“Not there physically, but that doesn’t make any difference,” he said flatly, his gaze not shifting from her eyes.
Ahhh… And just like that, the shape of it fell into place for her.
“Are you afraid I’m going to resent your relationship with Veris in this time, if you tell me too much about it?” she asked softly. “After all I said about your hold over him, the hold I didn’t have and wished I did?”
“No. I wasn’t even thinking about that,” he said flatly. He grimaced. “Although now I am.” He yanked at the hauberk and pulled it over his head in one impatient tug and it fell with a metallic, heavy sigh onto the ground between his feet. He plucked the undershirt away from his chest. The expression in his eyes was one of discomfort touched with resentment. “This time has always been ours.”
“‘Ours’?” she repeated, puzzled.
Brody rubbed at his brow. “Mine and Veris’.”
It actually hurt, once his meaning sank truly home. She sat staring at him as the pain settled and spread like a fast expanding pool of something black and noxious.
“God, don’t look at me like that,” he said with a groan.
“How should I look?” she whispered.
He turned his gaze from her. “It isn’t meant to hurt you,” he ground out.
“It does.” She couldn’t quite keep her voice steady. “What do all the trips back in time mean to both of you, then, if your time before me is so sacrosanct? Are they just make-believe? Something you pretend never happened? An alternative history in your memory? What?”
“Don’t do this to yourself. Not now. Especially without Veris here.” Brody sounded a touch desperate and even perhaps afraid of what he’d set in motion. “He would explain it better than me anyway.”
Taylor sat up, push her plate away. “Not now? Then when? Where? We’ve been together four years. These trips back in time were supposed to be giving us a chance to backtrack through both of your memories. I thought we were building me into your personal histories. That’s what the queen said and neither of you saw fit to disagree with her, or tell me any differently. Now you tell me neither of you consider me a part of your past. That you’re fighting to keep me out of it! How the hell did you expect me to react? Smile and say ‘oh, how silly of me. My mistake’?” She reached for the tunic she had cut up, thrust her arms into it and yanked it closed around her furiously.
Brody watched her every movement. It wasn’t until she gripped the spiked post at the back of the chair that he spoke.
“You’re reading far more into this than you should.”
“Really? The two men I love don’t want me involved in four-fifths of their lives? That’s trivial?”
That jerked him to his feet. “You’re going to penalize us for having pasts longer than you? I didn’t think you were capable of such prejudice.” The condemnation in his tone was rich.
She held up a hand. “Stop,” she said softly. Tears burned in her eyes. “God, Veris taught you how to do that, didn’t he? When the going gets too tough or uncomfortable in an argument, attack instead. It’s the easiest way out of talking about feelings.”
Brody sank onto the chest. “You’re right. That’s exactly what he does. Jesus, I just did it, too. I didn’t even realize.” He pushed his hand through his hair, then scratched at the back where the long hair he was used to feeling was missing.
Taylor felt her tears spill and let them roll unchecked. Brody was just going to have to feel even more uncomfortable now. This was too important to dance around with subtleties.
“Brody?” she nudged gently.
He lifted his head to look at her and sighed. “Oh, God, it was just a simple thing. It wasn’t this huge significant shutting out you feel it is.”
“Tell me,” she begged.
He looked down at his hand resting on his knee and curled the fingers into a fist, then loosened them. Thinking. Then he looked at her again. “It’s like that rule most people have about not discussing intimate details of past relationships with their current lovers.”
Taylor lowered herself onto the edge of the big chair. It held no cushion or comfortable lining. That, more than anything seemed to characterize Brody in this time period. “But you and Veris are my current lovers.”
“It’s different for us. You live as long as we do, you tend to compartmentalize your life. It lets us blend in with humans. It keeps us sane. Keeps things straight in your mind. You keep the events in one section separate from the others.”
“And you’ve separated you and Veris into one section and me and you and Veris into another?” Taylor asked.
“Something like that,” Brody said. He picked up her hand. “There’s no reason why the three of us won’t continue on for another two thousand years. You’ll have plenty of history to share with us.”
She pulled her hand from his. “Then why do we get to jump around history? Your history? Veris’ history? There has to be a reason. The queen thought it was so I could catch up with your pasts. Now you’re saying you don’t want me to share that. You’re saying she’s wrong. Veris has been insisting for about a year now we’re not just living inside our memories when we jump back, that this is really time travel. We’re actually back in history. I have facts to prove that he is right, too.”
“What facts?”
“I can’t give them to you until we’re back in our time. They’re material proof.” She fought hard not to touch her belly as she spoke, or look down at it. “But if we’re not flipping backward in time for me to catch up with your pasts, then why are we doing it?”
Brody shook his head. “You really think I have an answer for that?”
Her tears began to fall again. “I think you’re wrong. Both of you,” she said flatly. “We only ever travel to times and places in your personal pasts. Things you remember. It’s one of the first things both of you nearly always say when we arrive. ‘Oh, I remember!’ And have you noticed that I’m always with you when we travel? Sometimes the three of us go. Sometimes it’s just you and me and sometimes just me and Veris. But it’s always me that goes.”
Brody’s hand clenched. “I had noticed,” he admitted.
“Why would we be doing that if it wasn’t for me to catch up with your pasts? Can you think of any other reason?”
He sat there for a long moment in silence. Taylor waited him out.
“No,” he said at last. “But it doesn’t mean that yours is the only reason. It just means we haven’t figured out the reason. That’s all.”
She nodded. “I know. I’m not trying to trap you into agreeing with me. I’m just trying to get you to help me to reason it out.”
Brody pressed his fingers to his temples. “God, I wish Veris was here,” he muttered.
Taylor wiped her damp cheeks. “That’s why we’re having this conversation you so hate,” she pointed out. “To make sure he’ll be here next time we need to have one.”
His black eyes skewered her. Her heart beat twice before he said flatly, “And for that you need to know every little detail of what happened when Veris and I met.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“The past has been disrupted. We need to get it back onto its rails again. You know how it is supposed to go because you lived it the first time. I didn’t. But if I know as much about what did happen, I can help nudge it back on track. We both know him inside out. I’ll have to make some adjustments for this younger version of him, but his erotic tastes will still be the same. If we can’t orchestrate your seduction of him in record time, then we don’t deserve him.”
Brody pulled the undershirt off over his head. Slowly, as he thought through her plan. “You suggested something like this earlier today,” he pointed out.
“Yes.”
“You really are willing to help me do this?” he asked, almost diffidently.
Taylor shook her head. “For heaven’s sake, it’s all of us at stake here. I’d do anything to preserve that. So would you.”<
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His face hardened and seemed to grow older before her eyes. “True,” he said simply. “I’m sorry, I keep forgetting the big picture. I only seem to be able to focus on the fact that Veris is gone.” His gaze cut away from her face abruptly.
“For now, that is all we have lost,” she said gently. “If we jump back to our time and Veris is still lost, then we lose it all. I lost Veris today too, Brody.”
He looked back at her, shocked. “And you were the one who kissed him…” He pulled her onto his lap and into his arms. “Forgive me. I’ve been utterly selfish.” His kiss was soft, seeking forgiveness. But it didn’t stay that way for long. His hand wound into her hair and his tongue slid into her mouth, while his lips hardened and grew more demanding and hungry.
His free hand found the hem of her chemise and pushed it up her legs, baring them to the night air that seeped through the tent walls. In this hot, dry climate even Brody’s hand was warm as it slid along her flesh. His thumb caressed her inner thigh.
Taylor sighed. She craved this intimate contact. The implied approval and love was a balm after the loss and disaster of the day and she clung to Brody, her body strumming with pent up need.
“Higher,” she begged, when his lips lifted from hers.
His thumb pushed between her thighs, up against her pussy lips. “No underthings. Why, my lady Tyra, you are most wicked,” he murmured. He licked her throat. His fangs lightly scraped over her skin. “Bare my cock and straddle me,” he commanded.
Taylor glanced around. There were soldiers, knights, pages, dozens of people lingering around the tent, going about their business or sitting or lying about campfires. But they were minding their own business. Inside the tent, as Brody had brought no candles with him, it was almost dark. Only the light from nearby fires illuminated the interior.
“I am their lord,” Brody murmured. “The walls of the tent, even though they are like gossamer, may as well be three feet thick curtain walls of a keep. My men are stone deaf and blind to everything that happens in here until I call for them.” He pushed aside the rendered tunic and his tongue slid over her nipple, through the thin fabric of the chemise. “Undo my pants,” he repeated.
She caught her breath at the bolt of pleasure that speared her at his touch on her breast. She dropped her hand to the fastenings of his braies and fumbled with the ties at his waist. It took her a few moments because she was both inexperienced and excited.
Eventually, she tugged at the garment, letting it drop down his hips and baring his cock. It reared, red and veined, more than ready and she stroked it. She adored Brody’s cock, which was thick and had a perfectly formed head. She loved Brody being inside her. She spread her knees over his hips, feeling her pussy open up ready to have him slide in. She gathered up the delicate chemise around her hips.
“Wanton,” he told her and bit her nipple through the chemise.
She moaned and sank onto his cock, feeling it slide up, separating the walls of her vagina.
His hand gripped her bottom and the tight grip told her he liked the sensation of her around him. Taylor lifted herself up and slid down upon him again.
Brody groaned, his eyes half closing. She caught the flash of fangs. He was truly aroused. She leaned forward to kiss him and lift herself up at the same time. She let her tongue touch his canines very carefully. It was all the warning he needed. She felt them withdraw.
His hands grabbed her hips and with a growl he jerked into her, hard and fast, riding her. She felt his cock slamming up into her and grabbed at his shoulders as her climax rushed at her with express train speed. Her clit was being massaged by Brody’s pelvis with each hard upthrust and all she could do was hold on for the ride.
She climaxed with a cry she did her best to smother against his hard, muscled shoulder.
Brody came a few seconds after her. He shuddered, his fingers digging into her hips and groaned loudly.
Taylor could feel her cheeks heating. Brody seemed utterly unconcerned about the men lying and sitting barely twelve feet away.
Taylor tried to climb from his lap, humiliated, but Brody stopped her. “Don’t,” he said softly. “They take pride in their lord’s virility and they have no thoughts about you at all. It is the way of it and we must be a part of these times for now.” He held her still until she ceased trying to get away from him.
She hid her face in his neck, instead. “For a moment I’d forgotten I was your property.”
She felt him laugh silently. “I wouldn’t dare presume that for anything but appearance’s sake.”
Taylor pulled back and kissed him lightly on the lips. When her breath and heartbeat had slowed, she murmured, “So…do you think you can tell me about you and Veris now?”
His hands linked around her waist. “I can try,” he said evenly. “But Taylor, you’re asking a man to talk about intimate details. Most men would rather stick themselves with red hot pokers than speak of such things.”
She nodded. “While a woman will spend hours going over every single second from every angle and analyzing it for implied meanings and more, with her best friend, her second best friend and maybe her mother for advice, just in case.” She sighed. “I do know this. But between you and Veris, you’re the most likely one to ever be able to tell the tale. Veris would clam up like an oyster if he was in your position. You’ve at least got a famous poet for a father, so you’ve got storytelling in your blood. Think of it that way, if you must. Tell me a story.”
Brody frowned. “If I have to,” he said reluctantly. He flexed his shoulders, like he was squaring off before a national heavyweight champion in the ring. “Where was I before?”
“You saw the spear heading for Veris and stopped it. Big on details, that,” Taylor said dryly.
Brody nipped the tip of her nipple between his teeth and tugged, stretching the still-damp cotton of the chemise and making Taylor catch her breath sharply. “You’re in no position to complain about anything,” he reminded her when he let go.
She took two calming breaths. “The spear,” she prompted him.
* * * * *
The spear had a silvered tip that caught the dazzling early morning sun and flashed in Brody’s eyes. That was the only reason he saw it in time.
The Fatimids had clearly grown tired of the giant knight blocking their path and mowing down their companions with fearless and angry efficiency. Brody was certain now the broad-shouldered knight in the red and black Selkirk colors was vampire. The sword in his side had done nothing more than get his temper up and now he was an fury-filled fighting machine, standing upon a pile of rubble at the top of the breach in St. David’s Gate. Not a single Fatimid had made it through. The man had given Raymond’s people time to build the temporary wooden walls they could put in place over the hole the Fatimids had made.
But the Fatimids had not appreciated the knight’s effectiveness and one of their better warriors had been chosen to deal with him. Armed with a silver-tipped spear, the warrior had stolen closer under the cover of the chaos of Fatimid soldiers pushing toward the gap.
Brody saw the warrior as he began his run up the ramp of rubble toward the big knight. He had chosen a moment when the man had turned away to deal with Fatimids who had stepped through the wall and were perilously close to getting away altogether. From the angle the warrior was approaching Veris, the spear would take him in the back.
Brody began to run at the same time. There was no thought in it. He wasn’t even certain the spear was intended for the knight. He just didn’t like the line of possibility. Vampires and spears didn’t mix and the knight’s flank was unprotected.
Brody pushed between the knight and the ragged edges of the wall breach. He already had his sword up in the high guard position, the tag position, so it was simply a matter of bringing it down as he cleared the wall. It chopped off the head of the spear before it reached the knight as cleanly as a knife cut through lard. Brody risked taking one hand off his sword hilt to catch the infidel by the th
roat as his impetus pushed him farther up the rubble hill. The man literally ran onto Brody’s sword point and a surprised look appeared in his eyes before blood cascaded from the corners of his mouth and all emotion faded from his eyes.
“That was for me, wasn’t it? The spear?” The knight was suddenly at Brody’s shoulder. His voice was hard, heavy.
Brody tossed the warrior back down the rubble hill and looked over his shoulder. This close, he could see the knight’s eyes were pure blue. Saxon, he’d bet his life on it. There’d be blond hair under the helmet. If the man was truly vampire, did he go as far back as Viking, then?
“The spear was meant for you,” Brody confirmed. “You should be more careful,” he added. “Spears can be nasty for some.” He touched his canine under his lip so the knight would see the movement of the tip of his tongue.
The man’s eyes narrowed a tiny fraction. Then his mouth lifted at one corner. “You’ve been watching,” he said, dropping his voice just enough so that anyone nearby would have to strain to hear it. That still meant he was talking louder than a conversation anywhere else might be.
With a start, Brody realized that he had been watching this man with more than the usual amount of attention. His heart thudded. “Yes,” he said truthfully.
The knight turned and blocked a sword and beat back a Fatimid with a growl of impatience for having his conversation interrupted. He looked back at Brody, wiping blood from his face. “Norway, four hundred and thirty-nine.”
Brody felt a rush of adrenaline that had nothing to do with the fighting. The vampire before him had revealed his true age and birth place. Just like that. It told Brody the knight was just slightly older than him. Brody took a breath and rattled out “Britain, four hundred and sixty-one.” It felt risky to reveal such information so quickly, but the knight had already made the first move.
The man smiled, showing whole, good, white teeth. “Arthur’s man?”
“Too young.” Brody pushed back the rush of black memories that came with the name. Irons, chains. His back burning with the taste of a whip. Cages. Filth and cold. Misery. He swallowed back the reaction.
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