by Kim Fielding
“Improve? How?”
Shit. “Things will be put right. People will die again.”
Meliach narrowed his eyes. “Where are you from? Who are you? Who sent you?”
Mike wondered if that was what he acted like when payroll was late with their reports again. “I’m from California. That’s really… far away. I was brought here by Agata.”
Oh, Mike knew that expression: pissed-off disbelief. “You claim to be sent by a god? You?” Meliach added an extra sneer at the end.
“I… I can’t…. Just let it drop, okay?”
Meliach marched to his secretary and whispered something in his ear. The secretary nodded and quickly left the room. Within seconds, running footsteps approached down the hall and eight more men burst into the room, each with a sword in hand. Goran growled and drew his own weapon.
“Kill him,” Meliach said, pointing at Goran.
The guards stepped forward, and Goran dropped into a fighting stance. Mike yelled, “No! Don’t you fucking hurt him!” Because he was pretty sure even Goran couldn’t handle ten-to-one odds. He tried to dart between Goran and the guards, only to be pushed back by Goran. He almost stumbled into Meliach’s arms.
The lord raised an imperious hand. “Wait,” he said to his men. He looked expectantly at Mike. “Tell me or he dies.”
“He has nothing to do with it! He’s a guy I hired, that’s all. He doesn’t know any more about where I’m from than you do. Just let him go.”
Goran shot him an angry look. Even if all the swordsmen miraculously stepped aside, there was no way he’d abandon Mike.
For a very long moment, nobody moved. It was Mike who broke the silence. “Fuck this. Fuck you, and fuck Agata and Alina and their whole fucking family.” He sighed. “Get your goons to back off and I’ll tell you everything.”
Meliach gave a small nod. His guards put away their weapons, and all but two left the room. Mike was pretty sure the rest waited just outside the closed door. Goran reluctantly returned his sword to his hip but then walked over and stood very close to Mike. Everyone waited for Mike to talk, while he waited to see if the heavens would open up and rain down fire. Or maybe that wasn’t Agata’s gig. She was a sex god. Maybe if she got really mad, she made your junk shrivel and fall off.
“I’m from a place called California,” Mike began. “I’m nobody special. Not a lord or anything. Um, we don’t really have lords there anyway. I’m just a guy with an okay job and a decent apartment and a car that’s almost paid off. And then one day Agata showed up. Yes, Agata the god. She just zapped herself into my apartment—poof.” He blushed slightly as he remembered what he’d been doing at the time.
“A god showed herself to you at your home?” Meliach asked coldly.
“Yep. I’d never heard of her. Because the thing of it is….” He took a deep breath. “I’m from another world.”
“You’re what?”
“From another world. It’s… it has some things in common with this one. Like language. But there are differences too. And I didn’t even believe in other worlds, okay? But Agata brought me here—just boom! First I’m there, and then I’m here—and after a while it’s hard to keep denying things. She told me about you. Showed me your statue. And she told me how you’d made a promise to Alina when you went to that wedding celebration, but then you broke it.”
Meliach’s face went a disturbing shade of red. They didn’t have high blood pressure, did they? Mike hadn’t had a physical in a while.
“Nobody knows that,” Meliach hissed.
“Alina sure does. And her sister too.”
Goran’s mouth was hanging open, and Meliach’s friend looked pale and shocked. Even the secretary and the guards looked flabbergasted. “Another world, Mike?” Goran asked quietly.
Mike squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry. Agata said I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. Jesus, I wanted to tell you so badly! Now you know why… why we can’t last. Why I can’t take you back with me.”
Mike wanted to cry, which was stupid. He didn’t cry—apart from that little breakdown in the temple—and now was not the time. But Goran looked as if someone had torn out his heart and eaten it, and it was Mike who’d done that to him. Mike was a bigger asshole than Benny ever was.
“Why are you here?” Meliach snarled. His hands were clenched at his sides.
“You didn’t keep your promise and Alina cursed your people. You know that, but you’re too much of a selfish prick to care, aren’t you? But Agata had this idea that if I did the pilgrimage gig in your place, it still might work. Because I’m you, in my world.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, but it’s true. Look, I know all about you because you’re me. You’re lactose intolerant—too much dairy and you end up with belly cramps and a long date with your chamber pot. You can wiggle your little toes without moving the others. Rosemary gives you a rash—” He stopped. “You do have rosemary here, right?”
Meliach gave a cautious nod. “I don’t allow it in food.”
“Me either. Pain in the butt at Italian restaurants. When you were a kid, you wet the bed until you were way too old for it because—”
“I did not!” But Meliach was blushing—a dead giveaway and one that Mike could never control.
“You did, because our bladder developed slowly. We outgrew the whole problem before our teens, thank God. And I could go on. I can catalog our birthmarks and tell you exactly how long our cock is, soft and hard, and… do you know how to read?”
“Yes.” The answer came from between gritted teeth.
“I bet you had trouble learning because we’re mildly dyslexic. Um, we used to get the letters backwards, stuff like that. We’re shitty spellers. But you’ve always been good with numbers.”
Lord Meliach stalked to his chair. He picked up a bottle of wine from a small table, filled a goblet to the brim, and downed it. Then he refilled it and drank more. He closed his eyes for a very long time before opening them again. Maybe his head hurt too. Mike hoped so.
“I could have you killed right now,” Meliach said.
Mike shivered, because he knew that was the truth. “I wouldn’t recommend it. You’re already on Alina’s naughty list. You want to make Agata angry too?”
Meliach contemplated that. Maybe he shared Mike’s speculations about detached dicks, because he shuddered. “What are your intentions?”
“Tomorrow I’m going to Alina’s shrine and telling her we’re really fucking sorry you’re such a douche bag. And then Agata sends me home. Your subjects will start dying properly again, you can return to being Lord Ass Hat, and that’s it. Story over.”
“You don’t intend to stay here?”
“I don’t know how much choice I have in the matter, but no.” Mike gave an anguished look to Goran, hoping his lover would understand. “My family’s there. It’s my home. It’s where I belong.”
Goran, his eyes still glazed with shock, couldn’t respond.
After draining his cup for a second time, Lord Meliach came closer. “You have told nobody who you are?”
“No. I told you. Agata said not to.”
“Not even the people of this town?”
“I don’t think I’ve said a word to anybody but you and your secretary since we got here.”
Meliach chewed his lip—one of Mike’s nervous habits that he’d tried to break. Mike could tell when he reached a decision. “You cannot stay in this house. It belongs to the mayor. He nearly pissed himself with pleasure to be hosting nobility, but I can’t have him see us together.”
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Surely Meliach hadn’t decided to apologize to Alina on his own.
“Edi told me of your encounter in Varesh.” He waved vaguely at his friend, who was still gaping like a dying fish. “And he told me you were visiting Alina’s shrines. I assumed you’d appear here eventually. I’ve been waiting for you for some time.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you,” Mike spat.
“Leave the town immediately. Make your offering in the morning. And then leave. If I see you again—”
“Not if I can help it.” Mike hoped never to see Meliach’s face again—except perhaps in the mirror.
After another pause, Meliach turned to his secretary. “Have four of my men accompany these two out of the town.” To Mike he said, “If you create any problems—”
“The only one making problems here is you. We were about to sit down to a quiet dinner. You’re the one doing all the strutting and sword-waving.”
A particularly nasty smile appeared on Meliach’s face. Mike sincerely hoped he never looked like that. “Are you prepared to make your offering at the shrine?” Meliach asked.
“I’ve made all the others.” And then, because Meliach continued to sneer at him and because Mike really needed to know, Mike added, “What am I supposed to give her this time?”
“Oh, nothing important. You simply have to sacrifice something you love.”
Shit, shit, shit. Okay, Mike would think about that later. Right now it took all his effort not to punch the smirk right off that familiar face. It wouldn’t be a fair fight, considering Mike’s right arm wasn’t fully healed and Meliach had at least a dozen men on his side. Instead, Mike mirrored that sneer. “Now I know why you wouldn’t do the pilgrimage. You don’t love anyone but yourself.”
Oh, that made the bastard angry! “You don’t know me!”
“I know you as well as you know yourself. You’re selfish and self-centered. You like to think you’re very cool and logical, but the truth is you’re just all caught up in yourself. Your heart is like ice. And not only will you never love anyone else, but you know what? Nobody is ever going to love you.”
Meliach answered with a low growl. “Get out.”
“Happily.”
Mike grabbed Goran’s arm and pulled him out of the room. He was right—the eight guards were waiting in the hallway. They looked as if they were trying to hide smiles. Maybe their boss wasn’t all that popular among the troops.
Chapter 18
FOUR OF the guards followed Mike and Goran down the stairs and onto the street. None of them said a word as they walked. Mike felt very small leading five large men, and Christ, he was exhausted. But he kept his back straight and his steps firm. He stopped, however, when he came to a bakery, causing his entire entourage to skid to a halt. “We haven’t eaten,” Mike said to the guards. He was trying to channel a little of Meliach’s imperial attitude; it came to him more easily than he expected. “Wait here while we buy some dinner.”
He didn’t know whether it was orders coming from their boss’s look-alike that convinced the guards to obey, or pleasure that Meliach had been taken down a notch or two. Maybe they were just decent human beings who didn’t want Mike and Goran to starve. In any case, one of the guards nodded slightly.
As Mike and Goran entered the shop, Goran leaned down to whisper in Mike’s ear. “I gave my last coins to the innkeeper.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
The boy behind the counter was in his early twenties and adorable, with spiky dark hair, huge eyes, and a sweet mouth. Looking slightly terrified, he gaped at Mike.
Mike pasted that sneer back on his face. “Do you know who I am, boy?”
“Of-of course, sir.” The kid rendered a clumsy bow.
“Good. Give us a half dozen of those.” Mike pointed at a pile of meat pies wrapped in flaky pastry that he’d become quite fond of in this universe. “You can send the bill.”
“Yes, sir! Of course.” The boy rushed to choose the biggest of the pies, which he placed reverently in a thin cloth sack. He held the bag out, but Goran grabbed it before Mike did. Good. Meliach was probably too high and mighty to carry his own dinner. “Th-thank you, sir!” the boy stammered.
Mike couldn’t help himself—he dropped the kid a wink. “Have a good evening.”
Back outside the bakery, Mike turned to the guard who’d earlier given him a nod. “When they send the bill to Lord Meliach, will you make sure it gets paid?”
The guard grinned. “It’ll be my pleasure, sir.”
Since Tesriya was small and the streets were mostly empty, it took barely ten minutes to reach the gate opposite where Mike and Goran had originally entered. This entrance was much narrower and was guarded by two sleepy-looking men in shabby uniforms. They must have recognized Mike—or misrecognized him, more accurately—because without a word, they scrambled to unbolt the door. Mike passed through with his chin held regally high and his retinue following.
The road on this side was a relatively narrow path, wide enough for only two men abreast. It was lit only by the last of the reflected twilight because there was just a sliver of moon. The path began to rise almost at once. The guards huffed and puffed. Apparently Meliach had lax exercise requirements for his men. Mike judged they were roughly halfway up the hill when they came to a flat spot, a sort of meadow covered in low grasses and flowers.
Mike stopped. “We’ll sleep here tonight. You can go back and assure Lord Shithead that I won’t return to Tesriya, and I won’t step foot in Dalibor again.”
“Very well,” said the guard in charge. “I wish you well, sir.” He and his men marched loudly away.
With a grunt of relief, Mike dropped the rucksack from his shoulders. He sat next to it, pleased that the ground was soft.
“Do you want me to find wood for a fire?” Goran asked softly.
“No, thanks. It’s warm enough tonight, and we don’t have to cook anything.”
Goran sat opposite him and handed him one of the pies. It was very good. The filling was generous and nicely spiced. Mike and Goran each silently ate two, and they washed them down with swallows from Goran’s water skin.
“Sorry I blew our chances of sleeping in a bed tonight,” Mike said when the food was gone.
“I’ve slept in worse places than this.”
“So have I.”
They lay down next to each other, not quite touching, looking up at the sky. “Mike?” Goran said softly.
“Yeah?”
“Is… is California up there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Our stars look different than yours.”
Goran’s noisy sigh interrupted the quiet night. “It must be very hard to be so far from home.”
Mike’s chest ached so fiercely it was hard to breathe. He missed his home desperately. But Christ, how could he face never seeing Goran again? He moved his arm over a bit to grasp Goran’s hand. “I’m sorry, Gor. I should have told you, no matter what Agata said. This isn’t fair to you.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered. I’d have fallen in love with you anyway.”
“And I tried not to fall in love with you.”
“But you do love me.”
Mike squeezed Goran’s hand. “I do love you.” He rolled over so that he was wrapped in Goran’s arm, his head resting on Goran’s broad chest. “I had to go all the way to another world to find true love.”
“If there’s a version of you here, maybe there’s a Goran in your world.”
“He wouldn’t be you. It’s you I’m in love with, Gor, not someone with your face and body.”
Once in a while when he wanted to kill time, Mike liked to play sudoku. Making those neat rows of numbers add up properly was very satisfying. But now Mike’s life—and Goran’s too—had become an unsolvable puzzle. Nothing added up, and all that remained was chaos and a vast looming chasm of loss.
But they had a few hours left together, at least, and the night was warm, the ground springy and fragrant. They undressed each other, their movements as slow and reverent as if it were their wedding night. In fact, that thought made Mike pause as he drew Goran’s trousers off.
“Is something wrong, Mike?”
“How do you get married here? I mean, is there a ceremony?”
Goran’s voice sounded tight. “You want to marry me?”
“I…. It’s selfish, seeing as I’m probably le
aving you tomorrow. But yeah, I do.” He chuckled wryly. “Maybe one night of wedded bliss is as much as this commitment-phobe can handle.”
“Why do you want to marry me?”
“Because… I don’t know. So you know that I’m really serious about you. So that later I can think to myself, somewhere I have a husband I love. It’s stupid. I’m sorry. It’s not fair to you and—”
“Marry me!” Goran grabbed Mike’s shoulders almost hard enough to hurt.
“Why?”
“Because then I’ll know I have family, even if we’re apart.”
Fuck. Mike was crying again. He fought to keep his voice even, and he hoped Goran couldn’t see his tears in the darkness. “What do we have to do?”
“Pavo and I went to a temple and pledged our love in front of a priest. It was very simple. But we don’t have a priest here….”
“I think we can go one better than that. I think Agata’s sort of keeping an eye on me. Can she officiate?”
Goran’s laughter was loud and joyful. “Perfect.” He scrambled to his feet, pulling Mike up alongside him. They were both naked. The slight breeze caressed Mike’s body gently.
Standing very tall and straight, Goran spoke in a booming voice. “My Lady Agata. Please bear witness to my love for this man. I pledge him my heart, my loyalty, my protection, my soul. Please… please reunite us someday up there.” He raised his hands to the sky. Then he dropped them, turned to Mike, and kissed him hard enough to steal Mike’s breath away. “Your turn,” he whispered.
“I have a hard-on,” Mike whispered back. He wasn’t sure why they were whispering.
“Me too. All the better! A fitting way to honor Agata.”
Well, that was probably true. “Do I have to say the same thing?”
“Say what’s in your heart.”
Mike wasn’t good at speeches. He thought for a moment. Then he spoke in his loudest, firmest voice. “My Lady Agata. You brought me here unwillingly. But now I’d like to thank you, because without you, I’d never have known this man. He’s such a good man, Agata. Far more than I deserve. I promise to tell Mom and Marie about him so he can truly be a member of our family. I pledge him my heart, my loyalty, my protection, my soul. If there is a heaven in my world or his, I hope we can be together there.”