Exalted (14 page)

Julia was aware only of exhaustion. She ached all over, and
she wanted to go back to sleep, but something was nagging her into consciousness.

She opened her eyes to plaid. Plaid curtains, pushed to
either side of a small window. The room was wood-paneled and small, with a
porcelain sink, a small heater, and two slim cots. She was lying flat on her
back on scruffy carpet, and her friends were waking up in various spots on the
floor beside her.

“Where—”
are we
,
she was going to ask, but she remembered when she spied Cayne, curled over on
his side, with his legs partially under the cot across from her. There was
stubble over his cheeks and deep black circles under his eyes. She scrambled
past Mer and Nathan and touched his shoulder. He moaned.

“Cayne, it’s Julia.” It seemed unreal that he was really
here. That they were really together, and out of harm's way—or at least
immediate harm's way.

She pressed her palm against his cheek, gently stroking
with her fingertips as her other hand found the pulse point in his neck. She
was relieved to find a gentle thrum. She stroked his forehead, and his eyes
rolled under flickering eyelids. “Cayne, can you talk to me?”

His eyes opened slowly, his gaze taking a second to find
hers. Moving stiffly, he pushed himself up on one arm, threw the other around
her, and pulled her to his chest. He buried his face in her hair as he drew his
legs around her.

“Julia.” His voice was hoarse, his lips warm as they
pressed against her throat.

Distantly, she heard Meredith yawn and say, “S.O.S., you
guys. The love train has arrived. I'm getting the feeling that it’s time to
go.”

Julia heard some grumbling, but she didn't take her eyes
off Cayne; she was too worried he would disappear. She touched his bare back,
and a shudder ripped through him. She locked her arms around his waist, and he
lay back on the floor; she shifted on top of him. He ran his hands over her
ribs, traveling under her arms and up her back and neck, into her hair.

She clutched his waist as tears rolled down her cheeks. “
I
missed you
.”

He let out a shuddering breath, and she lifted her head
from his chest to find his green eyes wide and red; his face looked anguished.

“I can't believe it's really you,” he murmured.

Something passed across his face, a rippling of some
unknown emotion, and he released his grip on her and shifted onto his side,
propping his cheek in his hand and staring at the floor.

“Cayne? What's wrong?”

He shook his head, and when he spoke, his voice was thick.
“The Nephilim that fathered me... It wasn't a Nephilim. Julia—” he looked up at
her with wide eyes— “I’m The Adversary’s son.”

Julia scooted closer to him, pressing her face into his
chest. She wrapped her arm around him. “That is kind of weird, but do you think
I care?”

“How can I be near you when—”

Julia sat up and shushed him. “It doesn’t matter. You're
still
you
! I found out I might as well be Methuselah's daughter—I'm
like, his most potent descendant or something—and even if that wasn't true, you
think I'd care who your daddy is?”

Cayne nodded, his eyes somber. She expected him to say more
about The Adversary, but instead his body got very still, and in a low, quiet
voice, he said, “I saw what he did to you.”

Julia's face felt too hot. Had he really seen it? All of
it? She pushed the horrible possibility away, refusing to let herself believe
Cayne had seen her in her most pathetic state. “You were in Hell,” she said,
evading. “I'm sure that wasn't a beach trip, either.”

“Hell was watching you suffer.” His gentle fingertips
stroked her cheek, and Julia ducked her head as tears surfaced. “Julia, I’m so
sorry I wasn't there.” He leaned down to kiss her forehead, wrapping his arms
around her. A part of her wanted to push him away, to remain alone with the
awful memories she had, but more of her wanted his comfort.

She twined her arms around him, and suddenly Cayne was
rising, cradling her close as he moved to one of the cots, where he lay her on
her side and pressed himself behind her, locking his arm around her waist. “I’m
sorry, Julia. I will always be sorry I couldn't find a way to you. That you
needed me, and you were alone.”

It was too much. Just too much, after she’d thought she’d
never see him again. She pressed her face into a pillow as she sobbed, and
Cayne scooted closer behind her, whispering into her hair.

He kissed her hair, a welcome, gentle heat. “My Julia... So
strong. Do you know how much I love you?” He pressed his cheek against her
head, and Julia felt a little warmer inside. And then she felt ill, because it
couldn't be true. It just couldn't be true that Cayne was here, they were
together.

Eventually, exhaustion slowed her tears. Her violent crying
turned to little gasps, then hiccups. She wanted to hold onto Cayne again, but
she was too ashamed to turn her face toward him. She was ashamed of herself,
angry at herself—for being such a victim.

What could you have done to take control of things
,
she asked herself, and the answer was
nothing
. Which was really even
worse. She hadn't acted like a victim; she'd
been
one. Julia had never
let herself be a victim before Alexandria. Even as a grubby foster kid, she’d
tried to have some pride, make her own plans for life after she turned
eighteen.

She started to cry again, remembering how Edan had had to
rescue her from the pyramid. Methuselah was right: He’d freakin’ owned her.
She’d been…helpless.

She curled into a ball, and when Cayne started stroking her
arm, she jerked it away.
 
She felt him
brush her hair, and when she scooted away from him, she felt his hand leave
her, then felt the mattress lurch as he got up off the bed. After a minute of
pure, undulated self-hatred—heck, everything-hatred—she peeked open an eye and
found him standing at the small, wood-framed window, peering out at the sunny
day.

She drank in his broad shoulders, his muscular back. His
arms were folded in front, and she remembered all the other times she's watched
his beautiful back as he stood at a window, keeping guard. It was amazing, even
after Hell, even after all of this, he was still him.

She said his name, and he turned his head, dark brows
arched over green eyes. Julia pulled her exhausted body up off the bed and held
out her hand, hoping to beckon him back over before she read the pain in his
eyes. She was off the bed with her arms around him in a heartbeat.

He responded sweetly, folding her to his chest, bowing his
head protectively over hers.

With her cheek against his pec, she grabbed his hands. Then
she looked up into his face.

“I'm sorry I pushed you away. Everything is just...so
messed up.” She sniffed, feeling sick at the thought of what Methuselah and the
Adversary were planning for them. “I love you, Cayne. We'll find a way to be
okay.”

He nodded, but she could see his Adam’s apple bobbing as he
struggled to keep whatever he was feeling in.
 

“I know,” he rasped.

Julia was shocked to see a tear roll down his cheek. He
released one of her hands and wiped his face before she could thumb it away.

“What did he tell you? The Adversary?” She struggled to
meet his eyes, but they were fixed on something over her head.

His chest rose and fell, and finally he looked her in the
eye. “That he’s my father,” he said simply.

“So you're not a Nephilim?”

Cayne shrugged. “The Adversary is a Celestial. A deity, I
think, if you want to get official. I don’t know if I’m technically a Nephilim
or something else.” He shrugged.
 
“I
don’t know if it even matters.”

Julia nodded. She tipped her forehead to his chest, looking
down at the ragged jeans that hung from his delectable hips, and the bathing
suit that still barely covered her pale ones.

“It doesn’t matter who your father is.” She glanced up at
his face, where there was still shame. “You know what Methuselah told me?”
Saying his name had made her mouth go dry, but Julia pressed on. “He told me my
parents didn’t want me. And I had an aunt who didn’t want me either.”

“Liar,” Cayne hissed.

“I don’t think so. Something he said made me think that my
mom…maybe she knew how things would turn out for me. Maybe that’s why she…she
didn’t want kids.”

Cayne leaned down to kiss her temple. “There’s no way she
didn’t want you.”

Julia nodded, though she didn’t necessarily agree.

“I want you,” Cayne murmured. His hand danced over the
wound still healing on the left side of her head. “Julia, listen to me: I'm
going to take care of you. I swear it.”

She opened her mouth, but instead of saying “thank you,”
she shrugged, and the tears started flowing again. “I missed you,” she said pitifully.

“I know.” He caressed the back of her head, fingers skating
through her hair. “I missed you, too. Some of the time, I could see and…” He
kissed her cheek, her nose, her neck, and pulled her so close she could feel
every inch of him. “I saw you fighting back. I wished I could have helped you.
It nearly killed me, seeing that. But you were amazing.”

Julia shook her head. “He was winning.”

“No,” Cayne shook his head. “He could never.”

She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Finally she made
herself look back up at him. “Did The Adversary give you a link to his energy?
Is that why you glowed earlier?”

“It is,” he confirmed quietly.

Her stomach dropped. “That’s what Methuselah was doing to
me.”

“Doesn’t make much sense,” Cayne muttered.

“No, it does. I
saw
the plan. Somehow we’re supposed to, I don’t know, mix their powers together or
something. That’s how they plan to take down the barrier—the net. They're using
us so they won't be hurt themselves, like when our powers...I dunno...collide
or whatever.”

Cayne scowled. “Maybe that's their plan, but it's not
happening. I’m going to take care of Methuselah. The Adversary's not much of a
threat here on Earth.”

"Are you sure?"

He kissed her lips. "Yes." He kissed them again,
and then her chin, and then her neck, and with his strong arms around her,
Julia felt warm and safe.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you,” he rasped. He stroked the bare skin of her
hip, and Julia’s knees felt weak.

To her surprise, Cayne swooped her up, pushed a chair she
hadn’t even noticed underneath the door handle, and laid her on the cot.

“I have a magic mouth,” he said, stroking down her leg,
rubbing her foot. “It heals everything it touches.”

He lowered himself over her, and Julia shut her eyes as he
pressed his lips over her heart.

Chapter Twenty-One

Hours later, they lay facing each other on the narrow cot,
arms around each other, legs tangled.

Julia felt so peaceful, it was disorienting. Cayne was
actually smiling, a tight, self-satisfied kind of smile, as he stroked her long,
dark hair onto the pillow.

“My Julia.” He kissed her lips, then propped his cheek in
his big hand and looked down on her. “You’re so strong. So beautiful. And
you’re mine.” He looked into her eyes, and his green ones looked a shade too
serious. “Whatever happens.”

“As long as you keep doing this,” she said naughtily,
wiggling her eyebrows.

He kissed her on the lips again, and Julia felt her blood
run lava hot. It was a strange sensation, after so much pain, to feel such
pleasure.

“I mean it,” he said huskily.

“I mean it, too.”

He looked down at the sheets, and Julia leaned up to kiss
his cheek.

Light from the window cast an orange glow over them, and
Julia took a deep, cleansing breath. She was tired—so tired. And she felt so
amazing, lying with Cayne, she hated to break the spell.

But they needed to talk. They needed to compare notes and
figure things out, because something wasn’t right. She hated to think it, but
she felt it. Why had Edan taken them to Hell? How exactly had Cayne managed to
get them out? Would The Adversary really not have known that was possible? Were
Methuselah and The Adversary really working together? There were a thousand
things they didn't know.

Just as she opened her mouth to work on fixing that, Cayne
pulled her close, squeezing her just the right way, and she decided it could
wait a little while longer.

***

She knew he was gone before she opened her eyes. It was
cold in the room, and she was shivering. Shivering reminded her of being at the
bottom of the pyramid, and that horrible, familiar, hazy, trauma feeling
clouded her brain.

She pushed herself up on one elbow, wincing at the sudden
too-full-of-Celestial-energy pain in her head, shoulders, and chest, and
climbed out of the bed, trying and failing to remember Cayne leaving the room.

She found a sheet of paper just inside her door, a Ft.
William Hostel emblem printed at the top.
Room 107
was written
beneath it, in what she thought might be Meredith's handwriting.

“Cayne?” Julia tried, even though there was no point. The room
was tiny, hardly any bigger than a closet. She quickly donned her bathing suit
and wrapped a sheet around herself, then cracked open the wide, cedar door and
poked her head out into an empty hall with worn blue carpet and wood-paneled
walls. She tip-toed three doors down, her frantic heartbeat making her head
ache worse, the way it always did when she got too emotional; Methuselah's
power wanted
out
.

Julia bit her lip as she knocked on the wood door of her
friends' room, hoping against hope that Cayne was in there.

Mer appeared in seconds, her glossy, black hair falling
around her shoulders like it had just been brushed; she was wearing a white
hostel t-shirt and navy sweatpants, and as soon as she saw Julia, she ducked
back into the room and re-emerged holding out some clothes.