Carnelian (19 page)

“Why would the goddess want me to meet you
if she planned to send me away?” I tipped back to look at his face.
His eyes were closed as he talked, but his confusion perfectly
evident on his face. I had no answer to that question either. I
didn’t want him to go anywhere.

My phone, finally charged, rang and I looked
across the room to my stuff. Much had changed in twenty-four hours,
and I wouldn’t even know what to say to whoever was on the other
end of the line. Reluctantly, I sat up and walked over to look at
the phone. It was Sim. She probably wondered where I went off to. I
sat down and put my shoes on. I needed to go back and reassure her
that I was fine. I didn’t answer, and it kept ringing. I had no
clue what I’d even say if I answered the phone.

Seth stood and took my phone from me. He
somehow knew that I wasn’t sure what to say, even to Sim.

“Hey, Sim,” Seth said cheerfully. He had
three years to adjust to the new reality even if he hoped it was a
dream. “Yeah, Mari is with me. We kind of ran into a problem last
night, and she stayed the night.” Seth paused and listened to Sim
talk. Seth held my hand and played with my fingers as he half
listened. He smiled and let her finish.

“Stay tonight?” Seth asked, covering the
phone for Sim to not hear him ask. I nodded. I didn’t really want
to leave and go back to Sim. The questions alone would drive me
nuts, but really I wanted to stay with Seth. Even if our
relationship was going to end with him going home, I wanted to
spend as much time with him as I could before he left, whenever
that might come.

“I’m going to keep her another night if you
don’t mind. It’s getting late, and I think we’re both tired,” Seth
smiled as he talked. Sim squealed on the other end of the phone. “I
promise to return her tomorrow, and you can get a full update of
everything you missed. She won’t be late to CRUSH.” Seth paused one
last time. “Yep, goodbye.”

Seth set my phone down before pulling me
back to the bed.

“As you probably already know, we have a
guest room you can stay in, but I’d prefer you stay here in my
bed.” Seth pulled off his shoes first and then his shirt, leaving
him only in his shorts.

I smiled and pretended to walk to the door
teasingly, but I didn’t get too far before he was in front of
me.

“I don’t think I can let you out of my sight
right now. After everything you’ve heard and seen, you might just
run away and never come back,” Seth replied, pulling me close to
him to not let me get by. “The guest room really wasn’t an
offer.”

I smiled up at him. “Well, duh,” I teased,
reaching behind him to the shirt hanging on his door that I wore
last night to bed. “I just needed a shirt.” Seth laughed. It was
good to hear him laugh after everything. “And I’m not running
anywhere. We were to meet for a reason, and until we find that
reason, we probably should stick together a bit.” I hurriedly
pulled his shirt on and got ready for bed myself.

Seth waited until I was in his bed to turn
off the lights. He joined me and wrapped me in his arms. We didn’t
kiss or go any further. I think we were both too stunned by the
afternoon, and lost in our own thoughts. Seth just held me as I
closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. The last twenty-four hours
were one gigantic blur, but as I cuddled into his arms, it felt
right. I was beginning to have the feeling with Seth that life was
always one big adventure.

Chapter 10

Capturing Him

Waking up a
second time in Seth’s bed was actually more
comfortable than I wanted to admit. The bed was nice and soft with
warm, fluffy blankets and the noise was absolutely not there. In
the dorms you get used to the noise, but Seth’s house was
completely silent. You could even hear the water as it lapped on
the shore outside his window. Seth must have chosen the room to
remind him of home. It was peaceful in Seth’s room. I lifted my
head and looked around. It was actually quieter than the night
before since I woke up alone in his bed. It was strange that Seth
was up since it couldn’t be much past seven in the morning with the
sun just rising.

Slowly, I stood and stretched before walking
to the window. Seth was outside in the crisp fall air stretching
with his brothers. They actually looked like they just finished
their run. All three Sangre boys were early risers.

As Seth bent down, Ty’s voice carried over
him while he talked.

“Then she knows the truth now?” Ty
asked.

Seth nodded his head as he replied. I
couldn’t hear him as he had his back to the window. He was speaking
as the other two guys watched him.

“We can finally go home?” Dee asked. Seth
said something that Dee wasn’t happy with.

“Then we just take her with us,” Dee
replied. Dee pointed up to the house, but not at me hiding just
inside the window.

Seth turned a bit and I could finally hear
him also.

“We can’t take her back with us to our time
without knowing what she’s supposed to do,” Seth answered.

“We take her back and figure it out,” Dee
added. “We go home.”

“No. We have no idea what her connection is
to the past. What if it was something from our enemies? You know my
father wouldn’t hesitate to kill her or send body parts back to
their king.” Seth replied. Seth never said he was worried I’d be an
enemy. And his father didn’t sound like a nice person.

“If she’s from the goddess, as you say, then
the goddess just whisks her back here if she gets in danger. It
isn’t a problem.” Dee sat down to finish stretching. “Why are you
hesitating to bring her back with us?”

I never considered that going back with Seth
was an option. Here I was all worried about keeping Seth here, but
Dee was right. I should be able to go back with them.

“She’s never traveled in time before, and I
won’t take that risk with her. She stays here, and we find out how
she can help us. Stop asking to go home until we figure this out,”
Seth ordered Dee like a general would, before turning to come
inside. His military upbringing seeped through when he scolded
Dee.

“You know, since she knows nothing about our
time, and can’t look it up either, and you refuse to let her go to
the past with us, isn’t this an easy case to figure out what needs
to be done?” Dee called to Seth. Clearly, he had an opinion, but I
didn’t know what he was talking about. “Have you ever thought about
that?”

I ducked back from my shadow as Seth looked
up to his room window. I doubt he could see me anyway from where I
was standing, but I didn’t want to get caught listening in. I sat
back down on the bed and waited as the door shut and Seth climbed
the stairs. Seth stopped in front of the room and cracked the door
open silently, thinking I was still asleep.

“You’re up,” he said as he stopped just
inside the doorway, realizing that I was awake.

“Who are Dee and Ty?” I asked. He had
mentioned his story yesterday, but he didn’t include them. Seeing
them all together made me realize they didn’t have a past in my
tutoring files, either.

Seth walked to the bathroom door and paused.
“Ty was a slave my father brought home from war when I was a kid,
and Dee was my chariot driver. We grew up together as kids, all
three of us. I’m going to get a quick shower in before we get you
back to the dorms and have to meet up for CRUSH. Your CRUSH team
might not be too happy if you arrive to CRUSH with me.” He was
right. They’d probably see me as conspiring with the enemy. Seth
disappeared into the bathroom, and I got dressed before turning on
his computer.

I looked up Egyptian chariots first, then I
tried to find Horemheb. The first articles were fine. I got a
background on how the chariots were made and used. Also how they
were essential for war. It seemed if I was looking for general
Egyptian knowledge I’d be fine. The second search ended up in the
internet being disconnected. I tried a second time, and it
disconnected again. It seemed I wouldn’t be able to look for
someone specific. I would have been more disappointed in not
getting more specific answers and the darn internet that kept
turning off, but Seth returned to the room. He walked in with just
a towel wrapped around his waist, and I couldn’t help but steal
glances around the computer. He was built like a swimmer with a
large upper half and skinny waist. His shoulders were wide and his
arms well formed. It made sense now that if Dee was the chariot
driver, then Seth was the one shooting the bow off the moving
chariot. I tried my best to pretend the computer was working when
it shut off again because of my specific searches, but I didn’t
need to. Seth was far away in his thoughts. I could gaze at him as
much as I wanted. He turned and walked back into the bathroom with
his clothes in his hand and didn’t see me staring. I was a bit
disappointed. After calling him underwear model for the first week,
I was hoping to catch a glimpse of him actually modeling
underwear.

Seth came back out only moments later, and I
was still waiting for the computer to start.

“I take it you were looking stuff up again,”
he assessed the start-up screen.

“Yeah, it lets me look up general facts but
nothing specific,” I complained as I stood to join him. Research
would have to wait as Seth was correct. My CRUSH team would be more
than annoyed if I showed up with him. I grabbed my backpack by the
door and followed him through the house, stopping to grab breakfast
on the way through the kitchen.

“Mari,” Dee elongated my name, leaning over
the counter to talk to me as I stood beside Seth. “Do you find Seth
attractive, like physically?”

My mouth dropped at the question. Dee never
said more than needed to answer a question during our tutoring
sessions. I don’t think he had ever purposely started a
conversation with me. And of all conversations to have, he was now
acting like I’d be willing to tell him personal information. My
momentary stunning was easily stopped when I saw Seth fuming. He
grabbed Dee by the shirt and dragged him to the other room while I
stood there with Ty. I heard their muffled arguing through the
closed door.

“Now that was strange,” I said to Ty. He
smiled and laughed at my shock while shaking his head.

“Is your team ready for CRUSH today?” Ty
asked, changing the subject before I could ask what was going on.
He certainly knew more about what was going on and wasn’t about to
tell me.

“You mean can the smart students actually
play a game of capture the flag?” I replied. I really wanted to ask
him what Seth and Dee were yelling about, but I liked Ty too much
as a friend to drag him into what was beginning to sound like World
War Three.

Ty grinned at my reply. He seemed to already
be filled in on Murdley Hall’s past failures. A bunch of smart
people should be able to outwit the jocks at a game that involved
as much planning as it did playing, but again, Murdley never won. I
knew first hand why through our planning sessions the previous
week. They were a complete waste of my time. Everyone thought their
idea was the best one, and no one could agree to one plan.

“Well, I was going to ask if they planned to
forfeit again this year,” Ty laughed. He had been filled in really
well. Murdley had never won the capture the flag game played during
CRUSH, and last year the two leaders were too different on their
tactics, their team forfeited rather than try to play the game with
two different plans.

“You’d think a bunch of smart people could
sit together and come up with something, but you’d be completely
wrong. All they want to do is prove which brain is bigger and
better.” I took a bite of a butter croissant I had grabbed. “I went
to two meetings this week alone and didn’t get anything from either
of them. No one has a way to win that everyone else likes. You have
it easier. I hear Seth makes a plan and everyone else follows.” The
yelling continued in the next room.

“Some people have more trouble than others
on the following bit, but yes, that’s how it works. Seth has a mind
for these things, just like his dad,” Ty replied, pausing to check
if the yelling was done. Seth hit the door hard as he walked back
into the room and smiled at me. It was strained, but it was a
smile. I smiled back.

“Ready to walk back?” Seth asked.

“Yep,” I replied and waved to Ty. “See you
this afternoon, when we finally beat you guys.”

“Good luck on that,” Ty replied as we left
the house.

“Trouble in the ranks?” I asked as we began
our walk back to the dorms.

Seth shook his head and let out a sigh.
“There’s always trouble where Dee is concerned. You’d think after
twenty years we could find a way to get along, but it always comes
to this.”

“He doesn’t follow orders well?” I asked. I
bet general-minded Seth didn’t appreciate that much. I really
wondered what his father was like if Seth was that intense when
someone disagreed with his orders.

“No, he’ll follow physical orders, but he
always feels the need to tell me what he thinks of my plan. He has
to make sure I know his plan is better.” Seth led the way back, but
I could find my way by now. After we had been out to his house the
first time, I looked it up on a map. I might have been mad at him,
but I was still curious.

“What is his plan? Involving me, I guess?”
Seth paused mid-step. I got that guess right, it seemed. Seth
didn’t answer right away. He continued to lead us back without
answering. As we made it to the woods beside campus, I stopped
walking. Two nights ago, that woods was the goal when I was running
from the two men. Seth continued a few more feet before turning
around.

“It’s nothing really,” Seth replied to my
question. He noticed my hesitation about entering the trail and
held out his hand for me to take. “You’re always safe with me
around. Remember, I can protect you,” Seth reassured me.