All of me.
A moan escaped my lips as he growled against my skin, his hands moving to cup my face as his mouth left my neck and found mine.
His kiss tasted like cedar and smoke, my lips were burning from the inside out as his tongue slid inside.
Something snapped between us, I wasn’t sure what, but one minute I was on my back the next we were rolling off the bed, landing with a soft thud as his hands went behind my head to break our fall. His mouth, however, never left mine.
Kissing Timber was like experiencing hunger and thirst all at once, only to ever feel satisfied when he kissed me back, giving me small morsels of what I needed, what I would kill to have.
I threaded my hands through his blond hair, then ran them down his arms, the minute my skin touched his tattoo, the spell was broken.
Blisters appeared on my fingertips where the black had touched.
Timber broke the kiss and gripped my hands in his with a frown, careful not to let any part of his tattoo touch my skin. “I don’t understand.”
His skin took on an unnatural glow almost pulsing beneath the black.
And before my eyes, the tattoo slithered up his neck wrapping around it like a chokehold, stopping just below his chin only to draw slow intricate circles up the sides of his face.
It was beautiful and terrifying.
“What’s happening?” I asked in a quiet voice.
“You’ll have to be more specific. Are you talking the bite, the kiss, the deeper kiss, or the fact that I’m stuck in a tattooed prison made up of ugly plants?”
Tears filed my eyes. “It’s not funny.”
“Death never is.” He blew across my blistered hands and then sighed. “I’ll call Cassius, he’ll take care of this.”
“And what about you?” I just had to ask.
“I don’t think—” He gulped. “—that I’ll be a problem much longer.”
He started to walk away.
Urgency filled me. “What did you see? In my blood?” I called out.
“The sun,” he said seriously. And then he walked off like that was a good enough answer.
I stumbled after him, chased was more like it, and when I caught up, I grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around. “What does that mean?”
We were in the doorframe, chests heaving for different reasons or maybe just the same one we refused to discuss.
The kiss.
“If I knew,” he said hoarsely, “I would tell you.”
“And the kiss?” I crossed my arms.
“We got carried away.” His jaw flexed before he looked down. “It happens.”
“You’re too controlled to use that excuse.”
With a smirk, he leaned over until he was inches from my face. “And you’re what? A demon expert? Or just an expert on self-control?”
“It happened.”
“Yes. It did.” He pointed at his face. “Clearly. Every time I touch you I get punished, maybe it’s a warning sign… not to touch the human that houses the sun.”
“The sun’s a star, try again.”
He snorted out a laugh of disbelief. “Wow. Yes, the sun’s a star—also known as Ra.”
I gaped at his retreating form. “I’m not housing a god!”
“You’re housing his essence,” he called over his shoulder. “Trust me, I would know.”
“How?”
“Because.” His face was shadowed as he turned back around. “I was part of the army that failed at destroying him, and then everything went painfully dark.”
“When?”
He smirked. “You weren’t even a flicker in the Creator’s eye.”
“How old are you?”
He didn’t turn around just whispered, “I wish I actually knew.”
TIMBER
I could have sworn that her blood mocked me when I tasted her and then it changed altogether, I needed more, craved it, felt like I had been imprisoned for millennia waiting for a taste.
My thoughts were dark as I waited for Cassius, and turned even darker when he entered the room with purple spiked feathers pointed at me and a grim expression on his face when he took in the tattoo covering part of my face.
“So, it’s spread has it?” He stated the obvious.
“No.” I deadpanned. “I just wanted the top to match the bottom. Yes it spread, after we—”
I cleared my throat, Cassius’s eyebrows shot up. “Do continue.”
I shifted in my leather chair. “After we—”
“Midnight snacks!” Tarek and Mason stumbled through my front door followed by Alex and Ethan.
“I called you, not the council,” I pointed out in an irritated voice.
“It’s ladies’ night.” Ethan plopped down on my couch, grabbed my remote, turned on my TV. “Plus you look like hell, thought you could use some cheering up.”
“Do I get to kill you?” I asked innocently.
“Nope.”
“Then consider me less than cheered.”
Alex gave me a wave and sniffed the air, then looked at me, then sniffed again, followed by Mason and Tarek. It wasn’t convenient that I forgot they could smell lust in the air.
And I was doing a shit job at controlling mine.
Any sane being would have trouble doing so under these circumstances!
She’d responded.
No human woman responded in that way, least of all to me. They felt the danger, and once the haze lifted, they screamed.
She’d kissed me back.
I shifted in my seat and looked up.
Every single male was waiting in silence.
“I bit her,” I admitted in a surly tone. “In my defense I was trying to see if I could gain some information, and if you must know there was a kiss.” Several kisses, but they didn’t need to know that.
“It smells like sex.” Alex pointed out.
“I wish.” I grumbled, earning a chuckle from Tarek who was silenced by an angry-looking Mason.
“The tattoo,” Mason pointed out, his eyes going feral. “It’s not going to stop.”
“As always, thank you for your astute observation.”
Thank the Creator, Kyra appeared that same minute.
“She’s injured.” I stood. “Which is why I called Cassius, not the council, Cassius, say it with me!”
Nobody spoke.
Kyra gave me a brave smile and then held out her hands palm up while Cassius stared down at them.
It wasn’t Cassius that said something though—no, it was Mason.
“Ancient,” he whispered in reverence. “The boils are scarring into intricate designs, the magic is…” His eyes widened in horror as he looked up. “Cassius, tell me you chose not to know this, chose not to see the future or the past.”
“I chose,” Cassius said slowly. “Because as you know, we cannot intervene especially with something this powerful, but I can take care of the wound on her neck and remedy the poison in her veins.”
Mason growled and ran his hands through his dark hair. “This isn’t…” He gave me a sad look. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry.” I repeated. “What are you sorry for?”
“I didn’t see it before, maybe I didn’t want to,” He gently held out Kyra’s hand, “The only thing in existence that can scar or even create a wound from a curse like this, isn’t just ancient, it’s old magic, older than old. It’s not even magic. It’s…” He looked to Cassius. “It’s from the old gods.”
I burst out laughing. “The ones currently serving time in the Abyss. Great, let’s just call Zeus. Oh wait, he doesn’t exist—”
“Blasphemy!” Cassius roared. “You will not disrespect the old gods in this house. They still listen to the cries of the people they failed. You know as much as I, that the gods are one in the same, Egyptian, Roman, Norse, Greek—all come from one single story, one single power source that the Creator has since snuffed out.”
I nodded. “Sorry.”
Mason gave me a funny look. “Wh
en we met, you had been a demon for a few hundred years. Yet you’re older.”
Ethan piped up. “He’s older than me, and I’m old as hell. He’s older than even Cassius, which is saying something…”
“So?”
“It is time,” Cassius said in a sad voice. “I can’t undo what’s been done to her hands, but it is time that you pull back the secrets, the lies, the shame. Tell us, Timber, whose soul do you house? Whose soul screams for release?”
I shook my head. “You’re asking me for something I don’t remember.”
Alex stood and circled me while Kyra watched with obvious fear in her eyes. I would miss that short cropped black hair, the blue streaks that teased me with the play of light.
I was old.
But I would still miss my life.
Even if it was filled with darkness and chaos.
War and more war.
“He said he fought Ra in a war.” Kyra said softly.
“See if I tell you any more secrets,” I snarled in her direction.
“Your secrets are going to get you killed!” Cassius shouted, his face went ashen. “Ra, you fought Ra. Ethan, grab the book of the gods—”
“What?”
“Do it!”
Ethan went to my library and returned a minute later with the book of the gods.
The very first page should have a list of them, followed by parentage, attributes, abilities.
But when Cassius opened it.
No page existed.
In fact, several pages from the ancient text were missing as if torn and burned, I wouldn’t know because we never opened the old texts what use did they have when all of the gods were no longer in existence?
He snapped the book closed. “The choice is yours, demon, you must remember your past, to save your future.”
“Be serious.” I laughed. “I’m just old, it’s why I don’t remember, I was created, I was—” I frowned. “I crawled in the sand to the goddess, begged for a borrowed soul since mine had been…” A piercing headache throbbed behind my eyes. “Not taken.” I looked up into Cassius’s knowing glance. “My soul wasn’t taken!”
“No, demon. Your soul was trapped. Cursed.” He turned to Kyra, “Just like yours.”
“Related?” Ethan asked while Mason paced in front of us.
Cassius just shrugged. “How should I know? There are hundreds of paths, hundreds of possibilities, but no, this is no accident. I think she’s been searching for Timber, and he’s been dying without her. Sadly, I think we might be too late.”
That's the last thing I heard him say before black took over my line of vision.
KYRA
I couldn’t stop screaming. The black tattoo took over his entire face, it was tragically beautiful. And I hated how much I wanted to reach out and touch him, see if I could rub away the angry lines now embedding themselves in his skin.
“I don’t understand,” I croaked. “I just—I feel like I’m missing an entire piece of his life, of mine, of the reason we’re connected.” I hung my head.
After a few minutes, Cassius put his hand on my back as I cradled Timber’s limp body in my arms, careful not to touch the ancient etchings on his skin.
“How badly do you want to know what you should not know?” Cassius asked gently.
I looked down. Timber. I wanted a person I didn’t know. It was scary. It was other worldly. “Will my knowledge save him?”
“I do not know if he is beyond saving, just like I do not know if your journey would do anything except make it worse.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Cassius boomed. “It is not the place of the angels to know the destiny of anyone in this realm.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “How do I help him?”
“One path,” Cassius said simply, I could feel the uptake in tension in the room. “You must go back and choose differently.”
“Go back?” I hissed. “Go back where?”
“To where it all began.” His eyes turned white. “A word of warning… if he dies in the past if he does not listen, there is no future.”
I felt like I was going to be sick. “How do I know what to choose?”
It was Alex, the siren of all people, who came up and put his hand on my shoulder, I could tell he was trying to hold back. Even though it didn’t affect me, I still felt the heat from his touch. “Cassius will stay, Tarek and I will go with you.”
Cassius seemed stunned into silence. “You know what this would mean.”
Alex gave him a solemn nod as heat pulsed from his body. “It is time.”
“I’ll go too.” Mason stood to his full height. “She can’t win this on her own, and Timber from this time…” He leaned over and felt Timber’s pulse. “…is seconds away from being lost to us.”
Cassius hung his head. “Choose wisely. Trust no one.” And then his gaze went white. “Even the angels. Trust only the Creator, may He show you favor, because the gods, I fear, will not.”
Screaming erupted in my ears. I tried to cover them, but it was useless.
“Even now,” Cassius’s voice boomed. “They cry for release from the pit of the Abyss. They watch, they wait in painful silence. Make the right choice, and you’ll save Timber. If either of you choose wrong—” The screams intensified. “—your future is an eternity of constant dark.”
I could have sworn I heard a male voice utter. “Worth it.”
Alex squeezed my hand. Mason squeezed the other, and then Tarek with a cocky grin winked. “Ready for an adventure, princess?”
The screaming swelled to deafening proportions.
“Princess?” I repeated.
“Can’t wait.” He seemed pumped.
Abruptly the screams stopped.
My ears rang in the absolute silence.
And I felt… the intense heat of the sun.
“Ra,” I whispered, lifting my head toward the blinding temple.
Next to me, Mason stilled. I glanced over and my breath lodged in my throat. His black hair was pulled back in a braid, his armor matched his hair, and he was towering over me with a sword bigger than my arm. Tarek flanked my right side, similarly dressed. Alex looked the same, but his armor was gold.
The gold of a god.
My lungs cried out for oxygen, and I sucked in a sharp breath, too freaked out to even look down at my own dress or anything else, for that matter.
“Shhhh,” Tarek said softly. “So what if he has the blood of a god? We don’t let him out much, and he’ll have lots of tricks.”
Tricks were right. In the next instant, Alex’s eyes flashed red. His hair flamed to match as he approached the white throne. “Father or should I say great-great-great-great-grandfather?” A smirk followed—of course it would.
My knees threatened to buckle. What. The. Hell.
Ra’s face was a tanned brown, his eyes crystal blue, long white hair wrapped in a crown around his head. “Son, this is unexpected.”
Alex shrugged. “Time travel typically is. By the way you’re going to love Doordash just wait.”
Ra rolled his eyes in amusement. “This is outside of your current time, son. Who has given you leave to exit and re-enter?”
“I’m aware.” Alex stood to his full height. “And, we don’t really ask for permission, more like forgiveness. Let’s just say if the Creator wanted to stop us He could have, and since I have some of your blood running in my veins, I figured I was one of the better choices to come back. Then again, it’s always entertaining when you hang out with vampires, am I right?”
He made a face. “Ridiculous creatures, I prefer my own blood.”
“So I tell them. Every day.” Alex winked. “And we’re merely here as guides, with your awareness of course.”
He looked around Alex toward me and then back. “Trying to change a past or a future?”
“Both.” Alex’s body pulsed with energy that hit me in waves of heat and longing. I gripped the reins I was surprised to find in my hand and kept wat
ching. “Apparently you’re about to make a deal with the devil and try to fix it in the worst way possible. I can’t tell you what you will do, but I urge you to trust carefully.”
Ra studied him and then stood to his twelve-foot height, placing both hands on Alex’s shoulders. “I do not trust easily, not with the wars, not with the mortals pushing us from their realm. But I do trust a true son of the light even if he’s part siren. So I will listen to your warning. Go with my peace. Furthermore, go with my permission in this time.”
Alex bowed and then came back to us. I could tell something was wrong by his less confident swagger. When he was finally at my side, he looked up to Mason with fear in his eyes. “I improvised.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I hissed.
“It means,” Alex whispered, “that we are smack dab in the middle of one of the greatest wars between the old gods that ever existed. The Great War. Most were banished. The Creator left them to their own devices. The original dark ones, more powerful than any, half human half god. They are the original creation. Like gods. The first of the last.” Alex choked on the last part. “I’m an idiot, should have put two and two together, maybe my own sadness and arrogance didn’t let me see what was right in front of me. You want a history lesson, look around you. These gods make us look like plastic toys. Their only weakness is they can’t intervene with free will. Everything else is a free for all. And in our time, they are all but instinct.”
“Except for you,” I pointed out.
He glared. “I’m not allowed to go full god, one of the rules of actually enjoying my time on the immortal council. Last time didn’t go so well.” His eyes went dark as he shared a look with Tarek and Mason.
“I’m hungry.” This from Tarek.
All of us gaped.
“What?” He shrugged. “Just because we’re trying to undo something doesn’t mean my appetite changes. And I can’t survive off sand. I’m not Mason!”
“Thanks, man,” Mason grunted.
“Up you go, princess.” Before I could say anything Tarek had his hands around my waist and was lifting me up onto the horse attached to the other end of the reins I clutched. A lovely Arabian horse. My gorgeous Arabian horse.
Her coat was mostly white with faint shadings of gray at her feet. Her mane was braided and dyed different colors of blues and purples. She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her.
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