AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kalistratos takes a sip of wine and stares at me. “First, tell me what that thing was that you found back in the treasury.”
I’d almost forgotten about it. “It was something from my world. Dammit, I should’ve taken it with me. The weirdest thing about it was that it was old. Twenty years, maybe.”
“Then you are not the first to come here,” he says.
“Unless you guys have a Wal-Mart here somewhere,” I say, and he gives me a blank stare. “But if that is true… If I’m not the first, then maybe that means there’s a way to get back?”
“Or perhaps whoever it belonged to is still here somewhere.”
“Jesus… Don’t tell me that.”
“What is thischeesusyou keep mentioning?” he asks, and I nearly choke on my wine.
“Jesus,” I said. “It’s like…how you say, ‘by the gods.’”
“Cheesus,” he says again. “I like it.”
“Anyway, if there’s another person like me here, maybe they’d knowsomething. Even if it is that I’m completely stuck here…” It’s not something I want to think about.
“You said the object was old. Twenty years? This person could be anywhere. Aelonos is a trading hub. People don’t stay here long. They could be long dead.”
“Wow, Kalistratos. Thanks for the reassurance.”
He stabs a piece of chicken with his knife and rips off a bite. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have agreed to take you if I didn’t already have a plan to get rid of you.”
“Slightly more reassuring, but a miss on the delivery. But go on.”
He leaned in and waited until the serving boy, who was bringing plates to a nearby table, was out of earshot. “Alyx and I are searching for the lost temple of the Great Phoenix. And thanks to our froggy friends this morning, we finally have the key piece we’ve been searching for.”
From the inside of his tunic, he flashes a peek at a narrow tube that I realize is a scroll of paper or papyrus or whatever it is they write on here.
“What is that?” I ask. “Your shopping list?”
“A map. A real map. And if I can get to that temple and meet the Great Phoenix…” Kalistratos trails off, and the look in his eye feels very far away, like he’s remembering something painful, something distant. Then the moment passes, and he smiles. “He’ll be able to answer why you’re here. And hopefully get you home.”
Home.
I’m sitting here in the afterglow of the insanity of the day, happy to be alive with this amazing food in my stomach… and I’m hit by a sudden wave of emotions that I’d subconsciously held back to deal with the chaos of everything else being thrown my way.
It’s the realization, thetruerealization, that I’m stuck here. That there is no pinch-me moment where I wake upor a camera crew that’s going to come out and tell me this was all an elaborate prank. And Jeff isn’t going to appear out of nowhere to take my hand and pull me back. Maybe it’s for the best. Isn’t this what I wanted? Something to finally help me forget about him?
I fucking hate how much I can miss someone who could never come out formeand never made me their priority despite the way we both felt about each other, the chemistry, and thesex. Goddamn, the sex. But dammit… I just miss him so much.
“Who is he?” Kalistratos asks.
Trying to play dumb is impossible. I’m just shocked he knew what I was thinking about.
“Ahh, just a guy,” I mutter, trying very hard to not let the emotions overwhelm me. I finger an olive, and when I try to pop it into my mouth, it bounces off my cheek. A bird swoops in and snags it off the ground.
“Your alpha?”
“No,” I say firmly. “And that’s why this is so fucking stupid. He’s not my alpha. Even after five years of chasing him around, spending so much time together, and being right for each other… He still says he doesn’t want a relationship.”
“Well, he sounds like a fool,” Kalistratos says, sipping on his wine.
“He just has some shit to work through or something,” I reply with a sigh. “It’s not his fault. He’s a really great person, which makes it a lot harder to stay mad at him.”
“Five years is a lot of time to spend being dragged around on a leash. You must truly see something in him.”
