Heart of a Demon (The Dark Angel Wars 1)

“Time to get up,” he said, leaning on the door frame with a maddeningly cool demeanor and a frown etched on his face. “Your training begins today.”

Training? What training?

“What time is it…?”

“It doesn’t matter what time it is, demons can attack at any hour,” he snapped, his green eyes flashing. “You’ve lived twenty-one years among humans and have a long way to go to catch up. We start today.”

I took a step back from the door as he fumed in the hall. This wasn’t the Gabe I was used to seeing. I should’ve known he’d take losing his spot on the board personally.

“Fine,” I told him, running my hands through my messy bedhead and reaching snarls at the end.

In terms of picking my battles, this was one I could pass on. Maybe it would make Gabe feel a little better to take out some of his frustration during a training session.

“Just give me a couple of minutes to change. I’ll be right back.”

I left him standing outside the door and threw on clothes I thought might work for training. Raquel’s spandex shorts and one of her sporty tank top. All skin tight, of course. They made me pine for the loose t-shirts and shorts that filled my drawers at Granny’s house. At least those clothes left a little more to the imagination.

Minutes later, Gabe and I strode across the northern lawn in tense silence. I wracked my brains for something to say – anything to lighten the mood, but couldn’t think of anything. He led me into the training complex and immediately, I was distracted by the enormous facility.

Five padded fighting rings took up the middle of the room. To my left was an assortment of boxing equipment and bags. On the back wall hung a selection of weapons, everything from swords to daggers to wooden sticks.

When I swung to the right, I saw a shooting range with three stalls and a shorter one for daggers. In a loft above the fighting rings was an area for weight sets and cardio machines. It was an athlete’s dream. Too bad I never was any good at sports.

Bree and Dominic were the only people in the training facility. They had already jumped on the weights and waved to us as we walked in. Gabe didn’t return their greeting. He marched in to the furthest fighting mat and planted his feet in the middle of it, waving me over.

“You are Nephilim now. That means you are sworn to protect the world from demons and their kind. It’s in your blood. You won’t be able to fight the urge.”

I thought about what he was saying. Maybe that urge was what had pulled me into the southern woods all those years. I didn’t know it then, but I was drawn to the Nephilim’s cause.

“There are several stages of training,” Gabe continued. “We’ll incorporate your studies with the physical, to make sure we make as much progress as possible. The first thing to learn are the different types of demons.”

I cocked my head at him. The idea that there were different kinds of demons had never occurred to me.

“The demons I saw in the woods all looked the same to me.”

“That’s because they were ferals. They’re the most common. Wild, unpredictable, pretty much animals. They’re the grunts of the demon world, and the first soldiers out the gate. Ninety percent of the demons we kill are ferals.”

“But there are others?”

“Yes.” Gabe held up three fingers. “There are the ferals, the deceivers, and the six Princes of Hell.”

Something told me I didn’t want to know about the others, but I asked anyway.

“How are they different?”

He raked a hand through his hair. “The six princes have never stepped foot on Earth, so you won’t have to worry about them for now.”

Oh great. Cross one thing off the ever expanding list of things I’d have to learn.

“Occasionally, the deceivers slipped through the gate,” Gabe continued. “They’re the ones with the brains and the cunning. Your goddess is a deceiver. She slipped through our fingers and has managed to survive a long time for being so near a Nephilim site. Her human host has rotted away over time from the evil it houses.”

I shivered at the memory of the goddess and her fleshy tongue against my skin. She’d been so close to having me for supper.

“Before a demon takes a human host, they all look the same. But when a feral grabs a human, its eyes become bloodshot and red. If a deceiver possesses a human, they’re undetectable, except by the test we put you through. A human’s eyes turn entirely black if they’re possessed.”

“And to think,” I said with a grin. “You didn’t even have to put me through that demon test. If only we knew then I was a Nephilim.”

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