Kiss Across Worlds (Kiss Across Time Book 7)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  It took her a moment to sort it out in her mind. “You mean…we’ve already met? You knew who I was when you saw me last night?”

  “It was a shock,” Neven admitted, “but yes. My first jump was traumatic and dangerous, just as most first jumps are. Then you came to me and trained me.”

  London put her knife and fork down, her heart thundering. “You’re talking about things I haven’t done yet as if they happened in the past.”

  “They happened to me in my past. They have yet to happen for you,” Neven assured her. “You called yourself L, which is why I didn’t connect you to the never-there wife of Kristijan when I was watching him.”

  It was too much information. “You were watching him?” London shook her head. “No, wait…L. You asked me about L last night.” Then it clicked. “Elle,” she breathed. “For London.”

  Neven nodded. “You wore a wig…unless you’re wearing one now?”

  She realized he was teasing when she saw the corner of his mouth twitch. She let go of her indignation. “I trained you and now you train me?”

  “I can’t train you. I don’t have time,” Neven replied. “Although, maybe I will be able to help, later. For now I just want to caution you against experimenting.”

  “I will consider myself cautioned, although I don’t think you need to worry.”

  “It may happen accidentally,” Neven said. “It often does. Usually a jumper is scared or angry—all the high, hot emotions. You’ll find yourself back in time and wonder what the hell happened. I did. You will always jump to something in your own history. That will tell you where you are. You’ll recognize the place and time. If you don’t keep your head, though, it could get messy.”

  “People will panic if they see two of me?” London asked, pressing a hand to her temple.

  “If you go far enough back in your past, no one will recognize the adult version of you,” Neven said. “That’s if you make a compound jump.”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that. “Compound jump?” she added.

  “Something for later. The usual first jump is linear, so if you go back far enough in your past, you’ll find yourself in a three-year-old’s body. Or a teenager’s. The danger lies in you making changes back in the past that trickle down to the future. This future.”

  “It will change things?”

  “From your subjective point of view, yes, it looks like a change. What actually happens is that your subjective timeline splits, possibly at different points, as a result of the changes you introduce. You’ll end up in a different time and place, with a different reality.”

  She rubbed her temple. “I was better at biology,” she admitted. “I could find myself in the past one day, say, if I blow my temper?”

  His gaze flickered to her hair. “Something like that. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened for you already. Most jumpers find out they can jump when they hit adolescence.” He smiled. “All that teenage angst.”

  “My mother spent years working on my temper, teaching me how to control it,” London admitted. “Maybe…” She looked at him and lifted a brow.

  “Possibly,” Neven admitted. “You do exude a pond-like sense of stillness. If that matches your true emotions, it might explain why you haven’t tripped over time travel for yourself.”

  “It’s not even close to matching to my true temperament,” she admitted with a grimace. “No one has ever described me as being pond-like, before.”

  “Ponds are calm. Tranquil. And quite beautiful,” he replied. “Or so I once believed.”

  She raised her brow.

  “A long story,” Neven assured her. “For another day. I don’t want to terrify you. I just want to caution you.”

  “Because that statement alone is not going to raise my terror at all,” she shot back.

  Neven’s smile was rueful. “I’m trying to cover all eventualities, until we can get you trained and able to take care of yourself. If it happens, London, it will be unexpected. It will be the last thing on your mind. When you do find yourself back in time, your first priority, your only priority, is to stay calm and jump back to where you were. That’s all.”

  “That’s all?” She laughed. “I’m having a hard time even believing this is possible, while you’re talking about jumping back home as if it’s a simple step through a door.”

  “It nearly is,” he assured her and got to his feet. “Let’s deal with your disbelief and put it aside.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “By jumping.”

  Her heart squeezed to a stuttering stop. “Now?”

  “No one will notice,” he assured her. “I’ll bring us right back to this moment.”

  “Here?” she asked, looking around.

  “Somewhere with a door,” he said. “For a moment, we’ll look as if we’re comatose. It can be alarming for those who have never seen it before.”

  “It even sounds alarming.” She got to her feet, curiosity driving her. “I would like to try it,” she admitted. She held back the qualification. She wanted to see if it was real. Vampires were real, so maybe this was too. If it was, then, oh, the possibilities! “Are you going to take me back into your past?” she asked. “You said you jump back only to your own personal history.”

  “It’s not safe for me to jump back into that timeline,” Neven said, which reminded her that he was not of this timeline at all. That was why there were two Kristijan Neven Zorics in the world...or there had been.

  She wondered what had happened to Kristijan. It wasn’t of deep concern to her, though. The answer would emerge sooner or later.

  Neven was studying her. “I think that every single jumper I have ever met has an appreciation for history, if they’re not completely nuts about it. Are you?”

  London could feel her cheeks heating. “Kristijan thought I was wasting my time reading all those books.”

  Neven let out another gusty breath. He didn’t like hearing about Kristijan, she realized. Then he said, “Do you have a favorite period?”

  “You can just…pick an era?” she asked, confused. “You said we only jump back along our own pasts.”

  “If you’re making a perfectly linear jump,” Neven replied. “Don’t worry, you’ll understand all this eventually. For now, you just need to know that time travel is real, so I’m going to fudge a compound jump. Do you have one of those books with you, London?”

  She thought of the big, heavy hardcover book on her bedside table. The Egypt of the Pharaohs and the building of the pyramids. “Yes,” she admitted. “You’re going to use that to jump with?” she asked. “Is that even possible?”

  “I’m going to use it to guide me across the timescape,” Neven told her. “Because I intend to go back there, there will most likely be a bookmark already there. I just need to form the image in my head and for that I need your book. There are photos in it?”

  “Yes. We’re talking about the tenth century BC, though,” she pointed out. “They’re just illustrations. No one knows what the world looked like then.”

  “We do know what the pyramids looked like. It will be enough to get me there.”

  She considered him. More and more she was forgetting that this was another version of Kristijan. There were depths to Neven that added up to a different man. “You can do that? Jump back based on just a picture? Are you…good at this?”

  Neven’s smile was small, but warm. “I’m very good at this. Let’s go and get that book. We can jump from there.”

  * * * * *

  Neven put the book down, letting the line drawing of the partially constructed pyramid settle in his mind. He reached across the timescape with his mind, searching far, far back.

  The bookmark was there, just as he had suspected it would be. He had never attempted such a long jump before. However, the bookmark assured him it could be done.

  He opened his eyes again.

  London was watching him and chewing the corner of her lip. She sat on the edge of the bed, as if she wou
ld bolt at the first alarm.

  Neven gave her a smile. “I have the coordinates, so to speak.”

  She didn’t smile at his joke. “Now what?” she asked.

  “Now, I’m going to have to hug you, to take you with me. Do you mind?”

  For a moment her face turned blank and her focus inward. Then she blinked. “I suppose I kissed you without asking last night. You’re being considerate, asking now. Should we stand up?”

  Neven shook his head. “Remember what I said about looking comatose? If we’re standing, it’s a long way to the ground. Here, we have a soft mattress to catch us.”

  She glanced at the luxurious deep purple cover doubtfully.

  “Relax,” Neven told her. “One jump will tell you so much more than I can.” He picked up her hand. “You will have to come closer, though.”

  She cleared her throat and shifted along the edge of the bed until only an inch of space lay between them.

  Neven used his grip on her hand to pull it around him. “Lean in,” he said. “Think of me as your lifebuoy, because I am. Hold tight.”

  She hesitated.

  Not for the first time, rage flared deep in Neven’s gut. Kristijan had done this to her, with his callousness and his cruelty. He had made her wary and cautious and had isolated her from any semblance of a life. He hoped the asshole was dead and his ashes scattered. He had no intention of looking for him, ever, for that might mean giving him back the life he did not deserve.

  Neven wrapped his arms around her, feeling warmth, softness and pliant curves. Heat. And that delicious, sophisticated scent.

  It was his turn to hesitate.

  He cleared his mind. He couldn’t let something like a warm woman in his arms distract from the jump. That was how jumpers got killed.

  Deliberately, he rebuilt the image of the partially constructed pyramid in his mind and turned it into the real thing, made of stone, with sharp edges, for each block had been recently carved. There would be thousands of slaves working on the building of it. There would be heat and sand. Dust. Dozens of languages, the creak of ropes as the blocks were dragged up the construction slopes. The bray of animals used to ferry the blocks. Shouts of slave masters and the crack of whips and more….

  He reached across the timescape, seeking the bookmark. It called to him, drawn by the images in his mind. Neven leaned towards it. He no longer needed to physically jump to start the leap. His mind was strong enough to draw him through time, without the assist.

  He heard London’s soft gasp as the black nothingness of time enveloped them.

  * * * * *

  Heat, dust, the scent of animal dung and the babble of a thousand voices.

  He blinked, clearing his head and looked around. London stepped out of his arms, just a fraction, moving slowly. She wore a filmy veil over her hair, pinned at the front of her head with a glowing green jeweled pin of hammered bronze. Her eyes were made up with heavy kohl, making them exotic, although the gray in this land of black-eyed people, would be exotic enough on its own.

  The linen shift she wore was simple, clean and properly hemmed. The hem was around her ankles. The belt holding it in was jeweled as well. Her sandals were plain and whole and her feet clean.

  Neven surmised that they were well-off in this land.

  They were standing on a platform of smoothed rock, high up from the desert below. There were woven reed mats beneath their sandaled feet and an awning of the same flat leaves overhead, shielding them from the sun.

  At the front of the platform a small man with deeply bronzed skin sat in a chair with curved arms. The chair was painted and decorated with dancing figures and bright colors.

  There were other people on the platform, all of them standing behind the man in the chair, looking out over the plains, watching the construction of the pyramid in front of them. They were all well-dressed, especially in comparison to the slaves on the ground, who wore loin cloths and little else.

  London was looking around as eagerly as everyone there.

  Neven caught her elbow and tugged to get her attention. When she looked at him, her eyes widened. He looked down at himself. The tunic was long, hiding all but his ankles. The belt around it was colorful striped cloth. Over all of it was a light, long cloak. Underneath, his arms were bare.

  He raised his hand and pressed his finger to his lips, telling her to remain silent. They had not been noticed by anyone on the platform, which was good.

  London looked over her shoulder again. She shook her head, as if she would have much to say if she could speak freely.

  They had been here long enough. Any longer and they risked exposure. They were too exotic in appearance to not stir up trouble. Neven pulled London back against him and put her arms around his waist, then held them until she tightened her grip.

  She gave out a soft sigh.

  Neven flexed his knees the tiny fraction he needed to jump and reached through time for the soft light in her room. The scent of her and the purple cover on her bed….

  * * * * *

  He was staring at the ceiling, which was painted a different, lighter shade of gray from the walls, which were done in two more shades of gray. All the shades complimented the deep purple of the bed cover and the doors on the closet, he realized. Any other color would compete with the richness.

  They were back.

  He always felt a touch of relief when he got back from a jump, that hadn’t disappeared despite the number of jumps he had made. It always reminded him of the old saw about old, bold mariners. Relief was good. Relief meant he wasn’t growing too sure of himself and his jumping abilities.

  Although he was positive that Veris would yell at him about this one and the risk he’d taken, building a jump location out of a history book illustration.

  He heard London draw in a deep breath and let it out and turned his head. She was lying on her back next to him. His arm was under her head.

  London rolled her head to meet his gaze. “It’s real,” she said softly. “That was…it was real.”

  “Yes.”

  “That was the pharaoh, wasn’t it? In the chair?”

  He shook his head. “You know the period better than I. Wouldn’t the pharaoh have had more pomp and ceremony? A lot more people sucking up to him?”

  She smiled. “Yes. You’re right. An inspector, then, or some high-up in the civil administration. One with his own lackeys.” She sat up, her hair streaming down her back and picked up the book. “It didn’t look anything like what they have in here and that smell…” She put the book back.

  Neven sat up, too. “Historians can only extrapolate on evidence that survives. Smells don’t linger. Clothes, people, language…none of it lasts.”

  “People do if they’re mummies.”

  “It’s not exactly survival, though.”

  London laughed, with a high, tense note. She clapped her hand over her mouth and looked at him, her eyes huge. She took her hand away. “This…changes things.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. He wondered if she understood exactly how fundamental, how inclusive, the change to her life would be. She would learn, though. There was time. There was always time.

  London’s gaze met his. She reached out and curled her fingers over the edge of his lapel. “You weren’t lying,” she said softly.

  The small weight of her fingers against his chest, even through the fabric of the jacket and his shirt beneath, was like the touch of a brand. His heart took off running.

  Neven swallowed.

  Her gaze hadn’t moved. The warmth in her eyes reminded him of last night, when she had kissed him and his whole body tightened up at the memory. A voice in his mind whispered; and now she is sober, too.

  Before the impulse grew too strong to deny, he reached up and detached her hand.

  London snatched it back and looked down at it, as if she was just as surprised at what she had done. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly.

  Neven shook his head. “I understand.”

>   “I don’t,” she whispered.

  “It’s confusing, having me look exactly like the Kristijan you know. Your instincts, your habits, make you react to me as you did him.”

  Her gaze met his. Neven was impacted all over again by the pure color of them. They were light and clear and it would be easy to be lost in them.

  He realized he was staring into them.

  “You two done, here?” The question came from the doorway.

  London gasped, as Neven turned to look over his shoulder towards the door. Remi was standing squarely in the middle of the frame. When had he opened the door? Neven had heard nothing.

  He got to his feet, adjusting his jacket as he rose, to hide his inflamed, painful erection. The movement brought his attention to the rest of his body, which was just as stiff and aching as his cock. He couldn’t remember ever being this aroused.

  “Next time, try knocking, Remi,” London said, her voice chilly. With her pure accent, the words were sharp enough to slice.

  “Have something to hide, then?” Remi asked.

  “I am as entitled to privacy as anyone,” she said, her tone haughty.

  Neven moved to the door. “She is,” he confirmed. “You were looking for me?”

  “You weren’t in your office.”

  Something about his answer was not quite right. Neven puzzled through it as he waited for Remi to move out of the way. After a moment, he did. Neven stepped into the passage and deliberately shut the door behind him.

  Remi’s smile was knowing.

  “Are you following me, Remi?” Neven demanded.

  “Moi?”

  “Why were you looking for me in my office?” He moved down the corridor, away from London.

  “You’re the boss, remember? I report to you.”

  It was still an evasive answer. It was possible that Remi was used to using general, bland terms that would not alarm innocent eavesdroppers.

  Or he was hiding something.

  Neven stopped at the big double doors to the suite that he was using and put his hand on the handle of one of them. “I’ll see you there in twenty minutes,” he told Remi.