Dark Possession(86)
MaryAnn looked around her. "I don't know how I got here." She looked up at the top of the canopy. She couldn't even see the deck he had constructed. "How did I do that, Manolito?"
He kept his hand extended to her. The leaves were rustling around them. Shadows moved. He took a step closer to her. MaryAnn put her hand in his, and he pulled her into his arms and took to the air, taking them to the protection of the deck he'd woven. She stood on the platform, her arms around his neck, her face buried against his shoulder, trembling with the truth.
"The truth," he murmured softly.
MaryAnn jerked away from him. She knew it was the truth. She had been that infant someone had hunted through a forest and nearly killed. Her parents had hidden the truth from her for years. The foundation of her solid world was shaken, and she needed to find a way to quiet the growing thing inside of her so she could
come to terms with what was happening, but she didn't want Manolito to throw the truth of her life in her face.
Manolito looked around at the various leaves. Some broad, some lacy, some small and others large, all a dull silver instead of gleaming as they should. The safeguards were in place, keeping out all enemies so he could spend time with her, trying to ease her into his world. He had intended to bring her fully over so she, too, was wholly Karpatu. Instead, he had forced her to bare her soul to his, to risk everything for him. Now he needed to give something back. Something of equal value. She had given him truth; he could do no less.
He paced restlessly across the small confines of space. "You gave me truth, MaryAnn, when it cost you. I have something to tell you. Something that shames me, and not just me, my entire family. What is inside you is noble and strong, and I doubt you need fear it. I have no such secret to share with you, although I wish it were so."
She blinked away tears and looked at him, somewhat shocked. Me appeared nervous. It was the last thing she expected of a man as confident as Manolito. Her natural compassion rushed through her, and she put her hand on his arm, flooding him with warmth and encouragement.
"Do not aid me in this," he protested, shaking his head, but once again she had opened her mind to his, surrounding him with the brilliant colors and her soothing personality. "I do not deserve it."
He didn't deserve to be so smug about claiming her, but she pushed that sudden thought down and gave him a look of support. Manolito continued to pace, so she sank down onto the flowers, surprised that once again they released their fragrance, filling the air with soothing scent. Drawing up her knees, she wrapped her arms around them and rested her chin on top, waiting for him to continue.
Manolito took a slow, careful look around and wove more safeguards, this time enclosing them within a sound barrier to give them even more privacy. "Sometimes the forest has ears."
She nodded, not interrupting, but somewhere in the pit of her stomach she was beginning to believe that what he was going to tell her was of monumental importance to both of them.
Manolito rested his elbows on the railing and looked down at the forest floor beneath them. "My family was always a little different from most of the other warriors around us. For one thing, most families never have children within fifty to a hundred years of one another. Of course it happens, but rarely. My parents had all five of us with no more than fifteen years separating us, other than Zacarias. He's nearly a hundred years older, but we were raised together."
She could instantly see the problems that might go along with such closeness, particularly young boys feeling the first taste of power. "You had a gang mentality."
There was a small silence while he absorbed that. "I suppose that could be so. We were above average in intelligence and we all knew it; we heard it enough times from our father as well as the other men. We were fast and learned quickly, and we heard that, too, as well as it being drilled into us what our duty was to be."
MaryAnn frowned. She'd never thought about Manolito or his brothers being children, growing up in uncertain times. "Even then, were more males being born than females?"
He nodded. '"The prince was concerned and we all knew it. So many children died. The women were beginning to have to go above-ground to give birth, and some children could not tolerate the ground in infancy; others could. Changes were happening, and the tension grew. We were trained as warriors but given as much schooling as possible in all the other arts. Resentment began to grow in us when others, not quite as
intelligent, were given chances at higher learning while we had to hone our fighting skills on the battlefield."
"Do you believe, looking back, that you had reason for that resentment?" she asked.