The Last Harmon [Complete]

Chapter 16

I don't know what to say so I don't say anything. Something tells me there's no word in the English language that can suit this situation. I don't see Sam, or Megan, but the rest are sat at the table chewing on legs of chicken.

"That looks delicious," Sophia says, pulling me along the side of the table as the others stare at me. "Theresa, do you like chicken?"

"Yes," I say.

"Since when did we start feeding it?" the slayer, Milasia, hisses. "This is our food."

"Last I checked, Theresa is half-human and humans eat food, Milasia," Sophia hisses back, while diving into a giant bowl and plucking chicken legs from it. "How many do you want? Three, four, five?"

I'm speechless. This is the most awkward position I've ever been put in and I've experienced a few bad ones. Sophia doesn't wait for my answer, she takes a handful of chicken and places them on metal plates. Everyone still stares at me, as though they're waiting for me to attack so they can have an excuse to kill me.

She ties the end of the rope around her wrist as she balances walking with both plates full of chicken. I follow her out of the kitchen, sensing the eyes boring into the back of my head until I'm out of there. When the door closes, I hear them continue eating.

Sophia takes me under the archway and into the library hall, as though she's hiding me away. The room is empty apart from a boy with frizzy hair who sits reading a book. The boy, Curtis I think, greets us with a nod as we take our seats. Sophia unlocks my shackle and passes me a plate.

"It'll get better with time," she mutters, biting into a chicken leg. "Hopefully."

"I don't think it'll ever get better," I say.

"What are you reading?" Sophia asks Curtis. He lifts the front of the book higher so we can read the title. It reads 'Cross-species breeding biology.'

I stare at it for a few moments before I ask. "Isn't that impossible?"

"If it were impossible then how are you and I sat here having this conversation?" he says, so confidently that I forget his age. "Demons and humans, angels and humans, gods and humans. Can you tell me how that happened?"

"Basically," Sophia mutters to me. "he's saying that it is impossible but the existence of us bugs the hell out of him."

"It is possible as long as the hosts are genetically similar or related," Curtis says. "I am struggling to figure out how demons qualify as closely similar to humans."

"I never really thought about it," I admit.

"You regard us as different species, correct?" Curtis says.

I nod.

"What if we're not? What if the demons and angels were once part of one species that separated over time?"

"It would solve one issue," I say. "But you'd still have to work out where the humans fit into it."

"Yes," he sighs, glancing back down at the book. "And no amount of human biology will give me the answer to that." He closes the book and places it beside him. "How are you doing?"

"Me?" I say, glancing between him and Sophia. "I'm fine, I guess."

"I warned Sam what to expect if he tried to keep a Harmon witch prisoner, let alone the last. That dot in your symbol, it gives you power that you can't imagine."

I rub my wrist slowly, peering down at my brand. "What do you know about my power? Or my coven's power?"

"I know that the Harmons were feared by slayers for centuries. But for some reason, they always left us alone. As each Elder ordered them to fight us, the Harmons refused. And no Elder was ever strong enough to punish them for it. They saw the bigger picture, Theresa, they saw the good in us, the good that no other coven could see. They saw that no matter what created us, we were just as human as the rest of the world. That this was our home too. When Amara turned rogue five years ago, I had my suspicions that something bad had happened to them because they wouldn't have allowed it. I just never actually imagined it would have been that bad."