by Amy Miles
We are. We will save you.
A tear slips from my eye. I knew this moment was coming, didn’t I? The end for all of us? Everyone is dead. My friends. Eamon. Soon Bastien and I will follow as well.
There is nothing left to save. I lift the precious boy to my lips and kiss his cheek. My little Eamon.
An intense heat floods through me. I gasp, shocked by the intensity of it as baby Eamon’s glow flickers out.
We will save you. There is a way to give you a second chance.
Bastien grunts as he claws his way toward me, the floor levels out once more. I can hear the frantic hum of the engines. The ship struggles to rise. The hull of the ship begins to crack. “What happened?”
“I think we fell into some sort of sink hole.” He rises beside my bed and stares down at the child in my arms, his eyes wide with alarm. “Oh god,” he mutters.
“What? What’s wrong?”
Bastien’s face is pale beneath the blood and soot. “His eyes are black!”
We will save you, the tiny voices repeat in my mind like an echo.
I hear a thunderous groan and brilliant white light floods the room. I reach out for Bastien, grasping his hand, and then everything implodes.
THE END
EPILOGUE
My eyelids flutter open and I am suddenly all too aware of how close Bastien is to me. I stare in disbelief at how full his lips are. How clean his face is. No longer bloody or marred by soot. I notice how tight his embrace is and feel disoriented in his arms as I place my hand on his chest. “Your heart─”
He leans in and brushes his lips against mine, his touch light and gentle. He reaches up to cup my cheek, his eyes wide and searching as he slowly pulls back. My lower lip tingles as I run my fingertip across it, pausing to process his first touch.
“Are you ok?” He asks.
I nod, although my head is swimming at his nearness. What is happening to me? How did we get here? Where are we?
My surroundings seem foreign. Instead of the healing bay aboard my Caldonian ship, I am surrounded by pine trees that rise high overhead. The air holds a chill that speaks of a coming frost. The sky is visible over Bastien’s shoulder. Distant clouds are beginning to build.
The ground feels cold beneath me. I run my hands over the soil and realize that it is a mixture of dirt, pine needles and leaves. I start to speak, but Bastien leans in again and the scent of his skin turns my thoughts into chaos. Without stopping to consider the consequences, I wrap my hand around his neck and crush my lips against his. My lips muffle his cry of surprise as I curl my fingers around the soft hair that drapes down to his neck. His hair is shorter than it should be, but I don’t care.
I can’t believe that I am here. That he is here. I remember a terrible noise and then a blinding light and then...nothing. Until now.
As his hands curve around my back, I rise up into him, locking my hands together around his neck. The heat of his body pressed against mine is exciting, the movement of his lips sinfully intoxicating.
My breath comes fast and hard as I lean in closer, my knees digging into the dirt beside his thighs. I let my head fall to the side and Bastien’s lips trace a line down my jaw, his fingers digging into my sides. The irrational urge to laugh bubbles up within me as I realize I’ve never done anything so completely reckless before.
Not like this. Not with complete abandon.
If this is a dream I pray that it never ends. If this is Heaven, then I have finally found my place with Bastien, as I know I was always meant to be.
“Bastien,” I whisper and smile as his grip on my waist tightens. I lean into him and press him back to the ground. He goes willingly, his eyes searching mine as I lean down, hovering less than an inch over his lips. His fingers pull at my waist, silently begging me, but I smile and shake my head. He groans, arching up to meet my lips, and I give in to his need.
The soil under my hands begins to shift as small tremors ripple out from me. There are no barriers between us, no sarcastic cracks or awkward banter. I realize that I want this, want him more than I want air to breathe. I feel rooted in place, as if my very existence was meant to bring us here to this very moment.
My eyes widen as I realize that I have been here before. In this moment. I remember this kiss, I realize as I sink further into his embrace. This was our first. The first moment that I realized that I truly loved him.
Bastien pushes me up and rolls me onto my back, placing himself beside me. The coolness of the ground eases the scorching heat bearing down on me from above. Each time his fingers caress my bare skin, I feel drawn into him.
His chiseled body presses against the length of mine while his arm cradles my head. His lips leave a slow, blazing trail down my neck. I lean my head back to allow him access to the hollow of my throat and a shiver of pleasure washes over me as his breath tickles my delicate skin.
I react to every touch, every breath, and every pounding heartbeat. The smallest touch is torture and yet more satisfying than I could have ever imagined. I open my eyes and watch the trees tremble overhead as I dig my fingers deep into the dirt.
I feel alive, connected not only with Bastien but the world around me──the trees, the soil, the earth. Energy courses through my body, making my skin tingle with overwhelming sensitivity.
The Earth? Am I really back? How is this possible?
Bastien chuckles when I gasp, his lips pressing against the tender flesh just behind my ear. A thousand tiny goosebumps spread along my skin as he shifts to caress just above my waistline, moving slowly around from my back to my stomach.
He dips his head, softly tugging on my bottom lip with his teeth before pulling back. He teases me, taunts me, makes me no longer care if this is a dream. I want this. I want him.
The trees groan as a perfectly circular crater forms around us, revealing the maze of roots that burrow deep into the ground. A fallen log is caught up on the outside of the sinkhole and rolls into a nearby tree, startling me. Reality comes crashing back in with the thunderous boom.
I push against Bastien’s chest, frantic to be free of his embrace. He rolls onto his side, his brow furrowed with confusion at my sudden panic. “What’s wrong?”
“This…this is wrong!” I scramble out from under him, clawing my way to a tree a few feet away. I cling to it, waiting for my heart to stop racing as I try to slow my breathing. The taste and feel of Bastien lingers on my skin but a single sound rings clear through my mind...the sound of a newborn’s cry. Where are my children? Where are my friends? What has happened to us?
“Are you ok?”
He makes no move to come closer and I’m grateful for it. “I’m sorry,” I whisper without turning. “I just...I don’t know what is happening.”
“We kissed. It’s not the end of the world.”
My head whips around to stare at him as his words fall over me like a freezing rain. “Where am I?”
Bastien’s brow furrows. “Are you ok? You’re acting kinda strange.”
“Where am I?” I press again, turning to fully face him. I can see his concern. It is written plainly across his face. He looks so much younger than I ever remember seeing him, almost carefree.
“In the woods. A couple hours’ hike from camp.”
“Camp?” I whisper, feeling my fingers begin to tremble. “And my friends? Are they alive?”
“Of course,” he replies. His brief laugh falls away and he rises up onto his knees as if he wants to come to me but he resists. His brow dips with confusion. “You saw them yourself this morning when we left. They are just fine.”
I blow out a long slow breath and press my hands to my abdomen. I close my eyes and curl in on myself as I feel the flat planes of my stomach. Warm tears sting before they roll down my cheeks. My children are gone.
I press a hand to my lips as I fight back against the gaping hole that has opened in my chest in their absence. I barely had a chance to hold my little boy. I never even got to give birth to the second.
“Ill
yria,” Bastien whispers as he draws near.
I press my hand to my thighs and double over, closing my eyes. Think. This has to be a dream. Wake up! I am in the healing room. Bastien is with me there.
My hands flinch as I open my eyes and look down at my legs. Both legs. A tear slips down my cheek as I wiggle my toes. I pinch my leg and gasp in disbelief as I feel pain, real pain.
“Illyria?” I look up to find him kneeling before me. His gaze is tender, achingly so. “I’m sorry if I pushed you too fast. You know that I would never do that.”
I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “It’s not that,” I whisper as I try to comprehend what has happened. “Am I real?”
Bastien smiles. “Of course you are.”
“And this place? It’s not a dream?”
He shifts closer to me and takes my hand in his. “Do you always dream of handsome guys?”
My breath hitches. “You’ve said that to me before.”
He nods and slowly twines his fingers through mine. “I have.”
I close my eyes and let my head hang low, my hair falling over my face. I remember all of this. I remember meeting Bastien in the City. Of him pulling me from the lake and taking me back to his cave. Of Eamon’s jealousy when I first brought Bastien back to the cave. Of kissing in this very spot. I remember a thousand other things too.
I tighten my grip on his hand. “You feel real, but how can this be?” I lift my head to look at him and gasp, seizing the blonde strands that fall across my face, tangling with my eyelashes. “I’m blonde.”
“Last time I checked. I’ve always had a thing for blondes,” he muses. “Though I think you could look hot in a darker color as well.”
I shove back my hair and stare at him, searching for any sign that he remembers. As I do, fragments of other memories begin to flood in. Some are distorted. Others vivid. Images flash before my eyes in what feels like a backward motion. A brilliant flash of light. The cries of a child in Bastien’s arms. Eamon’s sacrifice. A battle raging on a distant planet. Death in the swamp. Being kidnapped. Lying in bed with Eamon. My wedding. Dreams of Bastien. Aloysius’ death. Bastien saying goodbye.
“Do you remember anything before today?” I ask hesitantly.
Bastien leans in close and winks at me. “I remember this morning at the falls.”
“I’m serious.” I push him back and stare deep into his sapphire eyes. “Do you remember a bright flash of light? A sound? A battle? Anything?”
He sits up straighter. “What are you talking about? Of course I don’t--” he cuts off and his gaze loses focus. I watch as his breathing hitches. Slowly, like the dawning of a sun, his expression changes. The line of his mouth hardens. The planes of his face deepen and the man I knew, that one who bore so much pain for me, raises his gaze to meet mine.
I can feel the trembling in his arm as he turns to look about him. “How is this possible?”
“I think we went back in time,” I whisper, gripping his hand so tightly I begin to lose feeling in my fingers. “Coen must have been wrong about the spatial anomaly. I think...I think I couldn’t see my future because that timeline was done. Somehow my children knew that and they triggered the anomaly, using it as some sort of time transference to send you and me back here.”
My throat catches and a sob rises into my throat. Bastien releases my hand and pulls me into his chest, cradling me. “They said they would save me but there was nothing left for me there. Eamon was gone. Toren, Aminah, Kyan, Zahra...we had lost everyone.”
Bastien’s adam’s apple rises and falls as he swallows. I can feel his pain in the tension in his hands as he holds me. “I was never meant to live my life in that time,” I whisper, knowing even as I say it that it is the truth. “This is where I belong. Where I have always belonged.”
“Shh,” he soothes, brushing his hand over my hair as the tears come.
I know in my heart that my children have given me a second chance at life. A life that they will never be a part of. I clutch my hand to my chest, feeling a wound as visceral and raw as any mortal injury just beneath the surface. “I’ll never hold them in my arms,” I sob and turn into Bastien’s embrace.
He holds me as the tears come, until his entire shoulder has grown damp from my tears. “They loved you, Illyria. This is the life they would have wanted for you.”
“To do what with?” I pull away and stare up at him through wet lashes. “To have to fight for my life? To be forced to choose between you and Eamon? To become a slave to my destiny all over again?”
“No,” he smiles and cups my face in his hands. He brushes his thumbs under my eyes, drying my tears. “This time will be different. You are different. You have no reason to fear now but every reason to live. No destiny can control you. No one man can tell you the meaning of your life. This time you get to choose your path.”
My breath catches as Bastien’s words slip deep into my soul and I begin to feel hope and warmth. It winds through the chasm of pain deep within my chest where I thought only cold and darkness could live now. I close my eyes, tasting the salt of my tears across my lips as I realize that my children did more than give me a second chance. They gave me love.
Thank you, I whisper, knowing that in this timeline my children will never exist, but they did in my former life. I don’t know how I will go on without them. Though I only held my son for a brief moment, I know both of Eamon’s children are a part of me. A piece of my soul that will always be missing.
Coen warned that when you alter time things change. The course of events shift and new possibilities open before you. Maybe Bastien is right. Maybe this time I can win the coming war before Drakon even knows what hits him. Maybe I can restore peace to Calisted and to Earth without ever having to marry Aloysius. I don’t really know what this new timeline has in store for me, but I do know one thing with every fiber of my being. Seizing Bastien’s hands in my own, I tug him close. “I choose you.”
“Choose me for what? If you’re thinking about putting me on dinner duty when we get back to the cave you can think again. I’m the last person you want cooking your meal!”
I laugh. “No.” I smile at him, feeling lighter than I have in two years. “I’m trying to tell you that I love you, you dork.”
“Whoa,” his eyes fly open wide in mock surprise, “it was just one kiss—a really good one I’ll admit, but there’s no need to start throwing around the L word.”
I grin and rise up onto my knees. His smile falters as I reach up and place a hand over his heart. I can feel it racing wildly in his chest. “You once told me that you have never loved anyone like you love me. That with all your heart you want me to be yours…”
Bastien’s brow furrows. “I don’t remember ever being quite that romantic.”
I press up into him until our lips are only a few inches apart. “Do you deny you have feelings for me?”
“Well…” he hedges with a smirk.
I wrap my hands around the back of his neck. “Just shut up and kiss me already.”
SNEAK PEEK
DESOLATE
Book One of the IMMORTAL ROSE TRILOGY
Prequel trilogy to the bestselling Arotas Series
Available now on all ebook platforms
***
ONE
1690, Transylvania
Caro de carne mea. Os ex ossibus meis. Lorem nocte in saecula saeculorum.
The words whisper through my mind like a long-forgotten song as my eyes flutter open. Light and dark battle around me, seeking purchase on the room. Flames lick the wooden walls, trailing overhead to embrace the knotted timbers that hold the inflamed roof aloft.
Ash pelts down upon me like a livid rain, singeing flesh and hair. I cry out as I roll away from the gaping hole above, beating at the embers that set the hem of my dress alight.
I pause as my fingers glide across the rich fabric of my voluminous skirts, seizing it between my fingers to draw it up so I can see it in the dim light. The material was onc
e white and adorned with bits of lace along the hem, accustomed for a wedding. It is now a dingy gray, soiled and charred into fraying bits. The ruffled hem of my dress crumbles into ash as I run my finger along it, fluttering down to land upon my bare feet.
I had slippers, I think as I turn to look about me, confused and dazed by my odd surroundings.
Heat from the flames strokes my cheek with mounting intensity. I can feel my eyelashes beginning to mat together with sweat that drips from my brow. I swipe the beads away with the back of my hand and realize a fever has ensnared me.
The air hangs thick before me, weighted with smoke and the scent of something repulsive, as if the grave itself spewed forth its inhabitants. I blink to see through the haze, startled to discover that when I focus, I can see each particle of ash that drifts to the floorboards, leaving a thick dusting on everything within sight.
“Hello?” I call, my throat croaking from the lack of moisture in the air.
My hands tremble as I push against the floor, attempting to rise. My leg muscles coil and I am sent careening backward. The wind is knocked from my chest as I slide down the inflamed wall. The scent of my burning hair stings in my nose as I crawl forward to escape the sweltering heat.
How did I jump like that? I stare down at my fingers, noting the definition of my skin stretched taut over pale flesh.
I was never one for hiding from the sun as some ladies were accustomed to. I lived for the moment when I could escape the confines of my father’s home and be free. My mother loved to scold me about my freckles and sun-kissed skin, though as I turn my hands over, I realize the golden hue of my flesh has been stripped away.
My gaze trails up from my hands, pausing over the corded muscles that now lie just beneath the nearly translucent flesh of my forearms. I poke at the muscle, bewildered by its presence, though I have only a scant second to wonder at the changes in my body before I become aware of the blood that coats my upper arms, vining down to my wrists. I draw my hands up to my face and see drying blood caked within the half-crescent circle of my chipped fingernails.
