Stained

by Ella James

  “There’s more than that. When I wasn’t a kid.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “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 cliché? 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 gone with her 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 mangled his memory.

  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.

  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. So many things were the same as they had been before… But there were so many new things.

  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 Thirty-Four

  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 find himself in an inescapable personal conundrum that 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.”
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  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. Of course.”), 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 disliked it, the twins 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 coming 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.

  *

  They switched trains in Chicago. It was sunset, and the station was chilly and airy, and Julia was snuggled in a beige coat, and Cayne looked hot in a gray Ralph Lauren sweater. (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 seemed 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 together. 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 still jump.”

  “You don’t have to. All you have to do is kiss me.”

  Julia gladly obliged.

  A few hours later, it was dark, and Cayne was in the leather chair and she was on the floor between his legs, getting a back rub. New couple talk was going swimmingly. Julia had told him all about the modern-day terminology of love. First there was a thing (“Annabelle and Joe Guy are having a thing. Wonder if it’ll go anywhere.”). Next came talking, a semi-formal testing of the waters. Then seeing each other, kind of dating. And after that, true coupledom. Facebook official. For when things were serious and people were committed.

  After he melted her by saying that they were probably not even in the league of high school relationships—“I guess all the stuff we’ve been through gets us some points,” she agreed—Julia turned the spotlight back on him.

  “I want to know more about when you were by yourself.”

  “Before I met you?”

  “Right. Like, did you ever travel with anyone else? Or fly by them for a little while?”

  “Sometimes I stopped to see André.”

  “No one else?”

  “Rosa, a few times.”

  “That must’ve gotten lonely.”

  “I was too busy for that.”

  “Driven...”

  She focused on the feel of his fingers in her hair until he spoke again.

  “I knew I was going to kill him. The fall-out made me forget why, but still, I knew.”

  Julia wound her arm around his ankle, stroking the top of his foot. He didn’t say anything, but brought his head to rest on hers.

  “I hate Samyaza,” Julia said. “I wish I could kill him.”

  “You won’t. I’ll be me. He never gets near you. I can’t believe I let him near you when I have.” He squeezed her lightly with his knees. “He had his hands on you. That makes me want to kill him even more.”

  “Yeah. That pretty much sucked.”

  “You were brave.”

  “I trusted you,” she said, remembering the ease with which he caught her.

  “Best not do that.”

  A few minutes went by with him just kneading her back. “Well I do.”

  She turned and found Cayne’s face studiously blank, and for a second she thought he might pull away. Instead put his face in her hair. “You smell good,” he said.

  “You are good,” she said, turning to face him.

  He stroked her mouth with his. “You taste good.” His hands trailed down her arms, and Julia whispered, “No.”

  Making out was only fun if it wasn’t a distraction from something weightier.

  So Cayne continued messing with her hair, and Julia made him tell her about history. She was stunned at how much the English and the Scots hated each other, at least back in the day, and also by how much things had changed since then
. (Cayne spent his childhood fishing. She’d spent hers on Xbox).

  The really weird thing was, for an ancient, Cayne didn’t seem to know all that much. He didn’t remember why women started wearing bras, seemed clueless about the Titanic, had never hit up a Beatles concert, thought prohibition was merely “prohibiting something,” and didn’t seem to know that Pearl Harbor was significant.

  “Do you know about World War II?” she asked, incredulous.

  “America and Europe? The axis and the allies?”

  “Yeah. So what’s the inside story?”

  He looked miffed. “I don’t know.”

  Julia’s mouth hung open.

  “Come here.” He lifted her up and led her to the mirror. Julia was still gaping when she saw her hair, done kind of like pigtails, twisted up on top of her head.

  Cayne’s hand hovered over it. “This is how ladies’ hair looked where I was from.”

  “Pigtails?”

  He laughed. “Platelets. Your hair looks nice this way.”

  “Well thanks.” Julia grinned, feeling a little like someone’s Bratz doll. “Nineteenth Century Scotland Julia. Now,” she pulled him back away from the mirror, “back to World War II. Do you really not remember anything?”

  Cayne shook his head.

  “Did you have amnesia more than once?”

  “No.”

  “What about Vietnam?”

  “I’ve been there.” As an afterthought: “That was also a war.”

  “Cayne, why did the American Civil War start?”

  “Freedom for African slaves.”

  “You’re getting this from history books! You’re not that old. Why did you say you were?”

  “I was born in 1812.”

  “You were not.”

  He tilted his head.

  “Why don’t you know some this stuff if you were alive for it? I mean, I know you weren’t in every country at once, but you didn’t even know about D-Day. What did you spend your time doing?”

  He turned to the window. “My memories still haven’t settled.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I guess not.”

  “Even if when they do, I might not be able to tell you much. We were fighting our own battles then.” He winked at her over his shoulder. “They probably weren’t as interesting.”

  “Will you tell me about them?”

  He looked back at the window and mumbled something.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’m tired.”

  Julia let her curiosity fade away. “I’ll sleep near you every night, and maybe your nightmares will go away.”

  “If anyone could make that happen, it’s you.”

  He sat beside her on the cot. She traced a circle under his eye, and he caught her wrist. He placed her palm on his face.