Return Once More

The brain stem tat reminded me that Pharaoh apologized to no one. Not to mention I had interrupted him in semi-private gardens without being invited, so his assumption about my intention had not been outlandish. Still. I hadn’t given this three-thousand-year culture clash enough thought.

Caesarion eased onto the other end of the bench, leaving a good eighteen inches of space between us. Goose bumps appeared along my arm, every inch of me swamped with the awareness of his nearness. How could Sarah possibly have missed the fact that Oz was her True for the first seven years we were at the Academy if they felt anything like this? It feels as though I’ll never have to wonder where Caesarion is again.

“Are you angry with me?”

I pushed my physical reaction to him aside as best as I could, flabbergasted by the incredulous tone in which he’d asked the question. “No. A little embarrassed and offended, maybe, but not angry.”

“Women are not usually offended when I accept their offerings.”

“I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

His dark eyebrows knitted together, giving him an expression that would have been as at home on a small child caught with a hand in an unapproved bag of treats. “I do not wish to upset or embarrass you. It’s not often that I am interrupted by accident.”

It wasn’t an apology, but given his upbringing and station, it was probably the best I would get. My wariness eased, defenses slipping. He seemed vexed but not angry, and more importantly, disinclined to lunge at me again. I’d give him an ancient clueless pass, because he’d been born into privilege and also because, like it or not, he was my True.

Now that I’d thwarted his attempt to use pleasure to dull the pain of his grief, Caesarion appeared lost again, the way he had at first glance. I wasn’t going to have sex with him. In truth, I wasn’t even sure I liked him, but it didn’t lessen my desire to find another way to ease his grief.

“I’ll be fine. You didn’t know.” It killed me a little to let him off the hook, but only minutes remained before I had to return. It seemed a waste to spend them fuming over a misunderstanding.

Relief loosened his posture as he turned to face me. “I have never seen you before this morning.”

“I’m sure you meet too many women to recall them all.”

“Now that I look closely, though, I am sure I would remember you. You never answered my question about your business in the garden.”

He slid a stubborn gaze my direction, giving me a ghost of a halting smile. Our eyes locked. Warmth pooled my middle and spread until my cheeks and neck felt swollen. Words stuck between my heart and my tongue. The rest of the garden, this world, my world, faded away. I don’t know how long we sat that way before I cleared my throat, desperate to hear him speak again before time ran out.

“I sought peace. What are you doing in the common gardens instead of your own?”

“This is my last morning in Alexandria, I thought … I don’t know. Mother loved the gardens.” Caesarion paused, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his long throat, tears appearing in his midnight gaze. “I suppose I sought peace, as well.”

My heart squeezed at his palpable anguish. He’d lost his mother mere hours ago to the same power-hungry lunatic bent on ending Caesarion’s life, as well. My hand itched to reach out and cover his, to give comfort and to memorize the feeling of his skin against mine. The tattoo linked to my brain overrode my desires based on contemporary custom, apparently choosing to forget the recent, rather physical interaction that had already taken place.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you find peace, however brief.”

That small smile again, one that made me certain a genuine version would stop my heart. “That would not have been peace. It would have been at best a temporary distraction. Although it would have sufficed, I find that your presence soothes just as well. Perhaps better.” Caesarion reached out, sliding a finger along my jaw before tipping my chin up, forcing me to look at him. “You make me feel strange. As though nothing is what it seems any longer, not even myself.”

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and a sound like water crashing over rocks roared in my ears. My entire body stood at attention; my stomach tied into a knot, my heart tripped and paused in alternating patterns. It felt like his fingertip lit a fire on every inch of skin it touched.

I slid back a few inches, unable to think with him touching me, but not missing the flash of disappointment on his face when our skin lost contact. He dropped his hand to his lap, clenching and unclenching a fist.

I groped for more neutral ground, unwilling to broach the real reason we felt familiar to each other. “You said this is your last morning in Alexandria. You’re leaving?”

“I shouldn’t speak of it. Perhaps you give me strange feelings because you’re one of Octavian’s spies.” He slid almost imperceptibly closer.

I reached out and covered his hand with mine, unable to contain the gasp that escaped when our skin touched and fire crawled up my arm. The stabbing pain in the base of my skull returned with enough force to make me clench my teeth, the price of forcing my body to override the commands from the brain stem tat. It wrapped painful fingers around my neck that climbed toward my eyeballs, but I couldn’t stop touching him. Our skin felt fused, and when he flipped his palm against mine, locking our fingers together, the strangest combination of contentment and desire spread through my blood.

“I would never betray you,” I managed.

“I believe you.” Caesarion’s gaze throbbed with what appeared to be the same odd reaction to our meeting, though he still looked grief stricken and dazed. “To the general who caused my mother’s death, I am nothing but a threat to his quest for power, and Octavian is not the type of man to leave threats blowing in the wind.”

“Is he right to see you as an enemy?”

“I do not know. My paternity was kept from me for a time, and my place is here, with the Egyptian people. My family has ruled for generations.”

“But … ,” I nudged.

“Caesar left us when defending his relationship with my mother to the Senate became too difficult. Antony, not unexpectedly given his weak character, failed my mother as well. Octavian ordered her murder, and mine, and has eliminated thousands of my subjects. I have no reason to love Rome.” Bitterness clipped the words from his lips, each one pruned and spat into the air.

That Caesarion might have marched on Rome intent on revenge never occurred to me, but the hatred clogging the air between us made the possibility clear.

Of course, he would never get the chance.

Time was short for both of us. I’d forgotten my stupid watch, but the brain stem tat alerted me of Genesis time after my idle thought. Breakfast would end in twenty minutes, and it usually took at least ten to get out of the decontamination chamber. One of the rules for time travel, put in place by Originals like my grandfather, was that time marched in the past as it did in the present. It prevented stealing time and eliminated temptation for subterfuge. If I passed ninety minutes in the past, ninety minutes elapsed at home. I had to return to Sanchi.

I gathered the remainder of my self-control and stood, smoothing down my dress, already missing my True, already anticipating the cold loneliness of exiting his presence.

“It was a pleasure, Caesarion.” It took all of my concentration to force his given name past my lips, past the discomfort of bypassing the electronic fingers reaching toward my lips in an attempt to force an appropriate title out in its place.

If my lack of propriety bothered him, Caesarion did not mention it. Instead he reached out, almost like a reflex. “Wait. What is your name, beauty?”