Dance in Shadow and Whisper (Marionettes of Myth #1)

Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Of all the things I could have said, my putty brain decided on, "You changed your mind, didn't you?"

A chuckle shook his shoulders as the rain crashed against his umbrella. "I'm deeply sorry, Kali, and I know this lets you down, but I haven't. I only change those who want it, and not those who are compelled to want it by their sister."

"What if I said I wanted it now?"

"I'd have to call you out on your lie."

My head dropped. There was no more fight in me, and I knew I had no reason to be afraid of him. He had already proved there was no need. "Good call," I said. I checked the house again. A single light had switched on-the light that was normally on, illuminating a pair of windows from the north face of the house.

I had an inextinguishable flame, burning me with a need to make sure he was okay. I wanted to make sure she didn't take out any more of her anger on him.

I wanted to make sure he didn't accept her anger like he had.

Cain's free hand rested on my shoulder, a gentle force that coaxed me away from my thoughts. He didn't care that I was a beached fish when he touched me, that my drenched clothes left his fingers dripping, and he didn't care that sharing the umbrella spilled water onto him as well. "Nothing that can be done about it now."

I didn't budge, not quite yet. I was too afraid to put that house out of my sight. "Can Solara compel him to leave the house like she did to me?"

"No. His mind is an organic wall of steel, I assure you. Were you to ask Yuuhi of the things he might have overheard from Jason's brain, he'd most likely respond with a frown, a glare at nothing in particular, and a grumble of some sort."

My mouth lifted into a small smile. I hadn't known Yuuhi long enough to know him, but that sounded like him. I could see it, the deep, frustrated pout and the furrowed brow. He wasn't accustomed to being blocked from a regular human mind.

I caved and began the trek home with Cain at my side. We walked to the pounding drums of the rain. The trees murmured with the music and the asphalt whispered the chorus.

"I could take us by shadow," he said, "if you'd prefer."

"No. I don't want to do that ever again. I'm like most demons and I'd much rather be grounded on my own two feet."

A half smirk toyed with his lips, his eyes attentive to the near perfect darkness that swallowed us up. He might have held himself at cordial ease, and he was always dressed nicely in slacks and a loose button-down shirt, but like any vampire of power, he had enemies. His dark eyes penetrated the shadows and the obscuring wall of rain, a man on permanent high alert. "Vampire demons do typically share that resistance to shadow travel in the beginning."

"Except for Solara."

The smirk faded. "Yes. Except for Solara. I can't explain her exceptional fledgling skills, but when she initially came to me and requested the change, I sensed it then. Something dark stirred in her, and something else had set her off."

Something had set her off.

I scrubbed rainwater from my face. "Do you know what that 'something else' is?"

"It isn't my place to say."

It was my dads'.

I thought back to that night a decade ago. Toivo had been at his night job, hefting crates from planes to trucks and trucks to planes. Carmi had been next door with a friend who had since moved away. Lio and I sat at the dining table, shucking a mountain of peas, with Rajy at the opposite end of the table sweating over paperwork, per usual.