Chosen

by Ella James

  Julia glowered. “Where’s Drew?”

  “He went with them. Edan promised Shirley Temples.”

  “Isn’t that a non-alcoholic beverage?”

  Cayne took a few lazy steps in her direction, and Julia couldn’t help but stare at his chest, ripped and totally on display now that his thrift-store military jacket was hanging on the hall tree of the president’s suite in their swanky hotel—one of the only ones on the north side of St. Moritz whose helicopter landing pad was visible from the ground.

  “I don’t think Drew knows that. Edan made reference to the bar…” Julia frowned as she lost her train of thought, her eyes distracted by Cayne’s amazing lips.

  He reached her side and laced his fingers through hers, his sharp eyes never leaving her brown ones. He squeezed lightly, sending butterflies through Julia’s belly, and tipped his forehead down to hers.

  She allowed herself to close her eyes—just for a second. To inhale him. To pretend they were on an Amtrak, headed somewhere else.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  She opened her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said, too fast.

  “Is this the fine that means ‘not fine’?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Cayne pursed his lips. “Are you speaking Venetian?”

  Only that cute little quizzical expression could lighten her mood. Julia laughed. “How do you know about that book?” Julia had seen the relationship guide on Suzanne’s bookshelf years ago.

  “Saw it in the airport bookstore,” he said, a shade proudly. “I miss Mars.”

  Julia shoved him gently and let go of one of his hands, leading him by the other to the bed.

  “I’m allowed on it, eh?” He sounded so…Scottish…she grinned a big, smitten, if-a-tad-reluctant grin.

  “Aye, you are.” She hopped up and pulled him behind her.

  “Aye, meh lass.” Cayne wrapped his arms around her and eased her back onto the pillows, feathering kisses over her nose and cheeks. She shut her eyes, wanting more…but when she opened them, she found him balancing his weight on outstretched arms, hanging there over her as if he was doing a push-up. Hanging there and looking very serious.

  “What?”

  He dropped down onto his elbows, his lower body easing gently onto hers. One of his hands drifted down to stroke her hair out of her face and Julia’s breaths started coming in pathetic little pants.

  “Cayne…” It was a high-pitched whine. A protest? The others…were coming back… Weren’t they?

  She reached out and grabbed a handful of his shirt collar, pulling his mouth toward hers, and the last thing she thought before his lips touched down was how had she become like this? Like one of the girls from group home who’d gladly do any menial punishment for the crime of sneaking a boy into their room…

  Julia’s eyes flipped open. Cayne’s mouth never had touched hers. Nope. And it wasn’t going to, either. His face was inches above hers, his eyes looking tortured, his lips pressed flat.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That’s what you were supposed to be telling me. Wench.” He rolled off her, lying on his side with his head propped on his hand, an expectant expression on his handsome face. His hair was still short from the cut she’d given him…back when they were in that random hotel room, trying to find Samyaza and figure out the Stained. That felt like a billion years ago.

  She sat up, crossed her legs, and placed her palms on her knees.

  “Cayne…I really am fine. Tired? Yes. Ready to find the tiger? Yes. Ready to get to a safe place? If it even exists? Yes. But there’s nothing wrong with me. My head feels normal. Physically, anyway.”

  She’d meant her update to be more lighthearted, less exasperated and tired; instead she’d made Cayne’s expression darken.

  “Please tell me the truth,” he said, and his body shifted, just a hair closer so his hand could reach out, the tip of his pointer finger brushing her knee. “You haven’t said anything about what Edan told you.” She looked at him blankly, and he arched his brow—the shrewd bastard. “About being the Chosen One.”

  “I know, I know.” She sighed and covered her face with her hands, like a pouty kindergartener. “I think it’s just The One, not the Chosen One. And I have no thoughts to share.”

  He shot her a chastising look.

  “What? I’m not thrilled about it, okay? And I’m ready for it to be over with. If it’s even true.”

  “Over with?” At first she wasn’t sure if he was protesting her syntax or the idea itself. “What do you mean ‘over’?”

  “Well, there’s got to be someone who can make sure I never get another bad headache. Someone who can not only make them go away at the moment but make sure they never happen again. I’m sure we’ll find out something when we find these other Chosen. In the meantime, let’s just focus on getting there.” She forced a smile. “You should consider yourself lucky. Some women talk for days on end.”

  In a second, he was sitting up, his lithe arm reaching out, his warm hand closing around hers. “I like to hear you talk.”

  Julia batted her lashes, covering the pleasant shock she truly felt at how…sweet Cayne was being.

  And it just popped out. “You’re pretty romantic for an über villain.”

  *

  It was a good thing the rest of their crew came back so quickly—no tiger had been found—because Julia could tell she’d hurt Cayne’s feelings, and no amount of kisses or hugs seemed to make him feel better. Finally the shocked flatness of the last few hours was gone, replaced by guilt. She felt guilty. He’d been kind and wonderful, and she’d called him an über villain.

  She went to sleep snuggled between Carlin and Meredith, feeling like a jerk because she clearly harbored feelings of…judgment. And judging Cayne was the last thing she wanted to do.

  *

  The next day was better. No one asked about her feelings, and Cayne managed to rearrange the seats so the rearmost two faced the back window and the other two faced the front, meaning the two of them could hold hands and play footsie without anybody noticing.

  Cayne seemed mostly over the über villain remark, but Julia figured it was still on his mind, because he seemed even more sweet and solicitous than he had the day before. As for her, she’d decided to split Cayne’s history off from him and consider it an entirely separate entity. There was Cayne, and there were the Things Cayne Had Done. Not the same. This made sense to her, because if he’d never grown overnight and been attacked by Killin’s villagers, then been adopted by the sociopathic Nephilim king, Cayne would have just been an ordinary dude. (One who would also be dead by now, she realized with a start).

  True, there hadn’t been a literal gun to his head, but what else would he have done?

  Their destination-of-the-moment came into view—a swanky, all-glass hotel framed by tree-covered mountains and nestled beside a little slip of water that probably fed into Lake St. Moritz.

  Meredith found a spot in the spacious, tree-dotted parking lot in front of the entrance to the aptly named Glass Tower Hotel, and Carlin and Edan hopped out to check the roof. Drew claimed the front seat to flip through radio stations in search of an English news radio program, and Julia looked over at Cayne, who was looking at her.

  “How ya doin’?” she smiled.

  “Well,” he said, smiling back.

  “Your greetings are much improved. Carlin is correct. ‘Well’ is the most polite response. But you can also say ‘not bad’ or ‘pretty good’ or anything in between. You don’t always have to be ‘well’.”

  Cayne’s smile got more lopsided. “Carlin said not to listen to you on the ‘good.’ She said it’s not proper grammar.”

  “What does Carlin know?” Julia snorted. “She’s from Spain.”

  “She says people from the Southern United States are known for incorrect syntax.” Cayne winked, reaching out and pressing her nose with his pointer finger.

  Julia batted him away. “What do you know, with yo
ur wees and your lasses and your ayes.”

  “Aye, not much meh wee lass.”

  She grinned, and he grinned, and he reached for her hand, and Julia gave it to him.

  She waited a few seconds, letting him stroke her knuckles with his thumb, before she said, “I have a question. One I’m embarrassed I didn’t ask already.”

  His brows lifted. “Shoot.”

  “Um…I was wondering what it was like for you at the compound. We haven’t really talked about it… Since I got the headache and then those few days I was kinda recovering… And then we came here…”

  She bit her lip, totally awkward, totally hating what had happened at the awful compound.

  But Cayne’s eyes were clear; they held hers, and he seemed comfortable enough saying, “Nothing stands out. It was just a prison. Not the cleanest or the prettiest, but not a place of torture. Except—” his voice deepened— “all the thinking about you.”

  “I missed you, too. It sucked.”

  His dark brows drew together; his mouth tightened, and, so quietly she could hardly hear him, he said, “I was worried that you wouldn’t. Miss me.”

  She brought his hand to her mouth, kissing each knuckle, and when a quick check over her shoulder revealed no one was looking and the middle seats were still empty, she leaned over and dropped a quick kiss on the scar at his throat.

  “I will always miss you. Promise.”

  *

  Despite the many reasons that she probably shouldn’t—mainly the ones named Dizzy, Adam, Thierry, and so on—Julia felt like a resident of Cloud Nine, giddy to be holding Cayne’s hand and resting her calf against the pleasant weight of his.

  The good day continued when, early that afternoon, Carlin came back from a pit stop with one of Julia’s favorite Euro foods—a mint chocolate Aero candy bar. And when they stopped for lunch at a little café at the base of the snow-capped Alps, Carlin and Meredith treated her like one of the girls—a good thing, because Julia had been worried her angst and quietness would chase everyone away.

  By the time night fell, they had sneaked into a total of eight St. Moritz resorts, checking the roofs for felines of any kind and finding nothing. They had high hopes for the next one on their list, some kind of spa whose name translated into ‘special people recharge’, nestled at the eastern edge of Lake St. Moritz, which sparkled magically under a hot pink sky and a blanket of silvery stars.

  It was Julia and Cayne’s turn to go inside, and Drew had come along to stretch his supposedly aching legs. As they followed the sidewalk from the parking lot to a side door where they hoped they wouldn’t be noticed, Cayne was lamenting his inability to simply fly over the buildings. Drew explained, a touch condescendingly, that even if Cayne wasn’t being or couldn’t be tracked, a flying man with giant wings was sure to attract attention from the regulars (‘regulars’ being the word they’d started using for everyone who wasn’t Chosen, Nephilim, or whatever Edan was.)

  Julia didn’t like being reminded that she was irregular, so she turned her attention to the lake, out to the left of the boardwalk area their sidewalk was merging with. Several hundred yards across the flat water, a boat slid past, its motor buzzing—some kind of racing boat, she guessed. Somewhere back and toward their right, where the van waited in the parking lot, a car’s breaks squealed. And all of a sudden there was this kid standing in front of them: a young boy, maybe four or five, with dark curls, a chocolate ice cream cone, and a yellow balloon tied around his wrist.

  The width of the boardwalk, which bridged the spa’s side door and the water, was probably less than fifteen feet. It was lined, on the water side, with big, metal binoculars, behind which only a flimsy wooden rail kept foot traffic from the ocean.

  The little boy was standing close to the edge, licking his cone and stepping backward toward the lake. At first Julia thought the boy’s butt would bump into the heavy, metal binoculars, but as he continued stepping backward, she realized he was headed for a rickety-looking spot in the little fence.

  She rushed over and scooped him up without a second thought. Toward the end of her time at group home, she’d been like an older sister to some of the kids, so grabbing him felt natural. As she hoisted him onto her hip, his brown eyes met hers, and he did the strangest thing. Staring way too intently for a kid, he dropped his ice cream cone and swung his little hand out to slap her face.

  As his pudgy fingers touched her cheek, Julia felt a jolt of pain—as intense as a needle prick. The child stared at her as Julia’s mouth dropped open and then, before she could stop him, he slapped her again. Another sting, this time like sticking her tongue onto a 9-volt battery.

  He stared again, then his mouth opened and he let out a piercing shriek. Cayne was by her side, his hand on her shoulder. He was glancing around, clearly on edge. “Put the boy down.”

  “But—”

  “Something’s not right.”

  Julia was going to chastise Cayne for being overly paranoid—and overly bossy—but the child wailed even louder and started fighting to get out of her arms, his yellow balloon bobbing in the frenzy. Instinctively, Julia clung to him. Where were his parents? What if he fell into the freezing lake?

  Suddenly he kicked her—hard—and in her shock she let him go. He hit the ground running, taking a few steps toward the water before swerving back toward the parking lot. Before she could chase after him, she heard the slamming of a door and jerked around to— holy macaroni! That was Thierry coming out of the hotel!

  Julia saw Cayne’s wings materialize with a mighty whoosh, but before he got his hands on her, Thierry had her by the arm.

  “You’re coming with me!” he growled as he dragged her to his thin chest.

  Cayne smacked Thierry across the face, sending him tumbling across the boardwalk, and his blood dagger appeared in his hand. He lunged for Thierry, but Julia grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “We gotta go!”

  Within a heartbeat, his arms were around her waist and he was lifting her off the ground. But Thierry lunged up, and to Julia’s shock, he grabbed her leg. It was horrible and freaky, pulling her off-balance, making her feel like she was being stretched in half… Making her feel like she would fall. His chilly fingers tightened their grip around her ankle and she gently kicked, wanting him off of her but frozen by the fact that dropping him would kill him. Right?

  The air was growing colder with the altitude as everything below them shrank, including the vast lake, and suddenly the mountain peaks were eye-level.

  “You…bitch!”

  Julia looked down in horror as he shut his eyes; surely he would fall and die, and it would be her fault. Fall and die? She should be kicking him! Better that than be spirited away!

  She kicked once, twice, and the awful deed was done: Thierry was falling. She hadn’t fully realized their height until she watched him fall for nearly two seconds. She waited for him to hit the water’s surface—surely a killing blow.

  She was watching the moment that it happened: The French Chosen boy simply disappeared into thin air.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As Cayne flapped his charcoal wings and headed for the waterfront park where their van sat, idling, Julia clung to his green military jacket, swamped by a strange blend of terror, remorse, and anger.

  Her mind spun, terrified by the thought of what would have happened if Thierry had managed to spirit her away, anxious over whether her friends were safe, desperately wishing this would all just go away.

  After Thierry’s disappearing act, Julia had begged Cayne to return to the spa. He hadn’t, but he had flown high, high enough so that none of the humans below them should have been able to see. He, however, had super Nephilim eyes and was able to track their van as it sped away. He swooped slightly lower to follow it through traffic, tailing it for a few minutes before it veered off toward the park where Julia now stood on the hard, damp sand.

  She thought about the compound Chosen chasing her friends. They were in danger because of her, and she was s
tarting to wonder if she should leave. Cayne could go with her—there was no way he would let her ditch him, and she didn’t want to. But she didn’t need to endanger anyone else.

  She swallowed back a sob. Glanced over the small, grassy hill and past the trees to where the van was parked. Then she turned and press her face to Cayne’s warm chest. He pulled her close and wrapped her in his arms. She could feel his kisses in her hair, his hands kneading her shoulders. “Shhhh.” He soothed. “You’re trembling.”

  “Well, duh,” she said thickly. “I’m the X on their bull’s eye.”

  “But they didn’t get you,” he murmured. “And they won’t. We need to be more careful. I’m sorry I wasn’t—”

  She snorted. “Don’t start with that mess.” She burrowed into his chest. “Thank you for saving me—again.”

  “I didn’t have anything else going on.”

  She punched him lightly in the arm. “So romantic.”

  “I’d give you a kiss, but I think you better turn around.”

  Julia did, and she found Meredith barreling across the frigid beach with tears streaming down her face. She hit Julia like a freight train and buried her face in Julia’s tangled hair.

  “I’m sorry,” she sobbed, “I wasn’t closer to…that door.”

  Julia patted her friend’s shaking back, then gave it up and pulled her into a real hug. “You didn’t know.” She smoothed Meredith’s glossy black hair. “You’ve done a great job serving as chauffeur.”

  “You have,” Cayne said. He squeezed Julia’s shoulder, nodding out ahead. “There comes the rest of Crew Chosen.”

  They’d fallen into a row higher on the beach, and Julia grinned because they looked like something out of the world’s cheesiest music video. Just when she thought it couldn’t get any funnier, Edan gave her a deadpan salute, and Drew followed with a curtsey. Carlin blew a kiss, which Meredith caught, and within the span of a minute, the group was trading hugs and Julia was oohing over Carlin’s bloody lip and the dried blood on Drew’s long, black coat.