AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He pulls a stone out of his pocket and offers it to me. “This is one of our beads. The ones we made together. Did that happen in your Time?”
I take the small, polished stone. “Our first night together?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yes, it happened in my Time, too.”
“We always wore a few. They protected us. Try to cast light with this one.”
“You have others, right? I don’t want to break this one if it’s the last. You can’t make any more.”
“It doesn’t matter if there are more. You have a strong connection to that stone. Use it, Teddy. Summon light.”
I reach out and wrap my arm around his neck, pulling him to me and giving him the deep kiss that deserves.
Then I close my hand around the moss agate bead and reach for my magic.
The door within me creaks, cracks, and opens wide. Gabe’s warm, watery magic laps over me. Then powerfillsme. It’s not just the stone in my hand that begins glowing. Golden radiance bursts from my eyes, my mouth, my pores.
Instead of burning out, it renews me, working deep into my cells, creating a magic reserve I’ve never had before. I’ve always had to reach into my Element and call it through the narrow channel of my talent into the physical world. Now, I’m the core, the source, the well.
It’swithinme.
Gabe’s hand closes around mine. I lift my eyes to his. The brilliant glow of my magic lights his eyes, turning them the palest aqua. The golden rings around his pupils spark, flare, and burn with the ripple of flame across water. A thousand tiny filaments spin between us. This soul that’s bound to mine, that I’ve been called through Time to heal, whose connection I lost when I lost my magic, we re-entwine.
Darwin stumbles out of mid-air a meter away. He falls to his knees and claps his hand over ours.
Without hesitation, I pull him into our connection. His Fire runs down the filaments connecting me and Gabe and sets them aflame. Instead of burning away, they melt into black glass, spines as sharp as the demon’s armor shooting out of each filament.
Even as Darwin’s magic strengthens and fortifies our connection, I feel the hollowness, the fragility of it. Without Charlie, we’re incomplete. We were never meant to be a trio.
We’re a quaternion.
* * *
I can’t bearto leave them, my husbands. After Doctor Prince and Robert go, with many, many thanks, we stay up into the wee hours, cuddled in the big bed together. Talking. Touching. Kissing.
I know when I finally let my heavy eyelids close over my burning eyes that I’ll wake in my own Time, with my own boys. I’ll miss these men, my husbands, these parts of me spinning out into a future I don’t want to see but will desperately miss once they’re gone.
Darwin falls asleep with his head in Gabe’s lap, while I nestle in the crook of Gabe’s arm. I run my fingers lazily through Darwin’s hair while Gabe tells me stories. Funny stories. Sad stories. Poignant stories. They had such an amazing life together. Even if this isn’t my future, even if I only get a fraction of what they had, I want it so much my chest aches like I’ve taken a punch.
Enough to be tempted, so very tempted, when Gabe whispers, “I wish you could stay, Teddy. There’s so much more I want to do with you.”
I tip my head back and meet his lips. There’s no pain now, just the warm brush of skin and breath and the delicious undercurrent of our magics mingling. “I wish I could, too, baby boy. I’ll be back as soon as I can, I sw—”
He puts his finger over my lips, silencing me before I can finish the vow. “Don’t. My other Teddy promised the same thing. Thank you for fulfilling her vow, but don’t make me any more promises. My Teddy barely ever walked through Time. She said it was too dangerous. I’ve been selfish letting you keep doing it. This—being trapped in the future with us—it could be my fault. I should have stopped you after the first time. I just ... I missed you so much. Every night was a fresh gift. And if I get another night with you, I’ll cherish it. But I’m asking you not to come back, baby girl. I’m fine now. Things with Dar are better. Your safety is more important. Your Gabe and your Charlie and your Darwin need you. And you have just a few things to do in your own Time.”
I do. There’s a steep series of steps in front of me. My boys probably think I’m dead. Although both Gabe and Darwin feel they successfully sent their past selves dreams of me, healthy and whole and working hard to return to them, they still must have some doubt. At the very least, they’ll need a lot of kisses and cuddles.
I’ve missed Samhain, when magi renew their connection with their Element and the Mother, although my new magic reserve probably makes up for anything I lost there. I’ve missed reading period and midterms and there will be repercussions, although I’m really hoping that Doctor Prince will come to my rescue. I’ve left Mrs. Alexander in the lurch, and she’s probably sacked my arse. I’m very, very far behind enchanting stones. My crew will cover for me as much as they can, but I’m the only one of us who can do my dark line. Quids to quills we’ll have lost custom, despite Elliot’s best tap dancing. Then there’s the whole deranged, thread-snipping Fate that I probably pissed off by closing the door to her supply of unborn souls. To say nothing of the shadowy coven that summoned her.
And at the very top of the staircase, there’s Yule and my promise to fix the timelines.
No pressure.
“I won’t promise, then,” I say. “But I’ll try. I want to come back, Gabe. I’ll miss you. I love you. I love my boys in my Time, but I love you in this one.”
Gabe strokes my jaw with his long fingers and gives me a heart-breaking smile. “I love you, too. And yes, that’s probably because you remind me of my other Teddy, just as I remind you of your other Gabe. But I love you for all the reasons I loved her. Whatever the differences in the timelines, you’re just as brave and strong and loving as she was. I haven’t met many people with a heart as big as yours, Teddy. Whatever happens, don’t let time jade you. My other Teddy struggled with that. Sometimes her snark became cynicism. Keep your heart open, baby girl.”
