“Julia!” Meredith clapped. “I’m planning festivities for Cayne’s birthday.”
“I ordered a cake for the rest of us to enjoy,” Drew said, and Julia relaxed a little. Maybe Drew’s implication
hadn’t
been that Cayne was a traitor. But wait, did that mean he thought something happened to Cayne? Captured or killed? With Edan…or by Edan?
Where the heck
was
Edan anyway? She needed to find out more about what had happened between him and Cayne.
“Julia?” Mer’s brows were wiggling, and under them, her eyes were wide and concerned. “Why don’t you come sit down and help us select our winter sports for the day?”
She gave Julia a pointed look, like
if you want to put off talking, you will have to cooperate.
Julia was willing. She hoisted herself into a bar stool beside Cayne, and it took everything to keep from moaning as his hand caressed her back, then moved up to her shoulder, squeezing gently.
“I vote for the horse-racing,” Carlin was saying.
“How is that a winter sport?” Drew asked.
“They race on ice.”
“Okay, wait a minute,” Julia said. “What are we talking about?”
A winter sports festival. Once a month between October and March, the House of the Gods transformed into an outdoor sports arena, and apparently today was the day for October.
Thirty minutes later Julia and her crew stood on the back deck, getting pummeled by thick snowflakes and looking out at the ski slopes. Which looked distinctly un-ski-slopey and more like an icy obstacle course.
Over to the right, close to the hostel where Julia should probably be camping outside Edan’s door, someone had carved slides into the snow. Drew pulled some binoculars out of his jacket and aimed them at the slides, which looked kind of like paths that worms had slithered down.
“House of Gods – Cresta Run,” he read, using his gloved hand to brush snowflakes off his lenses. “I think that’s the one where they lay face-down on sleds and go head-first.”
“I hope that’s a sport for Authorities,” Julia said, looking at the straight-down angle of the run.
“You better know what you’re doing,” Mer agreed—and Julia realized she hadn’t yet told her friends about encountering the angels.
“Ohhhh, I see that yummy blond bodyguard,” Carlin said—and there he was. Securing a small deck at the top of the slides, maybe 100 feet up.
Julia heard Cayne growl softly beside her. Not metaphorically, but an actual animal growl, and she put her hand on his arm, worried he would charge up the mountain. A few seconds later, a ski lift released a mob of people on the deck, and the Authority was lost in the crowd.
“Look at that. Cricket on Ice.” Drew was pointing to a cricket field—was that a field or a block of ice?
Beside the cricket pond was another frozen pond, and on this one, people were crouching down with iron bars and what looked like a red roll of cheese.
“That’s curling,” Carlin said. “And that looks like another delish bodyguard,” she said, pointing at the curling pond, where a ‘guard’ with strawberry-colored hair towered over every regular around him.
“Guys, what’s up?”
The group turned to find Monte striding across the wrap-around deck with what looked like a giant fish hook. He stopped and extended his other hand to Cayne. “You all right?”
Cayne, who had been extra quiet all morning, shook it, an impassive expression on his face; Julia thought Monte’s face looked apologetic—probably for what had happened with the Authorities.
“What sport to watch,” Carlin said, waving at the scene. “You have any ideas?”
Monte shrugged. “Ice skating, curling, cricket…they’re great. And Cresta Run is awesome. But—” he lowered his voice— “someone…er, they
saw
something…unsavory on the run, so we’re postponing that until the snow is lighter. We haven’t announced it yet,” he said, pointing to the crowd gathered around the run. “For right now, I say you take a lift up,” he said, pointing to the clouds, “and watch the paragliding and the ice climbing.” He shook the hook in his hand. “Later this afternoon, it’s all about the dog sledding.”
Carlin jabbed a finger at Monte’s chest. “The real question is can I ride one of the sleds.”
“Me too!” Meredith cried.
Monte laughed. “I’ll see what I can do. What about you, Julia? Want a sled ride?”
She shook her head. “Not on my bucket list.”
“Hmmm… Hey, are you feeling okay? You look a little under the weather.”
It took everything she had to laugh. To brush her fingers over the hood of her ski coat, pinching off some snow. “I think I am.”
“You guys need to take better care of this one,” Monte said as he headed off toward cricket and curling. “Stay dry.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The ski lifts reminded Julia of a row of tiny metal lunchboxes strung up on a black shoestring. Luckily, it wasn’t really shoestring, because the lift carried them high enough to make her stomach bottom out. So high she got nervous, even with Cayne’s arms around her, and her head started hurting badly again.
She and Cayne occupied one corner of their twelve-seater lift. He leaned close to her, and Julia burrowed into his warm neck. “I think Monte is onto me,” she said miserably. “Also, I feel…really bad,” she sniffed, and thought she really must be out of it if she was whining to Cayne.
His fingers started gently stroking her forehead. “Let’s go back down. We’ll find Edan. I have an idea of where he is.”
“But Ice Cricket.”
Cayne shook his head. “There will be other game of Ice Cricket.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. If I’d known it hurt this bad, I’d have never let you put it off.”
“I think it got worse again,” she mumbled.
“Let’s go find Edan now. This is the best time, if we’re interested in discretion.” He smiled a sweet, soft smile—so gentle and un-Cayne-like, it stole her breath. “It’s my birthday, right?”
“It is.” She returned the smile with effort.
“This is what I want. I know you wanted to celebrate, but I can see it isn’t working.” His eyes darkened. “We need to get this taken care of.”
Julia didn’t want to find Edan anymore, though. Not after what Drew had told her about his vision.
“Do you trust him? Like really?” she asked Cayne.
He put a finger under her chin, stroking lightly. “I trust him to help you.”
“Fine,” she sighed. “But if he can’t, when we tell Drew and Carlin…” She shook her head, feeling unable to express her thoughts.
“When we tell Drew and Carlin, what?”
“I don’t want to give up my autonomy for the group. Any choice we make—it should be mostly mine. Even if it does impact everyone.”
Cayne nodded. “I’m on your side. Always.”
Despite their plans to go back down, they filed off at the top of the mountain, because the others had filed off the lift before Julia got a chance to mention her plans to them. It was windy and thick with snowflakes. Julia saw the sharp cliff, below which ice climbers waited, as well as a ledge where people were jumping off with gliders that seemed equipped for the snow. There was a little hut where music played, and under its roof a bonfire burned.
Julia pushed through a group of men and grabbed Mer’s jacket, and her friend knew what was happening without needed to be told. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“That’s okay. Cayne will be with me.”
“What do you want me to tell the others?” Drew and Carlin had spotted Jacquie and were walking her way.
“Time alone,” Julia said with effort.
“Okay. Find Edan. If it doesn’t work, we’ll do something else. Anything you want, okay?”
Julia nodded, and Cayne helped her back into the lift. It was empty except for them, so Cayne took her hands gently and pulled her between his legs. “Closer,” he murmured, pulling her against his chest. “I want you close.”
She leaned against him, resting her palms on his thick shoulders. She had just closed her eyes when a gust of cold air flipped her hair back and she turned to see an Authority step in.
She hadn’t seen him before, but he was obviously one of them: beautiful and uncommonly tall and thick, with strong arms and chestnut brown hair that reminded her of Edan’s.
He slid onto the bench on the other side of the lift without a word. Julia saw Cayne’s face tighten, and then the lift was moving.
For at least a minute there was nothing but the soft thrum of the motor as it carried them down. The snow billowed in a fluffy cloud outside the glass, and as the lift propelled them through the air, their breaths began to fog the windows.
Despite her pain, despite her exhaustion, Julia found herself angling her body to stare at the Authority. She simply couldn’t help it. He was fiercely beautiful, awesome in the most literal sense of the word. With his show-stopping blue eyes, chiseled lips, stubble-rough jaw, and impossibly cut body, he looked like…a demigod. Which she guessed he kind of was.
She felt like a traitor to Cayne, whose arms were wrapped protectively around her. As Julia pried her eyes away from the Authority and prayed Cayne would be able to hold his temper, the angel turned and fixed her with a star hot as a torch, intense enough to burn.
“Julia, correct?” he asked, in a voice that was totally accentless.
She nodded, heart thumping. “Who are you?”
“You can call me…Michael.” Cayne tensed, and the authority smiled. “Not my real name. But easy for you to speak.”
His eyes, still on hers, seemed to be speaking in a word-less language; knowledge simmered in them—knowledge and a profound thoughtfulness. She had the sense that he was deliberately ignoring Cayne, focusing only on her.
“I am here to warn you.” While he stared through her and the words sank in like poison, Cayne tensed beside her, poised for trouble. But that was impossible to imagine. Everything about the Authority exuded calm control.
“Did you know that you are the subject of Methuselah’s designs?”
Cayne leaned forward, hands on his knees. “She doesn’t need to know anything from you.”
“I am here to tell her,” Michael said simply.
“Tell me what?” Julia said. It was all she could do not to walk across the moving floor and kneel at the Authority’s snow-caked leather boots.
“You are meant to be a human sacrifice.”
Julia shuddered, suddenly less enthralled with the Authority’s beauty. “I already picked up on that.”
“But do you know who will deliver the killing blow?”
Julia shook her head.
“He will,” the angel said, and he pointed at Cayne.
Cayne was up in an instant, moving toward the Authority. “I don’t know who you got your information from, but you’re wrong. I’d cut out my own heart before I’d harm a single hair on her head.”
“And yet…” The angel’s long, strong fingers met, forming a steeple.
“And yet, what?” Cayne demanded. Julia’s pulse was thundering because now he was standing over the angel, who was looking up at him with a certain…energy.
“And yet.” The angel’s mouth twisted in a smirk.
Neither he nor Cayne moved as the two waged some silent war. “Your presence wreaks havoc here. You will be its demise.”
“Have you told Jacquie any of this?” Cayne asked, quietly.
“It’s not her time,” the angel said. “But she will know. Soon.”
Julia was shaking when the doors opened and “Michael” sauntered out. Moving stiffly, Cayne grabbed her hand and pulled her to the crowd. “I know where Edan is. We need to go there now. Force him to heal you. Leave.”
Julia thought of Drew’s vision and felt her eyes sting with tears; she didn’t want to go see Edan.
“What’s going on?” she cried, lowering her voice when a woman in a blue snow suit stared. “Why does the Authority think that? Have you been hiding something from me?”
“I’m not hiding anything. I don’t know what he was talking about.” Cayne sounded as angry as she felt, and his hand around hers was heavy as an iron band as they pushed through a crowd of children sheltering under a snow awning.
He pulled her into the main building and led her down one of the rounded, red-carpeted hallways, which grew less crowded with each step away from the madness on the porch. When the hall cleared completely and Cayne pushed through the door into a stairwell, Julia jerked her hand from his.
“So The One has to sacrifice themself, and you’re supposedly involved, and you’ve never heard anything about it ever? I want to believe you, but…”
“I don’t know anything, and I don’t care what some angel says about anything. I would never, ever, ever hurt you, and I won’t let you be some sacrifice! I’ll die first!”
“It sounds like maybe you can’t help it!”
“I can and I will, once we get to Edan. I’ll get this figured out.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s downstairs, not too far,” Cayne growled. “Come on.”
Once again, Cayne was pulling her, but this time he was gentler. She could see his aura burning with emotion: anger, fear, and love were bold flames; her mind’s eye found his love and focused on it.
“I’m scared,” she confessed. His strong fingers pressed against her smaller, thinner, colder ones, and for not the first time, Julia felt like she was fading away, disappearing, dying, while Cayne raged with life.
They had reached the bottom of the stairwell, and Cayne’s hand was on the heavy, metal door that led into the basement, when he turned around so quickly Julia gasped. His body was coiled, his face taut, so at first she expected something rough. His hands plunged into her hair, his head snapped down, his hot mouth covering her own—but what came after was a gentle rain: his mouth on hers, warm velvet, and his lips brushing, his tongue caressing, his fingers stroking gently through her hair.
“Julia….” And it shocked her, the bleeding wound of the word. The way he brought her tight against.
“Oh…” It felt amazing, leaning on him. Sagging against him, knowing that his hands would keep her on her feet. It felt so good, just letting go. She shut her eyes and exhaled slowly, and when she tried to hug him tight, at first she didn’t realize that she couldn’t feel her right hand. All she felt was Cayne, so warm and sturdy. Cayne, wrapped around her like a blanket.