One day, while the two boys were hunting together, Abel broke his customary silence to ask, "What do you think of Ruth?"

"What do you mean? I mean, Ruth . . . she's okay, I guess," said Cain. His attempts to conceal his true emotions were disarmed by his brother's snort of laughter.

"'She's okay I guess,'" he said, then chuckled wildly. "You're so obvious, Cain. Ruth is beyond okay. She's a goddess, and yet I know her future is with me, not you." He rocked back and forth with silent laughter.

Cain grew enraged. A hostile anger coursed through him at the injustice of it all. "What are you talking about? What gives you the right to claim her? She doesn't even like you, and you don't even like her!" Cain shouted, shoving his brother roughly on the shoulder. "She's mine, you hear me? She's mine! She likes me best, and there's nothing you can do about it! You're just jealous, that's why you're saying these things!"

Abel looked over to him, finally meeting his younger brother's eyes, and silenced him with a grim expression. "There are some things you'll never understand, Cain, no matter how obvious they are. Don't you get it-Ruth is the one that divides us. The one who causes you pain," Abel said. "Or had you forgotten the prophecy?"

"So what does that mean about Eve?" Cain asked. He was filled with emotions, feelings, and thoughts-betrayal, fury, sorrow, shame, frustration, and jealousy.

"Someone changes your life with pain, and someone else changes your life with love. Isn't that what Prophetess Talia told you?" Abel said.

"Talia was a fraud. You said so yourself."

"But you don't believe that any more than I do."

"No, I don't," Cain agreed, shaking his head. He let out a great shy, staring up at the sky above. The moon was a sliver in the heavens. "I always thought Eve would be the one to cause us pain since she transformed us into vampires, but maybe it is Ruth who will hurt me." A glazed look came over Cain's face, as if he was just starting to see something very important for the first time. He shook his head. "But I cannot be sure. I wish I could be sure."

Abel clapped his hand on his brother's shoulder and squeezed gently. "Just do yourself a favor and stay out of this one, Cain. Nothing good can come of jealousy, especially between brothers," he remarked.

"You would say that, Abel," Cain said. He said nothing more until they returned to camp. Ruth wasn't there, but no doubt she would be back soon; they always went away from camp to deal with personal business.

Cain plopped himself down by the fire and stuck the end of his stick into it, watching the wood smolder and smoke. "Once we get to real civilization or to Eden or wherever," he announced, "I'm leaving you forever. I won't spend my life in your shadow," Cain said, twiddled the stick roughly in the flames. "I won't be underestimated."

"There's no such thing as underestimating you, Cain, because there's not much to estimate to begin with," Abel said, a smile sneaking through his voice. It was meant as a joke, but Cain stiffened furiously.

"You'll be sorry you said that one day, brother," Cain hissed. He touched the glowing bud of fire on his brother's bare shin.

Abel cried out and hit his brother, dashing the stick away. Burns were the only few injuries that a vampire could not easily heal. "What the hell are you doing?!" he shouted. He scrambled up off the ground. "I'm going to find some water and when I get back you better have an apology for me!"

Cain smirked as his brother ran away into the forest. He noticed his brother's footprints were stamped into the dusty ground. Cain swiveled around and placed his right foot in his brother's right footprint. Cain wiggled his toes around and relished what it felt like to be literally in his brother's steps.

Abel ran erratically towards a stream. He winced and groaned with pain. Normally one to ignore pain, Abel found that the singe mark stung terribly, distracting him. Cursing his brother out loud, Abel muttered swear words that would have made their mother weep. After running for a while Abel realized that he had gone in the wrong direction, or, at least, he wasn't finding the stream he intended to find by going this way. Chest heaving from the exertion, Abel looked around and found he was in an unfamiliar part of the forest.

Snap.

A twig snapped from just beyond his line of vision. In response, Abel turned frantically, causing the leaves from the trees to shift in his eyes so he was momentarily blinded. He flung them out of the way and then whipped around again trying to locate the sound of the snapped twigs.

"Hello."

Abel narrowed his eyes as the offender stepped forward out of the shadows. Ruth.

"What do you want? What were you trying to do? Scare me?" Abel growled miserably.

"Well, it worked, didn't it?" Ruth said with a hint of a smile. She took a few steps forward and then frowned. Bending down, she reached out for his leg.

"What happened to you?" she asked, stretching a delicate finger out to his wound. Now the skin had begun to peel away but not come completely off. Pus oozed out of his scorched flesh.

"I got too close to the fire," Abel said. "A spark found my leg. It happens," he added, trying to sound casual. Meanwhile, he had begun to sweat in his underarms and his throat felt dry. He was afraid to say anything lest his voice crack. Damn, he thought.

Ruth stood up and dusted her hands on her dress. She looked up at him and met his eyes. Ruth was a good four or five inches shorter than Abel, but he felt chills knowing that in this moment she had all the power. She met his eyes. Her brilliant green orbs that matched the lush greenery in the background, were lively and expressive. Yet she shifted her focus away from him and instead looked at something beyond him. Her brows furrowed in concentration, and she lifted her toned arm and reached behind his ear. As her arm moved past his face, Abel shivered and took in breath. She smelled of peppermint and sage and, beneath that, of the warmth of her blood. Though she said nothing to further his embarrassment-his face was turning redder by the moment-the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly, indicating her amusement at the position Abel was in.

"Don't be nervous. You're always so nervous around me, and I cannot understand why," Ruth mused.

"Perhaps it is because it always seems like you're mad at me for something."

Ruth snickered.

"What? What's so funny?"

"Nothing. It's just, I thought the same thing when I first met you, that you were mad at me, that you were one of-that you had heard of me from my village, that you thought I was a demon. Then you spoke so gently to me I knew you couldn't be one of the ones who betrayed me." Ruth drew back her hand. Abel had almost forgotten that she was doing something with it since he had been dazed and dazzled in her company. She took a step back and knelt down again. She had a handful of tree leaves grasped in her palm.

Ruth rummaged around in the forest's undergrowth until she found what she was looking for and placed the leaves on a large smooth stone nearby. Grasping the smaller stone in her right hand, Ruth began to mash the leaves up into a pulp. She spit on the stone, saying, "What? A little love can't hurt."

After a few minutes, Ruth had ground the leaves to the consistency she desired. She lathered it on to Abel's wound. Both her skillful massage and her therapeutic ointment began to have their desired effects soon after, and, in combination with the quick healing granted to him by his vampirism, Abel found that the pain had nearly gone away by the time he opened his eyes.

"Better?" Ruth whispered, looking up at him.

"Yes," he whispered back. "Why do you hate me?"

"Why do you love me?" Ruth replied.

In response, Abel leaned in to kiss Ruth's mouth. Ruth's lips were warm and soft, smooth just as he had imagined. To his surprise, she kissed him back, deeper and deeper. Abel forgot about his pain as he surrendered to the heat of the moment. He lost track of time and suddenly realized the night had faded. Had he been kissing Ruth-and more than kissing Ruth-for seconds, minutes, or hours? There was no way to tell.

Finally he pulled back. She had been rifling through his hair and massaging his head while they kissed, and now she drew her hand back, letting it linger on his cheek with the thumb stroking his bottom lip.

"We can't tell Cain," he said. He was both completely relaxed and completely put off guard as his denuded chest heaved. He felt alternately that he had run a mile and just gotten up from a very deep sleep.

"I know. At least, not yet," Ruth replied.