Kiss Across Time (Kiss Across Time Series) Read online

  “All except for my neck. I don’t have any cover-up for the teeth marks you guys left there.” She could feel her face flushing hotly at the reminder.

  Veris smiled. “There’s a reason we picked that style of dress. Don’t cover up our markings.”

  Brody’s tongue slid up her neck to her ear and probed inside, hot and wet, making her clit bloom and swell. “We want everyone there to know you’re ours,” he whispered in her ear. “Especially the queen.”

  While she had been transferring a few of her essential pieces of ID from her old handbag into the handsome leather clutch that had come in one of the boxes, she had quickly checked her phone and been amazed to see nearly a dozen text messages from Jeoffery.

  She scrolled through them, absorbing their increasingly more alarmed and concerned tenor.

  the courier returned with your stuff…where are you?

  are you that pissed with me you can’t return a simple text message?

  where ARE you?

  14 hours. Officially concerned. Call me. I mean it.

  She bit her lip. She had dived off the face of the planet. The only person who knew where she was wouldn’t think to tell anyone else, and Jeoff wouldn’t dream that she knew Andy well enough to even know his name.

  “Problems?” Veris had murmured, standing next to her shoulder. “Do you need to reach out and call people?”

  “He doesn’t deserve that much courtesy,” Taylor told Veris truthfully. She started thumbing out a reply text. “You don’t fire someone then expect to be treated like a decent human being the next day.”

  Veris’ eyes narrowed. It was the sum total of shock he allowed to show. “Because of me,” he said flatly. “They fired you over me. The timing is too perfect for it to be anything else.”

  She shook her head. “You were the perfect excuse they needed, that’s all. If you hadn’t shown up, they would have found another way. I was an embarrassment.” She hit ‘send’ on her text message, shut the phone down and shoved it in the clutch and smiled at him. “And now I’m done with that part of my life for another day or so.” She touched Veris’ arm. “I’m fine,” she assured him.

  He nodded. “Very well,” he said reluctantly as Brody came into the room carrying coats.

  Taylor blinked as the limousine came to a halt, dispelling the memory. They were somewhere in the financial district. San Pedro? She had been so busy with her own thoughts and nervousness, she’d failed to pay attention. She wrapped the faux fur coat around her. “I wish I had sunglasses,” she groused.

  “We need them. You don’t.” Veris picked up her hand. “I’d rather see your eyes.” He helped her out of the limousine.

  As they crossed the busy plaza, she saw from the corner of her eye that they were garnering startled looks and many people were tapping each other on the shoulder, digging their friends in the side with their elbows and pointing. Whispering to each other. Brody was drawing huge amounts of attention.

  Then she heard a whisper as they passed a pair of women close by.

  “Who do you think she is?”

  “Gotta be a movie star,” the other said.

  “And look at the two men she’s with…lucky bitch.” A deep sigh followed.

  Startled, Taylor nearly tripped as she lost track of her footing. Brody’s hand was suddenly under her elbow. “I heard,” he murmured in her ear. “Keep walking like you didn’t hear it. Look straight ahead and don’t react.”

  She was shaking. Veris’ hand slid under her other arm, strong and supportive. “Your old world can nag all it must, but you belong with us,” he said quietly. “Even strangers can see it.”

  Fresh shock slithered through her as the meaning of his low words sunk home. “Appearances mean nothing,” she told him.

  “True. But you didn’t go home this morning, did you?”

  She couldn’t think of an answer to that. This time yesterday she had been visiting her Goth ex-student, to borrow a leather bustier to wear to a concert she didn’t want to go to because she had been fired two days ago. Now she was here. “Life has me on a carnival ride. I just have to see where I end up before the ride finishes.”

  Brody gave a low laugh. “I’ve been on this ride for centuries. It doesn’t end. The view keeps changing and it keeps going round. You have to throw yourself off if you really want this ride to end, Taylor.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “I never did like carnival rides, anyway.”

  Veris gave a low chuckle as they stepped into the building. He took off his glasses and put them in his breast pocket. “I’ve always said women were stronger, when it came to pure courage, haven’t I?” he said to Brody.

  Brody stabbed at the top elevator button. “There’s a reason we have a queen and not a king.”

  The elevator doors opened and the people inside would have hurried out, except they all paused when they saw the three of them standing waiting for the car. There was a collective hesitation, then the occupants all carefully streamed past them, glancing sideways at them.

  Once the car was empty, they stepped on and Brody produced an electronic key card that he slid into a slot on the control panel, before punching the penthouse floor button.

  The elevator rose swiftly through the floors and neither man spoke. Taylor could feel their growing tension. Brody took off his glasses and squared his shoulders. Veris smoothed his tie and fussed with the knot. Both of them looked exactly like high school kids about to face the principal for transgressions known and unknown.

  What had they done that they were about to get busted for?

  When the elevator opened, Taylor almost squeaked in alarm and that told her that their nervousness had communicated itself to her. She was wound up, just as they were, and expecting trouble.

  They stepped out into a perfectly normal foyer of a business suite, just like millions the world over. This one was a touch more elegant that most, given the address. It was empty except for a male receptionist behind a curved desk. He looked up from the computer he was working on but didn’t show any surprise at their appearance. Instead, he simply nodded. “You’re expected and everything is ready. Boardroom C.”

  “Thank you,” Veris told him. He opened a door beside the reception desk and held it for Taylor. “This way.”

  She followed him, with Brody behind her, through wide corridors that were just as empty as the reception area, into a wood-paneled boardroom. The walls were hung with what looked like classic nineteenth century original art to her, that glowed in beautiful frames each lit by their own small overhead lights, while the cherrywood board table gleamed with pools of light from the overhead spotlights spilling upon it. The light in the rest of the room was very low, leaving shadows.

  At the top of the table where the chairman would probably sit, a shapeless mass lay beneath a piece of soft white opaque plastic sheeting. One of the overhead spotlights was shining directly upon it.

  Brody’s hands were on her shoulders, removing the coat. Veris was shedding his, dropping it over one of the leather chairs lining the table. The room was utterly silent and empty except for the three of them.

  Taylor was almost afraid to speak. Her heart was thundering but she had no idea why she should be afraid.

  “Come,” Brody murmured, tugging her arm, leading her toward the top of the table.

  Veris pushed the big chair that was behind the table well out of the way and stood before the nameless mass, looking at it. He glanced at Taylor as she stepped beside him.

  “We owe you an apology, Taylor,” he said softly.

  She realized her hand was gripping her chest. “Why?” she breathed.

  He lifted the almost weightless plastic sheet away from the thing beneath. “This is why.”

  It was a book. A very old…no, an ancient book. Hand-written of course and illustrated with loving care by some monk at a monastery. Then her gaze fell upon the script and she automatically began to translate.

  Then she realized what this w
as and began to tremble. “This is Inigo Domhnall. This is his work.” She pressed her hands against the table for support. “He really did exist. He really was a playwright…oh my god….”

  Brody’s arm was there, holding her up. “Veris, she’s gone white.”

  Veris’ shoulder slid under her cheek, his fingers soothed her brow. “I’m sorry Taylor. I should have eased you into this.”

  She blinked as a tear stung in the corner of her eye. “He was real,” she repeated, as Brody stroked her shoulder.

  “Yes, he was real, my lover.” Veris’ voice rumbled against her, deep and comforting.

  “They fired me at the university because they finally got too embarrassed about my thesis—I kept insisting he was real but I couldn’t find any proof and it was here all the time.” She clutched at Veris. “You knew, when you came to see me that night. You knew and you let me think I was chasing a shadow, just like all the other experts.”

  “I had to, Taylor,” Veris said. “This manuscript was carried through history by us and can’t be accounted for in a way that humans will accept. I came to you to see if there was another way—any other way than using this book.” His hand lifted toward the ancient manuscript lying on the table.

  “Why?”

  “I want Inigo Domhnall accepted into human history as badly as you do. I want his works discovered and acknowledged. I want him and his descendants remembered.”

  She lifted her head from his shoulder. There was something in his voice, a core of determination that she recognized. It was the steel of a man who would stop at nothing.

  “What is Domhnall to you, Veris?” she asked. “You were the conqueror, the invader.”

  Brody turned Taylor to look at him. “Inigo Domhnall was my father.”

  Taylor felt her mouth open in a silent “oh!” as the unexplained motivations and behaviors of these two men fell into place with an almost audible click in her mind.

  They were watching her now, to see what she would say. If it were possible for two large, strong men with little in the way of a human conscience to look sheepish, then she thought they carried a touch of guilt in their expressions too.

  “And so,” a woman’s voice said from the far end of the long boardroom, “we have the beginnings of a conundrum that it seems I must step in to resolve. You two will forever vex me with your games, won’t you?”

  As soon as she spoke, both Veris and Brody let Taylor go, straightened up at her side and bowed their heads low.

  This must be the queen, then, Taylor realized.

  As the queen continued to speak, she moved further down the room and the overhead spotlights illuminated her as she stepped into their radius. She was tall for a woman, about five feet nine, and slender to the point of skinny. But she did not look ill. She looked radiant. Her skin was olive colored and glowed. Her black hair was shoulder length and groomed in a fashionable straight bob. She was wearing a designer business suit. She had elongated, big, dark brown eyes that stared into Taylor’s in a way that made her feel like the queen was scooping out her thoughts wholesale.

  “It has been a very long time since a human ventured inside these walls,” the queen said. “Veris assures me the matter is a worthy one. I hope for his sake he is right. At first glance I can see why he believes you might be worth the fuss. You do me honor with your appearance, little one. Thank you.”

  Taylor scrambled to process the meanings and secondary meanings behind the woman’s words, then gave up. Veris was going to have to explain to her afterward.

  The queen had already moved on to Veris. “Now, how are we to clean up this mess you have created, hmmm?”

  “What mess?” Taylor asked.

  The queen turned and lifted a smooth brow. “You are unaware of the temporal loop they have created?”

  Brody cleared his throat. “We hadn’t got that far, ma’am.”

  She smiled, showing very white teeth. “Ah! I’m keen to see what a human woman would do to you when you impart such news. Go ahead.” She moved around the table and pulled out one of the chairs and sat. “Tell her,” she ordered with a wave of her hand.

  Taylor turned to look at Brody and Veris, who were both showing distinct signs of discomfort now. Finally, Brody took a deep breath and rubbed his temple. “Taylor, twenty years ago, when you first heard about Domhnall. The man who was working with your father, who told you those tales and about Domhnall himself and about King Arthur…he left you with such a strong impression of those days, that you’ve basically spent your life trying to prove the existence of Domhnall and his manuscripts, yes?”

  “Yes. And now I’ve been fired from my job, because I won’t give up.”

  The queen gave a small laugh. “Oh dear,” she said softly.

  “It was Brody,” Veris said, his voice low. “Brody was the man working with your father twenty years ago.”

  Taylor stared at Brody, her heart creaking under the strain. “No…I would remember that. You don’t sound like him, you don’t look the same—of course you wouldn’t but… No, it can’t be.” She knew she sounded pathetically like she was in denial.

  Brody shrugged. “Roanoake, Virginia, 1987 to 1989.” His voice changed to an Irish lilt. “Yer father was retooling the printing plant and brought in an Irish consultant for the new web press he bought, d’ye remember? I came over for dinner on more than one occasion and got to talk to his lovely little daughter Maggie Taylor Yates, who enjoyed a good story, nearly every night I was there.”

  Taylor moaned as the lilt in his voice triggered a flood of memories, of the man with the dark eyes murmuring his stories as she drifted off to sleep, while her father was on the phone dealing with problems at the plant, as he always was.

  Taylor found herself backing up, away from them, until her knees knocked into the chair Veris had thrust away from the table earlier. She fell into the chair. “It was you,” she confirmed, clutching the arms of the chair.

  “Aye, ’twas,” Brody said softly. “I didn’t remember it was you until you spoke last night about the man telling you bedtime tales. You’ve changed of course…all except the eyes, now that I’ve recalled those times.” He gave a shrug, a tiny lift of the shoulders. “There are so many humans and they move through my life so fast and then they are…gone. I learned a long time ago not to try too hard to remember them all. I’m sorry.”

  Veris was watching her, measuring her reaction to this telling revelation.

  All she felt was sadness. She had never considered this side of immortality before. When you lived forever, what was it like watching those around you wither and die, knowing you would have to do so endlessly?

  The queen sighed. “That wasn’t nearly the reaction I was expecting. Perhaps you don’t have the internal fortitude I expected of the one these two would mark, after all.” She stood up and stepped around the table again but neither Veris nor Brody looked at the queen. They were watching her, instead. For what? Waiting for her to explode? Fall in a heap?

  She felt numb. Her whole life, her life’s work, was based on a…what? A lie? A mistake?

  “This should never have happened,” the queen said. “Your bedtime stories have put into action a series of events that have very nearly affected the course of history. Veris’ attempts to have your father’s name recognized are honorable, Brody. But you have stirred up history itself with your poems.”

  “They were just stories,” Brody muttered. “For a little girl who couldn’t sleep.”

  “And now here we are,” the queen snapped. “Her life is essentially wasted because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. Are you enjoying that despair on her face, Brody? Because you put it there.”

  He swallowed.

  “Stop it,” Taylor said. “Please, just stop.”

  The queen turned on her heel to look at Taylor. “Excuse me?”

  “He’s suffered enough,” Taylor said. “You don’t have to flay him with it. He’s the son of a poet and has the soul of a bard. Don’t you think he h
asn’t already thought this through and figured out it out for himself, including all the possible consequences?”

  She stood up. “Don’t you think Veris, the strategist and politician, didn’t already lay it out for him last night when he realized exactly how badly Brody had screwed up? They came straight to you this morning because they knew it had to stop and they brought me with them, because they knew it was that bad.”

  Taylor stepped in front of Brody and turned to face the queen again. “You don’t have to paint the picture for Brody, ma’am, because he’s already imagined it twice as bad as you could ever possibly explain it to him. I know that, because I know he lay beside me all last night and imagined what it would be like if he’d never met me and what it would be like if, after today, I go back to my life and they go back to theirs and we never meet again. I know your race doesn’t sleep but Brody just went through one of the longest nights of his life, ma’am. You don’t need to add to it.”

  Taylor heard Brody’s harsh exhalation. His hand came to rest on her shoulder, the tips brushing over the bite marks on her neck. She felt him trembling.

  Chapter Eight

  The queen stared at her for a long, long moment. Then she smiled. “Perhaps I was wrong about you. You may call me Tira.” She stepped back to the table and perched on the edge of it. “You are correct in your assessment, Maggie Taylor Yates. This is a very bad screw-up and it needs to be undone. Is there more to this tale that I have not yet heard? Veris’ message implied that there was.”

  Veris nodded. “There is something strange that neither of us has ever experienced before. Waking dreams. Flashes of memories from our past that Taylor is experiencing with us.”

  Tira’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

  Veris explained quickly and frankly and Tira’s face became immobile as he spoke. Her gaze seemed to focus inward.

  When he finished speaking she sat silently for nearly a minute. Then she stirred, sighed and smiled sadly. “I know of this thing that is happening to you,” she said softly. “For it once happened to me. Long ago. It does not happen often among us. I have not ever heard of it happening with a human, for their mind cannot usually cope with the span of history but your mate clearly has an extraordinary mind, capable of holding the leap of history and the chaos of centuries and languages without imploding upon itself.”