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Authors: Lily Worthington

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Time Eternal (27 page)

BOOK: Time Eternal
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“Where is everyone?” she muttered to herself while grabbing her sweat pants and tank top off the dresser by her bed. It was strange that neither Rei nor Knox had charged in already. Had they gotten hurt while she was asleep? Not possible. She knew both men; they would die before letting anyone get this close to her, and she would have been woken up by the sound of any fierce fighting inside the townhouse. The only explanation left was that neither of them was in the house, which made no sense at all. Knox was her partner; TSCAA agents worked in pairs, and he wouldn’t have left her behind without telling her first. But she had spent all afternoon and evening in bed with Rei. It would have been hard for Knox to get to speak with her during those hours. The memories of how neither she nor Rei could contain their hunger and lust for each other made her blush all over again. He had made love to her ferociously and in every imaginable place they could find. Her instincts shook her. No time, must get out of here. Where were Rei and Knox?

Just as she was pulling out her Glock and her backup weapon from the drawer, both the connecting door and the bedroom door burst open. She spread her arms and pointed both guns straight at the men standing at the doors. Half a dozen of them in black garb spilled into her room, forming an offensive half circle with their rifles trained on her. Then an older man, dressed not in combat gear but in a suit, stepped through the bedroom door. The lights in the hallway shadowed his face. She held her handguns tightly, ready to shoot, even though the odds were stacked against her. She forced her heart to beat more slowly while assessing any possible weaknesses among the men standing in front of her. She had no doubt they would shoot her if she so much as moved a finger. Before she could come up with a counter-offensive plan, the older man slowly stepped out of the shadow. Gunfire from outside lit up her room intermittently. When the first shard of light casted on the man’s face, her blood turned cold.

“Elizabeth, at last.” The man curled up his lips into a cruel smile. He had the audacity to step up to her, reaching his hand out for her, raking a finger down her cheek. Fear permeated her; she was frozen by a fear that she had never wished to remember and had only had glimpses of in her blackest nightmares. Now the fear was right in front of her, gripping her tightly as the man laughed, an evil, confident laugh, laughing at her.

“Do you think I’d have stopped looking for what was mine, my dear Elizabeth?” And before she could master the overwhelming terror, two men seized her arms, squeezing her wrists with such force she was lucky no bones were snapped. The weapons fell out of her hands. The sharp pain jostled her from the black, bottomless pit of fear.

“Fernando.” The agent in her stood firm, and her voice dripped with repugnance and contempt. She refused to let him see her fear; she had firsthand knowledge of how much Fernando relished seeing the fear in his prey’s eyes. Then everything went dark.

•●•

Rei and his men surrounded the Federal Reserve building, ready to storm the place even if it meant blowing their cover in this time period; Rei no longer cared for subtlety nor for the gods’ edict of secrecy. He had to finish what he should have finished centuries ago, no matter what the cost would be. He was about to give his men the go signal when he saw a figure staggering in their direction from the waterfront. His men also saw the approaching figure and redirected their weapons toward it. Then one of his men shouted, “It’s Brandon.” The sight of his man half-bloodied, staggering toward them, sucked the air out of his lungs. Brandon was one of the men left patrolling the grounds at the townhouse.

Skyla…

“No.” He rushed down the street and caught Brandon just before his man fell to his knees. A few of his men followed him and formed a protective circle around him and Brandon. He grabbed his best sniper’s shoulders. “What happened?” he demanded.

“We were attacked. Men came out of thin air, surrounded the townhouse.” Brandon winced while clutching his hand over the bleeding wound on his right arm, his rifle arm. “The four of us were pinned down by heavy gunfire behind the kitchen for about ten minutes, and then the intruders were all gone.”

“Skyla? Herbert?” He knew he shouldn’t be shaking Brandon when the extent of his injury was unknown.

Brandon looked straight into his eyes with pain and regret. “Herbert is okay. He was holed up in his room.” Then he swallowed hard. “But Skyla is gone. We searched everywhere inside and outside of the townhouse. All we found were her weapons on the floor in her room.”

“No…” Rei wanted to howl. It couldn’t be. He was supposed to keep her safe, to finish what he hadn’t centuries ago. It was a trap, a diversion so Fernando and his men could take her.

A demanding voice boomed behind him, “What happened? Is Skyla okay?” That was Knox, who was with another team waiting at the back of the building. He sounded as frantic as Rei felt. Rei looked up and saw the man’s face overcome with fear, very much like his own.

Before Knox said another word, he stood up and said quietly. “It was a setup.” Then he looked toward his brother, who was standing with the rest of his men, weapons in hands. If Rei had been in a clearer state of mind, he might have been warier of his brother. His brother was actually a colder, more cunning adversary than he was. But he did not care at all. He charged at him, crying out in agony and rage. And Sloan did not stop him, did not step aside from his flying fists. His brother did not even try to block the double blows Rei was pounding on his jaw and abdomen. “Why?” he yelled out, punching his brother again and again. Sloan staggered and fell on the ground, but he did not duck; he didn’t even try to block Rei’s onslaught of fury. If his men had not pulled him off, Rei would have killed his own brother right then and there.

His chest was heaving from rage at the betrayal by his own flesh and blood. He violently shook off the men who were still trying to hold him back. He looked down at his brother, whose proud, handsome face was oozing with blood from his severe blows. “Why?” His voice was shaking. He was still clenching his fists while fighting his baser instinct to pummel his brother for betraying him, for betraying his men, putting them all in danger. And he silently swore to the gods that if anything happened to Skyla or any of his men died from this, brother or no brother, he would kill Sloan with his bare hands.

“Why?” he asked again.

Sloan looked up at him, his eyes devoid of any expression, and raised his hand to wipe the blood off his nose and mouth. “Why? Because you’re leading us to damnation again, just like you did to our family and to our country. All again for the same woman!” Sloan was practically shouting. He got up and stood nose-to-nose in front of Rei. He turned his head to the side and spat out more blood. “Brother.”

Rei was surprised, yet not surprised, to hear such contempt in his brother’s voice. He had suspected Sloan had blamed him all these centuries for the fall of their father’s empire, for the deaths of their family and their countrymen, but never once had his brother said anything to him. Not once in the all these centuries had his brother said anything to him about their past, their loss, their eternal grief. Sloan always had his back through the countless battles over the centuries. Rei had never doubted his brother’s loyalty. He trusted his brother; his men trusted his brother. The taste of betrayal was so bitter that Rei had to swallow back the bile forming in his throat.

Before he could demand whether his brother had lost his mind, Sloan spoke again, pleading with him. “You must let Elizabeth go. She’s not worth sacrificing your life again, and you have our men’s lives to think of.” His brother grabbed his shoulder, shaking him. “She’s not worth losing all our souls. The gods will damn us all.”

A long stretch of silence passed. Rei finally said. “Leave. You’re not my brother anymore. Don’t let me see your face again. And if Skyla’s harmed in any way, I’ll hunt you down.” He curled his fists tightly at his sides, knowing otherwise he would begin pummeling his brother again. “You hear me? Leave!” This time he roared.

His brother stared back at him with disappointment and grief. The kind of grief Rei had seen only once in their lives together, when they had gone through the battlefield at the Last Battle, looking for survivors and finding none.

His own brother. They were the only two left of the royal line of the once-great Serbian Empire. Now he was banishing his own flesh and blood, the only family he had left. He said again, quietly, “Leave.”

He turned his back on Sloan, walking back to Brandon and Knox. For a brief moment, his men didn’t move. They were not sure what had just happened. For the first time in five hundred years, they saw Rei booting one of his men out, his own brother no less. But they recovered soon enough and followed Rei’s retreating shadow.

Once they were back at the townhouse, Knox went straight to the kitchen. Before opening a time-traveling portal, he turned to Rei. “Find her. Both of your destinies are held in your hands. But remember, she’s stronger than you think. I’ll come back with the team from the Agency.” Before Rei could ask him what he meant about both their destinies, Knox was gone.

 

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Skyla slowly opened her eyes, the back of her head throbbing with a dull ache. She tried moving her arms and immediately realized they were held above her head. She tilted her head upward very carefully and saw her hands were bound together in leather against an iron headboard. She was in a sitting position on a soft feather bed. Kinky, she thought to herself…if she weren’t tied up against her will and if it had not been Fernando’s sick smile she’d seen just before something blunt hit the back of her head. She gave a sharp yank on the leather binding, but of course there was no give. The room was bare, no furniture except the bed she was in and a wooden chair not far from the foot. Exposed stones lined the walls, and a small window sat high above on the wall opposite of her. The room looked almost like a dungeon, a holding cell in some medieval castle. No… Could Fernando have taken her back to Florence, to his time period?

Then she heard the bell toll. She knew the booming sound all too well. She hadn’t heard it since she was a young girl. It was from the bell tower of the Duomo in the center of Florence. She and Papa had attended mass at Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, the locals called it Il Duomo, every Sunday. There was no doubt that Fernando had taken her back in time, to the time she was from, to the past she could no longer escape. A tidal wave of panic and fear was slowly choking her, choking Elizabeth. She bit down hard on her lower lip and drew blood on purpose, hoping the pain would have her agent’s instincts come alive. The fear was Elizabeth’s, from the girl who was helpless against a monster. But Skyla was no longer that girl, without the power to save herself, to save those whom she loved. Elizabeth was her past. Skyla was well trained for combat and covert operations. She had seen monsters and fought them. She was not afraid of another sick pervert, even though this psycho was after her personally, after Elizabeth. She could handle it, and no one would die on her watch.

Skyla forced her meditative breathing exercise to kick in. Finally, her racing heartbeat slowed down, and the roaring blood noise in her ears gradually subsided. Now that her head was clearer, she knew it was only a matter of time before Fernando would come for her.

Unlike the modern day metal handcuffs, there was really no way for her to pick the leather binding. It was sturdy and wide, covering almost a third of the length of her forearms. The leather was wrapped and sealed tightly with no visible opening. The chain that held up the binding was inserted inside the layer of the leather. She doubted even Houdini could get out of this. Fernando came prepared. He must have learned that part of Agency training included lock picking. Dammit. Now what?

Before she could continue her escape plan, the door creaked open. She held her breath, expecting Fernando to walk through the door.
Time’s up.
She could feel Elizabeth’s fear taking over again. She took a deep breath in and mentally repeated to herself, to Elizabeth, that she was no longer the helpless girl Fernando expected. She would be okay. She could protect herself just as she had many times before on Agency missions.

BOOK: Time Eternal
6.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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