Kiss Across Blades Read online

  Veris held up his hand. “London is right. I apologize. This is not a matter for theoretical arguments. Remi, I’m sorry.”

  Remi sat back with sigh. He nodded stiffly.

  The conversation stuttered after that. Everyone was aware of her upset and Neven’s and Remi’s, too.

  When Rafe returned to the pergola, holding Jason’s hand as he tottered along, the daylight had almost gone. London jumped to her feet. “I’ll take Jason back home.” She didn’t speak to anyone in particular.

  “I’ll come with you,” Neven said. He looked at Remi.

  Remi looked as though he wanted to protest. Instead, he got silently to his feet. London tried not to feel gratitude that he chose to return with them. Had Remi drifted away from Neven and her in just these few short minutes? Her gut and her heart were reacting as if he had…

  She shook off the terrifying thought. “Sydney, Alex, Rafe, thank you for your hospitality,” she said, instead.

  “Any time,” Sydney said softly. “I mean that,” she added, her gaze steady.

  London nodded. She didn’t dare respond. Her voice would betray her. Instead, she moved out from beneath the pergola, to where the flagstones were clear of everything but the giant terracotta pots, which held flowers in every season but winter.

  Neven scooped up Jason and followed her over. He didn’t meet her gaze as he threaded his spare arm around her back and his hand came over her hip.

  Remi moved up beside her, on the other side, and copied Neven. His other arm wrapped around behind Jason and partly across Neven’s back.

  The other six adults stood, watching them leave.

  London had run out of energy for social niceties. She nodded, flexed her knees and jumped. She barely had to think about it anymore. This was a simple here-there jump.

  Their living room formed around them.

  Neven dropped his arm from London’s waist and turned so Remi’s arm was dislodged from his back. “I’ll put Jason to bed.” His voice was without emotion.

  London’s heart lurched. That would leave her alone with Remi. “I need a shower and coffee,” she murmured.

  “You’re pissed at me.” Remi’s mouth pulled into a hard line. “Magnificent.”

  Neven held up a finger. “Not now. I’ll put Jason to bed. Then we talk.”

  He stalked away.

  London followed Neven up to the next floor, then stepped into their suite, which took up most of the second floor. Neven continued up the stairs to the attic bedroom. Jason had recently graduated to the upstairs bedroom. The boy was charmed by the dormer windows and the nooks and crannies the oddly shaped room provided. He slept better under the eaves, too.

  The shower was hot and London took her time, letting the water beat against her shoulders and the back of her neck. Her heart would not properly settle. Neither would her belly. She was braced for what was to come.

  What was Remi doing, downstairs? Was he pacing the floor as he did when his emotions were riled? Or was he so upset, he stood like a statue by the window, afraid to move in case he launched into a devastating attack?

  At times like this, London was reminded that Remi had been Kristijan’s enforcer. He had been the muscle guy who handed out punishment when it was needed.

  Even though he didn’t like guns, his distaste for firearms didn’t make him any less lethal. She had seen Remi throw a stone and bring down a crow in mid-flight, after it had attacked other birds around the bird bath. She had seen him throw bottles with freakish accuracy. Anything which could be hefted in one hand had the potential to become a projectile.

  And, of course, he could throw knives with circus-performance precision, even a knife he had never touched before. He could snatch it up, flip it in his hand to test the weight and balance, then throw, all in one swift sequence.

  This was the man waiting downstairs for her and Neven to confront…if he was waiting at all.

  London stared at the sea-green tiles of the shower stall and faced the fear that had laid at the bottom of the sickening swirl of unhappiness in her chest and belly.

  What if Remi’s desire to rescue his children was so great that London and Neven’s reluctance to mess with the timeline to retrieve them drove Remi from them?

  London rested her head against the tiles, which were heated from the scalding water, as her heart thumped with sick awareness.

  In the three years they had been together, London had never been completely sure of Remi’s commitment to the relationship. He held too much inside him. Whenever she had been confronted by his internal wall, she had told herself the distance was because Remi had lived so much longer than either of them. He had a different perspective from the merely human, or even the recently turned.

  What if their refusal to give him his greatest desire pushed Remi away? Even though he said he loved them, his long-lived perspective might make him see her and Neven as…disposable.

  London closed her eyes as they ached with unshed tears. Then the tears dripped and mingled with the shower water.

  Neven tapped on the door of the shower, startling her. His face through the steam-covered door was grim.

  London turned off the water with a crank of her wrist and pushed open the door. Neven reached and handed her one of the big Turkish towels.

  London pressed it to her face, mopping it dry. “If we refuse him again, would he leave?”

  Neven’s jaw rippled. His dark eyes were somber. “He’d never leave you. He’s loved you forever. I’m just Neven.”

  London shuddered. He hadn’t jumped to reassure her the way she wanted him to, which made it worse. She understood what Neven had not said. He was Neven, the other version of himself. Remi had been with Kristijan, before. Neven had always worried that he wasn’t enough, that he was in some way inadequate compared to Kristijan, although he had never voiced that fear until this moment.

  London sought for a reassurance, something which would ease Neven’s fear. Instead, she found herself saying; “Remi says he’s loved me since he met me, but that was only a few years ago. He’s two hundred years old, Neven. He lived through—God, who knows what? He never talks about his past lives, only you just have to look at the life he was living as Kristijan’s enforcer to know he’s chased adventure.”

  “Lived on the wild side…” Neven breathed, as he took down another towel and stepped around her to dry her back. “The risks of jumping back to save them isn’t a risk in his estimation.”

  “It’s just one more adventure,” she finished unhappily.

  Neven wrapped the towel around her shoulders and gripped them through the thick toweling, his long fingers strong and firm. “Before we go down there, before we get caught up in the guilt and the…the hard feelings, tell me now. What do you want to do, London? In your heart, regardless of the risk, the dangers, or even if you think you can make the jump or not—”

  “You could make the jump, couldn’t you? If you could still jump, it would be nothing for you.”

  Neven shook his head. “That’s irrelevant.”

  The sensation that she was letting everyone down made her feel as though she weighed a thousand pounds. Her legs and arms were heavy. Her soul was squashed beneath it.

  Neven pulled her against him. He was cool against her shower-hot back. “What do you want?” His voice was close to her ear, and soft. “Tell me now, because Remi wants this so badly, he will grind us both down. If you don’t want to do this—”

  “I don’t know what I want,” London said honestly. “I’m terrified with the idea of messing with time the way Remi wants us to, but I want to give him his wish, too. If I had any idea how to do it and not destroy our lives at the same time, I would knock myself out…” She sighed.

  Neven pressed his lips to the nape of her neck, close to the artery he would be able to sense beneath her flesh. “I don’t know, either,” he admitted. “Get dressed. I’ll make you a sandwich. You haven’t eaten tonight and that can’t be helping.”

  Both he and Remi
kept track of her meals and calories. London had decided to be charmed by their interest, even though she knew that in part it was because they could not eat that they were so interested in what she consumed. Their still-human psyches enjoyed food vicariously.

  Neven let her go and left the bathroom, while London dried herself and found an old pair of jeans and an equally faded silk shirt and put them on. The jeans, like most commercially sized pants, were too short for her legs. The hems came up an inch above her ankles, although the tight fit meant the shortness looked like a design feature.

  She realized she was fussing about fashion and the precise arrangement of her wet hair to put off the moment when she must go back downstairs. Neven had the courage to face Remi. She must, too.

  London put down the comb and tossed her hair back over her shoulder. In the mirror, her face was pale. She wore no make-up. She suspected she would seem pale even with make-up. It was a reflection of her state of mind.

  She made herself turn and go downstairs.

  Chapter Three

  London could hear voices in the kitchen and moved through the sitting room, between the chintz-covered traditionally styled sofas and armchairs, and into the old-fashioned kitchen. Because only half the household ate food, the redesign of the kitchen had been put off until last. The original post-war features were still in place, including the huge, old, cracked farmhouse sink with its single iron tap, and the old claw-foot range with dark green enameling.

  The tiny round table and turned-legged chairs sat in the corner by the window and back door, where a table had likely sat since the house was built.

  Remi didn’t sit at the table. He rarely did. He sat on the mobile butcher’s block which served as an island. Not only did he sit on it, he’d pulled his feet up and sat cross-legged, uncaring about hygiene or contaminating food which might come to rest on the block in the future.

  Neven stood at the table, taking the wrap off the sandwich he’d warmed in the microwave bolted to the wall beside the sink window.

  “Sit and eat,” he told London in a tone that said he would not tolerate argument.

  London did not feel the least bit hungry, despite it being hours since she had eaten. She needed the calories, so she didn’t argue. She murmured her thanks and sat in the chair which would put her back to the window and let her see both men without twisting around. She could also see the two doors from there.

  She realized it was a defensive position. She was covering the exits, keeping the possible threats in her range of view.

  It’s just training, she told herself, and picked up a section of the crusty sandwich. With the first mouthful, she realized she was actually starving. She quickly ate another three mouthfuls.

  Neven and Remi watched each bite she took. Neven remembered what food tasted like, while Remi said he had almost forgotten the taste of anything. Occasionally, scents reminded him of flavors, although there was little in London’s diet which was the same as Remi remembered from when he was human.

  “Modern humans don’t know what whole foods are,” Remi had said, more than once. “Organic lemons—” and he made a sound of disgust. “There was a lemon tree espaliered and growing against the south wall of the house. The lemons that grew on it were the size of a man’s fist and filled with juice.”

  Remi watched her eat now with his eyes narrowed in concentration. He wasn’t smiling.

  Neven stood with his back against the oven part of the range, which was raised to a convenient height, unlike modern ranges, which made the cook bend to open the door. His arms were crossed, although he was not quite scowling the way Remi did.

  “What were the two of you talking about, when I came in?” London said, and picked up the second half of the sandwich. “I interrupted you.”

  “Nothing important,” Neven assured her.

  Remi’s scowl deepened. “Sydney’s next assignments.”

  Clearly, sometime during the day Sydney had outlined the next few worlds she wanted them to map. If they had a day job at all, it would be that—jumping to alternative worlds, bookmarking them on the timeline, then reporting back to Sydney about the differences and similarities of those worlds.

  Neven enjoyed the work, for he had been jumping across timelines long before he’d met any of them. Remi came along purely because his curiosity drove him to see other places and times. He didn’t do it to help Sydney. It was merely a distraction. Sometimes he remained at home to watch Jason while they were gone, even though London timed her jumps to return to only a few seconds after they had left.

  They had not done many of the cartography jumps, because for more than a year, London had been pregnant and then breast feeding. Sydney had refused to let her risk herself until Jason was older. So the three of them had come late to the work, while Veris and Brody and Taylor had cataloged hundreds of timelines between them.

  Was that why London was so reluctant to do a compound jump now? Was she simply unpracticed? Neven didn’t seem to be intimidated by the technical difficulty of the jump which Remi was asking them to make.

  “Sydney’s work is irrelevant right now, anyway,” Neven said.

  “The elephant in the room,” London murmured, and scooped up the mayonnaise which had dripped from the sandwich with her last bite of bread, while her appetite held.

  Remi scrubbed at his sandy brown hair, making it stand out. “You are making far too much of this—”

  “Then you know how we feel?” Neven asked coolly.

  Remi shrugged. “You are angry that I haven’t let this go.”

  “That you’re trying to go around us, Remi,” London corrected him.

  “You will not. Others might.” Remi shrugged. “Sydney was not opposed to the idea.”

  “In theory,” London cried, letting her fork clutter upon the plate. “It was all theoretical—”

  “And entirely possible,” Remi snarled back, abruptly switching to French. “While the two of you keep talking about technicalities—”

  “Fine,” Neven said, his voice deeper and harsher, too. He did not follow Remi’s lead and switch to French. “Then fuck technicalities. We all know what you want is possible. Any discussion about changing the timeline is a wasted one because Veris says it will fuck things up and Sydney says maybe they are supposed to be screwed up. No one knows, is what the technicalities boil down to, so forget them. Let’s talk about the human cost.”

  “Cost?” Remi said in English, sounding as startled as London did.

  “Yes, cost,” Neven growled. “Every time you talk about grabbing your kids, Remi, all that ever comes out of your mouth is what you want.”

  Remi didn’t speak. He opened his mouth twice, as if he was about to say something. Both times, he closed it again. Neven had truly surprised him. Then he shrugged. “I don’t need to worry about what either of you want. You have made it more than plain.”

  “I’m not talking about London or me,” Neven said grimly. “I’m talking about your children.”

  Remi’s eyes narrowed. “What about them?” he growled.

  The tiny hairs on the back of London’s neck prickled hard beneath her damp hair. Remi had switched to protective mode. His vampire instincts had been roused.

  Neven didn’t seem to notice, or care. He dropped his arms and straightened. “How old was Aimée when she died?”

  London swallowed. Aimée, Edgard and Micheline. The names came to her easily. Had Remi spoken about them so often she didn’t have to reach for the information?

  Remi shoved his hands together, his strong fingers weaving and gripping the knuckles of the other hand. “She was eight. What of it?”

  “Do you remember when you were eight?” Neven said.

  Remi grimaced. “That was two hundred years ago.”

  “Do you remember?”

  Remi stared at Neven. It seemed to London that he was challenging him. The idea of the two of them facing off made her deeply uneasy. Neven had vampire strength, yet he was a pacifist, the complete oppos
ite of Kristijan. On the other hand, Remi had no trouble discarding any human standards of decency and fairness when he was cornered.

  Neven stared back, his gaze steady. He didn’t seem threatened. He didn’t even seem concerned.

  Then Remi seemed to relent, all at once. His shoulders relaxed and his gaze shifted inward. He was reaching back into his past. “I remember them bringing in the harvest in summer. I used to eat the grapes when I could get away with it.” Remi’s expression grew warmer. His jaw relaxed. He nearly smiled. “No one would dare shout at me, because I was the son of the Duc. I knew that, too, so I would steal more and more, until that night I was sick as a dog.”

  Neven nodded. “You’re the descendant of French royalty, Remi. Listen to yourself. Servants and farm hands and a life far removed from that. Your children are of that time, too. Aimée—who you said was eight—”

  “Her birthday was in January.” Remi’s voice was suddenly hoarse. But then, he was always upset when he spoke about getting Aimée, Edgard and Micheline back.

  “You know how immersed you were in that very different life, when you were eight. How do you think you would have handled this modern life, if you had been plucked out of that world and dumped here when you were eight?”

  Remi’s lips parted. He stared at Neven. “They died,” he whispered, as if that justified everything.

  Neven sighed. “No, Remi. Think it through. How would you deal with this world of cars and planes and cellphones and the Internet, if you were that eight-year-old who lived a life of privilege on his father’s estate in Gascony, then suddenly arrived here?”

  “I would find the food an affront,” Remi growled.

  “I’m serious,” Neven shot back.

  “Neven has a point,” London said reluctantly. “Liberty was a newborn when Alex and Sydney brought her forward through time. She doesn’t remember anything of the few days she lived in the past. You were talking to her today—”

  “And she knows she is a Fatimid princess,” Remi ground out, his jaw flexing. “She knows everything.”

  The air pushed out of London’s lungs. Alex, Sydney and Rafe had told Liberty who she really was? “That’s…extraordinary,” she whispered, awed.