Ancient Hearts: A Time Travel Fantasy Romance (Kingdom of Sand & Stars Book 1)

by Candace Osmond

  I lifted my head. “What? Is it forbidden or something?”

  “No, it’s just never been done before. Not to my knowledge. It was your father who got me on the right track. Once the pieces began to fit, our research basically steered itself. We knew exactly what we had to do once we got to the pit. We just didn’t expect the cave-in to happen.”

  I’m sure he could feel the hackles on the back of my neck. The nervous attempt to swallow at the mention of the event that changed my life. But he said nothing.

  “So, we worked in haste. We were unconscious for hours before anyone found us on this side of the portal. They assumed we arrived from another world. Not another time.”

  I reached over and wove my fingers through his atop his naked chest. I could feel his heart beat beneath our joined hands.

  “When did you guys get captured by Horus?” I asked.

  The rhythm of Silas’ heart sped up. “That same day.”

  That was the night I got the phone call that changed my life. The same night his necklace nearly burned through my chest. That must have been the moment Horus tried to erase his memory.

  “So, why didn’t it work right?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  I pushed myself up and peered down at him. “The memory thing. When Horus tried to erase it from your mind. What went wrong? Why were you…broken?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Silas?”

  “He didn’t do it.” His lips pressed together, and he sat upright, taking the blanket with him. I scooted closer and kissed his bare back. “I did.”

  “What?” I spoke against his warm skin.

  “I was foolish. I took your father with me to speak with my brother, but I had no idea how much his tyranny and thirst for power had grown in my absence. He immediately attacked and had me dragged off to a holding cell. I tried to protect what I knew of the colony and the portal.” His back heaved beneath me. “And what I’d done to get here. Horus has this ability to seep into people’s minds, and I quickly realized just how much of my mind he simply couldn’t have.”

  A cold sensation squeezed in my veins. “How–how did you do it?”

  He turned to glance over his shoulder where I rested my chin and held up his wrist where the faintest gleam of a scar could be seen.

  “What?” the sound came out like a clap.

  “It’s the only way to do it,” he reasoned.

  My body turned stiff against his. “Killing yourself?”

  “No, no,” he pleaded and moved to face me on the bed. He took my numb hands in his. “I wasn’t killing myself. Only ridding myself of the body I was in. I knew I’d be stored in the amulet; I’d be safe. That’s why I left it with you.”

  Guilt poured into me. Maybe if I hadn’t thrown the necklace in a bag at the bottom of my closet, if I’d just held onto it a little longer, I would have noticed the way it thrummed with life. Maybe I would have hopped on a plane to Egypt and found a way to dig out the pit myself.

  “But Horus wouldn’t have it. Refused to let me go that easily. He found me on the floor of the cell in a pool of my own blood and had a healer come and save me. But something went wrong. I came back as the man Silas was before he met you and your father. Horus wasted no time in gaining control over my mind. But at least…you were all safe. The portal protected.”

  I was truly a stain on my father’s legacy. He and Silas made a world-changing discovery, figured out how to alter an ancient portal and rig it for time travel. Dad came here and spent two years trying to save Silas while protecting the colony, and the man I loved tried to give his life for…everyone.

  Meanwhile, I’d burrowed a hole so deep in the future that I was drowning in my own pitiful sorrow. I didn’t even try to make things better. I didn’t even make an effort to answer my phone when Howard called about digging out the pit. I was a coward of the worst kind.

  “Are you alright?” Silas asked and took my face in his hands. “Is this too much?”

  I shook my head, eyes unblinking as they glossed over. “I can’t believe all you and Dad have been through.”

  His thumb brushed under the skin of my eye. “We do what we must when the universe asks it of us. I’m sure you faced your own ordeals in the future.”

  I struggled to swallow against the sudden tightness in my throat.

  “What else is going on in that mind of yours?” he asked, his eyes searching mine.

  My hand reached up and covered his over my cheek. “Silas, I’m not…the same person I once was.”

  He shrugged with a warm smile. “Of course you’re not. You were left all alone to mourn the sudden loss of your only parent and the person you loved. You were given no closure. Nothing. I can’t imagine what you must have been going through.”

  I tried to lower my face, to break the hold his gaze held on mine, but he wouldn’t let me. My eyes brimmed with tears.

  “Well, I wasn’t safeguarding a colony of space people or giving my life to protect the greater good,” I replied, and Silas pursed his lips at my sarcasm. “But I became–” I shook my head, “Jaded. Weak. I–I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

  His hands spread and cupped the back of my head as he pulled us closer. Our foreheads pressed together, and Silas let out a deep sigh. “That’s okay,” he said and placed a kiss on my mouth. Salty tears filled the creases of our lips and he pulled away with a grin. “Because I know exactly who you are. No amount of time can change that.”

  Through the hot emotions that bubbled in my stomach, I couldn’t help but laugh. This was one of the reasons I fell madly in love with him. Silas always had a way to make you feel like the end of the world was no big deal.

  “Why can’t you just let me be broody?” I straightened my back and wiped at the wetness on my face.

  Silas chuckled quietly. “Now, what kind of person would I be if I let you do that?”

  I had no reply and brought my knees to my chest. The candle in my room was beginning to diminish and I sat there as I watched Silas’ tall frame lunge across the room to light another before darting back to the bed with me.

  “What else is bothering you?” he asked.

  “Huh?” I’d almost forgotten how he could almost read my mind at times. He always knew what I was feeling, before I could even make sense of it myself.

  “Your thoughts, your worries,” he replied and stole some of the blankets back to cover his legs. “There’s more.”

  My mind raced to stack everything neatly so I could make some semblance of coherent thought. The problem was that there was just too much. Everything was happening too fast, too heavy, and I struggled to keep up.

  “So, what happens now?” I asked. “Will Dad and I go back to the future? Will you stay here or come with me?” His mouth opened to speak but I kept spewing questions. “If I stay, will you even want to be with me in this time, in a place where so much is expected of you?” I sucked in a deep breath. “I can’t hold a candle to a god. Shouldn’t you be with someone…more like yourself?”

  Like a flash of lightning, he was out of bed again and raked the floor for the tunic and pants that Dad had given him back in the temple. I admired his lithe muscles and ogled the way his skin almost shimmered like gold dust in the new candlelight. He was so perfect.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Silas tied the drawstring of the pants around his waist and let the tunic fall over it before reaching a hand out toward me.

  “We’re more alike than you think,” he replied. “And I’ll show you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Silas and I walked hand in hand once more as we wound through the back halls of the colony. Headed for the very temple I’d helped resurrect him in just mere hours earlier. The lunch rush was long over, and I worried some wandering colonists would find us and recognize Silas. Amun, I mean. I had to remember, that he was Amun to them. To everyone in this time. And, according to what Anubis and Dad told me, he wouldn’t exactly be welcomed
down here.

  We entered Osiris’ old temple through the hidden door, and I followed Silas through its ornately designed rooms, our footsteps echoing off the cavernous walls, and out the front entrance. I expected the bristly feel of sand in the air but breathed a deep sigh of relief when my lungs filled with the moistness of a sweet oasis breeze.

  But there was a strange sense of familiarity that tickled at the back of my brain and I glanced around with curious eyes. The lush foliage that hung overhead like canopies in various shades of green. The way the hot desert sun filtered down and sparkled on the rushing creek and warmed the earth beneath my feet. But it was more than that. Through the trees, the view of never-ending desert; dunes of sand peppered between bodies of water and winding villages too far to get to on foot. I knew this place.

  I turned to Silas. “I…I dreamed about this. About us.”

  His returning grin told me I was right. “It wasn’t a dream. I mean, yeah, it was in your mind, but I put it there.”

  “What?” I squawked. “How? What are you talking about?”

  Silas took my hand and spun me around before pulling me tight to his chest. He peered down at me as we swayed back and forth ever so slightly, his eyes gleaming with so much promise. My heart wasn’t used to the constant flux of emotions but its willingness to endure was a sensation I welcomed. It’d been too long that I let it lay dormant in my chest.

  “We’re connected in a way that can’t be explained, Andie,” he whispered, his breath tickling my face. “In a way, the blood that runs in my veins runs in yours.”

  I guffawed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Millions of years ago, there was only one. Atum-Ra, the Great Creator. They took parts of themselves to create two in their image, Shu and Tefnut.”

  “Yeah, I know the mythology.” I pointed up at my face. “Archeologist, remember?”

  Silas chuckled. “You only know a skewed story painted by those who tried to piece it all together. From Shu and Tefnut, more were created. Geb and Nut, then my parents and their siblings. And so on. Until the universe was alive with the smatter of beautiful life. Fledgling planets, like Earth. The Star People spread their seed across the entire universe to take root in places like this. Our purpose is to find these planets and help the people evolve, stay on the right track to becoming higher beings. Like us. Like the people you see down there in the colony.”

  “Wait,” I replied and fought back a laugh. “So…I’m an alien?”

  “No. A descendant of the Star People. Like all people of Earth.” He stopped and seemed to struggle with the next words. “We were never meant to be worshipped. What my brother has done here is wrong.”

  My brow pinched together as I worked to make sense of his words. “So, why isn’t any of this depicted in our history?”

  “That’s why I came back,” Silas replied. “To figure out where things went wrong. In the future, all Star People are either gone or in hiding. The Mau people couldn’t disguise their feline appearance, so they’re completely gone. Where, I have no idea. But others, like the Venuvian and the Nuvi have found ways to blend in. Creatures like the Karzin have all gone underground.” He let me go and stepped back, his fists clenched at his sides. “It’s not right. The people of Earth should have evolved to higher beings, capable of so much more than they’ve become in the future you came from.”

  No amount of time could prepare me for the things I’d learned in the last twenty-four hours. My gaze fixed on the dewy grass beneath us. “Capable of what?”

  Silas stood still, a contemplative expression on his face while the warm breeze blew around the thin tunic he wore. I watched as he bent down and plucked a withering flower from the ground and placed it in his palm. I stared intently, watching the tiny white flower begin to flourish at his very touch. The wiry roots crawled out the bottom and Silas bent once more to poke a hole in the dirt and replant the now thriving flower.

  He stood and looked at me. “Life.”

  My lip trembled as I stared. “Y-you mean…I can do that?”

  He took a couple of careful steps back toward me. “Not quite. You, like most people in the future, have the potential. It’s born into you. But the ability has been lost on the people of Earth for thousands of years.”

  I stood in a puddle of awe, unable to form any sort of response to what I’d just learned. I mean, what is the proper reaction to learning the fate of humanity has been off the tracks for centuries? That we’re literally squandering away our abilities, the potential bestowed upon us by the very universe, in favor of greed and…whatever it is that we’ve become.

  Just then, a shadow moved over us, sending a shiver down my spine. I glanced up to find a massive falcon flying overhead, circling around as if it were about to dive down for its prey. It was bigger than the one I’d seen near the colony that day, and even larger than the two guards that dragged me to Horus’ temple. A loud caw pierced the skies and I instinctively ducked down.

  “Andie!” Silas called out and reached for me.

  But his fingers never touched my skin, never had the chance. In a split second, the grips of claw-like hands tore at the tender flesh of my arms and I was yanked to the sky before I could even take a single breath. I could hear the faint cry of Silas’ voice in the distance as my mind threatened to check out; the sudden pressure change was too much to bear and my head lolled.

  The falcon creature soared over the tiny stone houses and headed straight for Horus’ temple, his palace where I’d died not so long ago. We began to descend, and my feet dangled over a giant square hole in the ground. The claws around my arms loosened and my body plunged to the ground, into the hole, and smacked the hard surface of the bottom as a gut-wrenching snap resounded.

  My leg. Clean across the shin, a blinding pain possessed the limb and I knew it was broken. I screamed in agony at the slightest attempt to move and panicked as I searched around me. Three walls of stone, towering high above, no chance of escaping. And one wall of iron bars that looked out onto a great courtyard of sorts. Intricate paving stones made the floor, the base for luscious greenery and a trickling fountain.

  No one was around, except for the sudden shadow that touched the floor just outside my cell. It grew larger until the falcon-like being plunged from the sky and landed gracefully on its feet. I watched in a mix of horror and disbelief, my hands gripping at my broken leg, as the creature stood tall. All likeness of the bird quickly melted away; its ivory feathers turning to a silken cape and the beaked face gone. In its place was the face of a man, bronzed skin and sharp features. His eyes, like two black holes, pierced the space between us as he sauntered up to the iron bars and peered down at me writhing on the floor. I swear, I could almost see a flicker of joy in his expression at my pain.

  “Who the hell are you?” I screamed.

  The man leaned in with a sly grin. “You know very well who I am.”

  He took another step and my heart rushed with fear as he walked right through the bars. As if they weren’t even there. He unsheathed a dagger from his side, the metal aglow with an unnatural light, and knelt by my side. The blade slipped under my chin and he forced my face to meet his.

  “Now, let’s discuss what you’ve done to my brother, shall we?”

  The End

  Continue Andie’s epic story with book two in Kingdom of Sand & Stars, Tempest Minds!

  After saving the man she loves from the clutches of his brother Horus, Andie Godfrey finds herself in the middle of an elaborate plot to resurrect an ancient evil that’ll bring the world to its knees and destroy everything she loves.

  And if you love the high stakes danger, magic, and epic fated romance of Kingdom of Sand & Stars then you’ll devour Candace’s other Time Travel Fantasy Series Dark Tides. Can Dianna charm the crew of The Devil’s Heart before they kill her ancestors, or will she just fall deeper under the captain’s spell?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  #1 International and USA TODAY Bestselling Author,
Candace Osmond was born in North York, ON.

  She published her first book by the age of 25, the first installment in a Paranormal Romance Trilogy. The Iron World Series.

  Candace is also one of the creative writers for sssh.com, an acclaimed Erotic Romance website for women which has been featured on NBC Nightline and a number of other large platforms like Cosmo. Her most recent project is a screenplay that received a nomination for an AVN Award.

  Now residing in a small town in Newfoundland with her husband and two kids, Candace writes full time developing articles for just about every niche, more novels, and a hoard of short stories.

  Connect with Candace online! She LOVES to hear from readers!

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