Time Untime (22 page)

Ash didn’t move as the two of them vanished to attend to their duties. He ran his hand over his Simi tattoo and considered sending her to his mother as well. But he knew better. Simi would never leave him alone to battle what was coming for them, and that bothered him most. No matter how hard he tried, he could never let himself forget that he was the sole reason Simi had no mother—that Simi had been an orphan before he adopted her. Her mother had died trying to keep Apollo from gutting him. The poor Charonte had failed, but at least she’d tried.

Every time he looked at Simi, he saw her mother’s face and guilt stabbed him hard. It was why he couldn’t deprive her of anything, except for the killing of other creatures. That was the only thing he forbade her to do. Unless they threatened her first, and then it was open season on them and Simi could grab BBQ sance and have at them. No holds barred.

Closing his eyes, he tried to see the future, which for him shouldn’t be a problem. But because it involved so many people he cared about, he saw nothing at all.

The one thing he could feel was the heartbeat of the world that thrummed like a solid hum under his feet. It vibrated through him as the constellations aligned and the gateways were weakened.

Evil was coming and it wasn’t going to take prisoners.

Let the war begin.…

11

Ren cursed under his breath. Never in his life had he felt more worthless—which basically said it all about their situation and his inability to get them out of this realm. “I’m sorry, Kateri.”

“Hey…” She pulled him to a stop as they walked through an endless forest. “You don’t need to keep apologizing for something you can’t help. We’ll make it out. We will.”

“How can you have such faith?”

“Oh c’mon, you defeated death and came back to life. You have to have faith, too. I know you do.”

The edges of his lips twitched at her words. Amazed by her ability to find amusement and to make light of an extremely bad situation, he stared into beautiful eyes that seared him.

Step away from her. Now!

For once, he didn’t listen. Before he could stop himself, he kissed her. The scent of her skin and the taste of her mouth sent his body into overdrive. Everything around them was going wrong. Everything. His primary powers weren’t working. They had demons after them. The First Guardian was missing. Choo was captured.…

And she felt like heaven in the midst of hell. It didn’t make sense. He should be hating himself for his incompetence, but when he looked at her, he didn’t see disdain or contempt. He saw friendship. Kindness. Encouragement.

Worst of all, the same desire he had for her.

Instead of making him feel like he was lacking for getting them into this, she smiled and retorted with jokes that lightened his spirit. She didn’t call him stupid or worthless. Or accuse him of condemning her to this.

She made him feel like the man he’d always wanted to be. Like maybe, just maybe, he had some degree of value and sense. That he was worth being lost with.

Pulling back, he buried his face in the crook of her neck so that he could smell the faint remnants of her perfume. Valerian had always been one of his favorite scents, and on her …

His mouth watered.

Kateri held Ren close as she felt his heart pounding against her breasts. It’d been so long since she was close to a man. Not eleven thousand years by any means, but quite a few months. The one thing she and Fernando had shared was their philosophy that work came first, no matter what. That there were many discoveries yet to be made and papers to be written. Lectures to be given and kids to be encouraged. She’d never found a man who could respect that. One who would share her with her work schedule.

You’re a geologist. What the hell do you have to work on at night and on weekends?

Research papers and class prep waited for no one, and writing took up a great deal of her time. For reasons she didn’t understand, she seemed to get caught in strange time warps. She’d sit down and start working on a paper, then the next thing she knew, it would be five hours later and her phone would be buzzing or ringing with either a text or call about why she wasn’t at home or wherever it was she was supposed to be. It was like the world stopped moving whenever she worked, and she would sit still for hours on end without getting up or sometimes even blinking.

But the simplest truth was that none of the men she’d dated had been worth her keeping up with the time to make sure she wasn’t late meeting them. While they’d been fun to hang out with for a little while, they invariably started bitching about her schedule and weird beliefs and habits to the point she hit the door running to escape them. They were never her priority.

Ren was different.

His beliefs made hers seem normal. If she were to talk about raven mockers, instead of laughing or rolling his eyes, he most likely would be on a first-name basis with a few of them. And the moonstone he’d given her said that he understood her fascination with rocks and minerals. That he felt the power they held and knew what it meant to reach for one in the middle of a crisis. He got it.

Most of all, she found him fascinating. The things he knew … the things he could do. She hadn’t thought about work once while they’d been together.

Well, okay, granted they were running for their lives, but still …

He held her attention completely. For him, she would gladly put her research aside. To make him smile a real smile, she would be late to class. How sick was that?

She barely knew him and yet … she’d been with him for years. “Did you ever see visions of me?”

He pulled back to stare down at her. Cupping her jaw in his large hand, he teased her chin with his thumb. At first, she didn’t think he’d answer. But after a brief pause, he gave a subtle nod.

“What did you see?”

Ren’s first thought went to the images of her killing him. Now at least he understood why he never fought her for his life. But those weren’t the only dreams of her he’d had. “I’ve seen you in a yellow dress with hummingbirds on it and a matching yellow sweater. You were a young teenager and had yellow ribbons in your hair. You were happy about something and you threw your arms around an older man.”

A winsome smile curled her lips, reminding him of how she’d looked in his mind. “My sixteenth birthday. My grandmother made that dress for me. I hated it, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings so I wore it.”

“And the man?”

“My stepfather. He adopted me right before my mother died. It’s why my last name is Avani. He was from New Delhi and used to joke all the time about which of us was more Indian.”

“What happened to him?”

“He died of cancer while I was in college.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She swallowed against the grief that choked her. She’d loved him so … Every day, she missed him terribly. “Thank you. He was a good man. He married my mom when I was four and you’d have never known he wasn’t my biological father.”

“You were at a dance with him when you were older. You wore a short blue skirt and white blouse.”

She nodded. “It was a father-daughter charity dance that was sponsored by his office.”

He frowned at her. “Why did you burst out crying during one of the dances? Did he hurt your feelings?”

“Oh God no. He’d just been diagnosed with cancer and they started playing the Bob Carlisle song, ‘Butterfly Kisses.’”

“I don’t know it.”

“It’s a song about a woman and her father and—” She broke off into a sob.

“Sh,” he said, pulling her back into his arms. “I’m so sorry, Kateri. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“No, it’s okay.” She sniffed back her tears. “I wish you’d known a father like him, Ren. He was so good to me. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t feel his loss as much as I do my mother’s and my grandmother’s. I was so lucky to have him. And he loved my mother more than you can imagine. To the day he died, he had their wedding photo on his desk, and his one request for his funeral was that I place a photo of her on his heart and lay his hands over it. I remember asking him once, years after her death, why he never dated anyone. He told me that he’d found his one perfect soul mate and that there was no reason in trying to find another. No woman would ever mean as much to him as my mother had and that he didn’t have room in his heart or life for anyone else. Keeping up with me was a full-time job and it was the only job he really wanted.”

Ren had no way of relating to the love she described. But it sounded incredible. “I’m glad he was good to you.”

Kateri burst into deep, wrenching sobs.

What did I do?
Ren pulled back and cupped her face in both of his hands. Never had he felt so lost. He hadn’t meant to hurt her with his comment. Stupidly, he’d thought to make her feel better. He’d spent so little time around women that he had no idea how to help her. Did all women do this?

Was it normal? Or had he broken her with his ignorance?

And still she sobbed as if something inside her had snapped. What could he say? After what just happened, he was terrified to even try.

“Don’t look at me,” she wailed.

He released her and started to turn away.

She grabbed him and threw herself into his arms. He stood there, stunned. Okay. She wanted him to hold her, yet not look at her. Weird, but okay.

Dammit, Sundown, where are you when I need advice?
Surely, his married friend would have a clue.

Maybe …

Ren searched his mind for something he could do to soothe her. The only thing he could remember was seeing mothers with crying children. They would hold and rock them.

Scooping her up in his arms, he carried her to a small clearing and sat down to hold her in his lap. He brushed the hair back from her face while she sobbed against his chest and clung to him. Wow, all this over what he thought was an innocuous comment meant to cheer her up.
You will never understand people
.

That was definitely true. They’d never made sense to him in any way.

So he held her against him and rocked her gently, hoping they didn’t get attacked until she had time to finish.

Kateri hated that she’d fallen apart like this. It was what she hated most about grieving. Most days, she was fine. But every now and again, a sight or smell would ambush her, or she’d hear a song, see something that evoked a buried memory, and it would hit her all over again just how much she missed them. How much she wanted them back and how much she hated that she’d never see them again. It wasn’t fair. Other people got to keep their parents most of their lives. But not her. Until last night, she’d never even met her biological father.

And as bad as that was, she couldn’t imagine the pain of not having them at all. It made her wonder what was worse. Not knowing what you were missing or knowing exactly how it felt to be loved and cared for and then having it ripped brutally away from you.

She covered her eyes with her hand and groaned at what a basket case she must look like to poor Ren. “I am so sorry, sweetie. It’s just been a horrendous last few days. I’m tired. I’m scared, and I lost a really good friend right before all of this happened.”

Ren didn’t respond. He just kept rocking her.

Frowning, she wiped at her eyes and looked up at him. “Are you all right?”

He nodded, then brushed away more of her tears.

“Then why aren’t you speaking to me?”

Panic flashed across his features. He glanced away as if trying to think of a response.

“Ren? Talk to me.”

His lips twitched before he finally spoke in a low tone. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing again and make you cry more.”

The pure innocent sweetness of that wrenched another sob from her.

“Ah, see now what I did. I’m sorry, Kateri. I won’t say anything else. I promise.”

She laid her head down on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck. “It’s so not you, baby. You did nothing, absolutely nothing wrong.” She squeezed him tight, wishing she could make him understand. “All you’ve been is wonderful.…”

Ren knew she was speaking, but he couldn’t make out the words. Not after she’d called him baby and sweetie. No one had ever used an endearment for him before. Until now, the closest anyone had come was to call him friend or brother.

But baby …

He’d never been anyone’s baby.

“Are you listening to me?”

You should probably say yes
. That would be the smartest thing to do. But for some stupid reason the truth came out before he could stop it. “Um … no.”

“Why are you tuning me out?” she snapped as fury lit up her eyes.

Ren moved his jaw, trying to explain, but no words would leave his lips as he stammered over the word
I
.
Why do I always do this shit when I least want to look like an idiot?

He expected her to be angry. Instead, she kissed him senseless. Every part of him went into overdrive as his cock hardened.

She pulled back. “What were you trying to say?”

Heat scalded his face. “I didn’t hear anything after you called me baby.”

Kateri laid her hand over his cheek at the anguish she saw on his face. Her heart lurched. Given what she’d seen of his life, she was willing to bet it was the first time anyone had ever used an endearment for him. While most people grew up being called “sugar” and “darling” by others, he never had, and he’d secluded himself to the point that he most likely hadn’t even been called that by a waitress, let alone someone who actually cared about him.

“I know that place deep down inside where it feels like no one cares. No one sees you. No one knows you. But I see you, Ren, and I do care. I know exactly how it feels to be alone in this world.” She laughed bitterly as she remembered something Fernando had said to her about one of the most influential innovators in the field of archaeology and anthropology. “Margaret Mead once said that one of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder when you are coming home at night.”

She smiled at him. “There’s nothing lonelier than an empty house when you’re going to bed. I’ve lost everyone I’ve ever loved and I’m scared as hell at the thought of letting you or anyone else into my heart to hurt me like that again. Because every time I lose one of them, a part of me goes to the grave with them and I’m not sure how much of me is left anymore. But I’m willing to take that leap again …
for you
.”