Redemption

Chapter 20

The curse is a secure one. It is futile to think there may be a way to reverse it. Damon isn't just asking for war. He is going to guarantee it.
~Bezaliel~

Amber led us to the chapel. It was the last place I expected a Demon to be, but there he was, Damon and a room full of people. Marcas kept me in front of him as we moved down the main aisle of the church while Amber took Monroe aside, her small voice warning my friend to stay silent.

Fear washed over me, but Marcas moved with confidence, his presence the kind people noticed. It wasn't long before the room fell silent.

"What were you thinking, brother?" Marcas called.

The whole room was full of sect members, men and women, Sisters and Brothers, and even teenagers I went to school with. And in the midst of them all stood Damon. He looked like Marcas. Or maybe it was the other way around. But, either way, it was obvious to all gathered that the two Demons were twins.

Damon's eyes fell on me, and I shivered, not because his gaze was cold but because it was the opposite. Warm, intent, and obsessed.
Marcas tugged me against him, the movement breaking the connection.

"You, of all people, are aware of my intent, Marcas," Damon answered, his self-assured voice filling the room. No one else seemed to feel his certainty. The whole room was full of goosebumps, shuffling feet, and fidgeting arms.

Marcas paused before the dais at the front of the chapel, his arm tightening around me. "You made a mistake, brother."

Damon frowned. Failure, as far as I could tell, was not a part of his vocabulary. "She's from a line of Seth and the Watchers. She will bring us redemption. She will bring her people redemption."

"You lied to them," Marcas argued, his voice suddenly in my head, and my eyes widened.

"I had to, brother," Damon's voice replied.

My gaze skirted the room, but no one else seemed to hear their conversation. All eyes were on the twins and their immobile lips. What was this?

"She'll be the end of us all," Marcas said aloud.

I glanced between the two men, both so young and so old, and I felt hatred. I wasn't anything more than a girl. They were making me much more than that and not giving me a choice.

"Damon has a point," my aunt spoke up suddenly from the back of the room. "The Watchers fell because they lay with the daughters of Cain. From them were born the Nephilim: aberrations, giants, madmen."
Pushing through the crowd, she made her way to the dais. The closer she came, the more my heart hardened. Not only did she agree with Damon, but she was willing to use me to save herself.

She gestured at the room. "And the line of Seth became contaminated because it did the same. Sons of Seth lay with daughters of Cain and we became impure. But then, by some miracle, maybe even destiny, two people came together. A Watcher and a pure woman, untouched by the blood of Cain, of the Seth line bore two children, and the result was clear. They were not aberrations or mad as the Nephilim born of the line of Cain were. Never before have the Nephilim been sane. No one thought it possible." She came to stand at Damon's right side. The sight was unnaturally terrifying-a Sethian leader and a Demon in league.

"Two children?" Marcas asked Damon in my head.

There was no reply.

Marcas' gaze slid to my aunt. "It doesn't make them saviors."

"Doesn't it?" Damon asked. His obsessive gaze raked over me again, and I fought not to squirm. "If a Watcher and a Sethian descendant bore two pure children, what would happen, brother, if a Demon son of Cain were to mate with a Naphil daughter of Seth?"