Page 24 of Galen

Simon

“He’s waking up.”

“Don’t sit so close to him, Gray,” another voice said, both of them unfamiliar. “You’ll scare him.”

“You think he’s hungry?” a deeper voice chimed in. “I can make pancakes.”

Cracking open my eyelids, I came face-to-face with a guy with wild blond curls and a silly little grin on his cute face. My vision was a little blurry, but he looked like a teenager.

“Hi,” he whispered.

I jerked away from him and fumbled for my glasses on the nightstand. The kid grabbed them for me, and I put them on, focusing on him. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Gray.” He sat up beside me on the bed. A panda bear was on his shirt, and his pajama bottoms were blue with stars on them.

Sunlight streamed in through the windows. I’d slept through the whole night.

“Are you an angel too?” I asked.

“Ah, so Galen’s told you about that, huh? Cool. Yeah. I mean, kinda. We’re Nephilim. Half angels. But close enough. How are you feeling? You were in bad shape earlier.”

I’d known Gray for five seconds and could already tell he was a blabbermouth. An adorable one though. His big brown eyes reminded me of an anime character.

“I feel okay,” I answered, glancing from Gray and to the two men standing behind him. One had vibrant red hair and piercings, while the other had cropped black hair and muscles even bigger than Galen’s. Both stood well over six feet. “Um. What time is it?”

“Almost three,” Red-Haired Dude said.

“Three? In the afternoon?”

“Yeah, you’ve been sleeping all day,” Gray said, checking the bandage on my chest. Seeming satisfied, he nodded and withdrew his hand. “Your body needed time to heal.”

I was an early riser, never sleeping past eight o’clock every morning. Sleeping the day away felt strange.

“So, you’re all brothers?” I glanced between the three of them.

“Not blood related,” Gray said, hopping off the bed. “More like brothers by choice. We’re bonded together. All seven of us.”

“Seven?”

“Yep. Did Galen tell you about our curse?” Gray bounced over to the dark-haired giant and hung on to his arm. Their size difference was almost comical. “Well, I guess it’s notactuallya curse. Curses can be broken. Ours can’t.”

A curse? What kind?

“What are you doing in here?” Galen asked, walking into the room. He was the tallest of them, and his presence demanded attention.

“Talking to your human,” Gray answered. “He’s really cute. I think he’s in shock though. He keeps looking at me like this.” He widened his eyes, exaggerating the action.

There was a hint of a smile on Galen’s lips as he stared at the younger man. Then, he looked at me. “How are you?”

“Fine.” I pulled the cover up a little higher to cover my torso. I didn’t like having my shirt off in front of people. The bandage covered most of my chest, but a bit of my belly had been visible. It made me self-conscious. “What did he mean by you guys being cursed?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Galen arched a brow at Gray before moving those intense gray eyes back to me. “You don’t need to know.”

“He already knows about us being Nephilim, thanks to you,” the red-haired one said. “What’s the harm in telling him the rest?”

“Do you think he can handle it?” the muscled giant with dark hair asked. “Aren’t human minds kinda… you know… simple? It might be too much for him to process.”

“Not everyone is like you, Raiden,” Galen said. “Some people actually have a brain.”