The Isis Knot

by Hanna Martine

  Though he wore a black, dour look, and she could tell by the rip of his shirt and the red mark on his cheek that he’d been fighting again, he might have been the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen. She could’ve dismissed the urge to cross the dirty floor and throw her arms around his neck as just the need for comfort after her mistake with Jem, or her desire to apologize. She could’ve told herself that it was because she was worried about William’s injuries and that she wanted to see if there was anything she could do for him.

  The truth was, she’d missed him. All day she’d thought of him, replayed their close interaction in the courtyard from last night, touched her lips where he’d kissed them by the river, ran a hand between her legs where he’d teasingly placed himself several times before. She recalled all that he’d told her about his life, and remembered his quiet understanding and open inquisitiveness about hers. She wanted to know more about him. She just wanted to be around him.

  Now he was back in the room and within her sight. She was halfway across the floor, arms outstretched, when she realized that Ramsesh was only a gentle flicker inside—the ghostly woman was present and aware and reaching out to William, but all those prior feelings had clearly been Sera’s own.

  She stopped just feet from William, ready to tell him that—ready to tell him something she knew he was dying to hear—when he frowned, his eyes darting around the room.

  “Jem isn’t here?”

  She blinked. “He isn’t at Waldgrave’s tannery?”

  He paled. “No. I was just there.” He started to back toward the door. “I’m going to look for him.”

  “He’ll be back,” she said, hoping it was the truth. Hoping she hadn’t driven Jem into something terrible. Hoping that William wouldn’t leave again.

  “Riley is at Cook’s,” William said, which explained his new bruises. “I can’t take that chance.”

  As quickly as he’d come back, he left her alone again.

  #

  William crouched by the water, surrounded by the slap of the waves against the fishing boat hulls. The sun hung bright and hot to the west, approaching dusk. He hid himself from everyone but the few dock workers who were just crooked enough to be trusted. Question or befriend too honest a man, and he risked someone squealing about his bolting.

  Where the hell had Jem gone? And was he safe? William had been searching the Rocks for nearly an hour, and there was no sign of the lad.

  The Remembrance was still anchored in Sydney Cove, taunting him. A vivid picture came to him—not a vision from Amonteh, but a personal wish—of him and Sera standing at the railings, watching New South Wales fade as they sailed away.

  Something had changed and deepened between them last night. Something apart from what had happened to Francine Waldgrave.

  Every time he was with Sera, she burrowed a little further into his heart. When they parted, she receded from him like a wave and left behind beautiful bits and pieces of herself. He clung to all of them—her tentative words about her future time, the hesitancy of her touch that clearly masked her need, the strength with which she wielded the gold cuff and the magic that came with it. But most of all, the way she looked at him.

  Was that how love felt?

  Suddenly he couldn’t breathe, his lungs laboring. Love. Was it Amonteh’s cruel trick, then, to make William love someone he most certainly could not have?

  A woman’s shrill voice pierced the quiet of the harbor. He’d recognize the speaker anywhere, because she haunted his fitful sleep.

  The sound of her voice sent a spear of phantom pain slicing through his abdomen. His hand unconsciously dropped to his gunshot scar, which began to throb. The woman shrieked again.

  Though he couldn’t see her, he guessed she was standing somewhere near the row of stone storehouses along the back of the docks.

  He recalled what Sera had said to him once about taking stock of his surroundings—the placement of people, the pathways toward the exits. He crept away from the water and headed for the storehouses, keeping low, his brimmed hat pulled down. He crouched behind a huge coil of rope and a stack of barnacled traps, and peered out.

  He recognized her dress—no longer yellow, but the color of slushy sand—and her gaunt, pointed face. She’d found them. Somehow, Elizabeth had tracked them to Sydney.

  She roamed the area in front of the storehouses like a drunkard. Round, bugged eyes barely blinking. Hands wringing. Steps uneven. She grabbed random workers and demanded the same thing over and over: “Sera. I’m looking for a woman named Sera. Black hair. Dresses like a man.”

  William’s stomach lurched, igniting an intense burst of fury. He didn’t care if he got shot again, as long as it meant Sera’s safety.

  The dock workers eyed Elizabeth with disgust and shrugged her off as if she were diseased. It didn’t deter her one bit. Next she started asking about the cuff, if anyone had seen a woman wearing a large, solid gold bracelet. That question had received due attention, but no positive answers.

  Her behavior was drawing a noticeable amount of curiosity. William remembered all too well what a scene she could cause when provoked. She was crazed, and mad people weren’t afraid of anything. Though he longed to march out and drag her away to silence her ramblings, he couldn’t afford to be caught in the middle of one of her storms. Everything would end if the soldiers or constables or anyone else looking to be on the right side of the law caught wind of his presence.

  Going after Elizabeth and risking exposure wouldn’t be worth it. At this point, only Sera mattered.

  With a sick feeling, he wondered about the man who’d been with Elizabeth in Parramatta, the one who had held her down and then got a shoe in the bollocks for his efforts. She was quite obviously alone, when women generally were not left alone in this untamed world.

  Sera had been right. Elizabeth wanted the cuff, and the confines of the prison colony were not going to stop her from hunting it.

  He slunk back through the harbor, keeping close to the water so Elizabeth would not see him among the boats and shacks. When he was finally free from the sound of her voice and the sight of that dress and those desperate eyes, he ran back to Waldgrave’s, one hand clutching his pulsing scar.

  He burst into the hidden room, startling Sera from where she’d been trying to sew again at the table.

  “Did you find Jem?”

  For a moment he was confused. “No. No, I didn’t.” Jem. How could he have forgotten? But what could he do about the missing lad now? William’s jaw ached from its tight clench.

  He beckoned her to him. “We need to leave. Now. And pin up your hair.”

  “What is it? What happened?”

  She was a smart, brave woman who didn’t titter, didn’t falter in the face of danger. And as much as he wanted to kiss her for it at that moment, he could not.

  He ventured farther into the room, into the hazy circle of oily lantern light. “It’s Elizabeth. She’s in the Rocks.”

  Sera’s face turned ghostly. “Did she see you?”

  “No. I’m sure of it. But Sydney is small enough, the Rocks even smaller. She’s asking everyone she can about you. No one I saw her talking to knew about you, but sooner or later she’ll find someone who does. Someone who might’ve seen you with Francine.” His eyes dropped to her covered arm. “And she was asking about the cuff. Any mention of gold is enough to call out a manhunt. Even Waldgrave might not be able to resist coming after you, if word reaches him before we’re gone.”

  Her hands came to her waist, her gaze fell to the floor, and she nibbled at her lip. The expression of calculation was intense and unexpected.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.

  She gripped the back of one of the rickety chairs. Picked at a splinter of wood. Wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “What is it?”

  “This time,” she said, her quiet voice filling the room, “I don’t want to run.”

  “Why ever not?” Since she refused to panic, he did enou
gh for the both of them.

  “Elizabeth would’ve shot off my arm to get the cuff. She doesn’t want it for what it’s made of, for its monetary value. She wants it for what it means. What it does.”

  He remembered Sera saying as much out in the bush, right after she’d stopped death from claiming him. He knew better at this point than to question the possibility of things, so instead he asked, “But how could she possibly know anything about it? I was the first person to step foot in that cave in who-knows-how-many years. Oliver took the cuff with him when he left, and you are his ancestor. It’s been passed down through your family, as far as you know. Then you retrieved it from that museum only weeks ago.”

  She was slowly shaking her head. Not in denial, but in thought. “So maybe Elizabeth has something to do with Oliver. Maybe she learned of the cuff back in England, after he returned and before it was left to me.”

  “She would’ve been a child then.”

  Sera threw up her hands and raised her voice. “But she knows it! She knows more than you or me. Can’t you see how valuable she could be to both of us?”

  Right then he knew exactly what she was about to propose, and both the man he was and the Spectre he harbored screamed silently in protest.

  “I don’t want to run away,” she said. “I want to talk to her.”

  He growled in frustration and spun away to press his forehead and palms to the cool wall. This was where they were impossibly different, as different as centuries, because the true dangers of this place would never seep beneath her skin.

  “She’ll try to kill you again. I want you as far away from that madwoman as possible.”

  He sensed her coming closer. Amonteh hummed and stretched for her.

  Her hand drew a hot line down his spine. “I know you do.” She fisted a handful of his shirt. “But don’t you also feel like everyone else knows more than you? Neither one of us knows who the hell Amonteh and Ramsesh were, or why they’re inside us, or why they want us to be together, or—”

  “To fuck.” It came out more harshly than it should have. Sera, because she was Sera, did not flinch.

  “Yes.” She swallowed. “That. But there’s also the cuff and what it can do. Elizabeth knows something. She knows a hell of a lot more than either one of us.”

  He rolled so the wall propped up his back. Defeat weighed upon his body, because he knew she was right. He cupped her cheek, her softness lancing straight into his heart. “There are other ways to get answers. Risking your life isn’t one of them.”

  He was thrilled to feel her press an inch closer. Most of the doubt had drifted from her eyes. “It’s not really about me anymore, is it?”

  His hand tightened at the back of her head. “If you walk up to her on the street she could bring all of Sydney down upon us. Jem and I are bolters, remember?”

  Her voice was so soft he could barely hear it. “Then don’t come with me.”

  He snagged her arms and pulled her chest to his, making sure she saw no one but him, nothing but the worry in his eyes. “She’ll kill you. I have no doubt about that. She’ll kill you and rip off your arm and take the gold. You’re not going anywhere near her without me.”

  “Then we’ll figure something else out. Find a way to spy on her or lure her someplace alone. Then we can question her.”

  “Question her?” There would be no reasoning with that woman.

  “Fine, then. We’ll think more about it. But you’re right; we can’t stay here. She’ll find her way here eventually.”

  He scratched at his face and looked around the bleak room, remembering why he’d left in the first place. “Jem…”

  She wore an inscrutable expression. “You’re right. We can’t just abandon him.”

  A few days ago, she would’ve left him behind. Did her change of heart have to do with what he’d told her about Jem? Or did it come from someplace else? There was no more time to wonder. They had to move.

  His mind raced, running through the layout of the Rocks he knew so well now. “If we climb higher up into the Rocks there are some houses still under construction. One has a view down the steps into the courtyard outside this room. We could go up there and hide, and watch for when he comes back.”

  She nodded, but her body had gone stiff as a ship’s mast.

  He slid a hand over her shoulder and squeezed. “What’s wrong?”

  A sad look turned down the corners of her eyes. At length she said, “Nothing. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 20

  William kept a tight clamp on her hand as he pulled her out of the hidden room and toward the courtyard stairs. The grip told of his distress.

  Night was falling fast, and most of the lanterns around the Rocks had not yet been lit. She still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that a place of relative civilization, where hundreds upon hundreds of people lived cramped together, could be so dark and still at night. She wondered if she ever would, or if she’d find herself back in twenty-first century America before that could happen.

  For the first time since she’d arrived here, the thought of returning home came with dread. She had the solid, protective feel of the man’s hand holding hers to thank—to blame?—for that.

  They climbed up the stone steps and flew past the Waldgraves’ door. Briefly she wondered if Francine was inside, if she was doing okay. Then William tugged her up higher. They stepped over broken pieces of crockery and ducked beneath laundry lines waving with clothes that would never truly be clean of the New South Wales dirt.

  The stairs stopped at a sloped lane, wide enough for a horse and cart, that switchbacked from the top of the Rocks to the bottom. William checked that no one was about, then dashed across the lane to where another set of steps continued straight up the cliffside.

  A row of tiny, square homes, only half-built, sat near the top, and he guided her into one of them. Its sandstone walls made jagged horizontal lines against the town. Through the open roof, she could see each and every star as it poked through the night.

  Below, the horseshoe of the cove carved a black hole in the center of Sydney Town. The stairs they’d climbed shot straight down into the courtyard, giving them a good view.

  “There.” William pointed, his face grim. “We can hide here and watch for Jem’s return.”

  Sera slid to the dirt floor, just below a rectangular hole that would become a window. She prayed Jem would come back, and soon. She prayed she hadn’t been the one to send him into danger and to cause such terrible worry on William’s face.

  “What is it?” he asked softly, sinking beside her.

  She came to her knees before him and touched his face. Ramsesh sang, but the pleasure Sera got from touching him rang even louder. They were two distinct feelings now—a gentle, insistent pulse fed from the cuff, and a louder, more erratic beat that teased her between her legs and sent her heart skipping. And then there was just the feel of him in her hands, the softness of the hair on his cheek, the shape of his chin, the texture of his sun-worn skin.

  How could she tell him what she’d sworn to Jem not to repeat, or even think? She’d already upset the boy; she didn’t want to humiliate him in William’s eyes. She didn’t want to make it worse, didn’t want to strain their relationship any more than necessary.

  “I, uh…” she began, then her voice dried out.

  William sighed. He’d come to his knees, too, and now his hands dropped to her waist. He dipped his head, his eyes finding hers, the emotion behind them going incredibly soft. Powerfully magnetic.

  It took nothing more than that, nothing longer than a second or two, for her to be completely swept into his presence. To become wrapped up in it, tied tight with no chance for escape.

  To want more.

  He shifted even closer, his thighs pressing lightly against hers, his mouth hovering so very close.

  “You…?” he prompted.

  She instantly responded to the hot tease in his voice. She did. Though Ramsesh was gleefully prodding her forward, th
e ethereal woman was in the background, overshadowed. Sera herself was suddenly overtaken by a shivering desire for the man whose quickening breath skated across her face. It was as if she’d been injected with him, and now he swam through her veins, making her high and needy.

  “I wanted to tell you,” she whispered, “that even though there are things inside us, souls or spirits or magic or whatever, I think I know what I feel now.”

  He pressed even closer, and his hardening cock touched her between her legs. “Do you now?”

  Her eyelids flickered at the sensation, and her breath stuttered. “I think so.” Her hips made a circle as she rubbed herself against him. It was his turn to groan and she adored the sound.

  “This afternoon,” she said, “when you came back to the room, I realized that in the short time you’d been gone, I’d missed you. That I wanted to be with you. And when I listened closer, scared that it was Ramsesh telling me to think that, controlling me, she was silent.”

  The tiniest of smiles played at his mouth.

  She reached up and ran her thumb across his lower lip, gently pulling it down. Soft and swift, her tongue glided briefly inside his mouth. “It’s me that thinks that,” she murmured. “It’s me that wants you.”

  Everything about him went quiet, still.

  Then with a low rumble deep in his chest, he crushed her to him. Mouth to mouth, chest to chest, thighs to thighs. He angled his head to open her lips and slide his tongue against hers, and she went dizzy. Nearly blacked out. They kissed hard and urgent, their hands groping. They kissed as though a clock were running somewhere, counting down the minutes they had left together.

  Maybe that was true.

  She didn’t want to think about that now, and tightened her hold on him.

  Between them his cock stiffened, trying to push through his pants and her skirt. God, how she’d been dying to feel that. How she’d foolishly tried to make herself believe she hadn’t.

  Her hands skimmed his hips and ass, feeling the terrific power in the clench of his muscles—the power he would soon use to push himself inside her the moment nothing came between them.