Stained (26 page)

She had Cayne. For a neat slip of time, she listened to him breathe, and it was the only thing in her head.

Slowly, in the way of a rain just coming, the deep push and pull of his breath became a shallow whoosh and rasp. His grip on her tightened. Julia kissed his cheek and stroked a hand down his warm back.

He flinched out of her grasp, twisting and groaning as he rolled to face the wall.

"Cayne." He moaned, and Julia shook him. "Cayne...wake up."

Cayne's heart was pounding when he awoke, and it took several shuddering breaths to slow it down.

For a moment, he was a boy in the woods at night, fighting off a pack of men mad as wild dogs. He opened his eyes, but the fists and the torches and the red faces didn't fade away.

He checked for gashes at the sites of old wounds: his side, his shoulder, his thigh, his back, his throat. He traced the smooth white line there--the only scar he had--and took several deep breaths.

He wasn't dying. "
Julia
."

"I'm right here." She was beside him, leaning on her elbow, watching with those wide brown eyes.

It had been a long, long time since he'd thought lucidly about that night, but he recalled it now with unpitying clarity.
He could still smell the fragrance of the trees in swift summer air. He could still see the black dirt, dressed with soft grass and purple and white wildflowers.

He felt the forest floor as it fit itself around him, the dirt going soggy with blood. He heard their grunts and the thud of their boots on roots and weeds. The clamor rose above the call of an owl and the rush of midnight wind through the bramble.

It was the night they almost killed him. It was the night he was born again.

It didn't matter now. None of it mattered anymore, and yet... His eyes met Julia's. Hers blinked. He swallowed and pushed himself up on both his elbows. With his head hanging between his shoulders and his hand in his hair, he said,
"I was born in 1812. We--my mother and I--lived in Perthshire. Killin. In what you would call the Highlands."

He waited a moment--waiting for her, he guessed, and when Julia stayed quiet, images of glassy gray water and the great mound above it appeared behind his eyes. He'd spent the first years of his life on the shore of Loch Tay, catching trout with Stephen McIntyre, keeping watch over the house and his mother.

"It was a God-fearing place. The villagers thought my father was a traveler who...well, who forced himself on my mum. My mother told me different. She died when I was seven. On her death bead, she swore me to silence.

"Mum's sister was wed to a bonnet laird who took me in to tend sheep. They had no children of their own."

He'd done well in school, and despite the hardships of the time, his little loft room had held happy memories. Until...

"When I was eleven, I started going the way of my father. Mother had warned me about it, told me to run when it happened. I should've."

But Stephen and Danny had been practicing wood chopping. And when Cayne had woken up a foot taller and twice as wide as he'd been the day before, he'd wanted to challenge them.

"My relatives were horrified by my change. My aunt was superstitious; she'd always had suspicions about my conception. It was her who brought up the demon." He rubbed his eyes. "I should've run. I was young, though. Stupid."

He'd fled his aunt's enormous eyes and his uncle's weathered hand and run over the moor, to the little grove were there was a tree fort, the base for all their mischief.

Stephen and Danny had been awed by his amazing strength, hopelessly defeated in the wood chopping contest.

"We were at each other with the hatchets, for sport, when Stephen got me in the leg."

Cayne leaned against the wall, feeling the metal slice his thigh. "They ran to fetch help. When I came to some men were carrying me home. But all the pain was leeched away."

By the time he reached his house, he could walk on his own. He had, in fact, run.

"The rest is...not clear." Cayne exhaled. And even now, foggy though it was, it made his mouth dry. "They were angry. Scared. They thought it was the devil in me, my father. I guess it was." He laughed hollowly. "The men of our Killin put it to vote. They brought me out for the exorcism."

Julia murmured her sorrow. Cayne wondered if she knew how his clan exorcised evil. Probably not.

"My uncle and the other men waited for night. They brought me to the grounds near the earl's home." For a few seconds, he just breathed. In and out, a rasp louder than the rumble of train on tracks. "They came at me. Knives, clubs. Kicking. Their fists. Trying to get the demon out."

Friends' fathers. Older boys. The church elders. His own uncle. Anyone with a blade and working limbs.

"At first I tried to fight." Adrenaline made him brave. It powered his fists. Bubbled up blasphemy in his throat. But they were too many.

"They were...crazed." He could do nothing but lie there. While their fists ruined his face. While their blades pierced his skin. While their clubs shattered his bones. The pain, mind-bending at first, made him scream. Then the fog. Sweet fog.

"I passed out. When I came back, one of them put his hands around my neck. I knew that I was...probably going to die."

Cayne had felt his energy ebbing and on instinct sought more. Mr. McAlter was looking into his eyes, trying to call out the devil. He grabbed the man's head and got what he needed. Luck got him the hatchet.

The pain receded and a new strength filled his limbs. He could feel his wounds sealing shut. He drew enough breath to scream, and swung the hatchet with the devil's power.

"I leeched their energy. I managed to get the hatchet, the one...Stephen... I drained his father and killed the rest."

He glanced at Julia; she looked horrified enough to run, but it was too late now. He'd only told this story twice before, and now that he'd started he couldn't stop.

"I killed them. Most of them. And I enjoyed it, too. I remember the silence after the rest of them ran. But my uncle didn't run. He had a duty."

He beat Cayne nearly unconscious, using only his fists, an endless cacophony of bone on bone.

"He cut my throat." It was, for some reason, the only scar that had remained. "My will killed him."

Cayne had known it was the end for him, too. The evil had been drained, for he could feel his limbs no more. He floated above himself, watching the dark liquid pool in the grass, hypnotized by the gasps and gurgles that pierced the silent wood. He had been exorcised, chased into the thick summer air.

"They were all clansmen. Men who loved my mother. My uncle's blade killed me, yet in an hour I was well. Before dawn I climbed Ben Lawers. I spent weeks there, living as no human could. My mind was gone. I was gone."

He ceased to eat, to drink, to think.

"One day a man came."

His skin was darker than Cayne's, and he had wings. The man was very large and spoke strangely, but Cayne wasn't afraid. He didn't feel fear anymore.

"He said his name was Samyaza, and he and I were brothers. He had come to take me away. He told me to think about my own wings, and then I had them. Samyaza said we were the same.

"He taught me to fly. He even gave me my name. I should have kept it hidden, but I told him what I'd done." Cayne put a hand over his scar. "He said the men deserved what they got, and what I did to them was proof that I belonged with other Nephilim."

Cayne stopped, because Julia's cheeks were wet. He needed to tell her more--about what kind of killer he really was--but she had cuddled up to his back. Her fingers were playing in his hair.

Chapter 35

Julia ran her fingers through his hair and feathered kisses across his face. He closed his eyes.

At last he seemed asleep, so she snuggled beside him. The room was quiet and still. She was almost out when, very softly, he whispered, "You shouldn't."

"Shouldn't what?" She buried her face between his chest and his arm, already knowing what he would say.

"Be with me."

"I disagree."

He sighed. "You shouldn't."

"Well, I do." She traced a finger over his bicep. "I like being with you. I love it, in fact."

"Please don't say that." He moved one arm over his eyes, but she took his other hand in hers. "I told you about what happened because I need you to understand. That's my nature. It was with me when I was a child, and it's still there," he said, his voice rising. "That wasn't even the surface. I could tell you things to make you--"

"Cayne. C'mon."

"
Listen
."

"No."

"Please?" His voice was husky.

"No." She rose on one elbow to look him in the face. "You already told me about your past and I am telling you, it's not your fault. You were a kid, Cayne. A little kid. Now no more blaming yourself. Please. I want you to--"

"There's more than that. Much more."

"No."

"There was a...um... There was a girl."

In the painful silence that followed, Julia made a desperate attempt to put her ego to sleep. She had wondered when this would come up. "What was her name?" she asked softly, not really wanting to know.

"Katherine." And wasn't that cliche? The name for lovers. "I called her Kat."

"How did you meet her?"

"It was after I left Samyaza. She...found me."

At a place called Aconcagua, in the Andes Mountains near Argentina. He'd been wandering alone for several years, he said, sticking to remote places to ensure Samyaza and other Hunters would have a difficult time finding him.

Kat had been there with a college group, hiking. For some reason, that was all the information Julia needed.

He'd followed her back to Canada, told her all of his secrets, and then Samyaza had found him--and her.

Cayne hadn't even gotten to bury her body, and in fighting Samyaza, he'd sustained a head wound that had zapped his memories.

He'd been near the site of the battle, and probably her grave, during the time he was recovering, and he'd never even known it. Now it was too late.

Julia ached to ask more questions, but everything got stuck in her throat. And for the best.

What she really felt wasn't curiosity, but sadness, and a manic craving to do something for him. But there was nothing. And nothing to say. So she wrapped him tightly in her arms.

When she awoke the next morning, Julia had no idea how to feel. Sad for Cayne? Happy something had finally happened between them? She woke up in his arms, and that was awesome. He was asleep, and that was also good.

The world through the windows was wide and wooded under a blue sky. Julia slipped out to the food cart, and she let herself smile as she filled a Styrofoam plate with bacon and cinnamon rolls for Cayne and one with pancakes and syrup for herself.

She put the food on the table by the door and ran her fingers through her hair. Then she stood by the bed and watched him. He was on his stomach, one knee jutting off the cot, one arm around the pillow they'd shared.

Julia wanted him awake, but she didn't want to wake him. Hoping to take the pillow's place, she slid between him and the wall. The moment her body indented the cot, Cayne turned and put a heavy arm around her. Julia snuggled into his chest.