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Cain enjoyed besting me
and commented how they had done this for hours in the barracks. I remembered I was once very competitive and the moment I mastered his rules, proudly showed it. 

For a while at least he was content to answer my endless sea of questions. In between breaks
, when he used his bathroom and resupplied snacks and drinks, I learned to love the smooth monotony of our game.

“What do you do at the club
?” I gathered my new hand. “Is it your job?”

“Yeah, it helps pay the bills. My day job is at this construction site in the projects. I bounce on weekends and most week nights for my
uncle. It’s his place actually but my cousin keeps things running now. ’Course things are a lot different there than they were when I was a kid.”

“Where are your parents
?” I asked, remembering the brief flash of images he had unwittingly shared with me.

He stiffened
and laid his card down more roughly than necessary. “With their Maker. Their ship capsized in a storm when I was still a kid. They were stupid to go on the water drunk. Everyone else knew what was coming.”

I froze at his mention of the ocean
, recalling the cry of seagulls through our connection. Of
course
he had lived by the sea. I had smelled it on him the moment we met.

Throwing his cards down, he bitterly laughed. “Everyone except my old man, I guess. The only th
ing he listened to was what his bottle of Jack told him to do.” Pain drew his brow together and gathered over us in the form of an opaque ominous cloud.

I
longed to forget the game then, to fight the darkness and draw light from beyond the storm. My gift hovered just beneath the surface of my skin, ready at a moment’s notice.

Save it!
Why should you care for his sorrow, the feelings of a human? He’s no different than Seid.

Cain
laughed, brushed his grief aside. Just as quickly as they appeared, he swept his emotions away and repaired his broken mask. “All right, babe,” he said, “show ’em.”

How odd,
I silently mused. I could feel slivers of pain through the luminous threads connecting us. With every pulse, a tiny grain of light traveled along that link and reminded me he had not forgotten our earlier conversation or his pain. He had simply tucked them aside. Too many humans bottled their past up these days.

He braced his head with his hands when I la
id down my cards. “Ah! No way!”

“Pay up,
” I said, borrowing his phrase, and held out my hand. I smirked when he rolled his eyes and threw another bottle cap my way. He reached out to snatch all the cards and shuffle our deck again. Our fingers brushed as I gathered all my caps together and I fought the pleasant sensation traveling up my arm after.

Between glances
he no doubt thought were covert, he offered, “So what’s your story? You obviously didn’t grow up in the States.”

He spoke like one who knew. Again I wanted him to forget his curiosity and pry apart his layers, uncover
his
secrets. It helped me separate Cain from Seid. Their mannerisms, while eerily similar, had not convinced me yet this wasn’t some cruel joke. There were moments when I half expected Cain’s expression to twist into that passionate severity I recalled so vividly. Occasionally I thought I saw Seid there, hiding in the eyes of a man who had borrowed his face. And I prayed Cain would not strip off his human guise and turn cruel. I reminded myself how much I hated Seid in the first place, how I hated even more my punishment for my supposed wrongs.

I answered his question finally, bitterly, with the past on my mind.
“Everyone I knew has been dead an age gone by. But”—I paused to catch his reaction—“I too, grew up by the sea. My father owned many boats, but he was always hungry for more. He tried to sell me to a wealthier man. But the match was not…
desirable
… to me.” I shuddered to think of the way my husband’s fists pummelled my chest. “I was chosen from my sisters for my beauty, he told me.”

Seid did not appear as I half expected, tossing aside the human guise to reveal the thunder and lightning trapped inside his skin. Instead, this man named Cain nodded, and the shadows in his face deepened as he said,
“He beat you.”

My breath caught in my chest. My fingers reached up to clasp the skin covering my rapidly beating heart.

How can he know?

Yet before I could speak, or even think of something to say, he spoke for me.

“I’ve seen it too many times,” he said while bending the deck into unnatural positions. “That’s why you came here, isn’t it?” he added, drawing my gaze. “To get away from that creep?”

I kept silent, relieved to
let him fill in the blanks of my past with whatever was acceptable to his human mind. His eyes were too discerning for me to divulge more.

“I’m not turning you in,
if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said as his brows drew lower.

“I would
rather hear more of your story.” I interrupted his train of thought. There was no doubt in my mind, if he wanted to, Cain could discover all of my secrets. I was forbidden to lie. All he needed to do was ask me the right questions.

Abandoning the cards, he
leaned against the back of the magical couch and studied me with a wry grin. I froze beneath the weight of that searching gaze. I
knew
that look, for I had seen it countless times on Seid’s face. My first love had ever tried to pry apart my human secrets. He always got his way and I worked my face into a blank look of placid nothingness.

Abruptly the music ceased on the stereo and the man began his latest report. Cain dropped his
scrutiny to favor the cherrywood box with fresh concern.

“
Keep cool, ladies and gents. The big freeze may be on us but we’ve got more blues on the way. Temperatures continue to drop to record lows but the storm may not last more than another day...”

Cain’s eyes flickered to mine and I knew I was not imagining his
disappointment. Why he would want to prolong this torture, or face an endless array of questions, was beyond my understanding.

“So
,” he began and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I think we’ve had enough poker for one day. Want some dinner? It’s got to be pushing eight o’clock by now.”

“I do not eat,
” I deadpanned. Even if I was starting to regain my human senses, I had no desire to taste whatever impure concoction he had planned.

“Come on,
” he said and came to stand in front of me. “Not even models eat
that
little. I may be a terrible cook but at least I try.”

I stared at his extended palm doubtfully but
I did not hesitate to slip my hand in his grasp when he added, “You said you wanted to learn magic, right?”

After observing humans for two thousand years, I could tell when the joy had been drained from their lives. Cain’s source of joy, whatever that had been, was a secret locked away deeply inside of him. I only knew it had not come from his parents, the nameless faces I had shared the memory of through our connection. My first impression of him, even when I was constantly waiting for Seid to toss aside the human glamour, was how miserable Cain was.

Yet
for miraculous reasons I did not comprehend, I made him smile, a lot.

“
I haven’t cooked from scratch in forever,” he told me some time later. His lips turned up into another of his rare smiles. “You’re lucky I had the right ingredients.”

I kept my thoughts to myself
as I stirred the odd fluff and chicken together, just the way he had instructed.

He chopped fresh vegetables up and dropped them into the salad
bowl. Or at least
he
called them fresh. The only fresh I had known was off the vine. He paused in his work to lean over me with a faux-critical eye and tried to hold back his smile. “How you doing over there?”

I held up the f
ilm-covered spoon with distaste. “Is this good?”

“Of course it is!” he exclaimed. “But you
should probably give the dumplings a rest. Here…” He reached out and then hesitated to check my reaction before covering my fingers with his and setting the spoon down. “Let’s set the lid so just a little air can come out.”

I tensed when he
came to stand behind me. His chin brushed my shoulder as he leaned over and guided my hand in the proper movements. I wanted to shout at him, “Is that necessary?” but held my tongue. I could not help being unnerved by him. The metal lid rattled a bit because of my flustered and unsteady grip.

A glance over my
shoulder revealed his eyes fixed not on the lid, but my face. And most startling of all, the same draw I felt for him was reflected in his wonderment.

“Orona,” h
e whispered, swallowed and perked up as the songs switched on the stereo again. “Do you want me to show you how we dance?”

I
fought the urge to grip that metal handle even more tightly, to run and snatch my cloak and rush to Lissa’s aid as quickly as possible. I knew this was dangerous territory. But thus far I had been flying blindly and was still unconvinced this man was not Seid in human disguise. So I grinned as he pulled me away waiting for my reply. He knew I had already given it, just as I knew I could never say no to him.

We stood as we had before,
with his hand on my waist and our fingers clasped together, up and away from our bodies. I clutched the square muscle of his shoulder and followed as he stepped back, then led me side to side.

Something strange filled and broke through my defenses, unbidden. A flurry of sweet thrills laced up and down my spine as we danced. It was like floating on water once I caught the rhythm in the steps, as I learned to follow his silent cues.
The words were out of my mouth before I could rein them in. “How did you learn to dance like this?”

His
coppery skin flushed that unfortunately familiar shade of rust. I had only seen it once or twice, before Seid revealed his true nature to me.

He skipped a step and nearly stumbled as he formulated his answer.
“It’s really embarrassing actually. But I had a crush on this girl back in high school. She used to come to my uncle’s club with her folks on weekends and she knew how to dance. So…” He shrugged and looked over my shoulder, anywhere he did not have to see my reaction.

My skin boiled at the thought of another girl in his arms.
“You learned for her?”

Stop it! He does not belong to you!

“My aunt taught me,” he confessed. When he smiled I saw the almost perfect rows of white teeth. “When my cousin caught me practicing with a door and laughed, I punched him in the face. But in the end, I got the girl.”

Through our bond I saw flashes and images of a honey
-skinned, brown-eyed girl against the lights of the club, dancing in his arms. I could feel his pride in that moment and felt inexplicably sour because of it.

His smile died when he noticed the tension in my steps and chuckled
. “Guess you had to be there to laugh. Thanks for not calling me a dork and laughing in my face.”

I forced a smile but was unable to block the
memory of that girl, or of the way he felt about Lissa.

His blue eyes narrowed
intently on me. He bowed his head then and frowned at our feet.

I bit my lip, wondering how I was going to explain the
whole supernatural grace thing.

“You’re freakishly good at t
his, babe,” he said with raised eyebrows. “You pull my leg earlier or something? Here I was thinking you only knew that sexy ethnic dance.” He winked and then it was my turn to blush.

At the same moment, his hand shifted slightly higher against my waist and prickles of pleasure darted to my lower abdomen. Fresh air was suddenly in short supply and I had
the strangest feeling I was falling past the point of no return and powerless to stop it. Tripping over my feet on purpose, I feigned a fall in order to push him away.

“Gotcha
!” he gasped and then laughed as our foreheads knocked together.

Instead of escaping the human’s grasp, I found myself
in an even more compromising position, with our chests pressed together. Suddenly everything was entirely too much and too real: the way his lips parted to take in badly needed oxygen, how perfectly our hips fit into place, despite our different heights, and how the feel of another human’s skin made mine come thrillingly alive.

His pale blue eyes clouded just like Seid’s did when he was about to kiss me. What terrified me wasn’t his resemblance to my former love, however, but the fact I was going to let him. T
wo thousand years spent hating the one who had cursed me and I was about to give in, just like he had wanted all along.

My mind was pulled under by the unwelcome memory.