When he broke the kiss, and he rested his forehead against mine, it was if I’d been sliced in half. I gasped and attempted, without much success, to settle my breath. “What’s going on, Tristan? I don’t understand any of this.”
A slow smile tilted his lips. “I don’t know, My Baduri, but I believe we are together for a reason.”
“I’m not her, Tristan.” It was stupid talking about a girl from a dream as if she were real. “I'm not a priestess. I don’t have magic.”
His eyes settled on my face. “Yet.”
I laughed and whirled away. “You really believe all this? You believe we are them? It’s not possible.”
His eyes flashed. “Didn’t people believe in reincarnation?”
He said the word. He actually said the word. My heart hammered. “You’re crazy.”
The lids of his eyes dropped to hooded lust-filled pockets. “Maybe.”
“I’ve got to get out of this place, it’s making me insane. I’m calling a cab and going straight back to the airport.” I didn’t know how I’d call a cab, or how I’d pay for it, let alone the flight I’d take to whisk me home to the world of sanity—Queens.
His hand snaked around my waist, pulling me closer. My traitorous body melted a little as I gazed into his golden face. “We’ve found one another, Mae. I know you. Even when I wanted to kill you I knew you. The reaction we had to one another—strangers don’t have that. It’s logical we know one another, are fond of one another.” His voice dropped a notch and my tummy flipped.
I shook my head. “No. I can’t believe it.”
A flash of annoyance flitted across his features. “Here, come and see this.”
Tight fingers gripped my hand and he yanked on the door, pulling me out into the dark hallway. It was late, no sounds drifted from behind closed doors.
We walked through hallways I hadn’t yet found, which was ironic considering I thought I’d been lost down most of them. Finally, he pushed through a different door. I started at the number on the wood. Thirteen.
Inside, the room was plastered with pieces of white paper. Silently, I stepped forward while he waited and watched at the door. The papers all held images of me.
“What is this?”
He followed me in, the door closing softly behind him. The flicker of desire rekindled in my stomach although I tried to extinguish it before it could take hold. Leaning down he grabbed a sketch pad off the bed and waved it at me. “These are the ones I’ve drawn this week.” He pointed to the walls. “These are the ones I drew before you arrived.”
I was silent. Mute with surprise.
He turned and grabbed for his wallet, yanking a folded, aged piece of paper from a bundle of receipt bills. “And this is the sketch I drew when I was ten and my mother bought me my first set of charcoals.”
My hands shook as I took the tattered scrap of paper. My face stared back at me, red waves and large grey eyes.
“How?” my legs wobbled close to collapse.
“I don’t know,” he murmured. I continued to stare at the paper until he tilted my chin with gentle fingers. “But I’m willing to find out if you are.”
I stared at him. Speechless.
“Mae, I feel like I know you.” His fingers caught mine and he pressed my hand against his chest. “Here.”
I nodded. I didn’t know what I thought or felt. I didn’t know anything of any use to anyone. But I knew what had been happening to me since I’d arrived here, and I knew the gem on my neck scorched my skin as he touched me.
“But the dreams. They are facing the Romans. Something was coming to change their lives. Why have we found each other now? What happened to them, Tristan? How did they end up on those stones?” My words caught in my throat, tied up in a sob. “How did they end up tangled together, left for me to find?”
His eyes held mine and I drowned in their dark liquid depths. “I don’t know, but we can find out—together.”
I nodded.
I didn’t have anything left. But I knew I wouldn’t leave the room without him. In my soul, in a piece of me I never knew existed, like the rainbow iridescent wings floating under that eagle in my dream, I knew I’d found him. And I knew now I had, anything was possible.
“I don’t want to go back to my room.” I looked up at him through my lashes.
“Stay.”
13
Caledonia
“Father, have you seen Heather?” I tried to capture his attention quickly before I lost him again. His frequent wandering was becoming rifer. My hands soothed the scalp of the boy in front of me. His skin seethed with sores, festering scabs he kept scratching and causing to bleed. “Aeneid, are you still scratching these?” I bent my knees, so I could meet the refugee’s eyes. He nibbled his lips and shook his head and I gave him a rueful smile.
“You can’t fib to me, little one, I know everything.” I kept one eye on Father making sure he didn’t escape before I could pin him down. I hadn’t seen Heather since the river and I needed to ask her questions; more questions than I knew the words for.
“I’m not lying, Priestess.” The little scrap shook when he realised he’d called me by my title and not Mae as I’d asked him to do at least twenty times in the last few days.
I smiled and pulled his scrawny shoulders into my arms for a swift hug. “Many wouldn’t believe you, Aeneid, but I will.” I grinned. “Just this once.” He relaxed under my touch and I frowned as I cast him over with critical
