Kiss Across Blades
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Table of Contents
Get Tracy’s Free Starter Library
About Kiss Across Blades
Praise for the Kiss Across Time series
Kiss Across Blades Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
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About the Author
Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Copyright Information
About Kiss Across Blades
The cost of saving his children is too high…
Since learning that time travel is real, Remi de Sauveterre has yearned to jump back two hundred years to revolutionary France to rescue his children the night they died. Only, the odds of creating a time paradox which will destroy everyone’s future are huge.
London would give Remi his hearts’ desire if she only had the courage to attempt the dangerous jump back into his past, for she loves him and know that refusing him will push him away from her and Neven.
Then she and Neven come across an alternative world where their son does not exist and, suddenly, the idea of risking everything to save their family seems worth it. Only, time travel always goes wrong…
Reader Advisory: This time travel ménage romance story features two super-hot alpha vampire heroes and sex scenes, including anal sex and MM sexual play. Do not read this book if frank sexual language and sex scenes offend you. The time-space continuum was restored to order at the end of this book. Promise.
This book is part of the Kiss Across Time paranormal time travel series:
1.0: Kiss Across Time
2.0: Kiss Across Swords
2.5: Time Kissed Moments*
3.0: Kiss Across Chains
3.5: Kiss Across Time Box One
4.0: Kiss Across Deserts
5.0: Kiss Across Kingdoms
5.1: Time And Tyra Again*
6.0: Kiss Across Seas
6.5: Kiss Across Time Box Two
7.0: Kiss Across Worlds
7.1: Time And Remembrance*
8.0: Kiss Across Tomorrow
8.1: More Time Kissed Moments*
9.0: Kiss Across Blades
10.0: Kiss Across Chaos
11.0: Kiss Across the Universe
11.1: Even More Time Kissed Moments*
12.0: Kiss Across Forever
The characters and events in this series are interconnected from book to book. Reading the books in order is strongly encouraged.
[*Short stories and novellas featuring the characters and situations in the Kiss Across Time series].
A Vampire Time Travel Romance Novel
Praise for the Kiss Across Time series
Cooper-Posey's writing is always brilliant.
There's something fascinating and cerebral about a "Kiss Across Time" story that's more than your usual fantasy-time-travel-story.
Creative and Amazing!
I really love how original Tracy manages to be in a genre where everything seems to have been written.
I loved reading this rich, complex and interesting tapestry of interwoven lives and loves.
GOLD! More compulsive reading for the Kiss Across Time series!
Cooper-Posey is a master storyteller, but how she manages to create these elaborate interconnected storylines that flesh out character development is incredible.
I haven’t read a book in this series that I don’t like.
Starts out with a bang! Couldn't put it down. It's a whole lot of fun.
Chapter One
Granada, Spain. Present day.
There was nothing wrong which London could point at and then fix. All she had was an uneasy feeling in her gut, a swirling of juices which wouldn’t let her sit still. As a result, everything irritated her—Jason’s insistence that she take him for a swim in the big indoor pool attached to the house; Neven’s long conversation with Brody in the far corner of the pergola, while the two of them ignored everyone else. The dressing on her salad at lunch was too tart. The tea too weak.
None of it was the real problem. London knew that. Only, the real problem wouldn’t present itself. Between Jason’s demands and everyone in the big house wanting to catch up and share news, London couldn’t spare the time to figure out what was bugging her.
She knew she was being unreasonable, so London stirred herself and took Jason to the pool. He couldn’t quite swim yet. They had barred him from the pool unless an adult was with him. Jason had all of Remi’s stubbornness, even though he was Neven’s biological son. Because he preferred to make his own mind up, Jason might have ignored the rule. Only, Neven’s terror of drowning must have communicated itself to Jason and, in this matter, her darling little boy obeyed.
London sat on the top step, her feet in ankle-deep water, while Jason splashed and played on the bottom step. He was still too small to step out into the pool itself, even at the shallow end. Just being in the water seemed to be enough to satisfy him.
Rafe strolled into the pool room and rested his hand on London’s shoulder, then settled with a grunt and a billow of breath on the concrete beside her. He kicked off his boat shoes and hitched up his jeans and settled his feet in the water beside her.
“Are you coming in to swim, Uncle Rafe?” Jason asked, stepping up onto the second step, which put him at Rafe’s knee.
“Not today, Jason,” Rafe replied. “I’m still sick, you see.”
Jason frowned. Sick was simple enough for him to grasp. “Icky sick,” he murmured.
“It is,” Rafe agreed gravely.
Jason grinned. He had London’s pale eyes, and Neven’s shock of thick black hair. “I can swim!”
“You can?”
Jason crouched and moved his arms in the water, a passable breast-stroke movement that made a little wave that rocked up against their calves. “See?” He moved down to the bottom step to experiment more, delighted by the motion of the water in response to his movements.
“I don’t understand how you can feel weak at all, Rafe,” London said, keeping her voice down. “It’s been ten days since we got you back from Cyrus. You do heal the way…um, normal vampires do, don’t you?”
Rafe dangled his fingertips in the water. “I would, under normal circumstances.” He didn’t seem upset by her question. Nothing seemed to upset Rafe, anymore. “Cyrus was inventive,” he added. He paused, reflecting. “I’ve been a vampire for fourteen centuries. Even I didn’t know that if we’re kept in blood fever for too long, the human responses take over.”
“That must have Alex worried. As a doctor, I mean.”
Rafe nodded. “It�
��s given him a whole new set of concerns about vampire physiology.” He grinned. “And he was just getting used to the idea that vampirism is a result of symbiosis, not magic.”
“It’s still magic,” London breathed. “Any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic. So does anything we don’t understand.”
“Alex hates not understanding. He’s like Veris in that way. He’s been driving Nyara crazy with delayed letters demanding more information.”
Nyara was from the future. How far into the future, she would not say. Although she didn’t seem to mind providing information about vampires and time travel. The tidbits she offered always left Veris looking thoughtful and sent him off on weeks of research.
“Nyara helped Alex, then?” London asked Rafe now.
He nodded. “She jumped back and sat down with him. She and a man called Lee. Or Christian. I never did quite figure out what name to use for him. Alex has been reading steadily since then.” Rafe smiled. “It gave him something else to worry about than me, at least.”
London laughed.
Rafe’s smile faded. “They’re not the only people who got handed things to think about because of me.” His shoulder bumped hers.
“Me?” London said, startled. “I admit I’ve had something on my mind today, but it’s not because of you.”
Rafe raised a brow. A silent question.
“I don’t know what it is,” London admitted. “Something is biting me.”
Rafe nodded. “It can happen that way. A collection of tiny things—an odd word, a strange look, a comment. None of them significant by themselves. Put together, though, they add up. It’s possible you’ve registered a couple of things which are not enough on their own to form a cohesive concern. Give it time. It will come.” He smiled again. “Or it won’t, and you’ll wonder why you spent the day chewing your fingernails.”
“Great,” London said, with a heavy sigh. “Meantime, I have to avoid everyone so I don’t take their heads off.”
“That’s not what I meant when I said I had handed you something to think about.”
“Feeling guilty, Rafe?” London asked gently. “You shouldn’t, you know.”
“I do and I should,” Rafe said, his tone flat. “I was a stubborn asshole. After fourteen hundred years, you’d think I’d be beyond such pettiness.” He paused, considering. “I’m not sure if I’m pleased or not that I’m still pathetically human in some respects.” Then he shook his head. “Stop deflecting me.” His mouth quirked at the corner, to take the offense from his words.
London sighed. “What did you hand me to think about, then?”
“I don’t know. Something, though.” Rafe leaned forward and picked up Jason as he waved his arms, his balance lost, and teetered on the edge of the bottom step. He stood Jason on the middle step. “Better stay on this one for a while, squirt,” he added and patted his head.
Jason nodded and sat on the top step, shifting his feet in the water so they were spread the way Rafe had spread his.
“Some coach you are,” London teased Rafe. “Something doesn’t help me.”
“Everyone I’ve spoken to since I…got back…” Rafe cleared his throat. “Everyone says they were thinking about things in the past a lot, since it happened.” He raised his brow again, studying her.
London drew in her breath and let it out. “Wow. I thought it was just me.”
“Then you have been chewing over something in the past?” Rafe asked.
She nodded. “The warehouse in St. Malo.” She didn’t have to add the rest of it, because Rafe had been there. He knew what had happened.
She had killed a man.
Rafe nodded as though she had explained it all, anyway. “I’m not the only one roiling in guilt, then.”
London sighed. “I don’t understand why I am,” she admitted. “That was over a year ago. I made my peace with it. You helped me do it, Rafe. It was a simple us-or-them equation, and I chose us—my family. So why am I cringing inside, every time I think about it?”
Rafe’s expression was gentle. “You cringe because you’re a nice person. You took a life, London. It impacts you, no matter how well you justify it, no matter how evil the life you took. There is a part of you, probably buried deep because it really was a survival situation—that part feels as though you should writhe about it, because what you did is bad and should be punished.”
“I’m punishing myself, then?” London asked.
Rafe nodded. “Most likely.”
She shuddered. “Will it trip me up, in the future?” she asked. “If I’m faced with that sort of situation again, will I hesitate?”
London had learned from Rafe and from Remi and Neven, who were teaching her how to fight and defend herself, that hesitation was fatal. When it came to violence, the winner was the combatant who reacted faster.
Rafe pursed his lips, considering. “If you’re aware of the possibility, that might counter any tendency to pause.”
“That’s not much consolation,” she admitted.
“You spent years under Kristijan’s thumb,” Rafe pointed out. “It left its mark. Give yourself time, London. You’ll find yourself again.” He laughed. “A lot quicker than it took me to figure it out.” He put his hand on Jason’s head and turned his face around to speak to him. “How would you like some churros and chocolate gravy, Jason?”
Jason’s eyes widened. It was possible he didn’t know what churros were, but ‘chocolate’, he knew. He nodded.
“Come on, then.” Rafe got to his feet and stepped out of the water. “Let’s give your mother time to think.” He plucked Jason from the water and shook him to shed the water, as a dog might shake off his wet fur. Jason giggled.
“Thanks, Rafe,” London told him.
“There’s paella for you, when you’re ready,” Rafe said, wrapping Jason in the thick towel. “Everyone else is under the pergola. If you’re looking for company, that is.”
Rafe carried Jason back into the main part of the house, leaving London alone in the big pool room, with its wall of windows and doors and cavernous ceiling. The soft lap of the water was peaceful, but didn’t soothe her innards.
The whatever-it-was still gnawed. It meant sitting here in this peace and solitude would not provide any answers. Not yet.
London glanced at the windows. Rafe said everyone was under the pergola. December in Granada wasn’t miserable the way December in Brittany could be. The sun was still bright, the air not uncomfortably chilly. Suddenly, she wanted company. Chatter would distract her from her own morbid thoughts. Rafe had put his finger on that very nicely.
She shook off her feet and stamped the water from them, then slid her flats back on. She moved through the big open doorway into the common room beyond, with its cane furniture and comfortable sectionals. She could hear Rafe in the kitchen, chatting with Jason as he warmed a serving of churros for him. Rafe liked cooking and watching humans eat his food.
London could also hear the low murmur of voices beyond the big glass doors, too. The conversations that her new, extended family had were far different from ordinary conversations. Time travel, paradoxes, physics, the meaning of life, events in the past as seen by people who had lived through it and some thought-provoking ideas about how the future might play out, from people who had seen enough history to have unique perspectives.
No, there were never insipid conversations about the weather, here. Distraction was absolutely guaranteed.
She pushed one glass door open and moved out onto the patio, to walk down the side of the house to where the big pergola shaded the flagstones and more comfortable chairs were arranged around drum tables. She was eager to join the grown-up conversation.
Remi only realized his error when it was too late.
He had never properly spoken to Liberty. He didn’t avoid the young girl. It wasn’t that. It was simply that he’d never been moved to converse with her. The girl appeared to be around eight years old, now. She was slender, with coal black,
wavy hair and big almond-shaped eyes that were an eerie replica of Alex’s. As she was his niece, the resemblance tracked. Until she parked herself beside him under the pergola, though, Remi had presumed the child was quite ordinary.
He had already learned that every parent considered their children to be extraordinary, while all other children were dull in comparison. Until he spoke to her, though, Remi had considered himself immune from the folly. Surely he would not make that mistake twice? Not with the centuries of experience that lay between the last occasion?
Liberty carried a plate of sliced fruit and caramel sauce very carefully over to the empty chair beside his. Remi watched as she balanced the plate on the wide, flat shelf of rattan cane work that made up the arm of the chair. Then she climbed into the chair and crossed her legs, which were still bare and brown from a long summer. She settled the plate on her knees with deft experienced, dipped a peach slice into the caramel and bit off the sauce-coated tip with relish.
The adult conversation had split into three sub-conversations for a moment. Remi found himself watching Liberty, instead. Her skin was pale olive, like Alex’s, but honey smooth, with the perfection of youth.
Liberty realized she was being watched. She lifted her chin, the bitten peach slice held in mid-air, her fingertips coated in the sauce. “Would you like some of my fruit, Uncle Remi?”
The “uncle” title still startled Remi, even though Aran and Alannah used it all the time. He was getting used to it, though. It no longer made him tense the way it had before Rafael disappeared. He reminded himself that being roped into the family via honorary titles was a good thing.
He lifted his brow. “You speak very good French,” he told Liberty, switching to French himself.
“Mama says I have a bad accent,” Liberty replied. She shrugged. “She learned French the easy way, though.”