to help? Stay away from me.”
“I thought you wanted to find my mother?”
She released a long breath. It was what her dad wanted. Find Bess. Ask her to join the cause and...and...She tried to remember his words. None know the Toe Taggers better than Bess. Learn what you can.
She fixed her eyes on Alon.
He folded one arm across his chest, using it as a rest for his other elbow. He studied her as if she were some problem he had to work out.
“My mother says that people distrust what they don’t understand. If I tell you something about my family, how we came here and why we are different from those others who attacked your family, would that assuage you?”
“Assuage? Are you for real?”
“My parents are both over one hundred. I learned speech from them.” He shrugged as if that explained all. Then he opened the door to the deck and stepped outside, then moved aside to let her pass. This time he stood well back and made no move to hinder her. She felt disappointed, and that realization made her heart sink even more.
Above them the stars wheeled in a perfect clear sky. Her vision was adequate enough for her to see him in shades of gray. In the night his aura became unmistakable and most definitely gray—bluish-gray, like the smoke from a rifle. It flared from the crown of his head like a halo.
He took a seat on the long built-in bench and motioned for her to join him. No way was she sitting that close. She moved upwind, so she couldn’t smell the masculine scent, choosing to lean against the rail. She tried for a relaxed posture, certain that he could see her as clearly as she could see him. For them, the night masked nothing.
She gazed out at the inviting lawn, dew already glistening on the soft grass. From here she could jump to the ground and dash to the forest. But now she knew that he could also outrun her. Damn, she hated his advantage.
Alon settled back, secure in his superiority, she assumed, and then began the telling that was supposed to magically change her from enemy to friend. Yeah, right!
“My sister and I are the first of the Ghostlings to be adopted by my parents. My father found my sister and me in a Dumpster on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. I was naked, afraid and starving.”
She wanted to ask why none of their mothers survived, but that would imply an interest.
“He brought us here and gave us clothing, food, a home and a purpose.” He met her eye. “To protect the Balance and to protect Mankind.”
She cocked her head. His adoptive parents had combined each of their purposes. Bess, a Skinwalker, protected the Balance of Nature. Her husband, a Spirit Child, was charged with the care of all Mankind.
“But the two aims often run in opposition.”
“True.”
“Is that your purpose?”
“I accept the need to protect men and the need to guard nature. But I do not know if it is my purpose.”
She sensed the honesty of his answer, and that surprised her. It would perhaps have been wiser to lie. She started to tell him that she knew her purpose, but that she had never been able to use her abilities because of Nagi. In the end she said nothing about that and instead asked another question.
“So they adopted you?”
“Yes. All of us. They teach us in that school.” He pointed to the building to the right. “My sister, Aldara, is very good at finding newborns and bringing them here. Our parents have never turned away a set of twins.”
“What happened to your real mother?”
He glanced away, hoping to hide the rush of shame. “Died giving birth. She was human. I don’t remember her.” He cleared his throat, but the emotion lodged there like a chicken bone. “We have forty-eight twins now, but six are under one year.”
Her eyes rounded at the number.
“Why are there so many orphans?”
He held her gaze even as the guilt consumed him like a forest fire. “All humans die giving birth to my kind.”
She gasped. “All?”
He nodded and dropped his gaze to his folded hands.
She could see the anguish on his face. His eyes pinched shut. All traces of the calm self-assurance vanished, and she felt that she was seeing him for the first time. The rawness of his pain stirred an ache deep inside her. She had believed that his handsome veneer was a mask. Now she wondered