Kiss Across Chains (Kiss Across Time Series)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “Apricots,” he whispered and closed his eyes.

  His hand dropped to the ground, loose and lifeless.

  Veris picked up his wrist and felt for the pulse he knew he wouldn’t find, as pain ripped through his chest and speared his heart. He looked at Taylor. Her eyes were still wide and hurt and bewildered, but her tears were falling now.

  “Don’t,” he told her, wiping her cheeks. “He was in pain. Now he won’t be.”

  “Take your own advice,” she murmured and stroked his face. She held up her fingertips, showing him the faintly pink tears glistening on the tips.

  Overhead, thunder rumbled from the gathering storm clouds. The bright shaft of sun that had been peeping through the dark grey cloud and lighting their little tableau on the sand extinguished like a candle and shadow was cast over the arena like a pall.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The thunderstorm broke barely an hour later, just on sunset, clearing the streets of everyone but the most determined traveler and casting an early darkness over the city that suited their agenda perfectly.

  Dressed alike in dark tunics and cloaks and both heavily armed, Veris and Taylor hurried through the rain-sodden streets to Veris’ house under the shadow of St. Sophia, their hoods pulled well over their faces as protection against the relentless rain.

  Veris used the hilt of his knife to rap on the door loudly enough to gain attention.

  The door cracked open a mere inch and Rafael’s eye showed. Then he opened the door to admit them.

  “Did you manage it?” Veris asked.

  Rafael wordlessly waved them through into the triclinium. Brody’s body lay on one of the couches, a cloak spread over the top of him. What little Taylor could see of his flesh was filthy.

  “He’s naked,” she observed.

  “They strip the bodies of everything,” Veris murmured. “Even the armbands are removed, to be used for the next incumbent. Then they burn the pyre at sunset.” He pulled the cloak away. “Did you have any trouble?” he asked Rafael.

  “I was nearly run through by patrols who thought I was a looter.” Rafael shrugged.

  “You were,” Veris pointed out.

  Rafael grinned. “I grew up stealing anything that was left unattended for a blink of an eye. I’ve never stolen a body until now.”

  Taylor pressed her hand against Veris’ shoulder. “Shall we leave you?”

  He shook his head. “There’s no time.” He lowered himself to his knees beside Brody’s body. “He was right. I know what to do.” He rolled Brody’s head to one side, baring his neck. Veris opened his mouth, letting his teeth descend.

  Rafael backed up a step and Taylor caught his hand in hers. “You’ve earned his trust. You are completely safe.”

  Rafael glanced at her, his eyes wide. Then he looked back to where Veris was bent over Brody.

  Veris bit into the big artery carefully, his eyes closing in concentration. Then he lifted his head and buried his teeth into the flesh of Brody’s chest.

  “What is he doing?”

  “I’m guessing, but if I am right, then he is injecting the stimulant that is part of a vampire’s bite directly into Brody’s heart and into the major veins and arteries. It should revive him long enough for him to drink Veris’ blood.”

  “Stimulant?” Rafael murmured, his eyes glued to the two men.

  “Veris told me he fed from you on the ship. You must have felt it. The arousal.”

  “Arousal?” Rafael frowned.

  “Excitement,” Taylor amended.

  A faint blush touched his cheeks. “Yes,” he confessed. “I thought…I thought….” He swallowed.

  “It wasn’t you, Rafael. It is in their bite. Veris is using almost pure stimulant on Brody.” She was not about to start a discussion about aphrodisiacs now. It was so not the time or place.

  She found she was drifting closer to the couch, her eyes on Brody, watching for signs of life. Her gaze lingered on his chest and she could barely blink, waiting for the first lift of his breast bone that would indicate breathing. Her eyes started to water as she stared.

  Veris sat back on the floor, his fingers on Brody’s wrist, measuring his pulse.

  “He can’t ingest my blood until he’s breathing. He has to breathe…he has to be able to swallow,” Veris murmured.

  “Your bite doesn’t restore life,” she said.

  He shook his head. “It’s a spark. A last gasp. Enough to process the change…if we haven’t left it too late.”

  “Like CPR keeps the heart alive?”

  Veris’ head snapped up and his eyes burned fiery blue. “God, you’re brilliant.”

  “CPR?” she asked.

  “Heart massage,” he said, standing up. “It’s worth a try. Just enough to push the blood around the body…and the stimulant.” He twined his fingers together, one hand over the other, and pressed the heel of the bottom hand against Brody’s chest and began to depress his breast bone in hard, rhythmic movements.

  After four or five depressions, Taylor heard a soft, sodden crack. Veris hesitated.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Breast bone,” he murmured.

  “You broke it?”

  “You’re not doing CPR properly if you don’t,” he said sharply. “He’ll heal.” He started pressing again and Taylor squeezed her hands together. There was silence in the room except for the sound of Veris working. Through the big open doors, Taylor could hear the rain pattering on the foliage of the plants in the cavedium.

  “It’s not working,” she whispered.

  “It will,” Veris said sharply.

  Fear was grabbing at her throat. “It’s not,” she croaked.

  Veris lifted his hands away. “It did,” he said, looking down at Brody. His chest was rising and falling slowly.

  Hope flared in her, sharp and painful. “Hurry,” she said.

  Veris lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit down sharply. There was a tearing sound and she winced.

  Rafael drew in a shaky breath.

  Veris crouched down and pressed his wrist against Brody’s mouth, forcing his lips open. The vein he had torn open dripped rapidly into Brody’s mouth.

  “Swallow, damn it. Come on, it’s instinctive,” Veris muttered. “Your airway is blocked. Swallow and clear it.”

  Time seemed to stand still as they waited for Brody to swallow the blood. After what felt like a few years had passed, his throat worked.

  He swallowed.

  Taylor sank down onto one of the other couches, relief circling through her, as Veris tore a fresh wound in his wrist, for the first had healed over. He fed Brody more blood.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “He will wake in an hour or so,” Veris said. “He’ll be disoriented, but that will pass quickly. He’ll also be hungry.” He glanced at her. “One of you will have to feed him.”

  Taylor’s heart lurched. “I will. This is a day of firsts, after all.”

  Veris shook his head. “I would prefer Rafael do it, if he doesn’t mind. Rafael?”

  Rafael frowned. “If I must. He will need…much blood?”

  “More than I did,” Veris replied. “But it won’t harm you if you eat and drink straight away and I’ll watch to make sure he doesn’t take more than that.” He tore open another wound and pushed his wrist against Brody’s mouth again. “It will create a bond of sorts, Rafael, so when we’ve returned to our own times, he will still recognize the link. It will help you deal with him.” He grimaced. “And me.”

  Rafael appeared to consider this for a moment. “Very well,” he said softly.

  Veris looked down at Brody’s still form and lifted his arm away. “Now we wait.”

  * * * * *

  Veris was sitting on a stone bench under the eaves, just out of reach of the rain, watching it fall on the plants and soil in the enclosed garden.

  Taylor settled on the cold stone next to him. “Are you brooding?” she asked.

  He leaned back again
st the wall. “Worrying,” he confessed. “Wondering what we will jump back to.”

  There was nothing she could do or say to alleviate that worry, so Taylor sought to change the subject. “Is telling Rafael so much about us wise?” she began.

  “That is why I worry,” he told her. “What are we setting in motion?” He gripped the edge of the bench and squeezed it. “Yet we need something to put me back on the right path when we leave. I must go back to Pergamum. A letter cannot do. Rafael was the next best idea I could come up with. Besides,” he added with a scowl, “I didn’t like the idea of leaving him with that ancient version of a card shark. It was a piss-poor life he had. We can leave him with this house and a start-up stake, and Rafael will have a chance to make something of his short time here.”

  Taylor picked up his hand from where it was squeezing the bench. “Why did you insist he feed Brody, when he awakes?”

  Veris glanced at her and away. It was a telling look.

  “You were lying,” she accused. “There is no such thing as being linked after you’ve fed from someone, or else you’d be overwhelmed by the vast thousands you’ve fed from over the centuries.”

  “There is a link of sorts, if the person you feed from is known to you,” Veris told her. “It is tenuous and it doesn’t last long, but it is there for a while. It is like the intimacy that comes from sex between humans, only this is a more distinct sensation.”

  Taylor nodded. “I guess I wouldn’t have had a chance to find that out because you and Veris have never fed from me.”

  Veris’ flashed a sideways raking of his gaze over her. He didn’t speak.

  Taylor added carefully; “Except for that one time you tried.”

  Veris remained silent. That one occasion had been a disaster…an emotional tearing apart for Veris and therefore for her, too. It had been so harrowing, they had never dared attempt it again.

  “Then if the link is real enough,” she pressed, “You lied or omitted something about the feeding.”

  He drew in a long breath. “I don’t want you risking your health any more than you have to right now.”

  It took several seconds for his meaning to clarify in her mind and when it did, Taylor could feel the floor shift underneath her. It was like the world had moved.

  “No…” she breathed. “You don’t really think… I thought you were just saying it to help Brody. A child?”

  Veris shifted on the bench, facing her. “Every criterion for conception is right here,” and he was wearing the expression and using the tone she had come to label his professor mode. He had dropped back into the mindset and thinking that came from years—centuries, really—of medical training.

  “There’s just my cycle,” she objected. “I have no idea—”

  “You’re ovulating,” Veris said shortly.

  Taylor caught her breath. She could feel her cheeks heating. “How…?”

  Veris shrugged. “It’s a vampire thing. Your heat, the blood.”

  Her cheeks flamed hotter. “You’ve always known, then, when—”

  He grinned. “As much as we’ve always known sunrise and sunset and you know it’s summer or winter. It’s just there, in our minds. An awareness that you take for granted.” He picked up her hand and smoothed his thumb over the ring finger. It was bare right now, but her wedding and engagement rings were normally there. “I will not have you risk yourself in any way. Not if there is a chance of another child and this is a real chance.”

  Her eyes were stinging. “Then there may be some good come out of this, yet.”

  Veris curled his other hand around the back of her neck. It rested there, heavy and big. He had discarded the dalmatic as soon as he’d stepped out of the public gaze and pushed the tunic sleeves up his arms. Now he was more like the Veris she knew; bare arms, rippling with muscle, the familiar scars barely showing in the early evening light. There was just the ragged hair, longer, sun bleached and unkempt, that she was not used to.

  “There has been more good wrought out of this disaster than just the chance of a child,” he told her. “I don’t know for sure yet what that good is.”

  She frowned.

  Veris let out a gusty sigh. “Brody was not the only one to face his demons, here.” He nodded toward the big doors that opened onto the triclinium, where Rafael stood watch over Brody. “I turned him and I didn’t go mad with grief or despair afterwards.”

  Taylor gave him a small smile. “You didn’t,” she agreed.

  “It was Brody,” Veris qualified. “So it’s not nearly the same thing as turning a normal human, but it was a first step. The sky didn’t fall in on me and the earth didn’t split asunder and swallow me whole.”

  Taylor frowned. “Are you saying you want to reach a point where turning people feels…good?”

  Veris’ face clouded over. “Never,” he said flatly. He sat up straight again, his hands falling away from her and stared out at the plants and the night shadows that were swallowing them.

  “This issue is a…weakness, for me. I want it to no longer matter. I want to be able to turn or not turn someone and have it make no difference to me.”

  “Then you want to not care about anyone at all?” she asked carefully.

  Shock slithered over his face.

  “Veris!” Rafael called from the triclinium door. “Brody stirs.”

  They both got to their feet, Taylor more slowly and wearily than Veris. She had gone without sleep for far too long. She could feel it in every bone in her body and in the way her flesh seemed to throb with every movement.

  Rafael stood with one foot thrust outside the dining room door, his hand on the door frame. He took his guard duties seriously. Veris had told him not to step outside the room and he wasn’t.

  Veris moved toward him. “I don’t think we’ve had time to warn you about turning your back on a hungry vampire, have we? It’s been a busy few days.”

  Rafael grinned.

  That was when Brody attacked him from behind. Taylor saw his hands grip Rafael’s shoulder and head, then his face appear as he leaned in to bite. Brody was a stranger to her. His eyes were feral and his expression was savage.

  As Rafael’s eyes widened, Brody’s mouth battened onto the man’s neck and Rafael screamed. Brody dragged him backward into the dining room.

  Veris leapt toward them. Vampire speed. As Taylor drew in a breath of shock at the sudden turn of events, he had already reacted. She felt the small vortex of wind that he created by the speed of his movements tug at her tunic hem.

  He slammed the dining room doors shut and she heard the heavy bar drop into the slots on the other side.

  Then came the sounds.

  Taylor turned away from the dining room and walked in the other direction swiftly through the house to the far end, where she could hear through the window the rain falling on tiles and nothing else.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  She realized she had fallen asleep only when hands shook her awake. She knew immediately whose hands they were.

  “Brody,” she murmured, opening her eyes.

  He was leaning over the high bed she had found, but straightened as she sat up. Since she had fallen asleep, he had bathed and wore a tunic similar to Veris’—a long, simple one that any free man would wear. Even his hair had been combed out.

  Veris sat on the edge of the bed next to her, while Rafael hovered by the door. Taylor glanced at Rafael sharply. He seemed none the worse for Brody’s violent attack, although he was not smiling.

  Brody grimaced. “I scared the crap out of you, didn’t I?”

  “With the feeding, the dying, or this whole trip back to your past?” she asked.

  Brody pulled her off the bed, his arms tight around her and she could feel the difference, now. He had strength to spare and was being careful not to crush her.

  This was the Brody she knew.

  “Please, please, can we go home now?” she asked.

  “Exactly what I was going to say,” he replied
, his lips brushing against her neck. His tongue slid up against her flesh. “Heat,” he murmured. “I remember that now.”

  She shuddered, as images of him lying in her arms, crushed, bloody, his human body still warm, flickered through her mind. “Thank the gods you can remember it,” she whispered and hugged him even more tightly.

  Veris’ big body pressed up against her from behind. “Let’s go home,” he said, his arms coming around them.

  “Wait, not in here where it is so cramped,” Rafael said, holding up his hand. “Step out into the main room here. It would help me sort out matters after if you are out here.”

  Brody shrugged. “Very well.”

  They moved out to the big open area where once there might have been carpets and cushions and other luxuries, but now it was just an expanse of tile, opening up onto the other side of the indoor garden.

  Veris pulled Taylor up against him, his arm around her waist. “At last,” he said with a sigh. “Brody….” He held out his arm.

  Brody looked at Rafael. “You know what you are to do?”

  Rafael nodded, unsmiling still. “I have it all worked out. Veris has tutored me very well.”

  Veris tugged Brody closer and slid his arm around his waist. “I don’t think I taught you as much as you think. You’re going to go far, Rafael. I’m going to look you up in the history books when I get home.”

  The corners of Rafael’s mouth turned up just a little. “That would be nice, to be in…books.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to find you in them,” Taylor told him.

  Brody threaded his arms about the waists of both Veris and Taylor. He took a deep breath. “Home. Home, home, home. If I had red shoes I would click the heels. Do what you do, Taylor. I am so ready I am bursting with it.”

  Veris grinned. “I don’t think I’m going to have to do any steering at all, this time. I’ll just settle for the kiss, then.” He glanced at Rafael. “It has been an honor, Rafael.”

  “Thank you, Northman.” Rafael nodded.

  “And my thanks, too,” Brody told him, looking over his shoulder. “If I had a house to give to you, I’d give you one, too. But, I’m just a slave.”