Ricochet Through Time (Echo Trilogy Book 3) (11 page)

“And that’s how I ended up here,” I said, folding my hands together in my lap. I’d shed Dorman’s coat some hours ago, near the beginning of my retelling. It was humid in the room and warm enough that my jeans and T-shirt felt mostly dry.

Heru’s eyes were still cast in my direction, but his focus was distant. Not surprising, considering I’d pretty much unloaded my whole life story on him. I’d told him way more than I’d planned to, including that in the future we were a bonded Nejeret pair. Hell, I’d just let the guy know he was the father of my children. He deserved a moment of silent processing. He deserved a
year
of silent processing, but we didn’t have that much time.

Maybe it had been a gamble telling him so much. Maybe he would dismiss me as insane. Maybe he would see me as a lying, manipulative Nejerette who’d come to him and told him tall tales as part of some diabolical plan. Maybe, but I didn’t think so.

Heru blinked, and his thousand-mile stare vanished, replaced by the intense focus I was so familiar with. He stared at me, seeming to see into me. “This thing you would have me believe—”

“My life story?” I offered with a shaky smile.

“Yes.” Heru’s eyes searched mine, and he leaned forward. He extended his hand, almost like he was reaching for me, but stopped short and set it palm-down on the table instead. “Have you any proof that what you claim is true?”

I nodded and scooted forward on my chair, perching on the edge of the seat. “If you go into the At, looking at this moment, this place, you won’t see me. I’m a person out of time. We call it a ‘time anomaly.’”

His eyes narrowed. “
Or
you could be extremely talented at cloaking.” He nodded to himself. “Which would befit a daughter of Set, both the trickery and the talent.”

I sat up straighter, my eyes narrowing to match his. “I wouldn’t do that. I
haven’t
done that. Hell, I wouldn’t even know how to do that.” I laughed bitterly. “My Nejerette traits manifested less than a year ago. I might be a quick learner, but I’m not
that
quick.”

“I meant no offense,” Heru said coolly. From the way he was looking at me, studying me, I had the impression that he was testing me.

“I’m sure,” I grumbled.

“Do you have any other proof?”

Shrugging, I shook my head. “I don’t think—” I sat up straighter. “Yes. Yes, I do,” I said, reaching into my shirt through the collar to fish out my phone. I’d stored the dormant device in my bra to keep it safe during the canoe trip, and it had seemed wise to keep it there during the rainstorm.

Heru, who’d been watching my down-the-shirt phone retrieval with amused interest, craned his neck once the device was visible. “What kind of a contraption is that?”

“It’s a phone—a cellular phone,” I said, holding down the power button until the screen lit up and launched into its loading sequence. I’d powered it off shortly after Tex found me the previous afternoon. I set the phone on the table halfway between Heru and myself.

Heru scooted his chair closer and leaned over the table. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I, too, leaned in. “In basic principle, it’s similar to a telegraph—it allows you to send messages instantaneously over long distances.” I tapped the glassy face of the phone. My background picture appeared, a photo of a rare snuggly moment between Thora and Rus, and a moment later, the icons for the apps popped into place. “The main difference is that these messages use actual voices.”

“I don’t understand.”

“This”—I picked up the phone, then set it back down—“allows people to actually speak to each other from opposite sides of the world. You could have a conversation with someone in China—for hours, if you wanted—as though you’re sitting in the same room as them. Some phones even allow you to
see
the person you’re talking to.”

Heru stared at the phone, wonder etched all over his face. He’d lived for thousands of years and, as such, had seen the ebb and flow of technology progressing firsthand. But still, he shook his head in disbelief. “How is such a thing possible?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know.” I tapped the camera icon in the bottom right corner of the phone’s display. “It can also take pictures—um, photographs. See?” I leaned closer to him and smiled into the camera, then tapped the screen to capture the shot. Heru’s dumbfounded expression was priceless.

I showed him the image, barely hiding a smile.

He touched his fingertips to the likeness of his face on the screen. “That’s incredible.” He slid his finger to my face, and the photo swiped right off the screen, only to be replaced by another, this one taken a century and a half in the future.

In the new photo, Marcus and I were lying on a white and green checkered picnic blanket on Bainbridge Island’s rocky northern shore. Marcus was scowling while I cheesed it up big-time. He had an extreme aversion to photographs, a fairly common trait among our kind.

“This was taken a little over a week ago.” I smiled wistfully, remembering that perfect sunny day. “We had a picnic, just you and I. So much was going on all around us with Tarset and the war on the Kin, and I wanted to surprise you. You’d been working nonstop, more stressed than I’d ever seen you, and . . .” My voice became husky. I cleared my throat, staring up at the ceiling while I blinked unexpected tears away. “It was a lovely afternoon. A perfect moment. I had to capture it with a photo.”

“And yet remembering it saddens you.” I could feel the trail of his gaze tracing over my face.

“It was our last moment of pure happiness before things went so wrong. And now I’m here, but you’re there, and I don’t even know if you’re really okay, and there’s nothing I can do about it but let our kids toss me further and further back in time like a damn skipping stone.” I wiped away the wetness under my eye, angry at myself for letting the tears escape. “I don’t even know how I’ll get home.” I just had to trust that the twins would bring me back when the time came.

Heru captured my hand before I could return it to my lap. “I may be there, in the future, but I am also here, with you,
now
.” His thumb rubbed slow circles over the back of my hand.

Shaking my head, I let out a desolate laugh. “Yeah, but you don’t believe me, not really. I thought that maye, since you sort of, somehow remember something of me, but . . .” I blew out a breath, frustrated, exhausted, and so over this. “You must think I’m insane.”

“Well, Alexandra Ivanov—Lex—either you are insane, or I am.” He smiled and shook his head, his open expression a rarity, even in my time. “And I’m inclined to believe your tale, so it must be me.”

My gaze locked with his. “You believe me?” Tears streaked down my cheeks, and I made no attempt to stop them. “You really believe me?”

“I do.” He laughed out loud, a wondrous, joyous sound. “And I’m to be a father!”

“Well, it’s not like it’s the first time . . .”

“Oh, but Alexandra, in so many ways, it is.” He stood abruptly, releasing my hand to pace around the room. “To create a child with my bond-mate—to
have
a bond-mate! Such a thing I’ve never wanted, and yet how many times have I found myself lying in bed after waking from a dream of you, my mysterious fantasy woman, wishing you were real? How often have I lain there thinking that should our paths cross in the real, waking world, I would gladly hand you a piece of my soul?”

I stared at him, utterly speechless. Marcus was rarely so expressive. Only when he was caught up in an extreme tsunami of emotions did he allow himself to shed his usual aura of restraint and share his true feelings with such aplomb. I could count the number of times such a thing had happened on one hand.

He crossed the room to kneel before me and take my hands in his. “I have been searching for you for so long. You’ve been haunting me, day and night. You are with me always. Now I understand why.”

I swallowed roughly. “You heard what I said about the bonding block in your mind, right? That we cannot ever—that if we were to reestablish the bond on your end by, um . . .” Blushing, I looked away and tried again. “We’re bonded, you and I. That happened thousands of years ago, and nothing can change that. But the bonding block I placed in your mind so long ago is the only reason you haven’t succumbed to withdrawals. While I have to stay close to you, now, to stave off the bonding withdrawals, you won’t be able to experience our bond until we meet again in the twenty-first century. Were the bonding block to fail and our bond be fully reinstated on your end, you would—” I took a deep breath, then met his golden gaze. “You would die, Heru. You would die long before I’m born, and none of this—
us
, our children—would ever happen.”

Some of the glow faded from his eyes. “I had not considered all angles of the situation, but I can plainly see the logic in your words.” A faint, rueful grin curved his lips. “Though I cannot say I’m overly pleased with the reality of the situation.”

I smiled, grateful for his acceptance. Heru might have been a millennia-old god of time, but he was also a damn good man.

He squeezed my hand. “Now, Little Ivanov—”

With my next inhale, I choked a little. “How did you know?”

Heru’s brows drew together. “Know what?”

Smiling, I shook my head. “Little Ivanov—it’s what you call me in my time.”

Heru grinned, broad and true. “Is it, now? Perhaps that will help you see me as the same man you first bonded with, despite being a few years younger.”

My smile faded as I stared into his eyes. I raised my hand, touching my fingertips to the side of his face. “I always know who you are. You are Heru. You are mine.”

His eyes blazed hotter than any sun. He leaned in, and I wet my lips in preparation for his kiss.

“Wait,” I said when he was a hairsbreadth away, our breath commingling in the space between us. My chest rose and fell quickly, and it was an effort not to close the distance and just kiss him already. “This is probably a terrible idea. Kissing leads to other things, and other things lead to—to—”

Heru’s hands were making a slow path up the outsides of my thighs. “Hmmm . . . I’d very much enjoy hearing about these ‘other things’ . . .” His hands were on my hips, kneading through the denim.

“I—I—”

The front door crashed open, and we both jumped. “Father!”

Heru pulled back a few inches. “What is it, Neffe?” In one smooth motion, he stood.

I felt suddenly naked in the absence of his heat. But I also felt fantastic, rejuvenated by my time with him. I figured I must have absorbed a pretty healthy dosage of his bonding pheromones during our little flirtation of a kiss. That on top of the relief I felt at having confided in him—and knowing he believed me—lifted my spirits immensely.

“Dom found him,” Neffe said from the doorway behind me. I forced myself to
not
look at her; I didn’t want to give her any reason to remember my face. Like I said, our kind have long memories. “He found Samuel.”

Heru stood behind his chair, his hands gripping the top rail. “Where?”

“North,” Neffe said. “According to Dom, he’s searching for someone—a woman. Dom witnessed an echo of a conversation between him and a Squamish hunter, and Samuel threatened to kill the poor bastard if he didn’t tell him where the woman had gone.”

Heru’s eyes shifted to me. “How fascinating.”

“That’s not even the whole of it.” With the sound of boots on hardwood, Neffe took several steps into the room. I could see her in my peripheral vision, dressed much like her father in wool and leather rather than the dresses with their heavy woolen or cotton skirts typical to women of this era. I smiled, just a little. Trust Neffe not to roll with the tide. “He told the hunter that finding ‘her’ was the only way to prove to ‘the Collector’ where his loyalties truly lie.”

“So he
was
planning on seeking refuge with his father.” Heru’s focus shifted back to Neffe. “Take Dom and Dorman, and find him.”

“You’re not coming?”

“No, not this time.”

“Standard procedure after we track him down, then? Or did you need us to keep him alive?”

“No.” Heru tucked his hands into his pockets and shook his head. “No, I have no need of him. He’s made his bed . . .”

“Very well.” There was a long moment, and the silence quickly grew expectant.

“Is there something else?”

“Father . . .” Neffe hesitated. “It’s her, isn’t it? She’s the woman Set’s after?”

“Yes, Daughter.” Heru’s stare became diamond hard. “And that is the only time I would hear you speak of it—of her—
ever
again. Am I understood?”

There was only the slightest pause before Neffe answered. “Yes, Father.” She made her way to the hall but paused in the doorway. “Will you be here when we return?”

Heru’s eyes slid back to me, and his jaw tensed. “No, I don’t think I will.”

“As I suspected. Safe travels, then, and find me when you’re ready.”

“Of course.” Fondness softened the determined set of Heru’s features. “Be safe, Daughter. And good hunting.”