50. KATIE
Chapter fifty
KATIE
I ’m not sure how long we lay together. But after a brief rest, the true purpose of this outing begins to nag at me. We are in search of a human Traveler–one who came from Earth. He could be the best resource in finding a way home. A throb of anxiety sparks in my chest.
I don’t want to get up. I want to stay with Loren on this quilt, in our little nest of sex and wildflowers. I want this moment to stretch out into infinity.
But that’s just the Omega biology talking. I shouldn’t have indulged it. God, Loren still feels so good, so warm and safe beside me.
“He’ll be waiting, won’t he?” I poke Loren’s chest. He nuzzles my neck, leaving a few light kisses under my earlobe.
“I told him the afternoon–I had hoped for some alone time with you on the picnic. But I didn’t know if it would, well…” he trails off, with a giddy grin. His blond hair falls into his eyes and I smooth it away.
“Well, we should get dressed–is there a place to shower or clean up? I am sure we smell like sex.” I wrinkle my nose. The last thing I need is to embarrass myself in front of the only other Earthling here.
Loren shakes his head. “Oh no you are not showering until Angus and our Packmates smell you.”
“What?” I ask, cringing. I don’t want to go hours without washing the sweat and other fluids off my skin. I’m not squeamish, but that is just gross.
“It’s an Alpha thing,” he says, standing and reaching down for my hand. “I need everyone else to know you're mine –to smell me on you.”
I gape at him and Loren laughs.
“Remember, scents are a key part of how we communicate here.” He taps me lightly on the nose.
Right. I shake my head. This weird new biology is going to take a lot of getting used to.
No. I don’t need to get used to it. I need to secure our way home. Right?
Angus might know a way. Angus might offer me the clue I need.
But what if he doesn’t?
I can’t think about that. Focus on the objective, on the mission at hand. The anxiety swells in my chest, a balloon of pressure tight against my ribcage.
Loren pulls a small bag from the basket and tosses me a clean pair of panties and bra, before winking.
“I thought we just might need a change of clothes.”
I narrow my eyes at him. The sneaky professor planned this little rendezvous, down to washcloths and a change of panties.
“Cheeky bastard.”
“I like to think of myself as well organized for all contingencies.”
Warmth blooms in my chest. This man speaks my love language.
No . I shake myself as I pull my rumpled shirt over my head. I can’t entertain these thoughts. I can’t let any of the feelings take root. I’m going home, damnit. I’m going back through the rip in time-space and I’m not staying here with him. With all my Alphas.
Unless there isn’t a way.
No, there is. Angus will tell me. Surely he will have some key to this puzzle.
I pull my jeans roughly up my hips, conscious of Loren watching me. When I glance over, his look is concerned, but I scowl before he speaks. His mouth snaps shut, and he only motions to the open car door.
“Shall we go?”
I nod, not trusting the words that might try to trip out if I speak.
These Omega hormones are a bitch.
Angus’s cabin is another thirty minutes farther outside the city than our picnic spot. There’s a small village, with a picture-book main street, complete with a Butcher, a Baker, and a Cheesemonger. There was even a storefront that specializes in different kinds of honey. I want to ask Loren about that, but my thoughts keep snagging on home.
Angus is going to tell me about going home.
Which makes my stomach sour.
Which is not a helpful feeling.
Angus’s cabin is eerily like the kinds of cabins we’d seen as kids in the mountains of North Georgia on the border of Tennessee: red tin roof, weathered brown wooden walls, gray stone chimney, front porch with twin rocking chairs and a wrap-around railing.
An older man in a pair of overalls waves at us as we park in the drive. He looks every bit the country farmer, but around his wrist is a thin silver wristlet that I know is a telephone of sorts.
“Dr. Bellrose, good to see you,” he says, with a clear lilt to his words. It’s much fainter than the period dramas I used to watch, but it’s clear. This man was born in Scotland.
“Angus, my friend, I told you to call me Loren.” He claps the man on the back, pulling him into a one armed hug. “This is my Omega, Katherine Wilder.” Loren waves an arm at me.
“How’dya do?” Angus says, looking me over. His nostrils flare, but he doesn't say a word.
“She’s from America,” Loren says, pronouncing the last word carefully, the syllables clearly foreign on his tongue.
Angus stills, looking me over again. “Is that so? A Yank in Amaata?”
“Not a Yank,” I say reflexively. “I’m from Georgia.”
“Ah, a southern belle,” he says.
“Katie and her sisters came through at Hal-Sequath Ridge–she wanted to learn more about how you ended up here.”
Angus waves us up the steps to his cabin and to the two rocking chairs. I sit in one, and Loren promptly sits at my feet, between Angus and I. It’s a casual move, but I feel the protectiveness in his posture. Angus takes the other chair without comment.
“Well lass, there isn’t much to say about how I came to Amaata.” He scratches behind one ear. “I came through a cave. When I left Inverness it was the year of our Lord 1889. There were no telephones, or window panes with messages written across them. It was a right shock, of course, to arrive here. I spent a decade looking for ways home.”
My mouth drops open as he speaks. 1889? That’s impossible. He’d be well over one-hundred and twenty years old! Did Amaata affect aging?
“I had a girl back home, you know. Her name was Jenny. Sweet as pie, she was. But how long could I expect Jenny to wait? I’m sure she thought I’d up and run off.” He sighs, his gaze soft. “Ten years I tried to get back to her and my Ma and little sisters. But nothing ever brought me back. I searched every bloody inch of the Ridge where they found me. I even searched three different cave systems –made maps, took notes. But not a thing was found. You’re the first Traveler from Earth to come through since I arrived. Two others have come, but neither from our world.”
I read that –one died in a train derailment twenty years ago, and the other lived on the coast. Both Beta women.
“How long have you been here? Surely, you investigated where the women Travelers turned up?” I ask.
“Aye, I did. Both were found wandering in one of the mountain passes. Lots of Travelers used to come through up that way, so the good professor tells me.”
Loren nods. “I suspect more come through, but they get caught by the Kharawyn patrols. Unfortunately.”
“Have you gone back through your notes, or revisited the caves? Maybe they are active on solstices, or full moons?” I try to sound inquisitive and not hopeful. I’m buzzing with a chaotic tug-of-war in my chest. Angus has maps of the caves, and with the excavation notes, this could point me right where we need to go to make it back to Earth. But that would mean never seeing Loren or Max– even Callum, again.
I should not have slept with them, should not have indulged in the comfortable closeness. Sex always makes leaving messy.
“Aye, I did over those first ten years. But nothing changed. So, I gave up looking. Whatever creates the portals that drop people from worlds all across the stars here, it only opens to dump people out, not take people back. Trust me, I’ve kept an ear out for others who might be lost like me, and it’s been nearly sixty years since I arrived.”
“But that’s not possible! It’s been almost one hundred and fifty years since you left on Earth. I was born more than one hundred years after you traveled.”
A ticking pulse of pain begins behind my right eye. How can we have both traveled from Earth, but from such wildly different times? Unless time doesn’t align between these words? Then even if I found a way home, time could have moved on faster there than here, and…
“Lassie, if traveling between stars has taught me anything, it’s that nothing is impossible. Neither of us should be here, should we? But we are. Why us? Why not someone else? Why a world of Alphas and Omegas? Why a world with all these gadgets-” he waves at the sheer pane tablet in Loren’s hand. “Why not a primitive world? Why not the world of the fair folk?”
Angus shakes his head and closes his eyes. “No, I long accepted the Lord brought me here for a purpose. Perhaps it was to love my girl, Amelda, until the sickness took her. Maybe it was to share the stories of our world here.”
“Angus is known as a children’s book author,” Loren interjects.
Yes, I’d read that in the file of Traveler reports Loren had shared. He’s written several folk tales that I knew– about fairies and selkies and other fae creatures.
Angus nods. “Aye, once. Not now. Now I am tired and old.” He gives a short laugh. “Maybe I came here first so that I could be here to tell you –and your sisters —that there is no going back. I wasted years searching. Years I could have had with Amelda. Years I could have spent looking for a way to have children.”
“You can’t have kids?” I ask, all my other swirling thoughts grinding to a halt. The headache ticks louder behind my eye.
“No, lassie. The doctors said that we weren’t compatible enough or some such.” He flaps his hand in the air muttering “nonsense.”
I look over to Loren whose face is a mask of neutral calm. Would that matter, if I couldn’t give them children? Did I want kids? I’d never wanted them before, but I was in the Army and that’s no life for a family.
But now, with three men to help raise a baby? Three men who I know would love and care for a child? That’s a different question completely.
One that biology might answer for me.
Not that I even need to be thinking about such a thing right now.
My chest is tight, my knee twinging with discomfort –a reminder of too much exertion before we even arrived at Angus’s cabin.
No going home. Not for me or any of my sisters. Not for Molly Beth who might need medical treatment. No children either.
Whole futures taken away by chance.
“Thank you.” Tears prickle against my eyelids. My skin is hot, and far too tight against my bones. I need to get some air. Get away before all these feelings, fucking inconvenient feelings , leak out all over the place.
“Aye, lassie. I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I remember holding the candle of hope for years. But, you traveled through the stars for a reason . Don’t waste it dwelling on the might-have-beens. Learn from my wasted years, and don’t go wasting yours.”
I nod, but can’t speak. My thoughts are a whirling jumble. Just because Angus didn’t find a way, doesn’t conclusively mean there isn’t one. But if there was, would I be going home to an Earth that’s twenty or even fifty years in the future? Would that be worse than staying? And if we can’t have kids here, what would Molly Beth say? She loves children, and had confided in me once that all she really wanted was to be a mom.
Fuck .
I need more information. I need to know for sure. I close my eyes, trying to sort out my thoughts and feelings, trying to pull my mission objective out of the tangle of my emotions.
The two men stand, speaking softly, and I remain in the rocking chair, letting the slight motion lull me. I close my eyes against the spiking pain of my headache, and the feelings that bubble up, confused and tangled. Then Loren is gently prodding my arm, guiding me up from the chair and down the steps of the cabin.
He claps Angus on the shoulder. “Thank you, Sir. I think this has been a lot for my Omega. But, maybe we can visit again after her heat?”
“Aye, bring her over whenever you like. I am curious how Britain has fared since my departure. And if my bonny Scotland is free, or still yoked to the English crown.”
“Still yoked,” I say, and sigh. How can I tell him about World War Two? Or World War One, for that matter? He’s missed the development of the atomic bomb and the internet. My headache spreads.
“Lassie,” Angus says, “Loren is good people. Let him take care of you. I’ve learned that’s what these Alpha types are programmed to do. It isn't home and it never will be. They can’t fry a filet of cod worth a damn. But it can be good, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I answer weakly, tears already trickling down my cheek.