Storm Front: NA Fantasy/Time Travel (Tesla Time Travelers Book 3) (2 page)

“That she traveled under her own power cements my theory. Your initial appearance showed as merely a disturbance. To track you with any precision forced me to adjust the software. The lack of other female riders to test my calculations left me without a way to dial in the sensitivity. Tiana’s disturbance showed up with a new, unique signature. Without knowing it was her, I quickly made notation and adjustments, but before I could enter the coordinates,” He looks away and runs a finger down the edge of his lapel, then meets my gaze. There’s a strain around the corners of his eyes. “She disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”
I take a step backward and breathe, trying not to lose it.

His voice is strained. “I’d promised your father I could track Tiana. And I did. But,” He rubs the line of his jaw with his thumb like there’s an ache there from clenching his teeth. “Penya must have known I could. That’s not possible, but—” He coughs and looks around uneasily, then leans in and lowers his voice. “I have no other explanation for the way the software dropped Tiana. Those formulas are only accessible in the lab. I don’t know when Penya could have done that.”

I do.

This is unraveling too fast. Faster than I can keep track. “She said you wanted Telsa’s patents for something sinister. She said you’d kidnapped her. She said you’d taken her to the lab after the fight in the glen.”

He shuts his eyes and a tremble wracks his body. “Was she in my lab while she spun these lies?”

“I’d watched you take her. It made sense.”

“I told you she escaped!” His words echo off the buildings, sending another flock of birds escaping to the air.

I drag my hands down my face. He’s not listening and again his hatred for Penya is clouding what’s important. He never keeps his priorities straight, not where my family’s concerned. “Not until after I’d agreed to help her. Not until after you’d misled me. Not until after you used me to get what you wanted! I’ve been nothing more than a pawn to you. To Penya.”

“That’s untrue.”

“Bullshit! You’ve lied to me at every turn, you’ve withheld information as it suited you and now Tiana’s paying for your screw-up. Everyone always pays for your screw-up. Everyone but you!”

“I have never failed until you started riding.”

“You lost my grandfather!”

He flinches.

“You’re are
still
the worst motherfucking mentor I’ve met!” I stomp away, then back, unable to stand still. I want to leave right now and go try and find Tiana. I have no idea how, but it’s better than standing here listening to how he screwed up. “You should have been in your lab. Where the hell were you? I’m so tired of you yelling at me for my stupidity in overlooking really important details when you’re doing the same damn thing!”

“She was at my lab. Years ago. I told you that. You should have known this was different. It would have been obvious to a man who doesn’t let emotions cloud his perception like you continually allow.”

“Bullshit. She came to me right after you’d left the glen with her. She said she was in her lab. Maybe she lied, but it made sense.”

“Time is circular. What seemed like moments to you was clearly decades.”

“I don’t understand how time works!” I kick a clump of dirt against the wall and it shatters in a cloud of dust. “I’ve never understood it and you’ve never thought me worthy of an explanation!” I’m shaking and tendrils of lighting are fracturing from my fingertips. I want to hurt him with it. I want to wrap my fingers around his throat and squeeze the truth from him. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now. Your stupid lab doesn’t matter. When Penya did her meddling doesn’t matter. She made it so you can’t track Tiana.”

I’m nearly violently ill at the thought.
 

“You’re sure?”

“She’s gone.”

C
HAPTER
5

G
ONE
. 

M
Y
BABY
sister is gone. Lost in the universe as a time traveler. I was supposed to train her, guide her, not leave her with no idea how to control her ability. Fear and anger flare, manifesting in a writing ball of lightning in my belly. I glare at Ilif. This is his fault. Once again he’s failed my family because he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. He was conveniently missing during most of my last arc working on so consumed with
classified
projects. I hate him.

I grab the lapels of his pristine suit jacket and stiff-arm him, shoving him against the side of the building. “How did this happen!” I scream. “We were supposed to keep my family safe.”

“No, Evy,” he says with a poise I cannot feel, looking down his nose with disdain while I press my curled fists tighter against his chest. “You trusted Penya with that. Until you’re willing to see Penya is not who you believe her to be, she will always be one step ahead of you. I know all too well the lengths she resorts to. You never should have made her aware of Tiana's ability to travel.”

I slam him against the wall again, needing to do something, anything to feel like I’m helping find Tiana. I can’t leave, can’t find her, can’t locate Penya. The coil of fear and anger fights for control and it’s all I can do to keep my lightning in check so he doesn’t disappear. “How do I find her?”

He shakes his head. “Find Penya. She is your only hope.”

“No!” I let go and lean over, gasping for breath and a different solution. I did this. For the second time, I’ve put my own desires first, and it’s cost someone I love. Cost them dearly. My lungs compress and I wheeze. Too much of what he’s saying is ringing true. Penya wasn’t the person I knew when she was in my house, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to believe that there was a reason she slipped the lightning manacles, that there was a reason she shoved me and raced into the bedroom containing Tesla’s papers, a reason that would explain why she acted so strangely. A dozen feet away, Constantine steps between two buildings and onto the path, hair mussed and wearing only a tunic. He must have woke without me and come searching. His gaze darts from me to Ilif and as his shoulders tighten, I can tell he’s misread the situation and thinks Ilif is the reason I’m struggling to breathe, but I can’t straighten fast enough, can’t grab a breath to stop him. He races past and wraps his fingers around Ilif’s throat, lifting him to his toes. 

“What have you done to her?” he growls, his deadly intent evident.

I try to breathe and call him off, but part of me wants him to finish Ilif so I don’t have to figure out who he is and what truths are lies. But Ilif is valuable. He has to figure out how to track Tiana; he’s the only one who can. I find my air and straighten but the trembling won’t stop. Lightning shoots from my hands and slams into the ground. Constantine watches me closely, but his fingers haven’t lessened one fraction on Ilif’s throat.

“Give me your order,” Constantine asks me.

He would do it without hesitation, too. With the slightest tip of my head, he would break Ilif’s neck or slit his throat, and leave his body right here where it fell, then throw me over his shoulder and carry me to safety. I’ve known it from the second we met, he promised me as much while we were naked an hour ago. He protects what’s his. I am his.

“Not yet,” I whisper and clench my fists.

He studies Ilif, then looks at me again. “Are you certain?”

“For now.”

He pulls Ilif closer until their noses almost touch. Constantine towers over Ilif's slight frame and without his full armor, the sheer size of him is imposing. “I will warn you only once. If you hurt her or so much as threaten her, I will you kill you with no remorse.”

Constantine releases Ilif and swiftly pulls me to him. “What troubles you? What happened?”

“My little sister.” My throat constricts and tears well in my eyes.

C
HAPTER
6

“C
OMMANDER
.”

A
N
ARCHER
stands ten paces down the walkway. I’ve seen him around before, but he shows no signs of recognition. Constantine doesn’t look away, staring intently at me and asking for more of an answer. I swallow the emotions and look away. “It’s fine.” I can’t expect him to put me before his men, before their missions here. I’ll have to leave him to find Tiana. Maybe it’s good if there are things here requiring his attention. His fingers tighten, then travel down my arms to link our fingers. “It’s not fine.” He turns to his man and nods for him to ask the question he’s come for.

Archer’s gaze shifts uneasily to me. It’s obvious he’s interrupting. “There’s a runner.”
 

“Bring him,” Constantine gives a curt nod, sending him on his way. He squeezes our fingers “I’ve not forgotten you. Let me hear the runner, then we will solve this mystery of your sister.”

I swallow. “Thank you.”

Ilif clears his throat; Constantine and I both ignore him. My mind is whirling with everything he said to me in the minutes he’s been here. Before I fall apart again, the archer and a slender young boy come racing down the path. The boy pulls a scroll from beneath his arm and thrusts it at Constantine, then jumps back fearfully, glancing from Ilif to me to the archer with extreme discomfort.
 

The parchment rustles, Constantine scans the missive, then swears. “Ready the men. Feed the boy. We leave in one hour.” The archer doesn’t bother to ask what they’re readying for, knowing only that it must be important or Constantine wouldn’t take all of them. He and the boy scurry away and I take a step back dropping Constantine’s hand. “I have to go. I’ll be back.” I look away quickly unable to meet his gaze.

“I’ll not allow you to go without me. There is danger. You said it yourself.”

“It’s fine.” I can’t keep him from his job here. His men depend on him. History depends on him. We each have our own jobs to do.
 

He runs a hand through his hair and squeezes the back of his neck—his greatest tell. He’s keeping things from me. Things we haven’t had time to talk about since I’ve been here. I keep hoping were going to get this figured out, but while I might have told him there was dangers surrounding me, he also revealed the truth—I can only give him slices of my in-between. Slices aren’t enough to fill with all the worries and problems of our other lives, lives that are already set in stone on timelines, lives that choose to intersect in the rarest of moments, and in those moments we seem to find so many other ways of expressing ourselves beyond talking. I want to know what’s going on with his men, he wants to know what’s going on with my sister, but the reality of those two events is that there is no time for talking when all we’re given are slices.

I brush my fingers against his cheek and inhale the strength he affords me. While this has become my second home and have been treated with respect from all I’ve encountered, there is still much work to do. “Your men need you. My sister needs me.”

“If I might,” Ilif says, stepping too close and forcing us apart.

We turn and I brace myself for whatever stupid suggestion he’s about to serve up.

C
HAPTER
7

P
ENYA
STANDS
AT
the window, arms crossed, watching Tiana move through ministrations of creating her own lightning. Beyond the window, the training room vibrates with the layers of counter-measures needed to prevent any mishaps while Tiana works through the colored lightning.
 

The girl is wise and strong. This time will work. This time will not become the debacle it was with her sister. Evy was too strong, too old, too independent. All so obvious now.

“What’s with the girl?” Gelver strides through the glass doors, a thick folder beneath one arm, attention riveted on Tiana as she boxes her way across the training room. Penya cares not for his opinion of her methods, nor his need for explanation. Tiana and her training doesn’t concern the information he’s bringing. Her gaze shifts to the folder. Those had better be results.

“This is the next sister,” Penya answers, turning away from the window.

“Finally giving up on the older one, eh?” His laughter grates on Penya’s nerves but he’s too brilliant a scientist for her to terminate him. She’s come too far to let anything stand in her way now. She put up with decades of Ilif’s incompetencies, pandered to his insufferable insecurities, toiled longer and harder to see success.

He lost sight of what we’d been commissioned to do. Always distracted on other things, things that meant little to the contractors who’d hired us, to the governments who wanted what we could build. Weaponry paid the most. Ilif never got that. Most certainly, we enter the fields of science to better the world, but at the end of the day, that won’t pay the bills.
 

Luckily, Ilif was content to let me handle those details that troubled him, those pesky items like bidding on new contracts, reading the latest research, making sure that we had years of revenue in the bank. He spent over a decade working off those war contracts, never thinking to question who had bled for that money. He didn’t care. Didn’t care for anything that kept him away from his “life’s work.” Didn’t care how many meetings I’d endured, listening to military men talk about what they wanted to do to other countries, pain and torture they wanted to inflict on “them,” no matter the cost. We had the weaponry they needed; the science they’d pay for. This entire lab was built on blood money while Ilif averted his eyes.

Men never change. They are as power-hungry today as they were back in Constantine’s time. That observation gave Penya that first idea to use Ilif’s fancy time machine to go back. Back all the way to the beginning. Back to where she could create something from scratch. Something magical.

That stupid girl Evy thought she’d arrived there on accident. Penya’s stomach nearly curdles at the memory of such pretense on her arrival. What a happy coincidence that Evy just
happened
to arrive in a tiny Spanish village where Penya
happened
to be.
 

Youth. It’s wasted on the young.