opened his mouth and let him in.

“And I know you love me, too,” said Sadik softly after ending the kiss. “So, stop pretending.”