“It will,” he lowered his head and my eyes found his. His jackal mouth widened. “I’ve seen this done a thousand times.”
We’d gotten off to a rocky start, but Anubis was quickly revealing himself to be a kind and loyal person. I pressed my lips together and crossed my arms. “Yeah, but was he broken before?”
Anubis’ bare chest expanded with a deep breath. “No.” He turned his gaze to his cousin on the bed of stone. “That he was not.”
“Do you have the amulet?” Isis asked me and held out her palm.
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” I replied and fished around my bag for the necklace. I pulled it out, noting how it still emanated a glowing pulse, and let it pool in her hand. “Does it always stay hot like that?”
“No,” she told me and lovingly mulled it around with her fingers. “Only for the first while. Until the soul inside settles. You feel that, though?” She cupped both hands around the pendant. “The thrumming. Like a heartbeat.” She smiled warmly. “My son’s heartbeat.”
My throat tightened and I had to look away again. I knew what she meant. I felt it before, the day Dad and Silas disappeared. I awoke in the middle of the night with a startle, fresh from a nightmare, and the stone burned my skin. I thought I was crazy, feverish from the terrifying dream. But now I knew…that was the moment part of Silas died. That was the night Horus took him from me.
And I tossed him in a bag at the bottom of my closet for two years.
The guilt was beginning to pile up, almost neck and neck with my grief. “How long will this take?” I asked.
Isis took a step closer to the still body on the block and laid a hand on his empty chest. “Not long at all. I designed it to be a simple process. Had it not been for my other son sniffing around my home last night, this would have been done immediately.”
“Horus came looking for him?” My heart clenched tightly.
Anubis groaned. “He can be obsessive. Especially when it comes to Amun.”
Dad touched his hand to my shoulder. “Let’s step back a bit. Give her some space to perform the ritual.”
I watched, my breath held prisoner in my chest, as Isis drew a slender dagger from thin air and lightly dragged it across Silas’ palm. With a squeeze, she forced blood to the surface until it oozed down over the sides and dripped to the floor.
Isis then placed the amulet in Silas’ bloodied hand and closed the fingers before releasing his arm and stepping back. At first, nothing happened. But in the span of a few breaths, the light contained within his closed fist grew brighter and brighter until it was almost hard to look at.
A yelp darted from my throat when his back suddenly arched and his whole body strained against the forces that now swirled in the air around him. The white light packed together and then funneled into his slack mouth, eliciting a sickening and unnatural scream to pierce the air. It seemed so painful, I had to look away, and buried my face behind my father’s back.
But when another cry of pain resounded in the room, I peeked over Dad’s shoulder; my heart aching to run to Silas. To help him. His back relaxed and straightened against the stone beneath while his jaw fell open, a thick and heavy intake of air filled his chest as he bolted upright. Eyes bulging while he frantically heaved oxygen in and out of his lungs. Sweat covered Silas’ dark sand-colored skin and his gaze darted around the room with a panicked jitter. His eyes first laid on Isis and I watched with wonder as his face swelled with emotion.
“Mother?” he croaked.
The sound of his voice, almost different than it was before in the cell, tickled something inside me.
“Yes,” she replied and embraced Silas. She kissed his cheek and then smoothed her thumb over it. “Welcome back, my son.”
Anubis stepped forward. “You’ve put us through hell for two years.” He struggled to remain stern, but the two men stared at one another and then erupted into a laugh together. Anubis patted Silas’ arm. “It’s good to finally have you back.”
“Thanks, cousin,” Silas replied happily, still seeming to struggle to gain control over his breath.
He swung his legs down over the side of the block but stayed seated. I remained tucked behind my father, peering over his shoulder with a nervous gaze. Was he fixed? Was it truly him? Would he remember me or was he the Amun they knew before he came to the future?
“Alistair?” Silas said with disbelief. “You survived?”
Dad nodded. “Indeed, I did. Not without great help, of course.”
Isis held firm to her son’s hand. “Breathe, calm yourself. You should know all this. You should still have the memories of the last two years somewhere in that mind of yours.”
Silas’ face pinched with confusion. “I do. I mean…I think I do.” He took a deep breath. “Yes, everything’s just so jumbled. The lives I’ve lived, it’s as if they’ve all spilled from boxes and are scattered across my mind.”
“In time, then,” she added, and he smiled at her.
Shadow tugged at my pants leg and the movement caught Silas’ attention. I froze in place as his mossy eyes cut across the short space between us and stared at me with incredulity.
“Jesus…Andie?” he whispered.
I stepped out from behind my father, my hands trembling, gut reeling with anticipation. He tensed and then hopped down from the stone bed before lunging toward me and wrapping me in a crushing hold. At first, I was stiff, unable to catch up with the moment. But his touch…his scent…for the first time in forever, I finally let go. I let him hold me, both of us shaking with tears of delight and surrealness.
He pushed me away, just enough to look at me. His hands moved up to cup my face as his eyes searched mine.
“How…?” he said with a gasp.
I gave a nervous shrug and my lip trembled. “Someone had to come back here and save your ass.”
Silas laughed and planted a deep, passionate kiss laced with desperation on my lips. I gasped for air but refused to relent. Being near Silas stirred a part of me that alcohol never could. And I drank him in.
Dad cleared his throat. “Uh, hate to break up the lovely reunion here, but we have some pressing matters to discuss.”
Silas looked to him, his arm firm around my waist. “Are we safe? Does my brother know what you’ve done here?”
“No,” Dad replied. “We were careful.”
He turned his attention back to me and rubbed a thumb across my cheek with a look of sheer admiration. His eyes glistening with all the promise I needed.
“Then we have time. Everything else can wait.” Silas smiled. “I have some explaining to do.”
Chapter Twenty-One
I walked hand in hand with Silas through the winding stone halls filled with torchlight. My heart never ceased its rapid thrumming and I anxiously moved along, headed for the Great Hall for some food. Then a thought occurred to me.
“Wait,” I said and stopped. “I can’t take you through the heart of the colony.”
Silas’ brows pinched together. “Why not.”
“You’re not exactly known to have a great reputation with the Star People right now,” I replied and slipped a hand over my mouth to hide the grin. “You’re kind of an asshole.”
“Jesus.” He threw his head back and closed his eyes with a heavy sigh. Then tipped his face toward me and smiled. “Do you have your own quarters?”
I squeezed his hand. “I do.”
“Well, as it happens,” he replied with an exaggerated shrug and charismatic expression, “I find myself not yet with a room.”
I playfully shoved at his shoulder. “I’m willing to share mine on one condition.”
Silas shook his head. “Anything. Name your price.”
“We walk, you talk,” I told him. “I want real answers to every single question.”
“Deal.” He tugged at my hand and drew me close as he leaned down to place a slow kiss on my lips.
We skirted around the Great Hall where everyone would surely be gathered for lunch. The lesser u
sed route to my room was way longer than cutting across the center but it was worth it if we could avoid as many people as possible. And it gave me more time to ask questions.
“If your father only told Anubis about this colony, then how did you know to tell my dad? How did you guys know what to look for?” I asked as we strolled along.
Silas’ cheeks pinched with a smile. “Anubis showed me once. Swore me to secrecy. We were close back then, long before I ever came to the future. And it was a relationship Horus was eternally jealous of.”
I guffawed. “No offense, or anything, but your brother is kind of a dick.”
He laughed. A single raspy chuckle that rolled through his chest. “Yeah. I suppose he is. But that’s why I came back. I had to. I have a sort of…responsibility to him.”
“Because you’re his counterpart?”
We rounded a corner and I turned to find his lips pursed. “More or less.” He rubbed a hand over his stress-tired face. “Horus despises me for being created from him, thinks that my existence has somehow hindered his.” Silas never broke his stride as he let out a deep sigh and glanced at me by his side. “And he’s right.”
I shook my head. “But that’s not your fault. Your parents did that.”
He rolled his eyes as we turned another corner. “Don’t even get me started on his relationship with our mother. He’d probably kill her, if presented the perfect opportunity, if it were even possible. But he’d singe the earth for revenge if someone else so much as laid a finger on her.”
A shiver ran through me. “He’s a total Loki archetype.”
He shook his head with a laugh and stared down the hallway. “I knew you’d say that.” We rounded one last corner and finally walked down the corridor to my quarters. “You know, I was fascinated when your father introduced me to the modern mythology of various gods around the world. Obsessed, really.”
I saw the exterior of my new door come into view. “Yeah?”
He hummed a reply as we came to a halt. “I quickly drew the parallels between them and my family. Odin and my father. Loki and my brother.”
My hand rested on the iron handle and I glanced up at him. “And you? Did you see yourself represented in that?” I stared at the way the corner of his mouth twitched and turned down. “You don’t strike me as a Thor type.”
“No.” Silas’ expression faltered to the floor. “That I am not. Nor am I found in any other mythology outside of Egyptian telling. That I could see, anyway. I’m…not meant to exist.”
I inhaled a deep sigh and shoved at my door. “Leave it to me to fall in love with an ancient god with an identity complex.”
He followed me inside and stood stiffly as I shut the door. “There’s no such thing as gods, Andie.” He stepped closer, our chests touching, his warm breath caressing my face. “I’m just a man.”
I guffawed quietly at his chest and inhaled the scent of him. “A man who can live forever, comes from another world, and can time travel?”
“Details.” Silas shrugged as he peered down at me and slipped a finger under my chin, tipping my face upward. “And the time travel part is a secret. My brother can never discover that I altered the portal for that sort of travel. With that power, he could…”
“What?” I asked, eyes wide.
His mossy gaze turned distant for a moment. “Who knows what he could do. Right now, he wants the one hidden here so he can get to the other side of the world where the Great Portal is protected. The one that can take him…off-world.”
“Where does he want to go?” I asked in a whisper, our lips slowly gravitating toward each other. I stared at the sharp outline of his mouth and salivated at the thought of kissing him again.
Silas’ hands gently rubbed up and down my arms and we swayed to the natural rhythm our bodies fell into when this close. “Anywhere that doesn’t worship me, I suppose. So, he can finally capture the minds and hearts of the people. Not have to share.”
I pressed tight to him and my heart thrummed in its cage. “I get it. The sharing part.”
His fingers traced the curve of my neck and along the underside of my jaw. Goosebumps scoured up my spine.
“You don’t have to share me with anyone, Andie,” Silas whispered across my face.
I swallowed nervously. I just got him back. After two years of loss, of living with a deadened heart, I had Silas right here in my arms and all I could think of was how different I was now. He looked at me like he always used to, expecting me to be the same old Andie. But I wasn’t.
I didn’t know who I was anymore. A shell of a human being. An…addict.
A low moan rumbled in his chest and vibrated right through me. His hands slid down my sides, over my anxious belly, and slipped under my shirt where a stream of goosebumps trailed not far behind. I wanted him. In that moment, I wanted nothing else except Silas, all of him, as much as I could get... feel… absorb.
But that annoying voice nagged in my ear. You don’t deserve it.
A gasp squeezed from my throat as I grabbed his hands. “Silas, I…can’t. There’s something I should tell you, something we need to talk about.”
His finger pressed against my lips. “Shhh. I know.”
Panic flooded my lungs. “You do?”
He nodded. “Yes. I know I shouldn’t be here with you right now. We should be with the others, discussing the state of the world my brother has brought to its feet. But I can’t.” He squeezed his eyes. “I can’t bring myself to face it yet. Not without…being with you. This is a moment I’ve held onto for over two years, Andie. The feel of your soft skin.” He gently pulled down at the strap of my tank top and laid a kiss on the curve of my shoulder. “The sweet scent of you.” His face turned and I warmed at the sensation of his nose inhaling around my neck. He brought his face to mine and stared into my eyes. “Call me selfish, but this is something I’ve been waiting a long time for. And I refuse to put anything else in front of it.”
Tears strained my eyes and a nod was all I could afford, for fear if I let words escape my mouth, they’d ruin everything. I wanted all those things, too. But my anxiety grew like a beast in my heart and I worried what Silas would think of me when he found out how I’d been mourning his death. How I’d given in to weakness, squandered my talents, and drank my life away.
So, I let him kiss me, instead.
I gave in to my selfishness and allowed myself to get lost in his touch, relished in how it reached a part of me deep inside. He hoisted me into his arms, my legs wrapping tightly around his waist, and Silas expertly removed my shirt with one free hand while the other held up my hollow body.
Our mouths, hot and wanting, danced together as I pressed my clammy skin against his bare chest, a sensation that felt too good to be real. But it was. He was real and not just some flicker of a memory in one of my dreams.
I took that thought with me as the last of my resolve melted away and I got lost in the god of a man that held me in his arms.
***
We lay naked on my lumpy bed. The thin blankets woven around our lower halves. I slung a leg over his waist and nestled my head in the crook of his shoulder.
“I think I’m still in shock,” I said as I traced the soft lines of Silas’ chest.
“Rightly so,” he replied and tightened the arm he had under me, drawing me closer.
I shook my head and stared blankly in the distance across the room. “I mean…I don’t even know what’s really going on. And I’m still totally shellshocked.”
“Well, what are you still unclear on?” Silas’ arm reached up across my back and caressed my arm.
“Everything,” I replied jokingly. “Mostly you. Right now, anyway.”
“Me?” he quipped.
I smiled up at him. “Yeah. I mean, who are you?” A laugh erupted in my throat. “I’m sorry. I know that sounds like a line out of a movie, but seriously. Who-what are you? What am I supposed to be thinking here? Is everything I know about you a lie?”
Silas
shifted to face me. “Absolutely not. Everything you know is true. I am Silas.” He blew out a deep breath through his nose. “But I’m also Amun.”
“But how does that even work?”
“It’s hard to fully explain,” he replied. “But, basically, I was Amun for thousands of years before I was resurrected in Silas’ body a few short years ago.”
I nodded, trying not to show how totally freaked out I was at hearing my delusions confirmed. “During that first dig you had with Dad.”
“Yes, that was…quite the week,” he replied.
“And your–Silas’ whole memory was still intact?”
“Trust me,” he said. “Allowing the life and memory of the boy’s short life remain intact was far better than having to remember the entirety of years I spent stuck inside that rock.” He smiled. “I happily became Silas, with the sudden knowledge and memories of an ancient being. Of…me.”
I chewed at the inside of my bottom lip. “Is it always that way? When you resurrect?” I could hardly accept the words that spewed from my mouth.
“No,” he replied with a chuckle and rolled to his back, tugging me closer. I draped more of my body over him and breathed a fleeting sigh of bliss. “But I also had never been held within my stone for longer than a day before that. Horus killed me, trapped my soul inside my amulet, and tossed it to the deepest nether layers of the desert. Never to be found again. Not even by him.”
“Why did he do that?”
Silas rolled his eyes and tapped his fingers on his chest. “I’d stabbed him in his sleep once. We had a tiff over…something. I don’t even remember, honestly. But he had to resurrect in a new body, and he’d grown quite fond of the one he had to let go of. So,” He shrugged as if that were no big deal, “Vengeance, I guess?”
I didn’t know what to say. A pulsing silence hung around us.
“You have a fucked up family,” I croaked.
Silas’ body jiggled with a laugh beneath my cheek and I tightened my leg around his waist.
“I know,” he replied. “And who knows if both amulets exist in this time? The one Horus tossed away, or the one you brought back from the future? I have no idea how any of this works. Distance, traveling across the universe in the blink of an eye. That’s what we do. Time travel…”
Ancient Hearts: A Time Travel Fantasy Romance (Kingdom of Sand & Stars Book 1) Page 18
