I jumped to my feet. “Raven.”
He smiled at me. “Sister Teagan.” He bowed slightly. “The Prophet.”
“Brother Raven.” I didn’t call him Reed. I just couldn’t. Sister Superior always called him Brother Raven, and so did the rest of us, in whatever plane of existence we were currently in. That was if we could see him at all. So that was what he would remain. “What have you done to my loves?”
I bent over where Noah lay on the ground, his eyes closed. The first thing I did was check for a pulse. I didn’t think The Raven would kill them, but what did I know for sure? Well, actually, I knew quite a lot of things when it came down to it. Anytime I wanted, I could see versions of the future. Nothing was ever set in stone until it happened. The past was done, it couldn’t be changed.
But the future—we had a chance to make things better.
I let a little bit of my power drip out of me. Raven shook his head. “Don’t use it on me, Prophet. I have no future. I’ve lived forever doing this, and so shall I continue doing. I train guards who are worthy of Sisters. And as for them, I gave them back their memories. Of who they are. The rest, I’ll leave to you. Presumably, you know what road you want to take.”
I rose. He didn’t mean this very second. The road he referred to was a longer one, the future of all things. “Anne determines the Sisterhood. She is the true Sister Superior.”
He nodded. “Here on Earth, for now, yes. This is her turn and her burden, and yours is to offer her guidance and advice based on what you can see.”
I didn’t need the instruction. “Or sometimes to not offer it. Even if I see it.”
“But…” His voice trailed off. Raven was many things, and all of them involved his loyalty to the souls we all were bound to protect. He wanted this Earth healthy, and so did I.
“First, I have to rid the world of the pretender.” Only I could do it.
He grinned at me. “Noah couldn’t hear me. He should have been able to. The demons… they change things. Even things that shouldn’t have been able to change. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been years.”
My body was stronger, and my mind naturally swayed from the thoughts of that time. I didn’t need his explanation, not anymore. I’d seen the path. At some point, a demon had blocked Noah’s connection to the divine, had taken away his ability to hear the birds. Without that connection, the guys had not been able to find me in the mines, had no guidance to know what to do. With millions upon millions of possibilities for the future, that had always been one that could happen. A risk everyone took. Reed was only supposed to interfere so far. When I’d sent him back to fix my guys, it had been borderline unacceptable for him to do so. He’d never have done it if I hadn’t asked him to. He’d taken a huge risk. Maybe Brother Raven would pay for that in his karma. Maybe he wouldn’t. I couldn’t see a future for him, and I didn’t know what that spoke toward.
I’d learned so many things. The darkness living in me was supposed to be there. I had to stand on the border between light and dark. I existed in both. I had to see all possibilities. “Whatever time I spent there, it made me more capable.”
Reed walked toward me. He was taller than me, almost the same height as Thaddeus. Leaning over, he kissed me on my forehead. “For as long as there has been love, guards have loved their Sister.”
He took a step back and sprouted wings. Seconds later, the raven took to the sky. I watched him leave. For the first time in years, he wouldn’t be here trying to get our attention. He had others to save. I shook my head. Reed, Brother Raven, had spent a lot of time with us. Of course, I was the Prophet, which I now understood needed to happen before other events were able to take place. I could follow paths. I could see futures that would happen and those that wouldn’t.
Nighttime was on its way. Since I couldn’t manage the carriage alone, we’d have to stay where we were for a bit. I got busy. Years earlier, Eric had taught me how to make a fire. It took some maneuvering, but thanks to the lighter that Brody always carried with him, I got it done. No one roused at all when I dragged their rather heavy bodies toward the fire and readjusted them for comfort. They’d brought blankets for me, but I used them for their protection.
They’d be fine. I refused to use my power to see their future—our future. We all deserved to not know what was coming or how we’d end. I could make myself crazy trying to fix us, and Sister had warned me that some Prophets did.
My abilities were going to be for the use of the Sisterhood alone. Otherwise, some way, somehow, I was going to stay Teagan the Sister and normal woman. It was possible, I’d been assured.
I felt Thaddeus in my head before his eyes opened. The others were still out cold. But my One came back first. He would never have been calm about it.
He jolted upward, and I placed a soothing hand on his chest. “It’s okay, love. You’re okay.”
Thaddeus rubbed his eyes for a second, and then clarity came back into his gaze. “I’m fine, yes. You were dead.” He pulled me against him. “You were dead.”
“And reborn.” I let myself breathe him in. “I’m sorry.”
“This isn’t on you. It’s on me. I said it was okay to dose you with that drug. It was supposed to knock you out so we could be really obnoxious and take you away from danger without your consent.”
I supposed I should be angry they’d tried to usurp my choice. But I’d had what was the equivalent, for me, of years to get over it. “That was a pretty poor decision. Having made my thoughts clear, I was dying on this road. That was happening. There were five or six futures that could have taken place. Honestly, you killing me was one of the least expected in the other world, but there you go. That’s why these things are constantly altering.”
He was silent for a moment, and then he took my cheeks in his hands. “You can see the future now.”
“Futures. Yes.” I’d have to explain it, but I wanted to wait until they were all with me. Better to address their questions at once. “And you should be able to remember our time from before?”
Thaddeus nodded. “Yes. Mostly. I think that’s going to be more Noah and Brody’s domain. But, yes, I know we were matched. Then when I met you, it was like I could suddenly understand why I existed.”
I got up on my knees, a thought dawning on me. “Thaddeus, there is so much at play here now. So many futures. Do you want to see one?”
I wasn’t an expert at doing this yet. Sister Superior had given me a basic tutorial. That being said, she wasn’t a Prophet. She didn’t know how to do what I did, exactly. I had to figure it out. I did know that the guys were connected to me. Through our link, they could see some of what I could if I let them.
I wanted to let Thaddeus.
He nodded. “If you want to show me.”
I did. I’d only seen it myself for a half a second during the slideshow of a taste of futures my body and mind had pummeled me with while I changed. I’d wanted to go back.
I placed my hands on his temples, and he lowered his forehead to mine. “Breathe with me.”
I pushed through the fog of time, moving us away from present futures and soon-to-bes to the goal in mind. There were millions of these. Change one thing and they altered, but off in the distance, in the far away, there were fewer. Ultimately, we moved toward three or four big ones. I supposed a major shift could create new ones or destroy the ones currently available. Only, the one I sought was still there.
We popped into existence, standing in a park. Behind us, the tops of tall buildings soared into the sky. Machines traveling through the air buzzed above us, and carriages so small they couldn’t really be called carriages zipped around. We stood on the grass with tall trees beside us, benches nearby and birds overhead.
I searched the sky but didn’t see a raven.
Thaddeus sucked in a breath, looking wildly around. It was okay. No one would see us. We weren’t really there. This was a moment. That was all. I stroked his cheek. “It’s the noise. Give it a second, and your brain wi
ll tune it out.”
There was never a time in our existence when so many things happened all at once. Even in chaos, we lived with much more quiet around us. These people would have to leave this city to find what was simply everywhere in our world.
People rushed by, hands holding devices pressed to their ears or in their hands where they tapped on them.
I knew the second Thaddeus was okay. He blinked rapidly then rocked back on his feet, a grin on his face. “What is this?”
“It’s maybe. It’s one of the futures that might happen. There are others less appealing, and one where humans are gone all together. But this is maybe. I liked this one. I want this one to be, to happen. I’m going to work toward it. Try to make decisions that keep us on this path.”
He stepped away from me but only to stare upward at the buildings. My love pointed at the sky. “They’re flying things up there.”
“I know.” I grinned back at him. “There aren’t demons here, well not like we know them. They have their own demons and some of the kind we have still manage to slip in once in a while. Still, it’s better. They’re not losing hundreds of thousands of people to possessions. That has to mean that we fix it. Somehow. That there is a path to redemption.”
Thaddeus took my hand in his and squeezed my fingers. “And you can see all of this? You’re magic, Teagan.”
“I’m the Prophet.” I shook my head. “Still not sure why they thought that was a good idea. They’d never told me. Yet, here I am.”
Thaddeus brought my fingers to his mouth and kissed them. “You feel real. This feels real.”
“I suppose as long as we stay here, it is. Time isn’t moving at the same rate back in our world. We’re sitting there on the ground. Seconds, maybe.”
His mouth was on mine, fast. I sucked in a breath. Yes, this was what I needed from Thaddeus. He pulled back. “Tell me they have beds here. People sleep, right?”
“Oh.” I looked around. “Sure. They have beds. They must. I haven’t sought one out before, I’ve only been here once.”
He waved his hand in the air. “Can you pop us over to one?”
“Maybe.” I worked on concentrating on a bed. One second we were on the grass, and the next, in a room that had to be an inn. There were two beds, both of them large, and…
I never got a chance to examine the room. Thaddeus kissed me hard, pushing me down onto one of the beds where he could move on top of me. “Don’t you ever die on me again, Teagan.”
“We all die.”
He shook his head. “Me first.”
We were on a bed, alone in a future I wanted for the world. “Neither you nor I will ever get to live in this time, presuming it happens. Do you want to talk about death or maybe make love to me on this bed?”
His grin was precious. I cupped his chin just to graze over his mouth as he did it. His mouth met my own. Small kisses and fast. In between each one, he said my name. Teagan. I’d never heard it uttered so lovingly before. His eyes were closed. I wondered if he even knew he was doing it. Thaddeus kept himself from crushing me by leaning on his elbows. That wasn’t what I wanted. His heat and the weight of him on top of me made me feel safe.
I pulled him down until we were body to body. I didn’t crush easily. He was hard, and it pressed against my abs. That wasn’t where I wanted that particular body part, but I didn’t want to rush this either. I ran my hand over where his eye should have been. He was still so beautiful. People always underestimated Thaddeus because of his blond hair and blue eyes—as though that somehow made him soft, since he was so spectacular to view. I never had.
He was my lethal love, the one I had watched kill a possessed person with one stroke, on our first trip out together. Thaddeus hadn’t even blinked.
I kissed him, hard. He loved me so completely, and I felt the same way—I was unapologetically his. He stripped me of my clothing. There was nothing Thaddeus did that he didn’t pay total attention to. My cheeks heated up. He’d seen me naked before, but this was different. We were alone in a place where there weren’t going to be demons rushing through the door to make us hurry.
He kissed my chest, the spot right between my breasts. “Teagan, you’re breathing. Thank the divinity, you’re breathing.”
I ran my finger down the slope of his nose. “Get out of your head, and be here with me, Thaddeus. I’m alive. So are you.” I rolled him over until I was on top of him. “How about I take care of you for a bit?”
He scrunched up his forehead. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll show you.” Women talked, and although I hadn’t known about this before, I’d learned by listening at the mines. I pulled at his shirt, stripping him of it and his pants. The hair on his legs was coarser than that on his chest. Running my hands through it made him jolt beneath my fingers. I smiled at him. This was going to be as fun as I imagined it would be.
I stroked his erection from base to tip so I could hear him sigh.
“Teagan.” His voice was low. “I won’t last long. It’s been years, my love, of thinking of you naked and on top of me.”
I shook my head. “Making you come is the point.”
Before he could respond, I licked the top of his cock. His hips buckled beneath me, which actually helped me take him deep inside my mouth at exactly the right moment. I moaned. He tasted salty and male. This was my Thaddeus. I wanted all of him. I closed my eyes and tried to do what I’d heard the others talk about.
“Shit, Teagan.” His tone was breathy and desperate. It flowed through me like a warm bath. Yes, I wanted this so much. Quickly, I found a rhythm, and it worked. Thaddeus got harder in my mouth, second by second. I could feel him throbbing in the back of my throat.
I pushed down for one more round when he grabbed my shoulders and yanked me to him. In seconds, he flipped me over. His mouth was on mine, his tongue pressing into my mouth. I could hardly breathe when he stopped. “I want in you, Teagan.”
He pushed my legs apart, and I moaned. This kind of attention from Thaddeus was as much a turn on as anything else. He pushed a finger inside of me. “You’re wet.”
I would have responded if I was still capable of words. My head spun. I needed him deep inside my body. Right then.
Like he could understand my unspoken request, he pressed his cock inside me where I needed him. I cried out, digging my fingernails into his back. He grinned at me, like he enjoyed the slight bit of pain.
He kissed me all over my face. “I’ll never stop loving you. I’ll never take this for granted.”
His words were sweet, and I loved them. I’d roll around in the memory of them later. “I love you, too.”
In and out of me, he joined his body to mine. Over and over. Sweat formed on his brow and the muscles in his neck strained. I wanted to come, so badly. He rubbed against me, and with each stroke on my clit, I cried out. I was close. It wasn’t going to take long.
Thaddeus put his finger in my mouth, and I bit down. I didn’t know why that was so sexy, but it was, and I came apart beneath him. Our link surged between us. I could feel his love for me in my own head, and it brought tears to my eyes. He must have felt the same sensation from me. He cried out my name, emptying himself inside of me.
I’d wanted his weight on me, and I got it. Thaddeus caught his breath, lying on top of me while I held on, never wanting to let go. I made circles on his skin. My beautiful man.
My head started to feel foggy. I’d held the future too long and needed to move back to our time.
“Thaddeus?” I kissed his shoulder. “We’re about to return.”
He lifted his head to place a small kiss on my mouth. “Thank you for these moments, my love.”
I jolted. We were in our own world, the time of now. My head ached a little bit. Thaddeus’ eye flew open and he grinned at me for a second before he kissed me, again and again. “I love you.”
The fire crackled. We hadn’t been gone long in this time. Seconds, maybe minutes. My body felt like it had been well love
d by Thaddeus, although we’d been in a vision and not actually there. My mind thought we’d really been together. I was even sore in all the right places.
I climbed onto his lap. “Can I just rest here for a moment?”
He lay back against the logs behind us. “Sleep.” Thaddeus held me tightly. “Nothing is getting near you tonight.”
I closed my eyes.
* * *
Noah’s return to consciousness jolted me awake. I’d been having a dreamless sleep. Our link came alive, and I couldn’t sleep through it. I opened my eyes, still curled on Thaddeus’ lap, to see Noah leaning over me, his hand on the side of my face.
“She really is alive.”
Thaddeus nodded before he yawned. “Teagan, I’m going to let Noah spell me. I’d be a pretty sluggish guard right now.”
I kissed his cheek. “Love you.”
“You’d better.” He winked at me.
I got off of his lap and walked into Noah’s arms. He held me tightly, his body shuddering. “I wasn’t sure if I should believe him—Reed—when he said you were coming back. He’s tricky.”
I wrapped my arm around his neck. “I’m here. I’m the Prophet. Thaddeus just had a taste of my abilities. I’m sure you all will in no short amount of time.”
He walked us over to the log across the fire and sat us both down against it. I half-lay in his lap, my feet on the log itself. “I can hear the ravens now. If they want to talk to us, I’ll be able to understand.”
I’d had a vision of him once walking through a path of ravens. Maybe I’d known even then that Noah should have been able to hear them. “Some people get spirits, we get ravens.”
He laughed then abruptly stopped. “You were in my arms, and we killed you.”
I snuggled against him. This was an important conversation I was going to have to have at least three more times. Still, I was exhausted. “Noah, I was going to die today. Well, whatever day this is. I’ve lost time a bit. That happened. I couldn’t be the Prophet if I hadn’t. I’m sorry I’m so tired. I left Thaddeus and myself in a vision too long. I shouldn’t stay more than a few minutes.”
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