The movement of both of them inside her made Isolde’s eyes widen and her lips to part. Her already ragged breath expelled in a heavy gasp. Then the pleasure swamped her and her eyes drifted closed. She began to moan in soft little spurts and her trembling became a wild shaking.
It was overwhelming. Brody strained against her, driving himself deeper, striving for a pinnacle of pleasure that seemed formidable.
Isolde’s peak arrived first. Her breath held and her body stilled as the pleasure gripped her. Brody felt her squeeze around him, clamping down so tightly that he could barely shift inside her. It was the last skerrick of encouragement he needed. He spilled himself, a deep groan tearing at the back of his throat and stealing his sight for a heartbeat or two.
When he focused once more, it was upon Veris’ face as he drove himself into Isolde, his eyes almost completely closed. But there was a sliver of blue to be seen and as Veris came, Brody could see that he was watching him.
For long moments, none of them moved. Brody listened to their heartbeats slow and their breathing grow more even. He felt a rare moment of contentment.
Isolde lifted her head from Brody’s shoulder and looked at him, then turned her chin to glance at Veris, who remained propped tirelessly over both of them. “I do believe the pair of you may have completely spoiled my appetite for just one man.”
Brody’s laugh caught him by surprise. He let it out and with it flowed all the tension and worry of the last few weeks.
* * * * *
Their return to Tenchebray was completely without incident. There, they found the castle in an uproar, despite it being the dawn hours. They were able to ride directly through the gates and into the yard without raising a single brow, for men ran hither and yon, while beasts brayed and panic seemed to echo up from the walls themselves.
“Sherrington!” Brody called, when the lord strode close by. “Has an alarm been raised? Has Edward…?” He didn’t finish, not wanting to invite such a disaster down upon them by speaking of it aloud. But it was a fear they had all silently held, that the king would not be able to find terms his brother would accept and the hostilities would break out once more.
“We’re dismissed!” Sherrington called back. “Terms were reached late last night. The King has given everyone leave to return home.”
Brody glanced at Veris.
Veris lifted a single brow. “I presume the hysterics represent the eagerness everyone feels at the thought of leaving this place.”
Brody grinned and turned his horse toward the stable. “You gather the men down on the field. We decamp within the hour. I’ll meet you there.”
“Milord,” Veris acknowledged and wheeled his horse back around to the gate.
Brody trotted his horse to the stable, where he would leave it for the barest amount of time he could manage. He was just as eager as anyone to return to the comforts of home. But as he strode through the corridors, stepping around others as they hurried to leave, he felt a touch of regret. Returning home meant no further opportunities would present themselves in regard to the Lady Isolde. But it was only a small regret. That passion had burned itself out in a magnificent flame last night.
Just as Veris had predicted it would.
* * * * *
They were three days on the road before Brody had the courage and the opportunity to speak to Veris with complete privacy. The more senior knights were back among the troops and foot soldiers, encouraging them to keep up, to stay in formation and to stay alert. After three days, two of them bleak with falling rain, discipline had slipped. Despite the new-found peace between the king and his brother, the roads were still chancy to travel, even for a medium-sized company, so encouragement was needed to keep up morale and vigilance.
That left Veris at the head of the column, close by Brody’s side.
Brody flicked his fingers, indicating that Veris should draw level.
“My lord?” Veris enquired, in a voice that wasn’t loud, but would travel back to the ears of those closest to them. Two carts separated Brody and Veris from the infantry behind.
Brody gripped the slack reins, feeling the leather strain between his fingers. He looked at the white flash between his stallion’s ears and the swirl of hair in the middle of it. He drew a breath. “The lady had the right of it, Veris.”
Veris didn’t answer, which forced Brody to look at him. Veris was watching him, clearly waiting for a better explanation.
“Her appetite for just one…” He picked the phrase carefully, avoid any telling words. “I, too, think I may have been spoiled.”
“One will no longer be enough for you?”
Brody began to rephrase his words to something more neutral, then scowled. “Damn it,” he murmured. “You will always be enough. But a solitary woman?” He shook his head. “It would not be the same if you were not there.”
Veris was suppressing a smile, the one he wore when his emotions had been touched.
“But of course…” Brody began, then stopped. He had been about to say that the moments with Isolde were unique and would never happen again. Then he checked himself as a novel thought raised itself, one that he had never considered before. What if there were many women like Isolde? Eager for pleasure and independent in thought, unshockable and experienced? He had not anticipated that Isolde would be such a willing bed partner, for the face she presented to the world was that of a proper, pious wife. What if other women were also hiding their true natures?
“Do you think it is possible…” he began and Veris did not object to the complete change in direction. “Do you think there are others like her? Others that we can both…have?”
Veris shifted on his horse and cleared his throat.
Brody glanced at him. “I know. It is a childish question, but this is all new to me.”
“It is new to me, too,” Veris pointed out.
“You have never…taken two at once before?”
Veris drew in a slow breath, marshalling his reaction. Hiding it.
Brody recognized the mannerism. “What is it you will not speak of?” he challenged. “You have done this before?”
Veris’ gaze skittered away. “Just once,” he said, very softly.
Something cold and hard seemed to spear Brody through the chest. He gasped out a breath. The day, which had seemed to be so bright and clean after two days of rain, suddenly paled.
Veris lifted up his hand, as if he would reach for Brody, then remembered where he was and clenched the hand into a tight fist, instead. “Do not look like that,” he begged, his voice low.
“I know,” Brody said, his lips thick and uncooperative. “Your past runs longer than mine and there are secrets in it I’m not privy to. I must become accustomed to the idea, but it is difficult.”
“Damn it, Brody,” Veris said hotly. “Don’t look like that. You were there, too.”
This time, no words came to mind. Brody just stared at him. “I?” he asked stupidly. Then his mind began to work again, as the shock passed. “The four days,” he breathed. “It was during the four days.” The coldness in his chest was being replaced by a heated excitement. This was the first real confirmation Veris had ever given him of any events during those four days.
Veris pressed his knee into his horse’s flank, directing him closer to Brody’s, until the horses were shoulder to shoulder and Veris’ knee bumped against Brody’s. “You should not worry about my past, Brody. There is nothing in it that you need fear.” His voice was low.
“Does not every man fear the dark?”
Veris was back to staring at his horse’s head. It was always this way, when he spoke of his emotions. “You have no idea how much my life has changed since you entered it.”
Brody made himself breathe and remain silent, least he stop Veris from saying more.
Veris’ mouth worked, as if he were searching for the least awkward words among many. “I have had many women,” he said slowly. “Men, too. None of them have ever held my affections as
much as you.”
“Affections,” Brody said flatly. It was a strangely disappointing word.
Veris sighed and looked at him. “I have never loved another, until you.”
Warmth filled him. Brody found it was now he who had to focus upon his horse. “In nearly five hundred years, you have never loved another?” he asked, his heart squeezing.
“Not like you.” The words were flat with sincerity.
Brody let another mile go by while he considered this. Veris rode the length of the line and back, checking on the alertness of the men, before returning to his side. Their horses walked companionably together, while they let the reins go slack. The road was well marked here.
Brody glanced at Veris. “If I was really there the first time you had two of us, then who was the third?”
Veris’ jaw rippled as he clenched it. Brody recognized the expression. Veris had closed down. He wasn’t going to reveal anything more about that time. He would insist, as he always did, that Brody’s ignorance protected both of them, but would never explain why it was so.
“Oh…” Brody sat up straighter. “It was her, wasn’t it? The woman.” The wife he had never known, whom half of Jerusalem had mourned when she had been lost to them.
Veris shook his head. “You know I cannot speak of this.”
“Then it is about Jerusalem,” Brody insisted.
“It’s about the future,” Veris replied. “Our future.”
Comforted by this love he had not experienced, Brody rode on. Veris knew the future and it was a future where they were still together. That was enough for now. The rest would come.
In time.
_______________
Los Angeles, a few minutes later…
Alex shifted on his chair. “I hadn’t realized how difficult it would be. There are so many complications when you know the future—”
“Or don’t know it,” Brody growled.
“Why are you complaining?” Veris asked. “I said you would find out eventually and you did.”
“A thousand years later! You didn’t tell me it would be that long.”
Veris grinned. “You didn’t tell you anything, either.”
Brody scowled.
“Huh?” Taylor said.
“The letter,” Alex said. “The one he wrote himself in Jerusalem before you jumped back here.”
“I saw him write it,” Taylor said. “He sweated over it. What to say, what not to say.”
“I didn’t say enough, clearly,” Brody growled. “I didn’t warn me about you two, just to start.”
“Do you still have it?” Alex asked curiously.
Brody raised a brow. “It’s in archival storage, locked away in a private box.”
“But he has an electronic copy,” Veris added.
Brody scowled at him.
“Oh, let him read it,” Veris said. “It might stop him asking all his questions.”
“I doubt that,” Taylor murmured.
Alex grinned.
“My tablet is upstairs,” Brody said.
“Use mine,” Taylor said sweetly and picked up her tablet from the table beside her and held it out.
Alex stood and took the tablet from her and passed it over to Brody, who was scowling again. Brody tapped through screens, digging up the document from their cloud storage. He held the tablet back out to Alex. “Knock yourself out.”
Alex took the tablet. “You don’t really mind, do you?”
Brody shrugged. “If it’s you, not so much.”
“Thank you,” Alex said gravely. He turned the tablet around and started to read.
Time and a Letter
The Kingdom of Jerusalem
July 13, Year of Our Lord 1099
Brody;
Your full name, the name you were given at birth, was Brodie Gallagher Domhnall. Gallagher was from your mother, who was an Ó Gallchobhair. Your father…well, we both know that story all too well.
When you were enslaved by the Saxons and taken by the Jewish slave traders to Constantinople, you gave them your mother’s name, because they would have slaughtered you if they had known who your father was. But you didn’t mind the deception, because you knew of his last book that you buried in the hills behind Camelot, the one copy that the Saxons had not found and destroyed.
You never told anyone this, but I tell it to you now—of the year you came back to Britain already a vampire and hating the world for what you had become and the senseless loss of everything that had been dear to you. It was all gone. Britain had become England and Britons and Celts were slaves just as much as you had been.
You stayed in that cave where you hid the book for five days. You read the book in the dark and wished you could weep.
I tell you this because I am you and you must be convinced of that.
I write these words now because when you read this letter you will have lost time in your memory. There will not be evidence of memories gone to tell you that some days have passed. It will feel very much like you fell asleep unexpectedly and woke with no sensation of time having passed, but it will have. I do not know how much time will have passed, but I know it will be days, at least.
You might not believe those around you when they speak of what you have done in the last few days, but you must. This letter is one way I have of convincing you that your life depends upon maintaining several deceptions, including one you are familiar with—that you are a human among humans, which you are not. I have not broken that disguise while I was you.
I trust that you have read this far and believe the provenance of this letter—that you wrote it during your “sleep” and that you meant for yourself to read it when you “woke”. If you do not yet trust me on this, then speak to Veris. He gave you this letter.
I must speak of Veris first and foremost. To speak about him I must use blunt words. You will find them shocking because it will be the first time you have heard them used in association with Veris.
You can trust Veris like you trust yourself. I know that you have only just met him, but he will remain a part of your life for a very, very long time. I love Veris like no one else on this earth, save for one other. You will come to feel the same about him. I do not ask you to force your love because I know it will build by itself. I only ask that you give it time, which we have plenty of. And trust Veris. He would lay down his life for you, although you do not fully appreciate that yet and neither does he.
And if you do not yet trust me, talk to him now. He will tell you of the days you have been sleeping and what you—what I did—while you slept. He will explain to you as much as he can of these strange days. Put down this letter and speak to him now.
* * * * *
If you did as I asked and have spoken to Veris, then you now know of the events that happened in the days you slept. I am quite sure you are deeply puzzled about the real reasons for all that has happened. I cannot tell you these reasons, any more than Veris could, although I am sure you pressured him to explain. You have yet to learn this, but you will—Veris does not do anything that he does not wish to do. No force on earth or in heaven will make him act if he chooses not to. He and I both understand how vitally important it is that you only know as much about the events of the last few days as any human around you. Veris will not tell you what I know you most desperately want—the why. The reasons. The real reasons.
These reasons, these explanations that will make sense of everything, I promise that you will eventually learn them. But not now. For now you must pass as human. So there are a handful of additional deceptions you must maintain in order to do that.
Here is the first. There is a Fatimid Christian by the name of Alexander, who has been of the greatest assistance to you and Veris and one other, who I will speak of after this. Alexander believes you to be as human as he, although your actions over the last few days have puzzled him greatly. He is a learned man and will perhaps become a great one. While others around you will turn from him because of his origins, I
urge you not to do the same. You must pretend that you know Alexander and that you respect him. In time, both of these acts will become the truth.
The second pretense is the most important one and will be the most difficult one for you to grasp. While you slept, your world shifted in such a way that the facts of your life changed. You remember arriving in Jerusalem as an unwed Lord with an army and land of his own. Most of this is still true. You are Lord Norwich and your home still waits for you in England. But the world believes you were married to a woman called Tyra. She had another name, one that you will come to know eventually. Taylor. The moment you woke, she and I—this edition of yourself from another place—both disappeared. This is part of what we cannot explain to you, that you must take on trust. The world believes you have a wife called Tyra, a beautiful woman who charmed everyone she met in Jerusalem, but she has died of a spear wound to the shoulder.
You must behave like a man who has lost the love of his life. Tyra will never be found again, no matter how hard everyone looks. The evidence of her existence is all around you in the pavilion you sit inside of while you read this letter. Look in the trunks, look at the feminine furniture and fripperies. Her scent will be among them. She existed and you loved her, even though you don’t remember it. You must continue to act as if you loved her and her loss is a terrible blow to you.
If you can maintain this illusion, if you do everything I have asked of you in this letter, then I can promise you that some time in your future, you will come to understand the reasons why I ask. If you fail, then I cannot predict what will happen, but I know you will never learn the reasons for the deceptions we, Veris and I, ask that you maintain.
I offer one raft of comfort in what must seem to you to be a bewildering sea of confusion. As I am able to write this letter, it is proof that you will be able to maintain the deceptions and that everything I have predicted here will come to pass. In the coming years, you will ponder this and you will start to guess my meaning, but I will say no more. For now, your ignorance will serve you.
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