Nephilim’s Beloved: A Divine Giants Romance (Sons of Earth and Heaven Book 2) Read online

  Nephilim’s Beloved

  A Divine Giant’s Romance

  Abby Knox

  Copyright © 2021 by Abby Knox

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is coincidental.

  Edited by Aquila Editing

  Cover Designer: Mayhem Cover Creations

  Sons of Earth and Heaven: Book Two

  A Divine Giants Romance

  When Cora awakens from a fitful, she is aware of only one thing: someone is in the bed with her. And not just with her, but spooning up behind her. Strong arms surround her, caging her in with a physicality that calms her racing mind and slows the pace of her hammering heart.

  But this is not just any presence; these arms are almost twice the size of a typical human’s. All her life she’d talked to her guardian angel, and never had he talked back, let alone shown himself. Until now.

  Dev, a half angel/half human, is not fit to be anyone’s guardian. Yet here he is, bound by a secret mission straight from Raphael. He is a simple warrior, and his assignment is simple: watch, observe, protect. But with the first of the seven seals already broken that separates earth from hell, Raphael is a busy archangel trying to gear up for the coming apocalypse. What the Holier-Than-Thous don’t know, won’t hurt anybody.

  Chapter One

  Dev

  1900

  Watching humans make a commotion about the turn of the century amused the giant Devamrus, son of Azazel. The first few times, anyway.

  He would sit on his rock and watch the silly mortals gather supplies, predict the end of the world, build bunkers, and laugh when they would awkwardly go on with their lives when a whole lot of nothing happened. Showing up for their boring routine on Monday morning like they hadn’t just been white-knuckling it, waiting for the apocalypse.

  After more than ten thousand years, Dev felt it was time for the human race to calm down about tearing another page off the calendar.

  But that was Dev. Easily bored, he was the most restless of all the half-angel, half-mortal giants.

  On December 31, 1900, everything changed.

  Dev, a Nephilim giant born of a human mother, and a male member of the fallen angel race called the Grigori, had seen enough centuries dawning in his long life to know that the end was not near. Immortal apart from a magical death, he was doomed to watch it all play out in agonizing slow motion.

  On that New Year’s Eve, a group of cultists, with their white robes, tearful pleading to the Heavens, and speaking in tongues, were all worked up over yet another non-event.

  Watching from the trees at the foot of Bell Mountain, Dev shouted at them.

  “Nothing new ever happens! You humans do this every one hundred years, and the next day it’s the same boring, difficult life as it always is.”

  As far as he was concerned, they could all jump off a bridge.

  The humans on the river’s edge could neither hear nor see him, of course, unless he’d wanted them to. Nighttime provided cover, though Nephilim giants cloaked themselves during the day; they had to, or the ensuing chaos would be beyond anything imagined in science fiction. However, his kind thrived in the dark. Dev could see every detail, down to the jewelry the humans wore, from great distances.

  So when the smallest pair of eyes in the doomsday cult landed squarely on him across the dark landscape, everything in Dev’s world turned upside down. Dev stopped his taunting and held his breath.

  He tuned in to the vibrations in the air around him and hit on one he’d missed or had been ignoring. All living creatures give off vibrations: humans, animals, plants, angels, and everything in between. Dev wasn’t the best at paying attention to sounds; that was his brother Yael’s particular gift. Dev was not a singer like Yael. The chords connecting all of life overwhelmed him. Mastering the distinctions in everyone’s vibrations was more rigorous than understanding quantum physics, times ten. So Dev didn’t try.

  But one fact became apparent when Dev tuned in to the vibrations on that day. The Doomsday Family had among them a powerful sorcerer in the form of a tiny five-year-old girl.

  He edged in closer to the peninsula to get a better look. When he changed perspective, the girl disappeared. Cursing, Dev, moved in closer. He was so close now that it would be wise to shift into his fully human form under normal circumstances not to frighten people. But a strange human strolling out of the woods at night onto a Doomsday Family ritual maybe wasn’t the best idea. For all Dev knew, they might grab him and sacrifice him to the mystical seal that kept the devils at bay.

  Sure, Dev was eleven feet tall and stronger than ten oxen, plus the whole flying thing made escapes simple. But he sure wasn’t interested in finding out if those humans were, as a group, strong enough to jump him.

  “Where did you go, little one?”

  He wished those kooks would all give up and go home; he had a bad feeling about that night.

  Dev and his brothers had taken it upon themselves to stay here in Eden for many reasons, not the least of which was to keep an eye on the seal. The story was the same for the six other giant encampments all over the world. Each family located themselves close to the seven seals, like immortal museum security guards.

  The Nephilim walked the line between heaven and earth, and as such, were the only earthly inhabitants aware of how close the demons were at all times from completely taking over and destroying everything. After all, the Nephilim had survived the first apocalypse—the Great Flood—so it stood to reason they would be at the front lines for the next one. Some wanted to fight to preserve their way of life; others hoped for a hero’s death and a merciful reward from heaven. Heaven made no promises.

  The Appalachian valley town of Eden had more than its share of occult fanatics—such was the case with any civilization that grew up in proximity to the half-angels. People didn’t know what was out there, but they knew something or someone was roaming the hills above their little town. Over Dev’s long life, he’d known many humans who could conjure spirits, see the future, reach into the minds of animals or humans, perform healing with herbs of the forest, even move water, wind, and earth to a small degree. That day, Dev felt the sorcery vibration not in his mind but his soul.

  That’s what he told himself anyway, as he watched this bunch of silly zealots read from their book and wave their arms over the water. The loud one seemed to be the leader. Zeb Crowder, local preacher turned kook. But Dev knew for certain the magical vibrations were not coming from him.

  Finally, Dev spotted her. The small girl weaved her way through the crowd. Dressed like the rest of them, she was far less interested in the songs and the preaching and raising hands over the water. She seemed to be looking for something. What she was looking for, he could not tell.

  She stopped in a small clearing amid the people, bent over, and picked up a small corn husk doll. The little girl clutched the doll to her chest and resumed weaving through the crowd.

  Suddenly, she looked up and made eye contact again. Dev’s stomach fell to his feet. He froze, waiting for her to faint, or
worse, seize. It sometimes happened when the giants made mistakes with their cloaking. They weren’t perfect angels; mistakes happened.

  She stood there staring at him. And then, she smiled and waved. She opened her mouth and spoke, too. Dev could lip-read the words, “I’ll see you soon.”

  And then, all hell broke loose.

  The zealots didn’t break the seal. But they damaged it enough to set the water spirits into a tizzy, causing a tidal wave to crest on the surface of the river. The tide rose to twenty feet above the cliffside where The Family stood and swallowed every person on that ridge.

  The wave swept so quickly, the water engulfed the entire outcropping. It looked like a storm at sea. Dev had a decision to make: which humans would he save?

  The little girl with the corn husk doll floated away on a current, away from the rest of the humans struggling against the crashing waves.

  Dev dove headfirst into the river, colliding with the water at high speed, not even allowing his massive wings to slow him. He plunged feet away from the small child and rose, the girl in his arms, with a burst of energy so powerful that any human watching would have said they witnessed the girl shooting from the water like a geyser. They would have said she was carried away by some invisible force, perhaps levitated by an invisible demon, as Dev soared into the air and brought the girl onto dry land. He worked hard to revive her, unwinding the necklace that had twisted around her little neck, expelling the water from her lungs, and forcing breath into her. His gift was not healing, either, but he did his best.

  His best wasn’t good enough.

  Dev tried and tried, praying to the army of Seraphim, whom he hated, yet who also carried out the will of The Authorities. He prayed directly to The Authorities, though he already knew they would not respond. Heaven rarely responded other than to punish or to carry out destiny without a shred of mercy. The only thing that mattered was order, and heaven had no interest in interfering with the chaos that humans created.

  The giant wailed and punched a hole in the ground with his fist, six feet deep.

  He took the necklace that he’d removed and gently lifted the girl’s head, fastening the delicate chain around her neck. She deserved to go to the next life with her trinket.

  The little girl’s soul was gone, and her death broke the already broken Nephilim giant. He would not let her body be found washed up on the shore somewhere downriver with the rest of them. With tears stinging his eyes for the first time in centuries, Dev gingerly laid the tiny body into the hole he’d made in the earth with his fist. And then he buried her.

  Nothing ever changed. Nothing, until that day.

  Chapter Two

  New Year’s Eve, 2000

  Cora

  As any five-year-old would, Cora Dawson got bored in church.

  “Church” was a broad term for what the Doomsday Family did on any given day, but Cora didn’t know that. She only knew she needed to find the doll that she’d dropped on the ground in her sleepy state. Why are we all awake so early, she wondered. And why are we out here in the cold? Cora blamed herself. She and her mother would never have moved in with the Family if it weren’t for Cora’s odd behaviors.

  Several months earlier, Cora’s mother had walked in on her daughter levitating a crayon that had rolled behind her dresser. “I couldn’t reach it,” Cora had said matter-of-factly. Cora knew, by her mother’s reaction, that she’d done something wrong. Shortly after that, they’d moved into a compound in the woods, and lots of grownups began asking Cora lots of questions and trying to make her move things with her mind.

  Cora complied at first. After the first few weeks of being treated like one of the Seven Wonders of the World, however, the little girl grew tired and obstinate. And then, people began to whisper around her things she didn’t understand. “Time’s running out,” she’d heard Rev. Roy Crowder say to her mother one day shortly before that night on the river’s edge.

  Cora weaved around the sand overlooking the small cliffside of the river, not knowing what they were doing there. “Why is everyone crying?” she asked one of them. But she didn’t get an answer. At least on that night, the focus was off of her. At least they weren’t asking her questions.

  Cora felt slightly nervous that she had lost sight of her mother, but that happened often.

  She thought at first they were coming down to the river’s edge for a church service and a baptism, which happened often. She thought because of the robes that there was some sort of singalong happening. But nobody was singing today, only chanting and preaching, wailing and crying.

  Cora finally located her doll in the dark in a clearing.

  At the exact moment she picked up the doll, she felt an odd, eerie presence.

  She didn’t know where he was or who he was. But she knew he was there, somewhere. Cora stilled herself and paid close attention, and so her eyes were drawn upward into the hill above the peninsula. Somewhere in the trees, he was watching her.

  They locked eyes, and that’s when many things happened at once.

  She heard the screams first. Then the rush of water like the ocean, which seemed impossible. Above the chaos, Cora heard a rustling of wings and a loud cry, like a wild animal protecting its young.

  The next thing she knew, a strange soft thing covered her eyes, and she was being snatched away. Wind whipped through her hair, whistled in her ears. Everything around her was wind, feathers, and darkness, whisking her out into the unknown. A voice told her not to be afraid. The sound was not in her ears, though. It was in her mind, like in a dream.

  The screams continued below, but farther away. Cora peeked through the feathers; she needed to see what was happening. She needed to know if someone was hurt. What she saw made her sigh in relief; a hundred members of the Family, soaked through their clothes, lay gasping and retching on the shore while the river boiled menacingly. The water had listened to her rescuer somehow and retreated.

  Cora didn’t know the man, or creature, who carried her home that day to her aunt’s house, but she’d seen him before. In a dream, or in her memories? She didn’t know which. But she knew enough about the Bible from the Family to know this bald man in black clothing, with glowing eyes, face tattoos, and indigo wings was a fallen angel. She could feel heaven’s curses all over him. But she wasn’t afraid. He could be the devil himself, and she would be grateful.

  Her Aunt Olivia and her cousins had given up trying to convince Cora’s mother to leave the church, and it looked like Cora had walked in on a New Year’s Eve celebration.

  “Where have you been?”

  “The church people took me to the river, but Devil brought me home!”

  She looked out the living room window by the Christmas tree as her aunt and cousins fussed over her, and she watched the bald angel—or devil—fly away.

  When he looked back at her with his pained expression, she said, “Thank you.”

  Her Aunt Olivia, thinking that she had been speaking to her, said, “Whatever you say, sweetheart. We’re all going to be fine. Where’s your mama?”

  Cora didn’t know, but she knew, somehow, she would never see her mother again.

  Chapter Three

  Dev

  The messenger of the holy army did not look pleased.

  “You intervened. Again,” Malek pointed out.

  “Yes, Captain Obvious?”

  Malek waved off Dev’s offer of whiskey, so Dev poured himself a double. He knew better than to show his back to the angel who carried out archangel orders without question. But Malek was in Dev’s house. The abbey was crawling with giants just like Dev, all sworn to protect each other. One drop of spilled blood would bring the other six swarming into his chamber, fiery swords drawn.

  “So, this time, you succeeded.”

  Dev appreciated the burn of the aged whiskey, made right here in the abbey by his brother Urek. That one had a gift with healing and growing things, yet another thing Dev never caught on to. He let the heat of it boost his energy f
or training. Jumping up and down to warm up, Dev punched the air in front of him excitedly. “I love a good workout in the morning. Really sets the mood for my New Year’s resolutions. What about you, Malek? Turning over any new leaves this year? Gonna go rogue and stop being Michael’s little lap dog?”

  Malek remained silent at the insult, quite used to this disrespect from the halflings, especially Dev. Dev seemed to have a death wish, flouting rules and protocol at every turn.

  Dev felt Malek’s disdain while kickboxing the stuffing out of his third punching bag in a week. Dev roared in victory when the leather bag fell in pieces from the chain.

  Finally, Malek said, “This message comes from Raphael, not Michael. Michael is busy training recruits for the apocalypse. The fallen angels, Nephilim, and all celestial creatures on earth have to decide where they stand when the end comes. Raphael has been tasked with correcting the chaos you caused. As I was saying, you upset the balance.”

  Dev jumped straight into the air, grabbing his chin-up bar, hanging for a moment to get one more verbal jab in. “And that’s bad because why? It makes your haloes look a little less shiny when heaven’s unwanted stepchildren do your jobs for you?”

  Malek shook his head. “I’m not here to spar with you, Dev. Don’t pretend you don’t know what you did. By saving those people, you complicated things.”

  Dev chuckled throughout several reps of chin-ups. “Tell me why I should care.”

  “Because when you prevent someone from dying who was meant to die, you damage the veil between the living and the dead. When you save an entire group? The simmer goes up to a boil in hell. They want human souls to feed on. So now, you have to correct that.”

  “How do you know they were meant to go to hell? They seemed like decent folk. A little bit kooky, but they never hurt anybody.” He continued his chin-ups, starting to feel the strain. Dev knew better than to play dumb about the Doomsday Family. It’s only a rare type of good soul that goes straight to heaven upon their death. Everyone else has to wait to be sorted. Those people had taken advantage of a mentally compromised single mother. They were far from heroes deserving a reward in the afterlife.