come out here to do an energy exchange in good faith, so--"
"Spare me the lesson on chivalry," Cain bellowed. "He's playing games!"
"And you're not?" Damali said, cocking her head to the side.
Cain folded his arms and gave her his back again. "I most assuredly am not, and take offense at the suggestion." His voice had come out as a low, disgusted mutter.
Damali shook her head and smiled. "You all are both posturing, and you both know it."
Cain turned around, seeming genuinely shocked.
"Queen? Goddess? Angel? In front of my man? What were you trying to do, start a war in the yard?" Damali closed her eyes and ruffled the locks up from her shoulders to allow the night breeze to cool her neck. "And Carlos hasn't called me 'baby' so many times in one sentence since I don't know when."
She thought about the kiss Carlos had given her in front of the team, too. Showmanship, but she'd gone with it. Cain was wrong for verbally overstepping his bounds on family property. They were both wrong as rain, but Carlos deserved to at least have his dignity salvaged in front of the team. He'd only kissed her in front of everybody like that once, when he'd breached the compound for the first time. The sweet memory flowed over her and almost made her chuckle. Carlos Rivera was a trip. Men. She looked at Cain hard. Another trip on two legs. "Y'all both need to stop."
"I'm sorry if I offended you by stating what is my truth."
Aw Lawd... Damali sat down hard on the ground Indian-style and laid the golden staff across her lap. "Cain," she said on a weary exhale. "It's late. You have to go home. We need to do this transfer to get you back through the rip. After everything that's happened, and with the team on the run, I can't deal with this."
"I am sorry that I have become such an energy drain to you."
She rolled her eyes but forced patience into her tone. The last thing she needed on her hands was an entity with an attitude. "Listen," she said, as delicately as possible. "What you showed me back there was nothing short of phenomenal. I owe you. I care about you. I want you safe and your world secured. Everybody's nerves are on edge, and this atmosphere is dangerous for you."
Her statement seemed to bring him around slowly and to take some of the sting out of the rebuff. He pushed himself away from the tree, came to her slowly, sat before her, crossing his legs like a huge yogi, and stared at her with less hurt fury in his eyes.
"I am sorry," he repeated quietly, seeming a bit embarrassed for his outburst. "It is this density. The night... all the new wonders. This world is so vastly different than I imagined."
He tilted his head, offering her a quizzical look. "In my pool, I would receive impressions from you about phenomena that I did not understand. But as I sit on this earth, and have touched nature, my mind is being bombarded by sensations and knowledge that makes me unsteady. Do you follow?"
She didn't quite understand and nodded just to mollify him. But as he stared at her there was something very different about his eyes that drew her to their liquid silver fire.
"Your irises," she whispered, watching the silver and gold in them shimmer, but in a translucent way. Just under the metallic hue she could see fast-moving blurs of information careening by as though one long streaming video that stopped for a second each time he blinked. Maps of the world, La Paz's grid. Computers. Laboratories. The space shuttle.
Cain massaged his temples but kept his now unblinking gaze on her. "Damali," he whispered like an excited child. "Men have walked on the moon. Have taken flying battleships there? What are the half-human half... I do not know? They are in white coverings."
She smiled, feeling a warm sense of comfort in sharing with him. "Yep. Those are astronauts, humans with suits to help them breathe. Here's how we record music. Movies. Videos. Uhmmm... oh, clubs. Airplanes. Yachts... Here's New York. LA. Philly."
He laughed as she opened her mind, and she could literally feel him pulling not only from her but from everything else around them. At one point the information siphon became so intense, she winced.
"Slow down, slow down," she said, laughing. "You'll give us both an aneurysm."
"This is unbelievable," he whispered and sighed. "Normal humans