Page 25 of The Time Of Queens (An Afterlife Story #2)

25

WHERE THE FUTURE LIES

“ I … I…” I couldn’t speak.

I couldn’t find the words for fear I would wake from this dream my brother had plunged me into. Could it really be possible? Could it be true? I found myself staggering to a chair, needing to sit down. As if the world around me had started to spin uncontrollably.

“But how… how is this possible? For I would know… I would have felt it, surely,” I protested after long minutes of trying to process all I had been told. Because as much as I wanted it to be true, I felt foolish to hope for such, for fear of disappointment.

Regardless, I had fallen in love with the girl, so it was of little consequence in what it meant for our future together. However, it would certainly make life easier as it meant that I would not be committing a crime that I myself had set. For unless it was ordained by the Fates, then it was forbidden to claim a mortal.

“I believe I am able to answer that question, my Lord.” A new voice spoke up after silently entering the room. I looked up to find Adam now standing there, his expression unreadable. I then looked to Vincent and Lucius, and neither looked surprised. Which meant they had discovered much more than they had yet to tell me.

“Explain,” I gritted out, getting back to my feet and facing the truth head on.

“I intend to, but first I want your assurance that no matter what I tell you, that it will in no way get back to my wife, nor will she be in any way reprimanded for the part she played in the ruse.”

I recoiled, surprised to hear that they both had played some part in this.

“I am not sure why I am wasting my time in telling you this, but we both know that even if I wanted to cast punishment, I could not, for your wife is forbidden from incurring judgement. For we both know it would negate the very reasons I was put on this Earth to protect it from its greatest threats… and that, my friend, includes you, for your wrath is certainly no exception,” I told him, knowing what would likely happen should someone upset his wife.

He nodded, as he may have known this, but his arrogance was not so that he would verbalise what we all knew to be true. For what he was capable of unleashing unto the world was immeasurable, and not something I could ever risk.

“That may be so, but I want not even a bad word spoken about her, for I believe her intentions were admirable and without malice,” he added, giving me cause to snap,

“And your intentions, what of those?”

“Why to keep my wife happy, of course, for you all know this is my main priority in life, and my serving any King comes secondary to that,” he replied, making me grit my teeth in response to this reminder.

“And I would be a fool to argue against it,” I forced myself to say, for there weren’t many I would allow to get away with confessing such. But like I said, Adam was different, and with Pip being the only one capable of taming his beast, then there was little point arguing the matter of his loyalty to a King. Not when that loyalty to his wife kept us all alive.

He bowed his head before telling me what I was already coming to suspect.

“My Winnie had a dream of the girl, knew where she would be hiding and that she would need our aid. We took her to Hundred House inn, got her warm and fed and listened to how she came to being here. After which, we agreed to help her,” he told me, and one look to Lucius and my brother told me that they had already discovered as much.

“And I assume you did more than just offering her employment as your wife’s lady’s maid,” I surmised in a dry tone.

“Yes, for this part was a ruse so as we could get her into your home unnoticed.” I scoffed at that.

“Then I would say you failed in that part,” I commented wryly.

“Yes, and as I believed we would, for my wife is powerful, it is true, but I doubt there is a force out there that can fight Fate,” he replied, making me frown before asking,

“What did she do, Adam?”

He released a sigh before admitting what I already suspected.

“She has been masking Keira’s true identity from you so that you wouldn’t recognise her as being your Chosen One.”

I once more gritted my teeth, and couldn’t help lashing out in my anger, punching a fist into the panelled wall, splitting the wood.

“You had no right!” I told him in a seething tone, my face turning away from the damage I had done and now looking at the one responsible.

“I agree, and for this I am sorry. But all I can say regarding my actions is that I believed in her cause,” he told me, keeping his tone even and unapologetic despite his words.

“And just what cause would she have exactly to warrant such a lie?” I asked bitterly, pulling my fist from the wall, now just as furious with her also. For she knew from the very beginning who she was to me and yet she was cruel enough to withhold it from me. To play the part of someone of little circumstance when she knew the truth. When she knew that she was my everything. That she was always destined to be mine.

“She needed to get close enough to steal from you, I believe it was why she broke in the first time.”

At this I flinched back a step before shaking my head and asking,

“Come again?”

“She wanted to steal from my brother?” Vincent added incredulously.

Adam released a sigh and continued on, for he had come too far with no reasons to stop now.

“A coin… she needs a coin, my Lord.”

“She needed money?” I asked surprised, yet it was Lucius who answered.

“She needed a way into the Janus Temple, for I believe this letter explains as much,” he said, pulling the evidence from his jacket pocket and handing it to me. I opened it up, forcing myself to take care not to just tear it open in my haste. I then read it quickly, feeling my anger rise once more with each word written. Because now I knew why my coachman told me she was headed to London.

“The HellBeast King,” I seethed aloud.

“It would seem this was her backup plan, for she must not have found what she was looking for,” Vincent said, pulling the coin Lucius had brought with him from his pocket.

“You hid it?”

“You might have trusted her reasons for being found in here that day, but I did not,” he admitted, obviously knowing of our time in my study and questioning it just as I should have.

“There was no loss of a snuffbox?” I assumed, directing this question at Adam, who shook his head, telling me no. But then I jerked the letter in my hand at my second and snapped,

“And you, just when were you intending to show me this?” I asked Lucius, who shrugged his shoulders and stated calmly,

“When I believed the time was right.”

Of course, one look at who the letter also implicated, then I knew the true cause, for he hadn’t wanted to cast an accusing light on his friend until he himself decided to intervene. A fact I had no choice but to let go, instead focusing on one far more important, asking,

“And why, by the Gods, would a mortal need access into the Janus temple?”

“Now that is something I don’t know and, like you, am eager to find out,” Lucius replied, now looking to his own second in command for answers. At this Adam finally showed discomfort and started by releasing a heavy sigh.

“Now this is where it gets infinitely more complicated,” he admitted, making my brother scoff on my behalf, saying,

“What could be more complicated than that of his Electus choosing to keep her true self from the man Fated to be hers?”

A good question indeed, and one I too wished to know more than all else.

“She needs a coin to get home.”

I frowned, disbelieving that any door in the temple could lead her home. As they all led to places she was forbidden to go, for none were connected to the mortal realm. Not even my own doors led to anywhere upon this Earth. Of course, I had contemplated having one cast to lead directly into Afterlife, my home in New England in the Americas. But as of yet, I didn’t see much cause for such, nor the waste of power, for they were not easy to make.

In fact, it had taken a lot of resources on my part just to have one made for my vault where I kept most of my vast wealth and earthly treasures.

“Home? She is mortal, for wherever would she think to go?” Vincent stated, asking the question before I could.

Adam was starting to look more uncomfortable by the second, until finally he astounded us all by saying,

“She arrived through the fountain.”

I staggered back until my back hit my desk, next to my brother. Someone who also reacted, as he gasped aloud.

“No… no… it is not possible, for she would have been killed!” I shouted, unable to believe such a thing could be true.

“Not if her reasons for being here were prophesied by Janus himself,” Lucius pointed out, being the one to add this logic, and I almost hated him for it! But I was too lost in my need of discovery to snarl his way, instead looking to Adam once more.

“Is this true?”

“She believes it is, my Lord, yet even she is still uncertain as to what led her back to this time.”

I frowned… Gods, but my Chosen One was from a different time… I was utterly dumbfounded!

“Which time did she come from?” my brother asked as I was momentarily struck mute.

“The future, my Lord, over a hundred years, I believe.”

“Gods,” Vincent muttered. However, I had a far greater curse hissing from my lips.

“Fuck… fuck!”

“And in this future, does she know that she is the Chosen One?” Lucius was wise enough to ask. Adam’s answer ended up being just another thing to nearly have me falling to my knees.

“Yes, for I believe she has been married to you for quite some time, my Lord.”

“Married. We… we are man and wife?”

“Yes, my Lord,” he answered, causing all the air to leave my lungs. Gods indeed, for it was quickly becoming a bittersweet nightmare. She belonged to another, and it just so happened to be me from a different time. Fuck, but I never thought it was possible to be jealous of myself but here I was experiencing it all the same.

But then it all started to make sense. For I had already questioned why sometimes she felt so at ease with me. It was because I was already her husband and she no doubt knew me better than any other.

“What are you not saying, Adam?” My head snapped up when I heard Lucius ask this, as clearly, he could see something in his second’s face that I was missing in the midst’s of my mental turmoil.

“There is more, yes. However, I admit to not knowing much on the details,” Adam protested, making me snarl.

“Speak!” I snapped, close to losing the grip on my fury.

“I believe this isn’t the first time she has travelled through time.”

“What?!” I roared, feeling my brother’s calming hand come to my shoulder, no doubt worried that others would hear… a certain maid to be precise.

“She mentioned a time when you were in Muncaster castle, and how the moment you knew who she was to you, you refused to let her go.”

I gasped, feeling close to erupting into my other form, for my Demon was clawing at me to find her and claim her instantly. As if this was all that was needed to lock her to this time. To chain her to this version of me so that all other Dominic Draven’s she had encountered before me would become nothing more than a distant memory.

“Gods in Hell, but could it get any worse!” I exclaimed, feeling as if I had entered some Greek tragedy before even stepping foot on the stage.

“I believe the reason she ran from you that night was from fear that you would remember her, for I believe it was in the past,” Adam told me, making me shake my head, trying to get my thoughts around the idea.

“But I do not remember this, and I know it is not ever possible to forget such heartbreak as finding one’s Electus only to lose her shortly after,” I pointed out bitterly.

“Then perhaps she somehow created a new timeline?” Lucius offered helpfully, for it was the only explanation for it.

“Yes, but why? Do you know?” I asked, looking once again to the man in the room who seemed to have all the answers so far.

“I confess I do not, however there might be more she told my Winnie but with that being said, if this is information you wish to gain, it will be done by my means, not yours,” he stated firmly, for it was the only time he would dare to deny me. For he was acutely protective of his wife and, with good reason. Reasons I was starting to understand myself having just found my own Fated.

“No, for I believe it is time I gain my information directly from the source, as for too long has she kept this from me,” I said, making the decision to hear the rest from my little time traveling wife. Gods but just thinking of her as already belonging to me was playing havoc on my heart. All I had learned churred inside of me like snakes trapped in a pit of despair…

For now, I knew her plan all along was to leave me.

Something I would be loathed to allow happen. Hence why I told them all,

“Under no circumstances is she allowed to leave, for I want her watched, every movement, is that understood?”

“Don’t fear, brother, for we all know what is at stake should she accomplish her task,” Vincent said, handing me the coin, and one I would not be letting out of my sight and would be keeping on my person from now on. So, I nodded, knowing what he meant… my future happiness was on the line.

“And what of the seal?” Lucius asked, jerking his head to where it was hidden in the wall.

“It will have to wait, for I cannot afford to leave yet, not until I am assured that my little maid leaves the future behind her…”

“…Once and for all.”