Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  Lying face to face, he let out his own long sigh and looked deep into her eyes to find one of the entities there.

  “I’m sorry. If I’d known—“

  “You can’t have known, Kevin.”

  “Stop!” he startled her with a snarl. “I do know things, Tyler. Just once in your life accept an apology at face value and do not diminish the meaning.”

  Eyes wide to be so suddenly and harshly admonished, she blinked at him. Stiff and caught in the dawning of realization.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. Apology accepted,” she said.

  “Now it is you accepting an apology when you don’t know the reason for it.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Whatever you did, you obviously feel really bad about it. I can see your guilt. I can feel it. For some reason, you think you need my forgiveness. So, okay fine. I forgive you, whatever it was you did that I don’t know about. I don’t ever have to know what it is. You know and that’s what matters.”

  He gasped audibly with the sensation in his chest. Iron chains released in painful rush and he held her tight. Lips on hers in a long, open mouth kiss, she melted in his arms to surrender herself that easily.

  “I want you,” he said.

  Her silence said everything. She could not say no but she could not give consent either. She was still frozen herself and that he could not do anything about. She had to figure out for herself what needed doing.

  “Take us back,” he said.

  Darkness of his bedroom, the moon shining in through the window as the bed teleported back to its place.

  “You cannot say yes and I will not take you by force,” he said. “You’d better go.”

  “One of these days I won’t go.”

  He kissed her again. “On that day, you will tell me one thing I want to know.”

  “What thing?” she asked.

  “Oh no. I will ask on the day and that is when you will give me your answer. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “Go on now. Go home.”

  His bed and his heart were suddenly empty. He walked the house and immediate property to shut and lock. His people were gone, the house and pool area tidied and left as it had been when they’d arrived. Bette was in her bed, hoping he would call for her. He would not. Being with Tyler, talking…only talking and sharing…was more satisfying than a hundred fucks with any other women.

  He envied Jerome beyond measure, looked forward with tremendous anticipation to the day she would lift her sweet ass to receive him.

  The weight of his deeds gone from him, he sat in his chair and called for the Magistrates.

  “Again?” Jiogaard said.

  “Ignorant of my crimes, she has freely given her forgiveness. I felt it and you cannot deny it.”

  “We did feel it,” Rengaard confirmed. “Now there remains only your restitution.”

  “You know you started over again after the Aztec and Mayan periods,” Yoshgaard said. “You have accumulated only two and a half million souls. Twenty two and a half million more to go.”

  “I don’t care about your restitution. I have her forgiveness and that means far more to me. I don’t care if I never see you three again.”

  The corner of Jiogaard’s mouth lifted in a small smile and they were gone.

  Groggy and clumsy,Tyler poured water into her coffee maker. She’d forgotten to prepare it the night before. Reaching to put the empty pot on the warming pad, her arm jerked and the little pot went crashing to the floor.

  “Fuck. Man!”

  She swept it up and ported to the kitchen to get a cup from there instead. She reached for her small plastic container on the open cupboard corner. Jerome was faster, snagging it up.

  “Hah! Too slow.”

  “Give it back.”

  “Not until I get mine,” he teased, opening and reaching his spoon to scoop like he did for sugar.”

  “Jerome, that’s not—“

  “Not polite,” Gable cut in on the other side of her. “But let the big man have his way.”

  Tyler glared at him, hearing his thoughts about the prank that would teach Jerome a lesson at the same time.

  “Hah! See,” Jerome crowed, and poured his cup full.

  “Here, try this new creamer too,” Gable said, splashing some into Jerome’s cup so it would be sweet.

  “But—“ She was stuck. A joke it may have been intended to be but…

  “No, sis. Really. If the big man needs to get his coffee before you get yours, then let him. It is his house. He can be an ass if he wants.”

  “Thank you,” Jerome chirped and then sipped. “That’s good stuff.”

  “But—“

  He guzzled it down and put the cup in the sink. “Later,” he kissed her on the cheek and left to take a package to the post office.

  Tyler looked at his cup in the sink, blinking at the knowledge of what that much of her Sistarian fiber was going to do to him. Hard sigh and she made her cup and went outside to sit at the table and wake up out of her grogginess and bad mood. She hadn’t moved when he returned an hour later. In the kitchen, he reached for the same little plastic bowl.

  “Why are you taking that?” Starbird asked, having not been present for the first cup.

  “I always have sugar in my coffee.”

  “Yes, but that’s not sugar, dude.”

  He stopped. He’d already had a cup. “What is it?”

  “Tyler’s special Sistarian fiber. It helps with her tummy troubles. Julian brought it to her weeks ago. She keeps a small container down here for putting in her tea at night.”

  “Fiber? What’s it do? How much does she use?”

  “It’s fiber. What do you think it does? She uses like half a teaspoon. It’s really powerful stuff.”

  Gable couldn’t stop his chortling at the table.

  “Gable, you son of a bitch!”

  Gable laughed outright, so hysterically he turned beet red and was banging his fist on the table.

  “Hope you don’t have plans for tonight!”

  Tonight was right. Not long after supper, Jerome couldn’t leave his room for three hours, for having to turn right back around and go to the toilet again. When it was finally safe for him to come out for more than two minutes, he marched into the kitchen with a black marker and got the container down. He wrote FIBER on the lid and again on the side of the container and put it back in the cupboard. He started a walk back to his room, suddenly rushing with a “God dammit!” hissed under his breath.

  Gable, Star, and Roc couldn’t stop laughing.

  Tyler just shook her head over her cup of steaming tea. “You people are mean.”

  “Oh, peee-eeww!” Gable said, the scent wafting from Jerome’s open door having reached the living room.

  “I’ll be right back,” Tyler said, and teleported to her room.

  She dug into her bag of medicines for a specific pill and teleported down to the Command Center.

  “Landra, I need you to do something.”

  “What?”

  “Give Jerome this. Tell him he either needs to eat this pill or eat a yogurt before each meal for the next two days, to bring back his intestinal flora. That much fiber could have flushed it all out of him.”

  “Understood.”

  “Do you have some sort of scent neutralizer?” she asked.

  “I do,” he confirmed.

  She walked around to the living room, was seated before Landra knocked on Jerome’s door.

  “What?” Jerome asked, opening it.

  “You need to take this pill,” Landra Ahr said, holding out his open palm with the tiny pill in the middle.

  “Why?” Jerome asked suspiciously.

  “To reintroduce intestinal flora to your system. Either take this pill or eat one yogurt before every meal for the next two days.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Very seriously,” Landra Ahr replied.

  “Gimme the fuckin’ pill,” he said, snatching it up like the pebble f
rom Master Po’s hand, and shutting the door.

  New coffee maker on the cart, cup on the table next to her, she tried to write in her journal. Right hand trembling so intensely she couldn’t write, she took her cup downstairs to get a piece of toast. The peanut butter was empty, she discovered when the hot bread was on a plate and knife was in her hand. So much for breakfast. The plate shattered from her force in throwing it into the sink.

  She went into the storage room to find another jar and instead found a fucking mess. She’d not been much up to the cooking and so hadn’t been fixing the small messes along the way. Only a week and the shelves were in such disarray she couldn’t stand it. Starting small, pushing cans and jars into better order, she worked from front to back and then around to the other wall. Mentally taking inventory of what they were running low on, pulling a few surplus items to use up this week, paying no attention whatever to the time.

  “Um…Tyler?” Gable’s voice.

  “What?” she asked from atop the top shelf.

  “Supper’s ready.”

  Her hands stopped, mind descending from its trance-like state. Supper?

  “It is?”

  How many hours???

  “Yes. On the table.”

  “Be there in a minute.”

  She straightened the huge pack of toilet paper and swung down. Hands washed in the kitchen sink, she sat to supper outside. Already having discussed it among themselves and with Landra Ahr, no one mentioned her hours of organizing and cleaning.

  “I’ll look at the new ads for this weekend and we’ll plan a shopping trip,” Tyler said as she spooned up some fried potatoes.

  “Can we get star fruit?” Roc perked up. “We’ve not had it for a couple months.”

  “We’ll look and see if it’s back in again, “Tyler promised. “Write down any other things you particularly want.”

  Chapter Thirty Four

  “Come on, we’re going for a drive,” Jerome said, waking her at 8am on June 26th and armed with a plan.

  “I don’t wanna go anywhere,” she grumped.

  “Too bad. We’re going. I’ll give you five minutes before I dress you myself,” he said, going to her dresser to pick out a pair of stretch pants in denim blue and a Benatar concert t-shirt from the pile of Benatar t-shirts. “How many of these things do you have?”

  Four, five six…

  “Fifteen. Now and then I teleport to a concert somewhere in the last couple years.”

  “Wait. You teleport through time by yourself?” he stopped. “Without telling any of us?”

  “Yeah.”

  He dropped the pile next to her. “Get dressed before I explode on that one. Wear tennis shoes for walking.”

  “I need coffee,” she said.

  “That’s what travel mugs are for,” he said, heading for the door. “Be right back.”

  Grumbling under her breath, she went to the bathroom for a brief morning routine, not even bothering to put on eyeliner and shadow.

  When she came out, he was sitting on the edge of the bed facing the bathroom door, holding up a small box wrapped in birthday paper.

  “Happy birthday to you,” he said softly.

  Tension, stiffening, then melting with the memory of the date.

  “Oh yeah, that’s today. How did you know?” she asked, taking the oddly heavy little box.

  “The other Tyler called me last year on her birthday and asked me to visit her mother.”

  “I did that too,” she said quietly, sitting beside him.

  “Did I break his arms in that timeline? I did in this one,” he grinned.

  “Yes, you did,” she grinned back.

  “So open it. We’re on a time schedule here.”

  Her fingers searched for a flap and popped open the tape. Ripping and tearing and she found a shoe box. Lifting the lid, inside were several thin slabs wrapped in red tissue paper. She picked one up. A book. Tearing the tissue paper, she held a brand new, sealed in plastic, journal. White cover with red roses and green vines, 100 pages just like her others.

  The next was yellow with white daisies.

  “I noticed you have all the same few covers on your old journals. I thought you’d like a new set for this timeline.”

  “I…I don’t know what to say. Thank you,” she said quietly, opening the third.

  Wildflowers and chickadees.

  “You can thank me by writing in them. I know you’ve been having trouble with that since the Rovan.”

  The fourth was bowls of fruit amid ivy.

  “It is a very thoughtful gift,” she smiled at him.

  He leaned in to kiss her. “You’re welcome. Now get your shoes on so we can go.”

  “I hate surprises, you know.”

  “No. You love surprises. What you hate is not having control. You’re going to be with me. You don’t have to control a damn thing. I got it covered.”

  They walked down together and he waited while she prepared a thermos of coffee and then filled a travel mug for both of them. Down to the garage and they took the Torino. Onto the expressway heading east and then onto Route 2 in Oregon. Jerome handed her his pack of cigarettes when she got out her rubber band to twist on her hand.

  “Wake ‘n’ bake sounds good about now,” he said. “Fire one up.”

  She saw he had six fat ones in total, and made a copy of the entire pack. She put the original into the glove box and sparked up one of the copies. She stopped caring where they were going. She was with the man she…

  …was going to spend the rest of her life with, she caught herself.

  Where they were going was not important, but getting off Route 2 and following the signs to Cedar Point perked her right up.

  “When’s the last time you were here?” he asked, pulling into the parking lot.

  “Eons!” she breathed, eyes wide as could be.

  He followed the line of cars and turned into the parking space as directed by the traffic man.

  “It is your choice,” he told her in line to buy their admission tickets. “It’s your birthday, so we do what you want when you want. I’ll go on any ride with you.”

  She decided she wanted to go on the Magnum first. The tallest, fastest coaster in the world at that moment, and one she’d not been on since she was 17 in her previous life.

  Waiting in many oddly short lines through the day, they held hands and shared quiet smiles. When he leaned in to kiss her, she let him. Arm on her shoulder or around her back, he was affectionate and attentive and they were any other couple in the crowd. When she got out her rubber band to play with, he would take her hand and waltz with her between the ropes. They got wet on the canyon when the day grew hotter. Golfed in the shade of the trees, sat to eat a snack several times. Shared a cold drink or an ice cream. Getting onto the ferris wheel, he sparked up a joint and shared it with the other couple in the basket.

  “Can you get us alone if we get on again?” he asked into her ear.

  She nodded.

  They got back in line. As they stepped up to the basket, Tyler made the operator send the couple behind them into the next basket. Soon as they were high enough, Jerome pulled her close for kisses that did not end until the ride attendant was holding the door open and saying “All right already. Get a room.”

  Without any assistance from her, Jerome tossed little rings onto bottles and won her a giant bear. They took it out to the car and smoked another joint. Back for more rollercoasters as the sun was setting. He loved to hear the screams forced from her lungs, laughed with her up and down the hills and around turns.

  Bright lights in the darkness, screams in the night, they stayed until the park closed. With a quiet suggestion from him, she curled up on the seat and placed her head on his thigh. She fell asleep within minutes and Jerome was alone with this thoughts for the drive. His hand resting on her back and shoulder, he gave serious thought to the future.

  Their future.

  He knew how he felt. Knew how she felt. But what to d
o about it? As he backed the car into its spot, he decided he was going to turn up the heat. She would either meet him or pull back.

  He woke her and they went inside. Three in the morning, he took her by the hand to his room and put her to bed. He held her close as she wanted to be held, to keep it quiet for her.

  “Happy birthday, babe,” he said with a kiss to her forehead.

  He went jogging at his usual time, leaving her there to sleep. Her usual waking time and she went to her room. Barely was the coffee cup in her hand when Roc asked to come in.

  “Where did he spirit you off to yesterday?” she asked.

  “Cedar Point. Yesterday was my birthday.”

  “Oh. I did not know. Happy birthday.”

  The shoebox of journals appeared in her hand. “He gave me these. My birthday meant something for the first time in a very long time.”

  Roc smiled at her.

  “What if I told you we could go to Taverages and free it and you could go home permanently?” Tyler asked.

  Roc’s eyes said she’d not considered that a possibility. “Do not toy with me.”

  “I’m not. I’m going to turn Solomon into ash and turn the ship and its crew over to the Rosaas. I have promise of a Voranian force to help us free Taverages.”

  Roc’s mind was a complete blank at the thought.

  “You think on it while you go on your walk,” Tyler said. “Your friend at the corner store will miss you if you don’t go in to get your secret soda and doughnut.”

  Roc laughed. “How do you know about my doughnut?”

  Tyler smiled. “I know everyone’s secrets but my own.”

  “Do you want anything from the store?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Landra Ahr waited all of five seconds after Roc’s departure. “We have not discussed these things ourselves. Do not get Roc’s hopes up—“

  “I can and I will because it will happen. I see with such clarity now, Landra. It is glaringly obvious to me what must be done. I am going to pound the piss outta Solomon. I’m going to get us all off this planet and onto the station. I’m going to have an army to help you free Taverages, and we will free it. Roc will be restored to her former place. Is there anyone I can contact to gain knowledge without actually walking the streets of the cities?”