Parallel Heat (12 page)

‘‘Is that
my
destruction or
yours
, Sabrina?’’

‘‘We have to follow the elders, and they’ve said to wait,’’ she reminded him sternly, walking toward the kitchen.

‘‘Thea and I have been talking about some things—important things—and I need to be there.’’ An unexpected fire fanned to life inside of his chest and abdomen, unsettling him completely. Just like he’d felt each time in Thea’s presence!

She snapped her head toward him; if she’d been a horse, her ears would have tilted forward alertly. ‘‘Lieutenant Haven and you had time to talk about important matters? Already, in such a short period of time?’’

His face burned self-consciously, and the fever in his belly nearly exploded at Sabrina’s mention of the woman. ‘‘I’m moving into their camp,’’ he told her boldly. ‘‘I’ve already made my decision.’’

She busied herself with opening a cereal box, methodically measuring out enough for both of them. He braced his hands against the kitchen counter, saying: ‘‘They need training; they need to learn how to link intuitively for their protection. And for their true power. How can they learn if I’m all the way down here?’’

‘‘You want to be near her,’’ she said knowingly, opening the refrigerator.

Without meaning to, he lifted a hand to his flushed face, a mixture of desire and embarrassment sending warmth to the very crown of his head. It was as if his entire body had reddened and caught fire with the mere utterance of Thea’s name! No woman had ever had this kind of effect on him, and he didn’t like losing his composure.

‘‘I do not want to be ‘near her,’” he barked. ‘‘This has nothing to do with anyone, except our commander and queen.’’

‘‘You’re not of the same class as Thea Haven. You’re Madjin and she’s D’Ashani—do you even recall what that means to our people? Or have you forgotten after so many years?’’

‘‘I haven’t forgotten that I’ve got a job to do—one I’d best be doing. You know what the commander asked me last night? He asked where we were when he was taken captive by Veckus. I gave an answer, but it wasn’t the right one. He’s been in this damn thing on his own for too long, I’m telling you.’’

‘‘We answer to the elders,’’ she reminded him softly.

‘‘They have an agenda, always have.’’

‘‘So you plan to go about this without their support? Without seeking their guidance?’’

‘‘I’ll do the job I was trained to do.’’

‘‘Well, then. Your mind is obviously made up.’’

 
Kelsey sat with Jared in his upstairs study, a hard snow falling beyond the windows surrounding their tower turret. Holding her hand, he had led his wife up the stairs to the fourth floor of the cabin, feeling Marco’s letter practically burn a hole in his jacket pocket.

Somehow Jared had known that the letter had to stay secret, even from those he trusted the most. Well, secret from everyone except Kelsey, which was why he’d shared it with her from the first. But now he had new revelations—that Marco McKinley, the letter’s author, was here in their camp. She sat with him before the fire, cross-legged, one hand knotting through her loose, riotously curling hair. Marco’s handwriting sample was spread open on her jean-clad knee.

He needed her advice. He needed her wisdom. Most of all, he needed her to tell him that he hadn’t lost his mind, and that with all that had changed in the past ten days—their marriage, Marco, the letter—he was still the man she’d met all those years ago at Mirror Lake. He needed her assurance that reality still spun on its comfortable, axis.

‘‘Okay, so let me get this totally straight—from what you told me last night, you don’t know this guy?’’ she asked at last, glancing up from the paper. ‘‘Never even known his name? Nothing?’’

‘‘Until last night, I’d never heard of him, not from any quarter.’’

‘‘Then, I guess the biggest question is . . . do you believe him?’’

‘‘The letter chills me. It already did before the man’s arrival last night,’’ Jared told her, standing to pace about the room, unable to sit still. ‘‘Everything in me says the document is authentic. As for Marco himself . . . I believe him as well.’’

‘‘But the letter says he will come in two years—he came on the same day.’’

‘‘When they used the mitres, they must have altered things . . . the timeline.’’

‘‘You really do trust Marco?’’ she asked semi-incredulously. ‘‘And this letter?’’

‘‘He displayed irrefutable proof that he is a royal protector.’’

‘‘One of the’’—she paused, stumbling over the Refarian word—
‘‘Madjeen.’’

He smiled at her adorable accent. Somehow, strangely, Kelsey speaking Refarian was a massive turn-on. ‘‘He bears the mark of the Madjin, just as I bear my own royal seal. It’s not something that can be faked. He is authentic.’’

She sighed, her auburn eyebrows furrowing deeply. ‘‘Why would he have planted a letter like this?’’

Jared stopped his pacing, standing behind Kelsey. He placed his open palm atop her head; he needed their physical connection. ‘‘I do not believe that the Marco I met last night knows about this letter.’’

‘‘So you trust him?’’ she asked again, reaching for his hand. Their fingers threaded together.

‘‘You seem to find that surprising,’’ he observed softly.

‘‘Well, like I said last night, to believe the letter, you’d have to accept time travel and lots of other things that fly in the face of common sense,’’ she said with a glance over her shoulder at him.

Jared cleared his throat, his now-familiar black eyes intense and serious. ‘‘Time travel is possible, Kelsey. Just not for
your
people, not yet.’’

As much as it sounded like something right out of science fiction, the Caltech guys, and then, later, other physicists, had all thought time travel possible for a while now. ‘‘Go on,’’ Kelsey said at last, swallowing hard.

‘‘The mitres technology—the data I left inside you—is the key. The mitres is a vast, powerful, monumental weapon. We’ve spent years trying to unlock the chambers and decipher the codes. Years trying to fully harness its power.’’

‘‘How do you know for sure that it works?’’ she asked, her mind racing with thoughts about the mysterious mitres and its data, the very technology that Jared had left in her mind the night of the crash.

Jared grew quiet and thoughtful. ‘‘It was placed here in the early eighteen hundreds—Earth time. My ancestor, a young prince of the D’Aravni line, was the one who oversaw its installation. Earth was chosen for many reasons, Kelsey. Because your people and your atmosphere were genetically compatible with our own. Our genetic codes are 99% similar. Some even theorize that our two species emanate from the same genetic source, though nobody can be sure. Anyway, Earth was chosen for its safety, for its proximity to the wormholes that we navigate for our interstellar travel—and because your environment supported us easily. It was a match.’’

Kelsey had a hard time digesting everything that Jared was rattling off. The mitres had been here for more than two hundred years, undetected by humans—the thought gave her an eerie shiver.

‘‘Where is the mitres?’’ she asked, a thought beginning to gain life in her mind.

Her husband smiled at her, a sly, warm look in his eyes. ‘‘You won’t believe me if I tell you.’’

‘‘Oh, I probably will.’’ She laughed. Did Jared really believe she would doubt anything that came out of his mouth at this point? ‘‘Lay it on me.’’

He drew in a breath, tilted his chin upward, and leveled her with his most kingly gaze. ‘‘By Mirror Lake. That’s where it’s always been.’’

Mirror Lake. Where they’d met years earlier; where they’d shared their first kiss; where their tender memories of falling in love were wiped from their minds by the elders.

And where she and Jared had miraculously found one another once again on the night of his crash. Jared had once told her that her planet was extremely important to his people, that a long-standing tie between their two worlds existed. Now, the reality of those statements hit with the force of a blizzard wind. Her world was critical, priceless to Jared Bennett and his people.

‘‘This mitres,’’ she asked carefully, ‘‘what does it do? Really? Just time travel or . . . other things too?’’

Jared dropped his gaze to his lap. ‘‘The mitres enables us to harness time itself, to bend it to our will as we become its master. The mitres is capable of altering time, creating portals of entry and exit throughout eternity and space. It gives us superiority over all our enemies who seek to kill our people.’’ He paused, drawing in a breath, and Kelsey felt a chill snake down her spine. When Jared stared at her this intently, it always meant something would turn her world upside down. ‘‘And,’’ he continued, ‘‘it’s the only weapon giving us the advantage over Earth’s enemies too. Otherwise, the Antousians would have destroyed you by now. Earth as you know it would no longer exist.’’

Kelsey absorbed his comments for a long time. Everything seemed to rush to the surface at once, each thought demanding air, sustenance, but she couldn’t lock in on the most important thought and voice it. If this mitres technology was literally the only thing safeguarding Earth, then that meant the data in her mind was more crucial than she could ever have imagined. And that begged a very serious question: Was it better inside her mind or . . . outside.

It also drove home Jared’s firm belief in the letter’s authenticity. The author claimed that because she had the codes in her mind, she became a leader. The one the rebel Refarians—and the humans—rose up to follow. The author had called her the ‘‘Beloved of Refaria.’’

Maybe the information shouldn’t be removed—and maybe her destiny demanded that it remain inside of her. Both were strong possibilities.

‘‘I think I’m finally getting the picture here,’’ she said at last, understanding that the mitres information in her mind was a far more serious matter than she’d yet realized.

 
‘‘What does it mean that I’m the . . . ‘Beloved of Refaria’?’’ Kelsey asked Jared, still sitting comfortably with him by the fire.

‘‘Ah, love. That will take some time to explain. It ties into our prophecies and mythology, but the shorthand version’’—he paused, lifting a hand to touch her cheek—‘‘is that you will bring healing and peace to my people. You will lead them.’’

‘‘But you’re their king,’’ she whispered, feeling an eerie chill pass over her skin.

‘‘And you are their queen—not just any queen, but one who has been foretold by our mystics.’’

‘‘Could I read this prophecy?’’ she asked, a sudden hunger to understand her role burning within her.

‘‘I will give you the book later tonight.’’

She smiled wickedly. ‘‘I’m not sure we’ll be doing any reading later tonight, Jared.’’

He lifted a hand to her cheek, rubbing his knuckles against her jaw. She’d made no effort to contain her natural disarray of heavy auburn curls; this was Kelsey at her most beautiful, flushed by the fire, her hair unkempt and loose. Mating season or not, he felt a strong flash of desire for his soulmate. ‘‘Jared?’’ she prompted, glancing up at him. ‘‘Are you even listening to me?’’

‘‘I’m highly distracted by my wife and her’’—he paused, just staring into her azure eyes—‘‘exotic beauty.’’

Her large smile spread wider, and she squeezed his hand, still held in hers. ‘‘Maybe later I can distract you down in our bedroom,’’ she practically purred. ‘‘I am the queen of distractions.’’

‘‘Ah, my human queen, you are a wicked, dangerous woman to have on hand.’’

‘‘Don’t tell me you’re still thinking of sending me back to Laramie?’’ she gasped, her lovely eyes ringed with instant panic. How had she interpreted his comment that way?

He slipped his other hand onto her shoulder, wanting to reassure her that his earlier decision to send her away had only been a monetary lapse of judgment. ‘‘No, no! I can’t live apart from you—and you’re truly safest here, where I can guard you myself.’’ He gestured toward the letter in her hand. ‘‘The letter is a warning and a wake-up call. Our enemies are closing in upon us, and I won’t have you anywhere but near me, right here in my camp.’’ He gave her a seductive half smile. ‘‘
And
in my bed, love.’’

‘‘Whew! That’s a relief.’’ She laughed joyously, tugging him down to the floor where she sat. She looped both arms about his neck, drawing his mouth toward hers for a kiss. ‘‘We have a lot of serious work to do—speaking of your bed.’’

A low, rumbling sound escaped his chest, but the supernatural fire he’d felt last night—the telltale physical signs that his mating heat had begun—still felt cool. He cupped her face in both hands, crushing his mouth against hers, a fierce display of his anger and passion. He desired her as much as ever, yet he knew his own D’Aravnian body better than she ever could. Something had shifted cold in him last night after finding the letter—and after the arrival of the visitors. Something that he couldn’t seem to click back into gear.

Oh, gods in heaven, how will I tell her?
he lamented, all the while plunging his tongue deep into the liquid warmth of her mouth.
Love, love
, he reflected,
I don’t want to hurt you!

Groping at his face with both hands, Kelsey pushed his mouth off of hers. ‘‘Hurt me how?’’ she demanded, all color draining from her face. ‘‘What aren’t you telling me, Jared?’’

‘‘You weren’t meant to hear that,’’ he panted, still aroused from her kiss.

‘‘Of course I heard it.’’

‘‘No, those were my thoughts.’’ He shook his head in disbelief; he’d never intended for her to hear what was in his mind. ‘‘Our bond must have . . . opened. Even though I never felt it engage.’’

‘‘We’re probably connected half the time now, Jared,’’ she told him evenly, the scientist in her emerging. ‘‘I mean, our bond keeps intensifying and growing, keeps becoming a more natural part of us all the time.’’

He reached for her again, drawing her face closer toward his until he could feel her warm breath against his cheek.