by Vivien Dean
“No, not like that.” She took a deep breath. He barely felt it. “Do you know a Theo?”
Though it didn’t show, everything inside Quin went aflutter, like a flock of birds taking off simultaneously. “Not that I know of,” he lied. Well, it was only a partial lie. He didn’t know anyone who was currently alive named Theo.
“What about Theodotus?”
The birds hit an electrical wire. Quin sat up, disturbing the repose of their positions to push Annie onto his lap. Gripping her shoulders, he held her at arm’s length and asked, his voice low, “Where did you hear that name?”
The shadows were back in her eyes, but Annie kept her chin up. “From a guy currently locked up in the storage room.” She paused. “He’s real, isn’t he?”
Is he? He wasn’t supposed to be. Maybe at one point, but then the sun vanished and the world had ended.
“You tell me,” Quin said carefully. “What makes you think he isn’t?”
“Because the door was shut. And it was just me and the sword.” She paused, and her eyes flickered over his face as if in search of something. “Then it was just me and him.”
She wanted him to tell her it was all a dream. He knew Annie well enough to be able to read that much. But Quin felt too raw for this to be anything but real. If there was anything he was intimately acquainted with, it was pain.
Especially the pain of sudden shock.
CHAPTER 3
The look on Quin’s face shattered any hope Annie might have had that the day had been a creation of her overactive imagination. His vehement response to Theo’s full name still had her stomach flipping, the burn in his nearly black eyes more intense than anything she’d ever witnessed from him. He looked like a man possessed, an effect worsened by the black shocks of hair sticking up every which way. She had done that. Running her hands through his hair. But not even that knowledge was enough to temper the fear that had her wanting to pull away from his grip.
“You know him.” It was pointless phrasing it as a question. She already knew the answer. “He said I freed him. What does that even mean?”
The tendons in Quin’s neck stood out from how tightly he clenched his jaw. She could see the veins running through his muscled arms as well. Quin was struggling to hold himself in check, but she couldn’t tell what it was about this Theo that inspired such a response.
“Did he say anything else to you?” Quin quizzed rather than giving her a straight response.
“He said…I had lovely hands. And that I should ask you all these questions.”
Quin made a sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh but came out as a sharp bark. “Of course, he did,” he muttered. “He would defer to me to the end.”
“So what does it all mean? Because I don’t understand any of this, Quin.” She reached out, skimming hot fingertips over his cheek in hopes that the contact would quell her quivering gut. “Who is he?”
He turned his head, staring at the closed door. “My oldest friend.” His hands fell away from her. “The love I thought I’d lost.”
It was worse than she’d imagined, but she held her tongue, waiting for him to say more. She knew Quin was bisexual. Before their relationship had deepened, he’d had two different affairs with men. But she didn’t want to hear about someone who made him react like this, someone he referenced as the one he’d lost, someone who made her wonder if it was just a matter of time before she would be searching for a new job because it was simply too painful to see him with the one he really wanted. Except she’d asked. She had to know.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Quin rested his forearms on his knees as he stared at the door. “This is a story I was hoping to hold off on telling you for a few years yet,” he said. “I knew it would be inevitable. You’re too observant for it not to be.”
“What is it you think I would have seen?”
A muscle twitched in his square jaw. “That I wasn’t growing older. That the years would pass, and I’d remain the same.”
Annie frowned. The thought that maybe Quin had been cleverly hiding a psychosis all this time flitted through her mind, but she quickly dismissed it. He wasn’t crazy. A little idiosyncratic at times, but not crazy.
“That’s not possible.”
“It is.” Quin sighed. “When you sell everything that you are.”
A shiver rolled down her spine, like an icy droplet over a frost-covered window. “You’re scaring me.”
Something in her tone drew his focus back to her, and contrition immediately replaced the burn in his eyes. “Don’t be. I’m still me, Annie. Nobody has known me as you do in many, many years. Remember that. Remember me as I tell you this. That’s all I ask.”
It wasn’t all he was asking, but she nodded anyway. “So how old are you?”
“Technically?” His gaze slid sideways for a moment as he did the mental arithmetic. “Two thousand and seventy years.”
Centuries. Millennia. He’d been born before the birth of Christ. Now Theo’s assertions about the names being Roman made more sense.
“And Theo?”
“Now that’s a much harder question. Because Theo died. Do I count all the years when all I had was that damn reminder that he ever even existed in the first place?” Bitterness dripped from every word. “Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better for both of us to die that day.”
Theo dead. Quin alive. A sword to carry through the ages. It was the stuff from fairytales, except she wasn’t a princess locked away in a tower, waiting for her Prince Charming to arrive. The prince had been and gone already, and now there was another, locked away in the room that had been his prison for who knew how long, and here she was keeping them apart.
The lover that got away.
Keeping her nerves steady, she folded her hands in her lap. If she didn’t keep them to herself, she’d reach out and try to touch him again. He hadn’t even noticed the last time she’d done it. “So you were Roman.” At Quin’s frown, she explained, “Theo said that much to me.”
“We were soldiers for Octavian. Theo was stabbed in a battle in Alexandria, when we were attempting to defeat Antonius. I fell back to tend to his wounds, but they were too extensive for me to do anything but slow the flow of blood.” Quin looked down at his splayed fingers, and she knew he wasn’t there anymore, but on a battlefield centuries dead.
“We had been lovers for nearly five years, and I didn’t know how to go on without him. I cried to the gods, and I begged not to be separated from him. I promised everything that I had to stay with him forever, but I thought that would mean death. That one of Antony’s men would sneak up on me and finish off what Theo’s death had started.”
“It didn’t happen.”
“No.” His chuckle rasped across her senses. “I fell asleep with prayers on my lips and his body in my arms. When I woke up, his body was gone and all I had was that sword.” Quin looked to the door again. “That beautiful, precious sword.”
* * *
The light bored through his closed eyelids, merciless and blinding. For an eternity, Quintus believed he was dead. Nothing mortal could be so encompassing, so brilliant, searing through flesh like it was wax melting beneath the high yellow sun. It would leave him misshapen and then formless, ready to join Theo wherever he might be.
But then he opened his eyes. And disappointment sharper than the enemy’s blade pierced his heart.
The light that now hurt his eyes was the Egyptian sun, reflecting off the empty landscape. He lived. Theo did not.
He closed his eyes again and rested his head back against the packed ground. His prayers had not been answered.
It took several minutes for Quintus to recognize the weight pinning him down was wrong. It was too heavy in certain places along his torso, nonexistent in others. His arms felt empty as well, and when he braved looking down his body, there was no sign of Theo to be found.
In his stead, a long sword rested along his midsection. Its blade shimmered like
white fire in the sunlight, but its cut was like nothing Quintus had ever seen before. Carefully, he sat up. That was when he noticed the fortune embedded in the weapon’s hilt and guard.
Rubies, too many to count, some no larger than a single drop. They coated every available inch, a second skin to protect what was obviously such a rarity. He had never seen so many together, not even in Octavian’s obvious wealth. Who would leave such a treasure?
He set aside the sword. There was a more pressing question to be answered.
What had happened to Theo?
Quintus scoured the earth, looking for signs of who might have stolen his lover’s body. More than once, he cursed Theo’s youth, his pretty face, the musculature that had attracted so many eager to sample its wares. Theo had laughed at the attention, taunting Quintus for his jealousy. Neither of them thought he would ever actually act on any of the numerous offers made to him. He belonged to Quintus. That was enough.
But there was nothing. There wasn’t even blood on the ground to testify to Theo’s death the night before. There was only Quintus, the sun, and that beautiful sword, beckoning to him with ruby-red fire.
Kneeling in the dust, he picked it up, testing the weight. It was perfectly balanced for his hand. Its owner must be built much like himself. If he cared any longer for the battle, he would wish to wield it against their enemies, to slice off the heads of those who had dared to take away his love. He could see it flashing, stained in scarlet, striking a swathe of terror in his wake. People would fear him. They would respect him. No longer would he have to bow down to rulers who led their soldiers to their deaths.
But he would still be alone.
Quintus bowed his head. Without Theo, he had no desire to have the wealth the sword promised. But the sword could reunite them.
Grasping the hilt, he turned it around, rooting it in the ground with the tip of the blade aimed at his midsection.
Soon, Theo.
Wait for me.
* * *
Annie gripped the blanket, partially enthralled by the tale, partially devastated. There was no mistaking the pain in Quin’s voice, the lost ache in his eyes. He still loved Theo, even now, even when he professed to care for her.
“Didn’t you do it, then?” she asked, her voice soft.
He jerked. They were the first words she’d uttered since he began the story. “Of course, I did it. I ran myself through with the damn thing. Hurt like hell.”
She automatically looked down. His stomach was smooth except for the rippling of his abs. Unbidden, she reached forward and touched them. She knew his body as well as she knew her own. “There’s not even a scar.”
Her breath caught when he folded his hand over hers, entwining their fingers. His entire body was flushed and hot, just as his lips were when he lifted her hand to his mouth. “No,” he said against her knuckles. “There never is. I pulled out the sword, and the wound almost immediately closed again. It took me a long time to believe that I was truly indestructible.”
“You tested it?”
Quin nodded, though she thought she caught a glimpse of shame lurking in his eyes. “Injuries heal themselves almost immediately. Accidents get averted before they can do harm. I tried for months to kill myself, not really believing that I could be so unlucky to live.” He must have seen something in her eyes, because his fingers tightened around hers. “Not recently, of course. God, Annie, please don’t think I’d do that to you, or that I don’t want our lives together. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
He was earnest enough for it to be impossible not to believe him. But there was still a young man downstairs that he’d been prepared to join in death, and she just couldn’t forget about that.
“And the sword? How did you know it was Theo?”
“I didn’t. Well, I suspected. I’d asked to spend eternity with him, so the gods, with their twisted sense of humor, decided to make it impossible for me to die and impossible for him to live.”
Your blood. My blood.
“I cut myself on the sword when I was cleaning it,” Annie said. “I got blood on the rubies. Theo said…he thought my blood was what got him out. Or changed him, maybe, since the sword’s completely gone now.”
“I’ve never tried to understand how the gods work, or why it ever happened. I was a soldier. I wasn’t interested in divine intervention after I figured out how they screwed me over. Why would your blood unlock the prison he’s been in?”
“I don’t know.” She hesitated, though she knew she had to suggest it. “Maybe Theo does.” Carefully, she extricated her hands from his. “You should probably go unlock him out of the storage room. I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about.”
“Come with me. I want the two of you to meet.”
Annie laughed softly and crawled past him back to the top of the bed. “I already did, remember? Besides, you’ve waited a long time to see him. That deserves a little privacy.”
Quin still seemed uncertain, glancing between her and the doorway and back to her again. “I won’t be long,” he promised, rising from the bed.
He grabbed his pants and slipped them back on. Annie kept from gazing longingly at him by sliding back beneath the blankets, burying her nose in the fabric that still smelled of their sex. She smiled when he leaned over and brushed a kiss over her forehead, but it disappeared the moment the door closed shut behind him.
CHAPTER 4
By the time he reached the door, Quin felt like he was going to throw up. He’d never envisioned this day coming. Though he treasured the sword, and though he hid in the storage room to talk to it as if it was Theo sitting opposite and he was just catching up, Quin had never really believed he would ever see his dead lover’s face again. Was his memory flawed? Would Theo be as beautiful as he remembered? Less so? Would he look into his eyes and be able to read his thoughts as he had when they had both been alive and not doomed to this eternal separation?
He didn’t know the answers. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to open the door and face the reality. Annie was upstairs waiting for him, warm and wonderful. She’d been visibly shaken by the truth of his story, but she hadn’t turned on him as he’d feared. That should be enough for any man.
A small scraping sound from inside the storage room made his heart jump. The only problem with that was he wasn’t a normal man. Was Theo? Had he been changed by being trapped for so many centuries? There was only one way to find out.
Quin unlocked the door and slowly pushed it open. Light flooded out, further proof that it wasn’t empty. Annie was always very careful about such details.
He froze with his hand still on the knob. The sound he’d heard had been the stool moving across the floor. A form, so familiar, stood at the shelves along the rear wall, his back to the doorway. Broad shoulders tapered down to lean hips, blades like butterflies sculpting around the muscles. Brown hair brushed along his nape, the ends curling slightly as they always had, and the arms that stretched to reach a box on a high shelf were as sinewy as he remembered.
“Theo…”
It was only a breath, a hush of heat that he couldn’t even hear. But Theo did, and he turned to meet Quin’s gaze with eyes soft and brown.
A smile immediately creased his wide face. “Quin. You’re home.”
When Theo bolted forward, however, Quin stiffened and fell back a step. Theo halted, his smile fading, eyes searching for some sign of what might be wrong.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” Quin murmured. “Even when Annie was saying so, I kept thinking I’d wake up and find out it was all a dream.”
Theo shook his head. “No. I’m real. But Annie didn’t believe in me, either.” He took a hesitant step forward. “What’s wrong? Why do you retreat?”
Steeling his nerves, Quin forced himself to let go of the door. “If I touch you, will you disappear?”
“No. But there’s only one way to be sure.”
Theo was the one who closed the rest of the distance, coming to
a stop directly in front of Quin. They stood, bare chest to bare chest, but proximity didn’t make it any easier for him. He couldn’t stop staring, wondering how Theo could look exactly as he remembered and yet new, all at the same time.
Theo did the same, though his stare was far less amazed.
“I still can’t get used to how short your hair is.” Theo brushed his fingertips over the spiky sections on top of Quin’s head. “It makes you look devilish.”
Quin traced the sharp line of Theo’s collarbone. Warm. Solid. Without thinking, he bowed his head and repeated the path with his mouth. It had been one of his favorites, and the mere glance of Theo’s hot skin against his lips made Quin’s mouth water.
Theo tilted his head back, his hand molding around Quin’s skull in order to hold him close. “Every time you came to talk to me, I wished I could feel you like this again.”
Quin straightened. “You heard me?”
“Every word. I could feel you in a way, but it wasn’t anything like this.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“So you’ve been aware all along?”
Theo shrugged. “I’m not sure I’d say that. There are long patches of nothing. But I remember when you were in England. And that Japanese house with the pretty little girl who waited on you.” His slight frown smoothed over into a smile. “And Annie. I know Annie very well, though that’s probably not a surprise. I saw her every day.”
Annie. Still waiting for him upstairs. Guilt made Quin drop his hand, though he couldn’t quite bear to back away from Theo’s warmth. “She said she set you free. Do you know how?”
“Her blood.” He told the same story as Annie, though in slightly greater detail. He ended with, “Is she all right? She barely let me help clean her hand.”
“She’s fine. Well, as fine as she can be, considering what she’s been through today.” But none of it made sense. Quin had cut himself more than once on the blade, but his blood had never had the same effect. What made Annie’s any different?