“Personal matters—are you talking about Heru and me?”
Nuin nodded. “Your connection to each other is quite strong, and it grows stronger every day. I assumed your relationship would have developed into something more physical at this point, considering . . .”
Again, I was shaking my head. “But we—I—we can’t have a physical relationship. If I bond with Heru and then”—I snapped my fingers—“poof, I’m gone . . . he’s dead.”
Nuin narrowed his eyes, and his lips curved into a secretive smile. “Ah, and now I see where I have erred. I thought I’d explained something far better than I had.” Laughing quietly, he shook his head. “If you and Heru bond in this time, he won’t die when you leave.”
“But—”
“Because you will save him.”
I searched Nuin’s face, his mesmerizing eyes, trying to understand. “But . . . how? By extracting a bunch of my bonding pheromones for him to keep until we meet in four thousand years?”
“No, dear Alexandra. You could not extract enough to last so long. No, I am speaking of a different matter entirely. Don’t you recall my mentioning that you could use the sheut within you to create a block within another that would forestall withdrawal symptoms indefinitely?”
I blinked several times, searching my memory, then slapped my palm to my forehead. I felt like such a blind, bumbling idiot. “You said I couldn’t create something like that within me . . . but you never said I couldn’t create a block for Heru.” I laughed out loud, not quite ready to let myself believe that bonding with Heru in this time was really possible. “I can’t believe I didn’t understand what you meant.”
Nuin smiled broadly, but his expression quickly sobered. “There is one caveat that you must be very conscientious of . . .”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Once the block is in place, the next time you and Heru have intimate contact—”
“Define ‘intimate contact.’”
Nuin laughed softly. “Sexual intercourse, Alexandra.”
My eyes widened, but I nodded for him to continue.
“The moment the two of you achieve a fully realized union of your two bas, the block will be shattered, and Heru will once again be subject to the regular onset of bonding withdrawals should the two of you be separated again and the block not be reset again.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “But it could be—reset again, I mean, right?”
Nuin nodded. “As many times as is necessary.”
“So . . . it’s really possible? Heru and I can really be us?”
Nuin nodded and clasped his fingers together, resting his hands on his ankles. “In fact, I believe it may be essential that the two of you truly be together during your time here.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Essential? To what?”
“To your survival, dear Alexandra. You see, the only way to purge the sheut from your body and have you survive is for it to be naturally siphoned into another being, binding with another ba . . . within you.”
My brow furrowed. “Huh?”
Nuin smiled. “Once you’ve returned to your time, you must bear a child.”
My mouth fell open.
“Two, in fact. One to bind with the sheut within you, and one to bind with the sheut within the Heru of your time.”
“What?” I was shaking my head and staring at him with widened eyes. “But—but . . . I can’t. It’s not physically possible.”
“But it is physically possible.”
I snapped my mouth shut.
“Bonding has many side effects, one being the increased dependency between the bond-mates on each other’s bonding pheromones, another being the triggering of a rare, dormant fertility hormone in the Nejerette’s body. Once activated, this fertility hormone suppresses the Nejerette’s regenerative abilities for the duration of the pregnancy.”
He paused, then explained, “Only once the Nejerette’s system is saturated with enough of the combined bonding pheromones of both bond-mates will the fertility hormone be triggered, regeneration suppressed, and successful conception a possibility.” He smirked. “Which is why it is my belief that you and Heru must achieve a physical relationship in this time—it will take much more intimate contact between the two of you to exchange enough bonding pheromones for your body to reach that critical saturation point.”
I’d started shaking my head again, and forced myself to stop. Taking deep breaths, I released my skirt and pressed my hands against my knees, trying to make Nuin’s words make sense.
He reached out and touched the back of my hand. “And when your body finally does reach the critical saturation point and the fertility hormone is triggered, both Apep’s sheut—assuming it’s whole within Heru—and the sheut within you will naturally gravitate toward the newly forming ba within your uterus, safely separating from your own ba and Heru’s. And the two sheuts will cause this new ba, and therefore the embryo, to divide into two separate beings, and you will carry twins.” Nuin smiled, and his face lit up with so much wonder and glory that some of it should have spilled into me. It didn’t.
“Twins,” I breathed.
He nodded. “And they will be more than human, more than Nejeret—”
“Twins . . .” I cleared my throat. “Like, two of them? At once?”
Nuin chuckled. “Yes, my Alexandra. And as I said, it will take a while to reach the critical saturation point, so if you want your body to be anywhere near close to that point by the time you return to your own time, I’d highly suggest that you—how do you say it?” He squinted thoughtfully. “Ah, yes . . . clear the air with Heru—and soon, lest you run out of time before the sheut destroys you.”
I swallowed roughly. Suddenly, my heart rate sped up as I realized that if I wanted to be with Heru in this time, if I wanted to prevent my own impending death, I would have to tell him. Everything.
26
Will & Won’t
I rushed back to camp, Nuin a short ways behind me. I was practicing some pretty impressive repression skills; of all that Nuin had just revealed, only a single thing had truly sunk in: if I bonded with Heru in this time, bonding withdrawals wouldn’t kill him when I left. We could have this much more time together. I could really share part of Marcus’s ancient past with him, and when I returned to my own time, I could unblock his memories of us now, and together, we could revel in the experiences we’d shared millennia ago.
And we’re going to have children . . . twins . . .
Nope, I definitely wasn’t ready to deal with that little revelation yet. Absolutely, definitely not. I was ready to think about anything but that.
What I needed was to find Heru. I was resolved to finally tell him the truth, to finally confess everything about where I came from, who I was, and who he was to me.
His tent was my first stop, closely followed by the one I shared with Denai and the other two priestesses who’d chosen to accompany me to the Oasis, which was sandwiched between Heru’s and Nuin’s tents. Both were empty, so I wandered from tiny cookfire to tiny cookfire—there were only three of them, each manned by cooks under Heni’s guidance—but Heru wasn’t posted around any of them. Frustrated, I headed for the edge of camp, intending to walk a circle around the perimeter to see if I could spot him among the limestone cliffs and sand dunes surrounding us.
But I didn’t spot him; I heard him.
His voice lured me in, harsh and clipped, and though I couldn’t understand his words, I could hear how impassioned he was. I followed the sound toward a lopsided monolith near the rock outcropping. And when I saw him—with her—on the other side of the monolith, I froze.
Ankhesenpepi’s back was to the tall stone, and Heru’s body was flush against hers, his hand gripping her neck and his face mere inches from hers.
I wanted to scream, to shout for him to release her, to will her into nonexistence. I needed, with every fiber of my being, to warn her off him . . . to claim him, just as I’d done in my own time. Bu
t this wasn’t my own time. I clenched my hands into fists, my nails digging into my palms, and I kept just this side of losing control.
A desert wind picked up around me, gusting in their direction.
Heru snapped his head my way, and suddenly I was a deer and his eyes were headlights and I had to run, to escape, if I was going to have any chance of surviving some imminent collision. I spun around and hurtled toward the nearest possible safe haven—the huge rock outcropping—no thought for the wind whipping through my hair or snapping the fabric of my dress.
I wasn’t a slow runner. But Heru was faster. If Nuin hadn’t reset the block cutting off my access to his sheut, I could have jumped to any place I desired. But he had reset the block, and I was just me, Lex, Nejerette, and all I could do was run.
I made it a few hundred yards, out of sight of camp and the monolith I now wanted to demolish because to my mind it would forever carry the impression of his body pressed against hers.
Heru’s hand curled around my arm, gripping it tightly, and he jerked me to a halt. He stepped in front of me, his face hard and tense and very clearly livid.
“What were you thinking, running away on your own like that? Where would you go? Wha—”
I slammed my palm into his abdomen, just under his ribs, like he taught me to do if I wanted to knock my opponent temporarily breathless. Twisting my arm, I yanked it out of his grasp and sprinted away. The wind was roaring in my ears.
“Alexandra!” Heru shouted, but I ignored him, immersing myself in the howling of the wind, in the abrasion of sand against my skin.
I ran as fast and as hard as I could along the rock wall, staring down at the sand and focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.
An arm hooked around my waist, and my back slammed against a hot, hard body, and I was suddenly having a really hard time inhaling anything but sand. I was dragged closer to the rock wall, and then there was only stone and darkness met by a jagged sliver of muddled light and what appeared to be a living wall of sand.
I’d run straight into a sandstorm.
“Are you alright?” Heru asked, his voice harsh. Like it had been when he’d been with her only moments ago.
I elbowed him in the abdomen, and he released me, not that I had anywhere to go. We were standing in a crevice in the cliff’s wall wide and deep enough for maybe four people, and there was a sandstorm screaming just beyond the opening, only a few feet in front of me.
“Did you get sand in your eyes?”
Scrubbing my hands over my unscathed face, I shook my head and turned to him. I had no choice but to remain mere inches away from him. “I did not realize there was a storm.” I looked down, avoiding his shadowed features and feeling like I’d just earned the grand prize for world’s most moronic Nejerette. “Thank you for pulling me in here.”
He made a rough, dismissive noise. “Why did you run away?”
I clenched my jaw. “I would think it obvious, at this point.”
I listened as he inhaled and exhaled several times. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, just audible over the howling storm behind me. “What we both want, Alexandra . . . that can never be. You are wife to the Great Father.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Here goes . . . “Only in name.”
Several more breaths. “What are you saying?”
I sighed. “Nuin and I will never be a true husband and wife. We will never have a true marriage . . .” I paused, working up the nerve to tell him about us. “Nuin and I will never have that because I am already attached to another.” Behind me, the wind howled, but it was nowhere near as intense as the lightning storm standing before me. I took a deep breath. “Heru . . . Nuin named me his wife to protect me while I am here . . . now. I am not from this time, and my true husband waits for me in my own time.”
Heru shook his head, his features too shadowed for me to make out his expression clearly. “I do not understand. Such a thing is not possible . . .”
“You saw me jump from one place to another a little while ago . . . you saw the power I carry explode out of me . . . how is this any less believable?”
Again, he shook his head. “It is not—”
I huffed out a breath. “Just as the power Nuin gave me enables me to shift through space, I can do the same through time.” I pressed a hand against Heru’s chest, stopping his unvoiced questions or any further protestations. “You have seen me manipulate time already; when Nuin threw that first dagger at you, I stopped time as well as jumped from one place to another.”
Hope filled me when my words weren’t met with a shake of his head.
I looked up into his shadowed eyes. “Do you believe me? Do you believe it is possible that I can move through time? That I did move through time to be here?”
His chest rose and fell against my hand, and after a moment, he nodded.
I exhaled in relief.
“And this other man you are attached to . . . ?”
Swallowing, I licked my lips. “It is you, Heru. Thousands of years in the future . . . you are my husband.” I held my breath.
The wind moaned in the opening behind me.
My heartbeat whooshed in my ears.
Heru breathed in and out. In and out. In and out.
Seconds passed, possibly minutes, and neither of us said anything. We simply stared at each other.
Finally Heru covered my hand with his own, molding it against his chest. “What you witnessed with Khessie just now . . . it was nothing.”
I shook my head, my brow furrowed. It had certainly looked like something.
“She followed me away from camp, and I was giving her a warning to—”
“A warning? It looked more like a promise.” I met his eyes, and at seeing the intensity burning in their golden depths, even in the heavy shadows, I looked away.
“A promise . . .” The hand Heru had placed over mine shifted, moving slowly along my forearm and over my elbow, until his fingers curled around my arm. He pulled me close enough that our chests were touching and wrapped his other arm around my back, splaying his hand on my hip possessively. “Yes . . . a promise.” He chuckled, low and rough. “A promise to ruin her if she ever speaks ill of you to me again.”
My lips parted, and my breaths came faster. I raised my eyes, once again meeting his. “I see . . .”
Heru slid his hand further up my arm and ran his fingertips over my shoulder, along my collarbone, and up the side of my neck. He curled his fingers, tilting my chin higher. “So tell me, little queen, how do I claim you in the future? Do I battle another for the right to call you wife? Do I—”
I cleared my throat. “Actually, I claimed you . . . or will claim you.” My voice was breathy.
Heru laughed. “These things you say . . . I take one step toward believing you, then one step away.”
My eyes narrowed. “What is it that you find so hard to believe—that I would claim you, or that you would accept?”
Heru lowered his head, bringing his face closer to mine. “Claim me and find out, little queen.”
My breath caught. He smelled too good. He felt too good. Being so close to him felt too right, like as long as we were together, we could take on anything. I bit my lip.
“Or has this all been an elaborate ruse?”
“No, I—” I pressed my lips together, feeling more than a little embarrassed. I didn’t actually know how to claim him. “You have to understand that I was not raised Netjer-At. I did not know our ways, so when I claimed you, I acted on instinct.” I shifted my gaze to the side, studying the rough limestone wall. “There was a woman, and when I found her in your tent with you, I threatened her, warning her to stay away and never come near you again . . . and claimed you as my own.” I almost rolled my eyes at myself, it sounded so primitive—Heru, mine . . . you, go away . . . urgh . . . garr . . .
But Heru didn’t look amused; he looked enthralled. “Tell me,” he said. He was breathing harder, like me, and the hand on my hip moved, tracing l
anguorous designs on the linen of my dress. “Tell me what you will do to any female Netjer-At who attempts to slip into my bed. Tell me I belong to you and you alone. Tell me.”
“I—” I swallowed. “I—”
I couldn’t do it, not when I knew—I knew—that certain things had to happen during the millennia between now and the moment I claimed him, certain people had to be born to him and other women, people like Neffe, who would one day save his life.
Biting my lip, I shook my head, my eyes stinging. “You do not understand. I cannot—”
“Then I will, because I cannot bear this agony any longer,” he said as he leaned in closer. He brushed his lips along my jaw ever so slowly before pressing his cheek against mine. “I will gut any man who even attempts to lay with you. I will tear him apart, because you are mine.” His breath was hot against my ear. “What say you, Alexandra? Do you accept my claim, or will we be strangers from this day forward?”
My heart felt so full, beat so fast, I was fairly certain it was about to explode. “I—I accept your claim,” I whispered. In any time . . . in any place . . . I would always accept this man. I might not get to keep him forever, but I would be his for as long as I was in this time.
His lips traced the hollow below my cheekbone, and I closed my eyes, basking in the glow of sensation such a gentle touch elicited. A sweet ache swelled low in my abdomen, and I moved my hands to his sides and pressed my body against his, needing to be as close to him as possible.
“Heru . . .”
His mouth covered mine, and I moaned as I opened up to him. It was our first kiss for him, and about our millionth for me, but everything felt brand new. I was beginning to think that everything between us would always feel brand new.
His tongue caressed mine with a slow, sensual promise, and his hands encased the back of my head, allowing him to maintain control of the intensity of the kiss. His lips, his hands, his sounds—oh God, his sounds—all contained subtle demand, a slow burn that could so easily spread into a roaring inferno of desire.
Time Anomaly: A Time Travel Romance (Echo Trilogy, #2) Page 21
