She kept her smile in place. Honestly, she’d give anything to be able to tell him about her actual travels, but that amounted to treason in the immortal world. Ivar had been exceptionally and irritatingly clear about that fact. More than once, actually. “That’s wonderful.” She ran back through her mind to remember the two papers. Right. String theory and dark matter had been the main subjects. “Most mathematicians don’t believe we could use gravity to bend time.”
“Meh.” He lifted a shoulder and angled closer to the camera. “So, what do you say? Want to come into the school and collaborate? Nobody said you had to work from home.”
“I’m not at home,” she said, pushing a wayward curl away from her face. “I’ve decided to travel some while I work.”
He frowned. “I know you. When you’re on a problem, you’re obsessed. You’re telling me you’re taking in sights while doing a little math on the side?”
She grinned. “Of course not. I just decided to rent a place in the mountains and work in quiet and solitude. But I’d love to collaborate if possible.” Mark was a brilliant mathematician and he might be of great help. Unfortunately, she couldn’t share any of her results as of yet. “I’m just getting started and don’t have anything to share.”
“What mountains?” he asked.
“Washington,” she said, lying almost easily. She’d been spending too much time with immortals who thought everything should be secret. At least the queen was on her side and wanted to share results with humans if necessary. How odd. A realization smacked Promise in the head. She was no longer human.
Then what was she? She was immortal but not an immortal being. Huh. Fascinating.
“Promise?” Mark asked. “Are you listening?”
“Of course.” For goodness’ sake. She’d lied again. The outer door opened. “I have to go. I’ll be in touch.” She clicked off as Ivar walked in, dropping weapons on the duvet near the window.
“Who was that?” Ivar toed off his combat boots. His eyes were a dusky green, and his shoulders tense. Lines fanned out from the sides of his generous mouth, making him look exhausted.
“Mark Brookes,” she said, tilting her head to study him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.” Ivar reached her and took the laptop, gently placing it on the bedside table. “I’m just tired. The healing cells are working constantly on my brain, and they take a great deal of energy. Add in training with knives and dealing with crazy Benny, and I could use some sleep.” He sat on the bed and dragged her onto his lap, kissing her deeply. “What did Brookes want?”
“He wants to collaborate on the grant proposals,” Promise said, her voice husky. Ivar could kiss. Her entire body went from tired to full burn.
“Oh.” Ivar kissed her nose. “I guess we should announce the winners of those grants so people stop working on them. Hey. By the way, congrats. You won a grant.”
She grinned. “No kidding.” Her funds were apparently unlimited now, anyway. “Does the money go to the university?”
“It does, and it’s unfortunate you don’t,” he said, rubbing his chin on the top of her head. “Unless you really want to go teach for a couple of decades. Then you’ll have to disappear for a while, though.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m on this teleporting problem and can’t think of teaching until I solve it. But it’s nice the university will get the funds.” She’d done a good thing for her alma mater, and that satisfied her. A moment or two to bask in that victory was all the time she had, though. Her closed laptop mocked her. “I checked the news, and there haven’t been any more reports of kidnapped physicists.”
“We have guards stationed around the world protecting whomever we think needs it,” Ivar said, raking his hand through his long hair. “There have been a couple of attempts, but we have good resources in place.”
That was sweet. She swallowed. “I have to talk to you.”
“Ditto.” He smiled. “I teleported today.”
Her breath caught. “No way.”
“Way.”
He was quick and funny. She hugged him as much as she could from his lap. “That’s so wonderful. Let’s go somewhere.” Before she had to give him the bad news.
“Not yet.” He yawned. “My control wasn’t great. I’ll need a couple more days to get it down, but I’m close. Then we can go anywhere you want.” His chin lowered, and his gaze ran over her face. “You’re tense. What’s going on?”
She gulped. Giving bad news was often a normal day for a theoretical physicist. “The math doesn’t work, Ivar.” She used his name and not the Viking nickname to make sure he understood the seriousness of her statement. “I’ve worked the equations back and forth, studying all that we’ve learned.” And using theories she’d created along with Kane Kayrs in the application of traveling through dimensions via wormholes. “You can’t take Quade’s place, and you can’t set him free. The results of either eventuality could be catastrophic. I’m sorry.”
* * * *
Ivar set Promise on the bed and backed away, his gaze on her. No way had she said what he’d thought. “There has to be some mistake.”
She shook her head. “No. I tried to avoid Newton’s first law, and so did Kane. But it’s true. There’s a status quo in the configuration of the, let’s call them bubbles, right now. After Ronan’s broke, the other two probably, as much as we can theorize, used gravitational pulls to find a new normal. Every world is connected, or you wouldn’t have been able to go there. If one world were to be shattered, it’d change all the rest.” She straightened, her voice strengthening as she tried to explain. “Don’t you see? When Ronan’s bubble burst, it created those hell worlds. Or it revealed them or brought them in from elsewhere. We’re not sure exactly what happened.”
“But Quade is in a hell dimension,” Ivar countered.
“Now, he is. But he probably wasn’t until Ronan’s dimension burst.” She tapped her laptop on the table. “We think. And since time is different in different dimensions, three months here could be eternity there.”
“No.” He shook his head and moved toward his weapons. “You need to find a way.” His breath was heated in his chest, and it burned up his damaged throat. “I don’t care if we cause chain reactions in other worlds so long as we get him here. How can it matter?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “How can it matter? For one thing, it could destroy this world. For another, just because you haven’t come across other humans or intelligent beings in those other worlds, it doesn’t mean they’re not out there. If the bubbles are infinite, then you’ve visited less than one-zillionth of a percent of one-zillionth to the nth degree.”
He didn’t care. Not one part of him cared. “Thank you for figuring it out. I appreciate it.” He strapped his knife back in place. Surely Adare would be up for a few hours of sparring.
“Of course.” She frowned.
“But you need to go the next step and discover how I get back to Quade.” He tried to make the statement sound like a request, but it definitely sounded like an order. So be it. “Whether you like the results or not, that’s your job. That’s why you have the grant.”
“Are you doubting me? Do you think I’m lying?” she asked.
The woman thought she was all brain, but in truth, she had an enormous heart. “I think you’re giving up. Part of you doesn’t want me to go, and I think you’re limiting your math.”
Her head jerked. “You’re an arrogant jackass. My math is spot on, and I’ve been working nonstop every second since we met.”
How could he get her to see beyond the numbers? “Your job is to do the math. So do it.”
“Is that why you mated me?” she asked, her voice soft. “You mated me for my mathematical abilities, and you’re not getting the answers you wanted. You made a mistake.”
He paused. “That’s why you mated me. For access to this
world and its physics.” She didn’t get to rewrite history now. “I agreed because that’s what you wanted.” Words were bottled up in his chest, and he swallowed through the sandpaper of his throat several times. “I know there’s more between us than science and exploration, and so do you.” But at the moment, he wanted to yell at her, so he needed to get the hell out of there. They’d been playing house with the kissy face and sex, and he’d enjoyed it. But he had a mission to do and a vow to keep. “Don’t think for a second you’re getting out of this mating.”
“My job is bigger than your wishes,” she said, her eyes dark.
He tried to grab his temper. He really did. “That’s all well and good, but you’ll do as you’re told. The repercussions are mine to worry about.”
Her chin lifted and firmed. “That’s where you are incorrect. I have a duty to science and the preservation of life that transcends your wants. You don’t want to work against me on this.”
Was that a threat? A fucking threat? A part of him—a far distant part from the one blowing up in fury—admired her for it. The other part. Well now. That one was going to take control of the situation in a way she surely would not like. “Stick with the theoretical, Professor. I’ll worry about the practical applications.” He strode toward the door, forgetting his exhaustion.
“I’ll stop you, Ivar,” she said, her voice a mere whisper.
He paused in front of the door and closed his eyes. Oh, she had not. He turned to look at her over his shoulder, trying to ignore how sweet and vulnerable she looked on his bed, even though her eyes were now shooting sparks. “Oh, baby. You just try it.” Then he turned and walked out the door, shutting it so quietly it was only a whisper.
His blood heated, he strode to the end of the hall and turned down a stairwell. Demon headquarters had an excellent training area in the basement, and hopefully Adare was down there. Instead, he found Garrett finishing up with a weight set in the far corner.
“Hey,” Garrett said, straightening to study him. The kid’s metallic gray eyes caught everything. “What’s up?”
“Looking for Adare to spar,” Ivar said.
Garrett looked around the vacant area covered by mats. “He’s not here, but I’m available.”
“I’m pissed,” Ivar warned.
Garrett shrugged. “Dude, I spar with my dad. He’s often pissed.” Talen Kayrs was the strategic leader of the entire Realm and was known to level buildings with his temper. “And stop calling me kid.” He shook out his hands and moved toward Ivar.
“You are a kid.” Yeah, he might be twenty-five or so, and he might’ve fought in a war and then survived the Seven ritual—“Yeah, okay. That’s fair.” There was nothing kid-like about Garrett Kayrs. Ivar swung out, testing, and Garrett ducked easily.
“So. What did she do?” Garrett asked, his feet light on the mats.
Ivar kicked and hit him beneath the chin. “How did you know my mood has something to do with my mate?”
“Please.” Garrett swung and connected with a solid punch to the neck.
Fair enough. “She told me the math says we can’t get Quade out.”
Garrett’s head went back, and he flipped backward, landing on his feet and sweeping Ivar’s feet out from under him. “So you feel betrayed.”
Ivar hit hard, rolled, and kicked Garrett in the gut before striking behind his knee. “Well, yeah.”
The fight intensified, and they stopped talking, just hitting and kicking. An hour passed and then two. Finally, they both lay on their backs, breathing heavily and bleeding, maybe coughing up shit that shouldn’t be coughed up.
“Feel better?” Garrett groaned.
“Yes. Thanks. Owe you one,” Ivar panted.
Garrett snorted, blood dribbling down his face. “Just don’t let me get mated. Ever.”
Ivar grinned, his tongue touching the spot where he’d lost a tooth. “Oh, man. I can’t wait to meet your mate.” Now that was going to be an interesting day.
For now, Ivar had his own mate to deal with. Somehow.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Promise awoke from dreams about the universe exploding and rushing back to the moment of the big bang, when time stopped, never to move forward again. She blinked. The bed shifted, and heat instantly enveloped her. Then Ivar hauled her up against him, her back to his front, his mouth at her ear. He was nude and rock hard behind her. “Did you have time to think about your position?”
Her position was rather vulnerable in her T-shirt and panties. Desire clawed through her, and she tried hard not to shiver. She failed.
His chuckle sent ripples beneath her skin, even as one big hand moved up and caressed her nipple through the shirt. “While I’m not having an effect on your brain, your body knows who it belongs to.”
Her nipples, both of them, turned tight and achy. She dug her hands into the sheets to keep from reaching for him. “I thought you were pouting elsewhere,” she breathed.
He pinched.
She moaned, delicious flames streaking from her breasts to her clit. “That’s not fair.”
“I’ve never planned to play fair.” His fang caught her earlobe with a hint of threat.
Her womb convulsed. How did he do this?
He licked along the shell of her ear and tugged the shirt over her head to toss it across the room. Then his warm palm moved to her other needy breast. “I kicked Garrett for a while, he punched me, and once we were done, I realized a couple of things.”
“That you need to be hit in the head a lot?” she asked, her voice breathy.
He pinched again, and she arched against him, pressing her thighs together against the painful ache there. “No. That you belong to me. Every stubborn inch of you.”
She opened her eyes, having not realized they were still closed. “Says the man determined to disappear into hell without me.”
“It’s a mission.” His fangs scraped along her neck, providing an erotic reminder of the danger in him. He tugged on her panties, and she scooted her butt up to let him remove them. “Like any soldier, I’ll have missions. And I’ll return. Didn’t know that until I met you. But I will be back.”
She settled back down, need rioting inside every cell. Not one molecule of her wanted him to stop, so she’d argue with him while heading toward orgasms. Who knew? Maybe they could reach an agreement somehow during sex. It was certainly worth the experiment.
His free hand flattened over her abdomen, sliding down.
She caught her breath, sucking in her stomach, willing him to go faster. To get there sooner. “Please.”
“Ah, so sweet.” He lifted her thigh and pulled it over his before shoving the bedclothes down.
Cool air hit her private parts, and she gasped. She was open, exposed, her body nude. They’d been in a fight, and they needed to talk. But no words would come. Her body took over, wanting him. Needing him. Was this what craving felt like? If so, it hurt. She tried to move, to protect herself, but he held her in place. She shuddered, need licking inside her. “Ivar,” she murmured.
“Yeah.” He touched her, so lightly, and her body jumped. “Is it possible, Professor, that you don’t want me to return to hell?”
She rolled her hips, trying to get closer to the hand held tantalizingly out of reach. “At the moment, I want you right where you are. Except closer.” She rested her head back on his chest, pushing, needing more of him. Wanting all of him.
“Could it affect the math?” His fingers grazed over her clit, one at a time, forcing shock waves through her extremities.
Math? What the hell was math? She breathed out, her brain catching up. “No.”
“Sure it could.” He lifted her thigh and slowly penetrated her from behind, his fingers working her clit so she’d take him all the way in.
Pain and pleasure mingled until she couldn’t tell one from the other and didn’t ca
re. So long as he didn’t stop. “Math is math,” she gasped.
“Ah, my theoretical bunny.” He wrenched her head to the side and nipped her neck with enough pressure to send her heartbeat skyrocketing. “You sometimes start with a conclusion. A hypothesis, if you will. Then you take the math there to see if it works.”
She swallowed, overtaken. “Did you just call me ‘bunny’?”
His chuckle moved his chest behind her, vibrating along her spine to her butt. “Started to say ‘brat,’ but figured you wouldn’t like that since I was about to do this.” With one final push, he shoved all the way up and inside her with a force that pushed her toward the headboard. Only his strong hold kept her from hitting her head.
She cried out as an orgasm washed over her before she could identify what was happening. He held on to her as she shook. She moaned, her shoulders relaxing, letting his warmth comfort her. He waited, silent and unmoving, until she realized they weren’t done.
She stiffened. “Ivar.”
Soundless, he used his body to roll them over, her on her stomach, allowing himself one second to flatten her to the bed, her face in the pillow.
His heaviness pushed her into the mattress, and she jerked, unable to breathe. Then he was off her, pulling her hips up and using his knees to force hers up, while remaining fully embedded inside her. His cock stretched her, filling her beyond mathematical possibilities. Maybe her math was off.
She scrambled up to her elbows to keep from suffocating in the pillow. Behind her, he clamped both hands on her hips and drove into her without pause, without a hint of mercy. He pounded into her, hard, hot, huge, his grip bruising and absolute.
He leaned over her, dragging his fangs up her shoulder blade.
She shut her eyes, unable to move. The feelings took her over, more than she could’ve ever imagined. This wasn’t sex. It wasn’t making love. It was a claiming on a level she had never anticipated. No human could. But it was there, the immortal power, the animalistic reality of a connection beyond all comprehension. Or maybe just beyond hers. Even though she couldn’t define it, she felt it.
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