Stained (27 page)

She felt both giddy and duped. All her life, she'd enjoyed things like snicker doodle cookies and mystery novels and "Seinfeld" reruns and hot baths, and there was
this
. It kind of knocked everything else out of the water.

"Hey," she whispered, when Cayne lifted a lid to look at her. "I got breakfast."

He didn't move, and, thinking she would lie there until he got up, Julia closed her eyes.

Then his mouth found her ear and she shivered.

Immediately, she knew what page they were on, and it was the happy one. She tried to dip her feet in, telling herself all his troubles had been with him forever, but he'd only just found her. After the night they'd had, they should celebrate.

So
yeah
, they let the food get cold.

By the time Julia disentangled herself from his arms, her pancakes were gross and soggy, so they shared his cinnamon rolls.

She noticed little things as they faced each other on the cot, like how Cayne let his knee touch hers, how he looked at her non-stop while she talked. Things with them were almost like they had been...but not.

She'd known what his face looked like when he was mad and glad and everything in between, what he sounded like moving around the room, what it felt like to sit by him, and the way his voice sounded at every octave--except the one he used to whisper in her ear. He was like a beautiful painting she'd seen from every angle, except on the wall in her house. And viewed that way, it was almost another work entirely.

After he finished his bacon, he squeezed her hands and ran his fingers through her hair. Then he was up and pacing the room, stretching his legs. He seemed a little awkward--no one's legs needed to be stretched
that
much--so she beckoned him back to the bed.

He sat and gave her a funny little smile.

She smiled back, and patted the tiny space beside her. "Come here."

Cayne stretched out, his head on her arm. His hair was soft, tickling.

Julia smiled, incredulous. "Are you being shy?"

He looked up at her from under long lashes, and she leaned down to kiss his head. Somehow that broke the ice.

"You know, meeting you was a pretty lucky thing," she said, grinning.

"The verdict's still out on you."

"Oh really?"

"Okay," he said, softly. "I guess I'll keep you around."

She put an arm around him. "I liked you the first time I saw you. You were kind of a dull and uptight," she teased, "but I liked you."

"Is that right?"

"Yeah. You were a little messy, too." She feigned wrinkling her nose at the memory of his wounds inside the pecan warehouse. "I had to fix you up."

"You shouldn't have done that."

Julia cradled his head in her palm. "Cause you could've healed yourself in like, a minute?"

"I remember looking at you. I thought you were hot, that maybe I was dreaming. Then I noticed the blood on your face."

"You feel bad because of that?" Julia asked. "You
should
feel bad. You tried to leave me. And after I healed you, too, meanie."

"You were loud."

"That's no excuse."

"What was I supposed to do?"

"Um...like me?"

He snorted. "Your temper was vicious."

"Yeah, I was pissed. But you weren't exactly Mr. Hospitable. Poor people skills."

"I'd spent too much time alone."

Julia brushed his cheek. "I'm glad you're with me now."

"Someone had to get you out of that warehouse." He looked up at her. "How long had it been since you bathed?"

"Cayne!"

He tugged her hair. "Unclean. I thought, someone should wash her."

"Someone. You pervert."

He shrugged. "Perverts like all lasses. I only like you."

"That's not true."

"It is." He arched an earnest brow.

"Well, I only like you, too," she said, blushing.

"Not too much I hope."

"There's no such thing as too much."

To that, he didn't reply.

Chapter 36

When she was pretty sure the day couldn't get any better, Cayne started a tickle fight that Julia turned into a pillow fight, which, because Nephilim Hunters seldom used pillows, she won.

He went to heat up the bacon she'd gotten him with a big white feather on his head, and she let it stay there while he read their horoscopes from the newspaper that had appeared outside the door.

Cayne said he couldn't remember his birthday--"It's been two hundred years."--but he remembered his mother said his father had come in the winter, so Julia assigned him October third. The third, because she was born May third, and October because it was just a few weeks away, and they could celebrate.

"With birthday hats and all kinds of good stuff," she promised.

Cayne arched a brow. "What's the good stuff?"

Julia hit him. "Shut up. Get to reading."

The stars promised that Cayne would have a difficult time deciding what to do about a personal matter, and that his decision would test his resolve. Julia was up for new friends and warned not to cry until she was sure the milk was spilled.

"Now that," she said, "is
so
us."

Cayne batted his lashes. "Can I be your new friend?"

She grabbed his hands. "Only if you tell me a story."

He shook his head. "I'm impaired."

"Okay... Well. I get to ask you some questions."

Again, a frown.

"I want to know about you."

"Tall, dark, and handsome."

"In your dreams, bird boy."

She loosened him up with an X or Y quiz, like the ones she and her friends played in study hall--X being something like Die in a fire and Y being something like Freeze to death in Antarctica.

Of course, death wasn't something Julia wanted to make Cayne think about, nor was it something she wanted to linger on herself, so she made it silly, like Pink hair or Pink skin (Cayne ran a hand through his hair and, hilariously, said "Skin!"), Singing or Dancing (he did a jig, although she knew he had a nice singing voice).

She gradually built to things like Knowing who your dad is or Seeing your mom again for five minutes (Cayne picked his mom immediately), Hook up with the fifty most beautiful women who've ever lived or Hang out with someone special for a week (She was impressed when he chose the latter, though maybe he was just humoring her).

There were more she wanted to ask, but she didn't have the nerve. The game stopped because it was hard to arrange the questions so they didn't hit on a sensitive subject. In study hall, "tough" questions were interesting. Not so much if you'd already lived most of them.

Plus, Cayne started asking her questions, and she found herself pouring out her life story, telling him obscure things no one had ever wanted to know and important things she'd never told anyone.

He listened while she talked about school and how much she'd hated it, her friends and how much she missed them, her birth parents and all the questions she had about them, and Suzanne and Harry and what it was like for them to be gone.

When she finished a particularly nasty tale of Visitation Day at the Haven--the day when potential foster parents came shopping--Cayne pulled her into a tight hug. "There's no way for you to go back there, is there?" he murmured.

It took her a second to get what he meant. "No way. That's why I ran off when my house burned. I'll be eighteen this May."

Cayne brushed kisses along her cheek. "I want only good for you."

She grinned. "Then keep doing this."

He did, and she fell asleep.

When she woke it was afternoon, and Cayne was looking at her intensely. She smiled and asked, "Is there something on my face?" He shook his head. "Well, out with it."

"I'm going to keep you safe," he said. "I won't let anything happen to you."

"I know." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "I'll never let anything happen to you, either. Except...it seems like something already did."

Cayne's face scrunched.

"You smell..." Julia sniffed. "Kind of like...mmm...a Nephilim." She jumped on him, tickling. "Eww! Eww--ah! Gross!"

Cayne flipped her over, flung her over his shoulder, and whirled around in the little room. He turned, snapping at her with his teeth. "Nephilim like to devour little Julias." He dropped her on the cot and attacked her with kisses.

Chapter 37

They switched trains in Chicago. It was sunset, and the station was chilly and airy, and Julia was snuggled in a beige jacket, and Cayne looked hot in a gray Ralph Lauren sweater she'd made him buy in Memphis. (Guys who were two centuries old tended not to care how you dressed them, which was cool).

Julia was really digging all the couple stuff. Their fingers had been locked all day. She held his left hand. Sometimes she kissed it. Cayne was leery about PDA when she was the initiator, but not when he was. He enjoyed flipping the back of her hair or sneaking a chaste kiss onto her cheek. While they watched the train, he leaned down and planted a soft on one her lips. A girl across the tracks looked jealous, and it was the highlight of Julia's day.

This time, when they boarded, Cayne slipped on--no mojo or anything, just Regular Joe trickery. Julia enjoyed slipping through the doors with him. It felt like they were together now. Really. Once in the room, she smiled and unzipped her bag. "I have a question."

"Lots of them. Poor thing."

"Shut up. Now, for real." With a flourish, she pulled out a feather. It was glossy charcoal, softer than gossamer, with a thin band of silver on the tip. "This is yours, isn't it? Not Samyaza's."

Cayne nodded, and she brought it to her lips.

"Where did you get that?"

She slid it behind her ear. "When you fell through the roof."

"You thieved it," he accused. "You stole my feather. And you didn't even know me."

"So." She giggled. "I wanted it."

"Did you? You wanted it?" He wrapped his arms around her, and as his lips touched hers, the feather vanished from her hair.

Julia gasped. "My feather!" Cayne held it out of reach. Julia whined, "It's a memento."

"Come and get it," he teased.
She climbed onto the top cot and prepared to jump. He held his hands out. "Don't do that. You don't have wings."

"I could if I wanted to."