The Mark of Cain

by A D Seeley

  Hara didn’t know what horrified her more. The letter in blood, or that Inac thought Olivia was right about him.

  “And how was she right?” she demanded.

  “It was my fault Lilah died. That’s how. She was only three, but God took her to send me a message.”

  “And what message is that?”

  His jaw clenched so tight that he looked even more masculine than usual as the already hard lines of his face became cement. “I’ve hated Him almost my entire life. He was just telling me that the feeling is mutual. You see, Lilah pulled at my heartstrings. I loved her in a way I had never loved before. Because of that, my love for her, God took her away. He doesn’t want me to be happy.”

  Inac’s eyes seemed on the verge of watering, which would be bawling for him. But, as soon as she was ready for the tears to spill, the moisture was gone. In fact, all his emotions were.

  Suddenly he smiled and handed back her paper.

  “I’m done now,” he said as though the conversation about Lilah had never happened. “You did well. There are a couple of changes I’d make, but not many.”

  “Thanks,” she said, taking it from him though she was in shock. She was still trying to catch up on his mood change. He must have had it tough when he was younger to be able to forget his pain so easily. But, no matter how he acted, it was obvious that he still harbored everything. He hadn’t ever dealt with his pain. Someday, she was sure it was all going to blow up at once, and that scared her. She didn’t know what would happen when it did.

  Just then, the phone rang, interrupting the somber mood that she could almost taste. With it, Inac stood, kissing her quickly.

  “I’ll get the dishes,” he said. “You get the phone.”

  She was still gathering her bearings but did as he said.

  “Hara? It’s Father Carroll,” the voice on the other end said. Just hearing it put her in a good mood, not to mention made her grateful that nothing had happened last night to make her feel the need to confess.

  “Father! How are you? Did you get the package I sent?” She always sent packages full of toys and things for each child’s birthday. Nothing made an orphan feel more loved than being remembered.

  From the sink, Inac threw her a startled look. He probably hadn’t realized that she kept in touch with everyone back home.

  “I did, thank you,” Father Carroll’s kind voice said into her ear. “Jenny loved it. You really should have seen her face. You should be receiving a letter from her soon.”

  “I’m glad. I was hoping that she hadn’t grown out of coloring. I was just going off how many pictures she colored for me on my last birthday.”

  “She still loves it. You should have seen how wide her eyes got when she saw that shiny new box of crayons just for her. I don’t think she’s seen that many colors before.”

  “It was a special edition. A lot of those colors aren’t usually in production.”

  “Mm-hmm,” he replied, sounding distracted. “So the reason I’m calling is to invite you out for Thanksgiving. I know it’s short notice, but we missed you and your special pumpkin pie last year.”

  “I would love to come! I’m pretty sure I can get the time off, too.” Last year, Vinnie had made her work. But, now that she was engaged to the owner—something Crystal had made sure to tell all of their co-workers so they could all tease her about it—she knew she could get it off.

  “Excellent.”

  “Can I bring a friend?”

  Inac looked up from the dishes he was washing, shaking his head. He was doing everything he could to tell her that he didn’t want to go. He was even whispering no and making movements with his soapy hands. But she didn’t care. She would be able to talk him into it.

  “Oh,” Father Carroll said. “I suppose that would be fine. A friend of yours is a friend of ours.”

  “Thanks. Have you invited Tracker yet?”

  “Yes. I talked to him last night. He said that he was pretty sure he’d be able to get off work as well.”

  They only talked a few more minutes before hanging up. As soon as they did, Inac said, “I’m not going.”

  “Please?” she pouted.

  “No. No way in he…eck,” he said. She knew that he was about to say something else, but had changed it at her disapproving look. It was still a swear word, but at least one of the minor ones.

  “Why not?” she whined.

  “Me? In a Catholic-run orphanage? No thanks. I hate God and God hates me. What am I supposed to do in a place like that? The Vatican hates Mokolios,” he spat. Actually spat! “They curse us.”

  It took her a moment to get over her surprise. Once she did enough to speak, she chose a different approach. “So, if they’ve heard of you at my childhood home, then they can meet you and fall in love with you, too,” she finished in her best cutesy voice as she nuzzled up to him, her chin on his chest as she looked up into his eyes. “That was the plan if they’d heard of your family. I thought it would be good for them to meet you now so you can stop stressing about what they’ll think about you in time for our wedding. Besides, you’re going to have to go there eventually since we’re getting married in the chapel there.”

  “I know. I guess I’m just worried about them talking you out of being with me,” he said, his face stoic.

  She took both his hands in hers. “Inac, nobody could ever talk me out of being with you. I love you too much.”

  “But you love everyone too much,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “True. But I’m only in love with you.”

  “And what if you found out that I’ve done terrible things in my life? What if you found out that Olivia was right?”

  “Then I would look at the man you are now instead of the one you were.” Feeling like she needed to help him out of this self-loathing slump he was suddenly in, she said, “I was serious last night.”

  “About what?”

  “A part of me really wants to be with you, Inac. The part of me that loves you so fully wants to get to know every part of you. It wants to be intimate with you so that it can learn everything about you.”

  “And the other parts?” he asked with a grin that told her that he was turning back into his roguish self—her plan to cheer him up was working.

  “They want it too. They just listen to a different voice.”

  “Let me guess,” he said as he went back to the dishes. “Father Carroll’s?”

  She smiled. “How’d you guess?”

  “I just know guys like him,” he joked. Then, serious, he asked, “Did you feel guilty talking to him about what we have done?”

  She looked down at the ground. “I haven’t confessed about what we’ve done.” Then, with more surety, she looked into his eyes and said, “Surprisingly, though, I don’t feel guilty about it either. On the other hand, when I heard his voice, I was grateful that you stopped us last night.”

  “See? You aren’t ready for that yet.”

  “I know. I just need you. You were gone for so long. And, if you aren’t going to New Hampshire, then neither am I,” she added, hoping that would guilt him into going.

  He audibly sighed, rubbing the black stubble on the top of his head with a hand still dripping with soapy water. “Fine,” he finally said. “I’ll go. But with one condition.”

  “And what’s that?” she asked, getting excited. She knew that she’d be able to talk him into it, and it had been a lot easier than she’d thought it would be.

  “We share a room.”

  She bounced on her toes to kiss him from the happiness that surged through her at his surrender. “Okay. I’ll sneak into your room every night. But I have a condition myself regarding that.”

  “Oh you do, do you?” he asked, a large grin on his face. “And what, pray tell, is that?”

  “You sleep here with me for the next two weeks.”

  With a large smile, he bent down and kissed her. “Now that I’m more than willing to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nin
e

  ***

  Inac and Hara spent the next couple of weeks practically living together. A very chaste two weeks—Hara had become a gold medalist in stopping them before they could go too far. It made Inac wish that he’d taken advantage of the situation his first night back from his beloved Middle East.

  He kept telling himself that he hadn’t because, if he did so before she was ready, then she would confess before marrying herself to God and joining the nunnery. If that happened, then he would no longer be able to corrupt her. Somewhere deep down he knew there was more to it than that, but he squashed those feelings deep inside where they could hide along with all his other human emotions.

  Hara was just starting to wake up from her place in his arms. She still hadn’t opened her eyes, but she was gently playing with the raised flesh of his knife wound. It was healing fast. In a couple of years, he wouldn’t even have a scar.

  He’d known that stabbing himself in the heart to prove his immortality to the President of Iran would make the man too scared to not become an ally. That made all the pain worth it. The Iranian president had realized that he truly was Cain the Immortal because, even though it slowed almost to a stop to heal, his heart still beat after stabbing clean through it.

  When Inac had roused a few days later—he’d been unconscious for a couple of days while Santoni and the team watched after him, hooking him up to IVs and patching him up while he slept—the Middle Eastern man had been scared into agreeing with anything Inac said. Soon, as word of mouth made its rounds, other countries in the Middle East would join him, followed by North Korea; then he would truly own the important part of the world once again.

  Though he didn’t yet have Palestine, so much good had come from Aviv’s execution. Without Aviv’s death, and the ensuing battle lust of “Islam” wishing to show support for Palestine, Iran would not be his as it was now.

  As Hara kept playing with his scar and Inac’s mind thought about how he should be dead, his thoughts went on to some of the other mortal wounds he had collected over the years. It was funny how he would lose consciousness when his body had been through a major trauma—like losing most of his blood or some sort of weapon piercing his heart—and yet, he could go without air, drowning forever, and stay conscious.

  He had often wondered how that could be, and it wasn’t until a few decades ago that he had finally learned what he was sure was the answer. When he was injured beyond what a mortal could handle, he basically hibernated while his body repaired itself. However, when it came to his cells dying off from a lack of oxygen, as long as he had blood in his body, his cells would regenerate faster than they could suffocate. That made it so, although going without air hurt like hell, he wouldn’t lose consciousness without other factors contributing to his situation—like when he had jumped off a cliff into the ocean before he knew of his immortality to end his lonely life as Aemuth. He had spent what felt like years—and very likely could have been so—on the bottom of the ocean, constantly drowning as he broke and re-broke his shattered bones until they were healed correctly enough to pull the rocks that had been pinning him away from his battered body. This, of course, was what had driven him over the edge into insanity, his hatred for God pushing him until he was barbaric enough to do the things he had done as Vlad the Impaler.

  “What time do we have to go to the airport?” Hara whispered, bringing him from his musings.

  Masterfully pushing away the emotions his thoughts had brought upon him, he said, “We have a couple of hours.” Today they were flying to New Hampshire…which should be interesting. Neither the Vatican nor The Order knew where he was, but today he was walking right back into their sights. What he did for Hara….

  “Ugh…. I don’t want to get out of bed,” she complained.

  “We don’t have to,” he suggested, not even half-kidding. “We can cancel the trip.”

  She chuckled and looked up at him, finally opening those pretty eyes of hers. “I bet you’d like that.”

  “Like I said, I don’t want them talking you out of being with me.”

  She kissed his jaw. “And, like I said, nothing they could say would change my mind.”

  “I’m sure there are a couple of things…” he grumbled. There were three major things he could think of right off the bat….

  “Nope. Nothing.” He was guessing that her kissing his stab wound after saying this was her way of getting in the last word because soon their mouths were too busy enjoying a full-blown make-out session to speak anything but breathy moans.

  When Hara stopped them from going too far—he hadn’t been allowed under her shirt since Yellowstone—and they were once again only cuddling, he said, “Hara?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I was thinking that maybe…maybe when we get back…we could move in together. These last two weeks…let’s just say that I’ve really enjoyed them.”

  Because she was lying on top of him with her chin on his chest, he could feel it moving as she thought about his proposal.

  Finally, she said, “I don’t know. Where would we live? Your apartment’s so far from campus and my apartment’s such a dump….”

  “I’m sure we could find something nice near campus. We can even decorate it together since my place is too cold for your tastes and your room is too feminine for mine.”

  “What? You don’t like all the purple?” she teased as she lobbed a dark violet pillow at his face.

  “Not really,” he joked as he grabbed it and hit her back with it.

  Now serious, she said, “I’ll think about it. But have you ever heard of a couple living together who hadn’t even had sex yet?”

  He smiled. Every day she did something new that before she had thought to be completely wrong. Two weeks ago, she never would have even said the word “sex.” He so had her. Todd and Tracker were definitely going to lose….

  “Hello? Earth to Inac!” she said, sliding her body up his until their faces were level.

  “Huh?”

  She giggled. “I asked you if you’ve ever—”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, kissing her velvety lips. When she pulled away, he added, “And no, I haven’t. But we haven’t had sex and I’ve been here a ton.”

  “I know.”

  “See? I told you that you weren’t ready,” he said as though they’d been having a completely different conversation. “If you were, you wouldn’t have stopped us every time.”

  “It’s not that,” she said, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “I just want to be honest with Father Carroll. I don’t want him to have any reason to hate you.”

  Inac almost snorted. “Baby, I think you’ve stopped us in vain then.”

  “You don’t know that. He may not have heard of your family.”

  “Yeah. Maybe not,” he lied.

  ***

  “Isn’t it beautiful?!” Hara cried when they got out of the car.

  Inac looked up at the enormous, two-storied ancient reddish-brown brick building. Its west wing looked different than the east one. Different architects from different times, he supposed. Despite how much he didn’t want to be here, he had to admit that it was impressive, and it was friendlier-looking than the mental hospital look many orphanages held. This one was a Georgian Colonial style, with everything flat and lacking personality, but it wasn’t creepy or intimidating in the least.

  The large oak front door opened to a mass of giggling children spilling out of it like a flash flood coming to sweep them away to their deaths.

  “Hara! Hara!” they all called with their wide-eyed enthusiasm.

  Hara had a wide smile on her face as she hugged and kissed each child in turn. She was so happy she had tears in her eyes.

  In all her excitement, Hara left Inac forgotten behind her, letting the children herd her inside, asking her question after question. It was obvious that she loved them as much as they loved her.

  Tracker turned to him and said, “So, here we go.”

  “Yup,” Inac replied.
“You sound about as thrilled as I am.”

  “Well, I’ll probably get yelled at for not telling him about you.”

  “Yeah….” Inac was holding both his and Hara’s bags while remaining within the borders of his footprints in the fresh snow. He really didn’t want to do this. How Hara had talked him into it was beyond him….

  “What are you so worried about?” Tracker asked.

  “Losing Hara. I don’t want her to know the truth. She’ll hate me….”

  “They won’t tell her,” Tracker said quietly. When Inac looked at him in question, he added, “They think that she won’t fulfill the prophecy if she knows about it. If she knows that you plan to kill her, she’d ask why….”

  Inac let out a deep breath that he watched escape him as it fogged up the immediate vicinity around him. With its escape, he felt better. Why he was so worried in the first place…. He didn’t want to think about how Hara was getting under his skin. He just wasn’t ready to kill her yet. He was still enjoying her.

  “Come on. Let’s go make our grand entrance,” he said to Tracker as he lightly nudged the kid with Hara’s brand new dark violet polyester suitcase. If nothing else, this was certainly bound to be interesting.

  ***

  Hara stood in the vast tiled entryway, bundled up in a thick cream button-up knitted sweater that Inac had bought her with its oversized wooden buttons and large lapels she could pull up to hinder the cold. She wore it over a black knee-length dress with transparent tiers saturated with small flowers in oranges and reds. However, because Inac had bought her brown leather equestrian boots so she could wear her usual skirts and dresses in the New Hampshire snow, only a few inches of skin were visible. She’d already hugged all of the children, and now was doing so to the priests and nuns who had raised her.