Chasing Time

by Elena Lawson

  I was determined to feed this connection, see where it led me. Led us. Jasper’s behavior in the bathtub hinted he may have the same feelings for me as I had for him. And then there was Alex’s chaste kiss on my hair. Ellis’s sweet, albeit timid, smile. Everett’s protectiveness.

  How could I have feelings for four entirely separate men?

  If it was present day, I would’ve suggested dating all four of them until I could choose…if I could choose.

  I wasn’t entirely sure I would be able to.

  Didn’t even want to try if I was being honest…but if I was stuck here…

  And then there was the whole time-traveling thing.

  I needed to tell them the truth.

  That revelation was even more damning than the ones I had about my feelings. How would they react? Would they hate me for keeping this a secret from them?

  I mean, they were like pretty much witches. If anyone was going to understand—to believe me—it would be them, wouldn’t it?

  But the thought of telling them still made panic—icy, icy panic—skate down my spine.

  I couldn’t bear it if they shunned me. If that precarious trust we gained shattered. What if they were upset that I lied to them? Pissed that I’d kept it a secret all this time?

  Woman up, Beck, I told myself firmly.

  Taking a deep, calming breath, I followed the raucous laughter into the kitchen. I opened my mouth to confess to everything—my origins, the drug, my family—but what came out wasn’t any of that.

  “What’s for breakfast?” I asked as soon as I entered, chickening out.

  “Mornin’, lass,” Alex exclaimed cheerfully from where he stood by what appeared to be an old-fashioned stove. Well, I supposed it was a modern stove considering the company I was in. He had a worn dishcloth tossed over one shoulder—the edges frayed. His blue-green eyes glinted in the early morning light as he smirked at me over his shoulder, stirring something that smelled absolutely divine on the stove.

  My eyes sought out Ellis and Jasper, both of who were conversing quietly in the corner. When they heard Alex’s greeting, they halted their conversation and turned to me. Ellis smiled sweetly, and Jasper nodded his head in greeting. It was a physical ache to see his mask back on and I had to work to hide the flicker of disappointment I was sure crossed my face when I saw it.

  With time he would grow more comfortable. He shouldn’t have to wear that thing at home. Out in public sure—people could be cruel—people wouldn’t understand. But here, with us, he shouldn’t feel like he has to cover up a part of himself. Right then, I resolved to make him as comfortable as I could from here on out. One day he would see that I didn’t—wouldn’t ever—look at him as anything less than human. It was the monsters who did it to him that deserved to be looked on with scorn and disgust. I’d tell them so, if I ever got the chance. Hell, I’d burn their damned faces to a crisp.

  And Everett…

  His arms were placed on the wooden table, head lowered. The muscles in his back rippled at my words, hearing me but not daring to look up.

  I took the unobstructed moment to survey him—his body hewn from stone, the thick, corded arms, and the very, very pinchable ass.

  Cheeks blazing, I whipped my head away and focused on Alex who was…who was smirking? There was no denying the teasing smile on Alex’s face as he watched me. My face turned even hotter at the realization he had seen me check out Everett.

  I missed his answer to my question, but it didn’t matter. The steaming aroma of whatever contraption he was whipping up made my mouth water.

  “It smells good,” I said cheerfully, moving to stand beside Everett. He tensed, muscles flexing, but didn’t immediately order me away. I considered that progress.

  “Aye, mum’s recipe,” Alex announced, gracefully rushing around the kitchen. His red hair was still wildly tousled from sleep, but he looked good. Sexy. As usual. The fact that he could cook, too made me admire him all the more. “Some tea, lass?” He asked, pulling the steaming kettle from another burner to pour into a large white pot.

  My lips parted to answer him, but before I could, my stomach twisted painfully. I let out a choked yelp at the stabbing pain, clutching my aching abdomen as bright stars danced in front of my eyes.

  Everett straightened, eyes widening as he took me in.

  “What’s happening?” he bellowed.

  “Beck, are you alright?” Jasper placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, but I barely felt it.

  Literally.

  It could’ve been a moth’s wing battering against my skin for all I knew.

  They were all touching me. Alex was helping me to stand, a look of pure, unadulterated horror crossing his gaze. Ellis’ dark face had paled, and his eyes widened as my knees gave out and he followed me to the floor, signing frantically.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered, eyes desperately scanning each of their worried faces. Jasper was reaching towards me, hand extended, and I wanted nothing more than to grab it. To anchor myself to him, but as I reached out, I found my body too weak to do more than lift my arm a few inches from my lap.

  My vision went double and then blurred—my stomach lurching in response.

  “What’s…happening…”

  Their voices all melded together, a garbled, distant cacophony of sounds I couldn’t discern. It was like someone had stitched weights to my eyelids and shoved cotton in my ears.

  Soon, their hands on my arms were gone. I couldn’t feel them there anymore. Couldn’t hear them. Or see them.

  I was suspended in nothingness. A drop of water frozen in time on the cusp of a faucet, drooping heavily, on the verge of falling.

  And then.

  I fucking plummeted…

  I fell and then kept falling. I knew this feeling. I knew, on some level, what this was, but I couldn’t grasp it in the frantic riot of my mind. I couldn’t do more than cry out as I spiraled down and away.

  Dimly, I was aware of three distinct voices screaming my name as the darkness swallowed me up.

  Falling. Falling. Falling.

  The air whooshed by me, wailing in my ears.

  And the pain stopped as abruptly as it began.

  White light sparked like an explosion before my eyes. Like a black curtain being drawn closed, I saw nothing.

  I heard nothing.

  Felt nothing.

  I was nothing.

  Chapter 30

  EVERETT

  I tried to tame my prowling beast that night—the one lurking just beneath the surface. Every fiber of my being wanted to go to Beck, comfort her, protect her. The need rode me, nearly stronger than common sense.

  I needed to see with my own eyes that she was okay. That she was safe after what those low-life mutts did to her out in the woods.

  On more than one occasion, I crept out of bed that night and poked my head into her bedroom. And yes, I was beginning to think of it as hers.

  There was something about Beck that fit with us, fit in this house. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and I didn’t know if I even wanted to.

  “What are we going to do about her?” Jasper asked as I entered the kitchen for breakfast that morning. I knew I had prominent bags beneath my eyes, and my hair was sleep tousled. I hadn’t been able to sleep that night, my thoughts too consumed by the beauty just down the hall. She haunted me—both awake and asleep.

  Alex was slaving away at the stove, red hair slick with sweat. The daylight streaming in from the window above the sink cast his hair in flickering flames of ruby, gold, and russet brown.

  Jasper and Ellis were huddled together against the wall, Jasper’s mask once more firmly in place, as they spoke in hushed tones.

  I eyed the man with no small amount of distrust and disdain.

  I loved my brothers, I did, but I didn’t trust their intentions with Beck. Jasper had removed his mask for her. Had bathed her, the ultimate act of intimacy.

  Jealousy churned in my stomach, mingling with the ball of nerves
already there.

  We were brothers in the truest sense of the word.

  Family, we learned early on, was a choice. Fidelity and loyalty were choices as well, and we all chose each other. Some of us were left with no other options, but others had a choice—a choice they made with finality. The bonds we forged were unbreakable. Some may look at our group like a burden obligation—why would a bunch of misfits band together in the first place? We were broken, but that brokenness only solidified the links connecting us.

  But Beck…

  I never would’ve suspected a female could get between us, but I couldn’t deny even to myself the sting of jealousy and hurt and anger I felt whenever I looked at Jasper.

  Did he wish to court her?

  And how did I feel about that?

  And then there was Alex’s intrusive question and the thousands of implications behind it.

  What did he mean by that seemingly innocent enquiry? Did he want Beck out of our house? Did he regret revealing our secrets? Did he also wish to court her?

  My stomach was a tumultuous mixture of dread and anxiety.

  I didn’t know how I felt about Beck, but I did know I had this innate need to protect her.

  “We’re not doing anything with her,” I growled, placing my elbows on the table and leaning forward. Alex stopped in the midst of stirring, one red brow raising. If he was cowed by my intimidating presence, he didn’t show it.

  But, then again, they were used to me by now. My size and bulk surpassed them significantly.

  “She isn’t a possession. She can stay with us for however long she needs.” I hoped they could hear the sincerity in my words, the finality. As a general rule, I remained closed off from people outside my family. This—allowing Beck inside our home and our lives—was simply unheard of.

  Ellis stared at me with an unreadable expression, and I met his gaze defiantly. He could believe what he wanted about me, about my feelings towards Beck. For now, I would give nothing away.

  Jasper might have been the only one with a physical mask, but we all wore one. Me more so than others.

  I caught Beck’s signature scent—something flowery and enticing—a second before she entered, speaking briefly to Alex. I heard her words, but I couldn’t comprehend them.

  Everything about her awoke everything inside of me. My hairs stood on end. My cock stirred. My muscles tensed.

  She called to the primal side of me—the side solely reserved for the beast.

  That made her dangerous. That made me dangerous.

  With just a flamboyant flip of her hair, she ensnared my attention. I might not have been looking directly at her, but I could sense her.

  My beast perked up like a smitten, besotted dog, tail wagging and all.

  He wanted her, wanted to claim her. In his mind, she was ours.

  This had never happened before with the females I had courted—few and far between. And it wasn’t as if I had lived my life without female companionship at night.

  But never before had my beast shown an interest in any of my conquests. The curse that bound it to me gave it its own form of consciousness—or maybe it was a primal part of my own—but either way, that other part—the beast part wanted her almost as much as I did.

  Beck suddenly released a strangled sound, doubling over. I jumped up in alarm and ran towards her, searching her petite frame for injuries. As she bent lower, I tried to pry her back to standing, afraid that my grip might be too hard—that I might hurt her, but when she cried out a second time, I was done being gentle.

  Something was wrong.

  I could feel it in the marrow of my bones. Both my magic and beast began battering at the doors of my mind—vying to be released. I shoved them back. I needed sense and calm.

  Did she need a doctor? Had the filthy shifter done more than she said. By the way she was clutching her abdomen, I thought, what if he’d—

  I couldn’t finish the thought—if I did, there would be nothing that would stop my beast from bursting out in full force. And this close to the others someone was liable to be injured from the shift.

  I was fully aware of Alex, Ellis, and Jasper screaming her name, asking what was wrong. Ellis looked to me, fear in his golden eyes and my heart tugged. I didn’t like to see him like that—couldn’t handle that look—the one I knew was his silent plea for me to do something. He was asking me for guidance in the face of whatever had stricken Beck.

  “Stand back!” I bellowed, my magic shooting through my veins as I drew on its power. Whatever was happening to her—it was human. Mortal. She could be healed if we acted quickly enough.

  Seeing my intent, the others rose to form a circle around her shaking, mewling form as she clutched at herself, rolled into a ball of agony on our floor that made me want to rip the entire universe to tatters.

  I began the healing sigil, and the others did the same. The power of four healing spells would save her—no matter what ailment had taken her. I was certain of it.

  But what happened next wasn’t something any of us could have been prepared for. Before we could complete the spell, she began to fade.

  Like age on a painting, eating away at layers of color until there was nothing left but a faded imitation of what once was.

  When she disappeared, it started with her hands first. The skin began to dematerialize, disappearing before my very eyes.

  I stared, frozen in horror with my heart stopped dead in my chest. I was powerless to stop it as her limbs vanished. I whipped my head around, searching for whoever dared to harm her. My beast demanded release. He wanted to pounce, attack, claim. Kill.

  The precarious hold I had on him—on it—was loosening, slipping through my fingers like falling rain.

  Fear paralyzed me, cemented my feet to the ground.

  And when Beck fully disappeared, face twisted in one final look of horror, the beast…it snapped. I released a feral growl, trying futilely to contain my monster.

  But it was no use.

  As I stared at the place Beck just was, everything within me fell to shambles, including my control.

  I was contained in the small cage of my mind I usually reserved for the beast. A cage of darkness, of nothingness.

  And my beast? It consumed me.

  I was helpless to stop it, but I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to anymore. Not if she was gone.

  Beck…

  I roared.

  Chapter 31

  BECK

  A tickle on my cheek had me batting at my face, groaning when the sear of early morning daylight bombarded my eyes. My head throbbed as though it’d been smashed against a hard surface repeatedly, and all the muscles in my body were taut and aching. I curled in on myself, trying to keep in the urge to vomit.

  The cool floor was a balm against the heat of my skin, and I twisted so I could press my cheek flat against it.

  What’d happened?

  I opened my mouth to call for Jasper, or maybe Ellis. Someone who could help me back into bed. I was obviously feverish, and I assumed it had to do with the dip I’d had in the icy stream with the shifter called William. Of course, I was sick after that whole ordeal.

  The tickling came again, this time accompanied by a young, boyish laugh.

  Though it stung, I peeled my eyelids back to see who it was that’d made the sound and found a little boy crouched low to the floor, a mischievous grin on his face—a fluffy white feather in his hand.

  “Who—” I started, trying to sit upright, but pain exploded in my head and I whimpered at the force of it, reaching a hand up to press against the ache as though I could smother it through sheer force of will.

  The boy, startled, ran away into another room, and I could hear his high-pitched voice as he spoke to someone else in another area of the house. And the hushed voices of other people as they answered him.

  I didn’t recognize any of the voices. Where were the guys?

  Had they gone to fetch me a doctor?

  But no, that wasn’t righ
t, they wouldn’t have left me lying here on the floor…

  And then I remembered the strange numbness I felt just before I passed out. The tightness in my chest and that feeling…the feeling that I was fading.

  An ache blossomed in my chest, and I clutched at it, my jaw clenched so tight I might’ve been on the verge of breaking teeth.

  No.

  Running footsteps down the hall alerted me that people were coming. I needed to move. I didn’t know these people. I couldn’t just lay here prone on the floor. I forced myself to sit and pressed my back against the cupboards to support myself.

  The light was hazy as it streamed in through the clouded glass and I surveyed my surroundings, trying to find something I could use to defend myself in case of attack.

  I gasped at what I saw, and tears shocked from my eyes, falling to drip against my robe before I could even work up a good sob.

  I knew this kitchen.

  I knew that table—though it was aged now, and two of the chairs had been replaced with bad replicas. Everett was sitting just there a minute ago.

  I spun, whirling to face the countertop, which had been changed from worn wood to a slab of pristine, sealed oak. Alex had been right here—right where I’m sitting.

  A woman entered the kitchen and yelped when she saw me. The small boy and two adults—who I gathered were his parents—entered after her.

  In that moment, looking at them, it all became startlingly, horrifyingly, clear.

  The woman who entered first was wearing slacks and a button-up shirt. Her brown hair up in a chignon. Jimmy Choo’s on her feet. But what caught my eye most was the nametag on her right breast; above the place where her name was written was a logo and the words, Heritage House Tours. If that weren’t enough, the woman drew a cellphone from her front pocket and began dialing.

  Dark spots crowded my vision as the panic set in. They were gone.

  No, I was gone.