Kiss Across Swords (Kiss Across Time Series) (8 page)

He sat up from the slouch he’d fallen into while he’d been reading. Who was he kidding? Veris’ absence was mostly responsible for her wasting away before his eyes.

He felt like a bastard for only just now noticing it. Someone who cared more would have noticed sooner. Veris would have.

Yes, but Veris wouldn’t have been dodging her in the first place, would he?

Self-loathing circled through him. Brody put the book on the floor beside the low-slung chair. He’d lost all interest in it now.

Taylor came up to him. “Thought you’d be here,” she said softly. “Can I interrupt?”

Even the question made him feel guilty. “Of course,” he said roughly. He studied her face more closely. She was ghostly white, to the point where he could pick out the tracery of veins under her skin. Good God, what had he and Veris driven her to?

“You’ve been working too hard,” he said, probing.

“Perhaps,” she said lightly. She pulled over the padded bench and perched on one side of it. She spread her hand on the empty space next to it, her mouth curving up in a small smile that made him think, oddly, of Veris. Had they had sex on that bench? He made a mental note to ask Veris one day.

Taylor looked at Brody and there was a tiny line between her brows. “Do you know where Veris is?”

Bingo
, Brody thought. Then he mentally sighed. He wanted to slug Veris square on the jaw for what he was doing right now.

“Truth, Taylor?” he said. “I have no fucking idea.”

Her face fell. The change of expression was so dramatic, Brody was alarmed. He held up his hand. “That doesn’t mean we don’t have resources to dig the bastard up if we have to.”

She hesitated. “What does that mean, exactly?” she asked.

Brody sighed.
Jesus
. He so wanted to kill Veris now. If the old Viking could see the look on Taylor’s face, he’d be back here in a heartbeat, groveling on the floor at her feet begging forgiveness. Instead, he’d left Brody to deal with her. Brody wasn’t Veris and she wanted Veris.

There was no way to explain the truth to her and have her accept it, because for her, it
wasn’t
acceptable. Just waiting around for Veris to work out whatever the hell he had to work out then come home, fuck his brains out when he did and move on…that wouldn’t go over with Taylor. It
couldn’t.
As Taylor had pointed out, she didn’t have the timeline they did.

Brody pushed his hand through his hair. “Shit, I don’t know how to explain all this stuff. Veris is good at it.
You’re
good at it. You two are the brains. I just go along for the ride, remember?”

Taylor shook her head. “You’re better at it than you think. You’re the son of a bard and you have poetry in your soul. You understand feelings. You understand people. That’s why you and Veris get along so well. You
do
know this stuff. You know words very well indeed. So just tell me. Tell me your way.”

He blew out his cheeks. Taylor wasn’t going to let him off the hook. So he ruffled his hair again and sat forward. “Look… I was a slave for seventeen years. I know what it means to be afraid of being locked into a relationship that is too tight. So does Veris. He negotiated your independence before you stepped foot through that door, four years ago, remember?” He inclined his head toward the front door.

Taylor nodded. She was independently wealthy now and didn’t need to work a single day of her life if she didn’t want to, thanks to Veris.

“I’ve known Veris a very long time,” Brody continued. “We took a long while to figure things out between us. It wasn’t always smooth.” He grinned. “Still isn’t.”

Taylor smiled. It was weak, but it was there.

“You need to figure that stuff out for yourself, too. This is the start of it.” He picked up her hand. “I love you very, very much. As much as I love Veris. I would never want to have to choose between the two of you. I don’t think I could anymore.”

“But,” she said softly.

He smiled. “You keep saying you want Veris the way I have him, but you keep trying to grip too tight.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t. That’s where you’re wrong.”

Surprise touched him. “Why?”

“He wants to marry me.”

Brody sat back as something hot and hard skewered his chest. “Did you say yes?”

“I said I would marry him only if I could marry you, too.”

“Would you?”

“Would I what?”

“Marry me?”

“Is that a proposal, Brody?” Her gray eyes seemed to grow larger as she watched him.

He swallowed. “It’s academic anyway. This world will only let you marry one man and neither of us are really men to begin with. Besides, in our world you’re more permanently bonded to both of us than any of today’s marriages appear to last.” He shrugged.

Taylor nodded slowly. “So Veris tells me.”

Brody sighed. “He’s never turned anyone.”

Her chin jerked up and her eyes seemed to get even larger. “Excuse me?”

Brody grimaced. “In nearly sixteen hundred years, Veris has avoided making anyone a vampire. He won’t do it.”

Taylor’s breath pushed out in a rush. “Oh my…” She frowned. “Because of you?” she asked. “Were you…forced?”

Brody shook his head. “Not unless you consider a choice between death or vampirism as being forced.”

“It was another slave that made you, wasn’t it?”

Brody nodded.

“And you and Veris didn’t meet until the crusades.”

“The first crusade.”

“Even though you were both in Britain in the fifth century.”

Brody grinned. “It happens. Angelina Jolie and I are both in the United States right now, too, but I doubt we’ll ever meet.”

Taylor smiled a little. “Don’t discount your own fame. She might like Death Metal music. Your band is fantastically popular in North America and you get mobbed whenever you go to Europe”

“I won’t hold my breath on it,” Brody said. He brushed Taylor’s hair out of her eyes. “I don’t know why Veris is staying away. I’d like to kill him myself, except that it would upset you. I’ve tried the hotels he’s supposed to be staying at, but he checked out. He’s gone to ground and I’ve lost track of him. We spent years touring around Europe before the band got known here and we’ve got contacts all over the place over there. Veris knows…six, seven modern languages. He’s got four current passports and sets of ID that I know about. He could be anywhere. I gave up trying to trace him two days ago.”

Her smile this time was radiant. “You’ve been trying, though.”

Brody sighed again. “Yes.”

“You wouldn’t, normally, would you?”

“No. I’d let him sulk and kick his ass when he came home.”

“So you were doing it for me.”

“Well, yes.” He shrugged.

She slipped into his lap and that told him exactly how much weight she had lost. She was a featherweight on his thighs. “If ever you got around to asking me to marry you, I would say yes, Brody Gallagher. You’re too good for me, but I’d say yes anyway.”

Brody caught his breath in pleased delight, just as she kissed him.

* * * * *

The dry, dry heat was his first warning. That and the noise of dozens, if not hundreds of hammers on wood, the braying of horses and donkeys. Brody opened his eyes to dazzling sunlight and shut them, giving his too-sensitive vampire vision a chance to adjust.

Taylor’s lips were still against his. “I’m not wearing a red shirt,” she murmured.

Relief flooded him. “Then you’ll live long and prosper,” he said. “Wait a moment,” he added. “It’s too bright for me. I have to adapt.”

She slid her arm around his neck, giving him the time he requested. He felt the touch of cloth. Smelled bergamot. More impressions registered. Voices. Many of them. Languages. Accents. Arabic, Farsi, old Latin. And Medieval French. Lots of it.

That alone was almost enough to tell him where they were. “There’s a walled city nearby,” he murmured.

“Yes. And people standing along the walls, firing arrows.” Her lips brushed against his. To the rest of the world they would look like they were kissing. It gave him the privacy he needed to let his eyes adjust to the blinding harshness of the Middle East in high summer.

He sighed. “Then I know where we are. Holy Mother.” Slowly, he began to open his eyes.

There was a loud clearing of a throat nearby. “Clearly, I’m interrupting,” came the familiar voice.

Brody turned, alarm slamming through him. Taylor gasped behind him.

Veris stood a dozen paces away. He wore a red and black tunic with a red crest on the breast, over a black mail hauberk and a long sword strapped to his hip. His visor was under his arm and he held a war horse by the other gauntleted hand, unconsciously controlling the fretful animal. His blue eyes blazed in the bright sun as he looked from Brody to Taylor and back.

“You are Brendan, Raymond’s man, are you not?” Veris asked.

Brody nodded. “I am.”

Veris looked past him again. “You brought your lady wife with you all this way?”

Brody glanced at Taylor over his shoulder. She was dressed in the clothes of a landed woman. Then Brody spotted the crest on the center of her gown. Her bliaut, he recalled from memory.

His crest
. He fought the need to look down at his own tunic to confirm the blue and white crest was repeated there. He knew it was.

Taylor was staring at Veris with wide, shocked eyes.

“You are William, with Selkirk, who is camped with Godfrey of Bouillon on the north side of Jerusalem,” Brody prompted, turning back to Veris.

“I am. Most who call me friend call me Will, though,” Veris said. He looped the reins of his horse around a lump of blasted and sun-bleached rock that was weighing down the rope holding up the pole of the tent behind them. The tent was emblazoned with Brody’s colors, too. Veris pulled off his gauntlets and held out his right hand.

Brody took the offered hand, staring into Veris’ eyes. There was no recognition there. Nothing.

Taylor stepped up to Brody’s side. He could feel the fine trembling in her as she stared at Veris. He reached under the deep looping sleeves of her bliaut and squeezed her wrist in warning.

She either didn’t understand or didn’t care.

“Sir, would you permit me an indelicacy?” she said to Veris.

He seemed puzzled. He looked her over with a flicker of his blue eyes. “If I must,” he said dismissively.

“Tyra, this is not the time,” Brody said softly. There were too many witnesses. Knights tending their weapons nearby. Pages caring for horses and running errands. Footmen, soldiers, cavalrymen, far too many witnesses lolling about in the heat of the day that would soak up the gossip Taylor was about to create.

She reached up on tiptoe, her veil thankfully hiding her actions from most of the people nearby. Her fingertips rested against Veris’ jaw and she kissed him. It was no light, chaste peck. Brody knew from personal experience that Taylor threw her mind, body and soul into her kisses and the impact was devastating to the recipient. Veris—Will—had never experienced one of Taylor’s kisses before. If anything was going to bring the modern Veris back to the past, this would.

Veris broke the kiss and staggered back a few paces. He stared at Taylor, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “An indelicacy?” he said, sounding utterly outraged. He turned eyes blazing with fury upon Brody. “Keep your woman contained, Norwich.” He picked up the horse’s reins and mounted, then turned the horse until he was looking at Brody again. His gaze was direct and angry. “I believe we were at cross-purposes. I must have misunderstood. I won’t make that mistake again. Good day.”

He turned the horse and wheeled away.

Fright tore through Brody. He lifted his hand to halt Veris. “Wait!” he called. But it was too late. The horse was already galloping away and the sound was loud on the dried-out land.

* * * * *

Taylor watched Veris gallop away on the horse and felt a sense of panic. Kissing either one of them had
always
worked to bring them into the past before.