Simon, Sex, and the Solstice Stone Copyright
© November 2012 by Kay Berrisford
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eISBN 9781623000585
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Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Chris, Halo, Melanie, and Serena.
Chapter One
Yuletide, 2011
“Ancestors—revered ones of the Stones—reveal to me your powers!”
These words, translated and copied from a yellowed scroll the last time he’d
been at the archives, were the last Simon uttered before his world went awry.
One instant he was standing inside the circle of monoliths known simply as the
Stones on a sunny Christmas morning. He’d been breathing dew-kissed air, crisp and
fresh to the taste. The next thing he knew, a powerful force threw him flat on his
back on the Solstice Stone, the altar-like slab of rock that lay at the heart of the
ancient ring.
Night fell instantly, galaxies spun in front of his eyes, aeons flew by in a second,
and then he was no longer alone.
Figures whirled around him, men in leather jerkins and knee breeches and
women in long dresses and strange lace collars. All wore black half masks with holes
cut for their eyes, and each held a flaming torch, lurid yellow against the gray
stones and a dark sky bleeding red with the light of dawn. Low, murmured chanting
filled his ears, though he could not make out the words.
Simon was too stunned to cry out, too paralyzed with confusion to do
anything but gaze from one half-concealed face to another while a series of
realizations struck him like blows of a sledgehammer.
He was tied down; he could hardly move. His wrists had been secured above
his head, his ankles tethered with his legs splayed wide. And he was naked. His spine
pressed into the Solstice Stone beneath, a chill wind licking his bare thighs and his
soft, exposed cock.
He struggled against the rope bonds, not caring that they bit into his skin. He
needed to close his legs, to conceal the worst of his nudity from the glare of the
company. No use. His bonds refused to yield. He screwed his eyes tight.
It had to be a nightmare. Right? He’d not expected the incantation to work in
any way, let alone crush his skepticism about the power of the Stones. No dream or
vision could evoke the fear that twisted in his guts like an iron fist, or the smoky air
that filled his lungs. Ice seeped through his veins, and he shivered, his heart skittering
to an ever-accelerating rhythm. He snatched momentary comfort in the knowledge
that the Stones had no history of human sacrifice. The ceremonies performed here,
from ancient times to the seventeenth century, concerned the search for a higher
state of being that pushed the worshipper closer to the Ancestors venerated at the
Stones.
Then again, Simon was only in the first year of his PhD, his studies still in their
infancy.
Whenever pagan magic reared its head, there were always murmurs about
blood and sacrifice.
Panic consumed him, incinerating his every rational thought. He yelled so
loudly his throat turned ragged. His quaintly dressed captors did not seem to notice;
they carried on walking and chanting.
All apart from one.
The figure came to a halt, standing right at Simon’s feet, taller than the rest of
the chanters by about half a foot. He wore a long cloak draped across wide
shoulders, the fabric lifting and swirling like the flame and smoke.
“Please don’t hurt me.” Simon gasped. “Just let me go.”
The man ignored him, flinging his cloak to the ground with a flourish, revealing
a thin, weather-beaten face and long black tresses, wispy in the restless air. A large
black circle was tattooed on the left of his broad chest, with triangles that radiated
from its edges like the rays of the sun—but this commanded Simon’s attention for
only a split second.
The man’s shaft was semierect, the bulbous head glistening. He wrapped it in
his hand, slowly tugging.
Simon’s terror soared to a whole new level.
Oh God, oh God, he’s going to fuck me.
The guy’s size made Simon’s stomach clench.
That great cock swelled by the moment as the man slipped and toyed. He
could rip Simon apart with that thing. “Please…no. There’s some mistake. I didn’t
want this. I didn’t ask for this. Please! Can’t you hear me?”
The guy jerked himself off, and his mates, still circling, remained oblivious to
Simon’s rising desperation. The man seemed lost in a realm of his own, and despite
his obvious arousal, that realm didn’t seem a happy one. Simon gazed up into
black-pearl eyes and discerned no threat, just loneliness and a melancholy that all
but wrenched the heart from him.
When the guy climbed forward onto the Solstice Stone, all Simon’s sympathies
fled. He screamed.
His assailant made no effort to untie Simon’s legs or turn him over, arching
above him on hands and knees, his cock thrust inches above Simon’s belly. He
didn’t touch Simon, though it could only be a matter of time before he turned his
attentions to his victim.
Simon’s heart hammered so hard he feared it might burst.
“Ancestors,” muttered the long-haired man in a lilting accent. “Accept this
sacrifice. Lift me up and tear back time. Spin back three hundred and sixty-five
days, and bring me what I seek.”
Simon closed his eyes and let out a shuddering
sigh,
resigning
himself
to
an
unthinkable fate. Constellations whirled beneath his eyelids. For a split second
he couldn’t breathe, so overpowering was the rush of scorching air that blasted
against him.
Somebody slapped his face, the blow soft but stinging. His eyes flew open. He
stared up at a familiar, albeit pissed-off man with blue eyes and short, spiky brown
hair.
His boyfriend, Pete.
“What the fuck, Simon?”
All Simon could do was gape. He still lay on the Solstice Stone, but the pale
winter sun shone in a clear blue sky. The naked guy was gone, and so were his
terrifying companions in… What had they been wearing? Those costumes had
looked like they dated from the seventeenth century. The people
might
have
been
some
historical
reenactment group. But how the heck did they appear and vanish like that, in
little more than a blink, unless…?
“What the hell were you doing lying here?”
Pete stepped back, regarding Simon with a withering stare. “I thought you
were just taking a few pictures.”
Simon rubbed his brow, finding it slick with cold sweat. He pushed himself onto
his elbows, his muscles still wound tight as armor against attack. “I was trying
something out, reading an incantation I translated. And before you jump to any
conclusions, it was nothing to do with sex.”
Pete, like many uneducated sorts, assumed pagan rituals were solely about
orgies, which Simon found excruciating. As he’d told Pete a thousand times, he was
writing a serious thesis about the importance of Ancestor worship to the Ancients
who’d built the Stones. Okay, so whatever Simon had just experienced undermined
this argument. He’d not tell Pete about that, even if he decided it had been more
than a very real daydream.
He jolted at the truth resounding in his heart.
It had been real. That fierce man had seemed all too real, and so had his
pain. The remembrance set Simon’s stomach rolling as wildly as his mind raced. This
was not the first strange happening at the Stones, even in the last century. Five
people had been committed to mental hospitals after being found wandering in
the vicinity. No relatives had turned up to identify a single one of them.
Am I going mad?
“Simon!” Pete clicked his fingers in front of Simon’s nose. “What the fuck is
wrong with you?
Nothing happened apart from you taking a nap, and we haven’t got all
day.”
Simon blinked hard, trying to force his mind back into the here and now. “I’ve
only been ten minutes.”
“It’s been an hour. The view of all your beloved Bronze Age burial mounds
from the car park gets tiresome pretty damn quick, and we’re going to be late for
lunch at my sister’s now. For God’s sake, it’s Christmas. Why don’t you come to this
place on the solstice like the rest of the bloody hippies?”
“ I ’ m not a hippie. I’m a historian. And nobody comes here. Not with
Stonehenge fifteen miles up the road.” Simon pushed himself down from the stone,
landing unsteadily in the mud. Pete still glared at him, and Simon conceded the
man had a point. It was Pete’s arse his sister would kick if the turkey ended up
overcooked. He rubbed his boyfriend’s arm. “Okay, I’m sorry; I’ll finish off quick now.
Do you mind if I call Gran, though?
Just to say hi. She’ll just be waking up in New York.”
“If you must. Two minutes, Simon.”
Pete stomped off down the hill to the car park. Simon forgot his partner’s
anger and any sense of urgency before he’d disappeared. Fingers shaking with a
mingling of shock, terror, and excitement, he pressed the Dial button on his phone,
leaning back against one of the tall, lichen-mottled sarsens that formed the main
ring of twelve stones.
He would spare Gran the nudity and lurid details, but he’d just seen a glimpse
of the past or future or something. He could tell her about the chanters in the old-
fashioned costumes. A devotee of guardian spirits, she held faith in many
otherworldly phenomena and would greet his story with an open mind. Besides, he
missed Gran at Christmas, when everyone else met up with close family.
Thanksgiving was the festival Simon had always shared with his American
grandmother, since he’d been old enough to fly out from England —where his
father had raised him—as an unaccompanied minor. It seemed a hell of a long
time till he’d next have enough days off to see her for a long weekend in April.
A thin, elderly voice answered. “Simon.
Merry Christmas, darling.”
Despite his nerves, a heartfelt smile tugged Simon’s lips. “Happy Christmas,
Gran. I’m at the Stones, and…uh…”
“Are you all right?”
Simon wasn’t entirely sure, so he confessed that he was shaken. He was fairly
certain he wasn’t mad, so he poured out all he dared of his story.
His grandmother’s response felt as disturbing as it was warming.
“It’s like the angels and demons and the good Lord, Simon. If you believe in
your heart the Ancestors linger, you can be sure as heck that they do.”
Chapter Two
Eleven months later
Simon slammed the door of his little blue hatchback and shined his torch up
through the drizzle to the cusp of the grassy hill. In the first light of dawn the Stones
loomed above him, backlit by a sullen, gray-russet sky. Suitable company for this
morning of all mornings, his first Thanksgiving alone.
His April visit to New York had been the last time he ever saw his grandmother.
She’d seemed sprightly enough then, despite approaching her eighty-fifth year, but
she’d died in August after an illness so short that Simon landed at JFK Airport only to
be greeted by his cousin Maria with the news that he’d arrived too late. After
returning to England, he’d grieved intensely and alone. Then he’d done what he’d
always done—thrown himself into his work and let the Stones consume him.
Since his experience last Christmas, he’d pondered for days over each symbol
he’d photographed from the Solstice Stone, though he’d been nervous about
revisiting the site itself. The first time he’d returned to the Stones to take more
pictures, he’d nagged Pete to come with him, luring him with a picnic. Egg
sandwiches eaten outdoors in March had done little to quell Pete’s moaning, and
nothing else freaky had come about.
Simon had of late plucked up the courage to spend time at the Stones
without Pete, which was fortunate because their relationship had ended a month
ago. His ex’s parting broadside stung even now, as he slung his rucksack on his back
and splashed through the puddles of the empty heritage site car park.
“You love being alone, Simon. You make me particularly aware of it when
we’re fucking.”
The miasmic drizzle thickened toward rain.
Simon zipped the front of his waterproof jacket.
Maybe the man had spoken some truth.
He didn’t miss Pete.
Well, not that much. He was relieved to be shot of Pete’s constant demands
to go out clubbing and pick up guys for threesomes to spice things up in bed.
Anyway, Simon did like being alone, just…not all the time.
And not on Thanksgiving, not really, but in a country where nobody else had
grown up celebrating it, what choice did he have?
Reaching the parking honesty box, he frowned harder. The pay station had
been vandalized, one of the wooden side panels wrenched open. As there seemed
little point in paying good money that would probably be nicked before it went
toward the upkeep of the monument, he pocketed his coins.
He shouldn’t be surprised. Here in the cramped south of England, one was
never far from towns or homes or company in general, good or bad. Though surely
nobody else was up at the Stones right now.
He’d squelched through the long, wet grasses as far as the outer ring of knee-
high sarsen stones and then forged the small ditch beyond before he paused and
shined his flashlight ahead. He remained twenty yards away from the main ring of
twelve monoliths, but their height and breadth snatched his breath every time. Now
as ever, they dominated him as they lorded the rolling English landscape, making
him feel tiny and isolated, a thrall to their power. By the time he reached the circle,
he was breathless and sweating beneath his jacket. He placed his torch down and
rested his palm on the first stone, looking back to pick out the lush green burial
mounds as they emerged in the dull light. The only sounds were the rustle of rabbits
in the gorse and the throaty squawk of a crow. The emptiness of the place washed
over him.
So far from maddening crowds, he didn’t have to worry about tears pushing
at the backs of his eyes. His grandmother wouldn’t have been cheered to see him
alone on Thanksgiving, but she’d have understood. She’d have muttered Oh, Simon
in that affectionate way she always did when her grandson chose a visit to a
museum over a trip to an amusement park, or when he complained about the
syrupy, overlong seasonal adverts she liked to hum along to, telling her they “totally
missed the point about everything.” The way she’d waggled her eyebrows when
he’d acted the older, more sensible of them had always made him grin. For a
moment she felt so close he could have reached out and touched her, and he
muttered a silent prayer of thanks.
He was glad he’d come.
But the more he strained to remember her, the harder it seemed. He bit his lip,
and suddenly he couldn’t recall her face. Heavens, it was too quiet.
Apart from he had company.
Hearing a soft footfall, Simon whirled around just as a strongly built man
stepped from the shadows between the monoliths. He was young, maybe
midtwenties,
and
gorgeous—Simon
couldn’t deny that, despite his irritation and rising nerves. The newcomer
scraped his fingers through drenched, unruly blond curls that tumbled to his
shoulders, framing strikingly angular features. His jaw was dusted with at least a day’s
growth of stubble. He wore a loose white shirt and mud-splattered trousers that
reached his knees, and his feet were dirty and bare.
Either Simon had encountered one of those neodruids who thought they knew
all about the Stones but really knew sweet fuck all, or this was the criminal who’d
vandalized the honesty box.
Simon swallowed hard and raised two hands defensively. “Okay, don’t come
any closer, mate. I was just leaving.”
“Please, friend, there is no need for that.” The man’s strong brogue owed as
much to Scots and Irish as it did to the West Country. Simon had never heard an
accent like it before.
Damn, it was sexy, even though the man’s voice trembled. Unsurprisingly for
somebody wandering about the English countryside in a warmish but wet
November, he looked soaked to the bone.
“What
happened?”
asked
Simon.
He
cautiously stepped forward, away from the monolith. One thing Gran would
never want was for him to turn his back on somebody in need, even to mourn her.
“You look like you’ve been here all night.”
“A day and a night.” The man took four graceful strides till he was so near he
towered several inches over Simon’s five feet eight.
“Uh, that’s close enough, mate.” Simon forced himself to glare. The man’s long
nose had probably been broken, and a scar nicked his left brow. The bastard
radiated rugged charm. His irregular looks made Simon think of the kind of guy
you’d cast as Sherlock Holmes or Doctor Who.
And Simon had fancied way too many Time Lords.
The man dropped to his knees at Simon’s feet, grabbed his hands, and lifted
them to his lips.
Simon drew breath sharply as the stranger’s cool, moist lips caressed his skin.
Then he wrenched away, staggering back.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Thanking you for coming to me in my hour of need.” The man looked up, his
hair matted in soggy tendrils against his brow. Though he set his expression rigid, a
nerve trembled along his lower lip. “Tell me, what is your name?”
“Uh, it’s Simon. But look, I haven’t got any money on me, if that’s what you’re
after.”
Simon’s companion lowered long, dripping lashes. “I am called Aubrey Hill,
and I ask for no money or worldly goods. I beg only to share what I know with you,
and I hope you might share a little with me.” He looked at the eastern sky, its watery
pink color suggesting the sun was pushing up toward the horizon. The clouds grew
thicker overhead, and the rain offered no mercy. Aubrey pressed slender lips into an
anxious line. Then he rose, retreating to the Solstice Stone and beckoning Simon to
follow. “Our time grows short. Come.”
Simon folded his arms and resisted. This guy seemed eccentric at best, insane
at worst, or from a completely different planet. What was he after, and what did he
need from Simon? And why the heck did time grow short?
Aubrey lifted himself up so he knelt on the altar-like surface. “This,” he said, “is
the Solstice Stone, so named because it lies parallel with the rock behind which the
midwinter sun rises. Here the Ancients made their offerings to the Ancestors.”
“I know.” Simon shrugged and wiped his face on his sleeve. Was that all the
man could tell him?
Aubrey traced his fingers over carvings Simon had studied at length, and
indicated a circle and two crescents. “Here is the sign of the Ancients’ Mother Earth.
And this”—he paused over the image of a heart and a hearth—“is the symbol of
love and family, the most precious things in life that time has no choice but to
destroy.”
Now he had Simon’s attention. “How do you know all this?” Although the sign
of the Goddess was pretty well-known, the other fact was far more obscure. Maybe
this guy was into re-creating rituals.
Was last Christmas about to happen all over?
He subdued an upsurge of panic, swallowing hard. He’d stay on his guard.
Most likely Aubrey was a rival PhD student. Thus it would be in Simon’s interest to find
out what he knew. “Uh, what university are you from?”
Aubrey shot him a questioning look and then studied an engraving on the far
side of the stone.
Simon dropped his rucksack to the ground and slipped up beside him to see,
flinching as the damp seeped through his jeans. Aubrey lingered over a small circle
rising above a phallic-shaped depiction of what Simon believed to be one of the
twelve stones in the circle.
Simon pointed. “So what’s your theory on this one?”
“This image,” said Aubrey, “symbolizes the relentless shift of time, the sun over
the ring.” He slid his hand over Simon’s wrist, and Simon inhaled sharply. He ought to
pull away, yet his skin tingled beneath Aubrey’s palm. The world beyond, even the
crispness of the rain, seemed to fade. He found himself scrambling closer so he knelt
on the Solstice Stone, letting the man manipulate him till Simon’s finger pointed to a
carving similar to the first. Here the sun and the stone were bound together by what
he took to be curling vines, but the sphere representing the sun had been torn in
two.
“This one,” continued Aubrey, “shows us how the power of the Ancestors can
tear the very fabric of time and undo the injustices that rip loved ones apart. This is
andaga.”
“Eh?” Simon had never read anything about a ritual that tore the fabric of
time. Then again, he recalled the words of the naked guy looming over him on this
very Solstice Stone well enough. He’d said something about spinning back time, and
that set Simon’s nerves jangling. “What evidence supports this theory?”
Aubrey looked to the misted horizon, clenching his jaw against a tremor that
shook his body from head to toe. “The power of the Ancients remains alive in this
place.”
Simon opened his mouth to snap that he needed a better answer than that,
but his words jammed. As Aubrey moved, the lacing that fastened his white shirt fell
loose, revealing a physique chiseled to lean perfection by either gym or hard labor,
his carved chest adorned with soggy golden curls.
Simon’s throat tightened. So did his groin.
Aubrey slid his gaze to Simon and lowered his lashes. He seemed to be
begging a silent question, but Simon could not even start to comprehend.
“But let’s forget time tearing,” murmured Aubrey.
He stroked Simon’s sodden brown hair from where it had clumped across his
eye, and Simon’s usually sharp mind dissolved to mush. He could hardly remember
how to breathe. The man slid featherlight fingertips down Simon’s smoothly shaven
cheek, setting his skin aflame and doing nothing to dissipate his growing hard-on.
Simon sent a final, desperate message to his fingers to swipe the man away; he
needed to say something, anything.
Next thing he knew, the man grabbed him and kissed him hard.
For a blissful moment Simon surrendered, and his senses reeled under the
onslaught. Aubrey plundered deep into Simon’s mouth, and Simon slid his tongue
against Aubrey’s, hot and slick in contrast to the chill of their skin, willing him to
intensify their coupling. Aubrey worked the kiss like his life depended on it, scrubbing
his coarse stubble against Simon’s chin. Simon relished the sensation even as the
man’s hunger astounded him.
Aubrey’s hands trembled as he splayed them across Simon’s back. Then he
balled fists in the fabric of Simon’s coat as if he were a drowning mariner grasping a
rope from the shore. Their bodies notched together so naturally, and something
Aubrey wore—a belt, maybe, concealed beneath his clothes—dug into Simon’s
stomach.
Simon shifted, looping his arms about the man’s neck, his knee nudging
between Aubrey’s. He reveled in the hardness of the man’s thighs, and — oh yes.
The length of Aubrey’s cock pressed against Simon’s leg, with only Simon’s tight, wet
jeans and Aubrey’s loose clothing between them.
What in heaven, hell, or any realm in between could have possessed this cross
between a god and a soggy wolf pup to kiss him? And at a time like this?
Aubrey’s frenzy proved infectious; Simon grew needier by the second. Some
awesome power bound them together, as surely as the carved vines wound about
that phallic stone. His cock stiffened for this guy, his contact-starved body
screaming for more, so much more. Aubrey lowered Simon till he lay flat on the
stone, and Simon could not resist. He feared this strange man, but with fear came
thrill—an awakening of desires that, since his experience at this very spot, he’d
dared visit only in the dusky realm between nightmares and dreams.
When Aubrey broke away, both of them panted. Aubrey cupped Simon’s
face and whispered in his ear. “That’s just the start of our offering, Simon. Shall we
show the Ancestors how much we adore them?”
Simon gazed up at him, so turned on the man’s words were hard to
comprehend. With Pete sex had been so complicated. They’d spent more time
arguing about who should do what than they had actually doing it. With Aubrey
their conjoined desires grew so stark that Simon bit his tongue against vocalizing his
darkest cravings.
I want you to fuck me here and now. To heaven and back on the Solstice
Stone.
Aubrey pulled away a moment, raking his hair —and Simon suddenly realized
what had pressed into him as they embraced. Aubrey indeed wore a belt. It had
shifted around as they’d kissed to reveal an old-fashioned dagger sheathed in
black leather.
His common sense became deafening.
He didn’t fuck strangers, let alone ones who carried knives. Maybe he was
finally starting to understand what he’d seen last Christmas. It had been a
premonition.
The Ancestors warning him never to lie beneath another man on the Solstice
Stone.
“Shit!” he yelped. “Get away from me!”
Wrenching himself from Aubrey’s embrace took every iota of his strength. His
feet landed with a squelch in the mud. He steadied himself and ran, light rain
smattering against his burning face, mud clotting his boots. He dared not look back.
He heard the slap of Aubrey’s bare soles as he alighted on the ground, then the
man’s heavy footfalls accelerating after him.
He couldn’t quite believe what he’d just done. He’d come here to remember
his gran, not to put out like some rent boy on the Stones. On Thanksgiving of all days.
How had he allowed himself to be sucked in by Aubrey’s charms? The man could
be a lunatic. Scratch that. Aubrey was a lunatic. Simon was a bloody fool for falling
for his act, and now he was running from an enormous bloke who carried a knife. His
idiocy might get him killed.
“I didn’t mean to startle you! Ye gods, I probably deserved that.” Aubrey
muttered the last line as if to himself.
Simon never had time to finish wondering what the heck the man meant. He
was running so fast he’d forgotten to watch for the shallow ditch before the outer
ring of small sarsens. His foot slipped into the grassy furrow, sending him lurching
forward. His head struck the stone, pain split through him, and the world turned
black.
Chapter Three
Darkness claimed Simon for what seemed a short while. Then he grew aware
of a throbbing in his skull, the swell of sickness in his guts, and the jolting sensation of
being carried. As he strained to make sense of everything, the ache in his skull grew
all-consuming.
When his world stilled, Simon breathed deeply of fresh dew, wood smoke, and
the deep, musky scent of…oh God, him.
Simon stared up into Aubrey’s face, slender lips pressed in a concerned line, a
wisp of wet blond hair running down the center of his nose, plastered against his
forehead by the rain. For a moment the tumult in Simon’s head faded, and it
seemed as if he floated in the man’s arms. Then the reality of his situation lashed
into him.
“Fuck! Let me go.”
He tried to push himself up; the world spun, and gravity slammed like a heavy
weight. He flopped back down so his head rested on Aubrey’s hard and sodden
thighs.
“Please be still.” Aubrey spoke in a hushed voice, flitting his fingertips across
Simon’s lips as if seeking to catch his words and push them back in. “You have a
mean-looking bump. You shouldn’t move as yet.”
Simon had little choice but to acquiesce, though he forced his eyelids wide.
He was lying under a giant spruce tree. Evergreen leaves formed a thick canopy to
protect them from the pattering rain. The dampness of the ground seeped through
his jeans, and his legs felt stiff and cold. Just beyond the shelter of the foliage lay the
ashy remnants of a wood fire. A slaughtered rabbit hung half-skinned from a nearby
branch, which drew a groan from Simon’s throat. He struggled to prevent his
breakfast from reemerging as fear tightened in his guts.
Beside the hearth lay his torch and rucksack, the latter ripped open with the
contents scattered.
“Wh-why have you brought me here?” he stuttered. “You should have called
an ambulance.”
Confusion clouded Aubrey’s sharp eyes, but he seemed to dismiss Simon’s
words. “Here, drink.”
Aubrey picked up a plastic bottle of mineral water that had been in Simon’s
bag, unscrewing the top with his teeth. Simon took it, and Aubrey cupped a hand
about the back of his neck, lifting him so he could take a swig.
The cool liquid refreshed and wet Simon’s dry lips, but his head hurt as much
as ever. As for Aubrey? The man seemed frantic to keep Simon with him.
After screwing the lid back on, Simon threw the bottle down and slumped
back into the man’s lap. “Look, you can take the phone. I’ve got nothing else of
value.” Well, there were the car keys in his pocket, but he was not going to draw
attention to those. Strange the man hadn’t already taken them. “Just…please let
me go.”
“I am not robbing you.” Aubrey stroked Simon as he might a feral cat ready
to sink fangs into him any minute. “Neither would I keep you here against your will.”
“Then what the fuck are you doing?” Simon rolled off the man’s lap, catching
himself on his hands, and then collapsed face-first into the carpet of leafy mulch.
Feeling Aubrey’s touch on his shoulder, he turned over and glared.
Aubrey reached toward him, then snatched his hand back. “Wounds like this
can be dangerous.
You must—”
“What the hell do you expect me to do?”
Simon moaned, pressing his hand to his head.
“We’ve known each other for five minutes, and you stuck your tongue down
my throat.” He’d not complained about that bit at the time, but it seemed a moot
point now. “And why are you carrying a knife? It’s against the law. Don’t you know?”
Aubrey slid his hand to the hilt. Simon’s blood congealed to ice, but the man
drew the dagger only to place it on the ground between them. “If it ails you so
much,” he said, “I throw it down.”
Simon grabbed the weapon and examined it.
Though the cutting edge had been sharpened, stained with something dark
red that looked disturbingly like blood, the flat was dull and mottled through heavy
use. As for the handle, with its spiral motif and slender hand guard that curved up
around the hilt like a bow, Simon could jump to only one conclusion.
This weapon had been meticulously crafted and dated from the English Civil
War. It looked like the kind pikemen and musketeers carried as a backup. Simon
regarded Aubrey’s dress anew. The man’s short trousers had buttons at the knees,
much like seventeenth-century-style breeches. The white shirt, which the rain had
set clinging to Aubrey’s shoulders, could have dated from any time in the past six
centuries but didn’t appear of modern cut.
“Are you with the Sealed Knot or something?” Simon placed the dagger down
on his side farthest from Aubrey. “Is that why you’re camping here? You’re in one of
those historical reenactment groups?”
Aubrey sucked in a shaky breath and drew his fingers across his lips. “You
speak of many strange things. Pray tell me. What year is this?”
“Eh?” Simon wrinkled his nose. “It’s 2012.”
“Oh ye gods.” Aubrey’s weather-bronzed face whitened.
Suspicion stole through Simon’s veins.
“What’d you think it was?”
Aubrey looked so helpless. He inched his shoulders up in a shrug, and his voice
cracked.
“Yesterday it was 1647.”
The man’s meaning impacted Simon like a second blow to the head. “Say
what?”
“I…don’t know.” Aubrey scanned the ground as if seeking answers amid the
leaves and fungi. “I was supposed to go back. To undo…” He trailed off and was
quiet for a long moment, squeezing his lower lip between his teeth. “Something
went horribly wrong.”
“You bet it did.” Simon performed the mental mathematics. “Just assuming I
believe you, and I’m not saying I do, you’ve been sent forward three hundred and
sixty-five years.”
“I was supposed to go back three hundred and sixty-five days! I have to get
home.” Aubrey covered his face with his hands, and Simon resisted an impulse to
reach out, to comfort him.
This didn’t strike him as a man easily reduced to despair.
But that was not the issue. Simon was still a captive, kind of. And Aubrey tore
time? He’d actually completed that andaga ritual?
Well, the Stones were powerful—Simon harbored no doubts about it—and
Aubrey did remind him of Doctor Who, but… No, the Stones were not a time
machine. That was just insane.
He made a renewed attempt to raise himself.
“I’m the one who needs to get home.”
“No!” Aubrey grabbed him, gouging into his waterproof jacket. “Since I got
here, you’re the only person who’s understood anything of what I speak. I need
you.”
Aubrey pleaded with his eyes and his lips, his anguish as tangible as a punch
to Simon’s solar plexus. Coupled with his ravishing looks, it was all too much to bear.
No way could this guy need him. At best Aubrey had to be a rival student taking
the piss. Shit, maybe Pete put him up to it.
At worst he was a psycho toying with his prey.
Simon twisted from Aubrey’s grasp, forcing words from a fear-tight throat.
“Get away from me.”
To his relief, Aubrey released him. Using the tree trunk to steady himself, Simon
clambered to his feet. His stomach churned, and he felt too feeble to resist attack.
Fortunately Aubrey made no effort to trap him. On the contrary, the man hunched
forward, his hair dangling in dripping threads over his face. He seemed so obviously
distressed that Simon’s concerns about foul play dwindled.
For now, though, his own troubles held sway.
When he pushed himself from the tree, the world swam, green leaves blurring
till they resembled a Monet painting in panorama. He leaned back against the tree.
He needed some help, and hell, Aubrey needed a doctor, a psychologist, a
drug counselor.
Not Simon, but somebody. Even if this guy’s talk of time travel turned out to be
total codswallop—it would, of course—Aubrey must have experienced a
breakdown or a horrible shock to push him into this state.
The man peeped up at him from beneath his blond fringe. Simon pinched the
bridge of his nose and made an executive decision. “Look, will you help me back? I
feel like death warmed up, and I need my things.”
“Why,
of
course!”
Aubrey’s
back
straightened, his face lighting up as if he’d won the national lottery. He
leaped to the task, gathering the contents of Simon’s rucksack, treating each item
with overtentative care, before passing the bag back. Then he sheathed his knife
and placed his hand on the small of Simon’s back.
Contemplating
how
Aubrey
elevated
weirdness to whole new levels, Simon jolted uneasily. Nevertheless a reassuring
strength flowed from the man, matched only by the eagerness to please that shone
in his wild eyes.
Simon gingerly indicated that he was ready.
Aubrey took his elbow and guided him out of the thicket.
As his head cleared, Simon realized Aubrey had carried him only about a
hundred yards from the Stones, down the long, wet grasses on the far side of the hill
from the car park. Once they cleared the prow of the hill, he noted his car had
been joined by several other vehicles. The rain had lightened, and a man and
woman climbed from a parked four-by-four to fix a leash to a bouncing golden
retriever. With the general public in earshot, he relaxed against the man who
supported him, and allowed Aubrey’s shoulder to take the weight of his
preternaturally heavy head.
So Aubrey had not murdered, robbed, or raped him. This all stood in the man’s
favor, as did his earnestness. It didn’t mean Simon should believe him, yet every vibe
this guy sent out set suspicion rioting.
In many respects Aubrey’s claim seemed plausible—his dress, his odd accent
and speech, his camp in the woods. His dagger looked authentic, and he’d seemed
bewildered by the modern contents of Simon’s bag. Moreover, last Christmas Simon
had stood not so far from where they were now when he’d needed somebody to
reassure him of his sanity.
His gran had come through for him.
But he couldn’t commit to believing the man, not least because… Fuck it. He
fancied the pants off him, and having Aubrey’s arms about him, guiding him, felt just
too nice.
They reached the edge of the car park. Simon gripped the fence, and
Aubrey let him go. He shivered for the first time that morning.
“Mine’s the little hatchback.” Simon pointed.
“The blue one.”
When he turned back, he found Aubrey in a crouch, clutching the fence and
peeping between the slats. “The iron beasts have returned,” he muttered, and he
ground his teeth.
“The what?” Simon blinked down at him.
“Are you coming or not?”
Aubrey didn’t budge, eyeballing the cars as if expecting them to roar, bite, or
sprout wings.
Simon raised his gaze to the heavens, letting his throbbing head persuade him
to give up on the guy.
He clambered over the stile and didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or tear his
hair when, at a distance, Aubrey followed. The man edged around the grassy hems
of the gravel like he skirted ice, his air of exaggerated stealth reminiscent of a villain
in a dated spy show.
The couple with the golden retriever, who’d trudged halfway up the hill to the
Stones, turned to stare. When their dog strained on his leash in Aubrey and Simon’s
direction, tail wagging, the woman hastily dragged him back. They evidently didn’t
want to get involved with any freaks that morning.
Simon verged on inquiring what the hell Aubrey was doing when a bright red
BMW that looked a lot like Pete’s, parked up near his hatchback, distracted him.
He dismissed the possibility that it was Pete’s car. He couldn’t be sure of the
number plate.
Besides, Pete had told him in no uncertain terms that he never wanted to go
to these “bloody tedious rocks” again. There was no way Pete would be here today.
Simon unlocked his car door and opened it a crack. He could escape now.
He would take some painkillers, drive home to his Thanksgiving dinner for one, light a
candle for his gran, and mope about Pete.
And leave this man forever.
He stole a final glance over his shoulder at Aubrey waiting on the edge of the
gravel, clenching his fists at his sides. The man’s pitiful state tugged Simon’s guts.
Damn it, nobody had ever kissed Simon like that before, let alone made him
consider, even for a moment, the pleasures of being fucked hard into the Solstice
Stone. He’d grasped Aubrey’s warrior’s frame, had absorbed his undeniable
strength.
What on earth could have reduced such a man to a ball of jitters?
Being hurled three hundred and sixty-five years into the future just might do it.
Oh God.
He slammed the door harder than he intended, wincing at the discomfort in
his head. Aubrey jumped and covered his ears. “Ye gods, everything in your world
shouts so!”
“Sorry. Look, riddle me this—in your time, where was the farmhouse?”
“Right here. The door was where I stand, and the hearth right there beneath
your iron beast.”
Aubrey answered without a flinch, and Simon’s heart pitched in mingled terror
and excitement. Only Simon and his PhD supervisor knew of the farmstead and
cottage that had once stood beneath this very car park; it had been their little
project, and the excavation report had never been published.
“I ought to know,” continued Aubrey. “I was born in that cottage. With my
family I farm the land about the Stones. We grow wheat, turnips, and our strip of
land covers the whole side of this hillock.
If it were not for the time I spent bearing a pike for Cromwell, I would have
passed all my years under the shadow of the Stones.” He broke off, gesturing to the
four-by-four. “Beneath that wheeled monster should be the shelter I built for our
hogs.”
He was right. There had been more remains right at that spot. Simon had
uncovered them himself, revealing them to the light for the first time in over three
hundred years, before the gravel of the car park had hidden them once more. Even
his supervisor had been uninterested in the remains of a pigpen and had barely
taken note.
Simon gazed up at the man, lean and brawny, every inch the farmer and the
soldier. He couldn’t leave his lost Time Lord.
He climbed into the car and threw open the passenger door. “Give me that
knife and get in,” he shouted. “And do it quickly before I change my bloody mind.”
Aubrey crept forward. His tread as light as that of a huntsman or a skilled
fighter, he scarcely eked a crunch from the gravel. Whether through fear or cold, his
hands wobbled as he undid his belt. When he reached the car, he prodded the
bonnet with the sheathed blade, rewarded only with the unassuming tap of leather
against the paintwork. Tentatively he touched it with his finger.
“It’s fine.” Simon offered the hint of an encouraging smile. “It won’t shout
again. Honest.”
Having chewed his lower lip so hard he’d left marks, Aubrey handed the
sheathed dagger through the open window. “I do not give such trust lightly, Simon.”
“Me neither.” Simon locked the weapon in the glove compartment. His nerves
flurried anew as Aubrey paced around to the open door, hesitated, stooped
forward, and then awkwardly folded his long body inside. At the sight of the steering
wheel, speed dial, and other dashboard gadgets, his expression glazed. His heady
scent filled the little car.
To Simon the experience felt more and more like a dream, though the drizzle
smattering his face felt authentic enough. His guest’s door hung open, and wind
and rain lashed in behind. “Could you shut that, please? Now would be good,
before we both drown.”
Aubrey tugged the door toward him, and it slammed shut. He jolted. “And
now I sit in the belly of a beast. Though at least ’tis dry and warm as a furnace. I’d
have given an ounce of flesh last night to sleep in such a place.”
Simon watched the raindrops shimmering down Aubrey’s face, dripping off his
hair, which the light of the rearview mirror highlighted gold.
For the first time he gained a good look at the man’s eyes. A vibrant hazel,
they danced a myriad of color, including a rich tan-orange that glowed like flame.
Yes, he was real. His Time Lord was real.
Simon blinked himself back to the present.
“Uh, it’s not a beast. It’s a machine…a bit like a clock. It’s called a car.” He
fiddled with the heating dial. Aubrey’s gaze sharpened, this time with interest. The
blast of hot air set Simon’s head spinning, and he rested his brow in his palm.
“Now let me get this absolutely straight. You reckon you performed a ritual in
1647, and it has sent you into the future?”
“It is the only explanation I can think of. My friends chanted, torches blazed,
and I… Yes, as the sun rose, I said the incantation and elevated myself to a higher
plane. But when I came down, my whole world had vanished. My home, our farm —
everything was gone.”
“Oh. Um, right.” Simon shuddered, retrieved his water and a tab of painkillers
from his rucksack, and downed two pills. He guessed he shouldn’t drive so soon,
maybe ought to call a friend to pick them up. He couldn’t even focus on his aching
head for long.
So the Stones might just be a time machine.
The theory would look good in his thesis, and he was dying to know how it
worked, but the reality was just too much to handle. Really, he ought to turn Aubrey
over to the authorities, but they’d never believe the story, so where would the poor
guy be then? On the other hand, Simon’s housemate Dinh might be in when he got
back, and Dinh both possessed a very open mind and studied theoretical physics. If
he could be pried away from his girlfriend or his studies, Dinh was the perfect person
to ask for a second opinion on somebody who had claimed to tear time.
Or Dinh would tell Simon he was as mad as Aubrey and had spent too much
time watching fantasy TV, and would call an ambulance for them both.
“Very well,” said Simon, not daring to look up. “I’ll do what I can for you.”
“Thank you.” Before he knew what was happening, Aubrey scooped him up in
a single arm and clasped him to his chest. The little heating unit chugged its heart
out; the windows steamed up.
Simon cursed the bulbous head of the gearstick that was wedged between
them, and wondered how much space they’d have to shag if he tipped the seats
back. Then he grasped his wits and dragged himself from Aubrey’s embrace.
Aubrey reached to touch Simon’s face; Simon jerked out of his way. “If you
keep grabbing me, you’re out of here.”
“Oh, Simon. Must men still fight their desires even in these late days?”
“No! But about, uh, what nearly happened back there on the Stones. Don’t
get me wrong, I’m fine with men loving men, but I’m just getting over a bad
breakup, and basically, ritual or no ritual, I don’t do al fresco sex.”
Aubrey leveled his brows, confused. Simon racked his brain for a more
historically friendly way to explain. “Okay, first, in this age, carnal coupling—or sex, as
we call it now—between men and men is acceptable and lawful.”
“Ah!” Aubrey’s face lit up. “Then times have changed for good. We who take
pleasure with our own kind no longer need to hide.”
“Well, we do a bit, sadly. But still, it’s not for me. I mean, it’s not a good time
for you and me right now. I’m sworn off sex. Honestly I need space.”
Part of him pestered, Are you mad? Just one kiss with Aubrey had opened a
chasm of desire not plundered in several dozen sessions of full-on fucking with Pete.
But amid a plethora of possibly insane decisions, this one at least was correct and
proper. Besides, if Pete thought he was dull in the sack, he didn’t want to find out
what Aubrey would make of him.
A muscle twitched along the line of Aubrey’s jaw, the merest hint of anger.
“Who has hurt you?”
“What?” Simon snapped defensively.
“You heard me. I would very much like to offer the man a good whipping.”
“You’d end up in jail!” He wrinkled his nose.
Was this guy on the level?
“Then I would break out again and whip him some more. I can’t imagine
anyone wanting to hurt someone so brave and kind and beautiful. Has anybody
told you you’re beautiful?”
Uh, no.
People sometimes complimented him on his large, chocolate-colored eyes or
told him that he was cute and looked young for twenty-three. To avoid this, he
tended to harden the sharp lines of his boyish features into an almost constant
scowl.
He didn’t frown now. He fell very still.
“Whoever made you believe otherwise,” said Aubrey, “the one who has
turned you off enjoying your… sex…is a fool.”
It would have been easier if Aubrey had tried to touch him again. The man’s
soft, kind words were harder to slap down, though Aubrey couldn’t mean them.
Nobody could. Simon was small, skinny. Pete had once called him mousy, and Pete
had seen more of Simon’s body than Aubrey had.
Then again, Pete was hardly David Beckham.
But brave? Uh, again, no.
“Stop saying these things. It’s creepy.”
“It’s the truth. You must have felt what passed between us as surely as I did
when we lay down to worship the Ancestors. I yearned for you. You yearned for me.
Why deny it?”
“Because that—what happened back at the Stones—must have been
magic.”
In a lightning-strike revelation, the most improbable answer veered into focus
as the only possible explanation. He couldn’t believe he was the sort of man who’d
evoke lust at first sight.
Besides,
it
explained
his
uncharacteristic
horniness for a stranger. “Yes, that must be it, the will of the Ancestors. Some
sort of spell, the residue of a ritual, the power of the Stones—you suggested it
yourself. So let’s forget it, right? Or you’re on your own, mate.”
“But I…”Aubrey trailed off and bowed his head. “I understand. You will share
your knowledge, if not your body.”
“Yeah, that’s about the bargain. And you tell me everything.” Flattening back
against the driver’s door for safety, Simon reached out and offered Aubrey his hand.
Aubrey took it, squeezed, and ran the rough pad of his thumb across Simon’s much
smoother skin. Simon silently cursed his clench of arousal—an aftershock of the
magic?—and pulled away. A final matter had been bothering him.
“You say you’ve been here for a day.” He gestured to the broken pay station.
“Did you break the honesty box?”
Aubrey shrugged. “Before I caught the coney, I was starving. Around noon I
saw men exchange the same sort of coins they placed in it for food from a strange
wheeled stall. I broke it when the clearing grew quiet and then bartered for bread
and meat.”
“You smashed it to buy a sandwich from the ice cream van?” It was a logical
move, if illegal.
He didn’t like to think of the man starving. “Fair enough. You’ve adjusted quite
well to 2012, given the circumstances.” He narrowed his eyes.
Rather too well?
“Do you still doubt me, friend?”
A gust of wind buffeted the car, and rain pelted the roof, loud as pebbles. He
experienced a sudden urge to show his Time Lord the power of his little gas fire
back home. He puffed out his cheeks. He didn’t feel sick or giddy anymore, sure
signs of ongoing concussion, and resolved he seemed well enough to drive. “I guess
we can’t sit here all day. We have to put seat belts on to shift one of these things.
It’s another law.”
He leaned across, trying not to touch him too intimately. Aubrey’s wet shirt
slopped open to reveal his chest. No gym could sculpt the hard planes of those
pecs and abs; his body had been wrought by fighting and labor. The guy had not
an ounce of fat on him.
And no way would a man with a torso like a lean, pre-Raphaelite hero ever
be interested in Simon.
He slotted the belt into its clasp. Aubrey regarded the black fabric restraints
curiously, while Simon comforted himself with the expectation that imminent events
ought to distract him from Aubrey’s charms.
Driving would be a good test. How would a guy from 1647 react when he hit
the motorway back to Southampton?
“Ready?” asked Simon.
Aubrey nodded, as if fortifying himself for a charge into battle. “Unleash your
iron beast.”
Chapter Four
When Simon hit seventy miles per hour in the fast lane of the M3, Aubrey
slammed both knees against the dashboard to hold himself in place, flattening one
hand against the window, the other clutching the front of his seat. He’d blanched a
ghostly hue beneath his tan, his knuckles pale as bone.
“We won’t crash, honest.” Simon reassured his guest for the umpteenth time,
though he still discerned pure terror in Aubrey’s every gasp and figured his words
had little effect.
Time proved a better instructor.
After a while Aubrey slid his legs down, loosened his grip on the seat, and
drained his lungs with a long, shuddering sigh.
“You have many iron beasts,” observed the time traveler, his voice quavering,
then echoed by an unsteady laugh. A supermarket lorry roared past on the
opposite carriageway, and Aubrey stretched his eyes flashbulb wide. “In my lifetime
I have seen plague and war transform living villages into piles of corpses. All-
powerful kings who claimed divine right have toppled. It is for good reason that my
folk sing ballads about the world turned upside down. But this place is— Agh!”
Simon revved, signaled, and swerved the hatchback out of the fast lane,
allowing an open-top sports car that had been driving up his tail to rush past.
Aubrey clenched his teeth. “Your world is not so much turned upside down,
as…sped up.”
The rain had eased. Simon switched off the windscreen wipers and turned the
heat down. As for what to say, he hardly knew where to start. As they rolled into the
city, he couldn’t help pointing out a small jet launching from the city airport and
flying so low they could read the logo. Aubrey, who admitted he’d been
“affrighted” by these “strange, moaning birds” the day before, now craned his neck
to see.
“If you travel in one of those things,” said Simon, “you’ll be in Manchester in
forty minutes.”
“Where is Manchester?” asked Aubrey.
Simon cringed at his own foolishness. Though now one of Britain’s biggest cites,
Manchester had been a backwater till the Industrial Revolution, so Aubrey wouldn’t
have heard of it. “Uh, never mind.”
He wiped perspiration from his brow. The car felt like a sauna. While he’d so
far answered the man’s questions about the twenty-first century freely, he’d started
wondering if that was a good idea. He’d seen enough movies where taking
knowledge of the future back to the past changed the present. If he told his Time
Lord the wrong thing and then Aubrey returned to 1647, would half the population
of England disappear?
Simon’s street was a quiet one in the oldest part of the city. One or two
ancient half-timber buildings
remained,
tottering
structures
of
whitewashed walls and age-blackened beams with not a straight line or right
angle among them.
Mainly the area consisted of little brick town houses like his and a hideous
gray 1960s tower block on the opposite side of the street, looming like a sore thumb
over the otherwise low-rise city.
He pulled the car up on the pavement outside his home and hurried around
to the passenger door to let Aubrey out.
Straightening slowly, Aubrey stared around, blanching at the sight of the sixties
block. Simon couldn’t imagine what Aubrey must be making of the place and
experienced an unanticipated desire to impress.
The only guy he’d ever invited home before had been Pete; before Pete he’d
been a virgin.
Not that he was bringing Aubrey back in that respect.
“You ever been to Southampton before?” he asked, rummaging in his
rucksack for his house keys.
“Never,” admitted Aubrey. “My father came here once, I believe. He told me
it is a very fine town.”
“Yeah, it’s not bad. It’s changed a hell of a lot since your father came, though
there’s still a fourteenth-century vault beneath my house. I get the best of both
worlds. Mod cons and a medieval den downstairs. I really love it.” He checked
himself.
Aubrey listened with quiet respect, but the contrast between the heated car
and the fresh outdoor air had set him shivering. “I’ll shut up. Let’s get you inside.”
Aubrey stooped to fit his height beneath Simon’s front door, which passed
straight into the main lounge. The entryway housed the steps that led up to two
bedrooms, and underneath the staircase was the door that led down to the vault.
“Dinh?” called Simon, gripping the bottom of the banister.
No answer.
Dinh’s winter coat was gone from its hook beside the front door. Bang went
Simon’s backup, at least for now. The throbbing in his head reminded him he had
an injury to treat. He dashed into the kitchen and grabbed a freezer pack to hold
against the lump.
By the time he came back, Aubrey had located himself amid the pine
furniture and neatly stacked books, back ramrod straight, wordlessly absorbing his
surroundings with the same look of bemused amazement he’d had when he first got
in the car. The soles of his feet had left damp, muddy marks on Simon’s recently
shampooed green carpet.
“Keep calm and carry on.” After placing the freezer pack on a side table,
Simon shot his guest a nervy smile and switched on the gas fire. After a few flicks on
the pilot, it sprang to life.
“Remarkable.” Aubrey
shuffled
closer,
rubbing his hands and holding them up. As his broad shoulders sank, his
tension unwinding, Simon’s stress ratcheted up another notch.
He couldn’t leave Aubrey in those wet rags.
Neither did he fancy the idea of asking the man to undress.
“Do you want a wash? You can use my shower.” Damn, something else to
explain. “You, uh, stand under the end of a metal pipe, and it sprinkles water all over
you.”
“I am just getting dry. Why would I wish to be wet again?” Aubrey smiled
down at him, and he wondered for a second if he was being patronized —or hit on.
His Adam’s apple jumped.
“I am very hungry, though.” Aubrey’s tone sounded ingenuous enough.
“Could I trouble you for some food?”
“Of course. But…” Simon decided to postpone his speech on twenty-first-
century hygiene. At least dirt looked good on the guy. “Let me get you something
to rub yourself down with.”
He hammered up the stairs to grab linen from the airing cupboard. He’d
come halfway back down, a fluffy green towel scented with floral fabric conditioner
clutched against his chest, when he stopped so abruptly he reeled and nearly fell.
Aubrey had stripped, his clothes dropped into a messy heap beside the sofa.
He turned himself in front of the fire.
Completely naked.
Dirt streaked over his chest, his lean stomach, the broad sweep of his back,
and the planes of his muscular arse.
“Here, take this.” Simon stretched his arm through the gap in the banister,
offering the towel but not daring to draw closer. Aubrey turned to face him, igniting
Simon’s panic and awe in equal measures. His visitor’s cock bobbed a full-bodied
pink below tight, neat balls and a nest of dark honey-colored curls.
The base of Simon’s prick clenched, his taste buds slavering, and an all-new
need rushed through him. He hungered to take Aubrey’s member in his mouth, use
what inexpert skill he had to see his visitor lengthen and harden, to tease wet
pleasure from that velvety head, and…
A slight smile curving his lips, Aubrey tugged the towel from Simon’s limp grasp.
His reverie broken, Simon slid his fingers over his eyes, wondering what the heck had
swept over him. He disliked giving head. He’d sucked Pete only twice after much
pestering, enduring the practice rather than enjoying it. And Aubrey was filthy.
“I didn’t mean to stare,” he said.
Aubrey laughed, sounding more relaxed now that he was naked than Simon
had heard him all day, and used the towel to rub his chest vigorously.
“Are you one of those puritans, offended at the sight of the unclad?”
“No.” Simon descended to the bottom of the stairs, focusing on his socks. “I…
Well, I’m fine with nudity. Maybe not my own, mind.”
“Why not? You have a fine body.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I felt it earlier. You’re firm and sleek like a fox.”
Heat rose in his cheeks. “I’m…not worth looking at.”
Aubrey seemed befuddled. “What is it, Simon? Have you scars from a master
who beat you?”
“No! Look, no, it wasn’t that. I can’t explain, really. I’m just…not like you. You
won’t think much of me.”
“You’re wrong. I already think much of you.
Beauty is not always perfection. I have scars.
See?”
Simon peeped up. Aubrey ran his fingers down a thick red line on his upper
thigh, a well-healed wound that no doubt had a story to tell, like the one on his
brow. Then Simon’s blood ran cold.
On the browned flesh above Aubrey’s hip was a tattoo—a circle surrounded
by twelve triangles, like the rays of the sun.
“That…that symbol!” Simon pointed, no longer caring about being rude.
Aubrey lifted his chin. “Have you heard of a brotherhood called the
Gildskipe?”
Yes, he had. The Gildskipe was a pagan sect that became notorious for
holding orgies on the Stones around the time of the English Civil War.
The era Aubrey came from.
Oh yeah, this made every sense. Simon couldn’t bring home a time traveler
who’d blanch at the prospect of talking about sex, like many historical sorts. It would
be his luck to bag a member of a tribe of nymphomaniacs who famously took
dozens of lovers and swung all ways.
“What about them?” he demanded.
Aubrey touched the tattoo, fingertips dusting along the prominent curve of his
hip bone. “They were my people. This is our sign.”
“Oh, it is, is it?” Simon’s voice trembled, his anger rising. “I’ve only seen it once,
last Christmas, and I wish I bloody well hadn’t.”
Through gritted teeth, he recounted his experience, which he figured should
explain yet another reason why he wasn’t exactly keen on being naked. “The man
would have raped me if he’d got around to looking at me. Was that one of your
rituals?”
Aubrey answered hesitatingly. “I…I don’t know. It sounds the same as the
ceremony I tried, my attempt at andaga, but—”
“Oh, I see.” Simon pointed to the door.
“Well, if that’s what you’re trying to perfect, you’re not welcome in my house.”
“Simon, no!” Aubrey threw the towel down.
“I swear rape is not the way of the Gildskipe. We believe in freedom—the
freedom to worship our Ancestors at the Stones in the way we wish. We would never
condone a member taking another against his or her will.”
“Well, that man didn’t seem to care whether I wanted it or not!”
Simon let his eyes shut slowly. Aubrey always seemed so damn sincere, but
surely this time he shouldn’t let his guest persuade him.
Taking a deep breath, he tasted the scent of the earthy, naked man whom
he sensed drawing close.
He looked down. Aubrey knelt at his feet, staring up at him through the blur of
his lashes.
“I would never treat anybody that way, I swear to you.”
Having his Time Lord kneeling naked before him felt weird and wrong, as if
Simon’s world had been the one turned upside down. But he couldn’t dwell on
what that meant. Not now. He turned away. “I’ll go grab you something to wear.”
He scooped up Aubrey’s wet rags and sped back up the stairs, dumping the
clothes in a bucket.
He tried to fix his mind on the issue of clothing.
His would be a bit too small. Fortunately Dinh, while skinny as a rake, was
nearly as tall as Aubrey and had left a pair of baggy jogging pants on the
washstand in the bathroom. Simon grabbed them, and after throwing half the
contents of his chest of drawers across the floor, he located an oversize T-shirt he’d
been given free years ago at the university freshers’ fair. They’d do.
When he looked down into the lounge from the top of the stairs, the scene
greeting him proved nearly as disturbing as Aubrey’s nakedness. Towel wrapped
around his waist, Aubrey stretched his long body on the sofa in front of the fire, his
dirty feet dangling over the end. Simon’s large tabby cat, Raffles, had trotted in to
sprawl himself along his legs, balancing precariously. Aubrey reached down to tickle
his ears.
Cat and man looked as if they’d been born to assume the pose, both equally
at home on Simon’s sofa. If it had been his housemate spreading muck along his
sofa, Simon would have bitched at him for ruining the furnishings. As it was, he lightly
pressed his teeth into his tongue. Aubrey’s dirty golden hair matched the
Thanksgiving harvest wreath, the sole decoration Simon had hung above the gas
hearth. Still, he refused to allow himself to enjoy the sight.
Well, not for more than a moment.
He hurried down. “Sorry. The cat’s pestering for food. I guess I’d better get you
both something to eat.”
“I would be much obliged.” Aubrey continued to stroke Raffles, who purred so
loudly the room seemed to vibrate. Simon handed Aubrey his clothes, staring at the
happy cat. He couldn’t quite bring himself to broach the embarrassing subject of
whether Aubrey ought to wear underclothing, as it hadn’t been customary in the
seventeenth century.
Besides, the notion of Aubrey hanging loose under those fresh, clean jogging
pants was way too hot.
Aubrey fingered the clothes curiously, then looked up. “Simon, I’ve been
thinking. I have a notion who you saw in your vision.”
“Oh, so you do mix with rapists.” Simon spat out the words on reflex. He
snatched the freezer pack from the table and held it back to his brow.
“No. Have you not wondered whether the fellow acted like you weren’t there
because to him you were never there?”
He couldn’t deny that the idea had crossed his mind. He’d lain awake
through enough sleepless nights reliving the horror. “Go on,” he said, deliberately
gruff.
“I believe what you experienced—what the Ancestors revealed to you when
you asked—was a ceremony that took place some years ago. I mean, some years
past in my time. I was not present at the ceremony—I was too young—but a
member of the Gildskipe, Richard Bonnie, tried to perform andaga.”
“Yeah? So who was the poor sod he really terrorized and fucked?”
“Nobody.” Aubrey sat up straight, and Raffles jumped down, arranging himself
prettily in front of the fire. The time traveler joined the cat in staring into the flames.
“Bonnie’s,” he continued, “was a lonely sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice? He killed somebody, or… Lonely sacrifice, you say? He didn’t
somehow kill himself?”
Aubrey shook his head slowly. “Like the Ancients, we never spilled blood on
the Stones.
Ours was always a different kind of offering.”
Oh yeah, sex. A quick shag to give thanks for the harvest. A wholesale orgy to
celebrate the return of the sun. Why must it always be about sex?
“We learned that to tear time,” said Aubrey, “to unleash the true power of the
Ancestors, one must reach rapture as the sun breaks behind one of the Stones.”
Simon’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t imagined sex could be used for that. “You’re
telling me that having an orgasm on the Stones at the moment of sunrise triggers
the time machine?”
Aubrey’s brow knit with incomprehension.
“Never mind. I think I get it. So Bonnie reached rapture and tried to tear time
alone, and that’s what you think I saw.” He wrinkled his nose.
“If what I saw was accurate, there were a ton of people watching him. Why
the heck would anybody do that?”
“The purpose of andaga is to reunite loved ones that human wrongs have
ripped apart.
Richard Bonnie wished to travel back a year to prevent the death of his lover,
a man who’d been murdered because their sodomy became known.”
Recalling the fire of agony in the eyes of the man he’d seen, Simon
swallowed hard, his distaste briefly overshadowed. “Did he succeed?”
“He vanished during the ritual. He was never seen again, and the murder was
never undone.”
“Your folk really hadn’t mastered the art of this time tearing, had they?” He
rubbed the freezer pack over his temple, trying to get his sore head around it all. “So
you reckon there is a way of undoing the ritual that brought you here?”
“I believe I will have a chance to reverse the process the next occasion the
sun rises behind one of the Stones.”
That would be the twenty-first of December, the winter solstice. “That means
you’re stuck here for a month.”
“I’m sorry,” said Aubrey, though Simon’s mind raced on.
If Aubrey had performed the same sordid and solo ritual, knowing Bonnie had
failed, he’d taken a great risk. But why?
Simon figured he had every right to know, yet his guest fell silent, and he
struggled to find the simplest words. Might Aubrey have been trying to save a lover
too? Male or female?
Well, it seemed the guy was into men, though as a member of the Gildskipe
he could equally have been ripping time for a girl. Either way, the notion screwed
Simon up inside.
Aubrey’s stomach grumbled so loudly it was Simon’s turn to jump.
“Oh hell. Yes, food.” Snatching the chance to escape, Simon hurried into the
kitchen and tossed the freezer pack on the counter. Raffles followed, his paws
padding on the black tiles, and meowed for his meal.
Aubrey terrified him more by the moment.
Simon wished the man would do something to force his hand on turning him
out so he could forget any of this had happened. But he couldn’t; he just didn’t
have it in him, as if he owed some kind of deeply ingrained fealty, which was
madness.
Aubrey appeared in the doorway. He’d found his way into the simple, modern
clothes without too much difficulty, though they were a tight fit.
The T-shirt clung to the contours of his pecs, and the jogging bottoms hugged
his work-thickened thighs. While Simon went to the fridge and opened a sachet of
prime-salmon-and-prawn cat food, his Time Lord leaned against the door frame
with comfortable grace that belied his predicament.
He wished he’d stop thinking of the man as his Time Lord. It was making him
want to throw himself at Aubrey more than ever.
The visitor watched him with a keenness that matched Raffles’s and then
moistened his lips. He stretched toward the bowl. “That smells delicious.”
“It’s for the cat!” Simon swatted Aubrey away but resisted laughing. All he had
to offer was a turkey roast microwave dinner for one, spiced up with extra
vegetables and breadsticks. He placed the bowl on the floor for Raffles, who tucked
in enthusiastically.
“Yours will taste better. I promise.”
Aubrey rubbed his still-grumbling stomach and stared around the kitchen.
“This place is as fascinating as it is tiny.” Simon opened the fridge again, and his
guest moved up close behind him.
“What are all these things?”
“Uh, this is the chiller cabinet where I keep the food. It’s even colder up the
top, so we can have ice all year round.” He pulled down the freezer compartment
and then snorted. “Apart from it’s a mess right now, ’cause that idiot Dinh left it
open again. It’s frosted up.”
Aubrey reached over Simon’s shoulder, touched the crust of ice around the
edge of the section, and then pulled away. “Goddess’s tailbone!”
He broke off a piece of ice, then held it to the nape of Simon’s neck. Simon
yelped and then burst into
unwonted
laughter.
Aubrey
grinned,
unexpectedly boyish with the merest hint of hungry wolf. The melting ice
slipped down Simon’s back, wetting the collar of his shirt. Aubrey pressed Simon’s
sensitive skin with fingertips that scorched in comparison.
“What the hell?” Simon gasped.
“I apologize. I couldn’t resist. Ice in the midst of such a warm home. What
luxuries you possess.”
Aubrey bit back his smile, sincerity blazing again.
“And your skin is so smooth.”
Damn, why must the man keep admiring him?
There wasn’t much to admire, though Simon worked out a little bit, and he
liked to jog. But rituals aside, there was no way this gorgeous man actually wanted
him. Aubrey was from a sex cult.
He probably behaved like this with everyone, right?
Simon’s throat remained tight, his skin still burning. “I need to get Raffles some
kitty treats.”
The cat flap opened and slammed shut, heralding the cat’s desertion in
Simon’s hour of need. So much for an escape route. He grabbed a fork from the
drawer, pronged holes in the film covering of the ready meal, and started
explaining because he had to say something. Then he shoved it in the microwave
and switched the oven on—and grabbed Aubrey’s wrist just as the man stuck his
finger in the plug socket for the kettle.
“Don’t!” He dropped Aubrey as abruptly as he’d taken hold of him. “Seriously,
it’s dangerous.”
“Pray, why?”
He puffed out his cheeks. He was starting to feel like he’d gained a giant two-
year-old to watch over. “Just don’t touch those things, all right?
They’re electric. It’s a bit like lightning, I suppose, a stream of power. High
currents can kill you.
Very, very low currents are okay, though. They just cause a kind of tingling on
the skin.”
“Do they indeed?” Aubrey blinked in astonishment.
“Let’s just take it as read that it’ll kill us, right? So no jamming anybody with live
wires.”
Simon shot the man a hard look, then reached to get the vegetables from a
high cupboard beside the sink. Aubrey leaned closer to examine them, the front of
his thigh brushing Simon’s arse. He recalled the feel of Aubrey’s hard body pinning
him to the stone. He craved much more than the touch of fire and ice, and his cock
jerked.
This was intolerable. He wasn’t usually this horny, especially with a niggling
headache.
He turned and glared.
“Would you like a breadstick to keep you going?” He offered the opened
cardboard pack, which had been sitting on the work top. Aubrey took one and
sniffed it. “It’s like bread. But it’s a, uh, stick.”
Aubrey bit into one and cried out in delight, crunching enthusiastically. He
munched his way through half the box within the minute. The dirt Simon spied under
the man’s fingernails made his stomach roll for a whole new reason.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to wash? I can introduce you to my shower.
The dinner will take a little while but will be done when you’re through.”
Aubrey considered for a second. “This is an important practice of your age?”
Forcing an expression of calm that belied his quickening pulse, Simon nodded.
“Very well,” said Aubrey, that wolfish glint returning. “Initiate me.”
Aubrey followed Simon up the stairs and into the bathroom. He concentrated
hard while Simon showed him his selection of salon-standard shampoos and the
bathrobe he should dress in when he’d finished.
Simon studiously avoided looking at his guest as he stripped. He glanced at his
feet, then toward the little window with the lacy curtain he kept meaning to
replace. He even tried humming a jaunty TV theme he hated, but it did no good.
A flash of the guy’s reflected buttocks in the polished porcelain of the sink set
him digging his nails in his palms to the point of pain, fighting a semierection.
No way could anybody he’d just met make him yearn this strongly. In fact, if it
wasn’t magic, maybe he should put his arousal down to the blow on his head. It
seemed an improbable symptom, but at this rate he was going to have to escape
straight to his bedroom to jerk off.
“Ready?” he squeaked, shielding his eyes.
“I believe so.”
Damn that Celtic accent to die for. Why did he have to even sound so hot?
Stepping in front of his visitor so he wouldn’t have to look, Simon diverted
Aubrey’s attention to the taps and power spray in the small, square shower unit. “I’ll
sort the settings for you and make sure it’s the right temperature. It will come out up
there.” He pointed to the rounded showerhead with multiple massage settings.
“Then you step under the flow and wash.”
“You do this for pleasure?”
“It’s good. I promise you.”
“Will you partake?”
“No. I’ll get on with the dinner.”
He edged aside so Aubrey could get into the cubicle. He still didn’t look at his
companion as he reached in and switched on the shower, the sudden rush of water
drowning out any vocal reaction. He intended to flee—but as he made for the
door, Aubrey caught his wrist and spun him around.
“Don’t go. All these knobs and wheels are damnably complicated. What if I
should tamper with one by mistake and am drowned?”
Simon could have sworn the side of Aubrey’s mouth lifted in a smirk. Was he
teasing? But as the torrent strengthened, the burgeoning look of wonder on the
man’s face quashed his fears.
Aubrey panted in his delight. The shower washed away the grime from hair
that tumbled halfway down his back, water gilding his broad shoulders, his ripped
stomach, streaming over his well-muscled thighs, his uncut cock. “This shower of
yours is magical!”
No. You are.
Simon grew rigid. He could hardly breathe, and he couldn’t blame the steam
that rose from the shower or the spray that wet the tiles and bath mat.
Flecks of fire danced in the man’s eyes, an inferno of need that seemingly
mirrored Simon’s own. But no.
Surely not?
Aubrey squeezed Simon’s hand, urging but not forcing him. “It’s glorious.”
“I know,” he muttered. “I’ve done it before.
Many times. I’ll leave you in peace.”
“No. Stay.” Aubrey shot a cursory glance at the incriminating bulge in Simon’s
jeans and quirked that scarred brow.
Simon nearly ran for the hills, but his blood jumped, and for only the second
time in his life—and the second time today—he surrendered to his libido. He let
himself be tugged over the ledge of tiles into the cubicle. His socks were instantly
soaked.
Aubrey threw back his head and laughed.
“Ah! ’Twas worth crossing oceans of time for this.”
“I’ve still got all my clothes on.” Simon gasped.
Aubrey slipped his long fingers to the button at Simon’s collar. “Ancestors save
you, Simon, so take the bloody things off.”
Chapter Five
Simon offered a slight smile. He let Aubrey unbutton his shirt till it hung loose
from his shoulders, but he hunched and his pulse skittered.
He just couldn’t compete with a guy wrought of lean sinew, hot, hard, and
close in a shower unit less than three feet across. In contrast Simon felt pale and soft.
And the man’s dick?
He dared not look down for fear of inadequacy. His own erection had waned,
weighed down by his mounting anxiety. He readied himself yet again for a garbled
refusal and a retreat as Aubrey edged a step back and braced Simon’s shoulders.
He stripped Simon with his gaze as the spray tumbled over them.
So Simon hadn’t been the only guy in the cubicle ogling another.
He wallowed for a moment, caught up in dreamlike
wonder.
Aubrey’s
long
lashes
shadowed his heavy cheekbones as he ran his fingers down Simon’s smooth
chest, circling each tiny brown nipple. He made a trail to the wispy line of hair on
Simon’s tightly sucked-in tummy and grunted with what seemed to be gut-felt
desire.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured. “Smooth like alabaster. I’ve never seen a
man like you. Why should you hide perfection?”
He enveloped Simon in the circle of his arms.
Steam rose around them, and he smiled appreciatively.
“You’re beautiful,” he reiterated. Simon opened his mouth, then shut it, feeling
a little like a hooked cod. Aubrey stroked the short strands of hair and the back of
his neck, and his skin tingled.
He kissed the tip of Simon’s nose. “Flawless.”
When Aubrey reached for the fly button on Simon’s jeans, Simon jerked back.
“What’s wrong? Is it not your practice to bathe naked?”
Simon wrapped his arms about himself, mustering a glower. “Yes, it is. It’s also
my practice to bathe alone.”
He supposed Aubrey was used to bathing with friends, mucking about in
streams and rivers, their nakedness as natural to them as shagging al fresco on the
Stones. How ridiculous he must seem, clutching his elbows and trembling despite the
warmth of the water that plastered his hair over his eyes.
Aubrey didn’t appear to regard him as a joke.
When he brushed Simon’s fringe back, Simon still frowned, but it proved an
effort. “I… Ye gods, Simon. Why is this so hard to say in your age?”
“What’s so hard to say?”
Aubrey cupped Simon’s face in both hands. “I didn’t keep you here for
anything other than sharing my joy, but… Oh, now you’re here, I find you all too
much.”
“Eh?”
“It wasn’t just the Solstice Stone, this power that draws us together.” Aubrey
dropped his voice to a guttural husk. “You feel what I do, Simon. I know you do,
but… Earlier you told me you were sworn off carnal coupling.” He pulled away,
threading his fingers back through his hair. “I’m sorry. Mayhap you should go.”
“Eh?”
As what felt very much like Aubrey’s erection brushed Simon’s hip, Simon’s
guts turned half ice, half flame, tearing him up. Then he blinked the moisture from his
eyes, and all grew clear. He wanted Aubrey. And on some base level at least,
Aubrey wanted him too.
He pulled Aubrey down into the kiss he’d craved since the Solstice Stone. In
return Aubrey devoured him, his tongue slick and skillful against Simon’s, the fusion of
wetness and heat overwhelming. Aubrey tasted of sweet bread, of hot shower
water, of the strength of ages, and intoxicatingly of him.
In the back of Simon’s mind there was a distant tumult concerning time travel,
and sex cults, exes telling him he sucked at sex, at this. With Pete he’d always
wondered if what the heck he was doing was right or wrong, if his ex would
complain about it afterward—or halfway through.
In Aubrey’s arms all seemed natural, the kiss as inexhaustible as the patter of
the shower and twice as
delicious.
Even
Simon’s
whispers
of
trepidation incited thrill.
And the path forward seemed oh so simple.
They just went with the inexorable flow.
Aubrey’s every move reciprocated Simon’s need. Aubrey buried a fist in
Simon’s hair, the twist painful, but Simon didn’t care. He still felt terrified of being
naked in front of this man. He also craved to be stripped raw and could never have
mustered a protest when Aubrey peeled his shirt from his back. Aware of the
sodden trousers plastered to his arse, his thighs, and his crotch, he ripped apart his fly
and dragged his jeans and boxers down. Aubrey clamped hands over Simon’s to
aid in the task.
The man held him naked, crushing him closer.
Simon ought to be rigid with fear. His cock pressed into Aubrey’s thigh, not
quite matching the thick rod he felt grinding back; the contrast stimulated him, as it
seemed to exhilarate his lover.
Aubrey stroked Simon’s face once more, asking a thousand silent questions,
though his lips formed only one. “So may we take our pleasure?”
Simon couldn’t speak. He just nodded. Fuck, yes.
Aubrey kicked the denim aside and then grasped Simon’s buttocks, gliding
fingertips down his cleft, setting his arse tightening, his balls curling up. They bucked
together, flesh against flesh, borne on instinct and desire, annihilating those
troublesome questions about where they’d go from here. All the while, Aubrey
plundered his mouth till his breath grew short, starry pinpricks reeling in front of his
eyes.
Aubrey sucked on Simon’s lip, biting down softly before releasing him. Simon
moaned, needful, as the man grasped both their dicks in his large palm and
pumped. Foreskin slid against foreskin; glans smeared against glans. Simon panted,
his eyes rolling toward the heavens. He was too far gone to want to turn back. That
dark desire that had reared its head on the Solstice Stone held sway. He needed
Aubrey’s flesh to pierce him; he needed him all.
“No.” He clasped Aubrey’s wrist. “Fuck me.”
Aubrey stilled, breathing hard. “Ye gods, yes, please. You’re certain?”
Simon could only nod.
“What can I use to get inside you?”
Simon nearly yelled, Don’t care. Just do it. If the Ancestors wanted this even
half as much as Simon did, some magic would have Aubrey slipping into him like a
hand in a silk glove. With the last of his wits, he swung out of the shower, water
dripping on the floor to form little lakes, and grabbed a condom packet from the
bathroom cabinet. He bit through the foil. “You’ve got to use this. Important
practice of the age.”
Relieved to be greeted by a mildly confused nod, Simon fell to his knees and
rolled the rubber on the man’s dick, focusing on the veined, velvet flesh that swelled
beneath his unsteady touch.
There was no lube in the cabinet, at least none at the ready, so he grabbed
for a bottle of expensive lotion and squeezed a dollop onto the palm of his hand,
offering it. Aubrey pulled him up, spun him around, and pressed him against the tiles
beside the pipe, his touch urgent but never rough.
“And your practices are the same from here on in?” Aubrey gasped.
“Just fuck me.”
Before I start thinking again.
“Slow down, Simon. I don’t want to hurt you.”
So far gone, Simon might hardly have cared if he did. Aubrey circled his tight
ring, setting every nerve ending wild. He worked Simon with expert skill, easing and
opening him before pressing toward his prostate. Simon squeezed about the
intrusion, drawing him deeper. Warm water lashed over his tightly screwed eyes, his
hair and shoulders, a distant and delicious backdrop to the sensation up his arse.
Still, he hungered to feel more. His erection wept, smeared against the wall.
After Aubrey withdrew his finger, Simon edged up onto the raised ledge of tiles that
surrounded the shower unit, lessening the height difference between them.
He thrust his hips back. “Gnnng. Please!”
Aubrey growled as their patience snapped as one. He gripped Simon, pressed
his thick cockhead to Simon’s entrance, drove forward, and breached him.
Simon felt his body yield and cried out.
Pained pleasure twisted. Aubrey stretched and filled him, though Simon
guessed he’d pushed less than an inch inside; it felt a little much already, yet no
way enough. He tried to control his breathing, slowing it down to let his body relax,
but ended up whimpering for more. Aubrey’s body closed flush behind, the hard
sinews of his chest heaving with rushed inhalations, in rhythm with Simon’s.
“Is it good?” Aubrey’s whisper set Simon’s butt squeezing, the massage of his
insides making his own dick hard as iron.
Words burst out. “Too good. Need you. Need you deeper.”
Hot air and wetness lashed against his skin, mere wraiths of sensation
compared to the power Aubrey let loose. He pushed forward smoothly, then fucked
Simon hard, impaling him to his depths. The burn inside built and tantalized. He just
hoped, with the last of his disintegrating faculties, that Aubrey enjoyed this too.
Jerking an inch back and forth while buried almost to the hilt, Aubrey traced
the delicate ridge of Simon’s ear with his tongue. “Ye gods…truly…
I have known many men. You feel the sweetest.”
Rapture nearly claimed Simon there and then.
But not quite.
Aubrey’s words niggled. How many lovers had this man had? Simon could only
compare badly, though he couldn’t concentrate on this dilemma while Aubrey
kissed the back of his neck and fucked him. Simon craved to be subsumed in the
larger being and to give back what he could.
He squeezed his arse, milking the man till his own body pitched toward climax.
Mustering the last of his wits, he reached for his cock.
“Let me.” Aubrey grabbed his wrist and pinned it behind him, then wrapped a
fist about his dick. Simon whined with delight, fists balling, his every muscle turning
rigid as Aubrey worked him.
He had not known he was looking to be controlled like this, but damn it, in his
sweet, caring, red-hot Time Lord, he’d found what he wanted.
And…how annoying. It was nearly over. Way too soon, but he really had to
come.
Stuffed to the hilt and with Aubrey jerking him, Simon’s climax shattered
through him, searing his senses as his heartbeat rocketed, but he still finished far too
fast. Thick white liquid erupted against the tiles, over Aubrey’s hand, running with the
water down the plug hole. Aubrey pounded his arse, crying out as his orgasm
mounted. He came with a loud grunt and three juddering thrusts.
They crumpled to the shower floor, Simon boneless in Aubrey’s arms. They
panted as one.
“Sweet heavens,” murmured Aubrey at length. “I have never known such fire. I
don’t quite know what possessed me.” He planted a kiss on the top of Simon’s
head. “Apart from you.”
“Mmmmm.” His afterglow fading, Simon clung to the pleasant feel of Aubrey
holding him.
For a few minutes it satisfied.
But then all that blood rushed back from his cock to his brain, and he tensed.
“Are you well?” asked Aubrey. Gently he touched Simon’s chin, urging him to
look up. “Was I too rough?”
“No, I’m fine.” Simon’s headache came thundering back, though he couldn’t
bring himself to be angry with Aubrey. The man had given him nothing he hadn’t
wanted, but now a certain question begged harder than ever. He forced it out.
“Aubrey, I need to know. Were you trying to travel back in time to save a
lover?”
“No.” Simon sagged into him with guilty relief. “A little before the last harvest,
some soldiers came to our farm. I was away, fighting for the very same side, but they
accused our people, who’d never harmed a soul, of witchcraft. Of devil worship.”
Simon’s jealousy felt suddenly wrong. He extracted himself and rose, wrapping
himself tightly in a towel. “I’m so sorry.”
“So am I. They took away many of my friends. I must warn them. You see why I
have to go home?”
Aubrey’s words ripped into him, raw and real, leaving him bewildered. He
could only start to imagine what awful fate Aubrey’s companions had met. Torture,
a stripping to search for the mark of Satan, or maybe a lashing. Possibly they were
bound, then plunged into a cold, icy river, and the end result had probably been a
slow, lingering death by hanging. Simon might not want to live as the Gildskipe had,
but he doubted they deserved such a fate.
No wonder Aubrey had taken the risk of going back. So much for the
frightened puppy Simon had rescued this morning. The man was a bloody hero.
A horrible feeling of inadequacy rose within.
“I better get the food. Come down when you’re ready. We need to talk
about the winter solstice, right?”
After drying himself and dressing in his room, Simon rushed downstairs. He
located a bottle of decent Bordeaux, two old-fashioned pewter goblets, which he
reckoned would make Aubrey feel at home, and some tall red candles in white
pottery candlesticks. His actions did nothing to stop the bedlam restarting in his
brain. What on earth had he just allowed to happen? He’d learned only one thing
for certain. Aubrey had plenty of other people he cared about, including numerous
lovers, and would never be for keeps.
Fuck it. What does that matter? I enjoyed it.
He seemed to enjoy it too. Maybe I’m not quite as useless a lover as Pete
made out.
But it didn’t make things any easier. What might he not be able to refuse this
man next?
All the same he found himself keener than ever to please. He divided the
turkey meal onto two plates, with the additional vegetables and some quick-cook
Yorkshire puddings, only slightly charred, and arranged all of it neatly on a large tray.
He carried the dinner to the coffee table in the lounge. Aubrey had dressed and sat
waiting on the sofa, his long legs stretched out beneath the table.
Well, it wasn’t the Thanksgiving Simon had anticipated, but hey, he wasn’t
alone. He just hoped Gran would forgive him his choice of predinner entertainment.
As the smell of gravy filled the room, Aubrey leaned forward in anticipation—
then checked himself.
“Simon, I thank you, but we cannot eat before we speak. What we did is not
a sin, but—”
“No! I know. It’s fine.” Shouldn’t Simon be the one telling the guy out of history
that sodomy wasn’t wrong? His face heated. “I mean, it’s just a bit of a shock, I
guess. I’ve never been quite so impetuous before.”
“You’re sure I didn’t hurt you? I will be honest with you. I never intended it to
happen that way. I have frisked with men many a time, but to take you…so
roughly.”
“Really. It’s fine.” He offered a shy smile. He felt sore inside, but it was a good,
clean kind of soreness. He liked it. His whole body felt different, like he glowed. What
was more, he felt weirdly happy in his own skin. Not quite so undesirable after all. He
liked that too.
“No regrets?” Aubrey looked deadly grave.
Simon let the smile spread to his eyes and answer for him. He placed a tray,
with his meal and a hunk of bread, on Aubrey’s lap. Aubrey, though still uneasy,
allowed himself to be distracted. Rampant shower action seeming to have worked
his appetite to fury level, he’d cleared his plate by the time Simon located his
corkscrew, drew the top from the bottle, and poured out the wine.
“I like this age.” Aubrey stabbed the last slice of meat with his knife and stuck
it in his mouth before smoothing his slender lips. Simon licked his own, savoring the
taste of Aubrey.
The man made him feel so damn good about himself—but he was going to
have to let him go.
Settling himself in the armchair opposite, Simon took a sip from his wine goblet
and forced his mind back to the matter in hand. “We need to talk about time
tearing.”
Aubrey’s misted eyes sharpened. He nodded.
“So let me get this straight.” Simon cleared his throat. “You brought yourself to
rapture on the Stones at the moment of the rising sun, but the Ancestors sent you
forward when you asked to go back.”
“That is correct.”
“What do you think went wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Aubrey shifted uneasily. “I feel it might well have been the
ritual itself. My lone sacrifice felt wrong, not worthy enough as an offering. Maybe
that was the problem.”
Simon scrunched his nose. “It must have been kind of humiliating.”
“Not at all. I am used to worshipping with my body at the Stones.” Aubrey
stared down at his empty plate. “For the reversal of the ritual, it might be better for
somebody to lie with me so we can make the sacrifice as a couple. Would you
consider that?”
Simon couldn’t even start to list the many ways in which the notion repelled
him. Sex with Aubrey might be awesome, but to get naked outdoors in the middle
of winter and then to be whisked back to a time of war and plague, witch hunts
and torture? “I’m sorry. I’m not traveling back to 1647. I know a lot about the past,
and it’s a scary place.”
Aubrey touched his scarred brow. “I…I believe that if the incantation is right,
only I would travel. You would stay behind.”
“Great, so I’m left lying naked on the Stones, ready to get arrested?” Simon
hissed between his teeth. Some part of him, no doubt the mad bit still reeling
happily from the shower, couldn’t allow an outright refusal. But no way would he
commit to that request, even though Aubrey looked edible right now, brooding into
the remnants of his gravy.
“Okay, so words are crucial here,” said Simon, swiftly moving the subject on.
“Maybe it was the spell itself that you got incorrect. Did your people use any writings
or tools, anything that we might be able to find and study so we can get right what
you got wrong?”
“Yes.” Aubrey shook his drying blond hair and picked up his goblet, running his
finger around the rim. “There was a book of incantations that fell into the hands of
my people at the time of the Reformation. It was written by one Guillaume of Beck.”
Simon spooned some potato between his lips but hardly tasted a thing. “That
sounds like a Norman name. What would a Norman have to do with ancient
magic?”
“Guillaume fought with William at the conquest in 1066. As a reward the new
king awarded him a swath of land in Wessex—including the Stones.”
“Oh, I see.” He choked down his next mouthful. This was the least tasty
Thanksgiving dinner ever; he missed Gran on that score among many. “You
wouldn’t expect a Norman to worship there, though.”
“Indeed not. Guillaume ordered the local people to knock the Stones down
flat, to drag them from his land. However, so legend has it, the Ancestors appeared
to him in a vision and stunned him into a contrary action. He forswore both plow
and sword and devoted his life to rediscovering the Stones’ true power to tear
time.”
“And did he?”
“According to the book, he traveled back three hundred and sixty-five days
to prevent the death of twenty-one children and servants in a fire.
Guillaume’s experiences inspired our attempts at tearing time. One of our
elders, Rufus, translated the incantations from an ancient language, but he may
have got them incorrect.”
“I’d wager they were, given what’s happened to you. And who knows where
Richard Bonnie turned up?”
Simon took another swig of wine. Research he could do, and texts were
mostly safe. The name didn’t ring any bells, but that didn’t mean Guillaume wasn’t
mentioned in the university archive, which had gathered together many of the
ancient texts found in the region in the pagan studies special collection. Curiosity
swamped any remaining appetite. He reached for his laptop, which he kept under
the coffee table and rarely switched off. As Aubrey opened his mouth to inquire,
Simon shot him an edgy smile and kept his answer brief.
“It’s called a computer—a new kind of book.
It might just help us find your time travel instruction manual.”
Aubrey came and peered over Simon’s shoulder. He murmured with
astonishment when the library catalog flashed up. Simon usually hated anybody
leaning over him as he worked but grew too preoccupied to warn Aubrey off.
Guillaume of Beck turned up a single result on the keyword search.
“There’s one there.” He pumped his fist in triumph. Even if this wasn’t Aubrey’s
book of spells, it could be the big breakthrough needed for his half-completed
thesis to gain respect from other experts. “This must be the start of our trail.
We need to get you a student ID so we can get into the library, and then I
might be able to interpret the language where you guys failed.”
“I knew you would help me.” Aubrey laid his hand on Simon’s shoulder. Simon
pulled a face, fighting the desire to melt into the man, while indecision buffeted.
They could go to the library now, but that would mean his Thanksgiving
commemorations would be brushed aside for good. Even if the rest of the UK
carried on as normal, he owed something to his American heritage to make this day
different, despite an unexpected guest. And if they found the book of incantations
so easily, it would be a step closer to getting rid of Aubrey…
The doorbell rang, a shrill tone, and they both started. Aubrey squeezed Simon
protectively.
“What is that?”
“It’s fine. It’s the door. It’s probably my housemate.” Physics geniuses often
forgot their keys. “Just…wait here. Actually no. Wait in the kitchen, if that’s okay?”
When Simon opened the kitchen to let Aubrey in, Raffles shot out, weaving
around his ankles.
Simon nearly tripped over the cat on the way to answer the door. How was
he ever going to explain the situation to Dinh? He threw the door open—and stood
face-to-face with Pete.
“Hi, there.” Pete raked his fingers back through his spiky brown hair, twisting on
his feet awkwardly. Simon’s instinct yelled to slam the wood shut in his ex’s face, but
surprise gave him pause. Pete’s shiny black trousers were smattered with mud, his
pink check shirt open at the collar with no tie. He’d clearly not gone in to work at
the bank to do his usual mortgage consultancy.
“Are you okay?” asked Simon.
“Fine.” Pete shook himself. “I went to the Stones earlier. I figured that’s where
you’d go, and, you know, I was worried about you. Being alone today, on your
Thanks-whatsit. After everything.”
“Seriously?” So that had been Pete’s car.
Simon looked at the man anew, reading the truth in every aspect of his
uncharacteristic dishevelment —almost as atypical as the way Raffles arched his
back and hissed. The cat had liked his ex, as he liked most people, and had often
sat purring on Pete’s lap. “You said you hated the Stones.”
“I do. I mean, I always did. But I don’t hate you.” Pete scratched his head and
blinked down at Raffles, whose tail had bushed up like a squirrel’s.
“Look, I’m gonna come clean. These last weeks have been much harder than
I thought they were going to be.”
Simon sniffed the air. Examining him closely, he noted Pete’s pupils looked
weirdly dilated.
“Have you been at the pub?”
“No! I’ve not had a drink for three days. At least…I don’t think I have.” Pete
raked his hair again. “I guessed right you’d be at the Stones, and when I saw your
car, I went looking for you. Then you weren’t there, and… Oh God, it’s you, Simon.
You did this to me!”
Next thing Simon knew, Pete grabbed him and slammed chapped lips against
his. He forced Simon’s mouth open with bruising pressure and plunged inside. Pete
had always been a lazy, languid lover, demanding rather than giving. Now he
turned almost violent, his lanky body clamping around Simon, all angles and ill-
fitting, hard bone as he tried to suck Simon’s tongue into his mouth.
Pete tasted foul, bitter and musty and oddly dry. Simon gagged, acrid bile
rising in his throat.
Raffles’s mewling tore his ears. He shoved the man off, the action setting
Raffles bolting back into the house with a final, lingering yowl. “What the hell?”
Pete looked nearly as shell-shocked as Simon felt. “I told you. I want you
back.”
“Look, I’m flattered. Don’t get me wrong.”
And he was. He’d not a notion that Pete had missed him, let alone cared
enough to go looking for him at the Stones, the obvious place he would have gone
this day.
“But…look, seriously,” he continued, edging back. “You were right. I’m dull in
bed.” He wrinkled his nose as he realized what Aubrey had taught him with one
quick shag. “We were dull. We were never supposed to be together.”
“We were!” Pete shook him, another move so uncharacteristic it struck Simon
speechless. “I can give you what you need if you’ll just let me.”
The blue flames rising in Pete’s eyes spoke of a man more than willing to fuck
Simon to hell and beyond, a million miles from anyplace he and Pete had visited
before. For a rushing heartbeat Simon’s temptation reared. Then died. He didn’t
want to go there with Pete.
He wanted to go there with Aubrey.
Pete’s bony fingers dug in harder, bruising his flesh, and he twisted to get free.
“Go away.” He raised his voice to a shout. “You’re hurting me.”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Pete hissed.
“I can see into your soul now, Simon. Finally I understand you— Agh!”
Pete cried out, his anger raw, as in a single, fluid movement, Aubrey pushed
Simon behind him and slammed Pete back against the porch wall.
“Simon, how do you wish me to dispatch this man?”
“For God’s sake, don’t hurt him!” Noting the dinner knife clutched in Aubrey’s
right hand, Simon clawed at the man’s shoulder, easing him away. What did Aubrey
think he was going to do, anyway? Butter Pete to death?
Aubrey still held Simon’s ex fast. Pete hitched his lip and snarled in a fashion
more becoming for a jackal than a mortgage consultant.
He had to be drunk or on drugs; it was all so un-Pete.
“Just let him go,” pleaded Simon.
After shoving Pete against the door frame for good measure, Aubrey released
him. Pete stumbled down the steps. Aubrey slammed the door, glaring at the latch
chain as if it were a snake about to munch his fingers, then slipping it across.
Simon threw himself onto the sofa before his legs gave way, and buried his
face in his hands. In the kitchen Raffles yowled again, the sound all but ripping his
brains. “This day just keeps giving.”
Aubrey edged back around the chair, slid his cool fingers onto Simon’s
throbbing temples, and began to rub.
“That man was once your lover?”
“Yes.”
“No wonder I wished to destroy him.”
Aubrey grunted. “There was something about him I did not trust.”
“He works for a bank,” said Simon. “You’re not supposed to trust him. But he’s
not usually…
like that.”
“The man is a rogue. Is he also blind?”
“Eh?” Simon peeped up between the cracks in his fingers.
“He made you believe you were not beautiful.
His eyes are bad, and you should stay away from him. I might not always be
here to protect you.”
While Aubrey’s words were flattering, he’d just highlighted an advantage Pete
had. At least Pete was attached to the here and now.
Indeed, Aubrey’s flattery ought to feel grating.
No doubt the man had professed the beauty of a thousand simple country
lads, maybe some fair maids too. Wannabe hero or not, sex clearly meant nothing
to him, and he had no bloody right to wish destruction on Pete, with the kitchen
cutlery or otherwise.
But the spell of those clever fingertips quelled Simon’s mounting frustration.
Aubrey skittered them along his brow before circling again, slightly harder. After a
few moments Simon grew so sleepy he faintly wondered if he was drugged, or if
he’d drunk more wine than he’d realized.
Aubrey slid his hands to Simon’s shoulders to work his magic there. Simon
concentrated on deep, calming breaths. His head really did feel better, so maybe
they should return to the issue of time travel…in a little bit.
Or I could just ask him to fuck me so hard I forget my own name and be done
with it.
“Is there anything else I can do to ease your pain?”
“You could get some ice from the compartment I showed you.” The freezer
pack he’d gotten out earlier would be useless by now.
“There’s a pack of peas. Um, it’ll be lumpy and green.”
“Your will is my command.” Aubrey planted a soft kiss on Simon’s brow. Simon
bit his lip.
Seconds later he heard Aubrey cooing and murmuring. Then Raffles fell
mercifully quiet.
When Aubrey returned with the peas, the cold soothed but held nothing to
the comfort of the man’s hands. No symptoms of concussion bugged him. His head
barely ached anymore. With Aubrey gently rubbing his brow, he could not prevent
himself from drifting off to sleep.
Chapter Six
The smell of spicy food penetrated Simon’s slumber.
He opened his eyes. Daylight had waned, and the curtains of the living room
had been drawn. He pinched the bridge of his nose and slowly sat up, wondering
what the hell he’d been doing lying on his sofa. Then everything that had
happened slammed back into him.
Aubrey. The Stones. The shower.
His lips formed what must have been a perfect O, and real concern mounted.
The coffee table had been tidied of everything but the candles, which he’d bought
to remember his grandmother.
Oh yes. He’d supposedly been celebrating Thanksgiving today, before his life
had been hijacked. What a mess he’d made of that.
And where the heck was Aubrey? His PhD
folder was gone from under the coffee table, only the laptop remaining.
Suspicion sniped. Had Aubrey been a rival after all?
He pushed himself up. Dinh was back; his coat had been returned to the
hook, and Simon realized where the strong odor of onions and chili wafted from. Not
the kitchen, but the medieval vault down below, from where the buzz of lively
conversation rose also.
He pushed open the door under the stairs and padded stealthily down the
uneven stone steps.
Life might be simpler if Aubrey was a rival trying to steal his research; at least
he could find reasons to hate a con man.
But all else that had happened tolled on his conscience. He believed Aubrey.
He wanted to believe him and to help him save his friends. And the sex. Who knew it
could be that good? Who knew he could feel that good?
Either way, he was unprepared for the scene that greeted him when he
brushed aside the curtain that acted as the vault’s draft excluder and door.
Beneath the low ceiling, Aubrey and Dinh perched on the sofa bed, which
Simon stored down there for guests, in front of the colorful drapes that covered the
ancient stone walls. The low table before them displayed an elaborate spread of
Chinese takeaway cartons and a selection of Simon’s sketches and photographs of
the Stones, pulled from his file. Aubrey leaned toward Simon’s Malaysian housemate,
the pair of them deep in conversation. The words “stones” and “time travel” leaped
to Simon’s ears.
On spotting him, Aubrey got up, hurrying around the table. “Are you feeling
better?”
Simon stared at him and then at Dinh, who wore his favorite blue Chelsea FC
T-shirt. He seemed as relaxed as if he’d been chatting with his girlfriend or Simon, not
a guy who’d just turned up from 1647.
Dinh brushed a couple of crumbs from a photo and regarded Simon with
concern that matched Aubrey’s. “Yeah, you okay? Aubrey here said you had a bit
of an accident earlier. You really should have seen an emergency doctor.
Good job your mate was about to look after you.”
“I’m fine,” said Simon. Aubrey caressed his cheek as if he’d known him a
lifetime, not just a few hours. Simon blinked up at him and nearly staggered.
So this was why he’d fallen hard, in every sense. Though they’d been apart
only briefly, the man’s looks struck him anew. The top of Aubrey’s head brushed the
stone ceiling even here in the highest part of the vault. He must have seemed a
giant back in his age, when most people were shorter.
“You sure you’re quite well?” Aubrey narrowed his eyes, guiding Simon toward
the seat.
“Maybe you should sit down.”
“I’m fine,” repeated Simon, sinking onto the cushions. Aubrey perched on the
arm beside him, the three of them in a row, just like old friends sharing a TV meal.
“Dinh?” Simon shot his housemate an incredulous look. “Did Aubrey tell you where
he’s from?”
“Yeah, he’s from three hundred and sixty-five years ago.” Dinh grinned at
Aubrey, winked at Simon, and shoveled some noodles into his mouth with a fork.
Simon touched his temples. “And you don’t think there’s anything odd about
that?”
Dinh swallowed his mouthful and leaned in closer, dropping his voice so only
Simon could hear. “He’s mad, but no madder than most of your mates. All that lot
who hang out in the Doctor Who Society—oh, or that couple who spend their
weekends dressed up in Edwardian clothes and motoring around Wessex in a kit car
that only starts with a handle.”
Simon conceded he did have some weird acquaintances. Pete was about
the most normal guy he knew. Well, usually Pete was, before he’d started acting
weird and freaking the hell out of the cat, but heaven knew what was going on
there. And except for anybody who had firsthand experience of the power of the
Stones, as Simon did, it would be more plausible to believe Aubrey was an eccentric
dedicated to role-play than…he was telling the truth.
“But this theory you two have about a ritual at the Stones tearing time,”
continued Dinh. “It’s all a bit far-fetched, but seriously, Simon, I had no idea your
work raised such interesting questions.”
“It does?” Simon looked up at Aubrey. “Have you told him everything?”
“Not quite,” whispered Aubrey.
Dinh was too busy theorizing to hear. “Of course, because of space-time
curvature, traveling in time is theoretically possible. I supposed the right release of
energy at the moment of the rising of the sun could produce some sort of
wormhole, though quite where the power needed would come from, I have no
idea.”
Sex.
Simon rolled his eyes. Pete had been annoyingly right about its centrality to
pagan ritual, so it seemed—or at least the rituals of the Gildskipe.
Dinh leaned forward and started scribbling some sort of equation on a
notepad. “If there’s truth in any of this, we’re dabbling in dark matter, realms of the
universe that modern science has barely scratched the surface of. Fascinating.”
“How about changing history?” asked Simon quickly.
“What about history?” Dinh chewed the end of his ballpoint pen, not looking
up from his paper.
“I mean, if somebody was to go back in time, or forward in time and then go
back again, could the information they take back or things they do alter what has
already happened in the world?”
“Oh, you mean quantum theory. Creating a parallel universe?” Dinh stopped
writing. “It could happen. But we know far less about that than even dark matter
and space-time curvature. If our universe is singular, changing things might be
impossible, in that if you’re going to go back and change something, it’s already
been done. Even if you’re still to do it. A single space-time continuum might mean
such acts are kind of predestined, you see?”
“Oh.” Simon cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Aubrey. We need to talk.”
He left Dinh poring over his maths beside the chilling takeaway and tugged
Aubrey to the top of the stairs, back into the lounge where they could speak.
He rounded on his visitor as soon as the door shut. “We’re meddling in
dangerous stuff here. If we’re meddling at all.” He glowered up at the man. “Tell me
one more time that this isn’t all an elaborate joke.”
The hurt in Aubrey’s eyes blazed. “I swear not. Your friend suspects there’s
something odd about me, but that could be because I spat out my first mouthful of
that strange food he eats. It burned on my tongue like the fires of hell.”
“Hmmm. Maybe. You two seem to get along pretty well.”
“He’s a good fellow, quite unlike any other I have met. He is not from these
shores?”
“No. He’s just studying here, though his English is as good as yours or mine.”
Simon couldn’t even start to imagine Dinh and Aubrey’s first encounter while he
slept. “Did he ask why you’re wearing his trousers?”
“Yes, and I told the truth, that mine were soaked and dirty. Indeed I didn’t tell
him any lies.
He just interpreted all as he did, in the light of his science.”
“Yeah, I guess you could say it’s his religion and his magic.”
“Do you think his kind of magic could help me get home?”
“Seriously?” He leaned back against the door, increasingly weary despite his
nap. Though before he’d been hoping for Dinh’s help, now he couldn’t face the
complications. He’d traveled too far down the road with Aubrey, felt too invested in
his cause to deal with the perspective of physics.
Magic was more than enough to deal with for one day.
“Dinh’s never been interested in the Stones before.” He sighed. “He might be
able to help us, but for now let’s just leave him thinking you’re a bit mad.”
“I’m sure we can succeed there.” Aubrey reached out and clutched the
banister. He edged closer, his earthy musk filling Simon’s nostrils.
Since that wash, damn it, Aubrey smelled good enough to eat.
When Aubrey touched him, Simon turned into the man’s arms and looked up,
his blood stirring.
He really wouldn’t mind another shower.
“Why don’t you light your candles?”
suggested Aubrey. “These yellow orbs your friend turned on blaze so bright
they dazzle me.”
Simon shrugged. That was probably a better idea than risking more rampant
sex while Dinh was so nearby, and it would be wrong to let the day pass without
lighting the candles for Gran. He retrieved some matches from a drawer, struck one,
and held it to the curling black wick till the tongue of flame leaped. Then he shook
out the stick and placed it on the side of the empty box before hurrying over to turn
down the dimmer switch on the room lights.
He settled down on the sofa, folding his knees up to his chest.
“They’re beautiful,” said Aubrey, sinking down beside him.
Simon nodded, admiring the gentle ripple of the white light. Aubrey slid an
arm about his shoulders, and he didn’t mind a jot. “They’re seasonal ones, spiced
apple and orange. It’s all I could find with a month to go till Christmas.”
“Yuletide,” murmured Aubrey. “I have…
many good memories of our revels with my mother and father. My sister. It is
good to remember happy times.”
“Mmmm.” But today wasn’t Christmas. He’d not explained to Aubrey what
Thanksgiving was, or what it meant to him.
“Simon, you’ve lost somebody dear to you of late, haven’t you?”
He started. “Y-yes. My grandmother.”
Aubrey spoke after a respectful pause. “There was a remarkable likeness
between you and a portrait of an elder woman mounted on the stair without your
washing room. Was that she?”
Simon nodded, still not daring to look away from the flickering light. He hated
to cry, but suddenly his throat closed up, and he felt that incriminating push in his
eyes. Aubrey’s comforting nearness, his scent, only seemed to make things worse. He
fought it.
“I was much closer to my gran than I am to my dad. Or anybody, really. I
never knew my mother, her daughter. Gran lived in New York—it’s a city in the New
World. We didn’t see each other that often, so the times we had together were
really special. I always used to be with her on Thanksgiving. That’s today.”
“What is this Thanksgiving?”
He didn’t know where to start, though he figured Aubrey couldn’t understand
any less than Pete or his dad did. He could tell him about the pilgrims holding the
first Thanksgiving around the time Aubrey had been born. He might talk about the
food, giving thanks for the harvest, all the traditions, ancient and new. Heck, he
could even recount that balloon race his gran took him to once.
That had been a blast.
But in the end Thanksgiving boiled down to one thing. “It’s about…being
together. Me, my gran —my aunt and cousins would join us too, but mainly me and
Gran. But she’s gone now, so I went down to the Stones to think about her.”
“I’m sorry.” Aubrey squeezed him. “I spoiled that.”
“It’s okay. It’s almost funny, I suppose. Gran wouldn’t have been happy to see
me alone, though to be honest I quite like solitude. Usually.”
Swallowing back more embarrassing emotion, he laughed. “I think she would
have thanked you for making me enjoy myself a bit.”
“You’ve enjoyed today?”
The bang on the head hadn’t been great, but the rest had been a roller-
coaster ride by his usually mundane standards.
And the sex. He’d enjoyed that.
Maybe the Ancestors really had meant for him and Aubrey to be together, at
least for a little while. Aubrey was sweet and kind and overwhelming all at once,
and their bodies seemed to cry out for each other. He’d made Simon feel good
about himself. Damn, Simon ought to be bloody grateful.
Happy Thanksgiving?
It wasn’t so bad.
He chuckled wryly, glanced up at Aubrey—and his mirth died.
Aubrey’s arm hardened like iron about Simon’s shoulder. He stared into the
candle, his distant gaze signifying he’d drifted a million miles away. Simon might
have been offended, had he not glimpsed grief that ran as deep as his own.
Deeper, even. Bleeding like an open wound.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Aubrey. “It is good to remember, but sometimes we
cannot let them go.
We must not. It is the reason I have to go home. I must leave this place on the
winter solstice. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” The words nearly choked him.
He wondered if he ought to remind Aubrey about what Dinh said earlier, that
it might not be possible to change the past, even if he could get back. Then again,
the story about that Norman guy saving the kids from the fire argued against that.
And such words would feel cruel.
Saving his friends obviously meant the earth to Aubrey, much more than
staying here with Simon. Of course it did. They’d only known each other a day.
Besides, the modern age must be shocking Aubrey in ways Simon could not start to
understand. A lesser being in Aubrey’s place would have been reduced to a
screaming wreck by now.
Aubrey’s muscles softened just a little. Simon snuggled closer, forcing his chin
up. “I’ll make sure you get home. I’ll do all I can.”
They both fell silent, staring into the flames.
Aubrey inhaled brokenly. Simon wondered for a short while if he cried, but
then he quieted and they breathed as one. The prospect of Aubrey going back
pained him, but hell, he shouldn’t be such a kid about these things. This could be
fine. And it was good to help people, right? Braced by such thoughts, he verged on
falling asleep when Dinh’s sudden emergence from the door beneath the stairs set
them both jolting.
“Sorry.” Dinh pulled an embarrassed face. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Oh, you weren’t.” Simon smiled sheepishly, realizing how entangled he had
become with Aubrey. He’d wriggled half onto the man’s lap.
“To be honest we needed the wake-up call.”
“You do look comfy.” Dinh grinned at Aubrey. “In fact you two look great
together. I’m taking it Aubrey won’t be kipping on the sofa bed in the vault
tonight?”
Crunch time.
Aubrey should sleep downstairs. They might have had sex and understood
each other’s woes, but letting a man sleep with him was a leap. He’d never shared
a bed for a whole night with Pete.
The guy thrashed about and disturbed his sleep too much.
He stared into the candle and answered the complete opposite. “No, it’s fine,
Dinh. You hang out in the vault as long as you like. Aubrey can kip with me.”
Dinh disappeared up into the bathroom, and Aubrey sighed. “Thank you. The
chamber below would have been most agreeable, I am sure. But…I did not wish to
be alone tonight.”
Simon finally allowed himself to finish that wry laugh he’d cut off before. “Me
neither.”
“Do not think I will take advantage of this, Simon. It won’t be like the shower. I
can control myself.”
He drew a sharp breath and reached his arms about his lover’s neck. “Please
don’t. We’ve both had a strange day. Let’s take our pleasures while we can, eh?”
As need wrenched through him, anguish ripped across Aubrey’s
countenance. Then a fireball of tightly reined emotion seemed to consume them
both at once.
Aubrey slid his arms under Simon and lifted him, carrying him up the stairs. In
an instant they passed by the bathroom, where Dinh hummed unknowingly in the
shower. Breaking his hug about Aubrey’s neck, Simon gestured toward his room and,
flinging out an arm, shoved the door open.
Seconds later he lay flat on the plush purple duvet of his double bed. The
mattress creaked beneath them, and his body thrummed with anticipation as he
savored the weight and heat of the man who stretched on top of him.
He was going to have to get naked again.
Aubrey leaned back and reassured him with his gaze, admiring him, silently
telling him what he’d informed him of many times. The part of Simon that wanted to
curl into a ball fell stunned.
Yes, they hurt. They both hurt. They were both, in their ways, terrified.
They were still ravenous for each other.
This time Aubrey went slowly. Simon felt more than satisfied to lie there and let
him take control. Aubrey removed Simon’s shirt at a leisurely pace before pressing
him back down onto the bed, straddling his thighs. The time traveler kissed Simon’s
face, his lips, every inch of his chest and throat, even the sensitive places on the
insides of his wrists and elbows. He woke up nerves Simon had no idea existed,
stroking and teasing, in no hurry at all. When Aubrey swiped his tongue around
Simon’s nipple, it hardened like a pebble.
Simon had never known guys could react like that. Then again, he had no
idea he could respond like this to another. When Aubrey touched him, the space
around him blurred. His dark lavender walls, the bookshelves, even his framed and
notated map of the Roman Empire mounted near the bottom of the bed—he could
focus on none of it. All he wanted was to be fucked by this man.
“Shut your eyes,” whispered Aubrey, and Simon could not help but obey.
Aubrey rolled down Simon’s trousers, and Simon held his breath, sucking in his
tummy. Aubrey kissed the tip of his dick, and Simon whimpered louder. The man
traced soft lips around his cockhead, moving up to brush against his belly, down
again to his inner thighs, all with the same measured care. Each time Aubrey drew
away from him, Simon exhaled and waited, wishing that now this man had found
him, time would stand still forever.
When Simon was lubed and ready, Aubrey hitched Simon’s knees up and
pressed inside him.
Simon’s whole being throbbed with arousal, his senses streaking toward the
stratosphere. With the tiniest friction against his cock, he could have come there
and then. He’d never felt so relaxed, so utterly at one with the man inside him.
Aubrey smiled, brushed a wisp of hair from Simon’s brow. Supporting himself on his
arms, he began to move, biceps flexing. The man strove to be gentle and to make
sure they took their pleasure as one.
God, this guy was amazing.
So why the hell was Simon just lying here, letting his guest do all the work?
Maybe Pete had a point. Simon suddenly felt lazy…but not anymore.
As Aubrey sealed his lips to Simon’s, the man ignited a new confidence in him,
woke him up inside. Simon threaded fingers through Aubrey’s hair and made love
right back to him with his mouth, sweeping to Aubrey’s depths with his tongue,
rolling his hips forward to the rhythms of the kiss. His new frenzy sizzled between them
like an electric current, and Aubrey fucked him harder.
Sucked up in the sensual overload, Simon’s disintegrating wits conjured a
beautiful delusion.
The Ancestors sent you across oceans of time for this.
For me.
For a fleeting moment after they broke the kiss, Aubrey’s doleful gaze sliced
straight to Simon’s heart. Simon cried out, a tuneless rhapsody, pushing to the back
of his mind the question he dared not ask. Whatever the answer, it would feel like
the twist of a knife in his chest.
We were meant to be together. You feel it too?
Then Aubrey scrunched his face with the strain, eyes rolling up, and fucked
him stronger, deeper. He jerked Simon’s cock with his hand as he brushed Simon’s
prostate with his cock, annihilating Simon’s last thoughts as surely as if the man had
blown his brains out. Simon’s every sinew tautened; then his climax burst through him
like a star turned supernova. Aubrey’s features contorted with ecstasy, and he thrust
hard and deep as his orgasm peaked and lingered.
Panting, sated, Aubrey held Simon tightly, and the quiet of the night
consumed them. Simon concentrated on the heat of the man’s body, the gentle
thud of his heart. He concentrated on the pure joy of being wrapped about a hard
torso, setting his mind blank to those silly, soaring emotions he’d experienced just
minutes earlier, till slowly and surely a new curiosity built.
Who the hell was this near-perfect lover from 1647? Aubrey had told him a
little about himself, but in no way enough. Simon pondered the man.
Aubrey’s clean hair spread out like a golden halo on the pillow. He’d spoken
only a few words through their whole evening of lovemaking.
“Tell me,” whispered Simon. “Tell me about your world, your family. Tell me
everything. I want to know.”
“As you wish.”
His sonorous tone and delicious accent might have lulled Simon off to sleep
had it not been for the breathless wonder, and sometimes desperate sadness, of the
tales he told. Of his family’s life scratching a living from twenty acres of downland, of
the friends and siblings he’d seen wither and die of hunger and plague. And of the
Stones, always the Stones, standing proud above their land and offering that gleam
of hope that the Ancestors lingered, that the Ancients had been right. Death wasn’t
the end.
Aubrey told him about the day soldiers turned up and forced him to join
Parliament’s army, how weeks later he found himself fighting side by side with
strangers and facing a barrage of Royalist cannons. He recalled how he’d found
comradeship among men from farms, moors, mountains, and forges, many leagues
from his rolling southern hills.
Under the shroud of night, wondering if death by gunpowder or blade would
claim them on the morrow, he and a companion named Stephen had found
comfort in the depths of each other’s bodies, rutting like desperate stags. For a short
while Simon fought a surge of jealousy. Thrill, Aubrey confessed, had only just
outweighed the mortal terror that a superior might catch them and punish their
deviancy with nooses about their necks.
When Aubrey told how Stephen lost his life, not in battle but to the ravages of
the pox, Simon just felt sorry for them. Aubrey had nursed his friend till Stephen had
needed him no more.
When dawn light seeped through Simon’s curtains, Aubrey eventually spoke of
the Gildskipe and their erstwhile leader, Rufus. “He took to the road as a young man,
peddling tales and songs.
Then he joined the Duke of Buckingham’s army and found himself battling in
France. Rufus learned to read from a priest who’d wearied of prayer and taken to
war, and he became the first scholar among our people, devoted to our education.
He taught me my letters, English and a little Latin, along with our creed—that it was
no sin to seek pleasure and love freely.” His voice sounded beyond weary, gravelly
and hoarse. “He knew this was the way of our Ancestors and hoped it would be the
way of our children. Rufus was the first to be taken by the soldiers. He did not
deserve such an end.”
Then he fell quiet.
Despite exhaustion having settled like a gray mist about him, Simon
suppressed a grunt of frustration. Was Aubrey really going to stop there?
He rolled back to face the man, cupping Aubrey’s chin in his hand. Once
again Aubrey’s distant dreaminess silenced him, and it felt cruel to ask for more.
“You really are the most fascinating man I’ve ever met,” he murmured
instead.
He settled back into the man’s arms. The thought that he’d soon be letting
Aubrey go felt like a fishhook ripped across his guts. But that had to be Simon’s
newly awakened libido talking. Once the cool light of day returned, his wits would
come back too. He needed to learn what he could, then help Aubrey get home—
without being arrested for lewd behavior in public—and get on with his life.
Though, damn it, falling asleep in his Time Lord’s embrace was really rather
nice.
Chapter Seven
The next day Simon set his heart and soul on getting Aubrey through the
lobby of the University of South Hampshire library to start their research.
He’d spent the morning in the shopping center, punishing his credit card to
purchase Aubrey tight jeans and a green polar-neck sweater that highlighted the
color of Aubrey’s irises. He looked the perfect postgraduate student, long-haired,
wild-eyed, mildly disheveled, and dead weird. When Simon led his visitor into the
library building, his hopes soared high.
“Aubrey is a visiting student from the University of the Outer Hebrides,” he
explained.
The senior librarian, Mr. Rogers, stuck his little finger in his ear and twisted it, his
buttery features wavering somewhere between grumpy and disinterested. “He lost
his ID on the boat from Barra. We’ve not got time for them to send through a new
one. It’ll take ages, and he’s come all this way to view the pagan studies special
collection.
So please, any chance of bending the rules?”
Rogers didn’t even bother looking at Aubrey.
“No student ID, no entry. You should know that, Simon. Next!”
There was no arguing with the librarian; he’d already picked up the next
student’s books and started bleeping them through the checkout system.
Simon hurried over to where he’d left his guest near the door to the adjoining
caf . “Your plan was thwarted?” asked Aubrey.
é
“I could go in and transcribe the book, I guess, or sneak in my phone to take
pictures. But it’s a risk, and I don’t quite know what I’m looking for. We really need to
get in together.”
“Can we not forge papers for my entry?”
“ We could.” Simon mused. He’d ask Dinh.
Maybe his housemate could mock up something on the PC. Or Dinh might
know somebody who could get his hand on fakes.
* * * *
Simon was right about Dinh. The housemate knew a friend of a friend who swore
she’d been fabricating documents since she was twelve.
Aubrey and Simon popped around to her digs first thing and then tried again
at the library.
Presenting the forged card to Rogers, Simon offered a slight smile.
The librarian looked it over, smoothing the strands of ginger hair across his
balding pate. Then he pointed out that while the picture on the ID was Aubrey’s, as
was the signature on the back, the name written in the small print was Sophie
Garrard.
Well, Aubrey might look bizarrely cute in a dress.
Simon laughed at his joke, punch-drunk on tiredness and sex. They’d fucked till
well past midnight, and then he’d lain on the bed floating, listening to tales of
Aubrey’s adventures as one of Cromwell’s pikemen.
He remained chuckling a few minutes later when the security guards arrived
to escort them both from the university grounds for violation of rules. He managed to
quietly instruct Aubrey that it would be a bad idea to resist.
A small crowd gathered to stare at them as they were marched past the
student union, the glass walls of the sports center, then the square brick careers
advisory booth. He recognized several faces among the onlookers. One of his old
lecturers, a specialist in medieval studies, peeped at him from beneath a large
orange muffler, her beetle-black eyes narrowed in disapproval. A fellow
postgraduate student, Lorraine, clutched her books to her chest and gaped.
As they were herded by the history block, he recognized Pete’s BMW parked
in front. The man himself sat behind the steering wheel, his expression concealed
beneath an unseasonably enormous pair of shades.
Being swept from the grounds like a criminal, with a guard on either side,
ought to have been the most shaming moment of Simon’s hitherto spotless life.
Instead he felt distant from his body, as if he were a bird flying overhead, gazing
down on himself and singing with ludicrous joy. When Aubrey brushed the back of
his hand, Simon bristled with pleasure. When the time traveler raised that scarred
eyebrow and quirked a hint of a wolfish grin, he tugged a smile from Simon’s lips
too. Simon hadn’t a clue why Pete was on campus, but he was glad the man saw
them.
Look, you bastard. I’m happy in my own skin. And it’s all down to the
gorgeous man who enjoys fucking me every night. Who’s boring now, eh?
But later, back home, he slithered from his two-day high.
Aubrey sat cross-legged on the end of the bed, talking about a few
nonsexual ceremonies the Gildskipe performed at the Stones so Simon could make
notes. Somehow the time traveler strayed onto a vaguely related account of a billy
goat who’d eaten his little sister’s rag doll.
He had dried her tears by telling the girl that her toy, Mabel, had been an
offering to the Ancestors. Mabel had ascended to their company forever. Aubrey’s
voice cracked several times at the end of the tale, sorrow clouding his eyes. Then
he fell silent.
His hand aching from scribbling, Simon threw down his folder. He knew exactly
what Aubrey was thinking. “We’ve got to get into that bloody library.”
Aubrey nodded slowly. “Your guards are not armed. I could easily overpower
them, and then we could just take what we need.”
“No way. It would take hours to find the book, and remember those people
called police I told you about? We’d be arrested. They’ll think you’re an illegal
immigrant, and I’d be killed in prison. I was bullied badly enough at school.”
“I would protect you, Simon.”
“To be honest I doubt you could.” Simon squeezed the bridge of his nose and
lay back on the pillow. The events of the morning felt less hilarious now. He’d been
dead lucky the university hadn’t stripped him of his own ID card and privileges.
“We could break out of the jail,” suggested Aubrey. “I have broken out of a
jail before.”
Simon
didn’t
doubt
it
but
flapped
dismissively. “We can’t. Not these days. Not without ruining my life.”
He rolled onto his side, hugging the pillow he’d bitten many times over the
past forty-eight hours. Aubrey trailed a fingertip down the groove of Simon’s spine,
his heat seeping through Simon’s thin T-shirt. Simon fought the urge to shudder with
pleasure. “I’m thinking, mate. Don’t distract me.”
Aubrey’s hot breaths tickled Simon’s neck as he spooned around him. “If we
can’t best the guards in the day, why don’t we not just break in at night?”
Simon bristled. “There are alarms. Plus, the library is open till midnight during
term time, and… Oh!” He lifted his face from the pillow. “Of course. Layla. Why
didn’t I think of her before?”
One glance over his shoulder at Aubrey—his muscular shoulders bared, that
brow raised—instantly answered his question.
Because you distracted the hell out of me.
“Layla’s the night librarian. She does the issue desk shift between seven and
midnight on weekdays and stays till one or two in the morning, shelving the books.
She must know the alarm settings, and she’s a friend of mine. We were undergrads
together.” He looked at the clock. The hands ticked toward midnight. “Damn, too
late now. Tomorrow night we’ll be there. ”
Aubrey wove his arms under Simon’s, pressing flush against him, his cock
rubbing against Simon’s arse. “Ye gods, I want to swive you as much as ever.”
Simon pulled a face. “I think we should take the night off.”
He held his breath through his lover’s silence.
“Have I hurt you in some way, Simon?”
“No.” Quite the opposite. Damn, he felt like a spoiled kid, but endless sex
wasn’t entirely gratifying, at least not by itself. He couldn’t quite put his finger on
what was missing, but their first time on Thanksgiving night had felt more complete
somehow. Not that he’d credit those soppy feelings with anything. Aubrey hadn’t
crossed oceans of time for him.
“You haven’t hurt me,” he reiterated.
“You’ve made me feel good. It’s just this isn’t helping, is it? All this sex. And
even these stories you have to tell. Don’t get me wrong, I love every minute of it,
and you’re doing my career a million favors, but I need a decent night’s sleep.”
Another pause. He felt mildly guilty but fought it.
“Do you wish to me sleep in the vault?”
asked Aubrey.
Simon shook his head. “I just want to be able to think straight tomorrow. That’s
all.” He reached for the light switch and turned onto his side, cocooning much of his
duvet about himself. “Night, Aubrey.”
* * * *
Layla took one look at Aubrey’s ID, hooked a streak of pink hair behind her ear,
and grinned.
“Seriously, Simon? This is the worst fake ID I’ve ever seen.”
Simon winced, taking back the plastic laminated card he’d mocked up that
morning. At least this one had a man’s name on it, which was an improvement on
the card they’d tried with yesterday.
“Look,” he said. “Remember that time I spent three long days in the archives
with you, helping get your dissertation finished? I’m calling in the favor. Aubrey and I
need to look at that book. It really is a matter of life and death, and…”
He trailed off. Layla rested her chin on her hand, jet-black lashes fluttering, no
longer paying him any attention at all. She stared across the otherwise deserted
lobby to Aubrey, who lingered by a glass cabinet entitled “English Weaponry, 1485
to 1815,” a new display sporting a variety of swords, daggers, and pistols from the
university vaults. Layla tilted her head to one side and stole a slanted look at
Aubrey’s arse.
Was she eyeing up Simon’s man?
Maybe sensing her attentions, Aubrey spiraled around. She greeted his feral
grin by smoothing her hair and blushing.
No doubt about it. The girl fancied Aubrey, but Simon swallowed his objections
fast. This could aid their cause, something Aubrey had also seemingly cottoned on
to. Holding Layla’s gaze with the skill of a Casanova, Aubrey strode across the
polished floor, planted both palms on the desk, and leaned toward her.
“Fair maid, I beg of you to aid me in my hour of need. All my worldly goods
were snatched from me by thieves after I alighted upon the glittering shores of
Albion.”
“I’m so, so sorry!” She pressed her hands to her glowing cheeks. “That was no
good welcome.
Where is it you come from?”
“Heligoland.” Aubrey announced the obscure island with a toss of his wild
blond hair. Simon nearly sagged with relief. The man had been pronouncing the
name wrongly all afternoon—not that it would have mattered. From her blank
response, Layla hadn’t heard of the place. She gawked up at Aubrey, bewitched.
He fixed his features into a mask of brooding sorrow.
“My mother is a very sick woman, and I must return to her by Christmas or her
heart will be broken.” With a Shakespearean flourish, he thumped his chest, then
gently took her hand, flinching slightly at the sight of her painted-black nails. “So…
please, Layla. May I call you Layla?”
“Oh God, yes!”
“Layla,” he drawled. “Please show you’ve a brave heart to match your lovely
face. Do not make me return to Heligoland before I’ve completed the quest for
which I crossed treacherous black seas.
Pray, let me into your magical archive.”
She stared at her hand in Aubrey’s as if scrutinizing every golden hair on his
wrist.
Squirming on his toes, Simon uttered a silent prayer. Was she taking the bait?
“Where the fuck’s Heligoland?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcastic
sweetness.
“In the North Sea about thirty miles off the German coastline.” Simon butted in
before Aubrey could open his mouth and botch things up. “Google it. Very
interesting history, and a unique accent, as you can hear from Aubrey. But seriously,
Layla.
Let us in. I’ll pay you. Anything.”
“’Tis true!” Aubrey pressed her fingers to his lips, the perfect image of chivalry.
“We’ll do anything you ask.”
“I doubt you would, boys.” Pulling away, she laughed dirtily, but Simon sensed
triumph was theirs. She still admired Aubrey as she threw up her hands in surrender.
“Okay. This is more than my job is worth, but I’m doing a master’s with the Open Uni,
and I’m already losing sleep over next January’s course work. I let you guys in, off
the record, and you help me pass the assignment in the new year, Simon. Is it a
deal?”
“Yes!” Simon resisted running and jumping into Aubrey’s arms and kissing him
full on the lips.
Just. When he turned to the man, the glow of excitement in Aubrey’s eyes
nearly set his knees buckling.
Now Layla stared at Simon way too hard.
“O-okay,” she said, her tone wavering. “I’ll lock up here and let Aubrey into
the pagan studies reading room so he can acquaint himself. Simon, will you come
down to the cellars and help me find these books by this Guillaume dude you’re
after? I’m not sure they’ve ever been taken out of the archives, and this place was
founded in 1845, don’t you know?”
“Of course I know.”
Layla switched on the AUTO CHECKOUT
ONLY sign over the desk, relinquishing that part of her job to a machine. Then
she led Aubrey and Simon down the corridor to the reading room, her block heels
clattering on the polished wooden floor. Passing through the high double doors, she
turned on the glowing green lights that illuminated the barrel-ceilinged chamber.
The chamber was windowless to make space for wall-to-wall shelving of fading
leather volumes, stacks of maps and scrolls, and the pervasive aroma of mildew.
He’d been in this place a hundred times before, but at night it felt strange
and still, mildly creepy. Aubrey’s jaw dropped at the sight. “Ye gods. So many books!
I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“How weird,” said Layla, “for a PhD
student.”
“In Heligoland, they lost all their best libraries in World War II,” offered Simon
helpfully.
“Oh, I see.”
She looped her arm through Simon’s and drew him swiftly from the room,
toward the spiral staircase that led to the library cellars.
She waited till they were halfway down the steps, out of Aubrey’s earshot, to
unleash her broadside. “Okay, Simon. First question. Are you still with Pete?”
“No.” He’d not been expecting that topic.
“We, er, broke up over a month ago now. Why?”
“He’s been round here quite a bit the past few days, asking after you. He
heard a bit too, what with the scene you and Blondie there made yesterday. He
seemed pretty worried.”
“Seriously?” He’d envisaged Pete would have had a good gloat to whoever
would listen about Simon’s forceful ejection from campus.
“He wasn’t in great shape either, I’ll have you know,” she said. “He’s taken
your breakup so badly he’s been signed off work for a month.
Exhaustion, mood swings, all that sort of crap.”
“But he dumped me.” He trod on down into the cellar, wrinkling his nose at
the smell of damp and swiping away a fluttering moth. When would the university
be able to afford to look after their books properly? As for Pete, he couldn’t imagine
what had gotten into the man. “It’s got to be work pressure that’s got him down.
Something like that.”
“Either way, seems Pete regrets losing you,”
she said. “So I guess my second question is what he wants to know too. Sex-
on-a-stick from Hel-whatever-land is gay, right? He’s got to be. I just can’t work out
whether he reckons he’s Laurence Olivier or Errol Flynn, though he looks more like
Sean Bean. Sort of. Actually no. Maybe that’s just the blond thing, and he’s more like
one of those McGann brothers? But anyway, are you two an item?”
She keyed a code into a thick safe door, pushed it open with a shove of her
shoulder, then gestured he should go in ahead. Shying away from any immediate
reply, he mulled over her musings, though none of her fantasies quite fit. Aubrey had
already ingrained himself too deeply as his Time Lord.
“Well?” she prompted.
He hoped dashing her embryonic hopes wouldn’t undermine her will to help.
“Yeah, I guess you’d say we are.”
“Oh, lucky you. Shagging like bunnies, eh?”
He winced.
She giggled. “He’s quite a catch, love. Shame you can’t keep him, huh? What
with his mum being sick and all.”
He swallowed back the lump in his throat.
“He’s a bit of a pain in the arse, if I’m honest. Not paying any bloody rent. So
where do you reckon this book might be?”
It took them nearly an hour to locate it, during which they both inhaled so
much dust that Layla started wheezing. Simon had to run up and retrieve her inhaler
before valiantly defending her from several spiders as big as his hand. Eventually, in
an arched niche in the final chamber in a maze of a dozen rooms, they found it. A
thick volume of leather-bound vellum, held together by a clasp of gold. Embossed
on the cover were four simple letters. G de B.
“Guillaume of Beck.” He blew the dust from the cover, and the inscription
glimmered gold.
“This is it.”
He lifted it, reveling in the weight. She grinned. “Let’s get this back to your
man, shall we?”
He’d already started across the floor, weaving between the bookcases. She
hurried on behind, making sure all the doors were secured properly.
“You know, when Aubrey leaves,” she said when she reached the bottom of
the stairs, “you can always give poor Pete another chance.”
Bounding two steps at a time and almost to the top, he nearly dropped the
book. “Why do you say that?”
“I’m just thinking you’re doing all right, Simon. Right now you’ve got two hot
guys chasing after you like you’re some chick in a vampire romance.” She cackled,
scratching cobwebs from her hair. “For heaven’s sake, what’s your secret?
I’d like to know.”
He suppressed his instinct to snap and silently conceded she had a point.
Before, he’d not even been able to hold on to Pete, and he’d hardly been fighting
off all comers. Suddenly he had the sexiest man on campus all over him, albeit
temporarily, and Pete wanted him back too.
“I have no idea.” He nearly added, Let’s put it down to supernatural forces,
but the notion made him faintly uneasy. Instead he muttered, “I just hope, after all
this time, Aubrey hasn’t given up on us and headed back to Heligoland.”
God, what a liar he’d become for the man.
Unsurprisingly Aubrey had gone nowhere.
When Layla opened the door, he was leaning on the reading desk, frowning
over a volume of The Times History of the World large enough to commit murder
with. As Simon bore his prize into the room, the time traveler looked up. “You found
it?”
“Think so.” Simon slammed the book down on the other end of the reading
table, slightly out of breath from the effort. “Is this right?”
Aubrey scanned the grand cover. “I’m not sure. It isn’t quite what I was
expecting.”
“It’s not the one?”
Aubrey grimaced and shook his head.
“After all that.” Layla clicked her tongue.
“Before you ask, no, there weren’t any more books by Guillaume de Beck. It’s
the only one we have.”
As despondency overcame Aubrey’s handsome features, she winced. “But I
can check the British Library catalog, if that would help. See what they’ve got?”
“Done that,” said Simon.
“Okay, but I can still trump that.” She turned to him, hands on hips. “You can’t
have checked the interlibrary loan resource. Only librarians have access to that.
Though for what you’re dealing with, I might have to call around the older archives,
churches, and whatnot and ask people to check the card indexes. Shall I see what I
can do?”
“Yes, please.” He was about to thank her for being such an amazing friend,
when Aubrey seized her hand and pressed it to his lips.
“I thank you from the bottom of my heart, fair maid.” He flashed his white
teeth in a ravishing smile.
Simon decided that was reward enough for now.
When Aubrey let her go, she smoothed her hair, giggling. Simon let a smile
twitch on the edge of his lips and then silently chastised himself for no doubt looking
smug.
Layla gathered herself. “Right, boys. I’ll get onto it. Do you still want to look at
this one anyway?”
“Definitely,” replied Simon. “It might have some answers. Who knows?”
“You’ve got another hour tonight before I have to lock up, or security will get
tetchy. I’ll be back to chuck you out in fifty-five minutes sharp.
I’ll let you know if I turn up any results on Guillaume, but I doubt I’ll be
successful so fast.”
As soon as she closed the door behind her, Simon slid across an old wooden
bolt, a relic from the time the room had been used for seminars and private
meetings. The space between him and Aubrey evaporated in an instant.
“I missed you.” Aubrey ruffled the dust from Simon’s hair. “That was too long to
be parted.”
Aubrey had dropped the air of faux chivalry that he’d lavished on Layla, and
Simon studied the man’s face, reverted to a portrait of striking earnestness. “Well, if
this really is the wrong book and Layla can’t find anything, you might be stuck with
me a hell of a long time.”
Aubrey stilled a moment. “May the Ancestors bless our quest,” he whispered,
“and Layla’s too.”
So the time traveler was still pretty keen to get home. Fair enough. But he
didn’t release Simon. He just squeezed him tighter.
“Shall we have a look at the thing?” asked Simon.
His hand shook when he opened the book, revealing a page written in
stylized text, which at a glance he identified as medieval Latin. “Any of this look
familiar to you?”
“The writing does,” replied Aubrey. “It’s not the same book of incantations
and instructions that we used, but it could well be written by Guillaume. Have you
any idea what it says?”
“Give me a minute.” Simon squinted closer, trying to make sense of the
complicated language, first picking out a few key words, then processing the
grammar. “Okay. This is a kind of title page.
This volume is basically like a pagan Psalter, Guillaume’s book of worship. It
recounts the ways he learned to offer his body like the Ancients upon the Stones.”
He turned over the first leaf of vellum.
“Oh! Bloody hell!”
The illustration that greeted him—and on page after page as he flicked
onward—proved a complete anathema to the usual religious iconography of the
medieval age. He’d been primed for content along erotic lines, but the crude
drawings of naked figures, some copulating, some bound, others engaged in acts
with whips, chains, and enormous carved phalluses, snatched his breath. Image
after image rendered the volume a Kama Sutra of historical sex and BDSM, with
designs for everything from nipple clamps to cock cages. A whole chapter
illustrated fourscore uses for a deerskin lash.
“Sweet spirits,” murmured Aubrey. “This…
These acts. Many are beyond my experience.”
Simon said nothing, though his breathing quickened, and his hands grew so
sweaty he had to wipe them on his jeans, fearing he’d mark the vellum. As his initial
surprise deadened, he read on, translating the small amount of text between the
distracting illustrations.
“Right, this is what Guillaume says. To best please the Ancestors, each of us
needs to learn how to make our best offering on the Stones, to discover exactly
what makes us fly.”
“Makes us fly, Simon?”
He looked at Aubrey, who arched both brows in question, humor touching the
edge of his mouth, creasing the finest lines at the corners of his eyes.
“I’m assuming he does not mean in your great boisterous iron birds?”
“Um, no. I don’t think so. Hold on.” Simon worked as fast as he could. “Okay.
According to this, if we discover the technique that’s right for us, each of us can
reach a level where our body passes through a barrier of fire and night into blue
skies. There we will drift on clouds of ecstasy and hear whispers from the Ancients.
Then can the will of our Ancestors be best requested and received.”
“This sounds very promising.” Aubrey wrapped his arms around Simon from
behind.
“When I made my request, I’d reached a lonely rapture. I could hardly fly. But
Simon, if I am not to be alone…can I ask such sacrifices of you?” He dropped his
voice to a guttural husk. “May I?”
Oh, this man clawed too deeply under Simon’s skin. He almost wished he
would panic and yell, yet he remained surprisingly calm as he considered the
options ahead. To help Aubrey, he needed not just to surrender to such depravities,
but to perform a ritual outdoors on a cold December morning. His fear of getting
caught vied with the very real danger of freezing his balls off.
He moved on through the pages, sweat beading his brow despite the chill of
the room, breaths coming quicker. Every possible position seemed to be covered,
far more than they could ever copy out and take home. Some of the images
scared the hell out of him—like a depiction of a man tied to the Solstice Stone and
surrounded by a host of hooded onlookers. Over him, a huge being loomed, naked
and brandishing his cock, ready to fuck the receiver to hell and back. Simon
coughed a lump from his throat, turning over the vellum fast.
The prospect of surrendering to that kind of treatment for just anybody would
have terrified him.
But for Aubrey?
Even now heat simmered between him and the larger body pressed behind.
Rubbing his arse against the man, Simon skimmed on to images of men coupling
with men that would have rivaled the kinkiest ancient Greek vase. He lingered,
fingers shaking, over a rather appealing image of a lad being penetrated while
balancing on his lover’s lap. Another position looked like what Simon would have
described as doggy-style. The book described it glamorously as lupine.
Oh God, he would love Aubrey to unleash the wolf inside him. His next
thought almost set him reeling.
He wished to the gods he’d brought condoms and lube with him to the
library.
But that was madness. He could never want to have sex anyplace other than
behind locked doors in his own home, especially not in the library. That would just
be…wrong.
His cock jerked.
Oh fuck.
He kept reading with Aubrey leaning over his shoulder, nudging closer till
Simon knew he wasn’t the only one growing aroused. A thick eight-inch rod pressed
full-length against the small of his back, shielded by his sweater and Aubrey’s jeans.
“Damn you,” muttered Aubrey. “I want you right now.”
Perspiration trickled down the back of Simon’s neck as he turned over the
next page, unveiling an image of a man on his knees on the Solstice Stone, sucking
his lover’s cock. Simon grew transfixed. The ancient text espoused the virtues of
giving head as a form of worship, of seeking the most sensitive areas of a man’s
cock to make him harden and squirm before swallowing him to the hilt.
He hated giving blowjobs. So why was his mouth watering?
He twisted to face his lover. Aubrey looked pained, so obviously expecting a
rebuff that Simon bit back a smile.
“Then take me.”
“What?”
“Fuck my mouth.” His words poured out in a breathless rush. “The door’s
locked, there’re no windows, no cameras. We’ve got half an hour left.
We can start researching right this instant. I want to learn how to give a
blowjob.”
Before caution could kick in, he dropped to his knees and unbuttoned
Aubrey’s fly. He stole a last glance at the book, noting the giver’s face, though
roughly drawn, was inscribed with as much pleasure as the receiver. Could it really
be that good?
As soon as he freed Aubrey’s cock, semiengorged with the helmet glistening,
he guessed it might be. Aubrey’s golden curls, even a glimpse of that haunting kohl-
black tattoo on his hip bone, whetted Simon’s appetite. Surprise and delight carved
a whole new aspect on his Time Lord’s flinty features. With that one glance Simon
knew for sure.
“Simon.” Aubrey growled, his eyelids heavy with lust. “Has anybody ever told
you how charming you look on your knees?”
“Uh, no, mate.” Simon dampened his lips.
“But you can say it as many times as you like.”
Aubrey’s panted breaths accelerated. Simon absorbed the reverberations of
those throaty moans while his Time Lord tangled fingers in his hair.
The green lights glimmered, and the books seemed to wheel around him.
Simon’s awareness of where he was rendered the prospect irresistible, and he
leaned forward and gingerly wrapped his mouth about Aubrey’s cockhead.
Aubrey tasted sublime, the salt of his flesh blending with a feral undercurrent
no herby shower gel could subdue. The moist slip of the man’s foreskin incited liquid
strands of arousal that arrowed straight to Simon’s groin. Recalling the diagram, he
framed his mouth—and Aubrey’s cock—with his hands, kneading the man’s balls as
he teased his cockhead, lapping along his slit.
As he drew another grunt of approval from Aubrey’s throat, his pride
flourished. When Aubrey leaned into him, inching his cock forward, Simon’s
satisfaction soared to a whole new level.
He scrubbed against the underside of the man’s cock and drew him in deep
as Aubrey started to move.
“Sweet spirits, Simon.” The time traveler’s voice grew thick with desire. “This is a
fine, fine way to make a sacrifice to the Ancestors.”
Simon hesitated a moment. Sex, research, worship, bodily pleasure, time travel,
a pleasant dose of companionship. That was all this was.
Well, it would do.
He threw himself body and soul into the task, drawing back to swirl his tongue,
then sucking Aubrey deep again. Fuck, yeah, this would more than do. When he
looked up, Aubrey filled his vision. Slender lips parted, Aubrey screwed his eyes tight,
his pleasure radiating from every pore.
Simon relished the sight, then focused on the bliss of giving joy to the man
who’d woken him up inside, of pushing Aubrey toward that higher level.
The bookshelves towered around them, dust, scrolls, and staid leather bindings
all glowering their disapproval. Right then if security burst in, Simon would later die of
shame, yet nothing could have halted him in his mission to bring this man to climax.
Lavishing attention on Aubrey’s glans, he grasped the man’s shaft and traced the
coronal ridge.
The time traveler rewarded him with a cry of pure bliss. Simon’s fears of
detection snowballed the same moment Aubrey unleashed his power. He fucked
Simon’s mouth, pushing deep till he nearly brushed Simon’s tonsils. Relinquishing
control, Simon concentrated on containing the man who stretched and filled his
mouth and shook him with the raw energy of their coupling. His spinning nerves
flooded his veins with adrenaline, and his dick wept.
Aubrey’s cock heaved a spasm. With the little movement afforded him, Simon
teased along the bottom of his shaft, massaging the contracting flesh of the man’s
balls with his hands. It proved enough. Aubrey exploded, flooding Simon with hot
seed that he had little choice but to swallow. He savored the heavy taste. Aubrey
leaned back against the desk, grasping Simon’s shoulders.
The man still hadn’t quite regained his breath when he slid to the floor next to
Simon. “Ye gods.
I must return that favor. You nearly sent my flying there and then.”
“I enjoyed it.” Simon shrugged, wiping his mouth with his hand. The blankness
that filled him took him by surprise, though yeah, he quite fancied being fucked
thoroughly and soon.
The gaze that Aubrey slid onto him kindled a stab of emotion that he did not
quite like.
“So you’ll lie for me on the Solstice Stone?”
asked the time traveler.
Simon mustered the strength to temper his instinctual agreement. “All right,”
he whispered, licking his lips. “I’ll think about it.”
Chapter Eight
Two weeks later
Simon stripped off the last of his clothes and slid his bare arse onto the
reading desk of the special collections room in the library. The rising heat from the
radiators set the cobwebs and newly arrived Christmas tinsel swirling like smoke
under the barrel ceiling, glittering in lambent emerald light. He winced at the sight.
Bloody Christmas.
He’d
survived
Thanksgiving,
but
by
Christmas he’d be alone again, and… No, he wouldn’t think about it. Even the
solstice was still almost a fortnight away, thank heaven.
Guillaume’s book lay on the desk beside him, opened wide, displayed as
Simon would be.
Aubrey, dressed in jeans, army boots, and a black shirt with a V collar that
flaunted wisps of tawny-gold hair, flicked through the pages.
Frowning, he looked at Simon. “You’re quite sure about this?”
“I said I wanted to try everything, didn’t I?”
Simon quirked a lopsided smile. Chill air licked his skin, rendering him acutely
aware of his nakedness. If he dared to think too hard, terror would grip him. But the
reasons he came here every night, as addicted as an alcoholic, were underlined
when he met his Time Lord’s gaze.
When Aubrey admired him, when Aubrey fucked him hard, Simon felt like a
million dollars.
No, better than that. He couldn’t put a price on how messing around here in
the library with Aubrey made him feel alive, any more than he could bottle it.
“Ready, then?” asked Aubrey.
Simon lay down flat on the reading desk.
“Uh-huh.”
“Roll over. I need to see your cute little arse.”
He smothered a grin as he obeyed. “Cute” had been a recent addition to
Aubrey’s vocabulary, and Aubrey used it to describe Simon’s arse and smile a lot.
From anybody else, it would have irritated him. From Aubrey, he loved it.
He realized how hard he’d already become when the wooden surface
crushed up against his cock. Aubrey pulled Simon’s left arm above his head, then
looped his wrist with eight-millimeter cotton cord, which sliced painlessly beneath
the heel of his hand. Aubrey tugged the rope taut and fastened it to one of the
hooks he’d screwed in for this purpose beneath the desk.
Simon turned his head so his cheek flattened against the tepid wood. He
refused to flinch. This first moment of being bound, of losing control, sent icy terror
quaking through his veins, his surge of bad memories tempered only by his faith in
whom he lost control to and why. It was a good and righteous cause. As Aubrey
manipulated his right arm, Simon still experienced a sickening tightness in his belly,
but he gritted his teeth and rode with it, which proved all too easy. Every brush of
Aubrey’s fingers melted the edges from his fear, silent whispers of adoration that
had started to feel deliciously familiar.
After checking that the bonds about Simon’s wrists were firm but not too tight,
Aubrey murmured, “Blindfold.” He slipped a black, starchy strip over Simon’s eyes,
and the lights of the library were reduced to pinprick constellations beyond the blur
of his lashes. Darkness made him feel helpless and more exposed than ever if the
worst should happen. If the lock should give and they should be seen.
“’Tis good?” asked Aubrey.
Breathless, Simon nodded. Yes, good.
Aubrey clamped a hand about his ankle, pulling one leg wide, then the other,
fastening them as he had Simon’s arms. Simon lay spread-eagled across the desk.
His blood lurched, adrenaline racing.
“Don’t move a muscle,” drawled Aubrey.
Was that a joke? Aubrey’s tone was smooth as satin but edged with steel.
Simon wriggled slightly to test the firmness of his bonds, siphoned a little of his anxiety
in a protracted exhalation, and then grunted with bliss. His lover glided hands up his
back, smearing warm oil, easing the tension from his shoulders before rubbing over
his tautened arse. He offered growls of approval that had Simon squirming with
pleasure. Then he turned attention to Simon’s thighs, smoothing and kneading.
Simon’s dick nudged uncomfortably against the wood.
And then, again, he was gone.
A few seconds spilled to what seemed like an hour. Simon listened to the
gentle rub of vellum against vellum. Aubrey was checking the book; he was sure of
that. They’d discussed what was coming, but that didn’t make waiting any easier.
Then a soft whip stung across his arse cheeks.
He jolted and cried out, more in surprise than pain.
“Deerskin,” said Aubrey. “Our Ancestors’
favorite.”
He flicked the whip again, focusing on the other buttock, dragging the many
tassels of the whip across Simon’s skin. The oil magnified the impact, the strands of
the deerskin blistering against his flesh, setting his nerve endings screaming. Aubrey
sliced harder and then moved to lash one, two, three more strikes against each
upturned thigh, aiming with care.
“Bloody hell!”
Simon bucked against his bonds, arching back, then forward, the smart
escalating toward genuine pain. A refusal flickered on the tip of his tongue—except
no. He didn’t want to say it.
Aubrey rained another blow down, half strike and half caress, the impact
teetering between unbearable and exquisite. Lights flashed beneath Simon’s
scrunched eyelids.
He hadn’t been sure he’d like this…but fuck.
His erection hadn’t waned; he’d grown full-on hard.
“Agh!” He gasped.
“Your arse is so cute when it glows.”
Aubrey brought the whip down again, surely strong enough to raise a welt.
The intensity proved more provocative than agonizing. Simon’s every fine hair stood
on end.
And he likes this too? God, I’d love to feel his hands. I wish he’d spank me,
flesh against flesh, and…
“Agh!”
When the next lash came, he couldn’t judge if he was writhing to get out of
the way or straining toward it, the rising heat on his bottom smothering any higher
thoughts. He jerked back and forth, unable to control himself within the narrow
parameters afforded to him by his bonds. Trying to hold still, to surf the endorphins
that rushed like the blood in his ears, he bit his lip against screaming so loud Layla or
security would come running.
Four, five, six more strikes, then more. He lost count. His Time Lord worked
methodically between his backside and his inner legs, and Simon rode the wave.
Molten pleasure-pain overwhelmed him. Tears welled through his eyelids,
dampening the blindfold. Lights danced a thousand colors and brightened with
every skirmish of deerskin against flesh. He tried to hold still, to soak up the sheer
sensation, but he writhed and moaned, clenching his arse so hard he could have
manufactured diamonds.
By the time Aubrey ceased his ministrations, Simon couldn’t discern the
individual slaps. All his sensations blurred into one, his skin simmering like a car
bonnet in the Sahara. He gulped air like a man drowning, more turned on than he
recalled ever being without proper friction against his prostate or cock.
Aubrey tugged the blindfold away, leaving Simon blinking at the emerald
brightness. “I never thought…that would be so… Oh fuck. Look at me, Simon.”
Still gasping, his body floating, Simon conjured the strength to glance over his
shoulder at Aubrey, who panted beside the table, towering above him. Sweat
glistened on the man’s face, and Aubrey groaned with gut-felt pain, his erection
tenting his trousers. He unbuckled his belt. “Just fucking you right now will make me
fly.”
When Aubrey pressed an oiled finger to Simon’s entrance, he circled and
massaged, soothing a body that Simon’s natural defenses had screwed fear-tight.
Simon still wished to draw the man inside; he reveled in the tingling glow that
saturated his backside. Damn, yes, this was heavenly. Just having this man inside him
would set them on the road to the Ancestors.
But what’s the point? It doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t want to stay.
As Aubrey opened and stretched him, Simon slipped from his plateau of
yearning pleasure and winced with a genuine stab of pain.
Stop thinking like an idiot. Of course he doesn’t want to stay. He can’t stay.
This is why it always goes wrong.
Aubrey withdrew his fingers swiftly from Simon, whose anxieties mounted
despite his aroused state. The time traveler cursed beneath his breath—and finally
the urgent tapping on the door penetrated Simon’s overloaded faculties.
“Boys?” Layla’s call carried from behind the door. “This isn’t supposed to be
locked.”
“Oh God!” Simon’s voice sounded like a high-pitched squeak, even as his
body screamed at the loss of contact.
Aubrey sliced through the bonds at his wrists and ankles with scissors they’d
kept ready for emergencies. He grabbed Simon’s shoulder and pulled him up into a
sitting position. Simon jumped unsteadily to his feet and scrambled to dress,
grimacing as he pressed his trousers over his aching cock.
“Why now?” he seethed. “Why now, after two weeks, does she decide to
intrude?”
Aubrey had no answer. He smoothed his hair and straightened his clothing.
Simon slid his sore arse back up onto the desk, folded his arms, and tried to look
casual. Features set like granite, Aubrey dashed to the door, unbolted it, and threw it
open. “Yes?”
“You’re not supposed to lock the door,”
snapped Layla. Far from making puppy-dog eyes at him, she sidestepped the
time traveler and paced into the room, looking at Simon. “I just wanted to check
you were okay.”
“Yeah…fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Oh, nothing. You looked really tired earlier.
That’s all. I was worried about you.”
“Seriously, I’m good.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded, sliding down to the floor. When she shrugged, apparently happy
with his answer, he managed a smile, which took an effort given his sore arse and
the waning erection he gingerly crossed his legs to conceal. There was no way she
could know what they were really up to. He grabbed relief from that thought.
“Well, anyway,” she said. “I’ve just been going through my e-mail messages.
There’s one here that I think you’ll be interested in, a response to a message I left
last week.” She held out a paper printout. “The archive at Wimborne has turned up
something by your Guillaume dude.”
“Seriously?” Almost forgetting the myriad of little pains that racked his body,
Simon snatched the paper.
“Do I get a thanks?”
Aubrey hurried to Simon’s shoulder to read.
Simon nodded while eagerly scanning the text. “Of course. We really
appreciate it.”
Indeed his every action of the past fortnight underlined the truth of this. He’d
devoted his afternoons to scouring thousands of catalogs for any mention of
Guillaume. He and Aubrey had even started driving around the countryside seeking
out Aubrey’s family’s old haunts, just in case somebody had hidden the spell book. It
had started to feel like an impossible quest, though neither of them had wavered in
their commitment.
“I owe you one,” he promised. “Again.”
“Don’t worry. I’m keeping an account.”
The e-mail seemed disheartening. The archivist at Wimborne confirmed they
had two twelfth-century books by Guillaume in their collection. These might contain
more specific instructions about andaga than the book of worship Simon and
Aubrey had been consulting in the library. One of them could even be the volume
that the Gildskipe had used before. However, they would not be able to view either
till at least the new year, because the books were out on loan.
Twenty-one days was the usual recall period.
“That is no good,” said Aubrey. “I must leave before then.”
“Ah, another reason you are going to be buying me several thousand
cookies.” Layla batted her lashes. “I thought it was kind of weird that they let such
old texts out on loan. Very few archives would allow that. So I phoned Wimborne,
made some inquiries. Turns out your books have been loaned to some chap who
lives nearby. He has a pathological fear of leaving home, which is why they bend
the rules to let him borrow. It’s all off the record, but the librarian suggested you give
the borrower a call and explain the circumstances.
He’s a nice old gent, and they reckon he’ll either arrange for the book to be
returned quickly or maybe let you pop round and read it. He likes visitors,
apparently. Doesn’t get many.”
“Tomorrow,” cried Aubrey, “we shall offer him fine company and our warmest
friendship.”
Simon couldn’t conjure the same level of passion. “I’ll call him in the morning.
Do you have his name and number?”
“I wrote them on the back of the e-mail.” She smiled, obviously pleased with
herself. Simon flipped the sheet over. “See?”
He read the name. Then he read it again and handed the paper to Aubrey
as he felt the color drain from his face. “Does that really say what I think it does?”
“Bless the Ancestors,” murmured Aubrey.
Layla
looked
between
them,
seemingly
dumbfounded by their reaction. “The book is in the hands of one Richard
Bonnie.”
* * * *
The colorful wooden quarter jack on the medieval clock tower of Wimborne Minster
chimed three o’clock. Simon steered the hatchback down the lane beside the
church, seeking a parking spot in front of the Tudor almshouses beyond, to which
Richard had directed them.
When Simon had called to explain who Aubrey was and that he’d like to see
the books, Richard Bonnie had been shocked, then jittery, though keen on the idea
of a meeting. Now Simon’s stress burgeoned. Harmless and elderly though Bonnie
had sounded, this was still the guy Simon had once believed was about to assault
him.
He pulled up in front of the houses and switched off the engine. Beneath their
honey-colored thatch, the little row of light stone cottages were as pretty as any in
the nearby Cotswolds. In several front windows, net curtains parted to display
Christmas trees draped with fairy lights.
He couldn’t contain a sigh. In the passenger seat Aubrey had remained as
quiet on the journey as he had. Speed still incited the man’s nerves, so Simon hadn’t
pried. In the quiet, ancient spot, however, the brooding time traveler steeled himself
first. He squeezed Simon’s arm. “Ready?”
When Simon hesitated, Aubrey reached into the backseat and picked up a
flask. “Would your beloved caffeine help fortify you? It’s proper Americano, the way
you like it.”
Simon didn’t doubt Aubrey had made great coffee. The espresso machine
was the latest piece of technology the time traveler had mastered.
Aubrey had studied the manuals for everything in the kitchen, producing roast
dinners and glorious, syrupy puddings that remained beyond Simon’s skills.
“I’ve made cake too,” said Aubrey. “The icing’s still soft.”
“No, thanks. I’ll enjoy them more later. Let’s get this over with.” Simon sniffed.
“It’s number three.”
In a reversal of usual roles, Aubrey hurried around and opened Simon’s door
for him. Simon still felt blank inside, even when Aubrey wrapped an arm about him.
“There’s nobody here to see, Simon. And it’s not a crime these days,
remember?”
“We still mustn’t.” Simon wriggled out of his embrace, irritated without quite
knowing why.
He rang the doorbell of the third cottage. He could hear the TV inside, but
after a few moments the noise cut off. The soft shuffle of slippers against carpet
broke the ensuing silence.
The door opened slowly, the frame filled by a tall man with a slight stoop, his
face as thin and pinched as his body was lanky, his bony shoulders draped in a
bright green knit cardigan. Though his black hair was cropped and flecked with
gray, his craggy skin, dark eyes, and severe expression set Simon’s heart lurching.
It was him, all right.
Delight transformed Richard’s face. Smile lines crinkled, and his eyes lit up. He
clapped his hands on Aubrey’s shoulders.
“Well, I never!” Richard’s accent sounded a quaint mix of Celtic and West
Country that suddenly rendered him the least threatening man in the world. “You’re
the very image of your father, Aubrey. Come in, good fellow, come in.”
* * * *
With his time-wizened hand, Richard poured the tea from a china pot into
three matching cups.
Settled on the sofa next to Aubrey, Simon was briefly distracted by the many
bookcases that tottered in front of the uneven whitewashed walls.
He fixed on a thin, leather-bound volume on the walnut occasional table in
front of them. Resting beside a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits, it appeared
much plainer than the grand tome of Guillaume’s he and Aubrey had been
studying. It resembled a humble book of prayer rather than an elaborate instruction
manual for magic. He looked around for its companion volume.
“So,” said the host, sinking down into an armchair opposite Simon and Aubrey.
“It all went wrong for you too, I see?”
Aubrey laughed softly. “Not quite.” He slid a hand to Simon’s knee. Simon’s
hackles rose again.
He still wasn’t in a mood to be touched.
Smile lines crinkled Richard’s eyes. “Ah yes.
There’s plenty about the relative freedoms of these late days that a man can
warm to.”
Simon squirmed, and Aubrey lifted his hand away.
“You’ve grown accustomed to this age, Richard?” asked Aubrey.
“It’s been twenty-five years, and I still get the jitters
going
out.”
Richard
chuckled.
“Agoraphobic, they call me. When I first arrived, they locked me up. Powers
that be believed I was insane. I suppose in many ways I was—I had no idea where
I’d arrived, you see? I wandered straight into the middle of a dual carriageway
before fleeing back to the Stones. I was lucky not to be killed. Milk, Simon? Sugar?”
“Uh, yes. Milk and one lump, please.” Simon managed a smile and decided
he could put that fearful vision behind him. Though Richard had aged twenty-five
years since their encounter, Simon had matured only one. If Richard had seen him
on the Solstice Stone, he might have betrayed a glimmer of recognition. Simon
detected none.
The elderly time traveler dunked a single cube in a cup and passed it across,
a silver teaspoon balanced on the rim of the saucer. Simon thanked Richard politely
and then waited till their host had served Aubrey before pointing to the book.
“So this is where Rufus got his information about andaga?”
“Oh yes. This was the instruction book.”
Richard picked up the text and handed it to Aubrey. “The library kindly let me
take it for as long as I pleased. They couldn’t make any sense of it, and nobody else
ever showed any interest.” He paused to take a sip of his tea, then dabbed his lips
with a handkerchief. “I’ve studied it closely, and I have to say Rufus did a fine job
with the limited information he had.”
Aubrey looked up. “He did?”
“Oh yes. Our leader translated the passages about one’s reaching rapture at
the rise of the sun perfectly, though we were always sailing choppy waters without
this.”
Richard reached beneath a copy of the Southern Daily Echo propped on the
arm of his chair and pulled out another book identical to the one Aubrey held.
“Here is volume two of the rules of andaga.”
“Volume two?” Aubrey reached for the second book.
“Oh yes.” The older man flapped his hand, a resigned gesture. “Rufus only
found half the information he needed in this first plain little book.
If he’d had the second volume, he would have known that andaga works in
two very different ways.”
Aubrey hadn’t touched his tea. He leaned forward. “Pray tell us.”
“The first ritual,” said Richard, “which Guillaume himself used and which we
believed we were imitating, was a gift from the Ancestors.
It allowed one to travel back the distance of nature’s sacred and select
number of three hundred and sixty-five days in order for great wrongs to be righted.
The second ritual, however, was a form of punishment—a banishment used by the
Ancients for crimes like theft and treachery. This sent the miscreant forward three
hundred and sixty-five years.”
“And we performed that version, not knowing.” Irritation laid grit in Aubrey’s
voice.
“What is the difference between the rituals?”
“The banishment ritual must be performed alone, an act of humiliation and
sacrifice. You and I, so it seems, performed this accidentally for love, hoping that our
moment of forced rapture would take us back the period we asked for.”
“We did indeed do it for love,” murmured Aubrey.
Simon winced. So Aubrey didn’t care for him as much as his friends back
home. He knew that.
He could deal. But this was the first time he’d heard the man use the word
love, and it set his teeth on edge.
“We were never going to succeed in our task,” continued Richard. “Rufus
suspected this; he told me before I insisted on traveling alone. And now, having
read both volumes thoroughly, I know the truth. To pass back in time and perform
andaga correctly, you must have a cotraveler. Two must arrive at rapture at the rise
of the sun. Two must travel. They must… Well, it says here”—he gestured to the
second volume of the rules—“they must fly, but I don’t quite know how that would
happen.”
“Actually,” said Simon, “we’ve got that covered. But this is no good.” He
looked at Aubrey, anxious. “You know I want to help, but…
traveling back to 1647 is a big deal.”
Indeed, as he absorbed the true import of Richard’s words, he grasped the
arm of the chintz sofa, fingers gouging it as if clinging to the modern age. Now he
really did have something to be worried about; the prospect of losing Aubrey paled
in comparison. “A massive deal. You can’t ask that of me.”
Aubrey set his features sternly, though a nerve shook his lower lip. “Simon…I…”
“Aubrey!” Richard interjected with some force. “You’re not seriously
considering going back, are you? Heavens, no! Surely not?”
“I’m deadly serious,” said Aubrey, and he sounded it. He reached across and
picked up the second volume of instructions.
“You cannot take such a risk,” insisted Richard. “It is a struggle enough arriving
in this age from the past. For anybody else, this boy or otherwise, who has known
only the comforts of the twenty-first century, to travel back would be unthinkable.”
“I have never forced Simon,” said Aubrey. “If he does not wish to come…
then…” He slid Simon a rapier-sharp look. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“Okay.” Simon half wanted to give an outright refusal there and then, but it
could wait till they were alone. He still battled with the mad part of him that wanted
to tell Aubrey he’d follow him to the ends of the universe. But that would be rash,
given where Aubrey’s heart clearly belonged, and besides, the man next to him on
the sofa seemed more and more like a stranger. This new air of iron determination
shook Simon to his core.
Richard stirred his tea furiously, the spoon clinking against the china. “I cannot
stop you, Aubrey. I can only advise you against it. And I do.
Strongly. For a very good reason.”
“What reason, to be precise?” asked Simon.
“Sorry if this is painful for you, but I learned you also had much to travel back
for.”
The old man’s face softened. “I did. But the chance to go back to save the
man I loved has passed me by. It takes two to travel. To be blunt, I’ve never
possessed the will or courage to lie with another, and even if the opportunity had
arisen…I am not sure it would have been wise to take it.”
Richard fell silent, his fingers stiff about the handle of his cup, lines of grief
searing his brow.
Aubrey leafed through the book in his hand, seemingly too wrapped up in his
own troubles to care.
He left the burning question to Simon. “Why would it not have been wise?”
Richard set his teacup down with a chink.
“Guillaume doesn’t explain everything—that is why. This is not pure worship.
Andaga is magic.
For good or bad, magic breaks the rules of nature, and for good or bad, there
are always consequences.”
“What consequences?” The sugar from Simon’s tea turned sour on his tongue.
Aubrey looked up from the book.
Richard fortified himself with a sip from his cup. “When finally somebody took
pity on me at the Stones, I was a gibbering wreck. They sent for an ambulance, and
one of the nurses, Clare—she was kind to me. She was the first person who tried to
listen to what I had to say. Of course, she believed I was as mad as the rest of them,
but at least she didn’t tell me so. She comforted me, offered me her embrace. I
appreciated that.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” asked Simon, picking up a biscuit.
“No,” replied Richard flatly. “I learned later that Clare fell ill that very
afternoon. At the hospital her behavior turned strange and erratic.
She started dropping bedpans, mixing up medication. Within a week the
doctors sent her on sick leave, but rest did not help. Clare became unrecognizable
from her cheerful self. She was a fastidiously clean woman, and yet she was thrown
out of her apartment because the stink attracted a plague of rats. When she next
crossed my path, she was being wrestled to the floor by security men at the end of
the ward in my clinic. She’d broken in brandishing a fire ax.”
“Bloody hell!” Simon held the chocolate digestive an inch from his open
mouth, but as Richard’s purport hit him, his appetite vanished.
He placed the biscuit back down. “But how can Clare’s breakdown have
anything to do with you?
It makes no sense.”
“It makes every sense.” The lines on Richard’s brow deepened with each
syllable.
“Don’t you see? My dabbling in magic let something loose that should not be
in this world. It entered
her.
She’d
been
so
completely
transformed, her family gave up on the power of modern medicine and
called in a priest, who exorcised a demon from her soul. A demon! She nearly died.”
Aubrey remained eerily calm. “But she didn’t die. She was all right?”
“It turned out a close-run thing, but yes, she lived and is now happily married
with three children, thank the stars and heavens, though I still blame myself for her
suffering.”
“You weren’t to know.” Simon imbued his smile with sympathy.
“No, but that infernal spirit could have taken any of a dozen medics I’d
encountered or visitors to the Stones. It cannot be coincidence it chose to punish
the single being my heart stretched out to.
Clare was such a sweet girl and reminded me of a very dear cousin. I don’t
doubt the same foul force would have seized upon a soul much closer to me, had I
ventured back to our time. I would never run such a risk again.”
“Not even to save Tobias Holland?”
Aubrey’s voice sounded as sharp as a blade and seemed to cut Richard as if
it were.
“I have not heard that name in a very long time.” Richard ran his hand over
his eyes but then gathered himself. “There is a strong part of me that would wish to
save Tobias even now. But they’re all dead, aren’t they? Everyone we knew. And
we’re only here by the grace of the Ancestors.”
Simon’s irritation with Aubrey grew by the second. The stakes were soaring
intolerably high, but Aubrey appeared more set on playing the hero for Rufus and
his friends than ever. And he was being impolite. A million miles from the soggy,
lovable wreck Simon had rescued from the Stones, or even the assured lover Simon
had spent the fortnight with. Aubrey glared at Richard as if the older man were the
spawn of the devil.
“I will admit,” continued Richard, unabashed, “when I first arrived here, I
wished I’d been able to act quickly and return, but what could I do? I was kept
under supervision for months. I was in such a state I could not even recall which
days the sun rose behind one of the Stones, let alone bring myself to perform such
an act out in a world that terrified me.” He placed his hand on the first volume of
instructions. “You see, having read this, Rufus told me how the ritual could always be
reversed within the day of arrival, sending the traveler back home from wherever
he’s arrived, whatever distance into the future or past. But even if a solo traveler
can make an initial journey through time alone, the text makes it clear that the trip
home can only be performed with two complicit partners.” He shook his head sadly.
“Thing was, I didn’t care at the time about getting back. I just wanted to save
Tobias. However, now I know about the solo banishment ritual, this rule makes every
sense. I suppose it was to ensure that the condemned souls were stranded for good.
After all, what kind of fool would lie willingly with a stranger?”
Simon narrowed his eyes, suspicion kindling.
That first morning they’d met, Aubrey had tried to show him a ritual, acting on
their initial chemistry. If Rufus and Richard had known about the quick reversal from
volume one, then so would Aubrey.
But no, surely Aubrey wouldn’t drag somebody three hundred and sixty-five
years into the past without as much as a warning.
Aubrey’s features remained masklike, and Simon’s gut told him his
companion’s memory had also segued back to that first morning at the Stones.
He hitched his lip in a snarl. No wonder the man had been in a strange mood
today. Aubrey had no doubt been hoping they’d get out of there before Richard
let that little fact slip.
“I don’t know,” said Simon coolly. “What kind of fool?”
Chapter Nine
They drove some distance in silence. Aubrey periodically wiped condensation
from his window so he could brood at the horizon. When a half hour had passed,
Simon could stand it no longer. He opened the window of the car a crack,
breathed in the fresh, moist air of the open forestlands, and finally found his voice.
“You tried to trick me, didn’t you? When you first met me at the Stones. You
were trying to fuck me to reverse the ritual and drag us both back in time.”
“I was desperate.”
He didn’t dare meet Aubrey’s eye. He rarely lost his temper, but he edged
close now. Aubrey hadn’t even apologized. Simon’s hands trembled on the steering
wheel, and it was an effort to concentrate on the road. He managed to eke tight
words from between gritted teeth. “So…you basically lied to try and get what you
want. What else have you lied about?”
“Not much.”
“Not much?” Simon raked his fingers back through his hair. “Any specifics?”
“The release of something unholy is always a risk when one dabbles in ancient
magic. You must have known that too.”
“No, I didn’t, to be honest. It’s hardly my specialist subject.” Richard’s story
about the nurse sickened him. “I was the first person who was kind to you when you
arrived at the Stones. I guess I’m bloody lucky I wasn’t possessed by some evil spirit
or other you unleashed.”
Aubrey shrugged. “You were spared because the Ancestors must have
blessed my journey. But I would defend you, Simon. You know I would never let
anybody hurt you.”
Aubrey’s words grated like a broken record.
“Yeah, like you wouldn’t haul me back into the middle of a dangerous war
zone, where I’m likely to be tortured to death for just looking at the Stones, or to die
of plague or the pox or toothache!
How am I supposed to trust you anymore?”
“Same reason you always did. You know I care. I’ve demonstrated that, have
I not?”
Oh yeah. The sex. Simon had spent most of the time since they’d met with his
legs spread or a boner between them. Aubrey knew every inch of his body and a
fair bit about his life. While Aubrey had told him much about his times and a little
about his family and loves, Simon realized he didn’t know the man at all. He didn’t
understand what Aubrey really wanted—except fucking and getting home.
“We shag, we research, you tell me stories, and I make notes. We don’t talk.
Not about the things that matter, anyway. You still haven’t told me what actually
happened to your friends. And who are these friends? You’ve told me about this
leader guy, Rufus. Apart from him, you always change the subject.”
“All you have to know is that I have no choice. I have to go back and help
them.”
“You keep saying this, but how, exactly?
Remember, after you get back three hundred and sixty-five years, you’ll still
have to get back another three hundred and sixty-five days to make a difference.”
They’d discussed this before, and Aubrey’s answer remained the same as
always. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Simon felt like thudding his head against the wheel. Instead he jammed his
foot down on the accelerator and steered into the fast lane. “I know it sounds like a
clich —well, it is in this day and age—but sometimes you just have to let things go.”
é
“Never.” As they sped up to sixty-five miles per hour, Aubrey clutched the
edges of his seat, but his placid expression didn’t waver. “I can’t. You know that.”
“Look, we all lose people, sometimes in ways that hurt like hell, that are not
fair. My mum died when she was thirty-three, and my dad never smiled again. Well,
not at me. That wasn’t fair.
And look at Richard. He’s learned to live with it, not least because he knows
that messing with time and magic is just too risky. Can’t you just let it be?
Stay here?”
With me.
“No,” said Aubrey. “I have to go, and I beg from the bottom of my heart that
you will come with me. I’ll find some way to get you back to your home. I give you
my word.”
“Yeah? And who pays by getting their brains hijacked by some ghoul from the
dark side?”
Aubrey said nothing.
“Look, maybe we got lucky this time, but I’m not messing with that kind of
magic. No way.”
Though he expected less and less to be any roaming demon’s prime target.
Aubrey’s past was well populated with those he valued more than Simon.
Still no answer.
The conversation was far from over, but for now he let things drop. The time
traveler stared out at the scrubby gorse as they sped by, murmuring at the clusters
of wild ponies huddled together under the pink dusk. Simon threw his aggression into
his driving, frustration boiling hotter when they had to slow down to queue into the
city. Night had fallen, and he became irritated by the twinkle of yet more Christmas
lights in the windows of shops and front parlors.
Bloody Christmas, racing toward him like a juggernaut on the wrong side of
the road.
His dad hadn’t been in touch for months, could be on the other side of the
world on business for all he knew. Dinh didn’t really celebrate Christmas but would
no doubt spend the day with his girlfriend. So Simon would be alone. Again.
And yeah, it was just a day, and he was a kid to make so much of it, but…
Fuck it. Everyone else had people to go to, family to spend time with. Or at least
somebody who’d sodding call them.
His eyes welled up, and he wiped his face with his sleeve, studiously avoiding
looking at Aubrey. What the hell would he care? He’d made his priorities clear
enough for Simon to dismiss all those looks and touches—the endless sex—as no
more than tools to get his way. It was blatant he didn’t mind that he hurt Simon in
order to save the friends he loved. Hell, Simon had executed most of Aubrey’s
propaganda campaign for him. He’d imagined this guy from nearly the start as
some sort of heroic, self-sacrificing Time Lord.
Maybe the man was just a stubborn, pigheaded bastard.
Rather than heading home, Simon took the fork down to the university on
reflex, since they were booked in again tonight. By the time he parked his car in
front of one of the many crumbling Victorian terraces that served as student digs
nearby, it was nearly seven o’clock. All the undergraduates had headed home for
the holidays.
No lights shone in the windows, and the pavements were deserted.
What the heck had he come here for? No way did he feel like putting out, let
alone partaking in the medieval insertion kink that was next on their “to do” list.
“I’m not in the mood for this tonight.”
Aubrey kept his lips buttoned.
“I better pop in. Tell Layla not to keep things open later for us. Maybe she’ll
want an early night too.”
Aubrey glowered up the dark street ahead of them.
Simon’s temper finally snapped. “Fuck you!
Don’t talk to me, then.”
He climbed out and slammed the door, irritated when Aubrey got out and
followed. After locking the car with a bleep of his remote, Simon ruffled his hair and
upped his pace. He was glad there was little traffic around, because he really didn’t
want to have to dash back and make sure Aubrey didn’t step in front of a bus—
and, sod it, he’d had enough of being the bastard’s minder.
There had been some good things in his life before Aubrey flipped it upside
down. On Christmas day Simon would bloody well enjoy himself on his own. He’d
work and drink wine, though maybe he’d stay off the red, particularly that
expensive claret, because it tended to make him maudlin.
In the lobby of the library, Layla had just come on shift. On a tiny, plastic
Christmas tree on the issue desk, she arranged sparkling pink baubles. Despite his
mood, Simon fought a smile.
The girl was obsessed with the color. Well, that and Gothic black.
She twisted to face him, spotting Aubrey lingering at his shoulder. “You two
okay?”
“Yes, we’re fine.” Layla’s mystification only intensified, and Simon realized
neither he nor the time traveler could be much good at disguising their true state.
“We won’t be in the archive tonight.”
“Oh. That’s a shame. Will you be coming back over the next week at all?”
“Yes,” replied Aubrey with a swiftness that exacerbated Simon’s indignation
and made him roll his eyes.
Layla swung a bauble by its string, then snatched it off, rattling it. “Simon,
Aubrey, I’m going to have to come clean.”
He felt his color drain away, and grabbed her sleeve. “Oh God! Have I been
barred or something? Or, fuck, did they find out about you letting Aubrey in, and
now you’re in trouble? Shit!
I’m really sorry.”
After placing down the bauble, Layla patted his hand. “It’s not that bad, not
really. It’s just…
I’m off for the whole of the next fortnight.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Eh? Isn’t that a good thing? Though you could have told
us before.
Who’s going to let us in?”
“Well, that’s the thing, you see.” Layla’s cheeks were flushing, coordinating
with the baubles and her hair. “My aunt in New Zealand came into a bit of money,
and she called out of the blue first thing this morning. She’s invited me out to spend
Christmas on the beach with her, flying business class all the way Down Under. How
could I refuse? Anyway, Rogers is going to call in a replacement for me, and I’ve
arranged for a temporary pass for Aubrey. But…” She trailed off and picked at her
black nail polish.
“I really don’t see what the problem is,” he said.
“Oh fuck!” Layla threw her head back and groaned. “The cameras in the
special collections reading room, that’s the problem. The tiny little fiber optics
equipment between the bookshelves that we’ve been trialing for the electrical
engineering department.”
His stomach flipped. “What?”
“I should have told you, but…well, it hardly mattered, and then, oh God, that
first night, I watched you. You two were so hot together.”
“What?”
His legs felt odd, like his knees were made of jelly, and he clutched the edge
of the issue desk.
She couldn’t be telling him this. Surely not.
She couldn’t have been watching them all this time.
“Don’t worry,” she added, offering an edgy smile. “Because it’s a science
experiment and not official security, it was me looking over the recordings, and I’ve
made sure nobody else got their hands on the files.” She must have read the signs
of Simon’s retreat into a black hole of doom.
Her chirpy tone wavered. “Look, I’ll wipe them and replace them with blanks.
Nobody will know what you’ve been doing save me. I promise.”
“You’ve been watching us.” It was all he could bring himself to say. He looked
at Aubrey, who seemed calm as ever, no doubt not quite comprehending; then he
stared back at Layla, peeling black varnish.
“I’ll wipe them,” she vowed. “But I had to tell you, didn’t I? My replacement
might not be so understanding.”
Simon rattled out a joyless laugh, but when Aubrey squeezed his shoulder, he
stepped away.
“I’m out of here,” he said. “I guess I should thank you, Layla. I needed
something to make me see sense.”
He ran. He passed through the swinging doors, night air cooling his burning
face. How the fuck had his life come to this? He’d been degraded body and soul
for a man who’d lied to him, somebody he barely knew. Aubrey was using him for
the sex and would leave him in a flash.
The university Christmas tree rearing up ahead of him triggered an idea. Every
year the stupid thing appeared on the concrete forecourt in front of the library,
reaching as high as the building, dotted with merry white lights. This travesty always
got funding, even when the university budget for books was slashed to near nothing.
Tonight it proved the final straw.
He had plenty of savings. His dad mightn’t be an affectionate man, but he
never let Simon go without. If Layla could just take off, why couldn’t he? He’d pack
tonight, head to Heathrow in the morning, and buy the first ticket to wherever he
fancied, spend Christmas on the road.
Anywhere but New Zealand. No way was he going to risk sharing a twenty-
four-hour flight with a woman who’d gotten off on watching his arse being
whipped.
And where was Aubrey anyway? Wasn’t he even going to come after him?
Maybe he was trying to charm Layla into staying in the UK and lying for him on the
Solstice Stone. Simon would text her tonight, just in case. Warn her off.
Simon was sprinting down a deserted student street when he finally detected
footsteps following him. He sped up. Aubrey could use those long legs to bloody well
run.
But it wasn’t Aubrey’s voice he heard calling his name. The flat London tone
was familiar.
“Pete?” He turned.
Pete stopped dead a couple of yards off, lingering at the cusp of a lamppost
beam. He looked a mess. His clothes were dirty and disheveled, and his stubble had
sprouted into a patchy beard.
“You okay?”
“I’m good now,” said Pete, wheezing like he’d run a marathon. “I’ve finally
got you alone.
Three weeks I’ve been waiting for this moment.
Three weeks.”
Simon groaned inwardly. Maybe another time he’d be pleased about this, but
he really wasn’t in the right frame of mind. “Why? I’m sorry you’ve had a hard time,
but you could have e-mailed or texted if you needed to talk to me this badly.”
Pete edged under the bright ring of lamplight.
Simon stole back, suddenly regretting not paying to park nearer the library.
Something about his ex seemed far from right. The light reflected bright blue in
Pete’s eyes, as if Christmas bulbs shone out of his sockets. But as he stepped away
from the lamp into the darkness of the evening, the glow didn’t fade. In fact, his
eyes seemed to burn brighter. That didn’t seem natural.
Oh fuck.
Realization hit Simon with a dull thud. Pete had followed him to the Stones the
morning he’d found Aubrey. Aubrey’s messing about, like Richard’s, had released
something. And that something had found Pete.
“I need you.” Pete scratched through his greasy hair.
At least he seemed calm. For now. Simon wondered how long it had taken
that nurse to progress from scatty bedpan-dropper to all-out psycho, and frantically
grasped for a plan. Who should he call? A priest? Buffy the sodding Vampire Slayer?
“I’ll meet you at the pub,” he said, seizing a location that would send Pete in
the opposite direction, albeit briefly. “The Drum Arms, at the end of your street. I’ve…
uh, just got to get something from the car first. Okay?”
“I can give you anything you need, Simon.
Everything.”
He raised a hand as the man drew closer, forcing a smile. “Hold that thought.
I’ll be ten minutes. Promise.”
He jogged away as quickly as he dared, pulling his mobile out of his pocket to
word a text to Dinh, who never answered a call. He wished he’d gotten around to
buying Aubrey a phone, though seeing as they’d hardly been parted the past few
weeks, there had seemed little point—till this moment, and now he felt angrier with
the man than ever. He was scared, his fingers stiff with a blend of cold and fear that
made operating the touch screen a nightmare. Above all he wanted to yell at
Aubrey about the mess the man had caused, the lives he was ruining. Pete might
be a total git, but he didn’t deserve this.
Once he’d turned a corner, Simon leaned against the end house to regain his
breath and send the message, hoping it wasn’t too cryptic. The Drum Arms, ASAP.
No show, find Aubrey. Pete demon!
A shadowy figure rounded into sight, just yards off. He shoved the phone in his
pocket and edged backward. “Pete? Is that you again?”
It was Pete, all right. Simon knew his lanky frame. His ex hesitated at the
corner.
“Meet me in a little bit. Like I said, right?”
He spoke slowly, as if to a child. “At the pub. I’ll buy you a pint. It will be great
to catch up. Really looking forward to it.”
“Simon,” said Pete, eerily calm. “I told you. I need you. Now.”
Simon knew he had to run like the wind then, shout out, do anything. Pete
moved preternaturally fast. Simon had scarcely taken a step, still drawing the air into
his lungs to scream, when Pete grabbed him by the coat, spun him around, and
buried a fist in his stomach.
Gasping, Simon sagged to his knees, his astonishment almost as mortifying as
the cramping pain. He’d never been hit before. From the groan of agony emitted
by Pete, he guessed his ex was new to this business too. But fuck, it hurt too much to
care. Palms hitting the pavement, he slumped forward. The next blow, a sharp clip
to the back of his head, had him kissing the cold concrete, grit grazing his cheek.
Writhing on the ground, he possessed no power to resist when Pete stuffed a
handkerchief smelling of chemicals over his mouth and nose.
His last vague thoughts concerned how he should curse Aubrey to hell.
This was the time traveler’s fault.
But he couldn’t. Right now all he wanted was for Aubrey to make good on
those promises to protect him.
So he cursed Pete instead.
Chapter Ten
When Simon came around, the discomfort in his shoulders hit him first, followed
by the tight burn of rope about his wrists. Then the smell impacted, a foul blend of
damp and moldering food and… Oh God, his head hurt like elastic bands had
been twisted about his brains, his neck aching too from the uncomfortable way
he’d drooped sideways, supported only by his hands tied above him. Shivers
streaked through him; his captor had stripped his shirt from his back.
He didn’t need to wonder if he was dreaming.
His possessed ex-boyfriend had kidnapped him.
Just the kind of insanity his life had become.
Experience didn’t diminish the terror that jackknifed in his belly. It took several
moments of gathering courage to force an eyelid up.
To his surprise he found himself in Pete’s home. The stink had made him
wonder if he’d been dragged to some derelict warehouse. Piles of dirty clothes,
polystyrene junk-food containers, empty liquor bottles, and bones—he hoped to hell
they were animal ones—littered what had once been Pete’s spotless living room in
his mock Tudor semidetached pad. Pete had tethered Simon beneath a polished
beam. All but one of the lightbulbs had been smashed, and the windows had been
boarded up from the inside. Pete’s beloved multideck stereo sported a crack across
the record deck on which a speck used to be enough to set him running for a
duster.
Simon’s ex had been more than possessed.
The finicky guy he’d dated for a year had been pummeled from existence,
though a brief tug at his bonds indicated that Pete hadn’t forgotten how to tie any
of his Boy Scout knots. If Simon had to inhale the fetid air in this place any longer, he
really would retch. Time to get shouting and pray the neighbors were in.
“Help me! Somebody! Please! Anybody?”
The door swung open, and Pete stepped into the room. His black shirt was
drenched with sweat. He held a large wooden-handled kitchen knife, the steel
blade gleaming nearly as bright as his cerulean eyes. Fear closed Simon’s throat. This
really couldn’t be happening.
Pete launched across the soiled carpet and kicked an empty can from his
path. He cast his knife down on the broken stereo before slamming his hand over
Simon’s mouth.
“Please, don’t shout.” The glow in Pete’s eyes diminished a little. The man’s
hoarse words sounded almost as frantic as Simon felt. He inhaled the stench of
grease that clotted Pete’s hair. “I don’t want to do this. I never wanted to do this.
But it’s the voices in my head. I have to.”
Pete slid his hand from Simon’s lips to back away and pick up the knife again,
scowling at the blade. Simon wanted to yell, knew it might be his last chance, but
fright struck him rigid. He realized he’d nearly stopped breathing when he tried to
talk and could produce only a husky whisper.
“Pete, you’re in there somewhere, right?
Don’t do this. I know we argued, but there were good times too. We had
some fun together. Please don’t kill me.”
“I don’t want to.” Pete grabbed Simon’s jaw.
He jammed his face in close, sweat trickling from the end of his long nose
onto Simon’s parched lips.
For a split second Simon caught a shred of bemusement in Pete’s eyes. Then
the man’s expression contorted into an effigy of contempt, his gaze hard as
sapphire.
“But I have to! I would have taken you at the Stones.
But she was looking over you. She protected you.”
“Wh-who?” Simon couldn’t cope with anything cryptic. Pete squeezed so tight
he feared his jaw might break. But the truth filtered through somehow. Gran must
have been there. His guardian angel had protected him. In other circumstances the
revelation would have been sweet.
“She couldn’t let you be alone.” Pete hissed.
“So I will take you from him this way.”
“F-from Aubrey?” Simon forced out stifled words, struggling to recall what had
happened with Richard and the nurse. The old man was convinced that Clare had
been taken because he’d had warm feelings toward her. She’d reminded him of a
beloved cousin. Now this creature was going to kill him to get at Aubrey. Despite his
tattered wits, Simon couldn’t miss the irony. “He doesn’t give a fuck.”
His words had no impact. Pete forced his mouth wide apart, crushing a sticky
palm against his neck and almost choking him in the process.
Simon saw a flash of lurid green. A thick, tendril-like tongue spewed from
between Pete’s lips and thrashed from side to side like an angered snake.
The scaly appendage crammed into Simon’s mouth, plunging its wispy head
toward his throat.
Forced to gag, he struggled to breathe through his nose. The intrusion in his
throat caused bloodcurdling suction, as if his insides were about to be tugged out.
He gave a last yank against his bonds, then fell limp. The scrubbing movement of
the demon’s tongue was like sandpaper against his tender flesh. His chest burned.
The acrid taste set bile surging from his stomach. All he could do was endure. Oh
God, all this for Aubrey.
If he loves me, he’ll move heaven and earth.
I know he will. He’s a stubborn, pigheaded bastard.
Simon clung to hope, but the truth, whatever it was, couldn’t help him now. In
a rush that made him retch anew, Pete withdrew. In Pete’s grinning face, his usually
perfect white teeth were browned with dirt. He slithered the tip of his green tongue
along his shining, wet lips, reached for the knife, and touched the icy tip against
Simon’s bare chest.
Simon tried to hold still, but hysteria had him in its thrall, and he trembled. Pete
trailed the blade lower and lower, nicking his skin almost playfully, not deep enough
to draw blood.
When Pete reached Simon’s groin, he smiled.
With three flicks of his wrist, he lopped off the buttons from Simon’s jeans and
then tore them down as far as his thighs. Simon whimpered with pure horror, feeling
the cold steel through the thin fabric of his underpants. Then Pete slipped behind
him and clasped Simon’s hips—but the fingers were no longer Pete’s. Hawkish yellow
talons the length of daggers’ blades curled around Simon’s flesh.
Somewhere in the distance, Simon heard a shout. He stared, eyes unseeing,
into the dimly lit room. Pete applied a horrible pressure with his groin against Simon’s
backside, a rod as thick as Simon’s arm. Why was there thumping and shouting? It
just made his head hurt.
“Simon! Are you here?” A female shout penetrated his consciousness. A jolting
realization shook him. Layla? Could that really be Layla?
Pete roared; the tips of his barbed fingernails drew blood as they slipped
backward. Then he relinquished Simon, leaving him hanging. Simon yelled. Their
mingled cries still inundated the room when the door flew open, and Aubrey strode
in, his jaw and shoulders squared. He brandished a pike in one hand, a matchlock
pistol in the other.
Simon fixated on the time traveler’s face.
Should he tell Aubrey to back off? If Aubrey demonstrated the truth, that all his
loved ones were left in the past, maybe Simon and his ex would be saved. But
Aubrey displayed a furious resolution that would grind all in its path to dust.
Unable to find his voice, Simon heaved a wry, mirthless laugh. Aubrey dived
out of his line of vision, disappearing amid a cacophony of thumps and growls.
Layla burst through the door wielding a crucifix. Dinh followed, holding a cricket bat
and looking dazed.
From behind, the sickening crunch of metal against flesh was echoed by a
resounding silence.
Layla gasped, and then her shoulders bowed with relief. Simon closed his eyes.
Soon Aubrey wrapped his arms gently about Simon. His long hair brushed
Simon’s cheek, his deep musk overwhelming, quelling the bitter taste in Simon’s
mouth. In his sweet, low voice Aubrey said something, a reassurance, no doubt.
Simon didn’t comprehend. As he sagged against his Time Lord, the world felt nearly
all right.
* * * *
“At least you didn’t kill him,” said Simon to Aubrey as the man sank down
beside him. Clouting Pete over the head with a pistol had been preferable to
running him through with a pike.
Simon was already fighting gaudy worst-case scenarios in which they were all
hauled up for grievous bodily harm.
“I’m glad I did well,” said Aubrey softly.
“And I’m sorry.”
Sitting on the sofa back home, nursing a hot cup of tea, Simon hadn’t yet
stopped quivering. But since he’d calmed a little, Aubrey had ceased holding him,
no doubt fearing Simon would snap his head off.
The time traveler knew him quite well, though this tension between them was
killing him. He didn’t even know which of his sins Aubrey had just apologized for.
Once they were alone, Simon hoped one of them would pluck up the courage to
broach the incendiary topic of time travel. For now, though, he sipped but hardly
tasted his hot, sweet tea. The mildly concussed demon that Dinh and Aubrey had
secured in the vault below loomed large in his mind.
Layla had just left, grateful to be booked on a flight out of the UK first thing.
Once sure that Simon was okay, she’d driven off to return Aubrey’s weaponry to its
display cabinet and then to down a stiff drink to help with her packing.
Dinh, who rarely enjoyed alcohol, lingered in the kitchen, taking a shot of
Simon’s single malt whisky. He’d been pleased to take credit as a quick-thinking
hero when Simon didn’t show at the Drum Arms. Once the word demon had been
communicated to Aubrey at the library, the three of them had taken no chances
and headed straight over to Pete’s.
“I’m not sure there’s a field of physics that deals with demons, magic, that sort
of phenomena,” said Dinh, wandering into the living room clutching his half-empty
tumbler. “But seeing as we have the living proof stored in our vaults, I might just look
into it.”
Oh, if he’d even known the half of it. Dinh still believed Aubrey to be a role-
play freak.
“Do you want me to go looking for the cat?”
asked Dinh. “I’ve never heard Raffles yowl like that. Did you see the size of his
tail before he bolted?”
So cats detected possessed beings way before humans did. Good to note for
future reference.
Simon pulled a face. “Don’t worry about him. He enjoys a night prowl now
and then. He’ll be okay.”
And probably happier stalking the empty streets than shut in a house with a
demon.
Dinh headed upstairs. When they heard him turn the shower on, Aubrey
sighed heavily.
“I’m sorry about that first morning. Sorry from the bottom of my heart. Yes, I
was desperate and scared, but that’s no justification. I’ve wanted to tell you for
many days now. I just hoped that…
by this time…”
He resumed glowering into the fire.
“That by this time I’d agree to come with you anyway?”
Aubrey didn’t correct him.
“Look, it’s a terrifying prospect. You’ve got to see that. You’re asking me to go
back to a year when the Puritans banned Christmas and arrested anyone that
dared to have fun.” This specific notion almost appealed, though he shuddered to
consider what other freedoms would be stripped from him. He shook his head. “It
would put way fewer lives at risk if you just stayed.”
The time traveler buried a fist in the palm of his other hand, his knuckles as
white as when he and Simon had first hit the M3. “If you come back with me, I will
do all I can to get you home. But whatever happens, I will protect you. You mean a
thousand times more to me than any lover I’ve ever known. I’ll never want another.
If that thing had hurt you, I would have been broken. There will never be a repeat of
today. Never!”
“Whatever. I mean… Sorry, I can’t handle this now.” Simon squeezed the
bridge of his nose.
Aubrey’s admission that he was special ought to have kindled joy. But with
regards to leaving, the man hadn’t even tried to meet him halfway. “I’m scared
about Pete. We should call Richard in the morning. He could know who Clare’s
family found to perform the exorcism.”
“That might not be necessary. Richard’s tale was vexing me, so tonight I did a
little research into demonology at the library. From what I can gather, reversing the
ritual at the solstice ought to release Pete. Undoing a spell is an absolute process,
and thus the demon should be destroyed by my returning home.”
“Oh.”
That made some sense, and if the ritual was performed on the winter solstice,
Pete would be better before Christmas. If all went well, Pete’s family and boss would
know nothing more than he’d gone through a bad patch.
“But where does that get us?” asked Simon.
“If I—or somebody—goes with you, they’ll be stuck in the past. If we try and
get back, we’ll have the whole demon problem again…and… Oh God, let’s sort this
in the morning. I’m going to bed.”
As he rose, Aubrey caught his wrist.
Simon glared. “What?”
“Do you wish to be alone tonight?”
He considered telling the man to sleep on the sofa, but only for a second.
After the day he’d had, and with a possessed man locked in his basement, he
didn’t want to be by himself. Besides, there would be plenty of nights for solitude.
Once the lights were out and they were together under the covers, Simon
snuggled into Aubrey’s arms, musing on how right this still felt, despite the arguments,
despite everything. As he struggled to banish the day’s horrors, Aubrey held him
closer—and it worked. Simon wondered about Gran instead. Had she really been
looking over him on Thanksgiving? It sounded just the sort of thing she’d do. He
hoped she hadn’t been spying on them in the shower, though.
After a short while listening to Aubrey’s steady heartbeat, a sense of calm
overtook him and stilled the last of his trembling. His only memory of the day
remained the dilemma it raised. The thing that had taken Pete seemed to know the
depths
of Aubrey’s
heart,
and Aubrey’s
determination that they should stay together echoed his vows of affection.
Love, even? Yeah, right. So why was his Time Lord still so desperate to leave?
* * * *
Simon awoke well before dawn. He’d wriggled out of Aubrey’s embrace in his
sleep and was tempted to roll back against the man to snatch a bit more before
the troubles and bickering resumed. But after a few minutes his thoughts were in
uproar, and he knew rest would be impossible.
Aubrey wanted to go back to 1647 to save lives. The man was as noble as he
was obstinate, but something about his dour determination didn’t add up. Why was
Aubrey always so cagey about what had happened and who he wanted to save?
There was more to this; Simon felt sure of it.
Only when he’d reached the kitchen, a cup of milky coffee in hand, did the
possible solution strike. If Aubrey wasn’t going to tell him what happened, then
Aubrey was in for a shock. If anybody could find out about an obscure historical
happening, Simon could, and today would be the day.
After imbibing much caffeine and leaving food out for the cat, he scribbled a
note for Aubrey.
Gone to London. Pete needs to eat something—somehow! Then he pulled on
his winter coat, slipped out over the icy pavement to the car, and was parked at
the station in plenty of time for the eight o’clock train up to the capital.
At nearly ten he stood waiting at the front desk of the Thames University
Library, praying he’d be let in to the witch trials special collections. The archivist
looked up at him over a pair of spectacles balanced on the end of her snub nose.
A petite brunette, maybe a year or so older than Simon, she oozed self-assurance,
the kind of woman who usually terrified the hell out of him.
“It is most irregular to turn up without an appointment,” she told him and
flipped her hand.
He turned away, starting to panic. He’d no time to wheedle his way into this
archive. It was today or never.
Was he imagining things, or could she be staring at his arse?
Was the rest of him also as cute as Aubrey had led him to believe? Time to
put his charms to the test.
Turning back, Simon ruffled his fingers through his hair, then planted two palms
on the desk and offered his most dashing smile. “Please let me in. Pretty please?” He
ventured a wink. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Pretty please? Really? I didn’t think people actually used that line.” While
Simon wished the polished floor would swallow him up, the shards of ice about her
lips melted. She pushed her glasses up her nose and laughed. “But…seeing as
you’re a PhD student in a related area…I suppose I’ll see what I can do.”
Half an hour later the librarian, Sophie, returned with a folder of papers that
filled her arms. “This is everything I have from Wessex for the year 1647. You’re lucky
you’re not searching the few years prior. Otherwise you’d never get through in one
day. By this time the witch-hunter general had pushed his luck with all the torture
and hangings. He’d shocked too many movers and shakers, and the worst of the
persecution was dying down. Though there were still a few nasty cases.” She
dropped the heavy folder into Simon’s opened arms. “A few very nasty cases.”
He thanked her and hurried over to his reading desk. Time to get to work.
Several hours passed in a horrifying blur. He surveyed broadside after
broadside telling of trials and searches, of confessions elicited through starvation,
sleep deprivation, or near drowning, all told as if the persecutors were quite correct
to do what they must. Many of the accounts ended with the suspects being
hanged. He uncovered no mention of witchcraft detected in the villages
surrounding the Stones.
Till one of the last sheets.
The yellowing leaf caught his attention because, unlike the others, it didn’t
contain an account of a hanging. Above an engraving of a blazing pyre, the letters
shouted, FIVE WITCHES
BURNED!
Very few witches in England had been incinerated alive, but this time an
angry mob had taken control. As he read on, his heart seemed to gravitate to his
throat.
Five persons possessed of deluded minds were today burned at the stake in
the village of Waddington, Wessex, accused of devilish witchery at the monument
known as the Stones.
The condemned included Rufus Black, leader of the coven, and Helena Hill,
aged sixteen.
A prickle of horror seized the back of his neck and streaked down his spine.
Helena Hill. Aged sixteen.
Aubrey’s little sister. She had to be.
He’d never mentioned her, apart from that one incident with the doll, but now
the truth of the man’s every act veered into focus. Of course he’d never relented,
never wavered in his resolution.
Every stubborn look, every grimace of pain, every answer withheld started to
make sense. Saving his friends would have been a valid reason to fight, but Helena
was his little sister. He loved her.
What man wouldn’t move heaven and earth, take a thousand risks, to save
his family from such an awful fate?
Even give up a lover, however dear.
Or persuade that lover to make sacrifices too.
Simon flinched.
That Aubrey hadn’t told him about Helena niggled somewhat, but without
confronting the man, he kind of understood. That first day, Aubrey might have
tricked him but had never forced him into anything. The words, Hey, if you don’t let
me fuck you, my little sister burns, might well have constituted pressure. And
heavens, living with the knowledge that something could be done and thus must be
done would tear any man apart.
For a few minutes Simon stared into space as his path forward grew clear.
“He’s got to go back. And I’ll go with him.”
His mutterings earned a questioning look from Sophie at the desk. When he
focused again on the text, the ink swam as if the page were doused in water,
except he had no drink to spill, and the papers remained dry. He clamped a hand
over his mouth to smother a shout. He rubbed his eyes.
Could he be seeing things? Then the text settled, and he reread the
broadside.
WITCHES ESCAPE.
Waddington coven flees to the Americas.
He ought to be getting used to weird things happening. He still had to slump
back in his seat and gather himself. In simply making up his mind…he’d just altered
history. Did this prove Dinh’s quantum theory?
He didn’t care.
This wasn’t about him. Aubrey’s quest had never been about him. It had
always been about Helena. And if Simon had gained an amazing man in his life,
who was he to complain? All he had to decide now was whether he wanted to
keep him.
Then he did something that a month ago he’d never have dared. He
glanced at Sophie, making sure she was looking the other way, and folded up the
broadside and slipped it in his notebook.
“Thank you very much,” he said, handing the folder back at the desk.
“Was it worth the urgent trip?” she asked.
His grin broadened. “Yes. I believe it was. I learned a hell of a lot.”
* * * *
When Simon got off the train at Southampton, the air felt crisp, arctic cold for the
first time that winter, and his breath clouded on the air. He was just passing through
the ticket barrier, heart set on hurrying home, when his phone bleeped.
He read the message from Dinh, a reply to a request about Aubrey’s
whereabouts Simon had sent on the train. He’s gone out. Went for a walk in the
town center. Pete quiet, btw. Eyes normal, glaring and drinking tea.
Simon ran straight for the car and drove to the shopping mall. He didn’t care
how long it took to find the man. He had to be with him as soon as he could, not
least because Aubrey, despite having the brawn to subdue demons, could be easily
vanquished by the geography of a department store.
Simon felt a little like a dad worrying about his lost kid.
He rather liked it.
Eventually he spotted Aubrey on the upper floor of the retail complex,
standing in front of a card
shop
window
that
announced Happy
Christmas in flashing green and red lights. Aubrey wore a long black winter
coat, a pair of heavy black boots, and a woolly red scarf. Through the crowds,
Simon admired the man he had personally dressed from head to toe.
“Aubrey!”
The time traveler turned. Simon waved, then launched forward. He
sidestepped a mother and daughter loudly arguing about who carried the
weightiest bags, and then sprinted the rest of the way.
“Simon?” Aubrey seemed confused by Simon’s exuberance. “We need to talk.
I’ve been thinking.” From inside the card shop the tinny Christmas music grew
louder. He covered his ears, grimacing. “Though it’s hard to think in this noisy place,
and everybody is so fretful and angry.
If stacking your shelves with shiny things is the only point, I’m starting to
understand why the Puritans banned yuletide back home. What is Christmas all
about for you people?”
“Sometimes I forget.” Simon wrinkled his nose, apologetic without knowing
why. “But look, I’ve been thinking too, and—”
Aubrey raised a hand, a pain Simon understood all too well creeping across
his face like a storm cloud. “Please, there’s something I kept from you, something
that ails me greatly to speak of. I wanted to protect you, for you to come with me
of your own will, but now I realize how wrong—”
“It’s okay,” Simon interrupted. “I know about Helena. I went to find out about
it today. Even better, I think I’ve already changed it.”
Aubrey lifted his brows, stretching his eyes wide. “You know?”
Simon showed the man the paper, explaining all he’d discovered that day.
“As far as I can see, her death is already undone.”
Aubrey’s Adam’s apple quivered as he held tears in check. “None of them
deserved to die. But she was completely innocent, too young to even know the
ways of the Gildskipe. They wouldn’t listen. They… Oh, bless the Ancestors. This is all I
prayed for.”
“She was saved the moment I made up my mind,” said Simon, struggling not
to well up himself. “And I’m not changing it, Aubrey. Nothing in the world will stop
me from lying for you on the Solstice Stone. And if I have to stay with you back in
the past, I’ll stay. I don’t want to be without you.
I never want to be alone again.”
Oh God, did he really mean that? Aubrey gripped Simon’s shoulders, impaled
him to his depths with those sincere hazel eyes. Now understanding every nuance of
bleeding emotion beneath, Simon knew for sure he could never leave this guy.
“The notion of giving you up has been tearing me apart,” said Aubrey. “And
now I want to kiss you very badly, right this instant. Would you scold me for it?”
Simon laughed. “I don’t think so. In fact, it would be rather nice, but…”
Scooting a glance around, he pulled a face; an elderly couple was already looking
daggers their way. “I’m still not sure the general public have progressed as much as
you’d like over the past three hundred and sixty-five years. Anyway, I want you to
myself.”
From the shopping palace of shimmering steel and glass, they made their way
down to the ancient city wall, walking hand in hand beneath the gray stone of the
ruined castle.
Not letting his lover go, Simon drew to a halt when they reached the
Mayflower memorial, a tall stone obelisk with a model of a sailing ship above its
domed apex.
“’Tis grand,” said Aubrey, squeezing Simon’s hand.
“This is the very spot where the Pilgrim Fathers first set sail in 1620, bound for
Plymouth and then the New World. Only a few years after, your sister and friends
might have followed in their footsteps.” His stomach pitched. “Who knows? Maybe
we’ll end up sailing across the Atlantic on a boat…like…that.”
He felt great now, standing here with Aubrey, watching the well-lit vessels
bobbing on the petrol-black river before them. On the other hand, he once got
seasick on a car ferry between England and France. How would he fare crossing
the Atlantic on a tiny wooden vessel? Would he be able to take any toothpaste
back to 1647?
“I’ll bring you home,” vowed Aubrey, as if reading his mind. “I have good
friends who will do what is needed to go back and save Helena. All I need to do is
tell them how andaga really works, ensuring that they act fast to return to their
present to stop any demons wreaking havoc. I’ll bring us straight back here within
the day.”
“But we’ll release another demon. Somebody else will get hurt.”
“Maybe not.” Aubrey turned to face him.
“There is a way for you to go home.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I suppose I could perform the banishment ritual alone,
right?”
“No, not that. You’d still have demon trouble.”
“What then?” Simon’s heart sank and leaped at the same time. Was Aubrey
going to tell him they must for some reason part forever? In which case, why was he
smiling?
“I’ve been in the library today,” said Aubrey, “doing a little more of the
mundane variety of research, and I think we’re going to be all right.
Because I didn’t reverse the ritual within a day, we will have to tear time
anew, or open a new wormhole as Dinh calls it, at the solstice. Now, that ought to
release a fresh demon—”
“Oh God!”
“But don’t worry. It can’t. A spell that destroys a demon cannot release one.
Magic can’t work two ways at once or exercise a curse on the same users twice. I
suppose it’s a bit like nature’s double jeopardy.”
“Eh? How the hell do you know about double jeopardy?”
“CSI: Miami. Dinh and I caught another episode this morning. Great show,
though I think I prefer NCIS.”
Simon took the time traveler by his lapels and shook him gently. “There is no
way you belong in 1647 anymore. You’ll introduce forensic science three centuries
too soon.”
“CSI:
Waddington-on-Piddle ?”
Aubrey
grinned. “No, it doesn’t have quite the same ring. I think, though, if we can
tear time on the solstice without any trouble, we can also harmlessly perform the
reversal within twenty-four hours of our arrival in the past. That should nip my
historical sleuthing in the bud.”
“But what about your family? And Helena—don’t you want to see her again?”
Aubrey scanned the wide river, across the busy shipping lane to the inky
blackness of the forest beyond. “I will miss them,” he said. Simon tugged his time
traveler a little closer. “But what I fought for was for Helena to have as long and
happy a life as Mother Nature will allow and to find somebody to share it with. Being
parted will hurt, but I will survive, and so will they. Wherever I go, I know I can’t
survive without you.” He dipped his gaze to Simon, long lashes casting shadows
across his cheekbones. “Have I ever told you how much I adore your smile?”
Simon pulled Aubrey down and claimed his parting lips. The kiss was urgent,
exploratory, and electric in its intensity. At the base of the Mayflower obelisk, they
worked their union with bodies as well as mouths, grinding together as they heated
and hardened. Simon roamed his hands over the body he worshipped, and basked
in the confidence that Aubrey felt the same about him.
For the first time perfect understanding flowed with the molten passion
between them—and the unspoken knowledge of love.
Chapter Eleven
The winter solstice, 2012
Simon sat on the Solstice Stone, swinging his legs nervously. Aubrey had
rammed a ring of wooden torches into the earth between the altar-like centerpiece
and the Stones. He paced about the circle, lighting each.
The night had stayed dry so far. Stars pierced the sky, a sure sign of a frost,
though fading now as dawn approached. As smoke fizzled and flames rose, Simon
shivered. Torches would be necessary for warmth as well as the ritual, though they
rendered matters more risky. On a clear night like this, the fires would be seen right
across the landscape.
Aubrey
straightened,
rolling
back
his
shoulders. His eyes held a gleam of promise that set Simon squirming in a
good way but couldn’t subdue his qualms about the mission ahead.
“Ready?” asked Aubrey.
“Yes.” Simon bit his lip, detecting the throb of tension beneath his Time Lord’s
calm expression, and he couldn’t help feeling more and more twitchy. If he started
to think about how high the stakes were, how much rested on this trip…
Shit, would he be able to perform?
“May I ask what we’re going to do?”
Aubrey managed a wolfish grin. “I’m going to make you fly, Simon. To the
moon, the stars, and back again.”
“How?”
“You’ll see.” He took Simon’s hands. “In fact, everyone will see.”
“What do you mean?” Had Aubrey invited people to watch? Were they being
filmed again? It was unlikely anybody would come to the Stones at this hour, but
there was always a small chance they’d be caught.
The flutter of his heartbeat, the nerves coiling in his stomach, the creeping
fear. All stoked that fire of thrill and a twitch of Simon’s dick.
“You’re fucking teasing me.” He glared.
Aubrey arched a brow and stepped back to slide his thick wool cloak from his
shoulders.
Firelight glittered on his chest, rippling over tawny-gold hair, dark nipples, his
ripped stomach, and his lifting cock.
Simon threw himself flat on the Solstice Stone, arranging one arm above his
head so he posed like a salon whore, laughing toward the Milky Way. An
incredulous mix of terror and arousal rioted within him. All they had to do was have
awesome sex, not crack the Enigma code.
Okay, so a month ago Simon would have had more faith in himself performing
the latter, despite maths not being his subject. Times had changed. So he hoped.
After fastening a pack to his back—containing their clothes, cereal bars, and
a tube of toothpaste —Aubrey launched forward, climbing up over Simon on all
fours. Together they stripped Simon’s thick sweater off over his head. Then Aubrey
roamed warm hands across Simon’s smooth torso, and Simon’s erection soon
pressed against his jeans.
“Do we have to wait any longer?” He panted.
“Just fuck me now.”
In his pocket his phone vibrated and bleeped.
“Oh damn!”
After reluctantly rolling from under Aubrey, he retrieved it. Dinh’s name
flashed, and he blinked. “Have I got time to get this? He never calls or picks up,
always texts. It’s got to be an emergency.”
Aubrey thinned his lips in frustration but nodded. “Be quick.”
“Dinh, hi. Is it Pete? Has something gone wrong?”
It turned out Pete was fine; everything was, in fact, but Dinh had been having
a brainstorm.
“Okay, Simon. So I know that you and Aubrey are just performing some ritual
to free Pete, and all those chats about time travel we’ve had over the past few
weeks were entirely theoretical, but…”
Dinh broke off, and Simon wondered if his housemate might be more
perceptive than he’d imagined.
“But?” he prompted.
“Well, that discussion we had again last night about changing the course of
history. I should have mentioned quantum paradoxes.”
“Quantum what?”
“It’s what happens when time travelers get themselves in a situation where
they straddle two parallel time lines. Nobody quite knows what the effect would be,
but there’s speculation it might cause a black hole or the end of the universe.”
“Oh. Is that all, mate?”
“Yes,” said Dinh. “That’s all. Was I helpful in any way?”
After Dinh hung up, Simon stared blankly at his mobile.
“Was his news of import?” asked Aubrey.
“I don’t know.” Simon could barely wrap his brain around the magic, let alone
the physics. The instructions for andaga had been written down long ago, plus the
Stones were five thousand years old.
Surely if destroying the universe in this way was possible, somebody would
have done it already.
Becoming giddy thinking about it, he grabbed a swift inhalation of night air
and placed his faith in the Ancestors. “Oh, sod it. Where were we?”
His breaths came hard and fast as Aubrey resumed his position on top. They
yanked down Simon’s trousers together. Simon hardly felt the cold or even the solid
rock beneath. The ring of fire wrought by the torches pressed in, but it was Aubrey’s
scorching weight and heat that drew sweat from Simon’s brow.
The time traveler captured Simon’s lips with his own, and Simon’s nerves paled
further. He moaned against Aubrey, rolling his hips up, his whole body save his cock
turning liquid beneath the man’s touch. Nothing could undermine his need to be
fucked, the desire coursing through him like he was an animal in heat. Aubrey
showered kisses along his jaw, his throat, working down his body with hands and
mouth, rough palms skimming near his cock.
“Did you bring any of the whips?” Simon bit his lip, craving more powerful
sensations.
Aubrey’s hot breath on his groin set him writhing.
Aubrey merely laughed, drew back a little, and grabbed him. Then the world
flipped upside down. He found himself sprawled over Aubrey’s lap, his erection
jamming against the man’s thighs.
Aubrey stroked his arse once, gently, and then slapped down.
“Agh!” Simon cried out at the smarting pain.
“This wasn’t in the book!”
“Who needs the book?” Aubrey growled.
“I’ve worked out what will make you fly, Simon.
What makes us fly together.”
Aubrey spanked him hard, and he squirmed and rode with the blows, gulping
in the fire-tinged air like he already verged on an orgasm. His lover’s rough palm felt
just too good. Smoke and tears mixed till his vision clouded. Beyond the flames, he
discerned the Stones glowering, silently watching—as were generations of Ancestors,
for all he knew.
Was that what Aubrey referred to? The Ancients would watch him being
spanked? Horror flitted briefly but couldn’t force an objection from him. Endorphins
rushed, and his trust in Aubrey carried him past the point of no return.
By the time Aubrey ceased his ministrations, Simon’s cock wept. He could feel
the time traveler’s hardness digging into his ribs, though he scarcely processed the
information. His existence had been reduced to the places where Aubrey touched
him. Aubrey smoothed his simmering arse with balm-like strokes and then lifted and
eased him down flat on the stone. Only when Aubrey drew away, and Simon lay
with the rock soothing his tortured skin, did the vastness of the outside world strike
him anew. In a sky bleeding with light, whirling galaxies seemed close at hand, the
golden conflagration leaping and licking them. The silhouetted monoliths loomed
higher beyond, as if they too scraped the heavens.
Heck, he loved al fresco sex.
When Aubrey bound his wrists above his head, time and space homed in on
the pair of them.
Simon understood the meaning of perfection.
Stripped, bound, ready to be fucked hard, he could still watch the flecks of
orange fire dance in Aubrey’s eyes. The man gritted his teeth as if he held back a
flood tide of need, like he wanted to devour Simon. Simon strained to be consumed.
Beyond the torches and the monoliths, a pink light grew brighter.
The sun.
No time to waste.
Aubrey prepared him carefully but with haste, offering a muttered prayer to
the Ancestors. Simon begged with his body, lifting his legs. Aubrey grasped under his
knees and pressed them toward his shoulders, offering up his arse as an unprotected
sacrifice. Then he drove inside, the burn of their carnal union magnified by Aubrey’s
cry of delight. Driven by an urgency that inundated them both, Aubrey pumped
into him with just the level of roughness Simon craved. The friction against his
prostate and the scrub of flesh against his cock intensified that clenching need at
the base of his groin, as did Aubrey’s mounting pleasure inside him. The time
traveler’s lust was written in each line of blissful strain on his brow. Their rapture
mounted in sync.
Golden-red light gilded Aubrey’s hair and his angular features, signifying that
the sun was nudging above the horizon to the east. Simon would have tensed had
Aubrey not been fucking him so hard his eyes rolled up into his head and his inner
muscles clenched uncontrollably. Aubrey’s balls brushed against his burning
buttocks. Then Aubrey grasped his cock, igniting that sublime itch in his groin that
built and built, pushing him onto a plateau of ecstasy.
His need to orgasm snowballed, his inner channel kneading about Aubrey,
who shuddered inside him. That was only the start. Caught in a moment of searing
bliss that he would have happily drowned in, Simon wasn’t sure if he’d climaxed
already or still teetered on the brink. A wildfire swept his body, not just his arse and
cock but at every point where his flesh met Aubrey’s, nearly incinerating his brains. A
wild hurricane swirled within and without him. Even that could not pry Simon and
Aubrey apart, their flesh and souls sealed as one.
He could no longer tell if his eyes were open or shut or feel the stone that
supported them. All he could sense was Aubrey, the pleasures of fucking, and the
seismic rush of time. They flew through white clouds and blue skies, bursting into
someplace higher than the stars, where shining colors blinded. And they were not
alone.
Countless spectral voices sang out, unknowable beings veiled beyond the
realm of living senses.
He tried to speak to them. The words sounded like a blend of his and Aubrey’s
voices.
“Accept this sacrifice. Lift us up, and tear back time. Spin back three hundred
and sixty-five years, and bring us what we seek.”
The Ancestors gave no obvious answer, but he knew in his heart that at least
one of them smiled.
White light saturated his vision, a million times more dazzling than the flames.
The sensation of being fucked while wrenched in a thousand directions racked him
to the point of agony, though even the pain seemed sublime. A blast of energy tore
through him like the shock waves of a sonic boom. Then cold rock slammed up
beneath him, and he lay back on the Solstice Stone, loving the feel of Aubrey
pumping inside him and tugging his cock. They both shook violently, the slab under
them quaking too. His climax lingered on as Aubrey cried out and gave a
convulsive thrust. At the same instant Simon reached his ultimate rapture,
ejaculating across his heaving chest and Aubrey’s hand.
Somewhere amid his fading turmoil, he heard Aubrey’s voice, all the man’s
own again. “I love you,” he whispered. “And now everyone will know how much.”
Everyone?
Well, he supposed the countless Ancestors had just seen them. Who else?
More pertinently, had they succeeded?
His many worries edging back, Simon opened his eyes. The sun shone low in
the sky beyond the Stones. The flames were gone. Around him circled a dozen
strangers carrying torches, and all looked at Simon and Aubrey. A stout young man
dressed in breeches staggered backward, clutching a green hat to his head, his jaw
fallen lax. A woman with freckles, her torrents of ginger hair tumbling from a lace
cap, stared straight at Simon. Her admiring smile set him burning with pride. He might
cringe about this later, but he had a gorgeous man still buried deep in his “cute”
arse and couldn’t bring himself to complain. She could enjoy the sight as much as
she liked.
“Welcome to 1647,” whispered Aubrey, panting heavily. “I knew they’d be
waiting.”
The adoration in his Time Lord’s eyes was enough to make Simon want to
make love all over again, right there, right then.
But they had important work to do.
* * * *
Simon knelt on the little wooden stall, staring out the farmhouse window and
up the hill toward the Stones, his fist bunched beneath his chin.
On this spot, in exactly three hundred and sixty-five years, he’d park his car.
Now he waited in a room whose future rubble he had excavated, though he
wondered about the state of the cottage.
Aubrey had spun him tales of this place as the linchpin of his family. In winter
a fire always blazed in front of the grate in the inglenook, the floor strewn regularly
with fresh reeds. Though furniture had been sparse, furs and blankets created cozy
corners in which to rest. At yuletide the beams were hung with mistletoe and holly.
Aubrey’s mother had been a constant presence in the shack, preparing
minced pie and mutton and stirring the wassail bowl several days in advance.
Aubrey had hoped she’d be there; he’d wanted to say good-bye, and Simon
had been keen to meet her too.
This
empty
shell
blasted
both
their
expectations and could not be explained by the Puritans’ ban on festivities,
which Aubrey swore his family would defy. The soot-blackened hearth hadn’t been
lit in a long while, and rat droppings littered dirty, damp straw. The house felt as cold
on the inside as out, wind whistling down the chimney and swirling the dust. It would
be enough to make Simon’s head spin, had he not been burning up with frustration.
Aubrey had been adamant Simon should interact with his friends as little as
possible, something Simon could hardly contest, given Dinh’s warning. So Aubrey
had bundled him off to the farmhouse to wait, increasing his irritation that he
couldn’t capitalize on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to wander through the past
for real.
He nearly jumped with joy when at length Aubrey trudged back down the hill
through the barren soils of the abandoned farmland. As Simon’s cotraveler
approached the cottage, however, he staggered as if in pain and clutched his
head in his hands.
“What is it?” Simon clung to the empty door frame, leaning out. “Don’t tell me
something’s gone wrong again. We are in the right year?”
“Oh yes.” Seeing Simon, Aubrey managed a weak smile. “Ah, I feel better for
the sight of you.
At least you’re the same. Because nothing else is, Simon. The sooner we get
out of here, the better.”
He drew Simon over to the hearth, sweeping the large cloak he wore about
the two of them to shut out the bitter gale. After kicking the worst of the dirt from
the floor, they settled down together.
“Everything’s already changed,” explained Aubrey. “My friends tell me that
my family have fled. My mother and father took my sister, and they left with all the
others of our circle who were harmed. They were warned beforehand, and they’re
long gone. Of course, I’m overjoyed, but…”
He looked sadly about the empty cottage.
“I’m sorry,” said Simon.
“So am I,” whispered Aubrey. “There’s nothing left for me here, and my friends
are…
Agh!” He flinched as if a whip had cracked across his cheek.
“What is it?” Hissing at the man’s obvious pain, Simon reached up and rubbed
his temples.
Aubrey groaned. “I don’t know. Trying to understand what’s going on in this
new time line we’ve created is making my head hurt. My friends had already
received instruction of what to do f r o m themselves in the past. And I have no
recollection of Helena’s death anymore, which is a mercy, but my memories have
become a strange blur.”
Simon remained composed. He offered Aubrey a comforting smile and
continued massaging him. “I think you are caught somewhere between two parallel
universes. Dinh called it a quantum paradox. Hopefully it will settle in a bit.”
Either that, or the world was about to end. It was time to turn hysterical and
beg forgiveness of every deity he could think of, or…
“Maybe it would help if I took your mind off things?”
Aubrey arched his scarred brow. “Indeed.”
Gripping Aubrey’s shoulders, Simon pushed him down onto his back. It was his
turn to climb up over the man’s body, arching on all fours.
“Lie down and relax.” He kissed Aubrey’s throat, then worked down his body,
nuzzling every groove and contour of his flesh. “I’m going to make you feel so good
you won’t even notice the black hole eating us when we accidentally implode the
cosmos.”
“I don’t understand.” Aubrey gasped, then sighed. Simon wrapped his lips
about Aubrey’s cock and started blowing his lover’s mind the best way he knew.
* * * *
The universe didn’t end.
Simon and Aubrey performed andaga one more time, this time with Simon on
top. As when they’d practiced this way—an experiment that had gone much better
than he’d expected—he fucked Aubrey slow and sweet. Aubrey hugged tight
about Simon’s neck right till the moment of rapture, when the stars shattered
overhead and their hearts rushed as one.
No sign of the winter sun remained when they slammed back into 2012. Rain
hammered into Simon’s face, ice-cold rods that drenched every part of his skin not
pressed flush against Aubrey.
Enough to kill anybody’s passion. Simon laughed down at his lover. Water
dripped from his brow and plastered Aubrey’s hair in wet tendrils to his forehead.
Just like when they’d first met.
“Come on.” Simon smiled. The muscles in his face were finally getting used to
that position.
“I’ve had enough of this place. Let’s go home.”
Epilogue
Yuletide 2012
Simon lay down on the sofa in front of Aubrey and stuffed another chocolate
into his mouth. Above them, multicolored streamers crisscrossed the ceiling. In the
window a real Christmas tree that Aubrey had hauled back from the forest blazed
with lights. Used to large family yuletide celebrations, Aubrey had embraced the
idea of an indoor pine, new to him, and gone a little over the top with the festive
adornments.
While expressing distaste, Simon inwardly loved it, though he could have done
without. He had everything he needed for the perfect day right on this sofa. Even
Raffles had taken to his new favorite spot, sprawled along Aubrey’s legs and purring.
“Your cat is getting heavier by the day, I swear,” complained Aubrey.
Simon clutched his belly, regretting the last sweet as he chewed and
swallowed. “If he’s eaten a fraction as much of your honey roast turkey as I have,
I’m not surprised.”
“Raffles eats better than we ever used to.”
Aubrey sighed. “I still think you should have let me stuff a crow and a suckling
pig inside the turkey.
You never make the most of your luxuries.”
Simon blessed him with an expression of exaggerated disgust. “A crow and a
suckling pig?
Don’t get me wrong, you’re a fantastic cook and better than I’ll ever be, but
you lot used to eat the most revolting things. God, I’m surprised you didn’t all die of
food poisoning.”
“Many did, I suppose. But…in our way, we were happy.” Aubrey’s chest shook
in a rueful laugh. “I’m happier now, though, Simon. I know Helena lived, and I feel in
my heart she lived well.
I did everything I could, and I asked for no reward.” He planted a lazy,
lingering kiss on Simon’s lips. “But I got one.”
Simon smoothed his mouth, reflecting on whether he had any right to feel as
content as he did. Pete had turned out okay. Harboring only vague recollections of
having behaved very badly over the past few weeks, Pete accepted Dinh’s story
about Simon rescuing him from the gutter after a weeklong alcohol binge and slunk
home to sleep. They’d received a text from Layla on the beach, and Dinh would be
eating Christmas lunch right now with his girlfriend and her parents.
Simon’s dad hadn’t called, but…
“Simon.” Aubrey clicked his fingers in front of Simon’s nose, snapping him back
to the present.
“You’ve gone all daydreamy on me again. What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing at all.” He meant it. “I just wish I hadn’t eaten so bloody much.”
Aubrey had just started rubbing Simon’s tummy when the phone rang. The
time traveler stilled, and Raffles jumped down, meowing.
“Might be your dad?”
Retrieving his mobile to look at the display, Simon pulled a face. Might well be.
It was an overseas number, nothing he recognized. He didn’t want to answer it, but
he braced himself.
“Hi?”
A female voice replied—his cousin Maria.
He let out a long sigh of relief. It felt great to hear from her, and she got to the
point quickly.
“About Thanksgiving, Simon. I feel I should have called, but I was going
through a bad breakup, and, you know… I felt so bad about not even getting in
touch that I was kind of scared you’d be cranky.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I was a bit down around then too, and I did wonder if
you’d call, but I didn’t want to pester.”
“We’re both bad, aren’t we?” Maria clicked her tongue, then chuckled. “Look,
let’s make a deal. From now on we stay in touch—for Gran. I think she’d have liked
that. And I’d like it too.
We’ve not got much family left, have we? Let’s make the most of what we’ve
got.”
“I totally agree.” He grinned, lacing his fingers with Aubrey’s. “Actually I’ve got
a bit of news for you. I’m with a new guy.”
A stab of regret hit him as soon as he spoke.
Maria had just mentioned she’d split with a guy.
He hoped he hadn’t been insensitive. Before he could start flustering or
backpedaling, she giggled.
“What a coincidence,” she said. “Me too.”
By the time he hung up, they’d made tentative arrangements to fly out to
New York to spend next Thanksgiving with Maria and her fianc .
é
“Won’t that be trouble with all the passports and papers I lack?” asked
Aubrey.
“Possibly. There’s a chance I could sort something.” Simon’s father didn’t ring
at Christmas, but he was rich, with friends in high places, and the kind of serious-
minded fellow who wouldn’t like his son to be living with a man devoid of an
identity. He might be prepared to bend a few rules to keep them on the straight
and narrow. The road ahead would not be pretty, but his dad might just care for
him deep down, in a strange sort of way.
Then again, maybe he was deluding himself.
Was that all part of being happy?
“Let’s not worry about that today.” He stretched his body in front of Aubrey
once more, interlocking their legs before Raffles could leap up from the rug in front
of the fire and reclaim territory. “Right now I want a nap. Or we could see what’s on
TV.”
Simon expected Aubrey to agree. He loved watching the box, especially his
favorite US crime shows, which often had him gripping Simon’s arm so hard he left
bruises. Instead Aubrey brushed his hand across Simon’s arse on the way to his
pocket.
As Simon frowned, curious, Aubrey presented a tiny silver parcel, about two
inches long and less than half an inch wide.
“What’s this?” asked Simon.
“Your gift. Come on. Open it.”
Simon unpeeled the foil wrapper and did a double take. “It’s a memory stick.”
“Yes, indeed.”
He rolled onto his back to gawk up at him.
“You’re from 1647, Aubrey. The last thing I expected from you was computer
equipment.”
“If it’s of any consolation, I have no idea how it works. But apparently the
magic of your technology means there’s a whole load of little moving pictures on
this to watch. It’s something Layla gave me.”
“Layla? What the hell… Oh!”
Aubrey’s smile grew feral, and Simon just knew.
The stick contained the video recordings from the library.
“She promised she’d wipe them!”
Aubrey shrugged. “This is the only copy left in the world, and I thought it was a
shame to destroy the record of our fun completely. And seeing as you’ve learned
you like to be watched a little…I wondered if you’d like to watch?”
Simon whistled. This wasn’t exactly what he’d planned for after-dinner
entertainment on Christmas day, but who was he to argue? He glowered at his
boyfriend, but Aubrey knew he disguised a smirk.
Besides, the prospect was hot. Damn hot.
He hugged Aubrey and kissed him. “It’s the best bloody Christmas present
ever, after you. But you know, my dinner’s going down okay now, and I don’t think
I’ll want to just look for too long.”
“Me neither.” Aubrey squeezed Simon’s backside. “Your twenty-first-century
technology can never compete with good old-fashioned sex.”
Loose Id Titles by Kay Berrisford
Catching Kit
Simon, Sex, and the Solstice Stone * * * *
The GREENWOOD Series
Bound for the Forest
Bound to the Beast
Kay Berrisford
Kay is a historian who realized it was even more entertaining to make stories
up and add a ton of fantasy, sex, and BDSM fun. She loves writing stories set in any
time and place where she can indulge her love for research while imagining two
hot guys getting it on, but she has a particular passion for English folklore.
She lives in Hampshire, UK, with her beloved ‘other half,’ Chris. When they
aren’t both madly working, they enjoy drinking wine, visiting castles and gorgeous
countryside, and stalking cats and greenfinches.
Links to reach Kay Berrisford: Main Web site: http://kayberrisford.com Table of
