by Zoe Forward
Matt entered the hall just as Cindy crested the top of the stairs. He closed the door to the bedroom behind him.
Cindy was cleverly dressed, as usual, in colors meant to accent her spray tan and make her baby-blue eyes pop. All that didn’t make up for the emaciation she forced on herself, as if she was in competition with the models that displayed her fashions. The bodice of her gown sagged a bit loosely around her chest, suggesting recent weight loss.
She flipped her long hair and marched up to him. After scanning his rumpled disarray, betrayal transformed her face. Her palm connected with his cheek with an echoing crack. “Bastard! Who’s in that room?”
“This has nothing to do with you,” he said. “Why are you here?” And how the hell did you get past security and Sam? he thought.
“I flew back today. Didn’t you get the message?”
Matt shook his head and rubbed his cheek. Despite the fact they’d never established their relationship to be monogamous and that he had no plans for matrimony with her, he still felt culpable for hurting her.
“How dare you?” Tears trekked down her cheeks.
“Cindy, we never agreed to be exclusive. I certainly didn’t propose.”
Her face drained of color. “Everyone warned me about you. They said you’d fuck anything with two legs. That’s what caused your first wife to OD.”
Matt swallowed his anger. “You should go.”
Cindy pushed past him and threw open the bedroom door. Her gaze homed in on Kat. He recognized the sly look on Cindy’s face.
Oh shit.
“I just wanted to see who Matt used for the little fling we agreed he needed before we get married. He’s already admitted you were nothing more than an itch.” She turned and closed the bedroom door behind her.
“Get out.”
Cindy smiled and mouthed, “Fuck you.” Her spiked heels clicked angrily down the hall away from him.
An energy buzz surrounded his senses. For several seconds he was confused. Then he knew. Kat was leaving. Jumping! His chest squeezed like he was in a pressure tank, and he sucked hard to inflate his lungs. He charged into the bedroom.
Her green eyes narrowed. “I’m leaving before you tell me to this time.” Her form flickered.
“No! Goddamn it. Don’t you dare shift dimensions before we can talk about what’s going on and what you are.”
In one blink of his eyes she was gone. He punched the mattress where she’d lain just seconds before.
Chapter Twelve
Damn Matt Ryan. Used by him again. A fling? She thought they had connected. And built upon what they had years ago. That hadn’t felt like just another one-time screw. She thought she read genuine sadness from him about the baby. What an idealistic idiot she was.
How could he possibly consider marrying that Cindy woman? No one with any proprietary thoughts about him would allow another woman to touch him, let alone have a sanctified fling. Images of Matt with Cindy tortured her brain. She forced herself to breathe slowly and beat back the pain in her chest.
The coldly rational side of her mind pointed out that she could be pregnant again. By him. She wouldn’t survive it, and not just from a medical perspective. It would kill her this time, if she lost another child. Panic hit. Her chest clinched tight until she could barely breathe.
Don’t think about it, she ordered herself. Chances are low. Timing is wrong.
She focused on thinking of nothing. Meditating on clean, pure nothing.
But his final words replayed in her head over and over: Don’t you dare shift dimensions before we can talk about what’s going on and what you are.
He knew she was a jumper and called her a witch. A witch? She couldn’t do fictional witchy things, although it might be cool to start a candle with a finger snap or stir her cup from a distance. Maybe she could do those things. She’d just never tried. Regardless, she wondered how long he’d known what she was.
A loud knock resonated through her apartment from the front door.
Kat dragged herself upright, grabbed her robe from the bathroom, and headed toward the front door. Peeping through the door’s privacy hole, she saw Riley. She leaned her head against the door and groaned. It wasn’t a.m.; it was p.m. He wanted to drag her to that Wiccan thing.
His muffled voice filtered through the door. “I can hear you. Open up.”
She unlatched the chain, threw the dead bolt, and opened the door wide.
Riley gave her a good once-over. “Well, don’t you just look like shit. Is that beard burn on your cheek?”
“Shut up.”
“It happened again, didn’t it? You disappeared.” He gave her a thorough once-over with a knowing leer. “And got busy.”
Her cheeks flamed. “I’m not really up to attending a Wiccan thing tonight.”
Riley pushed through the door into her apartment. “Listen, girlie-girl, I covered for you at work today. You owe me. Just remember you were visiting your sick aunt in Wilmington. Of course, our boss thinks you’re interviewing for a new job down there.” Riley headed for the kitchen and helped himself to bottled water from her fridge. After a big slog, he leaned against the counter and smiled. “On a scale of one to ten, how hot was he?”
She scowled.
“One to ten?” he prompted while waving the bottle in her direction.
“Twenty.” A small smile broke on her face. “I’m taking a shower.”
Riley laughed. “Just be sure to put on something other than that ratty robe. Jesus, when did you buy that thing? Last century? We need to go shopping and get you some sexy clothes. Make it a speedy shower. We are going to the meeting.”
“I’m too tired,” she yelled from the bathroom.
“I don’t care if you had three days of gymnastics with Mr. Twenty. You’ve got a problem. This woman might have answers.”
She stepped into the shower and sighed as the warm water soothed her skin. As much as she hated to admit it, Riley might be right. She needed answers.
…
A discordant chime rang out.
Riley led Kat to a space on the floor. “Take a seat. We all sit in as much of a circle as possible. Our High Priestess, Amy, will likely start us out.”
A short redhead with wildly askew brown hair wearing Birkenstocks and a billowing black skirt made some broad motions with her arm spreading the smoke from incense around her body. “Welcome brothers and sisters. Today I am so pleased to introduce Charlotte Stratford, who visits us again from…” Amy glanced sidelong at the blonde sitting next to her, who had to be well into her late forties.
“Alabama,” Charlotte said in a deep Southern drawl. She pushed at her blond hair, which was pulled into a loose, chaotic bun. Little could be discerned of her body beneath a teal, gauzy dress. As she shifted, the multitude of crystals around her neck tinkled softly.
“Right. She’s going to speak to us about time travel,” resumed Amy.
Time travel? Kat was suddenly very interested in this speaker.
“Thanks, y’all, for inviting me into your midst today. I’m not going to speak about time travel.” Charlotte rolled her gray eyes. “Come on. That’s ridiculous. Instead, I’d like to discuss the Pleiades, the women of Greek mythology who supposedly form this constellation.”
Kat sat up straight, goose bumps popping out on her arms.
“They were seven sisters. The myths written of the Pleiades sisters are confusing and often contradictory, but intriguing. The myth recounts that after seven years of being pursued by Orion, the sisters were each given the option to escape to an alternate dimension and avoid Orion’s advances, if she wanted. That which we see twinkling in the sky is but a reflection of the path she travels from one aspect of the universe to another.”
Charlotte paused and made eye contact with Kat. She said slowly, “From one dimension of this world to another.” A disturbing glint of knowledge shone in her pale, perceptive gaze when it locked onto hers. Charlotte’s gaze drifted to Kat’s wrist.
She pulled her shirtsleeve over the mark.
The older woman’s mouth curved into a small smile.
Kat’s spine went rigid, warning chills racing down her back. This woman knew about her. And that freaked her out.
Charlotte smiled. “The sisters are the keepers of the veil. This is where Greek myth meets Celtic Druidic legend. It is said the Pleiades must convene on the last night of Samhain, that’s November second, every twenty years to assure the ancestors all is well in our world. If not, the ancestors will cross in anger. Then chaos will ensue. And that means Armageddon.”
Amy interrupted with a know-it-all tone. “That makes no sense. Druids revere the spirits of the departed. They think of them as sources of guidance and inspiration. Not as evil.”
Charlotte nodded. “Absolutely. On this day of Samhain, it is essential that the Pleiades commune with their descendants. If not, they risk inciting the wrath of gods. And then the veil will fall, allowing those ancestors to cross.”
Someone asked, “Aren’t the Pleiades immortal goddesses? If so, I don’t understand how they’d have dead descendants.”
Charlotte shifted her legs. “Well…we’ve all heard of the promiscuity of the Greek deities, have we not? These women are their human descendants. The first daughter in each line inherits the Pleiades’ gifts.”
Memories that didn’t make sense skittered through Kat’s brain. Charlotte’s Greek myth was a childhood tale she’d heard before. Many times. Only never from the family she grew up with in South Carolina. Instead, she envisioned a pretty redhead. The myth she’d been told claimed the descendant women were human and they could travel between dimensions, but Kat recalled more details than Charlotte had revealed. Details about the sisters. There were seven, each gifted with unique abilities that were passed to the first daughter in each line. Their protectors were the Sentry druids, who not only revered them, but also amongst that warrior elite lay a destined match for each of those seven women, a love that couldn’t be denied.
Her mind skittered to Matt.
Her storyteller of memory had been one of those women. A beautiful strawberry-blonde Pleiad with freckles across her nose and cheeks. A woman she had called…
Mommy.
Chills exploded down her arms. A confusing vision materialized in her mind. A memory?
“Why are we here, Mommy?” Kat squinted against the pain of the light hitting her eyes. She clung tightly to her mother’s neck. The smell of salty air close to an ocean hit her sensitive nose, and the sound of waves echoed in her ears.
“Katie-kat, you’ve got to let go.”
“No, Mommy. I want to go back to the zoo. You promised we’d see the giraffes today. You want to leave me here. I can read your thoughts. I know it’s true ’cause you’re crying.”
“Those bad men shot me with a dart full of medicine that’s going to make me die unless they give me the antidote. My only chance to see you again is to go back. To get the good drug that will cure me. These bad men don’t know about you. They must never find out about you. They don’t care that you’re only ten. They’ll hurt you. I need you to stay here until I can come get you.”
“You’re going to die? I’m scared, Mommy.” Kat fought as her mother pried her arms from around her neck. “I love you, Mommy. Mommy! Don’t leave me.”
“You’ve got to be Mommy’s brave girl now, sweetheart. I love you. And I need you to survive.” She gave Kat a hug and kissed her. “Someday you may understand. Your father may never forgive me for this. I’m sorry.”
Kat pressed on her eyeballs to ease the pounding head pain. When that failed, she massaged each eye socket, an acupuncture move a colleague mentioned years ago. It’d worked before for mini-migraines. Abruptly, the pain cleared. Hallelujah. Was that a memory or a movie scene? Seemed so real. Grief clouded her mind. Grief over what? Loss of that woman in the weird vision?
She couldn’t recall anything about the woman other than that fleeting memory. She pushed her brain to remember something else. Anything that might explain what was happening to her. Pressing her mind for more info was like flailing against a wall.
Nothing.
Her reward was a throbbing headache so brutal that her stomach knotted. She whispered to Riley, “I’ve got to go. Must’ve been something in the cake, but I feel like I’m going to puke.”
Kat got up and walked briskly toward the front door. She hadn’t realized how stifled she’d felt until she was outside in the crisp evening air. She closed her eyes and focused on the image of the strawberry-blonde woman with the long hair.
A new memory surfaced. It was associated with intense embarrassment. She had dropped a pan of brownie dough on the kitchen floor before it made it to the oven. Brownies she needed for her class Christmas party. Comforting laughter surrounded her seconds before long blonde hair and warmth enclosed her in a hug.
Her life here in this dimension was a sham. Who was she? And where was her mother? And her real father. Of him, she recalled nothing.
Chapter Thirteen
Matt’s secretary greeted him as he exited the elevator on the fifteenth floor. She pursed her lips, disapproval in her narrowed gaze. “You’re late.”
Matt shrugged. He should take issue with her attitude, but he was too frustrated and too tired.
She followed him into his office. “There’s someone here to see you. He’s been waiting about thirty minutes. You must meet with him. This is not a person that takes no for an answer.”
“What happened to scheduling an appointment?” Matt muttered as he sifted through the mail on his desk. He caught the aggravated glower she cast his way. “Who is it?”
“Bryce Sinclair. He is…very persuasive.”
“Where is he?” he snapped, infuriated that Bryce cornered him into a meeting.
“Conference room on the tenth floor.”
“Fine. I’ll head down there.” He stormed back toward the elevator.
He entered the conference room with the taste of irritation in back of his throat. He’d recognized the energy buzz the second he got off the elevator. Druids. As in plural, which meant the old bastard had brought back up. This guaranteed to be on its way to nowhere good.
The chair at the far end of the table was toward the window. To the right sat a college-age boy whose chiseled features could’ve been straight from a page in GQ. The kid’s stylized brown hair was sculpted into trendy spikes. His gaze darted to Matt, curious and nonjudgmental. A low-grade energy buzz identified him as a young Sentry.
The head chair rotated with a soft hiss. And Matt’s irritation jumped straight to need-to-pulverize. He struggled to project only indifference, but he couldn’t help the bitterness in his tone. “Bryce. I’d say it was a pleasure to see you, but I’d be lying. Who’s your friend?”
“You look tired, Matt. Trouble sleeping?” Bryce raised his eyebrows.
Matt sauntered to the bar and poured himself a glass of Perrier. “Can I get either of you a drink?”
“No thanks,” said the spiky-haired guy.
Bryce shook his head.
Between silent sips of Perrier, he evaluated Bryce suspiciously.
Bryce waved at the guy next to him. “This is Jason.” Bryce scanned Matt in a silent, critical once-over and then ordered, “Take a seat. We are going to have that little chat you’ve been avoiding.”
“Why are you here?” Matt shot Bryce an unflinching glare as he took a seat. His scrutiny transferred to Jason.
To the kid’s credit, Jason held eye contact, but his gaze lacked the fuck-you inherent to all trained and tested Sentry. He couldn’t be Bryce’s bodyguard—a little too green behind the gills.
“What would you like to talk about? But let me add that I still couldn’t care less about druid problems.”
“Strange. Wasn’t it you who rescued Katherine the other night? And healed her? I can’t tell you how much we appreciated that. She is, as you well know, important.”
Matt crunched his molars together and sw
ore he would kill Eli. “Coincidence. I was in the right place at the right time. Nothing more.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She could be in the city or back in her dimension. I know you don’t need me as a tracker here in the city. You’ve got people far better than me.”
“You’re good, but I’ve got others for that. I want to actually talk about Katherine Ramsey. You’re the only person to have spent some time with her.”
Matt swallowed his impulse to insist Bryce stay away from her. She needed Bryce’s protective circle whenever she decided to jump back to this dimension. If only his gut didn’t prompt him to do anything other than what Bryce wanted. “How about you tell me what you already know.”
“She has appeared suddenly in this dimension. Her relative lack of background and the detection of some sort of power in her suggests to me she’s my missing Pleiad. Eli indicated the two of you might’ve met before. We feel Jason might be her destined, which is why he’s here today.”
Not fucking likely. Possessive fury lit his brain.
“How do you know Katherine?”
“We met several years ago.” Matt visibly relaxed. That little prick had never met Kat. She didn’t go by her full name.
“When?”
“How do you know her, Jason?” Matt countered.
Jason opened his mouth to speak, but Bryce rested a hand on his arm. “He’s baiting you.”
If that kid touched her, Matt swore he’d kill the wuss without remorse. He would make sure his death was painful and ugly. Shit. This must be part of bonding to a Pleiad. Hell, he was already committed to defending his turf. No, no, no! There was no way some universal force beyond his control was meddling with his life to get him on bended knee with a goddamned ring.
Bryce asked, “Where is she now?”
“I suspect she’s back in her other dimension.”
“Oh.” Bryce sighed.
The sadness bordering on grief overshadowing Bryce’s face surprised Matt. Bryce had never struck him as one to be sentimental where the Pleiades were concerned. Protective and dictatorial, sure—that was his job. Attached, no.