Nephilim Quest Book 1: Shadowhunter

26. Wings 2/2

Daniel withdrew half a step, his facial muscles suddenly tightening, but he nodded.

"Nephilim don't like people touching the wings – it can be rather painful because of the differing vibrations. But I suppose I owe it, having scared you like that."

He turned sideways to me and I touched the blue and golden wings of light as gently as I possibly could, instinctively stroking in the direction the colors pulsed. The sensation was odd – as if I was touching warm, running water that ran upwards, with the exception that my hand did not get wet.

There was the slightest feeling of material against my palm, and my hand could not go through the wing - it was more like a feeling of pressure against my skin, not anything solid. Like two magnets rejecting each other; the harder you press, the stronger the feeling of an opposing force.

I raised my other hand as well and stroked the wings with both hands. I felt a clear resonance, an electric feeling in my fingers.

Daniel gasped.

"I'm sorry!" I snatched my hand back, certain I had hurt him unintentionally.

"It's... It's all right," he said tightly, I could see the muscles on his jaw moving when he gritted his teeth together. "I told you it is not easy for us."

Lilith frowned.

"Are you sure everything is all right, Daniel?" she looked at him with an expression I could not analyze.

"Yes, quite all right," Daniel managed a smile and looked like his charming self again.

"Are there any more of your kind here?" I looked around the people in the library with my hands carefully behind my back.

"Some, but they are not here at this moment. And most of the Nephilim are of the other kind... and should never be allowed to enter the Centre."

I looked at his wings, now more relaxed. It looked as though they were gently swaying in some unseen breeze. Towards his torso, and out again. A bit like a butterfly slowly fluttering its wings. In and out... in and out... just like... was he...? I looked at his chest, which stayed flat and immobile.

"Daniel... Are you breathing with your wings?"

Diana gave a low whistle.

"Impressive... You have only just arrived, seen angel wings like for two minutes, and you have already discovered one of the best kept secrets of the Nephilim!" she said.

"I am. Breathing with my wings, yes," Daniel admitted.

"Even when they are withdrawn?"

"Even then, yes. They are then inside our bodies, but function just the same."

"So they are your lungs?"

Daniel shrugged and raised his arms in a gesture that seemed almost Latin.

"Nephilim do have ordinary human lungs as well," Lilith explained, "but also another breathing system, which is connected to the wings. They can extract much more oxygen into their blood stream through their wings, and remain functional in situations where ordinary people would have lost consciousness for lack of oxygen. Such as under water."

A whole new series of questions developed in my mind, regarding mermaids, but there were too many to put into words right there and then.

Daniel was standing next to me, and I think my arm twitched a little – I could not help it, I so wanted to touch those beautiful wings again. In a snap his wings disappeared and his chest began to move with the rhythm of normal breathing again.

"OK, that's that. Wouldn't it be time to show Dana what we do here?" he asked lightly.

Somehow I was certain that he closed his wings so hastily, so that I could not touch them again. He turned to face Lilith, careful not to meet my eye.

Oddly, I felt insulted.

xxxx

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