Ricochet Through Time (Echo Trilogy Book 3)

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  I sat on the edge of the garden fountain, the scent of the herbs in the garden plot behind me fragrant as the heat from the sun-soaked earth rose to greet the stars. I wore only my long linen shift, as I’d grown comfortable doing in the quiet evening hours after the rest of the family had retired, and I luxuriated in the freedom of movement it afforded. I hadn’t been made for fussy gowns; I found all the buttons and ties and frills cumbersome. And more so, I felt immensely grateful and pretty damn lucky that I’d managed to skip over the periods when corsets were en vogue.

  Tracing the outline of the full moon reflected in the water’s surface, I thought back on my afternoon with Heru. We’d taken a leisurely stroll to the hilltop to the north, where I’d first arrived, and had flattened some of the tall, golden grass under a heavy wool blanket for a midday picnic. The view was unbeatable: early Renaissance Florence buzzing and humming and puffing smoke, a thriving organism on the cusp of a new century, practically bursting with the promise of greatness. These were the days of Leonardo and Michelangelo and Botticelli. Of the Medicis and Machiavelli. Of the curiosity and creativity that lay at the heart of one of the greatest cultural, intellectual, and philosophical revolutions in Western history.

  “Do you know Da Vinci?” I asked Heru while I loaded a slice of bland Tuscan bread with a hearty layer of tangy coarse-ground mustard, a piece of prosciutto, and a thick slice of hard, nutty cheese—all made under Francesca’s artful direction, of course.

  “Leo? We are acquainted.” Heru munched on pickled vegetables, his avoidance of my gaze teasing.

  I slapped his arm even as I took a healthy bite of my open-faced sandwich. “Well … ?”

  The corner of Heru’s mouth quirked. “I take it that Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci is still something of a notable figure in the future?”

  I nodded while I chewed, then raised my hand to cover my mouth. “He is fascinating to many and has become an obsession for some. Books, movies, TV shows …”

  “You have, once again, reverted to speaking gibberish, mistress.”

  I sighed, popped the rest of my bread-meat-cheese combo into my mouth, and shrugged. It was how so many of our conversations ended, derailed by something either Heru or I mentioned that was utterly unfamiliar to the other.

  With another, very contented sigh, I eased back on the blanket and used my arm for a pillow, resting my other hand on my belly. Even the yards of fabric that I begrudgingly wore each day did little to hide the bump now. I was well into my second trimester, and it showed. I could even feel the twins moving around, every so often.

  “I want to stay here,” I said, “on this hillside—in this moment—forever.”

  “You could …”

  I gazed up at Heru, finding his handsome features arranged in a careful, guarded expression. “I could not.” I smiled sadly and reached up to stroke the side of his face. “No matter how much I might like to stay here with you, Heru, I cannot.”

  He stared off at the distant reaches of the city beyond. “I would love you for all eternity, if only you would let me.”

  “Heru …” I let my hand fall away, returning to my belly and the twin souls within—the entire reason I was even here to begin with. They mattered more than anything else in the world, certainly more than this temporary slice of bliss, however reluctant I was to let it go. I closed my eyes and tears snuck free, gliding over my temples.

  “Of course, you must return to the father of your children,” Heru said, his voice devoid of emotion. “He is a lucky man.”

  “He is you,” I said before I could stop myself. My eyes popped open, and I looked at him, horrified that I’d let the truth slip out.

  Much to my surprise, the corners of Heru’s mouth ticked upward and his lips curved into a very self-satisfied smile.

  I stared at him, blindsided by his reaction.

  “I worked it out weeks ago,” he confessed, still staring off at Florence. “It was the only plausible explanation—we had bonded in the future, and once your time became unsafe, you fled to another, safer time, where you would be free to feed the bond while our children grew within you.”

  I shook my head, ever so slowly. “Why did you not say anything?”

  Heru was quiet for a long moment until, finally, he looked at me. “I suppose I was afraid you would confirm what I already knew to be true.” He laughed to himself. “It does not matter now. I know that you cannot stay with me, and I shall cherish you all the more while you are still here, dear Lex, for knowing you will leave me soon.” He leaned over me, propped up on one elbow, and planted his other hand beside my head on the blanket. “I shall not waste a single moment.”

  As his face drew closer to mine, my breaths grew shallow, my heartbeats more urgent. I was desperate for him to kiss me. It had been so long since I’d felt the press of his lips against mine. “We should not.” My voice was breathy. “It is unwise …”

  “Perhaps, but I think I may yet have a chance of convincing you to stay.” Heru’s mouth hovered over mine, and I licked my lips in anticipation of just one forbidden taste. “Tell me you will stay, Lex.” His lips brushed over mine, the faintest pressure, and he pulled back.

  I whimpered, following him up, but he rested his hand on the crook of my neck, holding me down with the gentlest force.

  His eyes burned with a thinning rim of golden fire. “Lie to me.”

  “Yes,” I breathed, paying his price willingly. “I shall stay. Always …”

  He descended on me, a hawk swooping down on its prey, and his kiss was neither gentle nor quick. His lips were greedy, his tongue impatient as he poured weeks of wanting into that one, single kiss. His restraint was minimal; mine was nonexistent. I hooked my hand around the back of his neck, pulling him closer, refusing to let him go. I wanted so much more than this one, need-filled kiss. But it would have to be enough.

  In truth, it was probably too much.

  Heru broke the kiss, pulling back and leaving me gasping, far from sated. His golden irises had been swallowed entirely by pupils swollen with lust. “Perhaps you were correct; that was unwise,” he said, his chest rising and falling heavily. “I can see that now.” When I nodded, he flopped onto his back on the blanket. “The things I wish I could do with you … to you …”

  My hand sought his, and I laced our fingers together. “Tell me?” I watched his profile, saw the moment realization washed over him, quickly followed by a new, more potent wave of desire.

  Heru turned his head to look at me, his midnight eyes boring into me. “Do you truly wish to know?”

  “I—” My whole body throbbed in wanting, aching for the man lying beside me. For the man who couldn’t touch me. I swallowed roughly, parched for far more than drink. “Yes. Tell me.”

  “Well then, close your eyes, mistress, and I shall do as you command.”

  My eyelids fluttered closed, and I inhaled shakily.

  “I would trace the collar of your gown with my lips.” There was a strained note to his voice, a huskiness I was all too familiar with. “Yes … be my hands and lips, Lex. Do what I would do but cannot …”

  I hadn’t even realized I’d started running my fingertips over the sensitive skin below my collarbone, following the embroidered edge of the dress’s collar. I withdrew my hand but, after opening my eyes and meeting Heru’s, settled it once more on my chest. My hands were his. “Keep going. Please?”

  He licked his sculpted lips before curving them into a sultry grin. “As my mistress wishes …”

  Skimming my fingertips along the fountain’s onyx surface, I blushed even recalling the things he’d said—and I’d done—on that hilltop. We’d been foolish, playing with fire, but somehow we’d managed to emerge unscathed. This time.

  We couldn’t do it again. Not ever. It was too dangerous.

  From behind me, I heard Heru approach the fountain. “I would take you to bed on this night,” he said. His fingers traced fire along the line of my shoulders, tempting me to dance with those deadly
flames once more.

  I shivered, goose bumps forming all over my skin.

  “… would doing so not condemn us both to death.” He sat beside me on the fountain’s rim. “I have been replaying our kiss in my mind all evening.” And I knew that by “kiss” he meant everything that had followed that brief, lip-locked moment. “Tell me of the first time our lips touched.”

  I tore my gaze from the water’s faintly rippled surface and looked at him, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

  “Your first time,” he clarified.

  “Oh …” The few tendrils of hair that had escaped my loosely pinned bun caressed my back and shoulders. “I always think of it as the time I uncloaked an echo of you in the At—it was when I first learned you were Netjer-At.” I smiled fondly. “But you claimed that one did not count, since it was only our bas, not our actual bodies.” My smile faded as realization dawned. Going into the At together wouldn’t have been a possibility in my native time, because it was so unstable—but we weren’t in my native time. The At here was pristine, only skewed due to my out-of-time presence.

  “Heru …” I stared at him, my pulse speeding up as an overlooked possibility occurred to me. “What happens to our bas in the At has no impact on our physical bodies, correct?”

  His fingers closed around my wrist, his thumb tracing the pulse along the inside. His eyes were lowered, but the moment they met mine, I knew he was on the same page. Hell, from the looks of it, we were on the same damn word of the same damn line.

  Heru stood and held out a hand to me. “If it is not inconvenient, mistress, perhaps you would accompany me upstairs?”

  I nodded, eyes wide and heart thundering. I placed my hand in his, and we raced up the two flights of stairs to his Spartan bedroom. I’d barely sat on the bed before Heru’s ba pulled mine into the At.

  We crashed into each other amidst an ocean of color. The vibrant swirls of the whenless, whereless At surrounded us, dulling in comparison to the torrent of emotion cresting between us. Heru tore at my imagined gown, and I treated his unreal clothing with equally vicious disregard.

  No time was wasted on buildup, on gentle kisses or teasing caresses—we’d had enough of that on the hilltop. My lips moved against his with crushing desperation, and he responded with equal, unrestrained ferocity. My arms wrapped around his neck as his hands gripped the backs of my thighs, hoisting me up. I wrapped my legs around his hips, hooking my feet together and pressing them into his backside to get closer to him.

  Heru broke our kiss only once, hissing in a breath when he first slid inside me.

  In that moment of stillness, in the timeless eternity, the controlled chaos of the At all around us, I felt utterly at peace. There was a deep sense of rightness in being joined with Heru, there in the place where our bodies held no sway over what we were feeling—over who we were to each other. There, in the At, Heru and I were simply a man and a woman, no pheromones driving our need, no ancient prophecies pushing us together.

  We were Heru and Lex, two people who cared for each other beyond words. Just two people, loving each other. We were, I finally realized—finally accepted—so much more than perfect chemistry.

  I smiled, just a little, and was pleased by the answering warmth in Heru’s tiger eyes.

  The moment I rocked my hips, he groaned and leaned in, capturing my lips once more. It was eons until he released them. And I savored every single second.

  18

  Far & Away

  I woke the next morning feeling more unsatisfied than ever. Damn it.

  I rolled onto my back, legs tangled in the skirt of my shift, and reached out for Heru. I felt nothing but soft linen sheets and hard mattress. My eyes popped open, and I turned onto my side, propping myself up on my elbow. As I scanned around the bedroom, disappointment settled in my stomach. I was alone. Heru’s sword belt and scabbard weren’t hanging from the corner of the wardrobe, meaning he’d left the farm, and the jug and tray of bread, cheese, and fruit on the table told me he’d expected me to wake before he returned.

  Flopping onto my back, I stared up at the exposed beams and white plaster ceiling. I felt Heru’s abandoned side of the bed once more, trying to gauge how long he’d been gone based on the residual warmth—or lack thereof. Long enough that the bed was cold. I huffed out a breath and rolled to my other side to sit up.

  And realized I was about to pee my hypothetical pants.

  “Oh, no,” I said, standing and rushing to the chamber pot behind a simple wooden screen in the corner of the room. “A little warning before you smoosh my bladder would be nice, guys,” I muttered to the twins.

  After a quick wash using the basin on the washstand by the wardrobe and bar of house-made soap scented with lemon and lavender, I headed over to the table and plucked a nugget of hard, aged cheese from the tray, popping it into my mouth. There was a folded piece of thick paper propped up in front of the jug, my name scrawled on the front in Heru’s long, slanted hand. I poured some unfermented grape juice into a pewter goblet and sipped from the cup as I picked up the note and read.

  He’d written in English, since hieroglyphs would have taken forever to draw out, but it meant he’d purposely kept the note simple. His English and my English didn’t really get along. The note told me he’d gone into Fiorenza—the contemporary name for Florence—to retrieve a gift he’d commissioned for me, one apparently made by Leonardo da Vinci himself. I could hardly be irritated about that.

  Although it was the beginning of my twenty-eighth day here, and Heru had estimated it would take Apep a little over a month to journey here from London. He was cutting it a bit close …

  The door at the foot of the stairs opened, and heavy footsteps ascended the stairs at a quick clip.

  “I did not expect you to return so—” My words died on my tongue as I stared at the man cresting the top of the staircase. “Nik!” I took two halting steps toward him. “What are you doing here?”

  Nik blinked, and his irises faded from pale blue to the iridescence of moonstones. “Apologies for barging in, dear Alexandra,” Re-Nik said, “but we only recently discovered the urgency of the situation.”

  I craned my neck to see the empty stairway behind him. “Aset?”

  “She is downstairs, convincing Heru’s kin that we are not here out of malicious intent.”

  Considering the menacing figure he cut in his crimson doublet and black jerkin and hose paired with the long, thin sword in the scabbard at his hip, I could understand their concern.

  “Please”—he waved his hand in the general direction of the wardrobe—“you must dress. Apep is hardly an hour’s ride away, and Heru is still in Fiorenza. You must make your way to the city quickly if the twins are to have any hope of blocking his memories when they pull you from this time.”

  I rushed to the wardrobe and pulled out the first gown I saw—the simple, midnight-blue wool dress Aset had given me centuries in the future. The silver-embroidered belt that had once rested at my waist had to be shifted higher to accommodate my growing belly, but it didn’t look overly ridiculous.

  I stared at the stockings rolled up in the top drawer beneath the cabinet. “Warm or cold?”

  “I am afraid I do not—”

  “Am I dressing for warm or cold weather, Re? Where am I headed? And when?”

  “Ah, right … you will land in Fiorenza again, but I believe you arrived shortly after the New Year, so—”

  “Cold,” I said, taking the thickest pair of stockings from the drawer and pulling them on up to my knees. I sort of hop-stepped around to the far side of the wardrobe to retrieve the knee-high leather riding boots Heru made me wear when we walked around the vineyards and explored the surrounding hills—to stave off snakebites, he’d claimed. I didn’t mind; they were incredibly comfortable.

  I also retrieved one of Heru’s cloaks, a dark gray wool of such a fine weave that it almost glinted silver in the sunlight streaming in through the room’s narrow twin windows. I slung the cloak ov
er the crook of my arm, then grabbed my drawstring purse from the floor of the wardrobe cabinet and tucked it into my skirt’s hidden pocket.

  “Alright,” I said, taking a deep breath to calm the wobble in my voice. Though I’d known this day would come, and soon, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this place—to this Heru. Not yet. Another deep breath, and I nodded once. “I am ready.” Maybe by saying the words, I’d make it real. I’d make me ready.

  Re-Nik continued to block the way, his eyes scouring the room.

  “I am ready?” I said, far less sure this time. “Am I missing something?”

  “It is not here,” Re-Nik said, more to himself than to me.

  “What is not here?”

  “The sword.”

  “A sword?” I raised my hands, palms out. “I have no need of a sword, Re. I have never used one before. It would be useless in my hands.”

  “It must be elsewhere in the house.” He turned and jogged down the stairs.

  I followed him, moving just slightly slower to avoid tumbling the rest of the way down. “Are you even listening to me?” I stood in the hallway outside of Francesca and Giovanni’s bedroom while he did a quick search. “Re?”

  “You had the sword when you arrived last time; therefore, you most definitely do need a sword.”

  I placed my hands on my hips. “Well, Heru keeps a spare downstairs in the chest, just in case, so you can stop violating Franci and Gio’s personal space already.”

  Re-Nik straightened from peering under the bed and smoothed down the front of his jerkin. “I see. Well, by all means, Alexandra, lead the way.”

  Picking up on the urgency in his tone, I lifted my skirts and hurried down the hallway toward the stairs to the ground floor. Once I’d reached the bottom, I rushed across the sitting room to the bench-chest and lifted the seat with a grunt. The thing was sturdy and weighed a ton.

  Sure enough, resting on top of a pile of folded blankets, quilts, and table linens was a scuffed and age-darkened leather scabbard. I’d never actually lain eyes on the backup sword, so I was surprised to find it was long, thin, and slightly curved … very Japanese, and very unlike any European swords of this time. It had a simple leather-wrapped hilt and a steel pommel inlaid with a silver medallion displaying a falcon—Heru’s ancient symbol.