by Nina Croft
“Do you know the things the Conclave have done?”
“Yeah. Probably more than you. I was in their heads.” She shuddered as she remembered the woman in scarlet and her plan to destroy London. Way beyond evil. “But we can’t help where and who we’re born to. We just make the best of it.”
“Assess the threat,” Jake said. Like he had done so many times before, in so many missions.
“Low,” she said. “But go into his head and see for yourself.”
At that moment, Kaitlin slipped in through the door and took the nearest seat. “I like your boyfriend,” she said in Sadie’s mind.
So Ethan was awake.
“What’s happening?” Kaitlin said.
“Have a peek in Sadie’s head,” Rose said.
Kaitlin was silent for a moment, and then her eyes widened. “You can see the future?” She looked some more. “Wow. Sexy. You love him.”
“No. I. Don’t.”
“Yes, you do, you just haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.”
“Okay,” Jake said, “so we take a look in his head and then make a judgment.”
“He’s going back to London,” Kaitlin added. “He says he’ll take me with him. So I can have some fun.” No one said anything. “Hey, I deserve some fun.”
When had he decided that? And why?
“You stay here, where it’s safe,” Kane ordered.
Kaitlin tossed him an evil look. “Get this straight. I’m not one of your stupid Guardians. You’re not my boss or anything else to me. No one is. From now on—I decide.”
Jake sighed. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“What about the other one you brought with you?” Kane asked.
She presumed he meant Dave.
“You touch him,” Rose said quite mildly, “and I ditto what Sadie said. No more time machine.”
Kaitlin sniggered. “Are the peasants revolting? No one doing what they’re told. Perhaps we all need to die as well.”
“Shut up, Kaitlin,” Jake said.
She shut up.
“I’ll vouch for Madsen,” Jake continued. “We’ll have a look in Weiland’s head, see what he’s thinking, and then decide what to do next. Okay?” He looked straight at Sadie as he spoke, and she nodded. “So next thing. The machine. The others have agreed?”
“Yes,” Kane replied. “Within reason. No blowing anything up. One step at a time. If anything…out of the ordinary happens, we take a step back.”
“Ordinary?” Sadie muttered. “You’re talking about a goddamn time machine. Do you really expect anything that happens to be ordinary?”
Kaitlin snickered.
“When do we do this?” Jake asked.
Kane rose to his feet. He’d been against this, but Sadie could sense his suppressed excitement. “Why not now?”
…
While she didn’t like to admit it, Kaitlin was pretty intrigued. A time machine. That could be so much fun. She could be a sort of Doctor Who, traveling through time and space and having adventures. And she’d have a gorgeous assistant who would be in love with her and…
She really needed to get a life.
Kane led the way up the steep, narrow track at the back of the house, and they formed a procession after him. The sun was hot on her back and the air was almost tangible, thick with heat and moisture, and sweat broke out on her forehead. She’d tried to keep in shape by exercising in her cell, but after a few minutes, her muscles ached from the climb. All around her, the chatter of monkeys, the screams of birds filled her ears. Vegetation crowded in on either side, but the path was clearly well used. After about five minutes, the track ended abruptly.
She peered around the others, trying to see as, one by one, they disappeared into a gap that opened up in the face of the mountain. Her steps slowed as though subconsciously, she didn’t want to enter. This place held a secret with the power to change her life. A man and woman stood, one on either side, as if guarding the entrance. This must be Leila and Brandon, the two Guardians. Apparently, they were old, like really old, and they had never left this place. She sensed they were not happy with this development, but she stayed out of their heads.
They were all inside now, except for her. She’d never been a coward, but it took a force of will to make herself take the final step through the opening into the space beyond. She stopped inside the doorway, trying to take in what she was seeing. The cavern was huge with a pale sandy floor and filled with sunlight from a hole in the arched ceiling above their heads. And in the middle of the space was the machine. Smooth, silver, broad at the base and tapering to a point at the top. Like a rocket. It was too big to have come through either the door they’d entered by or the hole in the roof. So how had it gotten here?
Without conscious thought, she shuffled forward until she was standing beside the structure.
“Don’t touch,” Kane said.
She scowled at him, but shoved her hands in her pockets. She had an almost overwhelming urge to stroke her hand down the machine, see if it would come to life beneath her fingers.
There was nothing that looked like an engine, no propulsion units to be seen. How would it work? Would it fly through time? Or would it disappear and rematerialize in another time and place?
Kane believed it had been here for ten thousand years. Why? What possible purpose could it had served? Had something gone wrong? Had it taken Kane’s ancestors to a time and place they had never expected or wanted to be? And now, if they brought it to life, might it disappear off to some other dimension never to be seen again?
She was still reeling from Sadie’s admission that she could see the future. Everything was changing. Moving. She felt off-balance. All she’d dreamed about for six months was getting out, now she had no clue how to move forward.
Nothing was within her control.
“Christa?” Kane turned to where she stood beside Jake. “You want to try?” he asked.
Why her?
She nodded and excitement glinted in her eyes. Christa stepped forward, reached out slowly, and Kaitlin held her breath. What did she expect, flashing lights and mysterious humming noises?
She edged closer so she could get a better view. Sadie moved to the side to let her in as Christa ran her hands over the smooth surface, her fingers hesitating over the one flaw in the otherwise perfect exterior. She pressed her hands to the indentation. Nothing happened.
Kaitlin exhaled.
Maybe there was some sort of timing device. The machine wouldn’t open until the time of Kane’s mission. He told them the date—2020. Or perhaps it was broken and would never open and this was a complete waste of time.
Christa frowned, then studied the thing some more, her head cocked to one side. She turned to him. “One of you lot try. Maybe it’s genetically coded to recognize DNA.”
Kaitlin stepped forward. “Can I?”
Kane turned to look at her, and for a moment, she thought he would refuse, to pay her back for not shaking his stupid hand earlier. But according to Christa, her DNA was almost all original tribe. Why shouldn’t it be her? Finally, he gave a curt nod.
Excitement fizzed inside her. Christa held out her hand and she took it, stepped forward. “Place your palm here.”
She took Kaitlin’s other hand and spread her fingers, pressing her palm up against the place she’d been trying.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Disappointment welled up inside her. This was what Teagan had died for. She needed it to be important. To make sense of everything that had happened.
Then something stirred to life beneath her palm. A whirring sound filled the cavern. A screen formed from the smooth metal above her hand. It flashed a couple of times and then settled to blackness with numbers in crimson.
23688
“What does it mean?” she asked.
23687
“I think it’s a countdown,” Christa said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Well, that had been anti-cl
imactic.
What had she expected? Something a little more dramatic, perhaps. Flashing lights. At the very least, a door opening so she could get a peep inside.
But Kane had said that was enough for now. They should leave it, decide whether Christa was right and it was a countdown, and then they’d decide on a next move. She’d thought they might have to drag Kaitlin away—she seemed fascinated by the machine.
Sadie had left them all staring at it and come back down to the house. She needed to check on Josie, who’d collapsed when they got here the previous evening and been sleeping since. And was still sleeping, Sadie saw as she peered around the door.
Closing it softly, she reached out with her mind and found Ethan.
She heard the murmur of voices from the back veranda as she made her way through the house and found Ethan along with Dave, swinging in hammock chairs, drinking beer, and looking relaxed. More relaxed than she had ever seen him. She hoped he would stay that way.
She had to warn him about the coming interrogation, even though there was nothing he could do to change his thoughts and beliefs. She also had to tell him what she had learned about his mother. And she wasn’t looking forward to that. She knew what she was going to reveal would be a huge shock. She just had no clue how he would deal with that shock. How it would affect his decision-making process. How it would affect his feelings for her.
First, she wanted something from him. Something she had promised herself.
She crossed to where he sat and took his beer, swallowed the last of the contents, and then held out her hand to him.
“I’m going to borrow him for a while,” she told Dave.
He nodded and raised his bottle in their direction. “So did they decide to kill him or not to kill him? Just wondering.”
“It’s still under debate.”
He didn’t speak as she led him off the veranda, across the lawn in front of the house, through the trees to a clearing where a small hut had been built. It was round, little more than poles holding up a thatched roof. On previous visits, she’d spent a lot of time here. There was a daybed where she could lie and read or just think, and the animals of the forest would come down and visit her, entertaining her with their chatter or their purrs.
“So am I—”
She shut off his words by the simple but effective method of kissing him. Words would only complicate things right now. Sliding her hand around the back of his neck, she pushed her fingers into the silky hair at his nape and pulled him down to her, deepening the kiss.
For a second, his body went tense, every muscle locked up tight, and she forced her tongue between his lips, filling him, and finally, he relaxed against her. His hands came up to cup her face, holding her still for his kiss, and his mind cleared of everything but the feel of her and the taste of her—the sensation of her body against his, the red-hot desire burning through his blood, sinking to his groin, making him hard. She pressed her body closer, feeling the rigid length of him, hot and firm, against her belly, and she growled through the kiss. Wanting more, needing more.
She ran out of oxygen, coming up for air gasping, and her gaze met his, dark gold like melted honey, and by silent agreement, they didn’t say a word.
Words could only spoil things now. And more than anything in her whole life, she wanted this man. Just once. Before the world came down around them.
She glided her free hand down over his chest, up under the T-shirt to settle against the lean ridged muscle of his stomach. A shudder ran through him, and was echoed in her own body. His palms slid down her spine, cupped her ass, ground her against his hardness.
Her insides turned molten, as heat pooled between her thighs. She needed more, much more. Hooking her fingers in the hem of his T-shirt, she dragged it over his head and threw it to the ground. Then her hands went to the button at his fly, fumbled as she unfastened it, then slipped her hands inside and around the steely strength of him. For a second, his mind went blank. She squeezed and his head flooded with pleasure.
Not letting go, with her other hand, she pushed the shorts down over his hips, and he kicked them off.
She had to look at him, had to know if he was as beautiful as in her dreams.
Taking a step back, she allowed her gaze to wander over the long, lean length of him. Broad at the shoulder, and narrow at the hips, long muscular legs. He was more than her dreams, more than she’d ever known could exist, and something twisted inside her.
She’d had sex with countless men, but had never come close to feeling like this. And the thought brought her up short. For a moment, she hesitated. But only a moment. She wanted this too much. Afterward, she would worry about the fallout. When he was gone.
She traced a fingertip over the tattoo on his left breast, over his heart, maybe to remind herself of who and what he was. Then she pressed her hand to his chest, feeling the rapid thud beneath her palm.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” he murmured.
“I am, aren’t I?”
She stepped back, stripped off her T-shirt; her breasts were bare beneath it, her nipples already hard. She wriggled out of her shorts and panties and tossed them on the pile of clothes. He reached out and trailed a finger over her collarbone, her breast, pausing to stroke her nipple so pleasure shot through her, pooling in her belly, soaking her sex. She held her breath as he moved lower over the flat plain of her stomach, delving into her belly button, then even lower to ruffle the dark curls at the base of her belly. She released her breath, and her breathing became shallow and fast, desperately trying to get oxygen into her starving lungs.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured. His hand slid between her thighs and he palmed her sex, one finger sliding between the folds to find her. “And hot and wet. You want me, and that is such a turn-on.”
She raised her gaze to meet his, her hand reaching out to wrap around his shaft. “You want me as well.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve wanted you since I saw you outside Forrester’s that night. And I wondered how a guy like me could get a girl like you.” He grinned. “Basically, how much you would cost.”
She grinned back. “I bet you never guessed the price would be so high.”
“Never.”
“Let’s hope it’s worth it.”
“It will be.”
He sounded so certain. His hands shifted to stroke her spine, cup her ass, and he pulled her hard against him, and then lifted her off her feet. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her backward to the narrow daybed, then lowered her to the mattress. He came down on top of her, so she felt him along the length of her body. He was all hot, satin skin and hard muscle and so big that for a second, she felt overwhelmed, almost scared. As though this might change her forever in ways she couldn’t even imagine.
Then he lifted his weight from her, and she breathed. Balancing on one elbow, he stroked her hair with his free hand and ran the pad of his thumb over her lower lip.
“No condoms,” he said. “Are you on birth control?”
The question came out of nowhere. She hadn’t given the matter a moment’s thought, and now she looked away for a second, then back at him. “No. But I don’t need anything. I’m sterile.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ve always known it. It’s no big deal.” That’s what she’d always told herself, since she’d been informed when she was fourteen. Who wanted babies anyway—nasty, smelly, squawky things. She pushed the thought aside. “And we’re immune to the majority of diseases, so I’m clean.”
“Me, too.”
He lowered his head and kissed her, gently now. She was sorry he’d brought it up. It had somehow shifted the mood, adding a hint of melancholy, and she didn’t want that. She dipped into his mind. He was thinking that maybe she was even more screwed up by her past than him. She punched him on the shoulder.
“No, I’m not. I’m bordering on normal, compared to you.”
“I don’t think either of us comes close to no
rmal. But right now, I really don’t give a damn. I’m going to fuck you so hard and so deep that there won’t be room in either of our minds but this.” He thrust with his hips, pressing the length of his erection against her.
Sounded like a plan. Enough talking. She looped her hands around his neck, pulling him down for her kiss. Their tongues clashed, and the taste of him sent the blood roaring in her veins. She shifted beneath him, parting her thighs, making room for him and felt the scalding heat of his cock nudging at the entrance to her body. Some of the urgency left her. This was going to happen. Nothing short of the end of the world would stop her now. An insistent pulse throbbed between her thighs and she opened them wider, wriggled until the tip of his cock pushed inside. For a second, he was still, then he raised his head and stared down into her eyes as he filled her with one fluid thrust of his hips.
Closing her eyes, she savored the feeling. Strange, new, despite the fact that she had done this so many times before. This was different. He felt so right, buried deep inside her.
She’d never been in another’s head while they made love. Before they’d broken away, it had been against protocol, drilled in so deeply, from such a young age, that she’d never thought to disobey. Later, she hadn’t wanted to know what the men she was with were thinking.
Now, she needed to know. She opened her eyes and stared up at him, allowing her mind to slip into his. He wasn’t thinking, no conscious thoughts, just feeling, need, desire.
She sensed the intention before he moved, then felt the exquisite drag of his cock as he pulled out. His pleasure echoed her own, intensifying, merging. Then he shoved back in, hard, and her body arched beneath him. Lowering his head, he kissed her breast, licked the nipple, sucked it into his mouth. As he bit down, pleasure and pain mingled, spreading through her veins, her nerves, coalescing in her belly. At the same time, he pulled out again, and slammed back into her. Then he was moving hard and fast, pumping into her, grinding his pelvic bone against her so with each stroke, the pleasure swelled, tightened. He shifted his hands beneath her ass, cupping her cheeks, pulling her tighter against him, rotating her in little circles so the pleasure spiraled out of control, building and building until she was sure she’d explode. Finally, he lowered his head and kissed her, and she came, pleasure spreading outward, burning through her body, turning her to ashes. She was vaguely aware of his coming inside her, his head back, spine arched. Her mind was still inside his, and she came again from the echo of his pleasure.
