Destiny Calls (16 page)

He schooled his expression, not wanting her to see how her words cut him. She was right. He didn’t belong here. He wasn’t Amish. He should have been starting his senior year of high school this fall, but he was here, and Amish didn’t believe in schooling after a certain age. He missed his friends, but there was no going back. If he returned to the English world, he would lose Cybil. She would be just another statistic in social services.

There was no chance of them staying together and even less chance of him, at age seventeen, obtaining custody of his younger sister. The fact that she still wasn’t speaking only complicated matters. He had lost his friends, his mother, his grandparents, and now his sister didn’t even speak to him.

Gracie had been someone he felt drawn to. They were close in age, and she often hung around with her uncle, Fisher, who was a young man. Why was he so different? Why couldn’t she treat him like a friend? Not that he wanted to be her friend. He wanted to be her boyfriend, but she had done nothing but show him how much the idea of dating a kid like him didn’t appeal to her since they arrived on the farm.

He wanted to prove to her that he wasn’t a kid. He would soon be an adult, and he’d show her. Cybil would be on this farm for the next several years, and he wasn’t leaving her. She was all he had left. His only choice was to make the whole Amish thing work. He would show Gracie that he could be a man just like all the other men on the farm. He just had to prove it to her before someone else came along and stole her heart.

He gritted his teeth. “I’m not going anywhere, Gracie, so you had better get used to me being around. This is my home now.”

“That may be the case, Dane Foster, but you have no right to come into my house and start making demands.”

“It isn’t your house. It’s Jonas’s and Abilene’s.”

She shook her head. “Yes, and they are my parents. If you are so worried about the lack of propriety in their absence, get out!”

She turned to walk away, and he grabbed her arm. A mental wall slammed down between them, and he wasn’t sure who threw it. She licked her bruised lip and stared up at him, eyes pleading.

“Why do you hate me so, Grace. All I want is for us to be friends.”

She lowered her gaze to the floor, and in a barely audible whisper, she said, “Because that isn’t all you want.”

His thumb gently rubbed over the soft fabric of her sleeve. “Is that so terrible? I’m not a bad person, Grace.”

She swallowed, and for a moment he thought he had gotten through to her. She looked into his eyes with hard determination and he knew he had been mistaken. He released her sleeve. “You are not Amish, Dane. Stop being a child and start accepting what’s real. I will only ever give myself to the male that is right for me, the male whom God chooses for me.”

Her words were direct, but he sensed her wavering emotion behind them. Stupid Amish laws forbid their females to marry outside of their religion. He had already asked Ezekiel and learned that there was no way for him and his sister to convert into the religion either. However, he was pretty certain Annalise wasn’t born Amish. There were ways around their laws, but no one would explain them to him. Still, for as much as Gracie professed the value of said edicts, he didn’t believe she truly trusted them.

“Fine,” he said quietly. “I’ll leave you alone, but I’m not going anywhere, so you had better get used to my presence. I don’t want this guy in the house while you’re alone here.”

“Cain’s here.”

“Cain’s never around long. It isn’t right. I’ll go to your grandfather if I have to. It isn’t proper.”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Shows how much you know. It is the bishop who sent him here. My grandfather has no authority on the matter.”

He looked into her eyes. She was telling the truth. Unable to confess his worries, he pulled down the wall separating their thoughts.
Don’t let him touch you.

Her face darkened, and her scowl returned.
You
dummkup
! I just said I will give myself to
no
Englishman. I am not some damn horse just waiting around to be ridden!

She growled and stomped off, her little bare feet kicking out beneath her gown.

* * * *

Destiny wasn’t sure what was happening. Cain signed something to Cybil. His lips moved as he whispered with each sign. He warned the child to be nice. The little girl’s bottom lip quivered.

Cain then held up his hand in a sign that Destiny recognized. It was the sign for I love you. He made the sign and pointed to the little girl. She made it back, her little cheeks turning pink just above the dimple that had appeared at Cain’s endearment.

Gracie came back into the room, and Dane walked in behind her and then right out the front door. It looked as though they had just argued, but Destiny hadn’t heard any shouting.

“Come on, Cybil. It’s time for your lesson,” Gracie announced, appearing slightly agitated. Destiny was surprised when the little girl responded to Gracie’s words spoken behind her back. The girl seemed to hear just fine. Was she mute?

Cain then released Cybil’s hand and slid his hand around her own. The relief that flooded Destiny at the conclusion of their embrace was completely juvenile. “We’ll be back in time for supper,” he said as he reached for her coat. She hadn’t noticed it hanging from a peg on the wall. She looked silly in her dress coat and sweats, but she couldn’t find her other coat. It was likely somewhere in her house with her missing cell phone. He held it open for her, and she stared dumbly at him for a second.
Holy crap, a man who actually has manners.
She slid her arms through the sleeves and almost hyperventilated when he bent to do up her buttons.

His fingers accidentally brushed along her breast, and her stomach did a cartwheel. When he again took her hand in his, it made her so excited she classified herself as a woman with the maturity of a fifth grader once and for all. Maybe later she’d slip him a note that said,
Do you want to meet by the buggies? Circle yes or no.

The farm was beautiful. Cain was an awesome tour guide. He was funny and laughed at her stupid questions about the animals. He only teased her mildly when she called a hen a rooster. When he noticed she was getting cold, he led her back to the house.

Toward the end of their journey, Cain pointed. “See that house there? That’s my brother’s home. He recently built it for his mate, Anna.”

“Mate?”

“Wife,” he corrected. “And that one to the far left with the smaller porch, that is my grandparents’ home. My Uncle Fisher also lives there.”

“Do men usually live with their parents past adulthood?” She had lived with her parents and probably still would if they hadn’t returned to Portugal.

“Only until they are mat—married. Females as well. It’s just easier that way.” They walked for a while longer and then headed back in the direction they had started from. Destiny recognized various markings along the way.

Destiny figured they hadn’t even seen a third of the farm. Most of the houses looked the same and twice she had mistaken the wrong house for the one they had come from. Her favorite part of the tour was seeing the horses. She made Cain promise to take her for a buggy ride while she and Vito were visiting, and he agreed, not quite understanding the novelty of such a thing.

When they returned to the house, Gracie was carrying a humongous bowl of steaming mashed potatoes to the table. Vito again was eyeing the poor girl as if she were a goddess. Some men could be manipulated with sex, but with Vito all it took was a woman who knew her way around a kitchen.

Chapter 13

Cain sat in Council Hall waiting for the elders to call quiet and announce that the session had begun. He would be called to the bench and needed to get his head on matters that affected The Order. Yet for some reason his thoughts refused to focus on more important matters and kept returning to the cute little Portuguese woman curled up in his bed.

He no longer found her obsession with technology as annoying as he first had. He had somehow begun to find it amusing. After dinner when he announced he had a meeting, she had told him not to worry about her, that she would be perfectly fine and had plenty of things to occupy herself with. When she pulled out a flat computer that looked like a notepad, she pursed her lips. Although her devices worked without the assistance of electric lines, the farm was apparently too far from a tower, whatever that meant.

She then reached in her bag of tricks and pulled out a smaller flat thing and said she would read. He waited for her to produce a book, but she didn’t. However, the screen of her device turned on and looked as if it were actual paper with printed words. She had toed off her knit boots and curled her legs beneath that shapely bottom of hers and began to read.

Cain had watched her for a few moments, and she seemed to have forgotten he was even there. It appeared when Destiny Santos, investigative reporter, was not on the field, she was actually quite quiet. It was as if she were a different person entirely. Cain liked this other side of her, but also was starting to enjoy her more insistent qualities as well.

Bishop King strolled down the center aisle, his stature and power evident in each confident step. He took his seat at the center of the bench among the other eight elders on the council and silenced the room full of males with one tap of his gavel. Cain’s gaze caught on his brother Adam’s for a moment. The stern set of Adam’s spine only amplified the effort he put forth not to spare his twin a glance.

Once the date was given and the clerk for the night announced, matters were underway. After several announcements of common practices and upcoming events, the meeting moved on to more serious matters.

“I call Brother Cain Hartzler forth to discuss his recent findings in the woods of Jim Thorpe,” Eleazar said.

Cain stepped out of the rows of pews and moved up the bench. Eleazar nodded at him in greeting, no impression of his dislike or the relation he now held to the Hartzlers in the bishop’s manner. He instructed him to inform the others of the events in the woods. Cain gave a detailed report of his sighting of Isaiah. That, paired with the bishop’s report of sighting the immortal earlier that winter was enough to prove Isaiah still existed.

The strain this put on his grandfather, Ezekiel, was understandable and he hoped that when they did capture Isaiah, matters were handled swiftly. It was not right for one to have to plan his
bredder’s
demise. Cain couldn’t imagine doing so if it were Adam out there in those woods.

“It is understood that you’re rescinding your offer to hunt out Brother Isaiah. Is that correct, Brother Cain?” Eleazar asked.

Cain looked at his brother. Their gazes clashed, and he tried his best not to let Adam’s cold, detached gaze cut him too deep. He couldn’t accept that he had done something so reprehensible that their friendship was no more. “That’s correct. For my own personal reasons which I won’t share, I must step down and ask that another male go in my stead.” Adam didn’t nod in approval or show any sign of agreement with his statement. He only showed complete indifference, and it hurt.

“And what of the others in the woods? Have there been more?”

“There have,” Cain announced. “It seems that while Isaiah has searched for his mate, he has transitioned many innocents. They are, from what I’ve seen, all female. There is something
ferricked
about them, however. Deranged. I spoke with one this past fall, and she informed me that Isaiah was her mate. Another female claimed the same just last month. I would guess they all believe themselves to belong to him.”

“How many do you assume there are?” asked Elder Abraham Gerig.

“They claim to be upward of one hundred females.” Male voices rumbled with concerns and doubts. “They are not as strong as Isaiah, but they’re fast and they’re reckless.”

“You have fought these females?” Elder Christian Schrock asked, appalled.

“They may be of the fairer gender, but I assure you there is nothing feminine about them. They speak as if their throats have been abused beyond recovery. Their eyes now show white and shine with crimson liquid I assume is the result of ingesting too much mortal blood. They’re the devil’s children and have taken a hand in the recent murders as much as Isaiah. While he’s beyond
feeish
and continues to hopelessly hunt for his mate, the others are quite territorial and do not want English women anywhere around their sire. I’ve seen at least a dozen of these others, destroyed four, but I’ve never seen them in the company of each other. I imagine they do not play well together.”

“You say you have destroyed four of them?” Abraham asked.

“Indeed. They’re a threat to the English community as well as a threat to us. There’s a holocaust taking place on those mountains, and it needs to be stopped. Isaiah holds the role of alpha and should be the primary target, but I warn you, he’s old, powerful, sustained by human blood, and holds the strength of ten or twenty males. A group must go for him, and they must go with a plan.”

“How old is Isaiah now?” Christian wondered aloud.