Born of Shadows (28 page)

Desideria let out an elongated breath as he finished his diatribe. Not that she blamed him. He was right. Any human who would hurt another and try to ruin them over something so petty was sorry beyond belief and she hated that he’d been forced to go through that. It made her want to hurt the woman for him.

Like Caillen, she didn’t keep track of that sort of thing either.

But it left her with one question. “And you judge all women by her actions?”

He shook his head. “No. I judge
all
people by that. I’ve seen too many spaz out over absolutely nothing, not quite to her dangerous extent, but enough that it’s taught me to be wary of everyone, especially when they’re trying to play the victim role. And she’s an extreme reminder that no matter how well you think you know someone, they can turn on you for the dumbest reasons imaginable. Male, female, whatever. I mean, shit. Happy Birthday, bitch. Didn’t she have anyone else in her life that mattered? I mean really, my sisters and friends don’t call me on mine and I’m good with that. Never have I held it against them. I wish my life was so pathetically uneventful that all I had to get torn up over was the fact that some casual friend didn’t wish me a Happy Birthday. My own family forgets mine about half the time and none of my friends know when it is and never once have I doubted their loyalty to me. What’s the big deal?”

Desideria bit back a smile. Not because it was funny—it was actually very tragic—but because his over-the-top tirade was so out of character that it amused her to see this side of him.

He did indeed have a temper.

However, she didn’t want to offend him, especially over something that had left a lasting scar and changed the way he dealt with people. It angered her that anyone would be so needlessly vicious.

“Obviously to her, it was a big deal. But I agree with you. She had no right to do that to you.”

“No kidding and do you know to this day, and it’s been over four years now since it happened, she’s still taking swipes at me? Any chance she can get to try and damage my reputation or interfere with my business, she takes. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, and believe me, I’ve seen some shit.”

She was aghast. “Are you serious? Four years later?”

He held his hand up in indignation. “Right hand to the gods and I swear to you I did nothing to her at all. Nothing. I was never anything but nice to her no matter how weird she’d get around me and even while her supposed real friends criticized and mocked her behind her back. I guess I should have done what they did. Then she would have loved me forever.”

Desideria actually believed that. He’d been nice to her and that after her mother had tried to harm him and she’d gotten him shot. “I’m so sorry, Caillen.”

“Yeah, don’t be. It is what it is. I just don’t understand people who are cruel without justification. People who try to tear down someone over petty nothings.” He leaned his head back as he reached for a small bag of food. There was something boyish in his manner. Something that belied the ferocity and power. The more she was around him, the less threatening he appeared.

Weird. Very weird. She knew he could kill her and yet, she liked being with him.

She licked her suddenly dry lips as a wave of desire ripped through her. “I admire that about you though. I think it’s a great thing you can’t understand that kind of cruelty.”

Caillen paused as he realized what she was saying to him. The tender look she gave him made his heart speed up as a part of his anatomy jerked to life and wanted something a little more intimate than this chat. “You admire me?”

She raked a playful glance over his body that sent chills through him. “Don’t let that go to your head. If it grows any bigger, we’ll have to find a larger place to hide just to accommodate it.”

He laughed and that amazed him most of all. He’d never been able to laugh about Teratin’s PMS until now. Not even Shahara had ever been able to cheer him on the topic. Anytime her name came up, he went into a fume for days. Yet Desideria had done the impossible. “So are you another deranged woman out to ruin a man over forgetting your birthday?”

She picked at her food in a dainty way that was incongruous with her tough aura. He didn’t know why, but there was something about her right now that was almost vulnerable. Something that called out to him and made him want to brush his hand through her hair and taste those moist lips and sample other, more lush parts of her body.

But she wouldn’t welcome that and he would die before he ever pressed himself on any female. He only proceeded when they were jumping on him.

And yet it was hard to sit here and not do anything when she was so close to him that all he had to do was reach out and touer. Oh to have the ability and right to close the distance between them and kiss those gorgeous lips. Damn. The more he was around her, the more he wanted her. It was slowly driving him crazy.

She glanced at him again, then stared at a space by his side. “Birthdays are unimportant to my people.”

“Because you celebrate accomplishments?”

She nodded. “Being born is a state of the natural order. Why should you celebrate something that happens to everyone and everything?”

That was harsh and it made him glad he wasn’t a Qill. While he might not care about them as an adult, some of his best memories of childhood had been his sisters decorating their small house with signs they’d made for him. Of Shahara bringing him a small treat whenever she could. It was why he didn’t sweat when people ignored it.
Don’t stab me in the back and we’re all good
. “Your people are seriously screwed up.”

She arched a brow at him. “Like yours aren’t?”

“Oh, I never said they weren’t. We invent other ways to be total assholes to each other.”

She laughed, then sobered. “It wasn’t all bad though. Unlike my sisters, when I was little, my father would sneak gifts to me on my birthday and he always remembered the date.”

He caught the way her voice softened as she spoke about her dad. It was obvious she loved the man. “That was nice of him.”

“You have no idea.”

Desideria fell silent as a surreal out-of-body experience came over her. She was sharing stories of her past with Caillen like he was an old friend. More than that, she became aware of how much physical pain he had to be in from his injuries and yet he managed to tease and not snap at her. He never took his emotions out on her.

Poor baby. And she appreciated his control. It meant a lot to her that he was being pleasant when he had no reason to.

She leaned forward and wiped at the blood on his bruised forehead. “Do you ever have a fight where you don’t bleed?”

“All the time.”

She held her hand so that he could see how much damage he’d done to himself with his latest run-in with the mugger. “Not since I’ve met you.”

He gave her a napkin to wipe her hand on. “Yeah, you’re like an unlucky charm for me.”

Feigning indignation, she tossed the bloodied cloth at him. “You need to be nicer to me. Remember I’m the one who tends your wounds.”

“Uh-huh. And if you’re true to your gender, you’ll salt it anyway and kick me in the teeth on your way out the door.”

She scowled at him as her humor fled. He was serious with that comment. “Why would you say that?”

He cleaned away the remnants of his food. “Simple. Women only want to jump my bones or take my money. Outside of the bedroom, they don’t really think that much of me and most of them are only after a quick take.”

“Your sisters aren’t like that. They love you.”

“Yeah, but they think I’m mentally challenged. They still try to cut my meat for me most days.”

That surprised her. He was without a doubt the most capable man she’d ever met. Why would they treat him like a child? “Really?”

“Yeah, it’s the most screwed-up thing you’ve ever seen. They really think I’m a kid until one of them gets into trouble, then I’m the first one they call to bail them out. Insanity, right?”

She didn’t want to agree, yet he was correct. It would be weird to be treated like a child and then be relied on so heavily by the very people who refused to see her as an adult. “So what do your sisters do for a living?”

He rose to his feet before he stretched. The tightness of his shirt over his chest distracted her from the question as she became fascinated with the way his muscles played.

“Shahara’s the oldest. She was a tracer until she married a couple of years ago. Now she runs a charitable organization for her husband. Kasen’s my business partner and I use that term with all due hostility and sarcasm. She mostly sucks off my share of our profits by making me feel guilty over her medical condition.”

“Which is?”

“Diabetes and a rare blood disorder. She’s spent most of her life in and out of hospitals and you have to be really careful with what she comes into contact with or you can kill her—which has occasionally crossed my mind. And lastly there’s Tessa.” He let out a long breath as if the mere thought of her gave him an ulcer.

“What about her?”

“I love her, don’t get me wrong, but she’s constantly in trouble with loaners. Not that I can say much. I have a nasty tendency to gamble too. But I stop before I go into debt doing it. She doesn’t. Since she was sixteen, we’ve all had to chip in to save her ass. Over and over again. But she married last year and seems to be doing better now. She works as an admin for the Ritadarion press corps.” He came back to help her clean up her food. “What about you? What do your sisters do?”

“I only have the two still living. They either train to fight or plot ways to embarrass me in front of my aunt and mother—usually during training.”

Caillen paused at the lackadaisical way she said that. As if it was so normal for them to attack her that she thought nothing about it. “Seriously?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Sad, isn’t it?”

Yes it was. But he refused to say that out loud and hurt her any worse when it was obvious this topic bothered her.

She shook her head. “I don’t know why they bother My mother practically hates me most days anyway.”

“Why?”

Her gaze went back to the floor, but not before he caught a glimpse of how much pain she kept inside herself. “I’m only half Qillaq.”

That stunned him. Her people were such isolationists that it was rare they bred with anyone else. There had to be a juicy story behind her conception. “Really?”

“Yes and they don’t think much of me because of it. Everyone considers me tainted by my father’s inferior blood.”

“Which was?”

“Gondarion. He was a pilot who’d been shot down in battle. He crash-landed and was taken prisoner.”

Caillen winced at the thought and the irony that Desideria had followed in her father’s footsteps by crashing here—while dragging
him
along for the ride. “That’s tough for both of you.”

“You have no idea. Everyone stares at me like I’m a mutant. Like I don’t belong. You have no idea what it’s like to be judged for a birth defect you can’t help.”

“Oh not true,” he corrected. “We’re all judged for things we can’t help. Whether it’s our clothes, our birth, our social class or our appearance. I swear sometimes it’s like people just look for a reason to hate each other.”

“I don’t do that.”

Caillen snorted in contradiction. “I seem to recall the first time you saw me. There was judgment in those beautiful brown eyes when you looked my way.”

Her cheeks turned a becoming shade of bright red. “I should say I
try
not to. But it is hard.”

“It is indeed.”

Desideria fell silent as she realized that Caillen didn’t judge like that. At least he didn’t seem to. “How do you not do it?”

He shrugged. “People are people. I’ve been kicked enough in my life to not want to return the favor to others. Like you said, it’s hard and I’m not perfect. When you’ve been beat down all your life it’s a natural inclination to want to strike the first blow. But I learned to fight that instinct. Sometimes I’m more successful than others and in cases like Teratin, I wish I’d been more judgmental. It would have saved me a universe of hurt.”

She frowned at his words. It was like he described someone else entirely. “You don’t seem like you’ve ever been beaten by anything.” He was too proud and strong for that.

He handed her another drink. “See that’s the thing… You can’t look at someone and tell what they’ve been through. The scars that hurt the most are never visible on the surface. You’re a princess and everyone would assume you’ve had a life of luxury with servants doting on your every whim.”

“So not true.”

< height="0em" width="27">“My point exactly. And that’s one of the things I really hate about being with my real father. His crew of people have turned me into something I don’t want to be.”

She was baffled by his words. “A prince?”

“No. That I don’t mind. When I’m around them, they make me a judging snob. Sad thing is, it’s not the poor I’m judging like they do, it’s them.”

That she understood more than she wanted to. “It’s odd, isn’t it? The poor hate the rich for having a life they think is easy and for the fact that they think the rich only got the money by screwing them. The rich think the poor are all rustics lacking manners and grace who are unwilling to work as hard as they do to get the money. Both groups see each other as thieves out to steal everything they’ve earned.”

He nodded. “You’re right and what I find most ironic… I’ve never been screwed over by anyone who was rich. Judged, but
never
screwed. It was always the poor or middle-class people I’ve known who’ve fucked me over for money. My poor friends have always been the ones who were jealous and petty. If I have two credits more than they do, they start in on the ‘it must be nice’ and then feel justified to tear me down because they think I’m getting a big head and that they need to bring me down a notch. People with money have too many other things to worry about than what I have or don’t have in comparison with them. In fact, it’s people like Darling, Nyk, Syn and crew, the ones who are seriously loaded, who’ve helped me while all my working-class friends have either abandoned me or tried to take what little I’ve earned.”