Chrysocolla (22 page)

Seth leaned forward, and I moved at the same time so that my lips could meet his. The touch of his lips to mine made my arms wrap around him and pull him onto the bed with me. His hands braced above me as he kissed me more. I had missed him too much.

“Ahem,” a voice from the doorway tried to interrupt us.

Seth was on the same page as me. It had been too long. Neither of us were ready to pull apart. We both ignored our uninvited guest.

“While that’s one way to get the future we need, can we talk about your great plan and try that first?” Kye asked.

Seth ended the kiss but stayed above me, staring into my eyes. Slowly he sat back up and let his hand trail down my arm. I felt the tingles that were always there but then saw more. There was a faint shimmer where he had touched me. Ty had said I sparkled when I passed out, but it seemed like maybe Seth made me sparkle, too.

“Did the Pharaoh give you permission?” Seth asked, starting a conversation I had no clue about.

Kye shrugged. “He’ll come around.”

“The plan?” I asked, bringing them both back to a subject that didn’t confuse me.

Seth grinned. “I think it’s time we collect some stones.”

I looked at Seth, and then Kye. Kye shrugged. He was as clueless as I was as to what Seth was talking about. There were no more stones to collect. I technically had six stones, and Logan had ninety-four. What were we going to collect?

“There are none left,” I told Seth. Maybe he wasn’t around for that conversation, though I was pretty sure he knew that already.

“Okay, let me rephrase that. Time to go steal some stones,” Seth added and wiggled his eyebrows.

My mouth must have dropped open because he laughed and tapped my chin. Kye wasn’t laughing with Seth. He was confused like me.

“Guess I need more details,” Kye finally replied. “Because I’m not seeing how you plan to do that without putting Mari, or anyone else, in danger.”

“Go wake Ty, and I’ll explain it to you guys all at one time. Trust me. I’m sure this will work.” Seth explained nothing. He was bottling in his excitement, but it was still there.

Kye nodded to him and left the room. Seth took that as his cue to continue where we left off. Quickly, he pulled me onto his lap and ran his hands through my hair. His lips had just touched mine when the guys returned. Ty had to have been sleeping in the outer room not too far away. I sighed at the quick kiss, and Seth set me back on the bed beside him.

 “Planning time already?” Ty asked. He rubbed his eyes and looked at me, and then to Seth.

Seth grinned. “No more than planning. Time to beat Logan at his own game.”

The three of us looked expectantly at Seth, and he grinned more. He liked being in the spotlight. By marrying me, he was poised to take over after my father died. He would make a great pharaoh one day if we could make it that far.

“How hard was it to rewrite history?” Seth asked, turning to me.

I shrugged. I didn’t really rewrite anything. It was more like I put the past back the way it was supposed to be.

“Basically, there was one guy that was out of place. I cut his ties to the time he wasn’t supposed to be in, essentially sending him back to his original time,” I explained. All I did was put things back in place. Fate did the rest.

“Even better,” Seth grinned more. I wanted to shake him and make him tell us what he was thinking, but he was having too much fun.

Kye rolled his eyes, and for the first time I actually saw one of my traits in him.

“What if we go back and take the stones from the last person who was going to use it? If we don’t let Logan have that person, then he won’t have the stones. We collect the stone instead,” Seth suggested.

“That would be putting Mari in danger,” Kye replied, immediately disliking the plan.

“She’s in no danger if we start here within the borders of our country. Logan won’t be able to time travel, and can’t follow her as she bounces around. If she collects enough stones, then she can take us with her to get the other ones. We can keep her safe,” Seth suggested.

Kye chewed on the inside of his cheek as he thought. It actually was a sound plan. If we got the stones back, Logan wouldn’t be able to stop us.

“Okay, but let’s think this all through first,” Kye answered, consenting to the new plan that was forming.

I let out a sigh of relief. I hated waiting around for Logan to attack us. It was time to fight back and collecting the stones sounded like a good start.

I rolled my
eyes as the guys continued to argue over a point that seemed too far off for me to worry about. We had to first get at least one stone back to even consider that our plan would work. Why argue now about something that might not even come to be?

Ty didn’t join in the argument between Seth and Kye. Instead, he sat down beside me. He wasn’t one for arguing either.

“Do you think you can go back and stop the people from traveling?” Ty asked. At least he wanted to know my opinion.

“Cutting the link is easy. I don’t know about the stones, though,” I replied. There was still much to learn. “I didn’t get a stone back from the guy I just did, but maybe that was because he was Hittite and not in Egypt.” The guys stopped their arguing.

“Wait,” Kye turned to me.

“Did you say you did that not in Egypt? You changed the events outside the country without actually leaving?”

I hadn’t even realized that. I didn’t think about where I was physically, because mentally I just went to the place that called to me. Yes, I did. Mentally I could be somewhere else but physically stay safe in Egypt. Maybe this
was
what I was supposed to do.

“But I don’t know where the guy’s stone ended up,” I answered. I was sure that I didn’t get that back. I would have noticed a charmed piece of chalcedony lying around. And it wasn’t like the guy was traveling with it.

“But that’s the best part. The guy you changed wasn’t traveling with his stone because Logan had it already. When you look for the next set of people, you can look for the people with the stones. You can get the stones back from them before Logan has a chance to take them,” Kye replied.

“But what if Logan just goes back to the beginning and takes the stones before anyone ever gets them?” I asked.

“He’s a gatekeeper. He can’t sense a stone until someone uses it. He can’t track them unless they are in use. That’s why it took him that long to get all of them collected,” Kye explained. “He can’t do what you can.”

That was another piece of luck falling on our side. I wasn’t sure what we would do with all the stones once we had them, but it was worth a try.

“Just to be on the safe side, Mari should only travel here in Egypt to see if she can get the stones,” Seth added. Kye nodded. For once they were agreeing.

“Okay, that’s all great and whatnot, but I don’t even know where to travel or what I’ll find. Last time I found the connection when I was trying to change everyone’s memories,” I explained.

“Then we do it the same,” Seth replied. He was really ready for a fight. Excitement shone in his eyes.

“And we send one more person back to the right time?” I looked at the three guys with me. I didn’t feel right sending any of them away. They were all needed, and had no future to go back to. They looked to each other and seemed to get my dilemma.

Ty shrugged.

“Guess I can head back. There isn’t much for me, but if I can help you,” Ty offered, sacrificing himself.

“No,” I replied quickly.

If we did this right, Kye would disappear. I couldn’t lose both Ty and Kye. Even if I hated that I couldn’t let him live in the future where he had a decent life, I wasn’t about to send him back alone to live as a slave in Egypt. I stared at Ty. He had to understand sending him back wasn’t an option in my book.

Seth noticed the problem and nodded along with me. He agreed. Kye was still looking between me and Ty. I wasn’t going to back down on this one.

“Instead of trying to send him back to his original time, why don’t we pick another time in Egyptian history? Why not go back twenty years and see if you can change events. It might not work, but you can always try,” Seth suggested, trying to appease me.

I nodded along with him. That I was willing to try. Sending him home wasn’t an option.

“As long as you stay right here in Egypt, it shouldn’t be a problem. Logan can’t track you and surprise you, and if you have Ty, he can keep you safe,” Kye managed to say what the four of us were thinking.

“Fine.” I held my hand out to Ty. “Let’s go for a travel, but don’t you dare let go.”

Ty nodded and took my hand.

“To the past, Princess,” Ty replied with a grin.

Shaking my head, I let the pull of travel overtake us quickly. I didn’t concentrate on going back too far and let us land somewhere populated. We were going to head back soon anyway, but we needed to change what people around us saw.

I saw everything freeze. I was interrupting too many lives. They all paused, and I looked at the scene before me. This was where I needed to be; now I just needed to see where the lines were. I looked from left to right. I began to look around and noticed that Ty wasn’t frozen.

“Don’t mind me,” Ty told me as he held my hand tight. I had a feeling he didn’t want me to let go and leave him in some unknown time. Glad to know he wasn’t going to sacrifice himself at the moment.

“Not a problem, just looking for the lines that lead to time travelers,” I replied and continued to scan.

The people below us began to fade, and another set showed up.

“Are we supposed to go somewhere else? I thought we were supposed to stay in Egypt.” Ty seemed concerned by his words, but the tone was completely confident in me.

I gazed closer at the little men and women. They seemed familiar enough to let me know that we were still in Egypt, just a different spot. The blurry moving picture before us stopped, and I tightened my grip on Ty. This was where we needed to be. I saw a line.

“There’s someone right there.” I pointed to a building that we couldn’t see inside. I concentrated on the house, and soon the roof disappeared and we could look within.

Ty grinned. “Nice trick. You’d be great at birthday parties.”

Inside the house was one lone person lying in the bed. I watched their line as it pulsed. It was stronger than the line that connected me to the man Logan had sent to mess everything up. I looked closer. This line didn’t lead to the person, but the stone in his hand. I didn’t know what to do next but knew I wanted the stone. In a flash, the vine that connected me recoiled and the stone appeared in my hand. I had just found a way to the stones!

“Okay. I was wrong. That was an even better trick.” Ty was still holding my one hand, but was staring at the other which was holding the stone. “The kids would love you.”

I rolled my eyes at him. I didn’t need to be distracted, but Ty at least found the fun in what we were doing.

I didn’t hesitate to look for more lines. I wanted to be back with Kye and Seth as soon as I could be. I remembered how fast Logan knew the stones were gone before when Kye took the stones to rescue me. Logan wasn’t going to be happy when this one was gone, and I was sure it wouldn’t take him long to figure it out.

“One down,” I told Ty. “Ninety-three more to go.”

Around me, the world glowed in various colors. I knew it wasn’t time to head back yet. I had one more thing to do. One by one I looked for the brightly colored lines. We didn’t move to new scenes but continued to stay where we were. As I snapped each line back to me, I felt the stone in my hand. The bright blue line brought me a blue stone. The white and black line brought me a black stone with white lines in it. A green line that matched the color in my arm brought me a nice matching stone. Ty wasn’t surprised in the least and just grinned at me as I looked for each line. I worked as quickly as I could.

Ty held out his free hand and took the stones from me as they began to pile up. I was only supposed to take one stone, but here I was. I couldn’t stop myself. They were all over the place, and there was nothing Logan could do to stop me. I was taking back the stones. He was losing his power, and people were heading back to the time they were always supposed to be in. He was going to be pissed, but I didn’t care. He was wrong. What he was doing was wrong. And this was about setting everything right.

I wanted a future with Seth, and I wanted to live out my life not having to fear Logan. I wanted the future the goddess always knew I was meant to have. This was the first step in getting that future. We had to collect them all.

I had no
clue how long we sat there suspended in frozen time as I plucked stone after stone from history. Part of me felt bad. All those people that wanted to run away or have a new life would never get that. Questions would be left unanswered. But the other part of me felt like it was time to suck it up. Men were never supposed to travel through time. Fate wasn’t supposed to be messed with. Logan wasn’t supposed to change the future. I wasn’t meant for Logan.

“Ninety-four,” Ty counted as I pulled the last stone to us.

“Are you sure?” I asked. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get a second chance. Logan was probably already seething over the loss of all the stones.

“Positive,” Ty replied, his free hand held all the stones cupped against his chest. The pile was huge.

“Then let’s go home.”

I focused on Kye and Seth where we left them. The world spun, and we dropped to the ground beside them. Kye looked at Ty, and his mouth dropped in shock. I grinned at the guys. I hadn’t been gone long, but it was long enough for us. We had done the impossible.

“How many?” Seth asked. He wasn’t shocked by the stones.

Ty dumped them all on the bed.

“Ninety-four. All of them,” I said proudly.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect from Logan when you came back with a couple stones, but I do have an expectation now. He’s going to lose it.” Kye grinned as he spoke. He obviously liked the idea of Logan losing it.

“What do we do with all of them?” I asked. We couldn’t just let them sit around.