Stained (17 page)

"You okay?" he whispered.

"I think so."

Cayne squeezed her fingers and offered a small smile. "I think she likes you."

Bemused, Julia followed him back through the house to a small, pink living room. Its large windows were open, letting in warm air and the muted sounds of the neighborhood at play. Rosa was waiting on a faux leather couch. Julia settled on a matching love seat. Cayne stood beside her.

"There's no need for that here," Rosa fussed. "If anything comes, I'll see it."

"An extra set of eyes won't hurt," Cayne said.

"Except my pride," Rosa muttered. She turned her attention to Julia, who fidgeted in her seat. "You must be hungry. Malachi is fixing rice and beans."

"Thanks, but you don't have to."

Rosa smiled. "I know I don't." She wagged her finger. "Now calm down."

Julia ducked her head to catch her breath. "I'm sorry. I just feel...overwhelmed."

"I understand." Rosa jerked a thumb at Cayne. "Especially if you've been with this guy."

Julia smiled at his scowl. "He hasn't been so bad."

"I'm sure that's not true."

Cayne glared at the seer. "Our hostess is too kind."

"And ready to show off. Honey, let me see that arm."

Hesitantly, Julia held out her cast-bound wrist. Rosa glanced at Cayne. He cut the cast away with his dagger, and the seer began to massage the swollen skin. Julia winced.

"You heal fast," the woman said as Julia's skin warmed under her hands. Julia felt a thousand pricks around her bone and yelped. Rosa released her. "You'll need to wear that sling for another day or two. But that should help."

Julia moved her wrist. It throbbed dully, but the biting pain was gone. "How did you do that?"

"You're not the only person who can mend bones," Rosa said.

"Are you like me?" The seer shook her head, and Julia swallowed a bubble of disappointment. "Thanks."

Rosa waved. "My price is a story." She folded her hands and rested them in her lap. "Now, how did you two meet?"

After glancing at Cayne, Julia launched into an account of their first meeting. With a little prompting from Rosa, she told the whole story of her journey, from finding her home in flames to the fight in San Francisco. She even told Rosa about the frightening dreams that sometimes woke her.

Julia was amazed that she spoke so openly with a complete stranger, even more so when she entered the murky Feelings Zone. Julia talked about the loneliness she had felt in the Memphis pecan warehouse, surrounded by a million strangers. It was a gale-force emotion, but one she had known in smaller bursts her whole life.

She told the seer about Harry and Suzanne, her brief respite from the storm. She missed them so much she still ached, but even with them she had know she was different. There had been a sense, even in their warm home, that she didn't belong.

And then Cayne came, and everything changed.

For the first time in her life, Julia felt comfortable. Not comfortable with him, at least not at first, but comfortable with herself. She had wondered before what it was about Cayne that made her feel that way. She realized as she spoke to Rosa: He accepted her. Sure, there were probably things he'd change about her if he could--she laughed when Rosa asked what he could possibly dislike--but he accepted who she was at her core. And if she wasn't reading too much into it, he even appreciated it.

Julia took a deep breath when she was finished. It was like she was waking up after a long, peaceful sleep. She felt wonderful.

Until she remembered everything she'd said. She covered her mouth in horror and glanced behind her. Cayne was gone!

She tried to control her imagination, but every time she blinked she saw his eyes widen in horror at her until-then secret feelings. What if he thought she was a freak? What if he told her he didn't feel the same way? What if--

"He stepped out shortly after you began," Rosa said.

Julia sighed.

The older woman smiled. "I take it you haven't told him how you feel."

"No," Julia said tiredly. She needed to be on her guard. She was way too open with this woman. "There's nothing to tell, anyway."

Rosa smirked. "You forget who you're talking to."

"Really, there's--"

"He can't hear you."

One of the things Julia had missed most during her journey with Cayne was girl talk. She could be forgiven if she was more open with the older woman than she might ordinarily be. And if Cayne trusted her, why couldn't Julia?

"I don't know what to tell him," she said. "I don't even know how I feel."

Rosa clucked. "You're an intelligent woman. I don't believe you're feelings are so mysterious."

"It's too confusing," Julia moaned. "I've seen so many sides of him. Ones I really like. But I..." She shrugged. "I don't know. It doesn't make sense."

"It often doesn't."

"I feel good when I'm with him. And I feel..." Julia folded her arms. It was hard to explain. "It's like before I knew him I felt everything through a blanket, and then he came and ripped it off."

"And now you're exposed?"

Julia rolled her eyes at the cheesy truth. "Sometimes I want the blanket back."

"Oh, hush." Rosa shooed her. "Who would prefer ignorance to experience?"

"Isn't ignorance bliss?"

"Ignorance is drunkenness," the seer chided. "You have experienced a lot, and it can seem, as you say, to be too much."

"I don't even know what of."

"You're afraid that you're going to lose someone else important to you. You fear that he will be taken away."

Julia nodded, embarrassed at her own transparency.

Rosa leaned across the small, glass-topped coffee table and touched Julia's forehead. "Peace shall be yours. You have nothing to fear."

"How? Samyaza still wants to kill me and I have no idea why. I don't even know what I am."

"And that frightens you?"

"Yes. And Cayne. I don't know a whole lot about him, either."

Rosa lowered her voice. "You will have the chance to learn, and you must remember to seize it when it comes. To truly love someone like Cayne, you must love all of them."

The older woman glanced out the window. "Did you know that Malachi is my son?" Julia's jaw dropped, and Rosa chuckled. "I suppose you didn't. Cayne probably didn't even mention him, did he?"

Julia shook her head, wondering if the woman had "seen" her reaction. When Rosa didn't respond, Julia added, "He didn't."

"That's like him, I suppose. Like all of them."

"All of them? Wait, Malachi's a Nephilim?"

Rosa nodded. "They don't talk about each other. I don't know why." She sighed. "My son is one of the large ones. A blessing and a curse. If he had been Cayuzul's size, they would have come for him."

"Come for him?"

"That is what they do. When the child is five, they take him." Rosa shivered. "Cayne was taken from his family, whomever they were. I suppose you know he is a Hunter?"

"Yes."

Rosa smiled. "Malachi is not. He is what they call Waste. Too large to hide himself among people. The Waste are usually killed. But his conception helped open my gifts. I was able to hide him from them."

Rosa's face was a mask, but Julia could sense the sorrow and pride behind her voice.

"He grew fast--they tend to do that--and he grew strong. He was as tall as me when he entered kindergarten." She smiled softly. "He was six feet tall before he turned twelve."

Julia chewed on her lip. She already had a vague sense that this walk down memory lane didn't end happily.

"I think my motivation was guilt. I gave myself to a demon, and my son had to suffer for it." Rosa shook her head. "Regardless, I vowed the moment Malachi was born that I wouldn't tell him about his father. That he would grow up with no knowledge of his other nature.

"Of course he wasn't normal. That was obvious to anyone that looked. He was human and something more, and in ignoring that something more, I blinded myself to all that my son was. The good and the bad." Rosa turned from the window, and fixed Julia with a sightless stare. "His second year in high school, I arranged a prom date with one of the girls from our old neighborhood." She smiled sadly. "Malachi was nervous, but so exited. I had saved for nearly an entire year to have a tuxedo made, and he looked so handsome in it."

Julia glanced about the room, expecting but not finding a picture of a younger and maybe shorter giant in dress clothes.

"The young lady's last beau and a few of his friends attacked Malachi as he was walking up her drive. I had sensed something would happen, just a few minutes after my son left. I ran as fast as I could to the girl's house, but I was too late." Rosa took a deep breath. "Malachi killed two of them, and when I tried to intervene, he turned on me."

The room was silent as a tomb. Even the sounds drifting from outside had ceased.

"One part human, one part not. The part that isn't, the part I ignored, the part my son wasn't aware of, it came out that night.

"Malachi wasn't prepared for his rage. He had not learned to control it. Cayne has. But that part of him is still there. The demon."

Julia stilled.
The demon
. Cayne was violent and didn't seem to have what most people would call a normal moral compass, but he seemed about as demonic as the woman before her.

"What are you trying to tell me?"

Rosa smiled. "I don't mean to frighten you or to steer you one way or the other. Cayne is a wonderful man." She leaned forward. "But you must understand that to truly love him, you must love all of him: the part that is human and the part that isn't."

Chapter 23

Rosa sank back into her couch, story over, warning given. "Now, enough doom and gloom. Why don't you see if the boys are ready for dinner?"

Dumbly, Julia rose and walked to the kitchen. She was shaken out of her dark stupor by the sight of Cayne wearing a pink apron and stirring a pot on a stove.

"Hey."

He spun and nearly knocked over the bowl. He glanced down at the apron and immediately began to untie the string around his neck.

"Keep it," Julia said. "It's cute."

"Cute?"

She nodded.

"Is everything okay?"

Julia stretched her mouth into what she hoped was a smile and said, "Yeah. Keep the apron on."

Cayne wore it through dinner, which he, she, Rosa and Malachi enjoyed in the sitting room.

Julia spent most of the meal considering Rosa's story. And her advice. She wanted to know Cayne. To know all of him: the good and the bad.

But how could she, when Cayne didn't even know? If the vague pictures Julia had seen were any indication, his missing memories weren't very pleasant. She wondered if he would change if he found them. The thought made her feel slightly sick.