Spartan Resistance
Page 32
“It’s the times we’re in and I can’t think of a better reason to make you pregnant,” Lee said. “There are risks—there’ll always be risks, but if Rob and I are going all in, we can’t argue against you risking everything, too.”
Tally unzipped her parka, laid it on the grass at her feet and got to her feet. “Now,” she said firmly, undoing her jeans.
“My bonnie lass,” Rob said proudly to Lee.
Lee grinned and shoved Rob’s shoulder, pushing him off balance so that he staggered down the hill and swore in Gaelic.
“Out of my way, highlander,” Lee told him. “It’s my turn.”
* * * * *
Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2265 A.D.
Hacking the doors once made the second time even easier, but that didn’t stop Gawaine from sweating as he eased his way along the corridor toward the room at the end. The corridor was lined with suites and rooms that various agency members used. It had taken a thirty second peep at room assignments in Mariana’s dataset to find which one he wanted.
It was mid-afternoon, when most people were out and about. The chances of anyone catching him wandering the private areas of the villa were small. Security wouldn’t be monitoring closely. They were still reeling, trying to work around Brenden’s absence.
Gawaine palmed the lock and the door clicked open. He pushed his way inside and paused with his back to the door, adjusting to the low light in here. The windows had been polarized to almost complete opacity.
The room was small, with a bed and a desk holding a generic terminal. There were no personal possessions anywhere. But Gawaine had figured out that vampires were secretive by nature. Just because the room looked empty, didn’t mean it was.
He looked in all the obvious places first, before tackling the sneakier locations that required some effort to access. He was aware of passing time. Every minute more increased the risk that he would be caught. While he thought he might be able to talk his way out of trouble with the old man, he didn’t ever want to have to try to explain himself to Rhydder. That dude was scary.
He found the pouch tucked away inside one of the ceiling tiles, which he had left until last. He stepped down off the desk, turning the pouch over and over in his hands. It looked old, with stretched leather drawstrings and a worn patina, stains and scratches. The drawstrings had been knotted and he studied the knot carefully. He would have to reproduce it once he was done.
Then he untied it and emptied the pouch onto the palm of his hand. The thing that dropped out was heavy and flashed with a golden gleam as he moved it around on his hand. There was a pin on the back of it. A brooch? The edges were finely crafted wire and from the color he guessed it was gold.
He flipped the brooch over to look at the front and grew still, staring at it. Excitement flared as he studied the red and white design. Facts fitted together with an almost audible click in his mind.
“You’re fucking kidding me!” he breathed.
* * * * *
Deonne made herself say the words that had been sitting in the forefront of her mind for days. “I think you should both go.”
Adán had been sprawled beside her. Now he sat up, making the pillows tumble everywhere. “Both?”
Justin had been stroking her still-flat stomach, but his hand grew still. “Are you sure?” he asked, not looking at her.
“I don’t want you to go,” she said. “I don’t want to lose you. But I think you must. There’s…there’s going to be fighting and it’s going to get ugly. I would hate myself if I stopped you from helping. Ryan and Nayara are going to need everyone.” She gave them both a tremulous smile. “Gabriel must be stopped. He can’t be allowed to do what he did—to Mariana or to any of the thousands of people he’s hurt so far. He simply must be stopped. I’d go myself, if I had even the first inkling of how to fight.”
“No, you cannot!” Adán protested. “Even Justin cannot—you have never been a soldier!”
“I’ll learn,” Justin said. “Deonne’s right. They’ll need us. They’ll need everyone.” He rested his hand on her belly. “I have every reason to want to fight and every reason to make it back.”
Adán considered him for a long moment. Then slowly, he nodded. “Plus one more reason. If you don’t come back, I will kill you.”
* * * * *
The Catacombs, Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2265 A.D.
Kieran pushed the reading board away from him, feeling a great tiredness that seemed to have settled between his shoulder blades and was making his face ache. “Do you think you can handle all the new recruits?” he asked Rhydder and looked up.
Rhydder was staring at him, the almost colorless eyes the only light thing about him in the dark of the cavern.
Kieran knew he wasn’t thinking about recruits. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Rhydder grimaced. “You mean, share my troubles?”
“You haven’t done much of it, I know, but sharing does help.”
“How would you know?”
Kieran smiled. “Twenty years as a Universal Warden. Fraternity is built into the system. There was always someone to talk to if I needed it.”
Rhydder got to his feet and stalked over to the observation window that looked down at the cavern proper. “Sharing changes things between people. Look at you. You’re already treating me differently.”
“That’s a bad thing?”
Rhydder didn’t answer.
Kieran got to his feet and gathered up the reading boards. “It doesn’t change anything,” he said flatly. “It just clears up a lot of bullshit. Face it, Cade. You’re not the first class asshole you want the world to think you are and now I know that, too.”
Rhydder glanced at him, startled. Then he scowled. “You think anyone but an asshole could control those freaks down there?”
“Is that what you think you are? A freak?”
“A freak that has to be stronger, faster and smarter than every single one of them. Or my throat will get slit for me.”
Kieran nodded and picked up the last board. “Your secret is safe with me.”
* * * * *
Jasper National Park, Canadian Rockies, Alberta, Canada, 2265 A.D.
The cabin sat on the very edge of a tree-filled valley, just below the snow line. For hundreds of meters above them, the peaks of the Canadian Rockies soared. For a week, the heads of the mountains had been wreathed in cloud and the snow had crept closer.
But the cold didn’t bother Mariana and the view was worth any inconvenience, because it included Billy and Brenden.
The two of them had fussed over her for days, monitoring her recovery and watching her for a possible return of the blood fever, but Nayara’s tough-love treatment of the first bout had been ruthlessly effective. The same synthetic blood that fed every other vampire completely satisfied her thirst, too.
Instead, she had spent the week exploring her new strength and abilities and enjoying her new-found energy. Most of that she burned off in bed with Billy and Brenden, for her appetite for sex seemed inexhaustible.
But today she was happy to sit in the old-fashioned rocking chair on the verandah and watch mountain goats tackle the slopes of the big peak on the opposite side of the valley. There was much to think about, including the novelty of being able to zero in her focus on the goats until she could see the hairs on their chins.
Brenden came out of the cabin, wearing only his pants and pulling the plaid blanket around his shoulders.
“You could stay warm without that,” Mariana pointed out.
“I could, but then I’d have to feed sooner and I’m already close.” He gave her a small smile as she grimaced. “There’s a lot to learn.”
“I thought there was lots to learn when I first joined the agency, but now I’m learning how much there is to learn.”
He picked up her hand and pulled her onto her feet. “Come here.”
“Are you two a
t it again?” Billy asked, trying to sound pissed. He closed the door and moved out across the verandah toward them. He was fully dressed, including boots. He kissed her, which he did a dozen times a day for no other reason than just to kiss her. Then he pressed himself up behind her, sandwiching her between the two of them.
It was the best place in the world, right there between them.
Mariana rested her head against Brenden’s shoulder. Billy pulled her hair away from her face. “You’ve been brooding,” he said. “Ever since Cáel called.”
She sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“So tell us,” Brenden said. “That’s what we’re here for.”
She lifted her chin to look at him. “That’s why? I do have it wrong.”
Billy laughed. “The stud, there, makes a point. He’s decrepit, but he does have an ounce or two of wisdom left between his ears. We can help. Tell us what Cáel wanted.”
“There’s been an emergency Assembly session called. They announced it two days ago.”
“So Gabriel got what he wanted.” Brenden sighed. “When is the session scheduled for?”
“September twenty-third.”
“Right on the equinox,” Billy said. “They left it until the very last moment possible.”
“I think that’s the only way left for them to register a protest,” Mariana said. “You know that Cáel is taking over the running of the agency while Ryan is…sick?”
Brenden shrugged. “He’s good people. He has far more political punch than Ryan. He could actually help us in the Assembly.”
“He’ll destroy his own career if he does,” Mariana said. “But he knows that. This emergency session will be one of the last where he’ll be able to serve as an Assemblyman, so he plans to go for broke—vampire rights and nothing else. His people will lynch him.”
“Greece never has liked vampires much,” Billy said with a shrug. “This is what Cáel wanted to tell you?”
“He can’t do both jobs at once. Not control the agency and attend the Assembly. He wants me to help him. Nayara is fine with it.”
Billy turned her chin enough so that she could see his face. His green eyes were grave. “You would be perfect for that job.”
“He wants me to go to Macapá with him for the session. I get to liaise between Cáel and Nayara back at the agency.”
“Even better,” Billy said. “He’s got contacts galore there. Even just hanging around in the corridors, you’ll meet all the right people.”
“But I won’t be here!” Mariana pressed her hand against Brenden’s chest. The softness of his flesh always astonished her and now she could hear his heart stir. “I won’t be with you.”
Billy shrugged. She could feel the movement of his chest against her back. “So?”
Brenden took her shoulders and moved her away from him, until he could see her face. Billy stepped out and around, so that he could, too. He looked puzzled.
“You’re falling into a human way of thinking,” Brenden told her gently. “You keep thinking of time as finite. It’s not your fault. Until last week, time was finite for you. But it isn’t anymore.”
Mariana bit her lip. “You’re right.”
Brenden rested his hand on Billy’s shoulder. “I love you. Both of you. I fought it harder than I have fought anything in my life, but now I’m not. I’m here to stay, for as long as you want me, for as long as I can convince you that I’m worth keeping around. But that could be a very long time. I hope it is for another few millennia at least. It’ll take me that long to get used to it.”
“Get used to it?” Billy snorted. “He’s been like a cat that got the cream all week. Anyone would think he invented exclusivity.”
Brenden grinned. “It’s the honeymoon period. I’ll get back to being grumpy soon enough. But that’s the thing, Mariana. We’ve got as long as we want to do whatever we want, whenever we want to. But right now, there are a few things we have to do and one of those is fighting a war.”
She drew in a breath and let it out, calming herself and stilling her heart. Talk of war made her tremble, but the more she thought about what might happen in the future, the more certain it seemed to her that war was inevitable.
Billy picked up her hand. “We’re soldiers. Always have been, always will be. We’re going to have to go and fight this thing, because this time, we’re going to be fighting for vampires, not just the humans we’re passing among.”
“I’ve seen a lot of wars,” Brenden added. “And I’ve learned something from all of them. No war was ever won on the battlefield. It’s the politicians that do all the peacemaking. That’s you, Mariana.”
She had to take another calming breath. And a third. “That photo…” she whispered.
“That photo could be a hundred years away,” Brenden reminded her. “But you and Cáel are probably the best shot vampires have of coming out of this with any sort of a future. You have to go with him to Macapá and you have to do everything you can to help.”
Billy drew her into his arms. “After the war is over,” he said, “we can sort out what we want to do with the rest of our lives. Frankly, I don’t care what that is, as long as you and Brenden are part of it.”
“Playboy to upstanding citizen in four weeks. Damn, I’m good,” Brenden said and she could hear the laughter in his voice.
But Billy didn’t laugh. “He’s right. I blame both of you for saving my life and giving it meaning again. Go to Macapá. Be brilliant. We’ll be waiting when you get back.”
“Always,” Brenden added.
As Billy kissed her, Brenden held her.
Right here, between them, she promised herself. This is where I’ll come back to. Now all she had to do was win the right to do that.
Finally, she had something to fight for.
The next book in the Beloved Bloody Time series
The next book in the Beloved Bloody Time series will be released in 2016.
In the meantime, if you like vampires and time travel:
Kiss Across Time, Book 1 in the Kiss Across Time series
A Time Travel Vampire Romance Novel
A single kiss can change more than one life…or two.
Taylor Yates is fired for insisting the 5th Century Arthurian poet, Inigo Domhnall, existed. When she hears Domhnall’s lyrics in a death metal song, she engineers a meeting with lead singer, Brody Gallagher. An unintended kiss sends them spinning back to the poet’s time, when Saxons were pillaging King Arthur’s Britain.
Brody’s all for kissing her again. More, he wants her to kiss his friend and lover, Veris, to see what will happen. When Veris’ kiss sends them back to the time of the Vikings neither man is willing to let Taylor simply walk out of their lives.
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This is the first book in the Kiss Across Time Series
Kiss Across Time 1.0: Kiss Across Time
Kiss Across Time 2.0: Kiss Across Swords
Kiss Across Time 2.5: Time Kissed Moments I*
Kiss Across Time 3.0: Kiss Across Chains
Kiss Across Time 4.0: Kiss Across Deserts
The series has ongoing storylines and characters. Reading the books in order is recommended.
[*Time Kissed Moments are short stories and novellas featuring the characters and situations featured in the Kiss Across Time series.]
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Amazon #1 Bestseller, Paranormal Romance
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[She] has created characters that are engaging, unpredictable, outrageously funny and down-right appealing to readers who will steal their hearts. The Romance Studio
I think you’ll be as entertained and affected by the chemistry between the characters as I was. A fast-moving romance that spanned several lifetimes and included a paranormal aspect that was a fun and totally unexpected surprise. Whipped Cream Erotic Romance Reviews
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About the Author
Tracy Cooper-Posey is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author. She writes erotic vampire romances, hot romantic suspense, paranormal and urban fantasy romances. She has published over 80 novels since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award.
She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book Of The Year and Byzantine Heartbreak was a 2012 winner. She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at MacEwan University.
She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.
Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey
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