Taylor caught her breath.
Veris dropped his hands to his belt buckle and hesitated and she knew why. This was her moment to say no. To halt it.
Her breath quickened.
Veris’ chest lifted as he drew in his own harsh breath. He undressed, his gaze never leaving hers except for brief moments when layers got in the way. Finally he stood naked before her. Magnificent. Exactly as she remembered. His cock was hard and upright.
The tears blurred her vision and she blinked furiously. She remembered vaguely that pregnant women cried more. But it was a stray thought, gone in a nanosecond as she quickly wiped her eyes. Veris laid another blanket next to hers and stretched himself out so that his body touched as much of her as possible. His cock pushed up against her thigh.
Astonishingly, he felt warm to her.
Desert heat.
He rested over her, his lips almost touching hers. It was almost like he was afraid to take that last inch.
“I will be gentle,” he whispered.
“No, don’t be gentle. Just be careful,” she told him.
He groaned and took the promised kiss.
Taylor clung to him with her one good arm, trying hard not to be overwhelmed by the sheer delight of being back in Veris’ arms again, of being kissed by Veris again. His tongue swept into her mouth. Touched her lips.
“You taste of…something delightful,” Veris breathed. “I have never met a woman who kisses like you. A man would be a fool to stop kissing you, ever.”
Veris never did want to stop.
Taylor licked his upper lip, just where his canines rested beneath. “I’m inspired by the man kissing me.”
Veris lifted his head to look at her properly. “You do not fear us. Vampires.”
“Not you or Brody, no. You are the only two of your kind I have ever met. Except for one other—and Davina. But only for those few short moments.”
Veris’ expression darkened. “No, we will not speak of her now,” he said softly. He kissed her again and thoughts faded. She was caught by the sensations of his lips and tongue and teeth on her mouth, her face, her throat, her ears and neck. For long moments, he did nothing but stroke and caress her with his mouth and fingers, discovering her face and neck, as his body lay heavily against hers.
But it was enough for her pulse to remain thready and fast and her clit to throb in anticipation.
When his lips moved carefully below her collarbone, skipping her wound and her aching left arm, on to the soft swell of her upper breast, her body tightened and soared in a spiral of excitement harder and higher than she thought it would. Veris’ lingering exploration of her face and neck was driving her arousal to unaccustomed peaks.
He was taking full advantage of the fact that she was helpless on the blanket.
She slid her hand into his hair as he bent over her. Her body was arching, lifting beneath him. Her clit was throbbing painfully and her pussy was heavy with juices. She felt empty and anxious to have him inside her, but knew that if she asked or tried to guide him, he would extend the teasing just to drive her frustration levels even higher, while reveling in the effect he was having on her.
But she reached a point where she couldn’t hide her building need any longer. As his lips closed around her nipple, Taylor groaned and her hips thrust. Hard. “Veris. Please…”
She realized that she was trying to coax him between her legs when he lifted her hand from his head and looked at her with a slow, promised-filled smile. “Don’t hurry me.”
Taylor licked her dry lips. “It is for my sake I must hurry. I won’t last, Veris!”
“You will,” he said with complete assurance. He spoke with the same utter certainty as the Veris of her time. A man sure of himself and his ability to give pleasure.
A ripple passed through Taylor’s body. “Kiss me,” she told him.
Veris lowered his head and pressed his lips against her breast. His tongue slid over the nipple, making her gasp. He did the same to the other breast, only this time his teeth snagged the nipple and tugged it while his tongue rasped over the tip.
Taylor closed her eyes, trying to keep her wriggling to a minimum, for it hurt her shoulder when she bucked too hard. But the heat and moisture pouring from her unfulfilled pussy and the throbbing from her clit was driving her mad. There was a building, pulsing wave pushing at her. Her climax was starting to quicken. She gasped, her breath shortening.
“Look at me.” Veris’ voice was low, heavy with his own excitement.
Taylor forced her eyes open.
Veris touched her lips with the tips of his fingers. “You are too close,” he breathed. “Such responsiveness…” He lifted himself over her, holding himself above her with one stiff arm so that his upper body did not press against her at all.
A thrill chased through her, hot and hard. She began to tremble. Her thighs separated as his hips settled between them. His cock pushed up against her slippery cleft.
“Ah, God, the heat,” Veris said hoarsely. He deliberately lifted his gaze to her face, then thrust deep and hard inside her.
Taylor cried out at the welcome pressure of having Veris inside her once again. Her climax leapt closer. She reached her hand up toward him, but could only reach his out-thrust arm, the flexed muscles, iron-hard now with effort.
He used pure muscle to withdraw and slowly thrust into her again, while putting minimal weight on her body.
Taylor realized that she was almost clawing at him. “Faster,” she breathed.
“I won’t be of any service to you if I do.”
She realized then that his flexed muscles and tightly held body weren’t just for her benefit. Veris was controlling his own reactions with super-human discipline.
“Touch yourself,” he gasped. “You know how?”
She nodded.
“Quickly,” he added.
Taylor slipped her fingers inside her soaked cleft, up against her clit. The little organ throbbed at her touch, making her arch and moan. As soon as she massaged the bud, her climax spiraled closer, to the point where everything was crowded out of her consciousness but the need to come—the delicious striving for the peak, where the breath hitched and even time ceased to have meaning while she floated in a sea of pleasure.
Then the climax showered over her like an explosion of sparks and jolts of pleasure that rushed through her. It was made dozens of times better by Veris’ cock pistoning into her hard and fast. He thrust one last hard time and pulsed as he came in a breathless, deep groan and hung his head, his eyes closing. But still he didn’t lean upon her, despite his efforts.
Taylor caressed his cheek, which she could reach now.
Veris lifted his head and looked at her. He raised a brow. “Is that tear for me?”
Taylor wiped her eye. “I suppose so. Yes.”
He carefully eased himself from her body. His cock was still erect and glistening with her fluids. Veris lay down beside her again and Taylor hid her smile. He wanted her still. He wanted more. He would talk and seduce her again. As many times as she could withstand until either the sun came up or he was drawn away by other demands, or she was.
It wasn’t just kissing that Veris couldn’t get enough of. Her body and her mind were his playthings, as well as his private joy.
Veris leaned over her and studied the wound on her shoulder. She didn’t worry about it being dark. He would be able to see more in this low light than she could see in full sunlight.
He pulled back, frowning. “That is remarkable,” he said. He looked at it again. “It is healing rapidly and extremely well.” He looked at her. “How do you feel?”
Taylor considered the matter. “Great,” she confessed.
He frowned again, puzzled over the word.
“I mean…wonderful. I feel very good. Much better than I should, under the circumstances. Shouldn’t you put Alexander’s herbal compress back on, by the way?” Suddenly, she yawned. It caught her by surprise and she tried to suppress it because the last thing she wanted to do was drive Veris away by petty human concerns like tiredness.
Veris’ eyes narrowed. “You need sleep,” he accused. “You should have told me.”
“I didn’t realize until just now,” she said and smothered another yawn as it pushed through her. She reached for him. “I don’t want you to go away,” she added.
“I have no intention of going anywhere,” Veris said flatly. “But you are wounded. If your body says sleep, then sleep you must.”
“I don’t want to sleep. Not now you are here, like this.” She tried to sit up, but Veris held her down easily.
“What fear makes you resist what is best for you right now?” he asked.
She sighed. “You won’t come back to me again.”
“Ah.” He was sitting with one knee bent. Now he linked his hands around his knee. “You would like me to come back.” He did not smile as he said it, which made Taylor’s heart squeeze hard and start to pound. “Despite not wanting to be a wedge between Brody and I.”
“Yes… No.” She bit her lip and closed her eyes. She was moving onto quicksand here. With Veris, she always dealt with the truth because with his mind and reasoning abilities, it wasn’t worth using any other currency. But now, she couldn’t use the truth. This Veris wasn’t ready for it and the truth would jeopardize his own future.
His lips touched hers. “Be at peace,” he murmured. “My teasing is cruel, but I learned from a cruel woman and haven’t adjusted my habits yet.”
She looked at Veris to ensure he wasn’t laughing at her. He didn’t appear to be. “Then…” She couldn’t voice her hope. She didn’t want it dashed again. “Never mind.”
Veris settled back down alongside her. “You cannot tell me about my future, but you can tell me about my past, can you not?”
Taylor considered this. “You already know your own past.”
“I do not know about the time you were my wife. The time my sister says I was so happy, that day I returned to the village.”
She jumped a little, inside. “You spoke to Marit? I thought the village ran you off?”
“They did, eventually. But Marit managed to speak to me once before they had their way.”
Taylor rolled over onto her side to face him. She realized that Veris was right. Her shoulder throbbed far less that it had a while ago. It was as if all sign of infection and hurt had backed off by a matter of days—as if modern medicine had intervened. But there was still a dull ache from abused muscles and tendons. Not even modern medicine could compensate for that.
Veris arranged her left hand up between her breasts. It was a comfortable position, that way. He dropped his tunic over the top of her. It covered her from shoulder to ankle.
Taylor considered his request as he added more wood to the fire, moving around naked without any apparent concern. His sword and knife, she noted, were both standing point down in the sand by her head—within easy reach if he needed them.
She could tell Veris about the day and night she had spent in ancient Norway, from his personal past, as long as she kept out any references to his future. If she made it about what had happened in his past, so that he could fill in the missing blank in his memory, it might help him in some small way with how the village had reacted to her disappearance and how they had treated him.
When Veris settled back down on the blanket beside her, he rested his head on his hand, watching her.
So many times he had settled down next to her like this, to talk or listen, or argue, or discuss, or… Taylor drew in a breath, fighting against the hard knot of tears. She leapt for the change of subject. And she spoke old Norse, because it would make the telling easier. “We waited in the forest that day, because you were uncertain of your welcome—”
“Dear God,” Veris breathed. “I’ve not heard the language of home for centuries. It is a lost language now, do you know?”
She nodded. “I know,” she said softly.
“Dead,” he repeated softly, staring at nothing. He blew out a breath. “It is little things like this that make me envy humans.” He grimaced. “But you are not like most humans, are you, Taylor Yates? You appear in my past, my future, my present. You speak my birth language. You know things about me no mortal should. Yet despite that, you are so vulnerable the mere idea that I may not return on the morrow moves you to panic.”
“I am just a woman,” she told him. “Don’t over-think it, Veris.”
He considered her for a moment. “You are much more than just a woman. You would not be here, otherwise.”
She tried to figure out what he meant. Veris never handed out a simple compliment.
He touched her lips. “Tell me about the village,” he coaxed, in Norse. “We were in the forest…”
Taylor picked up the story from there and carefully described the rest of the day as she knew it. There were parts of Veris’ day she did not know, because she hadn’t been with him for all of it, but he had told her what he had been doing in spare moments, and she gave those details now. They may have been trivial at the time, but they were part of the blank moments that Veris need now. She handed them all over. Every scrap. Every intimate detail, except those that came from the future.
She painted for Veris the picture of a husband and his wife from a neighboring kingdom, visiting his home village for a day and feasting and dancing in the king’s hall that evening. Of the wife’s presentation to the king and the king’s attention and the husband’s jealousy that the whole village saw. With some careful editing, she gave him their real conversations. The laughter, the closeness, his joy at being home again. Their nighttime tryst in the forest and Taylor’s jump back to the future some time during the night, leaving Veris with no memories of the time Taylor had been there.
By the time she had finished the story, with all its details, she was very tired, her eyes drifting closed.
Veris stroked her temple. “Thank you,” he told her. “I begin to see, now, why the village was so convinced I murdered you. And why they were so passionate about your disappearance. You have a way of winning folk over.”
“I don’t mean to,” Taylor told him.
“Why were you there?” he asked. “Why did you go back there?”
She was sleepy and her defenses were down, so she answered truthfully. “I don’t know. We don’t know how it works, Veris. We just land somewhere in your past. That time, it was when you were human. Now it’s here.”
“We?”
“Hmm?”
“Sleep,” he told her.
She agreed.
And woke slowly. She was roused to wakefulness by the creep of sensations into her consciousness. Warmth. Building pleasure. Delicious tension. An absence of pain. The sleepy sea where thoughts drifted and all was good in life. There were no problems. Only a barely there awareness where thoughts were half-dreams, free-association ran loose and inhibitions were still in hibernation.
But real life was slowly drawing her senses awake. Stimulating them. She didn’t hurry to full wakefulness because the sensations were meant to please her. Arouse her. She let them, curling her senses around them.
A hand on her breast, cupping it. Her nipple caught between the fingers, drawing it out.
A body behind her. Bigger. Male. The jut of his cock pushing against her ass. His hand stroking the flesh at the top of her thighs. Fluttering. Teasing. Stirring her senses.
She drew in a breath and as she did, his tongue stroked the length of her neck, following her artery.
Veris. Just the size of him alone told her who it was. But his caress of her neck was unmistakable.
He gently thrust his tongue into her ear and it sent a ripple through her body.
More information registered as she roused. Sometime during the night, Veris had covered her with a blanket instead of his tunic, for in the strange ways of the desert, it had abruptly become cool. He lay under it now, too. A fire crackled at their feet.
He pushed at her knees, bending them. Taylor caught her breath at the rush of heat it caused in her lower belly. She knew what he intended. Her pussy clenched and her clit seemed to swell as she lay there.
She was fully awake now, alive to the cool pre-dawn air.
Veris’ hand slipped into her cleft, probing her pussy. He pushed his fingers deep inside her, his invasion made easy by her slick wetness. She gasped, arching. Only then did she realize her head was pillowed on his arm.
“I have a confession, Taylor,” he murmured by her ear.
She rolled her head back to look at him. “What?”
His fingers pushed into her again, stroking the sides of her vagina and the hard knot of nerve endings that made her moan.
“I watched Brody take you two nights ago, the way men do. It has been burning in my mind ever since.”
His fingers thrust into her again. Taylor wasn’t sure if her gasp was from that, or from his confession.
“Take her that way now,” Brody said.
Taylor flinched, turning her head to look up at Brody where he stood three paces away from where they lay. He wore his tunic, but no sword. Leggings, but no boots. He had crept from the main camp at first light to check on her. To check on them both.
Taylor’s heart began to thunder painfully.
Brody lowered himself down to the sand to kneel beside them. He was watching Veris, not her.
Veris had grown still, as still as a rock.
Brody kissed her, briefing. “You look much better,” he said. “But you always look better when you’re aroused.”
She could feel herself blushing.
Then he leaned over the top of her, took Veris’ face in his hands and kissed him. It was not a light peck, either. Taylor watched the sensual, deep kiss for every second it took, her own body responding to the power in it. She could feel Veris’ response in the way his body relaxed against her, but his cock pulsed and pushed against her hip. His hand withdrew from her pussy and gripped her thigh, squeezing.
Taylor licked her lips. Her breasts suddenly felt heavy and full, the nipples hard.
Brody let Veris go. “Take her the way you take me,” he said hoarsely. “You want to.”
Veris was breathing hard. “I won’t be the one to cause pain. Never again.”
Taylor caught his hand under the blanket. “I’ve had you that way before. Many times. There is no pain. Quite the opposite.”
Brody reached into the pouch on his belt and withdrew a small bottle and held it out to Veris.
Taylor could feel the tension in Veris, against her body, but this time it was as if his entire body was thrumming with it.
So she reached out with her left arm and took the vial. Her arm ached and the movement hurt, but not with nearly the explosion of pain she had been expecting. She held the bottle up to Veris.
His breath pushed out of him in a harsh rush. He kissed her as he took the bottle, his lips hard and heavy.
Brody lay on the blanket that Veris had abandoned last night, resting on his side so that he was gazing into Taylor’s face. He was close enough she merely had to lean forward to kiss him. Veris’ elbow was almost touching Brody’s cheek. He made no move to lift away the blanket that covered them, though. Beyond the wagon, she could hear the first stirrings of the camp. Soft words. The crackling of cooking fires. Curses, coughing. The light was growing.
Veris was moving against her. Shifting away from her. She knew he would be coating his cock in the oil, preparing himself. A shudder moved through her.
Then his slick fingers slid between her ass cheeks and she moaned at the familiar touch. He probed hesitantly, then with more confidence as her anus stretched willingly to accommodate his probing finger.
Brody was watching her face and she could see the growing arousal in his. Even though he could not see what Veris was doing, imagination was providing more than enough stimulus.
The thick blunt head of Veris’ cock replaced his finger. His hand curled over her hip. She could hear his breath, heavy and quick, by her neck. He was almost panting. His lips brushed over her flesh. His teeth were shielded but she could feel them there, protruding just a little.
He pushed into her slowly, although she could feel the fine trembling in him, the need to slam into her like a rutting bull.
Then the pleasure of having Veris inside her again stole all thought from her. She relaxed her body, accepting him into her.
Brody exhaled heavily. “Your face…” he murmured. “As the pleasure takes you. I never tire of it.”
Veris inched into her, until finally he was fully within. “Dear heavens,” he breathed.
“It is all that,” Brody told him. He burrowed his hand beneath the edge of the blanket. He cupped her knee and slid his fingers along the curve of her thigh until he reached her ass.
“You seek to inspect my work?” Veris asked. He withdrew his cock. Slowly again.
“As I cannot see it, why not?” Brody replied.
Taylor felt his fingers dip lower, to her anus and Veris’ quick catch of breath. His cock twitched inside her, making her gasp.
Brody pull his hand away from them, shaking his head. “I cannot simply lay here and imagine. It isn’t nearly enough.” He lifted the blanket and eased himself forward a few more inches. “Taylor, let me join you.” His hand lifted her knee.
Hot fizzing excitement spilled through her.
Veris gave a choking sound. “You cannot mean what I think you mean?”
“Yes, he does,” Taylor said. Her voice shook with her own rising anticipation. It had been too long since she had shared herself this way. She straightened her lower leg, trusting that Brody would support her. He lifted her thigh over his as he moved under the blanket. At the same time he hoisted his tunic out of the way.
She felt his cock push up against her cleft, hard and more than ready. Brody kissed her again, quickly. His hand swooped along her flank—a quick caress—then back to her hip. He eased into her. She could feel herself separating, accepting him. She caught her breath.
“I can feel you,” Veris said, sounding surprised…and aroused. “Inside her. I can feel you inside her…against me.”
Brody’s lips parted in surprise. “In all these many centuries, you have never shared a woman, Veris?”
Taylor turned her head back to look at him. Veris rested his forehead against hers. “I found no woman worthy of the pleasure,” he said quietly.
Taylor glanced at Brody from the corner of her eyes, shocked. He shook his head just a little.
So she tried to absorb her dismay and guilt for the damage she had created that long ago night in Norway. The Veris she knew had known women aplenty before meeting Brody and had shared them, too. Brody had acquired the taste for ménage from Veris.
Taylor rolled her head back against Veris and let herself dwell in the delight of being possessed by them. Her eyes closed. “Please stay still for a moment, both of you. Let me just enjoy the feel of you.”
Veris licked her neck, the corner of her jaw and just below her ear, where her pulse throbbed. He pressed his lips against her cheek. “I must move. You are like a fist around me. Stroking even as you lay there. If I do not move I will be of no service to you.”
Taylor sighed. “Very well. I am being sentimental.”
Brody laughed, another low chuckle. “You know this is not the best part.” His hand moved restlessly against her hip, crowding up against Veris’. He glanced at Veris. “Together.”
Taylor caught her breath and held it as they withdrew from her and eased back in. Such a simple movement, but it sent waves of pleasure washing over her. She clutched at Brody weakly.
They pushed into her in steady, smooth strokes, their speed building as their own excitement levels spiraled. She heard their breathing shorten. Brody’s expression changed as his climax drew closer. The fine line between his brows deepened. His black eyes focused inward and his full lips parted so that she could just see the tips of his canines as they descended, proof of the power of his arousal. The sight of them peeking below his upper lip when he was about to climax never failed to thrill Taylor because she knew he was helpless to prevent them appearing when he was truly excited.
Her climax gathered, pressure building.
Veris’ hand slipped from her hip to drop down to her mound. His fingertips pressed between Brody and her and found her swollen clit, slick with her moisture. He pressed his fingers around her clit.
“Come for us,” Veris breathed in her ear.
He barely needed to stroke her clit. Just the motion of Brody’s pelvis against her as he thrust was enough.
Taylor gasped, her gaze losing focus and turning inward. Her climax leapt, stealing her breath, clamping her muscles and tendons and holding her hostage for what felt like minutes as pure pleasure tore through her in fizzing, waves. She could feel her vagina and ass pulsing with the power of it.
“Gods!” Veris breathed in a raw and shocked voice. His cock shifted and surged in her as he came, milked to climax by her own orgasm.
Brody gripped her hip with hard fingers and thrust as soon as her orgasm passed enough to let him move. One more thrust and he came with a low groan, his eyes closing.
They all remained still for a long minute or two, their breaths mingling above the blanket. Taylor tingled from head to foot and knew she wore a smile she couldn’t stop. She opened her eyes and looked at Brody. He was smiling, too. His canines had retracted, but that was okay.
“Good morning,” she murmured, in English.
His smile grew warmer.
“That was ‘good morning’ was it not?” Veris asked, kissing her neck.
“Yes,” Taylor confirmed. She turned to smile at him. “And it does seem to be a good morning, after such an awful day yesterday.”
Veris looked from her to Brody. “Am I the only one here to have any feelings of awkwardness? Hesitation?”
“Yes,” Brody said flatly.
“I lie here at this moment with my…coupled with your wife at the same moment as you. I spent the night with her, although that had not been my intention—”
“I knew you would,” Brody interjected.
Veris hesitated. “You knew? But you still agreed to let me tend her? Knowing that?”
“Yes.”
Under the blanket, Veris’ hand lifted and began to smooth its way along Taylor’s side. Up and down, like one might soothe a restless horse. She wondered if Veris was aware that he was doing it. He often reached for her this way if he was uncomfortable. The physical man’s version of a pacifier.
“I do not understand,” Veris said at last.
Brody nodded. “You can’t understand. Not yet. Not for a few centuries, anyway. Just between the three of us for right now, accept it and enjoy it.”
Veris’ response was slow to come. “I will consider it.” His hand slid up to cup Taylor’s breast and he kissed her cheek. “It is a most persuasive offer, after all. Thank you for the night, my lady.”
He withdrew from her, which caused Brody’s cock to dislodge, too.
“Let me see your wound one last time.” Veris pulled the blanket back enough to look at the still uncovered wound and she lay down to let him see it better.
“Remarkable,” he muttered.
Brody leaned over to look as well and whistled a long low note. “Either Alexander knows his stuff or Veris does. That looks like it was done a week ago.”
“I think they both know their stuff,” Taylor said. “It barely hurts anymore. It’s just muscle stiffness now.”
“Leave off the chainmail,” Veris told her. “It will irritate the stitches. But I would suggest riding on the wagon again today. You cannot go on horseback a day after the wound you received. The men will start muttering about witchcraft.”
Taylor sighed. “I will be bored silly. I agree that I must stay on the wagon, but you promise you will visit me?”
Veris looked startled. “Me?”
“Both of you,” she insisted. “From time to time at least. When you aren’t ordering your men about or watching sand move in front of your horse’s nose.”
Brody chuckled. “I’ll see what I can arrange.” He rested his hand on Veris’ bare thigh, where he kneeled next to Taylor. “I suggest you get dressed, Veris. The men are moving about now and they love scandal as much as the women at court.”
Veris glanced over his shoulder toward the wagon that shielded them from the main camp and frowned. “Centuries of masks and quite suddenly I grow tired of it. How strange.” He got to his feet, looking down at them, the frown deepening. It seemed as if he would speak again, but instead he turned and dressed silently. He left with a simple nod, for by then the camp beyond the wagon was fully active and the chatter of the men loud.
Brody helped Taylor bathe with the last of the water in the pot sitting by the fire, then dress, for her arm was still stiff enough that lifting it above her shoulder was difficult.
They spoke of generalities, for the voices of the men beyond the wagon drifted back to them clearly, a warning that their own words would carry just as well and they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves by using English.
So it was a good two hours after the entourage had got underway before Brody could make his way back to Taylor’s wagon, hitch his horse to it and climb aboard to sit on her blankets and speak to her.
He crossed his legs and threaded his fingers, studying her. “You wanted to talk?” he said in English.
“You didn’t?” she asked. “After last night and this morning?” She hugged her knee. “Haven’t you ever wondered why we were here? What mechanism decides when we get to jump back?”
He took a breath. “I’ve been too worried about making sure Veris and I got together and shoring up our personal histories again to think about it.”
“Exactly. We’ve fixed things. We’ve put things right. You and Veris are together again and in a tenuous sort of way, Veris is kind of with both of us. He’s thinking about it, anyway. But that part doesn’t even really matter in this time and place. He’s with you and that’s all that counts. So if that’s why we’re here, then why haven’t we jumped back?”
“Who says that’s why we’re here?” Brody asked.
“Who says it isn’t?”
“Because we didn’t have the problem when we jumped here,” Brody pointed out. “We jumped, then we created the problem for ourselves.”
Taylor chewed that one over. “Then why are we here? And when do we get to go back?”
Brody shook his head. “No one knows. In four years, we’ve never been able to figure out a pattern. You know this as well as I do. This is the longest time we’ve ever been held in a jump and this is the first time we’ve never been able to bring one of us back in time.”
“It’s the first time one of us in our own time hasn’t been there physically. Veris was in Europe,” Taylor pointed out. “And he was pissed at us.”
“Pissed at you,” Brody amended. “And he wasn’t pissed. That’s putting it way too crudely. It’s never that simple with Veris.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “What do you want me to say? I don’t have answers any more than you do. Veris was the one who seemed to understand more about this stuff than either of us. He certainly spent more time thinking about it.”
Taylor hugged herself. “I want to go home,” she said truthfully. “I want Veris back. The real Veris. Our Veris. I like this one. I love this one. I do. But he’s not the real one who knows us so well. I want that one back.”
Brody’s gaze cut away from her.
“What?” Taylor said sharply.
He sighed heavily. “I had a long night of staring into the flames last night,” he said at last. “And it occurred to me that we’re repeating your mistake from old Norway. We’re meddling in history again.”
She felt a cold chill in her gut. “We’re fixing it,” she said sharply.
“Are we?” he asked. “The problem with Veris’ past was that you were in it, when in the real past you didn’t exist.” He spread his hand, palm up, to indicate her. “Here you are again. What changes are you introducing this time?”
Taylor bit her lip. “We’re trying to minimize those changes,” she said slowly. “Putting him back to where he should have been if I hadn’t been in Norway.” It was a pathetic attempt at denial and she knew it. So did Brody. She could see it in his face.
“Maybe when we get back,” he said gently, “the Veris we knew won’t be there waiting for us at all. The Veris waiting for us will be totally different because of changes we make here and now.”
Taylor shook her head. “No.”
“Perhaps that’s why we’re here,” Brody said relentlessly. “Perhaps we’re here to pay the price for all our time travelling. Perhaps this is where the buck stops.”