Leofrik had to think like the enemy. They could travel in the blink of an eye. If he had that resource at hand, he would pick a spot to settle and travel for crops or other supplies when necessary. No need to keep a garden in the desert sand or rock cliffs—not when you could blink or fly yourself to the most fertile lands in existence. So where were they getting their supplies?
His finger landed on the dot in the countryside of France, their original home.
Ulric had been going about this wrong. He’d assumed that once the group abandoned a home, they never returned.
He may be wrong, but Leofrik finally had a plan.
Seventeen
Seeds of Torture
Amos held interviews with every member of the company, searching for the traitor. Each person spent hours to an entire day in his hut under interrogation, with Lucian listening in for any premonitions or hint of lies. Alexia’s interview lasted less than a minute.
“Is it you?”
She shook her head.
“Clearly. Who do you suspect it might be?”
“Oh that I knew! Any member of our company has been away at various seasons, gathering supplies or running errands. Whoever it is, they must not wish for us to be captured that terribly.”
He smiled. “Nor is it likely we can be touched in this unsettled part of the world. This may be the place for us.”
“And what of this gateway to another world?”
He shrugged. “If it comes to be a necessity, we will make the sacrifice, but upon further thought, I find Regin’s reasoning sound. We know nothing of this new world. It could be worse for us there than here.”
She leaned in. “Do you truly believe that?”
“No.” He rose, directing her toward the door, but he stopped her at the exit. “Alexia, if something should happen to me because of this traitor, I wish you to lead.”
“A woman?”
He grinned. “You will make them believe in you, for you are a power to be reckoned with.”
***
Alexia rounded a hedge of shrubs to where a pool of water glistened, reflecting the clouds above.
She stopped. Kiren knelt before the water wearing only leggings, his tunic laid carefully on the ground as he sponged himself with a cloth. He’d abandoned his monastic robes in favor of more practical wear after joining them, and he filled the attire quite nicely, when he wore it. She didn’t mind him not wearing it.
Water glistened on his back, skin she would so often draw her fingers across while he slept, a spine that would bear immense weight his entire existence and remain upright. She recalled the comfort of cuddling in his embrace through the night.
Her throat constricted. All things she was giving up—things she would never have again.
A smirk tugged at his cheek. She had been detected.
Alexia whirled away and hurried back toward camp. “I am sorry. I did not realize this area would be in use.”
Fingers rounded her arm, pulling her to a stop. Golden warmth spread from his touch, calling to the aching core of her heart. A siren song. She swallowed hard, unwilling to look at him and see the ghost of all she was giving up. His honey-oak musk left her feeling hollow.
“There is room for more than one.” His words caressed her ears, not so much a suggestive intonation, but a hopeful, breathless one. “Unless you would prefer to have it to yourself.”
She was going to lose all resolve to keep him at a distance if she didn’t run far away this instant. “I would not hurry you. I shall return later.”
He didn’t move. She glanced up at him, across his chest that was still excruciatingly bare except for his necklace. Blood pumped to her cheeks.
The muscles in his jaw twitched. “I daresay this is the first time you have looked at me in days.” His brow tweaked. The openness of his ocean sky startled her. Had she hurt his feelings? He grinned. “If all it takes is baring my chest, I shall have to do it more often.”
She closed her eyes, tugging free from his grip. “Respectfully, I am keeping my distance.”
“Which means you are not allowed to look at me? To speak with me?”
She bit the inside of her cheek. This was a mess, one big mess. She’d never have kissed him in the first place if she’d known the truth. Unfortunately, it was too late to jump back and fix it without trauma.
He rested a hand on his hip, his tone teasing. “You challenged me to take the knowledge of my future from you and have given me no opportunity to try. Must I tie you down to gain access to your mind?”
She forced herself to breathe, her heart to slow. He was so much the man he would be, and so different. Could she face him?
Her babe lurched. She placed a hand on her womb, thinking only of the child within. The very idea of speaking with Kiren was torture, but he would remain if she perished in childbirth. If she didn’t wish her babe to end up an orphan, she must enlist Kiren’s allegiance. He must raise this little girl.
He extended a hand. “I call a truce. Can we start again?”
She studied his fingers, wondering if she dared touch him ever again. She opened her mouth to accept, and hesitated.
“Allow me to finish my mind training”—he shrugged adorably—“which I hear is terribly important to my survival, and I shall keep a respectable distance.”
A smile escaped. Treacherous thing, but she rather liked the view. She tucked that thought away before he intercepted it, she hoped. He really needed to attire himself appropriately.
He was grinning along with her. “Let us begin again, the proper way, shall we—since you know most everything about me?” He bowed shallowly. “My name is Kiren de Kir. It is an honor to meet you—”
She crossed her arms. “You expect me to greet a half-naked man?”
His cheeks reddened. Reddened! Alexia couldn’t restrain her grin as he ducked his head and slipped the tunic back over his shoulders.
De Kir. She had never heard his full name. Did that make her Alexia de Kir? She couldn’t possibly introduce herself that way. What would he think?
A glow still warmed his cheeks as he straightened up.
She curtsied as low as she dared. “Well met, Kiren de Kir. I am Alexia Dumont.”
His head tilted. “That is not a family name I have heard before.”
“Careful, one might think you have been attentive to your abandoned kin.” She brushed past him, aimed for the pool.
He followed after her. “Despite what you may have heard, I am aware of my kind.”
Alexia lowered herself next to the pool. He caught her elbow and assisted her into a sitting position, halting with his face mere inches from hers. The universe twinkled back at her in his eyes, the possibility of new beginnings and glimmering hope.
“Too aware of my kind.” His whisper warmed her face.
She turned to the water, focusing on the steady in and out of air.
“I know nothing about you, Alexia, except what others have told me. Who are you—besides the Maiden of Time?”
She didn’t answer.
He leaned around her and met her gaze in the glassy ripples. It was a portrait of a woman, her husband, and the new life they were creating. Her dream.
She dashed the water, dispelling their joined reflection.
He settled on the ground beside her. “Perhaps if I tell you my story, you will wish to tell me yours?”
She didn’t answer him.
He continued on anyway. “I was abducted and brought to this camp because my once-allies had injuries they feared would claim lives. But before I could begin to think about this forced servitude, a woman kissed me. It was not the first time, even that day—”
She scowled.
“—but it was unlike anything I have felt.”
Unlike anything he’d felt… She shivered. Alexia expected him to continue on, but he watched her in the ripples, waiting. “What did it feel like?”
“Coming home.”
Alexia clutched her hands together, awed by h
is description.
“Which is terrifying, because I had never seen this woman before.” He glanced at her sideways and squirmed. “Yet she knew me, far too intimately.”
“And that frightened you?”
“Should it shame me to admit the truth?”
She couldn’t hold in a laugh. “I believe that an appropriately terrifying circumstance.”
He turned toward her, cupping a hand around her cheek. “In kindness, Alexia, give me the opportunity to know you better.”
She pushed off the ground, rising to her feet, barely able to breathe around her pounding heart. “Why would I do that?”
He stood beside her, clutching her arms to steady her. “Because in exchange, I will stay until your child is born, and I will ensure that both of you survive.”
Alexia closed her eyes against him. He was her Kiren, every bit of him. She yearned to wrap her arms around him and sink into the warmth of his promise, but she loved him too much to risk his life. His future.
“I am not asking for secret kisses in the dark, although I will likely not refuse those either.” The teasing tone was a stab to her heart.
“Likely?”
He smirked. “I only wish to know you.”
Could there be any harm in that? “It is a dangerous game you propose.”
He cleared his throat. “And it terrifies me, but I cannot help but wonder how it would feel to kiss you every time you are near.”
She barely uttered, “Even now?”
He lifted her chin. “Especially now.”
The flaming blue of his eyes melted her, a fierceness she had never known him without. This was not some illusion. Here stood Kiren in the flesh—even if he lacked the memory of their time together. His fingers trailed goosebumps down her arms and came free, lifting to cup her face. Like he couldn’t get enough of touching her.
He licked his lips. “Where do you come from, Alexia?”
“The future. I told you that.”
“But where?”
Tell him the truth and he would go into denial again. She wouldn’t do that to him. Alexia locked down and stepped back, but he moved with her, keeping her face tenderly clasped.
His breath curled over her cheek and traveled down her neck, a tendril of wishful touch.
She swallowed, hard. What was he doing?
I am asking myself the same thing, the thought rang through their connection, an involuntary sharing. His eyes burned over her skin, the simmering blue of a star’s flame. They consumed her careful chill. They ate away the determination to forget. They filled her with an ocean of fiery longing. His fingers stole around her back, trembling.
She trembled too. He leaned closer. Alexia stayed perfectly still, entranced by his parted lips, both terrified and hungry for them. He breathed her in. His eyes closed and he shuddered.
She inhaled: oak. A hint of sweetness. The slightest tang of fear. She placed both hands on his chest, that solid surface that heaved with something primal, ready to push him away.
His lips touched hers.
Alexia froze.
He was kissing her.
Kiren was kissing her.
The tenderest of kisses. Like he was afraid of even so light a touch.
Tears slipped down Alexia’s cheek as she asked silently, Why are you kissing me? Why are you torturing us both? Did he feel a connection despite the fear stiffening his body? If his pledge to save her after childbirth held true, she might not have to die in this time, which meant neither would he. They could both survive this, together. She could have this.
As much as she wanted more, wanted him, he could not intercept the memories locked in her head. She blocked the doorway to her mind with a dark cloud and prepared to push away. Just in time.
His lips parted hers.
Strength drained from her arms. She wanted to swim into the velvety darkness caressing her soul, to live within him so fully that life possessed only one meaning. She needed him as she’d always needed him. From the way he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss, he needed her too.
His mind opened to hers, no barriers, no fences. It was like stepping into an open field with a clear view of the world. Briars tore across the ground—ripping open the wounds of having lost his family each time they healed. His earth was raw, shredded, and trembling. The need to be restored to his family’s throne loomed above her, a crumbling iron pinnacle, a once-firm structure that had been brought to ruin. He had picked up stones and attempted to build something new with them, but each effort had been torn down. The tower, his family, his throne, they had been the only things that mattered. Now the icon of his purpose threatened to collapse, leaving naught but waste in his world—no hope, no tender relationships to ease his suffering, no soft hand to guide him toward something better. No home.
He was broken. So young and so broken.
Alexia pulled back, staring up into his eyes. It was one thing when she kissed him, when mistakenly she’d initiated the contact her soul alone craved. His kiss was different. Sincere. An opening of the heart. An offering.
“You know everything about me,” he whispered. “Now, I plead in all fairness, tell me where you come from.”
“Oh, Kiren…” She traced the skin from cheekbone to chin where he would one day bear a scar. “You should not have done that.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed and nostrils flared. She watched the reality dawn over him—that he had willingly opened himself to her, that he had started something neither of them may be able to end. His kiss might be enough to initiate the cycle that had granted Kiren only a couple months of bliss after centuries of loneliness. She didn’t want that for him.
“You do not want to be bonded to me,” she said quietly.
When they first touched intimately in the future, he had claimed she would be the death of him. It had been said jokingly, but he never rescinded the statement. If she allowed him in, allowed the bond to form, then died in childbirth, he would die along with her. That could not happen.
“Have it out then. Did you ensnare me when I first entered the camp because of my healing gift?” His chest puffed and he waved at her womb. “I would have helped you if you asked.”
There was the anger she’d expected. He wouldn’t be Kiren without that righteous indignation. “No.” You were my husband. Will be. She stopped the confession before it left her tongue. “I believed you were someone else.”
His single eyebrow peaked. “Someone with the same name?”
This was sounding less and less plausible with every question, even if it was true. “Yes.”
He gazed over her head, jaw clenched. He exhaled and turned away.
She watched him go, uncertain what more she could say. He didn’t believe her. He would never believe her.
She didn’t need him to. It was better if he left it at that, left her for good.
***
Kiren punched a tree branch as he veered through the brush. He’d been right. She had been attempting to bond him in order to save her baby, and now she’d developed a conscience and backed away. Rage consumed him. To be used for one’s gift was the greatest insult. Not only had she violated his mind, she’d violated his budding trust. He should have left the instant he finished healing the others. Perhaps it was time.
***
On her way back to the camp, Alexia stumbled over Deamus’s body, prostrate on the ground. She knelt and patted his cheek. His eyelids fluttered and a mumble escaped his lips, something about a seal and revenge. Had someone attacked him?
Kiren had come this way not much earlier, but he wouldn’t harm Deamus. That was absurd.
She found Regin and Sarlic to carry Deamus back into camp, but Kiren refused to heal him.
Perhaps it wasn’t as laughable as she first thought.
Eighteen
An Echo of Chaos
Kiren knew he was being petty, but he didn’t like Deamus. It wasn’t anything the man had done other than imagining Alexia would become the love of his li
fe. But this was something more. Something unseen. Maybe it was the guilt over abandoning his responsibilities, made fresh by the presence of someone from his home. He felt terrible about this unsubstantiated dislike, but not enough to actually lay hands on the man—even to revive him. Call it a fear of being siphoned? Instinct was strong among the Lost Ones, and should Deamus wake to a near infinite supply of strength, who knew what would happen. Kiren had more to lose in a draining than most. More than any man should possess.
And he was tired of being used.
Alexia gave him a deep scowl when he refused, but he wouldn’t change his mind. She was only using him anyway.
He returned her disapproval with an air of indifference and escaped to the woods for solitude.
Kiren began questioning if Alexia did know someone else with his name from another time—perhaps his son or grandson—not that he was ever going to have children. Still, it would explain why she could mistake him for another who bore the same name, why she would be terrified of caring too intimately for him, and how she could know so much about him. How awkward would that be if the same woman loved both a man and his grandfather? It might also explain why she felt like family to him. But it didn’t explain why she believed him caring for her would lead to his death—unless she had some insight about that as well.
Had she seen his death? Merely heard stories?
A prickling sensation started at the back of his neck.
He froze. Kiren turned slowly, eyeing the night sky behind him. There was nowhere to hide, and therefore no one watching him, in theory, but he hurried back to camp a little faster anyway.
***
From its perch in the night, inky intelligence hovered, waiting for the last of them to slip into slumber. The gateway had been cracked, allowing just the faintest wisps of itself through. Throw that barrier open and it would reign on this earth, wreaking the same self-destruction that it had inspired in society after society. Soon. Very soon its hour would come.
Timeless (Maiden Of Time Book 3) Page 8
