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Chapter One
The man held her heart in his hand.
He had for the past five years.
Did he even have the smallest clue?
Emily Hargraves stood in the dark alley across the street from the Wild Boar, staring at Devyn. She’d known him just shy of five years. She supposed she’d loved him that long as well.
She’d asked – okay, begged – to meet him here tonight, after his shift. He belonged to the Tannisford Vampire Guard. Both he and his twin brother, Kyle, had joined the force about the same time several decades ago.
Kyle had died a year ago and Emily had been engaged to him the seven months before his death. She’d dated Kyle for years before he asked her to marry him. For the most part, they’d been living together though she’d kept her home here in Millerell.
Yet the entire time she’d been with Kyle, Devyn had been the one.
She also suspected he felt the same way, though he barely spoke to her anymore, not since Kyle’s death. The few times she’d been in the same room with him, however, she’d catch him staring at her. She knew he wasn’t indifferent because she could always detect a scent from him, something like lemon and oak leaves and very Devyn, whenever he was around her.
Devyn.
Sweet Goddess, she ached for him and not just in her body. Her soul throbbed with so much longing, she was sure she glowed different shades of moonlight the second she drew near him.
As she thought about crossing the cobbled street, her heart pounded. Was it possible she was mistaken about him, about what she believed he felt for her?
When doubts about what she wanted to do flooded her, she wondered if she should go into the past and see Devyn’s reactions for herself, to see if he really did have feelings for her. It would be a breach of protocol since she’d be using the time-path for her own personal reasons. But she was sorely tempted.
For the past two years, Vojalie, one of the most gifted and powerful fae in the Nine Realms, had been teaching her how to travel back in time. But her instruction also included specific parameters for making use of the time-path, like hunting for clues to crimes or antidotes for poisons or some other form of information gathering.
Using the time-path was not encouraged for the purpose of finding out if a specific man, in this case a very powerful vampire, was in love with you.
Yet right now, Emily had to know. If she was mistaken, the last thing she should do was cross the street and confront Devyn about his repressed feelings for her.
So, going back in time it was.
She straightened her shoulders and accessed her time-pathing frequency, something only a handful of fae women in the Nine Realms could do. The sensation was like nothing else in her world and began at her shoulders, she supposed where one carried the weight of the world as a sensitive fae woman.
A tingling began, soft at first then growing in strength until her entire chest buzzed with energy. By training, she focused first on Devyn, then constructed a time-map.
Vojalie said each time-pathing fae found her own method of managing the function of moving through time. Emily had a mental map she used to create the sought-aft
er past moment.
In this case, she brought forward the images from the first time she ever met Devyn. It had been snowing so she placed the image of it in the center of her map. Off to one side, she invoked the image of the coffee shop where she’d first met him. Off to the other, how she remembered Devyn himself. He’d worn a navy wool coat over his Guardsman leather, sleeveless duster. He had snowflakes on his shoulders and in his blond hair. He’d stood by the counter waiting for his coffee order. She’d met Devyn in the month of January, in this same coffee shop. She’d arranged to meet Kyle there, a third exciting date, but hadn’t known Devyn had been invited as well, ostensibly to meet her. Kyle thought it was great fun to trick them both.
So, it was winter and January and early evening, before the men took off for their Guard shift. She remembered what happened exactly, as though it was yesterday and not five years ago.
With her time-pathing frequency vibrating strongly, she slipped into the continuum, also called the time-path.
Though she still stood on the streets of Millerell, across from the Wild Boar, the moment she moved into the continuum, the street became locked in the present. It was one of the strange miracles of what she could do. She could now travel in time, but when she returned, her ‘present’ would be the moment she’d just left. It was the best gift of time travel.
The down side was a peculiar after effect which occurred during a prolonged stay. If she was in the continuum for longer than ten minutes, once she returned, she would experience a terrible phenomenon her teacher called time-lethargy. She’d only done it once and the lesson had been frightening. She hadn’t been in any real danger because she’d returned to Vojalie during a training session. However, the complete fatigue that had settled over her, in any other circumstance, could have made her vulnerable to attack or abduction.
She hadn’t been able to move a muscle. Literally.
Right now, though, she wasn’t concerned about overstaying this particular journey in the time-path. She knew where she was going and what she needed to accomplish.
Focusing on the event, the person and the season, she found herself exactly where she wanted to be.
Normally, she would leave the continuum and actually step into the past where she would be safe from falling victim to time-lethargy. But because she was a participant in the event she wanted to witness, she couldn’t actually enter the past at this point. Her two selves couldn’t be in such close proximity and the time-path itself wouldn’t let her leave the continuum. No one knew exactly what would happen, but the time-path created its own rules.
She therefore remained within the continuum, which was good enough for her purposes. She would be able to observe Devyn’s reactions to an experience that had haunted Emily for years now.
The coffee shop in Boylbury was exactly as she remembered it that night, a warm sanctuary during a cold January. The village was small but charming with cobbled, narrow streets and a number of shops run by local inhabitants. Devyn owned and lived in a farmhouse nearby he’d remodeled himself. She’d been there a few times with Kyle.
