Losing Time (Lost Time, Book 1): A Time Travel Romantic Suspense Series

by Nicola Claire

  Eff me.

  “Prediction?” I asked, my voice a mere rasp from how dry my throat was getting.

  “We travel through Time, Miss Wylde. More often than not, backwards. But we are capable of forward travel, as well. The future is malleable; rips tend to not appear there. So, the majority of our flights are into the past. The dreams are our minds’ way of balancing out the electrical signals they receive.”

  He shrugged his shoulders as if he wasn’t describing something surreal.

  “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” he said. “Simple physics.”

  Not so simple for me.

  “Prediction,” I repeated. He smiled; I wouldn’t have said it was particularly mirthful. But I was betting I was amusing him to some degree.

  “Yes. Prophetic Dreamscape Realisation. It has a name and everything.”

  Huh.

  “Prophetic,” I found myself saying. I couldn’t seem to manage more than one word every time I attempted to speak.

  “You seem fixated on this point,” Jack remarked. “Could it be you’ve had multiple dreams?”

  “They’re just dreams.” Great, I was up to three words now.

  “Dreams of the future.”

  “A possible future.”

  His smile turned pitying.

  “Dreams of the future directly connected to where you have been.”

  “What the effing hell does that mean?”

  “It means, Miss Wylde, that when we travel into the past, we dream of the future that will balance that particular action out. More often than not, but not always, that dream will include a person we travelled into the past with. For beginners, this is often the case. For seasoned travellers, there’s more scope for variety.”

  The longer I did this; the more varied my dreams would be. Effing eff me.

  “Now,” he said, shifting in his seat, “this is where it gets complicated. And controversial. The dreams are prophetic, but the future is still malleable. Some debate that the dreams can be…refused. They believe it is possible to deny them. Some argue that the dreams are too closely woven with our genetic makeup. Therefore denying them would be as impossible as denying what skin colour you’re born with. And then there’s the third group.”

  “The third group?” Brilliant, back to three-word sentences. And parroting.

  “Yes, the third group. This collective of people believes the dreams are prognostic. That by having them, we get caught in a causal loop of sorts. The future wouldn’t occur the way the dream shows us unless we have the dream.”

  “Chicken and egg.”

  “Not exactly. The egg can exist without hatching.” OK, if you say so. “But this third group believes that there is no avoiding the dream’s outcome, once the dream manifests. They believe by having the dream, you make that particular future possible, and therefore every move you take towards that dream outcome only transpires because of having had that dream.”

  I was getting a headache.

  “It’s a lot to take in,” Jack admitted. Maybe seeing the strain on my face from trying to reason this all out?

  But that seemed to be the problem with time travel; there was no reasoning it out.

  “So,” he said. “Back to your dreams.”

  “I never said I had dreams.”

  “Please, you’re turning an unhealthy shade of white as we speak.”

  “That could just be because of the potential to have them,” I offered.

  “Stop arguing.”

  “Stop bossing me about.”

  “Mimi. You’ve had dreams.”

  “How can you be sure?” I whispered.

  His eyes searched my face, but I don’t know what he saw there. I don’t know what made his own face soften and a small smile tip up the corners of his lips.

  “Because,” he said after some time, “I know you.” I shook my head. “And because,” he added before I could open my mouth to argue, “my dreams are clear.”

  “The more vivid the dream, the more accurate the prediction,” I murmured.

  “Precisely.”

  “What did you dream?” I asked, surprised I’d found the courage to ask that question.

  “You first.”

  “Ah-ah,” I said, shaking my head.

  “One of us has to,” he said with a crooked smile.

  “No, we don’t. We can deny them.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Was it? To never touch Jack in the way I touch him in those dreams? To never share the sort intimacy that we shared? To never feel the way he makes me feel inside a dreamscape? To never laugh and love and fly free as I did in his arms in that bed?

  I couldn’t say I would want to miss that.

  But I couldn’t accept a dream as being real.

  “What do you believe?” I asked. “Which group of thought are you in?”

  Jack let a slow breath of air out and ran that hand of his through his hair again.

  “It depends on the dream.”

  “That’s hardly scientific.”

  He smiled. “I’m a little more adaptable than your average scientist.”

  “Are you saying I’m not?”

  “What was in your dream, Mimi?”

  “What do you believe, Jack?”

  He stilled. His eyes holding mine. His entire presence keeping me captive. I watched every minute shift of his features. Savoured every rise and fall of his chest. Anticipated every nuance as it developed. I could stare at this man for hours and never grow bored.

  “I’ve had a recent change of heart,” he murmured. “Prior to 1969 I would have said I am in the first group.”

  I frowned. “The one that believes we can refuse the dream?”

  He nodded his head.

  “And now?”

  He smiled ruefully, as if to himself, not me.

  “Now I find myself believing we are too intrinsically tied to our dreams. That maybe our DNA is somehow involved.”

  I shook my head. It had been a stretch for me to believe time travel existed at all. If I hadn’t witnessed it for myself, I may never have comprehended that an Orion MPCV could surf dimensional waves through Time. But this…this was asking too much.

  I was certain my reaction to Jack was only because of the dreams. Somehow they affected me. Somehow they made me want him when I should not. Somehow they elicited emotions and reactions in me that were not my own. They were the dreams’ emotions and reactions. Not mine.

  How else could I explain the way I threw myself at him? The way we fought and ended up kissing. There wasn’t another explanation, as far as I was concerned. The dreams were fucking with us, that’s all.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I’m not sure why I apologised; I was doing nothing wrong. “But I don’t believe that. I’m placing myself in the third group,” I announced. “None of this would be happening if I hadn’t had those dreams.”

  He didn’t seem too upset by that admission. His smile stayed glued to his face. It was small, but then, Jack didn’t often let himself go to any degree; a small smile was him practically laughing.

  “So, you’ve had more than one?” he queried.

  I didn’t think denying it now would matter. I nodded agreement.

  “And they were of you and me?”

  Another head nod.

  “What were we doing?”

  My cheeks blazed red.

  “Ah, we were…kissing?” I frowned. “Making out?” I rolled my eyes. “In bed.” I bit my bottom lip. “Naked,” he whispered. I just breathed. “Making love.” I couldn’t look at him. “Were we fucking or loving, Miss Wylde?”

  “Does it matter?” I croaked.

  “Humour me.”

  I cleared my throat. And then had to do it all over again before enough saliva coated the back of it to enable speech.

  “We were making love,” I whispered.

  “As if we’d done it before.”

  “Yes.” It was barely audible.

 
“As if we planned on doing it again.”

  I nodded, my eyes coming up slowly to find his. He was watching me, an entirely inappropriate look on his face.

  What was it?

  Smugness. That’s what.

  I straightened in my chair. “It’s irrelevant. It won’t happen.”

  “You said you were in group three.”

  “I said none of this would be happening but for the dreams. My reaction to you is affected. It is not mine. Therefore it is not real.”

  “But it is happening, therefore it exists.”

  I frowned at him. He just smiled benignly.

  “I…I’ll deny it, then,” I rushed to say. “Group one. I’ll refuse to let it transpire.”

  “Which is it, Miss Wylde? Group one or group three?”

  “Both! Some of one and some of the other. A mix of both philosophies.”

  He laughed. Damn him for finding me amusing!

  “You’re a scientist,” he said between chuckles. “You can do better than that.”

  “I can not!” Yeah, that argument worked.

  He stopped laughing. Then moved forward, crossing the distance between us slowly, but steadily. His eyes held mine; a question there. His hand rose, fingers outstretched, and then as if I couldn’t stop him, didn’t have the will to stop him, he simply reached forward and stroked my cheek. Ran a finger down the side of my neck. Cupped my nape. Rubbed a thumb over my pulse point.

  I shivered.

  “Does it feel real?”

  I closed my eyes.

  Then felt hot breath coast over my lips.

  I licked them.

  He licked them.

  “Does it taste real?”

  “Stop. Please!” My words were mere whispers, feathers floating on the breeze.

  “Deny it,” he whispered back. “Fight it. Refuse it.”

  “I..I…”

  He disappeared. My eyes flicked open to a coldness that had no right to exist but chilled me to the bone. Jack sat watching me.

  “It’s real.”

  “But…”

  “You have a twin,” he murmured. Carrie? What did she have to do with this? “Both of you were picked up on a flight through time.” I stilled. “Monozygotic. As close to genetically identical as one can get.” No. “Your DNA and hers are practically inseparable. Perhaps timing played a part. You were both in the right place at the right time, but you cannot deny that had your genetics also not played a part, then chances are you both wouldn’t have been picked up on consecutive fly-bys.”

  He sat there waiting for me to say something. But what could I say to that?

  Jack knew me. He knew how the scientist in me worked.

  “Three days ago, I would have agreed with you,” he said softly, gently. “Today, I can’t.”

  I stared at a spot on the floor between us. Silence stretched.

  Group two. He said he was now in group two. He said that the dreams are too closely woven with our genetic makeup. Therefore denying them would be as impossible as denying what skin colour you’re born with.

  “This is happening,” I whispered.

  “This is happening,” he repeated with a small smile.

  The Rest Is Up To You, Jack

  Jack

  It wasn’t exactly how I’d planned for things to go. I’d envisaged discussing the dreams with Mimi while working toward them. As in, naked, in her bed, having just had fantastic sex. The first of many sessions with the woman.

  The fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about stripping her bare, or about lying in that bed I knew was in her assigned room, or about her pearlescent skin, shining brightly under a full moon as it softly glowed through her window, was alarming. The curve of her breasts. The dip at the base of her neck. The soft skin behind her ear. Dark blonde hair fanning out over a white pillow.

  The images were more than vivid now; they were evocative. Suggestive in a way I couldn’t stop fantasising about them. I’d never had dreams become so realistic in such a short amount of time before. The rapidity with which they had crystallised inside my head was foreboding. A portent of things to come.

  Of course, my body chose to tell me those things were going to be spectacular, but the Surgeon in me urged caution. Since when had dreams felt like destiny? Since when had I believed them dangerous?

  Because they did feel that way. As if the longer it took to fulfil them, the more danger Mimi and I were in.

  I walked her back to her room in silence. There was so much to say. The words clumped together in my mouth as if caught in a verbal traffic jam between my teeth. Sometimes it felt like kissing Mimi was the only way I could be honest with her. When I tried to speak, it all turned to hell.

  But God, she was glorious when arguing.

  We stopped outside her room, and it took me a minute to figure out what had consumed her attention. The entire walk back from the cafeteria I’d been acutely aware of her constant glances towards me. As if she couldn’t stop herself from looking. I’d stoically kept my gaze face forward. But I’d been aware.

  I was always aware of Mimi.

  Now she stared at something else.

  A bronze plaque had been attached to her door, just like the bronze plaques on all of the flight crew’s rooms. Novitiate Mimi Wylde. It was official then. Clive had authorised her tag.

  Part of me wanted to rejoice that she had a legitimate place here.

  Part of me feared how much more dependent on her I would get before she was gone.

  She’d find her sister, rescue her from Sergei’s clutches, and then return to her time. She was an Origin Event. How could she not?

  She was also one of the most determined women I had ever met. If Mimi said she’d do something, I was sure she would.

  How did I protect myself from this?

  “That’s cool,” she whispered, stroking the plaque. “Do you have one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it say ‘Surgeon’?”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes flicked to mine, then returned to the plaque.

  “Jack Evans, Surgeon,” she said with a small twist of her lips. It was a smirk, I realised. A bloody smirk.

  “Actually, it’s ‘Surgeon Dr Jack Evans’,” I corrected. What an arse.

  Mimi snorted softly and then turned her full attention to me. She looked up at my face and said nothing. I swallowed, but the words wouldn’t form. My eyes darted to her still closed door. My mind conjured the picture of her bed from my dreams.

  And then, of course, the whole reel was playing. I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath of air.

  “Do you want to come in?” Mimi asked.

  My eyes flicked open while my heart attempted to jump right out of my chest.

  Yes, I wanted to come in. I so bloody fucking well wanted to come in that room.

  “There’s time, Mimi,” I found myself saying.

  “Time for what?”

  I reached up and slipped a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. My thumb danced across the smooth skin of her cheek. I cupped her jaw. My eyes taking in every single inch of her perfection. Her hair was like spun gold. Her eyes were the deepest of oceans. I lost myself for a few seconds.

  “Jack?” she pressed.

  “Hmm?”

  “Time for what?”

  Oh. “Time for us to get to know each other better.”

  Her look called bullshit on that. And then reality came rushing back in. She’d be gone as soon as she found her sister.

  I pulled my hand back and not knowing where to put it, thrust my fingers through my hair. I wanted to pull on the strands. I scratched my whiskers instead. I needed a shave badly.

  Fuck. I needed fresh air.

  “Sleep well, Miss Wylde,” I said and turned away before she could answer.

  The smell of cigar smoke hit me first; I recognised it. Then spent a few seconds debating whether to walk toward the sweet scent of tobacco or away. I sighed and moved through the formal garden, finding Clive
sitting on his favourite bench. The heavy boughs of a chestnut tree provided cover from the moonlight, making his relaxed form a mere shadow in the dark.

  “Jack,” he said in greeting. “I thought you’d be in your bed.”

  So did I, but not my bed. Mimi’s.

  I leant against the trunk of the tree and crossed my legs. Picking a leaf off a branch, I ran it through my fingers, starting to tear it to pieces before I could stop.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” I murmured.

  “Something on your mind?” He puffed out a ring of smoke, seemingly unperturbed. But nothing got past Clive Crawford.

  “The flight tomorrow.”

  “Fawkes will be fine; he was trained by the best.”

  I accepted the praise without comment. Fawkes wouldn’t be wherever he was if not for the Wylde twins.

  “This is uncharted territory,” I offered.

  “Not something you are unfamiliar with.”

  He was wrong. I was way out of my league.

  “The girl,” Clive said, flicking ash off the end of his cigar. “Is she up to it, do you think?”

  “Mimi?”

  Clive’s eyes darted to my face immediately.

  “Is that how it is?”

  I cursed the familiarity the dream had brought.

  “She’ll be fine,” I chose to say instead of defending myself. “She’s very determined,” I added.

  “He may not give up the sister kindly.”

  “She’s aware.”

  “And if he does fall for the trap? Are you ready?”

  “Of course.”

  Clive rested his cigar down on the edge of the bench, glowing end hanging over the side, dripping ash. He ran his hands over his trousers as if brushing the wrinkles out of them. Then lifted aged eyes to mine.

  “You know why I chose this time?” he asked.

  I’d never thought to ask. Clive Crawford had started RATS over a century ago. Then abandoned it for several decades. He’d been back, reforming it, modernising it, for only a decade. For only as long as I’d been qualified to fly.

  “No,” I said, “I don’t.”

  “Strange that you never asked,” he said. “But I guess it’s to be expected. You respect people’s privacy, Jack. Even if it can end up blindsiding you.”