by Jasmine Walt
The ground trembled with what I assumed was the collapse of the entire dome. Whatever Senenmut had used in his grand creation had been pretty damn heavy.
Marcus and I made it out into the evening air only seconds before the rest of our crew, and they were followed closely by a groaning rumble and a thick poof of dust.
“Dom, Alex—check if Vali and the others are alive and bring them back to camp. Neffe, come with me,” Marcus ordered before he started jogging, me still cradled in his arms.
I was woozy and in a whole lot of pain. “Where’s the amulet?” I managed to ask between shallow breaths. “Did you bring it out?”
“No,” Marcus said. “Set took it.”
Crap! “Was it still glowing when he took it?”
“Yes.”
“But the power . . . some of it went into you, didn’t it?” I asked.
“I think so.”
Flooded with relief, I passed out.
Part IV
Council Headquarters Florence, Italy
32
Introductions & Celebrations
Turning my head on a pillow, I groaned. My skull felt like it was stuffed with cotton candy—the kind that’s a fluffy swirl of pink and blue with hard little chunks of sugar that didn’t quite make it all the way to the ‘cotton’ stage. Because of the cottony confection seemingly filling my head, it took me several long moments to realize my abdomen didn’t hurt at all. God I love regeneration, I thought lazily.
Cracking one eyelid open, I peeked at my surroundings. Everything in the room was gilded or flowery or carved in an extravagant manner. And, everything was compact. It was like the maker of each piece of furniture had been trying to make up for its petite size by adding an overabundance of decoration.
I rolled over, half-expecting to find Marcus asleep beside me. I was more than a little disappointed to find the other side of the bed empty and tidily made. Where’s Marcus? Where am I?
Sitting up, I shook my head to clear the webs of cotton candy. I twisted, dangling my legs over the side of the bed so the balls of my feet brushed a soft, crimson and gold Persian rug. I slipped my bare feet into grey, velvety slippers and found a floor-length silk robe draped over a chair by the window. It was a monochromatic crimson so deep it almost looked purple. As I donned and tied the robe over a long, black satin nightgown that most certainly did not belong to me, I peered through a crack in the gold brocade curtains. The view gave no hint as to my current whereabouts. I was looking down upon a beautifully manicured garden that could’ve been in upstate New York just as easily as in England or France. Of one thing I was certain—I was not in Egypt.
Walking around the room, I searched for hotel stationary or any other sign of my current location. There was nothing. I would have started panicking, but I saw several of Marcus’s elegant suitcases in the corner on the opposite side of the bed. Marcus is with me. Marcus is safe.
Marcus is alive.
Stop it! It never happened! I shook my head, forcing away the images of Marcus, the real Marcus, dead with a bloody hole in his head. I buried them in an imaginary titanium time capsule in my head, along with the memory of shooting my father, which also hadn’t happened, at least not in this timeline. No, not my father—Set.
With a deep breath, I forced a smile and opened the bedroom door. My lips pursed when I heard the sound of cheerful voices drifting down a long, dimly lit hallway. The voices carried with them the sound of clinking dishes, silverware, and glasses, along with the most delicious smells. Basil and oregano mixed with tomatoes, bread, and cheeses in an unmistakable blend—Italian food! Am I in Italy?
My stomach growled loudly, pulling me down the lavishly decorated hallway toward a curving stairwell and the promise of food. My robe was several inches too long, pooling on the floor when I paused and fluttering around my feet when I walked. I felt elegant in it, almost like a noble woman in a medieval King’s court.
All thoughts of clothes and anything else disappeared when I heard his voice: “—hope that it’s all over. And if it’s not, we will hunt him down until it is.”
Marcus. Alive.
Soft cheers rose and glasses clinked and people laughed as I started down the stairs. When I reached the bottom, I froze.
Due to the curvature to stairway, the view through the wide doorway leading into the dining room had been hidden. In fact, it wasn’t a dining room at all, but an enormous banquet hall filled with long, extravagantly set tables seating several hundred people. Based on the diners’ sleek beauty, it looked like they were all Nejerets. They were also all suddenly staring at me. I recognized almost nobody in the crowd.
“Hi?” I croaked, coloring as I realized I was wearing nothing but a nightgown, robe, and slippers while they were all dressed in evening finery.
At the far end of the room a man stood from what was undoubtedly the head table. It took me only a moment to recognize him as Marcus. But it was a Marcus I had never seen, wearing a pale gray tuxedo of the finest cut and emitting an air of irrefutable authority.
He rounded his long table and slowly strode between the others like a jungle cat. His keen eyes were locked on me, glinting slyly to match his quirked mouth, and he walked with undeniable confidence. He drew most of the attention away from me—not a single woman was glancing my way by the time he reached the center of the room.
I was starting to wonder if Marcus purposely toned down his charisma when he was around me, so I wouldn’t feel overwhelmed. At the moment, he wasn’t putting an ounce of effort in that direction.
Crap—did the regeneration make me look sickly again? I ran fingers through my hair, wishing I’d at least put it in a ponytail before leaving the room, but resigned to let it hang in loose, tangled waves.
With narrowed eyes and pursed lips, Marcus reached me. He walked a slow circle around me, examining my every inch. Pausing with his back to the crowd, he murmured, “In that delectably thin robe and with bed-mussed hair, you put the rest of these Nejerettes to shame, Little Ivanov. I’m of half a mind to take you back upstairs and act out some of the very inappropriate things I’m imagining . . . but I’ll save that for later.” He smirked wickedly and raised a single eyebrow. “Are you ready to meet your admirers?”
Based on the catty glares being thrown in my direction by most of the women, I thought ‘admirers’ was a gross overstatement of the crowd’s opinion of me.
“Now?” I whispered, fully aware that every single person was staring at us and that bailing was pretty much useless.
Marcus’s smirk widened into a grin.
“Okay, I guess,” I said, unsure.
He took a step closer and leaned in. I thought he was going to kiss me, there, in front of everyone. He didn’t. Instead, he veered to the left, finding my ear. “Do you feel alright? I can have food sent up to the room if you don’t feel up to this. You’ve only been out for eight or nine hours . . . we didn’t expect you up yet.”
I shivered at feeling his breath rustle my hair. “I’m fine,” I whispered.
“Good,” he said, pulling away. To my surprise, he did pause to lightly brush his lips against mine, chuckling when he heard me squeak.
The room was filled with a hushed murmur as he pulled away. Men and women alike were whispering to each other behind their hands. Apparently, claiming and bonding in a small camp was one thing, but such a small public display of affection before a formal assembly of Nejerets was another.
Marcus took my arm, placing my hand on his forearm, and presented me to the room. Staring out at the vast array of exquisitely dressed, gorgeous people, I felt completely inadequate.
“May I present to you all the Meswett, Alexandra Ivanov, great-granddaughter of Ivan and daughter of Set,” he boomed.
I half-expected the crowd to explode into applause and cheers, though for what, I don’t know. It didn’t. It was so quiet, I was pretty sure every person could hear my stomach growling as Marcus led me down the center of the room toward the head table. We took the s
ame path he had used in his approach, and by the time we reached the table, an additional, intricate place setting had been laid out between Marcus and Neffe’s plates.
Sitting in the chair Marcus pulled out for me, I tried to ignore the scrutinizing eyes prodding me from every direction. I made a valiant attempt to focus on Neffe’s words as she explained that I’d only missed the first course and that my hair didn’t really look too bad and that the regeneration hadn’t made me look too sick and that my sister was fine—resting upstairs—but my stupid Nejerette hearing perked up as various women throughout the hall made audible judgments.
“She’s pretty enough, I guess, but she still looks human-ish.”
“Did you see her eyes? Blood-red is fitting for one of Set’s line.”
“It’s just her ancestors that make her the Meswett—I’m sure there’s actually nothing special about her.”
“Wasn’t she just shot in the in the stomach this morning? That’s pretty quick to be completely healed, and she doesn’t really look like she just regenerated.”
“Poor Heru, having to train such a child in the delicate arts,” said a husky French voice. “When I was with him, I always gave him something new and exciting. Whatever he wanted, I did, along with some things he didn’t know he wanted until I did them to him. He will never be satisfied with a girl like her. Eventually, he will come back to my bed.” She laughed suggestively, and I found her in the crowd, staring at Marcus with so much heat it looked like she was trying to set him aflame with her eyes alone.
Marcus, I discovered irately, was returning the stare. Albeit, devoid of the excessive lust hers held, but still . . .
My blood boiled. Who was this woman to declare such a thing loud enough for the large gathering of Nejerets to hear every word? How dare she! I ought to—
Without warning, I winked out of time and space in a swirl of smoky colors and reappeared before the spiteful hussy. Shouts of surprise and gasps followed my abrupt change of position.
While tendrils of At were still floating around me, making me look like some sort of furious rainbow fairy, I slammed my hands on the pale yellow tablecloth in front of the woman and hissed, “Listen up, you French whore. You may have been with him in the past, and you may have had to practice bedroom Olympics because without amazing feats of wonder, being with you is just too damn boring.” Taking in her beautiful, silver-blonde hair, pale blue eyes, and creamy skin, I sneered. “But that’s the thing with bonding . . . with me. Just the touch of my fingertips on his skin is better than anything you might have done to him. You’re a forgotten memory.” I licked my lips and added, “Enjoy your dinner.”
Straightening, I tried to flash back to my seat at the head table. Nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing happened, again.
So, I smiled at the people sitting on either side of the scandalized French Nejerette and turned to glide back up to my table. I was more than a little relieved to find Dominic approaching, several paces away.
“Might I escort you back to your seat, Meswett?” he asked, doing a valiant job of hiding his amusement.
My plastered-on smile melted into something genuine, and I nodded. “I’d like that, Dom. Thanks.”
He took my arm and led me away, smiling and nodding at certain people as we passed. Low enough that only I heard, he whispered, “If there’s one thing we can be certain of, it’s that we’ll never be short on entertainment when you’re around.”
“Ha. Ha. Very funny.”
Letting his French accent grow heavier, he murmured, “I was being completely serious.”
Grinning, I settled back into my seat. “Thanks, Dom.”
“Rescuing you is quickly becoming my calling.”
Marcus cleared his throat. Dominic had been there to save my sanity when Marcus left, and it had been Dominic who’d rescued me from Set, not Marcus. For some reason, a new tension had developed between the two men, and it seemed to be increasing.
Dominic slipped away, graceful as a dancer and deadly as a viper, to his seat on the other side of Neffe.
Leaning in, Marcus whispered, “I love it when you do that.”
“What? Embarrass myself in front of hundreds of people?”
“No,” he said. “I love watching you assert your claim on me. The second time was just as good as the first. Maybe better. It makes my hunger for you fathomless, every time.” He reached for my hand and guided it under the tablecloth to his groin so I could feel the evidence of his hunger.
I blushed and withdrew my hand before we caused a scene. “Oh . . . well, that’s what every girl wants to hear.”
“Mmm . . . but you’re not every girl, are you?” There was a slight, unexpected edge to his tone. “I think you just showed us all that.”
Cringing, I thought about how I’d just inadvertently used Nuin’s power to shift from one place to another, as I’d done in the temple . . . when Marcus had died. “Right, about that . . .”
“Yes, Lex, let’s talk about that.” He shifted in his chair, letting the server place a bowl of creamy yellow soup in front of each of us, and demanded, “Tell me everything that happened in the temple.” I raised my eyebrows at the haughtiness in his words, and he added a delightfully sensual, “Please?”
So I told him . . . almost everything, leaving out the part about tweaking the timeline . . . about him dying . . . about killing Set. I whispered as quietly as possible, hoping only those nearest to us could overhear.
“It doesn’t quite make sense,” Marcus said after I finished. “If Nuin held all the power himself, why did it need to be split into male and female halves when he passed it on?”
“I know!” I agreed. “And why did he have to pass it on in the first place? He looked perfectly healthy at first, but near the end he seemed a little, I don’t know . . . wane. It was like getting rid of his power made him weak. You were there . . . how’d he die?”
Frowning, Marcus said, “It took some time, but he gradually weakened until he died. There was a woman—the Nejerette wife I told you about before—she took care of him until he drew his final breath. Some believed she somehow caused his death . . . maybe poisoned him. I don’t remember much about her, other than that she was his only Nejerette wife and that I knew she hadn’t harmed him—that she had loved him as we all had. Nobody knew how old he really was, so I just thought his wasting sickness might be what happens once Nejerets reach a certain age.”
“I think . . . do you think he might have died because he gave up his power?” I blinked rapidly at the welling of tears in my eyes. “Did giving me his power kill him? Did I kill him?”
Marcus shook his head. “He gave us his power, Lex. Us. And Nuin never did anything without a very good reason, so if he gave us his power and that killed him, it was what had to be done.”
Some of my worry eased as I stared into his golden, tiger eyes. And then I registered his words. “Us? Are you saying you definitely have the male half? But you said the amulet was still glowing when Set took it.”
“It was still glowing,” he interrupted. “But it was faint. I’m certain I absorbed some of the male half, though I have no idea how much or what that really means.”
“So Set at least has some of the power, too.” I frowned, thinking. “Has anyone checked on the Nothingness?”
He nodded. “It’s still there, but a little less . . . dense. Like a fog that has thinned.”
“Damn,” I said with a sigh. “Maybe controlling the Nothingness is part of Nuin’s power? Maybe that’s the part that Set absorbed?”
Marcus snorted. “I honestly haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Do you think Set knows about the two halves? That I have half of Nuin’s power roiling inside me?” I asked.
“Probably. He did see you do your disappearing act in the temple.” He squeezed my thigh under the table before picking up his spoon. “Eat. You must be famished.”
I was hungry, but not starved like I’d been the last time I’d used my regenerative a
bilities to heal. “I’m surprised I don’t look like I’m eighty years old,” I joked. When he said nothing, I became suddenly worried and asked, “I don’t look eighty, do I?”
He laughed, “No, Little Ivanov. You just look tired . . . and hungry. Eat.”
I took a spoonful of soup, and then another . . . and then another. “Oh, wow. This is amazing!”
“Enjoy it. We’ve got thirteen more courses of amazing,” he told me, and my eyes widened.
Out of nowhere, I laughed. It was bubbly and throaty and full of happiness.
“Care to share?” Marcus asked, glancing at me sideways.
“I just realized something—we have more than half of Nuin’s power. Set has less than us.” I grinned, my eyes full of wonder. “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”
Marcus brushed a stray strand of hair out of my eyes. “Yes, my darling, I think so.”
If you plan to continue with the Echo Trilogy, there’s an epilogue on the following page…but I suggest you stop here if you aren’t a fan of even the tiniest of cliffhangers and don’t plan to continue.
Thanks for reading!
Epilogue
Set
Heru thinks he knows. He runs around with my daughter. Mine! And he thinks he knows how this will all turn out. But Heru has always thought just a little too highly of himself. Where he captures power through strength and charisma, I use knowledge. He thinks he knows everything he needs to know, so he doesn’t seek.
I seek . . . listen . . . learn . . . know.
I know about her. I know about him. I know about the power. And I know about Nuin, what he is and what he’s planning. I know, so I have the power.
The End
Continue the Echo Trilogy in book two, Time Anomaly.
