“I do not have a watch. It is dawn. We must leave.” He stood, and she grumbled something in a language he didn’t understand. Cain stood and went outside to retrieve her clothing he had left out to dry.
The soot from the ashes made a circle where the fire had been. He quickly sent a light, sweeping wind in that direction to scatter the evidence of their stay in case the owner of the tiny cabin in the woods or anyone else came after them. Who knew what kind of trail the female had left?
When he returned to the cabin, he let the door slam noisily behind him. She was still abed. “I will give you another minute to rise or I will rip the quilt off the bed.”
“I’m up! I’m up. I’m up. I’m up.”
That seemed to have garnered her attention. She attempted to quickly sit up, but her movements were still sluggish from sleep. She wrapped her curvy little naked body in the quilt. Cain pressed his lips together.
“I am afraid I couldn’t salvage your blouse. You will have to wear one of my shirts. It shouldn’t be a problem since you like running around in men’s clothing.”
She tensed and flipped a messy curtain of hair back from her face. Squinting her big brown eyes evilly in his direction she said, “I
do not
dress in men’s clothing.”
“Are these not your pants?” He said, holding the denim pants up for her to see. She snatched them out of his hands as if they were some sort of a secret he wasn’t allowed to see. This female was a puzzle.
“These are women’s designer jeans.”
“Women wear dresses.”
She scoffed. Cain went to his sack and removed a pair of black slacks, suspenders, and two dress shirts. He tossed her one of the shirts, and she turned toward the wall. The quilt slipped off her creamy shoulder and bared the curve of her breast as she lifted her arm. She worked the shirt over her limbs, clearly not wanting him to see her secret parts.
“What’s up with these buttons?”
He quickly swapped out his canvas pants for his black trousers. “What do you mean? Do you not know how to manage such intricate things?”
She glared at him from over her shoulder, those dark chocolate eyes peeking through a hank of ebony hair then turning back to her task. “They’re covered with fabric.”
“They are not meant to be showy. They’re meant to serve a purpose.”
She turned just as he was doing up his own shirt. Looking to the ground she mumbled, “Could you turn around so I can put on my pants?”
He looked at her for a moment, slowly fastening each button and obviously unnerving her. She fidgeted nervously. It was odd seeing this timid side of such an apparently independent female.
“You are aware it was I that relieved you of your clothing?” He noticed the slight tightening of her jaw. “I do not understand how you English choose to be modest in one aspect and blatant in the next.” Sighing, he turned his back to her.
The mattress creaked, then she huffed. “Where is my underwear?”
Grateful he was facing the far wall of the cabin so his expression was hidden, he disguised his amusement. “You weren’t wearing any.”
“Yes, I was!”
He didn’t know much about Destiny Santos, but judging by what he did know, he assumed she was a prideful creature.
Her condition, by the time they had arrived at the cabin, left much to be desired. Knowing she would be embarrassed at her disheveled and dirtied appearance, he had taken pity on her and stripped and cleaned her. He had done his best not to violate her privacy while she slept, but had no intention of enlightening her of his kindness.
“Surely you do not consider the thread of an undergarment I pulled from your thighs underwear.”
She didn’t answer. The rustling of clothing was the prelude to the soft patter of her feet stepping onto the floor. When he sensed she was dressed, he turned. Her caramel cheeks were now streaked with two dark crests of crimson. She hastily shoved her little feet into those ugly boots of hers without asking where her socks had disappeared to. With a huff, she stood and crossed her arms over her full breasts that hung unbound just beneath his shirt.
“The next time you want me to remove my clothes,
ask!
And if I’m asleep, you can either wake me up or leave me the way I am!” she snapped and stomped out of the cabin, letting the door slam behind her.
Cain gathered the rest of his belongings and closed up the shelter, certain to leave everything the way he had found it. Destiny was sulking and shivering just near the perimeter of pine trees surrounding the cleared dirt lot.
Guilt for having teased her moved him to press his mind into the clouds and sent a bit of morning sunshine onto her trembling shoulders to take away her chill. He approached and she turned, glaring at him. Prickly little strumpet.
“Shall we?” he asked.
“Where are we going? I don’t even know where we are,” she snapped in a waspish tone.
“We are going to my home. I need to check on some things.”
“Where’s that?”
“About thirty miles south—”
“
Thirty miles!
”
Her pretty eyes went wide, and then her scowl quickly returned. “Tell me you have a car nearby.”
“I do not own an automobile.”
“Cain, I’m not walking thirty miles.” The stubborn set of her arms told him this was going to be a battle. Although his worry for Anna was this woman’s fault, Cain was grateful for the distraction she brought. Until he returned to the farm and saw for himself that Annalise and the babe were alive and well, there was no sense in worrying.
“Perhaps you would rather wait here for your friend from the woods to return.”
The fleeting expression of panic that skipped across her face didn’t escape his notice. However, she quickly disguised her fear with hostility. “This is all your fault for throwing my phone! I could have called for help, and we could have been out of these woods by now.”
“Be that as it may, we are walking. Shall we?”
She gave a furious huff and turned. He allowed her to stomp off about thirty feet before he called to her. “Destiny?” She didn’t turn. She merely cocked her right arm out at a ninety-degree angle and showed him her longest finger as she tromped on. His lips twitched. That finger gesture was not an endearment. “You are heading east.” He silently laughed when she turned and swiftly marched back in his direction, chin held high, her unwavering pride still intact.
They walked for over an hour in silence. The crunching and sometimes sloshing sound of their feet over the rough terrain the only sound passing between the two of them. Her hunger and thirst beat at him, yet he had nothing to offer her aside from the water in his nearly empty canteen. When they last stopped and he handed her a drink, he noticed her hands trembling terribly. She also kept rubbing her temples as if her head was paining her.
Cain pressed into her mind to compel her to sleep so that he could carry her and make it home faster, but as always with Destiny, he couldn’t fully take hold of her mind. This troubled him. He gave up trying to force his way in when he worried he was making her head ache more with each attempt. He had taken much of her blood and given her a mild sip of his to assist with the healing, but he still needed to watch for signs of dehydration.
As they traveled his mind returned to Anna and the baby. His brother, Adam, was likely furious with him and rightly so. Cain would never forgive himself if he harmed Anna in a way that couldn’t be repaired. And why had he not dreamt of her last night?
Their kind didn’t dream unless they were being called to their mate. However, Cain seemed to be the one exception to that universal rule. Perhaps because of his and Adam’s genetic bond fused from the day they had shared their mother’s womb, they had each dreamt of Anna when she was called to them.
Twins were practically unheard of among their kind so Cain had no one to ask if this was something that could occur in others. There was no immortal among the elders who could offer answers. Called mates were such a rare gift, each case was different, but never had there been another case of two males being called to one female.
When Annalise was called to The Order, it was Adam who found her first, but Cain who had been given the last choice. Adam would have never been able to bond with Anna had Cain not permitted it. It was perhaps his life’s greatest sacrifice.
Although Annalise was as much his true called mate as she was his brother’s, Cain couldn’t claim a woman who didn’t love him.
He wanted no woman who loved another man. The fact that he loved his twin as well only complicated matters more. Anna belonged to Adam, heart and soul. Where that left Cain was anybody’s guess. He believed himself marked to be a lost soul for all eternity. Another absolute passed down to them from their elders, each soul only had one true mate. Once that mate was forsaken, there would never be another. A mate was one’s destiny and ignoring God’s plan removed all likelihood of a fulfilling eternity.
The loss of his life mate was still something that took great effort to accept. There were other peculiarities he was still struggling to understand. For instance, why had he not lost his mind when he didn’t bond with Anna?
They had always been taught that without completing the bonding with a mate, the mind gives way to madness. Anna had needed his blood in order to transition. He had made the exchange, but the bonding was far more than a simple blood exchange. Their kind referred to this as turning
feeish,
more beast than man, incapable of rational thought and driven by the bloodlust and the need for one’s mate. It was widely accepted among The Order that once a vampyre turned
feeish
there was no saving the mind or soul. All that remained was a rabid beast needing to be put down. His Uncle Isaiah was a perfect example of this.
Isaiah had been called some forty years before Cain was born. When he didn’t return with his mate, the elders formed a party to search for him. They found him in the woods surrounded by such carnage it was clear they waited too long. Isaiah was far past mad. It was Cain’s grandfather Ezekiel, Isaiah’s brother, who had taken the responsibility of putting him down. But Isaiah was so strong from the consumption of human blood that he practically killed Ezekiel and managed to escape the other elders who had hunted him. It was a story widely known by the members of The Order, but something that still pained Cain’s grandfather to speak of, a memory he tended not to elaborate on.
When Cain had been called to Anna, he had suffered the pull of madness, yet that all faded once she bonded with his brother. Or perhaps it was the blood they had exchanged. He had become incensed when he realized he was not the only male dreaming of her.
Although dreams were sometimes insightful clues that helped an immortal track his mate, they were also sometimes shared between mates. He and Anna continued to share dreams even after her transition. Adam, on the other hand, hadn’t continued to share this gift with his wife. A selfish part of Cain liked that that part of Annalise was his and his alone.
Adam had come to accept this bond Cain and Anna shared even after his own dreams with Anna began to fade. He tolerated what he had no control over, and Anna, that sassy little piece of fluff, held no guilt about what she, too, considered a gift.
Their dreams were indeed an asset in many ways. After Cain accepted that he would live his life without a true mate, he was drawn to leave the farm for a time. The dreams allowed him to stay abreast of family business through Anna. They often joked and laughed as she updated him on the health of his parents and sisters while he teased her about getting fat with his nephew in her belly. It troubled him greatly that he had not dreamt of her last night. He prayed something terrible hadn’t happened.
His thoughts were interrupted as Destiny stumbled beside him. He quickly caught her by the arm to steady her, but her legs gave out beneath her. Her body twisted, and he carefully lowered her to the ground. She didn’t look well.
Her face was flushed, and her heart rate accelerated. She was shaking, and her eyes were unfocused. Cain knelt down in front of her on the soggy ground, tipped up her face, and looked into her eyes. She listlessly tugged her chin out of his hands and looked away muttering something in a language he didn’t know.
“Look at me, Destiny.”
Was she choosing to stubbornly ignore his command or did she not hear him? He tilted her jaw toward him again. Her eyelids were closing over her tired eyes and her head seemed too heavy to hold up. They had only traveled about four miles. He took her cold hands into his and tried to warm them.
Cain sighed. “Destiny, do you think if we rested a bit you would be ready to continue farther in a bit?” He had no idea how to gauge the tolerance of a mortal.
She moaned and whispered, “
Cansado
.”
Cain didn’t know what
cansado
meant. Destiny spoke a different language, but he wasn’t sure which. “I do not know what you speak, Destiny.”
“
Eu tenho fome.
I need to eat.”
He pressed his lips together. Her body slumped in his arms, but she was still awake. Carefully, he pulled her to his chest and onto his lap. Cain cupped her cheek, and she sighed. Her hair smelled sweet and reminded him of jasmine. “Relax, Destiny. I will carry you.”