She could not remember her original past, but in this past they had created together, she remembered the first time she had laid eyes on him as a mature Vampyre. She almost didn’t recognize him, it had been so long since he had killed the priest and changed her life. But then there was something about the way he moved, and the way he smiled that wild white smile of his that drove females crazy with desire.
She had watched it all with a cold, expressionless face and an aged heart that had grown so cynical it no longer believed in anything except that things always change. And then on the island, she had demanded he kneel, and he had kissed her and she was dying, and he still had not remembered her, and so she struck at him with all the rage and pain she had inside—Her past may have changed and yet it was all deeper and truer than it had been before. She could even see how she must have lived her life before he had ever come into it, like shadows of reality, another Carling, much like the sketch of the island outline as it lay over the Bay’s horizon. It was so strange, how all the pieces fit seamlessly together.
Now she realized there was a problem with choosing not to stay in love with him. How could she hope to recover from such feelings or set them aside, when he was standing right in front of her, embodying everything that had slipped past her barriers and caused her to fall in love with him in the first place?
He was everything she could have wished for in a life partner and far more than she had ever hoped to find, with his compassion and caring, his intellect that was so well seasoned in nuance and strategy, his ruthlessness tempered with reason, mischievous wit and a warrior’s strength that was so indomitable, she could lean on him when she felt weak and he could match her when they went head-to-head.
As she had told him, she was not good at surrender. Something inside of her was too fierce to bend easily or often, too well entrenched in the habit of rule. But she found she had to bow to her own feelings on this and surrender to the experience of loving him, because it was simply impossible to do anything else.
She reached up and stroked his temple. He was clearly suffering for some reason, and it hurt her to see it. She said gently, “We knew this was possible.”
“Yes.” He took her hand, pressed her fingers against his mouth and closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure what hit him the hardest.
He had actually changed history. He thought of the priest he had killed and he realized that wasn’t what shook him so badly. Every time he had to kill, he changed the course of the future. He had accepted that responsibility a very long time ago.
No, what really shook him to his foundation was the thought of how many times Carling had slipped into the fade either alone or with only Rhoswen, or other Vampyres and humans to guard her. The doorway to her past had stood wide open many times for any dark creature or spirit of Power with the capacity to slip through. She had once mentioned that she had enemies. Any person with her Power and at her level of position would.
What if something had already slipped through and was stalking her in the past? Her episodes seemed to be some kind of conduit for him. When they stopped, the passageway closed and he came back to the present. What if something else found a way to stay back in the past?
The tiger-cub Carling would make such a delectable morsel for some dark vengeful thing to devour.
What if she simply disappeared?
Could the universe flex in such a way to accept Carling’s death, and absorb all that that might change? Might he turn around one day to discover that she had vanished like she had never existed? If that happened, no one would know she was gone—no one except perhaps him, since he still remembered how cruelly Carling had been whipped in the first timeline.
Or maybe, if she died and the past was changed to that profound extent, he would not remember her either. He might become oblivious Rune, living out his life in New York. He would never see her walking naked out of the glimmering river, the droplets of water sparkling like diamonds on her nude body. He would never give her that first sizzling kiss, or hear her rusty, surprised laugh, or take her on the floor with such savage need she would scream into his mouth and claw at him as she took him too.
Gods have mercy.
“We’ve got to stop these episodes from happening,” she said, so clearly her thoughts had run along a similar vein to all the possible consequences of what they had done.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “But before we do, Carling, I’ve got to go back again one more time.”
“Why?”
He opened his eyes to find her looking at him as if he were a madman. He didn’t blame her. He felt like a madman. “If I can get through to your past, something else might be able to get through too. The younger Carling doesn’t know to protect herself. She has to be warned.”
A prickling chill ran down her spine. Her mind raced as she tried to find fault with his logic, but she couldn’t.