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ARIZONA
What did the pig say on the warm summer’s day?
I’m bacon.
* * *
It took almost thirty minutes to get Albert settled in with his breakfast. My growling stomach had reminded me Albert wasn’t the only one who hadn’t eaten breakfast, so I’d scrambled some eggs and fried some turkey bacon for the guys and myself. After clearing away the dishes, we moved into my living room. I sat in the recliner while the guys sat down on the couch across from me.
There was a long pause before Rez cleared his throat. “There is so much I need to explain, but I’m still finding it difficult to use your ‘English’ tongue.”
“Can’t you just do the telepathy thing?” I hadn’t heard his voice in my mind since he’d walked out the door that morning. The emptiness left me feeling strangely lonely, and I missed the intimacy it had given us. It was a sign of how weird my life had become that I was missing the voices, er, his voice in my head.
Rez shifted in his seat, not meeting my eye. “That isn’t an option at the moment. The link is unstable.”
“Why is it unsta…” I trailed off as my mind attempted to put things together.
“I heard your hesitation and uncertainty regarding our future.” Rez focused on the window. “It made me question our future. It was selfish of me to assume that you would be as happy to see me as I was to finally be with you. My confidence was shaken, and without it, it is difficult to maintain a stable link between our minds.”
My stomach pitched, and my chest tightened. Voice cracking, I asked, “Can it be fixed? With time?”
Rezkac’s features softened. “Please don’t be upset, My Queen. It is not beyond repair. The link will reestablish as our relationship solidifies, but only if that is what you want. I do not want you to feel pressured to be with me, with us,” he emphasized.
I nodded, swallowing past the lump in my throat. It could be fixed. I wanted that. It was time to clear the air between us, and I needed to know my hero's backstory. I’d been woefully left out of the loop. “Who was the priestess? It seems like she is at the heart of all this.”
“Indeed, she was.” A tender smile lifted the corner of Rez’s mouth, sending a sharp stab of jealousy straight into my heart.
I stomped down the ridiculous feeling. I’d never been a jealous partner, and to be jealous over a lady who died during the age of dinosaurs seemed to be brushing along the edge of insanity.
“Priestess Tsufnu was a powerful woman, the most powerful to have existed since the dawn of time. She was an artist with magic. If her mind could think it, she could use magic to make it happen. There were very few things she could not do.”
There was no denying the respect that Rez had for this woman. It was in every word he spoke. The tiny green monster that had taken up residence inside me reared its ugly head again, and I heard myself asking, “Was she your wife?”
Both men’s eyes grew wide, and then they burst into loud laughter. Crossing my arms, I waited until they pulled themselves together. Rez was still wiping away tears as he spoke. “Priestess Tsufnu was my best friend. We would have killed each other as bonded mates.”
“Good,” I blurted out.
“During my time, magic was everywhere. It flowed freely from the earth. My kind, the dinosaur shifters, used the magic to bend their form. But, the people of the priestess—the Vazi—used magic in their everyday lives. While my people were born with an inner beast, the Vazi were born with inner magic. Shifters use the magic around them to bend, but the Vazi create their own magic.” Rez paused, giving my mind a moment to process the information dump. “Depending on their skill and strength, some benders learned to use the magic in other ways as well, but not like the Vazi could.”
“So the Vazi are like witches?” I asked.
Rez’s brow wrinkled. “From what I learned, while our minds were linked, the modern witches are descendants of the Vazi with extremely diluted bloodlines. They hold only a tiny flicker of magic inside them, whereas the Vazi possessed a powerful blaze of magic.”
“Holy heck! Are you telling me that witches are really real? They’re not just something out of the movies? Or a religion?” I blurted.
“I cannot speak to what the witches of your time are or are not. I do not know their practices or the details of their abilities. But yes, the reason they can cast spells is due to their bloodline.”
“That’s incredible!” I exclaimed, still trying to process that magic existed. “First, I found out that shifters existed, although, to be honest, I would have thought werewolves were more likely than dinosaurs. I mean, you never read about dinosaur shifters in romance books, and if you do, the romance tends to fall more in the kinky read genre.”
Noticing the confused expressions on the men’s faces, I stopped rambling. My cheeks warmed. “Sorry. So, do werewolves actually exist?”
“I do not know. Werewolves did not exist during my time. With magic fading from earth, and the original benders’ bloodlines so diluted, I believe it would be nearly impossible for shifters to exist today. Perhaps a few, but even that is doubtful. It takes a considerable amount of power to bend into one’s beast.”
I nodded. What he said made sense. “Thank you for explaining how things were on earth during your time. I still don’t understand, though. What does it have to do with me? You keep saying that you were bound to me. It sounds as though you had no choice, almost like you were a birthday present that someone wrapped up and mailed me from the past. A long, long time in the past. How is that even possible? How is it even possible that you are alive? Dinos are extinct!”
Rez chuckled.
“What?” I demanded. “What’s so funny?”
