Mimics of Rune 02- Surrender (17 page)

Tony ruffled Max’s hair. “Let’s get a hotel room.”

“We really do want you to stay here,” Lily said.

“And we have plenty of room.” Charley strolled back in with James and Wyatt in tow. “Evelyn, we have a guest room that’s perfect for you, and it’s on this floor. Max can have Chase’s room, which is right across the hall from my room, where Tony and Angela can stay …”

Angela stepped forward. “We won’t put you out.”

Charley waved a hand. “It’s my room, and it’ll always be my room, but the reality is, this is Lily’s house now.” She leaned into Wyatt’s chest. “I’m going home but will meet you three at the office at eight sharp.” With that, she grabbed Wyatt’s hand and pulled him toward the front door.

“Well, I, for one, would love to sleep on the events of the day,” Evelyn said. “Maybe they’ll make more sense in the morning.”

14

Lily showed everyone to their rooms. She pointed out bathrooms, grabbed extra towels, setting the house up to be a ‘base’ for as long as her family needed.

Evelyn had thanked her kindly.

Angela had thanked her with a distinct undertone of misgiving.

Tony had scowled but walked with Angela, shutting the door and closing Lily out from any conversation they might have had.

Lily headed straight for her balcony. Given their house, her house as Charley said, had been built near the top of Turner Point, the view came in two forms: trees or glorious mountainous landscape. Both soothed. The trees swayed as the wind blew around them. Early summer filled the mountain with green.

Charley had spent many nights in thought on her balcony, while Lily tended to just leave the doors open and let the answers come to her on the breeze. She stepped out into the humid evening air, hugging her less than ideal physical self.

I should change back to something prettier.

Even as she thought to put color back in her hair and give herself back some of the weight, she stopped.

Stay different enough that they always know who is who.

“Lily?” Cael’s voice carried from inside her bedroom.

She didn’t need to answer; he’d find her.

The steel balcony creaked before a blanket added a heaviness to her shoulders. “Why are you out here?” he asked. “If you’re thinking, why aren’t you on your bed with your pillows?”

See? He knows everything about you.

“Trying something different,” she said.

Cael’s hands added extra warmth where they rested against her arms. “Lil?”

“Yeah?”

In the distance a coyote howled its nightly tune.

“What
are
you thinking about?” Cael’s body pressed up against her back, the warmth of his breath upon her neck.

“Everything.”
Everything, everything.

“That’s a lot of stuff.”

She spun in his arms, leaning back against the rail. “I’m not the greatest Mimic, Cael. Do you think that’s why they kicked me out when I turned eighteen? Like, after all that … they figured out I wasn’t even good enough to be in their rat-assed program?”

His eyes closed for a second before he opened them again. “It’s not a contest about who can do what. You have other strengths. You’re kind. You’re caring. So what if your hair color starts turning back the moment you pick it, or you have to focus on some changes longer than the rest of us.”

“Why aren’t I any good at it, though? Is it genetic? They never told me why just reminded me that I wasn’t.”

“It’s not that you’re not good. You’re just different.” His eyes shimmered a soft purple.

“Your eyes are changing.”

“I know. Saw it in the mirror. It’s just stress.”

She laid her head against Cael’s chest. His heart beat at a steady pace. “Did you hear the whole conversation in the kitchen?”

“Enough of it.”

“How much enough?”

Cael’s laugh echoed in her ear. His finger nudged her chin up. “Why didn’t you tell me that you don’t know how it all works?”

A pang to her chest had her attempting to look down, but he forced her to stay in place. “I feel like an idiot. I’m old, Cael. I should know all this stuff, but I don’t.”

“Well, there isn’t a school for Mimics.”

“If there were, we’d all be a lot better off.” She huffed a laugh. “Or I would have been, at least. They never told me what I was or why I could change or even taught me how … they just forced it.”

Cael crushed her against him.

As much as he could take her stories, she knew the price she paid hurt him, too. It always had. “How did you learn stuff?”

“Here and there.” His grip on her released a little. “My Mom was one of us, and she taught me a lot when I hit thirteen.”

“How old was she when she blended?”

“Ninety-nine. She used to say, ‘Cael, whatever you do, age gracefully. Pick a number and stick to it’. She stuck to ninety-nine and found my Dad, blended with him, and that was that.”

“I wish I had that.”

“I know. We all wish it for you.” He ran his fingers through her hair.

“What do you want? I mean … did you pick a number like your Mom?”

“No, and Lil, that’s what Charley was trying to tell you.” Cael tugged on her hand. “Come back inside. You’re freezing since you have no meat on your bones.”

She’d barely even registered the temperature as with each touch Cael made to her body, she heated up—at least on the inside.

Back in her room, she laid down on her bed, grabbed her pillows and lifted up on one elbow. Cael mirrored her position, though she became his cuddle pillow.

They’d spent many nights talking in just that way, his arm across her waist. With the balcony doors open, the coolness remained, but the platonic nature of their relationship seemed as far away as the coyote who’d been calling into the night.

“So, what I was going to say is this …” Cael started. “If two Mimics were to choose to blend, instead of finding a human to pair up with, we aren’t limited to human capabilities.”

“But I thought all blending was permanent—see? This is why I feel stupid. I’m sixty—almost sixty-one, Cael.” She sat almost upright as her tone pitched up. “I should know this stuff.”

“I’m a hundred and fourteen. I don’t know all there is, but this one I do.” He drove her back down to the bed, draped a leg over hers.

“Are you keeping me in place?” She giggled even as she said it.

“Yeah, because you’re still shivering.”

Not because I’m cold.

“You know how Charley used the dog and cat analogy anytime Wyatt asked about her blending ability?”

Lily giggled again. “Yeah. And that’s really gross, you know.”

Cael’s chuckle added even more warmth into Lily’s body—if that were possible. “Exactly. The Mimic becomes human to make everything function the same way as a human. Mimic to Mimic doesn’t require that. It doesn’t require a blend. We just live our lives as is. No blend. Just … normal. Us.”

“What happens when both Mimics turn two hundred and thirty-four then?”

“Same as usual.”

A forced return to eighteen where memories are erased unless with a perfect match.

“Assuming we’re still together, we won’t have any problems as we return to eighteen and start over as fully human. But at any time before then, if we want, we can choose the same thing. When we’re done being Mimics, we just make the change on our birthday. That’s it. Like you know already.”

“You’re not ready for that, are you?”

“How scary would it be for you … if I said I’d blend human if that’s what you wanted to do?”

“What?” Lily’s heart beat faster at the mere thought that Cael would give up life as he knew it, if she asked. “Why would you do that?”

“Because … Lily, I love you. I have since you were twenty … that night we met—the night you became a part of my family. The first time we ever—you became a part of me.”

“That was forty-one years ago.”

An intense hunger took over Cael’s stare. “Trust me, Lil. I have counted the days.”

• • •

Lily stared into the depths of Cael’s eyes. “You’d really do that for me, even though this is what I look like?”

“It has nothing to do with looks, Lily.” He shifted closer. His leg wrapped all the way over her, tucking back under hers, and he yanked the pillow from between them. With one hand behind her back, he nudged her until their chests touched, clothing their only separation. “I love the tweaked smile you give and your little laugh. I love that you don’t know everything, and I can teach you. I love that you make a mean blueberry pancake that rivals the chefs on television and in New York and Paris, and I get that right here. I love that you tilt your head right when you’re happy and left when you’re sad. I love the way you smell.” He made a show of inhaling. “A mix of lavender that matches your eyes and something fruity. I love that you’re taller than me in my own true form.”

She giggled against him. It always made her laugh when, on their birthday, Cael lost almost a foot of height and she gained four inches. “Cael?”

“Mmm-hmm?” He added light touches with his fingertip to the side of her lips and up her cheek.

“I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you, too, I just thought …”

He pulled back until she stared into his eyes again. “What?”

“I didn’t think we could be a
we
permanently, after—well … I thought you’d want to find someone more right for you. Someone without so much baggage.”

“There is no one more right for me. I told you that our first night together. The first time you let me touch you. Hold you. Love you.”

Lily sighed to the heavens as Cael traced a line down her neck and to her shoulders. His actions reminded her of their first time. When she’d fallen in love with him and walked away with emotions swirling inside her like a centrifuge.

“Do you know how hard it is to want someone for forty years, Lily?” His fingers added to her inner torment, trailing down her side until his hand rested on her hip. “To want to make love to a woman you’ve had once but never a second time? To know she sleeps one wall over and that her body is a flame of sensations. To watch her experience life … and … other men and think … that’s what’s best for her but, in your heart, want her just the same?”

You have no idea.
A yawn forced itself to the surface.
No, not now!

Cael reached over Lily, drawing the blanket over the two of them. “Know that, Lily. Know it. Because it’s true.” He snuggled into the blankets and pillows as if to sleep, not make love to her.

“But—”

“Rest, Lily. Tomorrow’s going to be busy.”

With Cael’s head on his pillow and his gaze on hers, Lily let her lids close, but her mind continued to play his message.

He loved her.

He loved her more than as a friend.

He wanted her.

He’d let her decide when to go to the next stage.

He wanted her.

Sleep took hold with a small smile on her face.

Cael loved her just as she’d always hoped.

• • •

Lily slept tucked up against Cael until the sunlight filtered through the open windows of her bedroom. By seven, she had coffee bubbling in the decanter and blueberry pancakes on the griddle.

Cael had sent her the message. He’d wait for her. How and when to take advantage of him rested on her shoulders.

As the batter sizzled on the griddle, Lily brought to mind one of Charley’s comments—stop waiting. Lily would have to find the right time to do just that.

Cael’s acceptance of her, his pronouncement of his love meant everything to her. If he hadn’t pulled back with her yawn the night before, she might have pressed them further right then.

A smile bloomed as she poured more batter.

Footsteps shuffled their way toward her, and Angela, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts in much need of ironing, took a barstool just opposite where Lily worked.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to have Cael and my whole family?
“Would you like some breakfast?” Lily mixed in a touch of cinnamon.

“I really don’t want to put you—”

Lily stopped mixing. “Angela. May I call you Angela?”

“Of course.”

The sizzle from the cooking batter filled the room with sound during their second of silence, the smell wafting its way to Lily. “I’m the least adept Mimic in this family, so cooking and laundry and household stuff, that’s what I do. I love it, too. I get to be super useful to everyone and let them do their jobs. I want to feed your fam—my fam—I want to make you breakfast. Please don’t feel like you’re putting us out. It would make me feel bad because I already know, somehow, somewhere, this is all going to come back to me. So, let us take care of you guys for a while, and let me promise you that we’ll do everything we can to find Leigh. We’re really the only allies you have because, when you’re a Mimic, you aren’t in the system as all other humans are. We aren’t traceable.”

A forced laugh came from Angela. “That I know.”

“And I’m rambling like crazy.”

Angela’s lips twitched at the corners. “I was told which city you were in and that was it. I spent two weeks asking people if they’d seen anyone that looked like the description I had. That was all I’d had to go on. This little man at the yogurt store—”

“Marvin?” Lily giggled as she poured more batter.

“I don’t know. He said ‘Ah, Miss chocolate-strawberry-vanilla. Lives up Turner Point’. It was like one shot in a million. After that, asking about Turner Point led me to this house …” Her hands circled the room as if to encompass the space. “And to Charley. Is she a Mimic, too?”

Lily scooped up the pancake, slid it onto a plate and pushed it in front of Angela. “Once a Mimic, always a Mimic, but Charley’s a little different.”

“Oh, because she said she was you, but then when you came, you changed, and she didn’t.”

“Yep.” Lily withdrew strawberries from her fridge. “It’s a long story.”

“Does … my daughter can … change like this?” As soon as Angela asked, she forked a mouthful of pancake.

Lily raised an eyebrow. “Based on the photos I saw in your house, yes. What did you learn in Romania?”

Angela shook her head. “Nothing. But she looks so much like you, and what with someone taking her from me, I figured that must mean that’s what she is. Right?”