Chapter Seventeen

Kelsey sat shivering on the smooth rocks outside the mitres, tucked neatly into a cleft of the cliff face where none of Jared's soldiers could possibly see her. She considered leaping to her feet and waving her arms wildly, since Marco would have to kill her if she did that. And she knew Marco didn't want to kill her. In fact, she suspected he just might be having serious doubts about this entire kidnapping plot of his. He squatted beside her, studying the winding path below them through some kind of night-vision binoculars. She'd never seen anything remotely like them before—tiny and compact, they apparently enabled him to see long distances.

They also enabled him to track the assent of Jared and his team, and she wanted to snatch them right out of his hands and send them careening over the cliff ledge. Still, as she studied Marco in silence, she couldn't shake the strangest, most inexplicable sensation: that as much as Marco frightened her, and as much as she'd just argued to the contrary, she might actually be able to trust him. She even felt the slightest bit of kinship with the man, sitting beside him in the dark.

She shifted position on the rocks. "Where is everyone else you said would be waiting for us out here?"

"Around," he answered coolly.

"So, Jared is going to get here and then you're just going to"—she stared at the strange metallic weapon holstered at his side—"what?"

He remained silent, his eyes hidden behind the glasses. She rubbed her arms, trying to warm herself. She wore only jeans and a sweater; their hasty departure hadn't allowed her to find her jacket.

Marco rocked back on his heels, dropping the glasses away from his eyes. Apart from when he'd taken her through the slipstream, this was the closest she'd been to him physically. She wished it weren't the dead of night— how late was it anyway? Two a.m.? Three? She had no idea. And she wished the moonlight weren't blocked by the scraggly tree branches overhead. Knobby pines sprouted out from cracks in the rock face, growing tall despite the unforgiving terrain. Kelsey leaned forward, wanting to see Marco's eyes. For some reason, she felt it was important that she get a genuine look at him.

He seemed to know what she was doing, and dropped his gaze to his hands. "We will stay here for now," was all he said, his voice stern.

She decided to try a new tack. "What's going to happen to me? I get that you're out to destroy Jared, that you have some master plan and all that. But what about me, huh? Where do I figure in?"

He glanced sideways at her, his eyes hooded and dark. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, looking across to Mirror Lake, shimmering in the moonlight below them. It was hard to believe that the farthest shore of that large lake was where she'd first seen Jared's light, and known for the first time his true magnificence. She would die before she let Marco or any of his gathered conspirators hurt Jared.

She sat up taller on the rocks. "You're just going to ignore my questions, huh?"

"Kelsey." He sighed heavily, his eyes trained on the path below. "I can't answer these things. You know that."

Maybe if she could distract him then that would buy some time. "How about other, less complicated questions?"

"Such as?"

"Like, are you planning to use the mitres? Is that why we're really here?"

"No, apparently"—he rose to his feet, peering through the night vision glasses and around the large wall of rock— "I should leave that maneuver in your extremely capable hands."

"I wasn't trying to use the weapon." When he made no further reply, she attempted another angle with the man. "Tell me more about what you were saying, about my being—what did you call it? The Beloved of Refaria?"

For that question she got nothing but stony silence, his face an inscrutable mask of indifference.

If she could only find a way to distract him, or to somehow appeal to Marco's ingrained sense of loyalty. "So, you won't answer that either," she said.

Resting one forearm on an outcropping of rock, he bowed his head and remained quiet for a long moment. At last he turned his head sideways and met her gaze in the darkness. His black eyes, so empty and lifeless before, practically blazed with energy. "In our future you were worshiped, Kelsey. By the Refarians, because they yearned for a queen, and by Jared because . . ." His voice trailed off, and he just shook his head, saying nothing for what felt an eternity. Finally he whispered, "We all worshiped you, Kelsey." His voice had become hoarse. Choked. Full of emotion. "We all loved you," he added softly. "How could we not?"

He didn't wait for her to answer, but quickly looked away, shuttering his features. "Don't speak to me again of that world," he warned, and she was happy to fall into silence herself.

How ironic to think she was learning these things now, at a time when her only thought was for Jared's very life.

Jared's life.

Her heart thundered within her chest, and it was hard to suppress her mounting sense of panic. Her palms were sweating, and she could hear the sound of blood rushing in her ears. What am I supposed to do? They all needed her to think of something—and now. She took deep breaths, trying to get her equilibrium back in check, and in response an excruciating pain hammered in her head. It had begun when she'd traveled through the slipstream, and been there vaguely ever since, intensifying when Marco had invaded her thoughts earlier in the mitres.

What a weird sensation that had been: painful, like something being sucked right out of her. In its wake, a dull throbbing had intensified to what was now a blinding headache. She rubbed her eyes, trying to still the pain.

Then she had the oddest memory. And she knew it was a memory, something that had actually happened, not a fleeting impression.

"What if he doesn't come back, Marco? What if this is it?"

"He'll be here, Kelsey." His voice, strong and reassuring, soothed her.

They were sitting on a rocky outcropping. Not here, somewhere else. Nighttime . . . and he was surveying the landscape with the same binoculars.

"I can't feel him. Not at all," she cried quietly.

He looked at her and pressed his hand over hers. "He'll be here. He will always come back for you, Kelsey."

Those words, and Marco's calm touch, had steadied her. He'd been her center, too; not just Jared. It had been different, of course, but Marco had been a compass point of his own in her world.

Tears stung her eyes, even though the reaction didn't make sense. But that didn't make her sudden rush of emotion any less true. "I can trust you," she announced quietly.

Marco dropped the glasses, staring at her dumbfounded for a full five seconds.

"Please tell me I'm not wrong," she implored.

"I am your enemy," Marco insisted, straightening himself where he sat. "Make no mistake about that fact."

"No." She shook her head with conviction. "I don't believe you."

His voice rose. "You need to believe it, Kelsey."

"You might, but I don't, not anymore. It goes against everything that you are."

"You have no idea what kind of man I am." He laughed brutally. "What I'm capable of." She realized those words were familiar, though it took her a moment to place them. And then it hit her—Jared! He had used almost those identical words to describe himself earlier that evening.

"I know that there was a time when you would have done anything for us," she said softly. "Both of us."

"Once." His voice seemed broken, lost.

"Whatever Jared did ... to make you turn from him—" His angry glare cut off her plea, his eyes flashing with fire, and then he stood suddenly. He grabbed her arm, jerking her roughly to her feet. At that exact moment Kelsey heard a rustling behind them. Marco glanced quickly in that direction, shoving her ahead of him.

"I want you back here. Now." He dragged her toward the concealed mitres entry, and this time he did bind both her hands and her feet so there would be no hope of escaping.

Marco stood with Veckus at the highest point of the trail, obscured from the Refarian soldiers advancing below them. They'd ascended a hidden back path, hoping to go unnoticed, but Marco had been observing Jared's soldiers from the very beginning.

"They're almost here," Marco stated calmly, studying Veckus's features. Unbelievable—here it was ten years earlier, and Veckus looked exactly the same as he did in the future. He stood with two other men—Antousians, no doubt—whom Marco had never seen before. All three observed the path below.

"Well, well, Jared will be very surprised to see how the tables have turned," Veckus sneered. "The mitres and the fallen king, all in one day. Not bad work."

Marco bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment. "I am only following your future orders."

"You follow well," he said, his eyes narrowing in appreciation. Veckus would be considered quite handsome by many people on Earth, but when Marco gazed at the tall blond, he only saw ugliness and hatred.

Veckus reached for Marco's field glasses, and over his comm system he ordered another unit of troops to make the ascent. "They will be here very soon," Veckus said, lowering the glasses. He turned to Marco. "And where is Jared's human now?"

"Inside the mitres," he lied.

"Bring her out."

Marco hesitated. "She's not to be harmed." He met Veckus's gaze pointedly. "You do remember that?"

Veckus shrugged indifferently. "Well, Raedus's directive has changed slightly. We're to get rid of them all."

Marco stared at the warlord in disbelief. To the Antousians, their sworn word meant nothing and was ever shifting to suit their current needs.

Veckus's hand twitched against the pulse gun holstered at his hip. "Yes, we'll just have a nice little group execution and be on our way," he said with a smile.

They would not hurt Kelsey. Marco would not allow it.

"Kelsey was never to be harmed." He gave the Antousian a forceful glance. "That was our arrangement from the beginning."

Veckus scowled in distaste. "Well, I'm a bit troubled by the idea of one dethroned and exiled queen left as a rallying point. I want this rebellion quashed once and for all."

Marco thought a quick moment, as priorities shifted and realigned in a nearly forgotten way. "Yes, I supposed the Beloved of Refaria would be a problem. But then you'll owe me something else."

Veckus looked at him hard. "Power? Money? Your reward will be yours for the naming once we've spilled their royal blood."

"Good." Marco nodded in satisfaction. "Then have your way with the female."

Below, a sound of a lone mortar shell echoed across the lake. Veckus flinched like the coward he was. "Too soon for a firefight," he said.

Marco waved off the concern. "Itchy trigger fingers on someone's part, that's all. We've got the high ground and the advantage. Besides, the Refarians think I'm acting alone. Still, you should wait behind the rocks," Marco told the hybrid calmly. "We must protect you at all costs, my lord."

Veckus nodded in agreement. "Of course. Best to maintain the illusion that it's only you."

Marco chose not to correct the hybrid's false assumption that Jared thought he acted alone. Nor did he see fit to inform him that the king and queen had formed not one, but two spatial bridges within the past hour.

Veckus and his flanking soldiers took a position behind the rocks where they'd hidden before.

And Marco knew exactly what he would have to do, because even after all his long history with Jared and Kelsey, he had come to understand something crucial about himself this night.

He realized that he had never fully turned away from his queen.