“So she really is broken,” Kat said. “Should we, like, slap her or something?”
“Absolutely not!” Dominic nearly shouted. “She’s been beaten enough already!”
“Set beat you?” Marcus asked, hoarse. Nobody but me seemed to hear him.
“Fine, fine, whatever. Don’t Hulk out on me, dude! I’m just saying, maybe Marcus should back off. Seems to me he’s the one driving her batshit …”
“You should probably stop talking now,” Dominic advised.
“Well, he should probably leave her alone! He’s making her worse!” she huffed.
“Dear little sister, this is quickly becoming none of your business. Perhaps you should take your leave,” Dominic suggested, his voice cold.
“Screw you! And you too, Marcus!” Kat screeched. “I totally made a flippin’ huge sacrifice for her—my boobs are never getting any bigger! Of course she’s gonna freak out at the sight of him—there was a mountain of dead Marcuses in that echo prison thing. So, if you two could take a break from the ultimate douchebag competition for a few minutes and let me have some girl time with Lex, maybe she’ll calm down!”
Marcus’s hands withdrew from my shoulders, but I remained still, staring at the tan, canvas wall of Marcus’s tent. “What do you mean, ‘mountain of dead Marcuses’?” he asked, sounding shaken.
Dominic spoke defensively, “I was going to tell you as soon as—”
“Kat?” I said softly. My single word cut through the explosive atmosphere, diffusing it immediately.
“Yeah, Lex?” The girl’s voice had utterly transformed from that of a pissed off teenager to that of a caring friend.
When I spoke, it was to the tent wall. “What are you talking about? What huge sacrifice?”
Kat sat on the cot beside me, facing the opposite direction, her hip flush with mine. “Um … they needed me to go with Dom into the At. It was the only way to break through the barrier to get to you.”
Turning my head, I rested my cheek on my knee and met her rich brown, almond-shaped eyes. “But you’re too young.”
“I know. It’s called ‘forcing.’ Now I’ll go through all the usual manifestation crap like you’ve been dealing with, just a little earlier than expected.”
“What’s that have to do with your boobs?” I asked, feeling like I wasn’t seeing the whole picture.
“I’m frozen … like this. Sure, I’ll get all the healing awesomeness and be über-glam and whatever, but I’ll always look eighteen.”
“Oh, Kat,” I said, reaching for her slim hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”
She nudged my knees with her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. I’m gonna be one of a kind—a superhot teen chick for thousands of years,” she preened.
I wondered if she’d have to deal with the shitty adolescent mood swings forever. It would pave the way for an exciting life, if nothing else, but it was a high price to pay.
“Thank you,” I said, trying to hold back the guilt and self-loathing that were suddenly coursing through me. Did she sacrifice her maturity for nothing? Were they too late?
“Hey … Lex …” she soothed, misreading the cause of my souring mood. “It’s okay, really. It was my choice.”
“I’m in your debt, okay? Whatever happens, I owe you … big time,” I told her. “Deal?”
She gave me a genuine grin and agreed, “Deal.”
“Wonderful,” Marcus said, his voice deep, smooth, and razor-sharp. “Now, someone tell me what the hell happened to Lex over the last three months and why she can’t stand to look at me. That is, if it’s not too much trouble …”
Three months? What … how is that possible? I felt like I’d just woken up from a nap, not from a three-month coma. I had no feeding tube, no catheter—I gave my shoulder a sniff—I didn’t smell different than I usually did, and my mouth didn’t taste like anything had crawled inside and died, so … what’s the deal?
Taking a deep breath, I released Kat’s hand and slowly rotated on the cot, noting how surprisingly normal my muscles felt. I wasn’t weak or stiff. I just felt like me. I dangled my legs over the edge of the cot next to Kat’s, facing the center of the tent. I was looking at the canvas floor, at two pairs of men’s work boots, one set of reddish black leather, the other light brown. They belonged to two of the people I cared about most in the world, and I was terrified to look at either them.
“He killed you,” I said hollowly, studying their khaki trousers. “He killed everyone I … everyone I love … at first. My mom, Dom, you, everyone. And then he focused on you, Marcus. He’d switch it up every once in a while, tossing in Jenny or Grandma Suse or Alexander or … anyone. But after a while, it was just you. Over and over and over. It felt like forever. If I didn’t do what he said, he’d shoot you in the head. If I looked at you without his permission, he’d kill you. If I said the wrong thing, you were dead. If …”
“What was the right thing? What did he make you say to me?”
“I had to tell you that I”—I stifled a sob—“that I hated you and that you meant nothing to me. I told you I was disgusted by your touch and that you should go be with other women. And I told you I never wanted to see you again. Hundreds of times … maybe thousands.” I lifted one shoulder in a weak shrug. “If he didn’t believe it, he’d shoot you. You always ended up dead. I couldn’t … I’ve never been a good liar.”
Tears streamed down my face as I waited, staring at their legs. Silence, thick and palpable, filled the tent.
Marcus was the one who finally broke it. “Dom, Kat … leave us.”
“Why? What are you gonna do to her?” Kat screeched, scooting closer to wrap a protective arm around my shoulders. “You can’t be mad at her … she didn’t mean it!”
“I’m not. I just need to talk to her. Alone.” As Marcus spoke, it became evident that his patience had waned to a fragile thread.
“Come along, Kat. I’m sure your mother will want to know you’re back and not … damaged.” The darker shoes—Dominic’s—stepped forward, and he reached his hand out for Kat, latching onto her wrist. He pulled her up and dragged her toward the exit. Before leaving, he said, “Can I speak with you for a moment? Outside?” I assumed he wasn’t talking to me.
“I’ll be in my mom’s tent if you need me, Lex!” Kat called from outside. She and Dominic were closely followed by Marcus.
Staying as silent as possible, I focused on my heightened sense of hearing. I hoped Marcus and Dominic didn’t move too far away from the tent, so I could catch whatever it was that Dominic wanted to say to Marcus … that he wouldn’t say in front of me.
“Just give her time,” Dominic said quietly. “She seems more or less okay. She’ll probably come around eventually.”
“Probably? You mean ‘might not.’ You’d like that, I’m sure, but I can’t accept that.” Though his voice was also quiet, Marcus sounded strained.
“If she’s not ready to be around you, that’s all there is to it. You can’t make her be the way she was before.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Marcus growled. “I have to get rid of her aversion—for her sake as much as mine. She’s been in At-qed so the effects have been slowed for her, but if she goes much longer, she’s going to start having withdrawal pains, and then …”
There was a choking sound, and when Dominic spoke, his voice sounded tight, like he might be sick. “Are you saying—you and she—you’ve bonded?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s been months. You must be in agony. People have died from the withdrawals!”
“All true,” Marcus said.
“Well, that explains a lot. You’ve been acting—”
“I’m fully aware of my behavior. Are we done?”
“Uh … yes,” Dominic said, though he sounded hesitant.
“Did you listen?” Marcus asked as he reentered the tent. I watched his boots as he moved closer, stopping with their toes inches from my ba
re, dangling feet.
“Yes.”
Kneeling on the canvas floor, he took my hands in his. “I won’t force you to do anything, Little Ivanov, but if you can’t even look at me, in a few hours you’re going to be in unimaginable pain.”
“Why?”
He exhaled heavily. “Not much is known about bonding … at least not scientifically. There are no fully bonded couples living today, only some partials. But one thing is certain—bonding withdrawals are both painful and deadly. If one half of a bonded couple dies, the other follows shortly after.”
“You said you’ve been in pain? For months?”
“Since the day you didn’t come back from the At.”
“Marcus, I don’t—” My words ended abruptly when I raised my eyes to his. Simultaneously, I fought the instinct to look away and was drawn to the raw pain tightening his facial muscles. Every possible feature seemed pinched and strained, and his golden eyes glowed feverishly. “I don’t know how to make it stop!” I wailed. “God, Marcus, I feel like a dog slobbering at a bell. I don’t want to be afraid to look at you, and I hate hurting you, but I … I …”
As I drank in the masculine perfection of Marcus’s tensed face, I realized that Set had given me the one Pavlovian response I needed to overcome his adverse psychological training. I felt the need to look away from Marcus because I didn’t want to hurt him. For months, looking at him without permission had meant his death. But that aversion would hurt him, too. It was hurting him. He was, as Dominic had said, in agony, but I had the ability to take the pain away. That knowledge was the most effective and welcome aversion override I could have wished for.
“I love you, but … are you sure you want this … to be bound forever? It might not be too late to stop … I mean … I don’t want to make you do it just because of the pain,” I said, feeling suddenly self-conscious.
“Too late or not, pain or not … I want this—you—more than I’ve ever wanted anything,” Marcus said, his voice huskier than before.
His words filled my chest with a warm, joyous glow and shot electricity straight to my core. It was the only confirmation I needed. Scooting to the edge of the cot, I parted my knees and hooked my fingers through Marcus’s belt loops, pulling him between my legs.
“Lex, I—”
“Let me help you,” I whispered, running my hands up over the front of his button-down shirt. The thin fabric did little to conceal the hard ridges of muscle shaping his torso.
With wide eyes and parted lips, Marcus raised his hands to my shoulders. He slid his fingertips over the sensitive skin along my collarbone. “Lex—”
“Let me make the pain stop,” I begged softly. My nimble fingers were undoing the buttons on his shirt from the top down.
“Woman,” he rumbled in his silky bass. “Let me speak!” His cross tone warred with the combination of passion and pain burning in his eyes.
I winced, pausing on the last button. “Sorry.”
Holding my gaze, he said, “I love you, Lex.” He filled his words with countless layers of meaning, and my lips spread into a warm smile.
He looked flabbergasted. “That’s it? A smile?”
Laughing softly, I glanced down to finish unbuttoning his shirt. “Don’t worry … you’re getting more than a smile. It’s not like it’s the first time you’ve told me.”
Marcus’s hands, lightning quick, shifted to the sides of my head and tilted my face back up. “Yes, Little Ivanov, it is.”
“No, Marcus, it’s … oh.” I closed my eyes to hold back the sudden and furious welling of tears. It was the first time the real Marcus had told me he loved me. Set had taken something invaluable from us—the right to express our feelings in our own time. It was something that could never be replaced and I hated him that much more for stealing it.
“Lex?”
“Hmmm?”
Feather-light, his lips brushed across first one cheekbone, then the other. “Little Ivanov?”
“Yeah?” I whispered, my furious sorrow diminishing immediately.
Burying one hand in my hair, Marcus turned my head so his breath came close against the skin between my ear and jaw. Each time his mouth barely touched me, tendrils of fiery pleasure burst to life beneath my skin. The thumb of his other hand skimmed my lips, and my breath came out noticeably shaky.
“I love you.” His thumb slipped between my lips, tasting faintly of salt as he wet it with saliva from my tongue. The damp fingertip ran softly from one corner of my lower lip to the other, and back. “And only you.”
Tightening his grip on my hair, he tilted my head back, giving him easier access to my neck. He inhaled deeply as he nibbled an electric line to my right collarbone. He licked along the graceful arc of bone in one smooth motion, from shoulder inward, ending by kissing the hollow at the base of my throat. A delicious ache was building within me, and a soft moan escaped from my parted lips.
“I want you,” he said. The fingers of his free hand mirrored his tongue’s path, eventually trailing down to my breastbone and slipping under the low neck of my dress. I whimpered when he ignored my breasts, instead pressing his palm against the center of my chest and smiling against my neck. “Only you,” he whispered.
He raised his head from my throat, removed his hand from my chest, and released my hair. Holding my eyes, he lowered his hands to my knees and slid them up under my dress. The intense hunger in his eyes did as much to prepare me for him as his touch.
There was a tearing sound—Marcus had literally ripped my underwear off. As soon as they were out of the way, I heard the metallic clang of his belt and the sound of his zipper.
“And all of you,” he finished. Gripping my hips firmly, he pulled me off the cot and onto him, both of us grunting as we joined.
While the initial, intense sensation of holding him within me still pulsed from my core, Marcus embraced me tightly and sat back on his heels. So urgent was our need for one another that his quick, rough pace brought me to my peak remarkably soon. And when he buried his face in my neck and groaned, embracing me desperately, I flew away. Throbbing fire exploded in my belly and spread outward with nearly unbearable force. I was falling … soaring … unraveling. I lost myself and became someone else—the impossible combination of two souls, two minds, two bodies, but one being. I bound myself to Marcus, wholly and completely.
Slowly, as conscious thought returned, I became aware of Marcus’s soft words. He rocked me gently, murmuring ancient, beautiful words that I couldn’t understand. Pulling away enough to see his face, to read it for lingering signs of agony, I found only peace.
“Better?” I asked.
Lazily, Marcus smiled, his eyes like molten gold, and he let out a deep, satisfied hum.
Slipping my hands under the shirt he still partially wore, I ran my fingertips up and down his back, savoring the way he shivered with my touch. “I love you, Marcus.”
He chuckled and brushed his lips softly against mine.
“Marcus?”
“Hmm?”
I took a deep breath. “You said I was trapped in the At for months? What’s the date?”
He tensed, turning to stone even as he held me, and dread took root in my chest.
Leaning back, I asked, “How many days do we have left?”
His jaw clenched, once, twice. “The solstice is in a week.”
My heart felt like it stopped beating entirely.
A week until the solstice.
A week until the Nothingness takes over the At.
Sometime between then and now, I decide the fate of the world. Not good.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Enter & Unlock
“I can’t wait to see the chest,” I said, pulling on some olive-green cargo shorts I’d found in one of the trunks set along the wall opposite the cot. Marcus, still half-naked and lounging on the floor, watched intently as they slid up my long legs. Luckily, Marcus had moved my things into his tent while I’d been trapped in the At, so I had everything I ne
eded at my fingertips. I found my favorite black bra deeper in the trunk and slipped it on. “Is it big? Gold? Covered in jewels?”
Marcus stood, shed the remainder of his clothes, and stretched his toned body, graceful as a cat. I was really enjoying the view. “The chest is … hard to describe. You’ll see.”
“Not if you don’t put some clothes on,” I said, giving him a pointed look. “Or are you planning on giving everyone up at the temple a show?”
Smirking, Marcus quickly dressed his lower half in thin, camel-colored trousers. As he shrugged into a white linen shirt, his face turned serious. “Promise me something, Little Ivanov?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Take it slow once we get in there? The Nothingness doesn’t take over the At for another week—we don’t have to rush opening the chest.”
I recited part of the first verse of Nuin’s prophecy aloud.
She will acquire the ankh-At or
Mankind will wither under the weight of the Nothingness.
“Sooner’s better than later,” I said, and my mood suddenly soured. “You know, I can’t believe Set’s my father. He’s such an evil dick,” I huffed, yanking on a black tank top over my head.
Marcus finished buttoning his shirt, leaving the top two buttons undone, and reached for his boots. “He wasn’t always like that. He was a good man once.”
I shrugged while tying my own dark hiking boots. Silently, I recited the next part of the prophecy.
She will obey Set and destroy mankind or
She will defy Set and mankind will prevail.
She will decide and either mankind or Set will be destroyed.
The world’s screwed, I thought and scowled.
Sighing, Marcus finished with his laces and closed the distance between us, wrapping me in his protective arms.
Breathing in his delicious, spicy scent, I tried to forget about Set, the prophecy, the ankh-At, and the Nothingness for few seconds. “I just want to stay with you, in here, forever,” I whispered.
Marcus pulled away slightly, then lowered his face to mine, kissing me tenderly on the lips. “Come on, Little Ivanov, the others are waiting.”
Echo in Time: A Time Travel Romance (Echo Trilogy, #1) Page 33
