Their argument continued, but Dominic and I were finally far enough away that only the muffled sounds of angry voices reached my ears. I reveled in the release from their harsh words. I didn’t know why Marcus was behaving so coldly toward me, and I was hurt enough that, at the moment, I didn’t want to find out.
Dominic tightened his hold. “Don’t worry, sister. Everything will work out in the end. I know it.”
***
An incessant, rhythmic vibration on the bedside table woke me from dreamless sleep. Dominic had settled me in an enormous, unfamiliar bed and given me some water and a small, orange pill, promising it would bring true rest rather than the fitful half-echoes that frequently plagued our kind’s dreams.
I fumbled for my buzzing cell phone and tried several times to touch the screen’s answer button before succeeding. “Hello?” I croaked. Coughing softly, I cleared my throat.
“Lex? Is it really you?”
I groaned. “Hi, Cara. Yes, it’s me.”
“Oh my God! I feel like I haven’t talked to you in forever! How are you? Are you okay?” Did she hear about the dead bodies in my apartment? Was it on the news?
“I’m …” … horrible, lost, brokenhearted, pissed off, scared, worried, overwhelmed. “I’m fine. How are you?”
“Uh, good, I guess. Worried about you. What’s been going on with you? I haven’t been able to get ahold of you since the … since New Year’s,” Cara whined.
“Oh yeah, sorry.” I guess she hasn’t heard about the dead men … “With my mom here and then the quarter starting, it’s just been kind of crazy,” I explained, repeating the excuses I’d given her days ago and withholding pretty much everything else. Great—I’m becoming just like my parents, Grandma Suse, Alexander, and Marcus … Picturing Marcus, I squeezed my eyes shut, willing away my sudden, roiling despair.
“Okay, well … I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks.” I rolled over at the sound of a door opening and waved at Dominic. He was standing in the open doorway joining our two bedrooms. “I’m fine,” I mouthed and he slipped back into his space, leaving the door ajar. Privacy, I noted, was quickly becoming a thing of the past. I really, really missed it.
“So, could we meet up for lunch or something … soon?” she asked. “I miss you, Lex.”
No … but I wish we could. “Cara, it’s only been two weeks. We’ve gone way longer than this without speaking or seeing each other before.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve never gone so long after one of us almost died!” she screeched.
“I’m fine, I swear,” I told her.
She scoffed. I was quickly wearing down her thin veneer of patience. “Come on, Lex. When can we get together? Annie’s worried about you, too.”
Frantically, I tried to think of an excuse. I could hardly tell her the truth—that I was being held captive for my own good because I was the subject of a millennia-old prophecy. “I don’t know … it’s complicated. I’m out of town for the excavation for a while.”
“For how long?”
“A while,” I repeated.
“Which is?”
“A while?” I offered, again.
“Nice try, sugar lips. What’s going on, really?”
“I’m out of town for the excavation for a while.”
“Is it a guy?” she asked. Sometimes, I could’ve sworn she was part bloodhound.
“Cara! I’m. Out. Of. Town.”
“Geesh! Repeat much? So when are you back?” she asked.
“Honestly, I don’t know. The director is kind of a dick,” I explained. I heard Dominic snort loudly in his room, and I smiled.
“Oh … well, do you think it’d be possible to get my dress back?”
The dress I was almost date-raped in? Who wouldn’t want that? “Sure. It’s at the dry cleaner’s.” I hadn’t had the balls to pick it up.
“Oh, which one?”
“College Suds on the Ave. It should be ready by now,” I told her.
“Great! Thanks! I have a date next week with this totally hot younger guy. He’s a personal trainer … a.k.a. yummy.”
“That sounds awesome, Cara.” I tried to sound enthusiastic, but the emotion refused to form to back my words.
“You sure you’re okay?” Cara asked suspiciously.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Just tired.”
“Oh, well, I’ll let you go then.” She’s definitely getting pissed.
“Okay, thanks.”
“But you have to promise to call me soon and tell me everything that’s going on in your crazy Egyptologist life!” Maybe not too pissed …
I laughed, “Okay, I promise.”
“Good. Bye, Lex.”
“Bye,” I mumbled as the line disconnected. I stretched, wondering if I could fall back asleep. A knock at the door to the sitting room adjacent to what was now my bedroom ruined my plans. Marcus hadn’t been joking when he’d said I would have my own suite. My cluster of rooms consisted of a sitting room, which also had the only door out to the second-floor hallway, a bedroom with an adjoining full bathroom, and a smaller bedroom—Dominic’s room—with doors to both my bedroom and the sitting room. It was all very medieval.
I heard the door in the sitting room open and Dominic say, “I don’t know if it’s best to tell her about this right now.”
A few seconds later, Sandra followed Neffe into my new, lavish bedroom. The curvaceous beauty waved the smaller, deadlier woman away. “She’ll be fine with me, my dear, I promise. Though you may remain if the Meswett wishes.” Neffe looked to me for my opinion. When I shook my head, my petite bodyguard left the room.
“My niece is diligent, but can be a bit overzealous at times,” Neffe said as she approached my bedside. She shot an irritated glance at Dominic’s open door, but dismissed it with a roll of her luminous, amber eyes. Darker, but so much like Marcus’s. I sighed. Not Marcus … Heru.
“Please sit, Neffe. What is it?” I asked, propping myself up with pillows. I wasn’t used to receiving guests in bed, but I considered it one of the issues accordant with being a messiah. It was annoying—I didn’t want to be a messiah.
“It’s my father,” she said, pulling a burnt-orange suede armchair nearer to the bed. “He’s being unreasonable—more so than usual—and you deserve to know what’s going on.”
“Okay, what’s going on?”
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I like you or anything,” she told me bluntly.
I took a slow, deep breath. “Right, so … ?”
“But I do love my father, even if we tend to fight each other like scorpions, and he’s done something that will hurt you both … and I really don’t think it’s necessary.”
“Neffe, just tell me.”
“He left,” she explained, without explaining anything.
“Marcus left? Where? When? How long will he be gone?” I asked. Was it me? Did I drive him away? I’d only intended to give as much cold bitchiness as I got—and it had been coming off Marcus in waves—but I now feared I’d gone too far.
“Precisely,” Neffe said, sounding so much like her father that my heart ached. “He’s being an idiot, by the way. He’s been focused on Nuin’s prophecy for so long that the real world rose up and bit him in the ass without warning … except it wasn’t the real world … it was you and his precious prophecy. I should have realized what was going on earlier! How was I so blind?”
“Neffe … you know I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know!” she exclaimed. “I think that’s why I find you so infuriating. You weren’t raised like us, and you don’t know our customs, so why are you the Meswett?”
“Because Set decided to impregnate my mom?” I offered dryly.
“I suppose you are correct—it’s not really your fault. I know,” she said, looking sort of ashamed. “But my father, he’s going to ruin everything.”
Right, that explains so much. I was getting the impression that Nejeret minds work
ed quite a bit differently from that of regular Homo sapiens. I sighed, not doing a very good job of hiding my exasperation. “And how exactly is he going to ‘ruin everything’?” I asked.
“You must understand him … his past. He’s been trying to work around Nuin’s prophecy for thousands of years. His vehemence that it could be avoided … it’s started wars … it split the Council down the middle …”
“And he left now, because … ?” I urged.
“Because of the part of Nuin’s prophecy that he left out when he was explaining it to you,” Neffe said sadly. She started reciting.
Heru will look after the girl-child and
She will trust him.
Heru will set his heart on the girl-child and
She will trust him above all others.
Heru will make her his she-falcon and
She will bind herself to him.
“What does it mean by ‘she-falcon’?” I asked.
“According to my father and everyone else who knew him, Nuin was quite the wordsmith. By ‘she-falcon,’ he was referring to Heru’s match—the woman who would bring him to heel and force him to remember certain, deeper pleasures … not just sex, but companionship and love. In modern terms, I suppose it would be called his ‘soul mate.’ I was just a little girl, but I remember my father being furious when he read the prophecy on Senenmut’s tablet for the first time.” She shook her head, her dark-as-night waves brushing back and forth over her shoulders. “Perhaps it was because he loathed the idea of being bound to anyone. For so long he’s been arrogant, cold, and frustrating.” Her amber gaze sharpened. “But with you, he’s so vibrantly alive, so completely engaged. It was unexpected. I’m sure you can understand why I was so upset the day you overheard our argument.”
“Yes, I understand,” I said, in truth, understanding very little. “And now he’s gone away?”
Neffe looked down at her hands, which were clasped discreetly in her lap. “Yes, Meswett. He thought going away would dampen the feelings between the two of you, prevent the binding, and nullify Nuin’s prophecy. Without one verse, how could the others be true?” She shrugged gracefully. “At least, that’s how he’s looking at it.”
I turned away from her too-familiar eyes. I understood why he’d left—it was an ingenious plan. Rather, it would have been an ingenious plan if I hadn’t already fallen for him. A silent tear leaked from the corner of my eye and trailed down my cheek.
“He wasn’t trying to hurt you, Meswett, I know it!” Neffe proclaimed desperately. “My father didn’t want to leave. He lov—”
“That’s enough, Neffe,” Dominic said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “She needs rest, not troublesome thoughts. Leave us.”
Fury flashed across her face, but she responded, “Yes, Milord.” To me she pleaded, “Don’t forsake him. He already has his heart set on you, whether or not he realizes it.” Swiftly, she swept out of the room.
“I feel like I’m being shredded into a million little pieces,” I said to the ceiling. My voice was high and wobbly.
Dominic sat in the same chair in which Neffe had been sitting, directly beside the bed. “I know, Lex.”
“How do I make it stop?”
“You don’t,” he said quietly, grasping my hand. I curled into a ball around his arm and began to cry.
PART TWO
The Heru Compound
Bainbridge Island, Washington
CHAPTER TWENTY
Enemies & Friends
Sandwiched between Dominic and Josh at the Plaintiff’s table in a courtroom on the eighth floor of the King County Courthouse, I waited anxiously for the jury to emerge and share their verdict. Marcus had been gone for nearly two months, and though every minute of every day had been filled with learning how to be the Meswett to my people, honing my Nejerette skills, preparing for the excavation, and attempting to get Mike an extended stay behind bars, I never stopped thinking about him … missing him … hating him … possibly even loving him.
It was the twelfth day of the trial, and I couldn’t wait for it to be over, regardless of the verdict. The entire time, it had been impossible to ignore one particularly sharp gaze digging into the back of my skull. Set was sitting in the front row on Mike’s side of the courtroom, and I refused to look at him. Not that it had been brought up during the trial, but he—my own biological father—had been the one who sent Mike the text ordering him to use the drugged lip balm. I consoled myself by thinking that Mike, who had entered the courtroom every day using a cane and walking with an obvious limp, wouldn’t be at peak raping performance for a long time. Unfortunately, his miserable-looking physical state seemed to earn him sympathetic looks from jury members throughout the trial.
“You’re positive that last witness is your friend?” Dominic asked, referring to Cara. I thought back on her testimony and scowled.
The defending lawyer, with the black lines of a conspicuous Set-animal peeking out above the back of his collar, had asked her, “And you’re certain the Plaintiff was excited about the date with the Defendant?”
“Yes, very,” Cara had responded. She’d refused to look in my direction.
“Did the Plaintiff talk about having sexual relations with the Defendant?”
“Yes, she was excited and nervous.”
“Why was she nervous?”
“Because she hadn’t been with anyone for a long time,” Cara had explained helpfully. I’d never wanted to disappear more in my life—my parents, Jenny, and Grandma Suse were sitting less than a dozen feet behind me.
“Is there any additional reason she was nervous?”
Cara had bit her lip before answering. “Yes. She had a dream that the date ended in rape.” The audience gasped. Her words had been like sharp, invisible daggers stabbing into my back. Why would she ever volunteer that information? Why? I’d wondered, feeling unbearably betrayed.
“And do you think it’s possible that the Plaintiff wanted her disturbed fantasy to play out?”
“I don’t … no! Nobody would want that!” Cara had seemed to suddenly wake up from the spell of disloyalty that had her in its thrall.
“The Plaintiff went to a great effort to entice the Defendant, did she not?” the attorney had asked.
Cara had sounded defeated when she’d replied, “Yes.”
“What did she do to entice him?”
“She, um … she borrowed a dress from me, and our other friend helped her do her hair,” Cara had answered.
“No further questions, Your Honor,” Mike’s lawyer had said, shooting me a smug grin as he’d returned to his seat.
I shook my head, dispelling the disturbing memory of Cara’s testimony. “I used to think she was one of my best friends, but I don’t know anymore,” I told Dominic.
“Had you been considering confiding the truth of your nature to any humans, might I suggest avoiding her?” he whispered.
“Thanks for the tip,” I whispered back. Some of the heightened Nejeret ears in the audience had heard us, and Set barked a laugh.
Dominic, Josh, and I shared an irritated look. Alexander had called in additional bodyguards from our familial line as soon as my deranged father appeared on the first day of the trial. Filled with slightly too large and undeniably “perfect” people, the courtroom looked like the setting for a cheesy, prime-time legal drama.
“Has anyone been able to get ahold of him?” I asked Dominic, referring to my absentee patron and the breaker of my heart.
Dominic shook his head and corners of his thin lips turned down. “He’s ignoring us. At least before this farce started”—he waved his hand, indicating the courtroom—“we knew he was alive. Every day included a dozen emails, calls, and texts checking up on you. Are you sure you want to get involved with him? He’s proving to be a bit obsessive.”
“Dom …” I warned. Ever since Marcus abandoned me in his secure compound, my half-brother had been slipping in little criticisms of his behavior whenever possible. It had been two months
and the reminders of Marcus’s flaws were beyond getting old—they were mummified. But, Dominic was also the one who comforted me every time I broke down … which, I was ashamed to admit, happened on a daily basis. Sometimes it was about Marcus, sometimes it was about being the Meswett, and sometimes it was just about feeling completely and utterly lost in what had become of my life.
“Right, apologies,” Dominic said, letting his French accent deepen and flashing his killer smile. “Just don’t let him off too easy when he finally realizes his mistake and returns.”
“Not a chance,” I agreed.
Josh whispered, “Would you guys mind saving this private conversation for somewhere a little more private?” He hitched his head toward the rows of Nejerets with exceptional hearing packed into the courtroom. They were all sitting quietly, intently focused on something … on us.
Heightened senses, it turned out, was just another genetic trait coded into our Nejeret DNA. My hearing and sight had been improving noticeably, though neither had yet developed the sensitivity of a fully manifested Nejeret, and it was proving to be less of a perk than I’d expected. Falling asleep was not as easy as it used to be, especially not when I could hear almost everything people were saying or doing in the nearby rooms.
I opened my mouth to respond at the exact moment the door to the jury room opened, announcing the return of the jury. The twelve men and women filed back to their seats. None looked at me as the jury announced its verdict of “Not Guilty” to a half-outraged, half-ecstatic courtroom.
I bowed my head to hide an inappropriate smile. I’d been doing something I wasn’t supposed to do: peering into the possible futures to find out when Marcus might return. After the first time I’d done it, Saga and Heimdall had explained to me that not only was it against Nejeret law to look into the future At without Council approval, it was also a major faux pas. With our heightened senses and ability to peek into the past, we had little enough privacy, and looking into someone’s future uninvited was a serious invasion of that precious commodity. Heeding their advice, I had continued searching for Marcus’s return but had stopped telling them about it. What I’d learned in the At was the cause for my smile. In all of the futures I viewed, losing the trial signaled Marcus’s immediate return.
Echo in Time: A Time Travel Romance (Echo Trilogy, #1) Page 23
