That was when it hit me. Was Sinjin my enemy? I guessed in some ways he was. I mean, he had completely acted out of his own self-interest and could not have cared less where mine was concerned. As his Queen, would I have to punish him when we returned to the future? Of course, I had to impose some sort of punishment; it wasn’t like I could just let him go. And, really, it wasn’t like I even wanted to let him go. At times like these, I was glad I had the help of Mercedes.
Do you really have the help of Mercedes? I asked myself. If she was in on this the whole time, then isn’t she your enemy too?
No, you have to listen to Mathilda on this one. Mercedes isn’t to blame. You need to find out her motivation and trust in her. Remember that she will always protect the kingdom first.
“Was it painful to see him?” Rand asked.
I glanced at him, thankful to be pulled away from my inner dialogue as I considered his question. “It was painful,” I answered and thought about how ridiculous this whole thing was because Rand had warned me about Sinjin so many times. He warned me never to get close to him, never to trust him, and I foolishly disregarded his advice. I once thought Sinjin was just misunderstood, that maybe I could break through his tough exterior to find some sort of goodness within him. I glanced up at Rand and smiled regretfully. “I should have listened to you all along. You were always right.”
“It was your lesson to learn, Jolie,” Rand answered. “And it just goes to show how good you are—that you give everyone the benefit of the doubt.”
“Well, look where that got me.”
He smiled at me and grabbed my shoulder, pulling me into the cocoon of his embrace. “It’s one of the reasons I love you,” he whispered.
“Has this whole thing … changed your feelings toward me at all?” I asked, suddenly afraid for his answer.
He pulled me into him more closely and held me, allowing me to listen to the beating of his heart as he ran his fingers through my hair. “Jolie, nothing could ever happen between us that would make me love you less.”
And that was when I realized how incredibly lucky I was, how lucky I was to have this unbelievable man in my life. I didn’t say anything but leaned up and cupped his cheek as I brought my lips to his. I didn’t close my eyes—I wanted to see him, to soak in his male perfection. And he didn’t close his eyes either; we both stared at each other as our tongues mingled. It soon became clear to me that kissing wasn’t going to be enough … Sinjin had been the last man to make love to me, and that needed to be rectified.
I sat upright as I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and threw it on the sofa beside me. Rand glanced over at me in surprise, but I didn’t miss a beat as I started removing my shirt. When I began to unhook my bra, Rand stopped me with a hand on my wrist.
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this,” he started.
But I interrupted him with a shake of my head. “I need to feel your claim again, Rand. I need for you to make love to me.”
That was apparently all it took. He bolted forward and grabbed me in his arms, standing up as he carried me into the bedroom. I wrapped my arms around him and felt a shudder of excitement pulse through me at the thought of what was about to happen.
Once in my room, he gently laid me down on the bed and reached around my back, unclasping my bra. He slid it down each of my arms and seemed to take forever as he freed me from it and then he merely stared at my breasts as if he’d never seen them before, as if he were completely enchanted, mesmerized.
“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he whispered as he glanced up at me. “You have no idea how much you turn me on, how much you always have.”
I just smiled at him in response and started to remove my jeans, unbuttoning them and pulling them down my legs. I wasn’t interested in taking things slowly. No, now was the time for action. There was a fire burning within me that demanded fuel. I smiled up at him and grasped the bottom of his sweater, standing on my tiptoes as I wrenched it up and over his head. I was almost disappointed when I met his black undershirt rather than his gloriously naked chest and made a low grumbling noise in my throat to express my frustration.
Rand smiled down at me and, shaking his head in apparent amusement, removed the shirt himself, lifting it over his head as he gifted me with the view of his incredible biceps and even more incredible chest.
“When God was handing out muscles, you must have been in line twice,” I said, awed.
Rand just chuckled and started unbuttoning his jeans. I watched him as he pulled them down his long legs and something became very clear. “But apparently you missed the line for boxer shorts.”
He chuckled more heartily and I suddenly wished I had a camera so I could have recorded his stunning smile. He was just so incredibly gorgeous and genuine. What was more, he was mine.
“I was so eager to see you, apparently I forgot a few things,” he admitted under his breath and seemed slightly embarrassed by the admission.
“A few things?” I repeated, cocking my eyebrow in question as I smiled.
He took off one shoe and held up his foot, revealing that he’d forgotten his socks as well as his boxers. I giggled and then took a deep breath as I glanced down the line of his incredible body, feeling him watch me as I did so. My gaze fixated on his erection and I dropped to my knees, grasping him in one hand while I took him in my mouth.
“Jolie,” he moaned.
I watched him the entire time, watched him throw his head back as his eyes drifted closed, watched him undulate his hips against me. And he was pure masculine beauty to behold—utterly and impossibly powerful and strong and yet under my control, subject to my manipulation. He opened his eyes suddenly and pulled away from me.
“Your turn,” he said quickly, but I shook my head. There was an urgency now rampaging through me that wouldn’t allow any more time to go by without him inside me.
“No,” I said. Freeing myself from my panties, I simply climbed onto the bed on my hands and knees and turned my head around to face him. “I need you now.”
“My God,” he whispered as he stared at my backside and swallowed hard. Then in another second, I felt the head of him at my entrance, threatening me with intense pleasure. I moaned against him and pushed back, encouraging him to seek shelter inside me, encouraging him to thrust.
And when he did, I was prepared for it even though it still took me by surprise. I moaned out and closed my eyes, feeling him pushing even deeper as he then withdrew and thrust again. And that was when I felt it, an unleashing of feelings deep within me. It was like every door to all my emotions was suddenly blown open; all the stores of sorrow and mourning from the time when I hadn’t recognized Rand were now intermingling with the heightened feelings of love and absolute dedication that I felt toward him.
Like an explosion, it rained down within me, something emanating from the middle of my body and spreading at warp speed through the entirety of me. I clenched my eyes shut tightly and felt heat suddenly bubbling up within me—like the feeling you get when you drink something really hot on a cold day.
I opened my eyes and glanced down at myself, almost afraid that I was on fire, that something was happening to me. A thin, almost imperceptible white glow seemed to reverberate from my hands, climbing up my arms. When I glanced back at Rand, it was encompassing him too. I realized he had stopped moving within me, apparently having felt the same thing I was experiencing. The white glow encompassing us both began to grow, blinding as it emanated through the room. In another split second it was gone.
I pulled away from him and turned around until I was sitting on my knees, facing Rand, and was about to speak when I heard Rand’s voice as clear as day in my head.
She’s mine. She will always be mine.
That was when something occurred to me …
“Rand,” I started, knowing what this meant and hoping we were ready for it, that he was okay with it. At that point, I also knew it didn’t matter whether we thought we
were ready for it, because it had already happened. It just was. This was nature’s way of telling us that we were each other’s soul mates—not even time would keep us apart.
It was suddenly incredibly clear that Rand and I were meant to be together.
“We’re bonding,” I said.
“I know,” he whispered as he ran his finger down the side of my cheek. “I love you, Jolie. I’ve always loved you.”
That was his way of saying he was okay with the fact that we were bonding. He was imprinting within me his indelible mark. We were joining in the ultimate fashion and would never, ever again be separated unless by death.
“I love you, too,” I said and smiled as he reached for me and kissed me, pushing me back down against the bed as he settled himself between my thighs. At the feel of him thrusting within me, the subtle white glow began to return, bathing us both in its radiance. Rand thrust even harder as his emotions continued to feed into me and mine into him.
Rand and I were once again bonded, and all I could feel was happiness. I knew now, more than ever before, that Rand and I were meant to be together—we always had been. As for Sinjin? It was strange, but whenever I thought about the vampire or our brief time together, it was as if the feelings of pain and betrayal were replaced with numbness—as if I couldn’t feel anything at all. I wasn’t sure if the magic of Rand and my bonding had done something to eliminate any residual pain or angst that I felt toward Sinjin or if the numbness was due to my being completely head over heels in love with Rand. But I guess it didn’t really matter anyway—what did matter was that I was no longer stinging from Sinjin’s betrayal. Because of that, I could look at things clearly—without the taint of anger and pain that I’d felt before. I could see the situation and Sinjin for exactly what he was without the bias of unrequited love. It was important because as Queen, I needed to remain impartial and make decisions based purely on facts rather than emotion. I could now clearly recognize Sinjin for the manipulative and underhanded person he was without any of my emotional attachments getting in the way. And for that I was thankful.
Rand and I held each other for the remainder of the night and into the dawn, discussing our future together and how happy we were to have found each other again. The sun broke over the horizon and announced the next day was upon us. And that whole day moved like molasses. Rand returned to the fae village to escort Mathilda back to my house so she could help us with the time-traveling spell that evening. I decided to spend the day at my store so I could catch up with Christa. It was strange, but I felt I needed to say goodbye to her even though I knew we’d meet again in the future. It was probably silly, but something inside me wanted to see her before I attempted to time travel, to seek some sort of closure before I left.
For the entire day, I felt as if an enormous rock had taken up permanent residence in my gut. It made total sense, considering that the events this evening would change everything I knew, everything I’d ever known. Even though I had time-traveled before, those memories somehow seemed foreign to me, probably because I hadn’t actually experienced them, even if the me of the future had. They just felt as if they weren’t my own memories even though, of course, they were.
I didn’t tell Christa anything about Rand, about our bonding, or that I was planning on traveling a couple of years into the future tonight. I just figured it would be too hard to explain and, furthermore, it would cause her undue worry. What did it matter anyway? Once I was back in the future, Christa wouldn’t even know anything had happened. And what she didn’t know definitely couldn’t hurt her.
So we spent the day just making small talk, laughing about her myriad bad dates. When she finally asked me what happened between Sinjin and me, I just said I didn’t want to talk about it; once I felt like I was over it, I’d explain. Luckily, she bought my excuse and left me alone.
That evening, I let Christa leave early for a date and closed up the shop just like I’d done a thousand times before. But, of course, tonight was different. Tonight would mark the last night I’d be in my store, in Los Angeles, in the United States! I must admit, however, there was something inside me that yearned for the tranquility of my home, Kinloch Kirk, nestled among the Scottish moors, perched high above the Eyemouth cliffs and pastures of wild heather. I couldn’t help but feel as if I were saying goodbye to the life I had now. It was a feeling of sadness that deflated me, albeit tempered by excitement for the next chapter of my life, but sadness all the same.
As I swept the floors of the shop that had been a second home, I felt heavyhearted. I glanced around myself, taking in the worn sofas where my clients awaited their appointments, the Swiss cuckoo clock above the door that Christa had given me, the lettering across the window proclaiming my psychic abilities … It wasn’t much, but it was mine. And my little business had allowed me to earn a decent living. It had paid for my home and a decently nice car. I’d really made something of myself here and it was hard to say goodbye. Even though I knew I was destined for much bigger and better things, it was hard to leave that part of me behind. I felt like I was saying goodbye to the old Jolie—the person who had no idea just who and what she was and the incredible things she’d soon experience.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was about to leave a much simpler time, a much simpler life. A life that was not only slower-paced but also safer, because I was more than aware of what awaited me in the future …
The Lurkers.
The realization frightened me. I’d be putting myself back into a dangerous situation. I was firmly aware that the Lurkers were an unknown; that was what made them such an absolute menace. Did they possess magic? Based on my visions of the throne and the battlefield, which attacked my magic twice, both in the future as well as the present, it seemed they did. That was a scary thought because we only ever thought of them as some form of pseudo-vampire and, as such, non-magical.
Vampire … Of course, my thoughts then turned to Sinjin and I stopped sweeping as I pictured him in my mind. Yes, there was still something sad in me over what had happened between us. I’d always been fond of Sinjin and now, more than ever before, I wished we could go back to how things used to be—when we were friends and cared about each other in our own awkward way. When I knew Sinjin to be nothing more than a harmless flirt.
He’s anything but a harmless flirt, I reminded myself.
I know, but that doesn’t mean I can’t wish things were different.
I imagined the sadness I harbored over the deterioration of my friendship with Sinjin would always be there. It was a mere hiccup, though, compared with the agony I’d experienced when I first became aware of his manipulation.
I was healed. I wasn’t sure how or why, but I was healed all the same.
I leaned the broom against the wall and took one last glance around me. Then I turned the lights off and opened the front door, stepping out into the burgeoning darkness. I faced the door and locked it, wondering what would become of my little store after I moved on. Maybe someone would open a donut shop or some sort of new-age boutique.
“Goodbye,” I said as I took a deep breath and turned around, eyeing the stars twinkling in the night sky. The moon was full and already starting its journey over the earth.
“Poppet.”
I turned at the sound of his voice and watched Sinjin walk up the sidewalk toward me. He appeared out of nowhere, almost as if the darkness had suddenly delivered him. The moonlight created a soft haze around him that made him seem like some sort of heavenly creature. But his dark attire, black hair, and piercing blue eyes said otherwise. The smirk on his full lips warned he was trouble and then some. At that point, more than ever before, I really regretted what had happened between us. I wanted to like Sinjin. But I had to repress those feelings because I couldn’t like Sinjin; not anymore.
“I thought I told you to meet me at my house,” I grumbled as I offered him a raised brow to say I wasn’t amused.
His smile widened as he stopped directly
before me. Then he merely glanced down at me and I was suddenly struck by how incredibly tall he was, and how much stronger than me. It wasn’t a feeling that caused me any sort of fear, though, mainly because I was firmly convinced Sinjin would never hurt me. Why? I had no clue. Probably because I was an idiot.
“I beg the privilege of your company … alone,” he said in a soft, deep voice.
“Why?” I asked as I started for my car, not wanting to encourage him in the least. “There’s nothing left to say.”
“Ah, that is where you are quite mistaken,” he said, keeping pace with me.
We reached my car and I unlocked the doors with my remote. I opened the driver’s door and took a seat, watching Sinjin as he continued to stand on the curb just beside me. “Well, are you coming?”
He smiled and materialized on the other side of the car, opening the door and climbing into the passenger seat as he beamed over at me. “I did not realize it was an invitation.”
I turned on the engine and glared at him, not wanting him to think he was in any way forgiven. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t going to skip out on your responsibilities.”
“I do recall giving you my word,” he said and seemed rather put out, as if I should never have second-guessed him. Yeah, well, I was the new Jolie—the one who wouldn’t trust as easily as the old one had.
I frowned. “Well, you’re here so I guess that means you’re good at keeping something.” I glanced behind my shoulder to ensure no one was coming. When I found the coast clear, I pulled into the street.
“I never intended to hurt you,” Sinjin said, and I could feel the weight of his gaze as it rested on me. I was never happier to be driving—to have an excuse for keeping my full attention on the traffic and pedestrians around me rather than the flagrant beauty of his eyes.
“I’m well aware of that, Sinjin,” I said without offering him a sideways glance. “You wanted nothing more than to manipulate me, and making me fall in love with you was just part of your plan. So, no, hurting me was never your intention.”