Time Anomaly: A Time Travel Romance (Echo Trilogy, #2)

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  I raised my chin and squared my shoulders. Oh, he definitely seemed to enjoy that. “Are you going to get into the water?”

  Heru’s lips twitched as his gaze heated. “After you . . .” He held out his arm toward the crystalline pool.

  Smirking, I shrugged and showed him my backside, slowly making my way to the pool. It was nothing he hadn’t seen before . . . or rather, wouldn’t see later.

  The water felt heavenly, the perfect Goldilocks temperature, and I groaned as it reached my hips. My smirk grew when I heard the water splashing behind me. I stopped when it was waist-high but didn’t turn around.

  “Perhaps you were right about my self-control,” Heru said, his voice rough.

  “Perhaps . . . ?”

  The water lapped against my back as he moved closer. “Perhaps that is your intention . . .”

  Laughing, I shook my head. “Bathing here, like this—that was your idea. Do not presume to blame me—”

  Suddenly Heru’s hand was on my hip, sliding to my stomach, and the front of him was pressed against the back of me, and damn me to an eternity of torture by Apep-Set if I didn’t almost lose myself to pleasure in that moment. I could be so pathetic sometimes . . .

  “But I do blame you, little queen.” His breath was hot against my ear just as he was hot against my backside, making the water feel cool in comparison. “I blame you for invading my every thought . . . my every dream. I blame you for making me desire what only you can give me more than I have ever desired anything from another being, Netjer-At or human.” His other hand slipped up my ribs until he cupped one of my breasts.

  I gasped as his finger pulled and twisted tender flesh without mercy.

  “I blame you for making me want to know your mind as much as I want to know your body.”

  I reached behind me, taking him in hand and savoring his sharp inhale as my thumb slid along his hard length. I closed my eyes, thinking nothing had ever felt so good. I was so very, wonderfully wrong.

  Heru’s hand glided lower on my abdomen, moving completely underwater, finding my most sensitive places for the first time. I gasped and moaned in his hold, and for minutes, he did the same in mine. It was the most intimate we could be without actually initiating full-on bonding.

  “Heru . . .” I reached up with my free hand, hooking it around the back of his neck. “Heru, you have to stop . . . you have to stop this before it goes too far . . .”

  “You stop it,” he said, his voice barely a rasp, and I melted completely.

  Pleasure overwhelmed me, and based on his sudden rigidity, overwhelmed him as well. For dozens of breaths, we stood in the water, clinging to each other, until finally our bodies went limp and boneless.

  I arched my back against him as I felt his arousal resurge, and I forced my fingers to unclench from around him. “Let go, Heru.”

  “What—”

  “This will continue, over and over again . . . you must let go.” I squirmed in his hold, flailing a little.

  “This is—I’ve never—how long does it go on?”

  “It never stops,” I said.

  He still held me, my body tensed, my muscles ready to flee. His voice was barely audible when he spoke. “Never?”

  I shook my head.

  “How do you handle it . . . the wanting . . . ?”

  I laughed hoarsely. “How do you think?” There was only one thing that made it bearable, and it was the one thing he wasn’t ready to give me.

  His answering groan, his clenching hands, were enough to make me melt all over again. “We should finish washing up,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I rasped. “We should.”

  34

  Can & Can’t

  “Do you feel better?” Heru asked as he rewrapped his linen kilt around his waist.

  I nodded and wrung out my hair one final time, then pulled my clean shift over my head. “Remarkably so, thank you.” His hawklike gaze burned into my skin, and I averted my eyes while I affixed my belt around my waist. “I wish you would not look at me like that.”

  “In what way am I looking at you?” He finished tying the thinner ends of the kilt into the intricate knot men of this time used to “keep their pants up.”

  My lips curved into a wry grin, and I glanced at his face. “Like you are imagining what it would be like to truly be together.”

  His eyes heated even further. “But I am imagining what it would be like.”

  My cheeks flushed. I was fairly certain my whole body blushed. Again, I looked away, focusing on the pile of dirty linen, and cleared my throat. “We should gather our things and—”

  In three long strides, Heru was in front of me, his hands gentle under my jaw, tilting my face upward. His eyes searched mine. “I was imagining what it would be like to be inside you, and I was imagining what our life might be like in your time . . . to be as unified as a man and woman can be . . . to have our livelihoods intertwined for all eternity . . . to have chosen that.”

  “I—” I licked my lips. “With Nuin’s sheut, I have been improving my control over memories.” I bit my lip. “I could show you some of my memories of us . . . if it would not seem too strange to you, I mean.”

  I could see in his eyes that he wanted to say yes, wanted to experience what he could of our future together, but he shook his head. “I will stick with imagining . . . for now.”

  “Oh.” I looked down at the rocky ground.

  Heru slid his hand down my neck, over my shoulder, and down my arm to twine our fingers together. “Come, little queen. I am eager for you to meet my family.” He grinned, but there was a hint of worry in his eyes. Probably because there was more than a hint in mine. “And I know that you are eager to see the rest of the Oasis.”

  I finally managed to return his smile.

  Heru led me back up the path to where we’d split off from the priestesses and through an overlapping break in the date palms. It gave way to a narrow walkway paved with what I thought was brick-shaped paving stones arranged in a zigzag pattern—at first—but they glinted too much in the afternoon sunlight to be stone.

  “Heru,” I said as we stepped onto the pathway, my eyes glued to the ground. “The paving stones are made of At . . .” And then I looked up, at the way ahead, and my mouth fell open.

  Stretched out before me was a small city of graceful, opalescent buildings composed of elegant domes and arches and sleek colonnades and spires, all gleaming in the bright sunlight. There were other, smaller and boxier structures that appeared to be made of regular limestone bricks clustered around the more grandiose buildings—palaces, they must be palaces—along with copses of tall date palms as well as small orchards of other fruit trees. But those elegant, shimmering buildings . . . they were like something from some distant, alien world, almost too beautiful to exist here.

  I shook my head. “It is all made of At.” I glanced at Heru, but quickly turned my attention back to the walled-in city.

  Each palace appeared to function as the center of its own little neighborhood, surrounded as it was by a starburst of the more mundane buildings as well as orchards and gardens. From my vantage point, it seemed that each “neighborhood” merged together to form a cityscape more awe-inspiring than any cityscape of my own time. And weaving a sinuous path through it all was a sparkling stream, crossed by bridges lined with railings of At filigree.

  “I did not know such a thing was possible . . .” Again, I shook my head. “Did you know what it was . . . that it was constructed from At?”

  Heru shrugged, giving my hand a tug to move me forward along the path. “I knew that Nuin had built it long ago, before I was born . . . but until I met you and saw firsthand the wonders a wielder of sheut is capable of, I did not know how he had built our people’s home or what he had used to make it.”

  I stared at the fantastical palaces juxtaposed with the more ordinary structures as we neared the edge of the first cluster of buildings. There was a single palace of At, smaller than some and larger than
others, and what appeared to be a well-tended orchard and garden surrounded by dozens of the smaller, stone buildings.

  “This is where my family resides,” Heru said, pointing ahead. He shifted his arm, indicating the highest-reaching At palace at least a half-mile off to the left. “That is Nuin’s residence, in the center of the Oasis, and near it is a bridge I think you will find quite beautiful.” He looked at me, his lips spread into a broad grin. “After you have settled in, I will show you everything.”

  “Father!” It was a high-pitched shriek. “It is Father! Father approaches!”

  More high-pitched shrieks joined the first as three small children emerged from a narrow alley between two of the stone buildings and sprinted toward us. The youngest was a girl who looked to be around four years old, the oldest, a boy around nine, and the other, a girl somewhere in between. They all had black hair and bronze skin, just like their father, and they were all ridiculously adorable.

  Heru released my hand as the smallest flung herself at him. Laughing, he picked her up under her arms and swung her around, seeming to revel in her squeals and giggles. When he stopped spinning, she wrapped her tiny legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, and buried her face against his shoulder. He patted her back gently, meeting my eyes for a moment before the other two kids reached us. They, too, practically attacked Heru with hugs, though their feet remained more or less on the ground.

  The elation, the pride—the love—that had shone in Heru’s eyes in that brief moment when he looked at me was seared into my memory. It stole my breath and made tears well in my eyes, my heart desiring something I’d never yearned for before, something that, until a week ago, I’d thought was an impossibility. For the first time, I truly wanted this with him—a family. I wanted our family to be a real, living thing. And it would be. It had to be. But not yet . . . not for thousands of years.

  “I think you have been gone too long this time, husband,” a woman said, “and the children have turned rabid.” The voice was rich and a little husky.

  My attention shifted away from Heru and his trio of children, and I watched a woman approach from the same alleyway. She had dark hair that she wore longer than was fashionable, cascading in waves over her shoulders, and she was more handsome than pretty or beautiful. And she was very, very pregnant.

  She called Heru “husband” . . .

  My mouth was suddenly as dry as the desert surrounding the Oasis, and my heart beat too heavily in my chest. His wife . . . pregnant . . . their children . . .

  I swallowed thickly, unable to stop thinking about what we’d just done back at the pool and feeling like a conniving home-wrecker. Heru had been right to show me this, to show me them, and he’d been right to do so before we did something that couldn’t be undone, at least not while I was still in this time. His wife was pregnant.

  “Sesha,” Heru said, extracting himself from his kids and setting the little girl on the ground. He held his arms out to his wife, cupping either side of her face in his hands and bending his head down to brush his lips against hers in a brief, tender kiss.

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t find enough oxygen in the hot air. And I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the expecting parents. Jealousy and shame and self-disgust consumed me.

  Heru moved his hands down to his wife’s rounded belly and smiled. “I did not know you were with child again.”

  “But she is,” another woman said. Her voice was raspy and weakened by age. She hobbled closer, hanging on the arm of a strapping teen boy who was unmistakably another of Heru’s sons. “And you did not listen last time, but you must now. This will be her final child, husband, unless you wish to send her to the gods before her children are grown.”

  Heru’s glee evaporated off of his face, and his hands fell away from Seshseshet’s belly. He looked from her face to the old woman’s, who I realized had to be Bunefer. “There have been problems?”

  “Yes,” Bunefer said. “As there were last time, though much worse.” She shuffled a few steps closer and stared up at him, waggling one arthritic finger under his nose. “No more, Heru. You know what you must do, now.”

  “Please, Bunefer, enough.” Seshseshet smiled kindly, and her eyes settled on me. “We have a guest, and there is plenty of time to discuss these matters later.”

  “Oh . . . yes. I forgot.” Bunefer hooked her arm through Seshseshet’s, and together, they ambled toward me.

  I could feel my eyes widening, my heart racing. I wasn’t sure I could actually talk to them, not now that I’d seen her, seen how gentle and loving Heru was with her.

  “I was worried she was that awful Netjer-At woman who has been clawing at Heru for ages,” Bunefer said to Seshseshet, squinting her cloudy eyes at me. I wasn’t sure she could actually see anything. “Even with the way those Hat-hur priestesses were going on about her . . . well, I cannot tell. Is she . . . ?”

  Seshseshet laughed softly and shook her head. “No, Bunefer, she is not Ankhesenpepi, thank the gods.” Both women stopped a few feet in front of me, Seshseshet’s full lips spreading into a smile once again. “I am pleased to welcome you into our home,” she said, bowing her head a little.

  “I—I—” I looked into her warm, brown eyes, then over her shoulder at Heru. His face was a mask of wariness, like he could sense what I was about to do. “I am sorry,” I blurted. “I cannot do this.” Turning on my heel, I took one lurching step after another until I was all-out sprinting away, toward the only sanctuary I could think of—Nuin.

  I was about halfway there when Heru caught up to me. He took hold of my arm and dragged me into a small copse of squat date palms. His expression was filled with so much concern, so much torment.

  “What is wrong, Alexandra?” He shook his head, staring down at me with liquid gold eyes. “I do not understand—”

  I tore my arm free of his hand and, without thinking, slapped his face. “How dare you! How dare you turn me into some—some sleazy—”

  “You do not understand—”

  “Seshseshet is carrying your child, Heru, and she welcomed me into her home . . . me! After what we just did”—I looked up at the clear blue sky—“I have never felt dirtier in my entire life. Marcus would never ask me to do this . . . would never put me in this position, never make me feel like a whore.” I leveled an angry glare on him. “You may be a younger version of the man I love, Heru, but you are not him.”

  Heru stared at me, stunned.

  Holding my head high despite wanting to collapse onto the ground and weep, I turned away from him and marched out of the copse of trees. I wore mental blinders the rest of the way to Nuin’s, not seeing people or buildings. And with each step, I felt more and more despicable.

  35

  Will & Way

  Nausea roiled in my belly, regret curdling on my tongue. I’d spoken rashly, lashing out like a wounded animal, and the words I’d thrown at Heru, however much I regretted them, could never be unsaid. True, I could make him forget them, but doing so would’ve made me an even more despicable person.

  When I reached Nuin’s palace, I found my “husband” standing out front in the dead center of the largest of five gracefully curved archways, his hands clasped in front of him and a pleasant smile curving his lips. My hurried pace slowed as I approached. I climbed up three shallow, broad steps and threw myself into his arms.

  “What have I done?” I bemoaned against his shoulder. I knew Nuin had heard; he heard everything.

  “You were hurt, dear Alexandra.” Nuin rubbed my back gently and rested his cheek on top of my head. “I’m sure that all will work itself out. Just give it some time.”

  I sighed heavily, swallowing the urge to whine about how I wanted things to work themselves out now.

  “Several days ago, you and Heru spoke about creating something to leave behind for the future Heru to find,” Nuin said, changing the subject as he pulled away. I was eternally grateful. “I believe I have just the thing. It will—what is the saying in your
tongue—kill two birds with one stone. You will leave something for future Heru and expend some of the built-up energy from my—your—sheut, thus prolonging your life.”

  Nuin captured my hand. “I started the project years ago, before I knew all of the details of who would end up carrying the burden that is now yours . . . and it has been sealed up ever since.”

  He guided me around the corner of the palace to a circular patch of soft sand that appeared to be some sort of a rock garden. In the center of the garden stood another At building, this one looking more like a tiny temple sanctuary, much like the Hat-hur inner sanctuary back in Men-nefer, except there was no obvious entrance. We stopped before the face of one smooth outer wall, and Nuin released my hand.

  “You must unmake the door, dear Alexandra,” he said, holding his hand out toward the wall. It was well over head-height and as wide as three people.

  My eyebrows rose. “But I’ve never handled that much At before.”

  Nuin waved a hand dismissively. “The big things are easy; it is the tinier amounts that are harder to manage. All you must do to maintain control over the physical At is touch some part of it. Unblock your access to the sheut you hold within you, like I taught you, and try it. You’ll see.”

  Brow furrowed, I frowned, but I didn’t argue. I let down the block inside me, stepped forward, and touched my fingertips to the solidified At. Closing my eyes, I thought, unmake.

  The At softened until it felt almost liquid against my fingertips. I opened my eyes and pulled my hand away, watching the quicksilver mass dissolve into a colorful mist before it evaporated completely, and in its place was a wide doorway displaying a broad set of stairs—also made of At—that led downward, underground.