It took a while for them to settle in Lauren’s room. She had to keep on top of bedroom chores, including sorting out her laundry. Shaken up by the kitchen encounter, she watched a little TV to distract her mind from all of the strange and upsetting real things in her life.
When she finally switched off the light and settled back, Lauren soon fell asleep. Her dreams were a lot like the place in the forest where she spent time with Zander.
Reality flickered there, phasing in and out, sometimes in focus and sensible, and other times outlandish and fantastic.
Hands tucked behind her back, Lauren walked along the edge of what was, and what could be. Her bare feet found purchase on ground she couldn’t see. She was naked, she thought, but not self-conscious about it. In the privacy of the dream, her too-slender body and lack of definition meant nothing.
Body consciousness and perfection didn’t exist.
A hand found its place against the small of Lauren’s back. She didn’t need to see him to know who it was. It had to be Zander, she felt his presence distinct from anything else; his smell too.
She was in a place she'd come across before—a mix of feeling safe and secure in a familiar place, with the wild unpredictability of nature and the unknown.
“I don’t want to see you,” Lauren murmured.
“I know. I feel your pain.”
Lauren turned to face not Zander but Greg.
She drew in a steady breath, filling her senses with the smell of the woods and the humidity of summer. For a while, neither of them said anything. They walked together, bound by a single point of contact, as far as Lauren wanted.
When she came to a stop, so too did Greg.
Before them, a body of water glistened in the night. Lauren couldn’t tell if it was a pond, or a lake, or an ocean, but it gave her something to focus on as her throat clenched and tears prickled in her eyes.
“Then why are you here?” Lauren finally asked.
“Because we are all in pain, and I wish to end it,” the man replied. “Zander told us how things ended between you today. We've called on the gods to help us reach you and that's why we're here together now.”
Lauren narrowed her eyes. “Who exactly are you that you call on gods to help you?”
“You know our names. We're men just like all the men you know. We were born in Sparta and we were not married when we stayed and fought to the death at the battle of Thermopylae. We chose to make that sacrifice. Three hundred Spartans fought back against the tyranny of the invaders alongside men from other kingdoms in Greece. We'd trained for it all our lives to defend our way of life.”
“You're not gods?”
Greg smiled and shook his head. “We're not gods, but we've been chosen by them to work for them. To protect and defend. We're Spartans. Hundreds of years after our death Athena found us, all three hundred of us, and asked us if we would defend our way of life again. Of course, she's an Olympian, the deal was we protect Olympus by stopping the passage of entities from one world to the next through these gates. Oh yes. And we get immortality, which turns out to be a long time.”
“So how do you live in Sparta?”
He chuckled. “We live as Spartans. There's a route to modern Sparta through this forest, it isn't the Sparta that exists in your world. In our world, Sparta is thriving.”
“I have no idea about Spartan life, but don't you have wives and children?”
“Athena found the families of the three hundred Spartans but many of us weren't married and didn't have families. The three of us, Casper, Alex and I, we'd lived together since we were young children. We weren't married when we died. We're closer than any family by blood. We've always lived together.”
“I see. So Zander's in love with someone who's dead and gone. Do you have a love of your life somewhere too?”
Greg's smile was broad. “I do. I have Zander and Jasper. And the same girl Zander told you about. We've never given up hope of finding her.”
Lauren let out a heavy sigh. “And Jasper, did he love her too?”
Greg nodded. “He still does. You saw his tattoo across his chest. It says, sacrifice. It's a permanent reminder of our sacrifice for Greece and how we found her. He had it done fairly recently, which shows how much he thinks of her even after all these years.”
“So what? You guys used to share a woman, back in the day, and as she's not around you thought you'd use me?” Sadness gave way to anger.
“No. You don't understand.” Greg’s voice remained calm and patient; his words as slow as ever.
“I understand just fine.” Lauren wiped at her eyes with a single hand. “I’m not a replacement for her. I’m not good enough for any of you because you’re all in love.” Words strained as they struggled to make it through the constriction in her throat. “What is it that drew you to me? Does my body look like hers? Does my voice sound the same?”
“It does, on both counts.” Greg slipped his hand from the small of Lauren’s back to the space between her shoulder blades. “But more than that. Your laugh. Your soul. Your eyes…”
The voice that would’ve sounded soothing at any other time now stoked Lauren’s anger, which raged like nothing she’d experienced before. So this was why they said love hurts.
“Stop it!” Lauren shouted. Her voice rang out through the stillness of the dream. “Just stop it! I don’t want to know that Zander imagined her when we were together and now you've come to take a turn with the girl who looks like someone you know. That's just gross. I don't want to be a stand-in for someone you love, and who you’ll never have again.”
“You think that's the case?” Greg asked sadness in his voice. “Do you think we would ever disrespect her memory by being unfaithful? I told you we never lost hope of finding her again.”
“I…” Confused, Lauren turned her head, looking up at the men. “I don’t know.” Lauren sighed.
Greg looked out over the body of water that stretched before them. “No. You don't remember. There's a difference.” His words eroded the anger in Lauren’s chest and made her doubt what she’d thought. “You remember in bits and pieces. So comes a time that we should part.”
“Fear not, I shall be in your heart.” Lauren spoke the words with the familiarity of time, an old call and response she couldn’t remember. Nostalgia washed over her again, and she bowed her head as the weight of the words pulled her into a memory.
The hut. The three men, nude and lying on their soft white sheets made of the finest linen and wool. Their dogs lounging at the foot of the bed or curled up near the dried mud walls of the hut. Lauren, proud and tall, a little older than she was now, standing in the doorway as she looked over her shoulder at them. Her lovers. The pouch was strapped across her chest and hung at her side, and she wore clothes held together with golden brooches.
Lauren carried more than their gifts. They’d just made love. Though she hadn't seen it in this vision, she knew each of the three men had come inside her and it held great significance to them all that she should carry a bit of them when she departed.
As they did each time before Lauren left their tiny hut to head for the city, and every time they parted ways, they said the same, heartfelt words.
“In time, more memories will come,” Greg promised. “With the help of the gods, I don't know how much. I don't know if you will ever remember the time we spent together before, the years we spent as lovers.”
“I’m her.” Lauren brushed the skin beneath her green-tinged eye. The lady’s mark. “It’s…it’s true, isn’t it?”
“It is how we found you. Your soul was drawn toward the rift, toward our home in Sparta, where it might find us, and at last, you found your way. We found our way back to each other.”
They stood together in silence, looking out across the water. Flashes of memory from another life flitted through Lauren’s mind like the glint of swimming fish scales in the sun. The tiny fragments manifested in different ways—sight, sound, smell, and touch—and each of them f
illed her with a better understanding of where she’d been and all she had lost.
“When we met, and the little time we’ve been together, for the first time in my life I felt like I’d found my purpose by being close to you. I felt desired and loved, and now I’m starting to understand why.” A timeless lover. The heart of an immortal creature. A life she didn’t remember. “You guys never took other lovers? Even after so many years?”
“Never. We have each other, but that could never be enough. We belong together, our four hearts entwined. Our hearts belong to you.”
Lauren tucked herself against Greg’s side, and the man draped an arm over Lauren’s shoulders to keep her there.
“I’m sorry,” Lauren said at last. “I’m sorry for leaving you alone for so long. I’m sorry for…for letting myself be killed.”
“It was not your fault. It was the fault of Man, and the blame has long since passed. All that matters is you found your way back to us.”
“Will I find my way back again?” Lauren asked.
The man didn't look at her. He kept his gaze directed ahead, stoic and strong. When he spoke next, he spoke with finality and a kind of low-burning love that Lauren had never heard before. “I hope you will never need to.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
No matter who she’d been in a previous life, Lauren couldn’t let her current life fall into ruin. The girlfriend of immortal Spartan forest guardians notwithstanding, Lauren needed a second income.
When she woke up the next day, still in her own bed and feeling extremely refreshed, she was determined to take a grip on the things she could control and attempt to find a job.
With freshly printed resumes tucked safely in her new pouch, she made the rounds and, by mid-afternoon, had visited everywhere she could think of in Beaumont. Nowhere was hiring. It didn’t surprise her.
Lauren retired her search before the end of the day, with time left to take her puppy with her to the woods by the football field. As much as she’d wanted to spend the entire day in the presence of the three Spartans and get to know them better, she knew she needed to get her life in order first. Finding work was important. Lauren wasn’t sure what her next steps were, but no matter what she chose, money was essential for her survival.
She picked her way over the raised roots and low shrubs while the pup led the way.
As if trained, the pup behaved well in public. Amazingly, no one had questioned her presence or raised the issue of her breed. Lauren was set to deny and explain away. She wasn’t all that good a liar, but she felt sure the domesticated and trained creatures that looked like wolves must be dogs. Now, back in the woods, it didn’t matter. No one was going to question her out there.
The pup ran twice around a tree, then darted forward and pounced on a leaf up ahead. Lauren trusted her to know the way. Like Lauren’s eye had been marked by a goddess, the dog’s eyes were marked, too, and Lauren liked to believe the dog could act as a homing device. So far, she hadn’t been proven wrong.
Eventually, they came across the rotted stump. The pup nosed at it, and Lauren stood still. She listened, hoping to hear her men approach, but when she was met with silence, she bowed her head and called out instead, “Greg, Zander, Jasper where are you?”
“Never far,” Jasper’s sensual voice promised, just beyond Lauren’s shoulder. She should’ve known; the men’s movements were always silent.
She turned to face him. He stood before looking as if he'd stepped out of a hot hunks calendar. His jeans hung so low that she could help catching her breath as she gazed at his crotch. Raising her line of sight she took in his bare tattooed torso. Sure enough, the script read sacrifice and she felt the love radiating from him.
“You're quiet,” Jasper said.
“I’m just thinking,” Lauren admitted.
“I was nervous you would not listen,” Jasper said. “After Zander told us how upset you were. I feared we'd lose you again.”
The chocolate-thick, warm voice washed over Lauren, making her shudder and smile. She couldn’t imagine this sexy, calm, and tattooed Spartan warrior experiencing nerves. And yet, he stayed at a distance. He bit his lip and clenched his fists. He had something on his mind.
“I felt a connection with you, but I didn't understand it,” she said. “I didn't intend to hurt you.”
“Will you come to bed with me?”
Startled by the abruptness of the invitation, Lauren held back from suggesting they should date and get to know each other a little. Jasper had waited so long. Lauren still had no idea how long and she didn't think she was ready for that information either.
He knew her better than she knew herself and she remembered how much she wanted him the night they met. “Yes,” she replied.
He stepped forward and wrapped her in her arms.
The world around them faded away and then reformed into something different. Lauren stood with Jasper in the hut, facing the fire pit. The pup made the transition with them, and she scampered across the stone floor and launched herself at the bed of wool and linen, burrowing in between two wolves sleeping at the foot of the bed.
Lauren blinked. She breathed in the smoky smell of burning wood mixed with fresh air and held it in her lungs, knowing what she experienced was a place disconnected from the world she knew. This was another dimension, another subset of reality that the Spartans knew.
Jasper’s arms loosened.
Lauren turned around to take another look at the room. The shutters were open. A little light came in, but it seemed tree branches cast shade over the windows. She could hear the sound of children playing.
“It’s a lot to take in, all of this shifting-realities thing.”
“You take it well. There are those who take the shift to Sparta a little less gracefully.”
“Um, Sparta?” Lauren hummed, lacing her fingers through Jasper’s. “So, we're home.” Lauren had many questions and more formed in her head. Lauren didn't know anything about Sparta, and she couldn't imagine it outside the door. There was another idea already occupying her mind. “So, what did you say about a bed?”
Jasper’s arms locked around her quite suddenly, making Lauren gasp. The man lifted Lauren with ease as if she were a bag of feathers. He carried her to the bed where he lowered her down.
Lauren twisted to get more comfortable, and once she’d settled, Jasper kissed her once on the forehead.
“Was I stubborn in my past life, too?” Lauren asked. Jasper thinned his lips in reticence, and Lauren burst out laughing. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“You were spirited. Stubborn is perhaps too harsh.” Jasper ran his fingers fondly through Lauren’s hair, and she leaned into the touch. “You accepted correction and had an open mind. You were not set in your ways beyond reason. But if you wanted something, or you got a notion into your head…”
Lauren held up a hand to signal stop. “I get it. I guess that’s the same now. Am I like her?”
“Very much.” Jasper stood up and stripped off his jeans as he spoke. “You are her. Your physical appearance, the sound of your voice, even the way you speak—although, admittedly, your vocabulary is more modern than hers. We've visited your world often and know it well, yet still, sometimes we struggle to understand it.”
This sight of him stripping out of his clothes so casually while they talked was a little disconcerting. Lauren wondered if she should do the same. It was also distracting. She wanted to do nothing but stare at his body as he revealed more and more of it.
Jeans cast aside, he stood up straight in front of her. She noticed the crooked grin on his face even though she was more interested in his cock at half mast.
“Those clothes, for example. They're uncomfortable and restrict movement. Much of the time here we don't wear much. Except in winter. It can get very cold in Sparta in winter.”
She waved a hand in his direction. “So when you come home from my world you do strip out of your clothes. This isn't for me?”
He pointed to hi
s body. “This is completely for you. I remember you said yes, but if you've changed your mind, well, I've waited a long time, I can wait some more.”
There was something about the look on his face that told her he didn't think she'd change her mind.
“Well if the dress code is nude in hot Spartan summer's I'd better take this lot off,” she said as she tugged her top over her head. “The old me. Did I get around Sparta nude?”
Jasper moved closer and sat on the bed watching her. “At home, often. Outside no. You aren't from Sparta so you weren't bought up in the way we were. And Spartan women usually wear a peplos .”
At her blank expression, he added, “A dress.”
“And the old me, was she like me? What did she like?”
“She was exactly like you. There can be no mistaking you. She enjoyed a drink we called nectar, you would call it mead, a type of wine. Otherwise, you are probably the same.”
She tugged of the remains of her clothing and was aware of his approving gaze roaming over her body in much the same way as she had looked at him.
It was bizarre to think her life had already played out before, and that someone could know her so well based on a time Lauren could barely remember. She let her hands trace down the man’s bare back, enjoying the contact. Whenever they touched, the longing in Lauren’s soul abated. This was where she was meant to be.
Here, in the arms of her lovers, Lauren would find all she needed.
Jasper bowed his head, bringing his warm lips to Lauren's cheek for not one kiss, but a feathering of many. They trailed to the responsive spot just beneath her ear.
A tiny moan fell free from Lauren’s mouth, and she arched her back slightly as her brain and body left the conversation behind. There were other ways to communicate. Lauren longed for the physical completeness that any one of her Spartans could give her.
While Lauren succumbed to kisses around her neck, Jasper trailed fingers across Lauren's stomach over her hipbone and down into the hollowed groove beside. The teasingly light touch almost tickled her bare skin.
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