Kiss Across Deserts

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Sydney moved backward, away from the men bent over Alex’s body. He had stopped thrashing. He had stopped moving at all.

  Brody finished injecting the other syringe, the one Veris had warned he would use if he had to, and dropped the empty syringe into a bowl on the sideboard behind him.

  Rafe stood out of Veris’ way as Veris pressed his hand against Alex’s chest and listened. “Minimal response,” he said quietly, and dropped his head. “I think we’re losing him.”

  Rafe squeezed Veris’ shoulder. “Let me try,” he said quietly.

  Veris stepped out of the way and Rafe moved up to Alex’s shoulder and bent over to speak in his ear. “Alex! Can you hear me? It’s time to come home.” He shook him, not gently. “Alex!”

  Sydney saw that Veris was watching her. She swallowed, trying to shovel her fear into a tiny corner and bury it.

  “Talk to him,” Veris told her.

  Brody moved out from the back of table, letting her in. She picked up Alex’s hand and spoke to him, just as Rafe was doing. “Alex! Please, please, you have to come back. Are you listening, Alex? Come back to us!”

  They kept it up for long minutes, and still there was no sign of response in Alex. Sydney’s vision blurred with tears that dropped onto Alex’s shoulder, but she continued talking, whispering, begging him to return.

  Until Brody rested his hand on her shoulder.

  Sydney straightened up. “No! He could still come out of it! Leave me alone.”

  “It’s been eighteen minutes,” Veris said softly.

  “He’s a vampire. He doesn’t need to breath. He doesn’t need a beating heart,” Rafe said. “We give him time.” He glanced at her and they both bent back to whisper in his ears.

  More minutes past, and Sydney began to shake, for Alex’s hand in hers was growing colder. Finally, she couldn’t speak anymore. Sorrow clogged her throat. She looked at Rafe, who straightened up slowly. There was an awful agony in his eyes.

  Sydney threw her arm around him and hid her face against his shoulder, and he held her to him, with Alex’s body between them. She couldn’t bear the pain. It was stabbing her in the heart, making each breath painful.

  Why, oh why, did she only now realize how much she loved Alex? Why now, when it was too late?

  Veris pushed them aside, gently. “He’s breathing,” he said, hustling them out of the way. “Let me get at him.”

  Rafe pulled her out of the way, but he kept her arm around her, as they watched Alex revive.

  * * * * *

  Alex felt cold. He was shivering with it. Veris assured him it was because his systems were slowing down from the frenetic activity they had been put through. Eventually, his core temperature would stabilize, but for now, Alex felt like an old, arthritic human who would never feel warm again. He hugged the blanket around his shoulders, and stayed in the chair where Brody and Veris had helped him, back in the library.

  Everyone else was standing, because tempers were high.

  “We don’t even know if this will work!” Brody said. “You can’t go, Rafe. Alex has to go because he knows where we’re jumping to, and Sydney must go, because she supplies the power for the jump. That leaves one place left, and even that’s a risk because Sydney has only done this twice and both times were accidental. If you think I’m going to give up that place to you, and let you get Taylor back, you’re out of your fucking mind.”

  Sydney was the only one who looked calm, but her arms were crossed and her feet spread…a typical male stance of aggression that Alex just knew she had adopted when facing down male colleagues that disagreed with her. “I know what I’m doing,” she said quietly. “Taylor coached me, and the last time, with Rafe, I made a deliberate choice to jump back. I know how to do it, now. And I can take two.”

  “Then I should be the other,” Veris said.

  Brody exploded. “No! I’m not staying out of this! I’m damned if I’m going to sit here and wait it out!”

  Alex cleared his throat. “Brody.”

  Brody didn’t hear him. He lifted a finger toward Veris. “Don’t even think about it, Veris. I warn you.”

  “Only one of us can go,” Veris pointed out. “Alex is barely able to stand. If the Queen fights it out, and I have no doubt she will, then it should be a fighter who goes with Alex and Sydney.”

  “I’m just as good a fighter as you, you muscle-bound Northman!”

  Veris caught Brody’s face in his hands. “But I’m a doctor. You’re not.”

  Brody closed his eyes, the fight draining out of him. He swallowed. “Okay. All right.” He sounded tired.

  “Brody,” Alex said again.

  This time, Brody turned to look at him.

  Alex tried to sit up. “Marit can take you.”

  * * * * *

  Marit gravitated toward Alex, as soon as Mia bought her into the room. She squeezed her slight body in between the arm of the chair and Alex’s knee, and looked at the five adults watching her.

  Brody sat on the coffee table, making himself smaller and less intimidating. “Marit, do you know what happened to Mommy?”

  She nodded.

  Veris sighed. “The things we do to kids,” he muttered.

  Brody squeezed his wrist, silently demanding he shut up. He kept his eyes on Marit. “Marit, honey, you’ve known for a long time about how we move around time, haven’t you?”

  She nodded. “But it’s a secret.”

  “Yes, it is.” Brody licked his lips. “Is that why you’ve never told anyone that you can do it all by yourself?”

  The other four were silent and strained, waiting for Marit’s answer.

  “Uncle Alex knows,” Marit said.

  Brody glanced at him, then back at Marit. “But no one else knows, do they?”

  Marit gave an oddly adult-sounding sigh. “I didn’t want to scare you and Far.”

  Veris gave a hollow laugh.

  Brody held his hand out to Marit, and she took it. “Marit, do you know where Mommy is?”

  She nodded.

  “Can you take me there?”

  It seemed like a very long time before she answered. “I can take both you and Far, Daddy. The queen lady should take Uncle Alex and Uncle Rafe.”

  “The queen lady?”

  She pointed to Sydney. “Sydney Morrigan.”

  Sydney dropped her arms from the defensive pose. “That is my second name,” she said. “My real second name. But how did you know it, Marit?”

  Brody frowned. “Mór Ríoghain,” he said. “It’s Irish, for a great queen.”

  “You told me,” Marit replied.

  * * * * *

  The argument this time was even more bitter.

  “We can’t just jump into the unknown, with Marit,” Veris declared. “She’s untried, we don’t even know if she’s just saying she can to please us.”

  “She’s not lying,” Alex said, and this time his voice was stronger. Also, he could feel the start of blood fever building in him. He would have to feed very soon. If he could get on his feet.

  “I don’t care if she’s lying or not,” Brody said. “We can’t take a child into a place we just know is going to become a battlefield. Veris if you want to go with Sydney, be my guest. I’ll gladly give up my place if it means Marit stays here and safe.”

  Marit walked over to Brody and picked up his hand and looked up at him. “I’ll be fine, Daddy. Let me take you. Let me help bring Mommy home.”

  Brody scrubbed at his hair in frustration. “You don’t know that, Marit. You know how nasty the queen is. She won’t spare you just because you’re little.”

  “She does know that,” Alex insisted. He sat up all the way. “Marit sees across the timescape whenever she wants to. She knows she’ll be safe, because she has seen it already. That’s why she found me when I was there. She is everywhere, all the time.”

  Marit looked up at Veris. “Listen to him, Daddy. He knows.”

  Veris was frowning. “You needed Alex to explain it
because you don’t have the vocabulary—the words—to explain it. Not here and now.”

  She nodded. “But I’m learning as fast as I can.” Her gray eyes, identical to Taylor’s, were solemn.

  Veris sighed one last time, and looked at Brody. “You don’t want to stay back here while we bring Taylor home. Neither does Marit. I can’t gainsay either of you.”

  * * * * *

  Rafe acquired a blood bag from God knows where. Alex didn’t care at that point. He fell upon it hungrily and didn’t give a damn that Sydney and Marit were still in the room. The stale taste of stored blood didn’t bother him either. Not this time.

  Veris wouldn’t let him feed from Sydney even though she had volunteered. “I don’t want her weakened from blood loss,” he said shortly. “And we’re going to wait until you have your full strength back, too, Alex. It doesn’t matter how long we take to jump, at this end. We could take three hours or three weeks and still arrive at the right time and place. It’s what happens at the other end that will need careful timing.”

  It took another two days to be ready. In that time, Sydney went back to work for the day, at Veris’ insistence. “You have to maintain your current life for now,” he said. “Later, you may want to start making decisions about changes, but not now. You have to keep up the human façade.”

  Rafe also went off to his chambers for the day, and that seemed to convince Sydney more than anything else that the human front to their lives had to be maintained.

  While Sydney and Rafe worked, Alex lay in the chair with his feet up, feeling his strength return with each passing hour. Later that night, when Marit and Sydney were both asleep upstairs, he found he could walk around the room. He no longer felt arthritic. Instead, it felt like it had when he was human and had gone through a tough battle. The soreness told him he had abused muscles while mentally wandering, and his vampire healing wasn’t kicking in as fast as it would normally.

  Rafe came downstairs and slipped into the library, a dark shadow in the low light.

  “She’s asleep?” Alex asked.

  “Finally.” He looked at him directly. “She’s scared, but she won’t show it. Not even to me.”

  The ache was back in Alex’s chest. “Everything, all of this, it’s new to her. Give her time.”

  “I suppose that is one thing I can give her in abundance,” Rafe said. He was still looking at Alex.

  “What?” Alex asked, dropping back into the chair with a tired sigh.

  “That first time you and Sydney time travelled back to the desert….”

  Alex worked his shoulders and neck, trying to massage out the stiffness. “What about it?”

  “Brody, Taylor and Veris figure they don’t need to kiss to make the jump, because the intimate connection between them is so strong, now. But they did the first few times. So how did you and Sydney get to the desert?”

  Alex couldn’t find an answer that would satisfy Rafe. In truth, he hadn’t considered this at all. So he just looked Rafe in the eye. “It didn’t mean anything,” he said. “I think she may have forgotten that I kissed her, in all that followed.”

  Rafe shook his head. “It meant something,” he said softly. “But you’re too honorable to do anything about it.”

  Alex’s pulse leapt. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying nothing. Forget I spoke.” Rafe left Alex alone with his swirling thoughts and speculations.

  * * * * *

  They all met in the library and this time Mia was on hand.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Veris said. “If it’s like we usually experience, then we’re all going to look like we’re asleep. It’s alarming, but all you have to do is make sure nothing disturbs us. We won’t be long. This is in and get the hell out as fast as we can. Nothing fancy.”

  Mia nodded.

  No one picked up any weapons, for they would not arrive with them at the other end. Instead, they sorted themselves into the two groups; Alex with Sydney and Rafe, and Marit, looking small and vulnerable, with Veris and Brody. Veris picked Marit up, so that she was at the same height as the two of them. “You’re sure about this?” he asked.

  She nodded and wrapped her small arms around their necks.

  Alex tore his gaze away from the three of them. It was one thing to say he had seen her within the timescape and therefore knew she could navigate time. It was quite another thing to see a small child taken into battle.

  Rafe and Sydney were standing with their arms linked, their hands around each other’s waists, waiting for him.

  Alex hesitated.

  Rafe held out his arm. “Come here, idiot.”

  Alex stepped into his arm, and Sydney slid hers around his back. Alex found Rafe’s hand behind Sydney, and picked up Sydney’s at Rafe’s back. Sydney looked up at them. “Who gets to kiss me?” she asked, with a small smile.

  “Athair, Far, kiss me,” Marit demanded, behind Alex.

  Rafe leaned forward and his lips met Sydney’s and Alex closed his eyes. The tidal surge took him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The first thing Sydney noticed was that the room was long and low-lit. Then she looked out through the ranked windows along one wall, and saw that it was the day itself that was dark. Thick black clouds billowed outside and lightning roiled within them. Rain was spattered against the windows, too.

  There was a table at one end of the room, and a very slender, almost emaciated woman was sitting at the head of it.

  All around the edge of the room, people stood watching the woman at the table. It reminded Sydney eerily of a king’s court. Then she realized that was exactly what this was. A queen’s court, one of the most mundane sorts, with no fancy trimming, no ermine or glittering throne. But a court, all the same. There was even a supplicant standing in the middle of the bare floor in front of the table.

  Taylor.

  That was all Sydney had time to take in before there was a whisper of sound, one that she had only ever heard in the movies before. It was a sword being drawn, then a clash of steel.

  She looked over. Veris and Brody still stood together, their arms linked. But the third person in their group was a tall woman with long, coppery hair and gray eyes. She had drawn a sword and thrown it up to shield Veris’ back, for the people—the vampires—had attacked immediately.

  “Stop them!” the woman at the table screamed. Tira, Sydney presumed.

  “Marit?” Brody asked the woman next to him, sounding dazed.

  She smiled at him. “I told you everything would work out, Athair. You need to learn to trust, sometimes.” Then she stepped to one side, around Veris, and swung the sword, thrusting the attacking blade away and parrying expertly.

  “My sword,” Veris said, sounding just as dazed.

  “Mine, now,” Marit said breathlessly. “I could do with some help,” she added.

  Veris and Brody shook off their confusion and leapt into the battle.

  “Taylor!” Sydney called, for it was Sydney’s job to collected Taylor. Taylor spotted her and began to run toward her, while Rafe and Alex leapt to defend her back and flanks. Everyone but Marit was fighting bare handed.

  “No!” Tira screamed and thrust the table away from her. It flipped and tumbled onto its back and Tira leapt at Rafe, who was closest to her. She landed on his back, but Rafe shrugged her off and with an inhuman snarl, sent her rolling across the floor.

  With a scream of her own, Tira jumped back onto her feet and this time launched herself at Alex.

  Sydney caught her breath as Veris stepped in between them and Tira thudded against his big shoulders. Veris growled, his huge hands closing around her neck.

  Tira clawed at him, tearing at his throat. He held her away from him, but her fingers made contact. It looked like a flicker of her fingertips, but blood sprang at his neck and flowed down. He gripped her throat and shook her like a rag doll, then threw her away.

  The four of them, Brody and Veris, Alex and Rafe, started to work t
hrough the defending vampires, heading for Sydney. Once they coalesced around Sydney, with Taylor between them, they could all jump home.

  “Marit!” Brody cried.

  Marit stood at their backs, her sword swinging, moving backward as they progressed. Her long, slender body swayed and worked as she hewed at the hands and teeth trying to reach her. “Ready when you are!” she shouted back.

  Tira screamed. This time, the sound was high pitched, a frightening sound that made the hair on the back of Sydney’s neck try to stand up.

  “To me, Marit,” Veris said sharply and Marit turned, spinning, to step up against his flank, her sword ready, as Tira climbed over the back of her own people, and dropped on them.

  Veris caught her by the throat. Sydney watched with an awed horror as his fingers dug into her thin flesh. She knew that Veris was going to tear the queen’s throat out, and there was a kernel inside her that cheered at the idea, even as her viscera cramped and roiled.

  Marit was herding Veris backward even as he worked to fight off the queen’s hands and teeth, and at the same time get a better grip on her neck. His own throat was covered in blood, but it had been a shallow cut, or he had already healed. It wasn’t slowing him down at all.

  They were all very close to Sydney now. She could reach out and touch Alex and Taylor. Rafe, Brody, Veris and Marit were the rear guard, right behind them.

  Taylor reached for Sydney, her arms up.

  “No!” Tira cried, the sound choked. She kicked herself forward, using one of her people’s heads for purchase. The momentum pushed her forward in a powerful surge, over Veris’ head.

  Sydney watched Tira reach out toward Taylor. Her hand curled around Taylor’s throat and swept across it.

  With a roar, Veris thrust her back, his hand coming away from her throat bloody and gored. Tira fell.

  Sydney leapt forward as blood cascaded down Taylor’s throat in a red, gleaming sheet. She clamped her hand over the cut and squeezed. “Now!” she screamed. “Jump! Everyone jump!”

  It wasn’t the plan. The plan had fallen apart. Instead, everyone reached into the middle of the circle, where Sydney and Taylor were standing. They gripped hands, shoulders, whatever they could reach, while they defended themselves with the other hand.