Chapter 13 #3
“We won’t know if we don’t try,” I sneer. I love a good sneer.
“Alistair,” Aidan warns. “Manoj is an old friend and an exceptional assistant. I don’t know what bug got up your ass, but this stops now.”
I turn all my attention on him and pout. “He’s all over you,” I complain. “I don’t like the touchy stuff.”
He sighs and looks at Manoj with a raised brow.
For a second, Manoj just stands there with a smug expression, but then Aidan clears his throat, and he sighs too.
“We’re not usually this touchy,” he admits.
“I’m just relieved Aidan’s okay. I have a contact who brokers odd jobs on the dark web, and he told me a couple weeks back that unidentified people have been asking leading questions about some of you—Aidan included.
Then late yesterday I realized that none of my emails and messages to Aidan are going through. ”
“What?” I look at Aidan, and he nods grimly.
“I’m not sure what’s happening, but we should probably assume my phone and email are compromised. David’s already taken my electronics.”
That must have happened while I was in the entranceway.
“I’m going to need to check yours too, Al,” David interjects. I nod and wave him off.
“So you’re not trying to steal him from me?” I ask Manoj suspiciously.
“I didn’t even know he was yours for me to steal,” he exclaims, and I growl again, because that was not the right answer. “But no,” he adds. “Aidan’s my boss and dear friend. I’m not interested in him that way.”
I give a satisfied nod and extend my hand for him to shake. “We’ll probably be seeing a lot of each other, what with Aidan being my lover and all.”
“Does anyone else feel creepy when he says that word?” Noah asks. “It makes me feel creepy.”
I flip him off without looking.
“Sure,” Manoj says. “I… look forward to it.”
With that taken care of, I take both of Aidan’s hands in mine.
He promptly pulls them away. “I don’t know what the feckin’ bloody hell is going through your head, but you can’t just be announcing to all and sundry that we’re lovers.
And stop using that word!” He’s all flushed and flustered, his eyes flashing with emotion. Anger, probably, but that’s okay.
“Caolan?” I call, not taking my eyes off Aidan.
“Yes, Alistair?”
“Were there any other paired souls here?”
Aidan’s jaw drops.
“You and Aidan,” Caolan says, and if I’m reading his tone correctly, he’s utterly delighted by this whole situation.
I go down on one knee in front of Aidan, and Ellie says, “Where’s my phone? I need to record this!”
“Gotcha covered,” Andrew declares. I block them all out.
“Up until a few days ago,” I begin, “I hadn’t been in a romantic relationship for a hundred and fifty years.
I got burned—literally—when I was young, and I never wanted to risk a broken heart like that again.
” I see the sudden awareness in his gaze as he realizes the story I told him was about me.
“Spending time with you changed that. I wanted more time with you.
I wanted more than just sex with you. I wanted you, always.
That scared me, because how could I possibly have gone from being afraid of getting hurt to being willing to expose myself completely to you… and in just a few days?
“But then Caolan told me our souls are paired, and Aidan, it makes more sense to me than anything else ever has. Part of me recognizes that we can be happy together forever—my soul recognizes yours. I know we still have so much to learn about each other, but I want you to know I’m fully committed to us, and one day, I’m going to marry you. ”
“Aww,” Sam murmurs tearily.
Aidan blinks a few times, then looks past me. “Paired souls never grow apart?”
“Never,” Caolan confirms. “What you feel for him now is what you will always feel.”
Aidan starts to laugh. “Get up,” he tells me. “I want a kiss.”
I leap to my feet and grab him, then dip him back over my arm, classic-movie-style, and kiss him amidst cheers and jeers from my friends and colleagues.
When we straighten, he lifts a hand to my cheek, smiling. “It’s nice to know we’re not actually taking it too fast,” he murmurs, “but I was willing to commit anyway.”
I kiss him again, more thoroughly this time.
Sometime later, hands pry me away from Aidan and reality crashes back in.
“…got a lot to get through, and this is getting kind of uncomfortable for the rest of us,” Sam’s saying.
It sounds like he’s trying not to laugh.
I open my eyes to see that Aidan is now three feet away, flanked by David and Manoj.
A glance around shows that the vise grip on my arms is courtesy of Gideon and Andrew.
My secondary best friend is outright chuckling, and even Gideon has a sparkle of mirth in his eye.
“How dare you keep me from my lover?” I demand, yanking at their grip. Andrew’s loosens a little, but Gideon’s is like iron. I’m going to have so many bruises tomorrow.
“We’re in the middle of diplomatic talks between dimensions for the first time in nine thousand years,” Percy says dryly. “Not to mention the threat to our secrecy and existence. I dare to keep you from your lover because your relationship isn’t right at the top of my priority list.”
Oh. I guess he has a point.
“But it is on your priority list? Just not at the top,” I ask hopefully.
“Alistair,” Aidan groans, but Percy’s grinning.
“Most assuredly. And as soon as our current situation is resolved, I want to hear all about the plans for your wedding.”
“Even I know you’ll regret that,” Noah mutters, “and I haven’t known him that long.”
Smiling sweetly at him, I say, “You look tired. Have you been getting enough rest and food?” Instantly, Andrew drops my arm and leaps over the coffee table. I’m impressed by how cleanly he clears it. In the next second, he’s on the couch beside Noah, babbling about how he needs to rest.
Noah glares at me. I smirk back. And while he threatens his boyfriend with grievous bodily harm if he doesn’t sit down and shut up, I grab Aidan’s hand, sit, and pull him onto my lap.
He jabs me in the ribs with his pointy elbow, scrambles off my lap, and sits in the chair beside me. Before I can work up a good pout, he grabs my hand and laces our fingers together.
Compromise is very important in a relationship. We’re going to rock this shit.
It takes a few more minutes to get everyone settled, and then Percy turns his smile on Caolan. “My apologies for the distraction. You were saying that your king sent you here to offer assistance.”
Caolan nods. “Yes. We offer whatever aid we can to stop éibhear and his accomplice, Tish. Your people should not have to suffer for what happened to us.”
“I don’t understand. What happened to you?” Sam asks. “I thought this éibhear person was just out for personal gain.”
“He is. But this is not a new thing for him. His quest for personal gain has been ongoing for millennia, and now, after causing the destruction of our dimension and the eventual annihilation of our people, he is attempting to twist the situation for his gain again.”
Whoa.
I’m not the only one who needs a minute to take that in. Aidan’s hand tightens in mine.
David looks around the group. When his eyes land on me, I feel as though he wants me to speak, but what do you even say when someone brings up the destruction of their entire dimension and the genocide of their species?
Finally, he seems to get fed up waiting for someone else to step in and clears his throat.
“Perhaps you could tell us exactly what éibhear has done. From the beginning of his exploits. We’d like to understand what has happened.”
Caolan’s eyes go all soft as he smiles at David. “For you, anything.”
David’s hand flexes, but he forces a smile in return.
“The ban on travel to this dimension caused a lot of things to change for us. Your world had long been a popular destination for those wishing to experience new things—the atmosphere and native foodstuffs are close enough to ours to be safe, and your diverse people have abilities and skills similar enough to ours that we were not deified or persecuted. Those among us with the power and skill to open portals were able to amass vast fortunes for little work and use those resources to further their own research.”
“Like an artist or scientist taking a side job to pay the bills so they can focus on what they really love,” Ellie says. “Cool.”
“But then came the species wars…,” Percy adds, and Caolan nods sadly.
“Your species wars shocked us. This planet was deemed too risky for our general populace to travel to, and a ban was implemented that prevented portals to here from being opened without the king’s permission.
Over the next few centuries, the king sent scouts, hoping for an end to the strife, but once the fighting was done, the largest part of your population was suddenly blind to its own power—and remembered nothing of the other species, nor us.
” He shrugs. “The king deemed it safest for our people to ban all travel here until he could be certain of our people’s safety.
Every few centuries, a scout will visit and report back. ”
David, who’s been taking notes like the nerd he is, asks, “So your current king continued this practice when he took the throne?”
Caolan frowns, looking confused. “I don’t understand. My king, the current king, is the one who decided to ban interdimensional travel.”
David’s pen freezes.
“I beg your pardon.” Percy leans forward. “Your current king was the king at the time of our species wars?”
“Yes.”
“I… uh… how different is time in your dimension?” Percy sounds completely thrown. I don’t blame him. We’re long-lived, but if the king was ruling nine thousand years ago and is still going strong, that takes long life to a new level.
“Not so different,” Caolan says. “Our day is a little longer than yours, but we don’t break time down into such small increments as you do.
We have morning, midday, afternoon, early night, midnight, and late night, following the cycles of the sun and moon.
If we were to apply your measures of time to our daily cycles, I believe our day would be approximately twenty-six of your hours. ”
“Wait,” David says, a look of abject horror on his face. “Are you saying you don’t keep time? So if you were supposed to meet someone, the most accurate timeframe you could give would be ‘in the morning,’ which spans around four or five hours?”
Caolan shrugs. “Time will pass regardless of how we measure it. If a situation is not so urgent that it must be dealt with ‘now,’ then what does it matter if it is attended to at the beginning, middle, or end of a morning?”
I’m pretty sure David just had an aneurysm. He’s opening and closing his mouth like a demented goldfish, and his face is red.
“That’s certainly a much more relaxed perspective than what we have,” Percy says diplomatically while Sam gets up and brings David a glass of water. “But returning to what you were saying, it seems to me that your species is much longer-lived than ours are.”
There’s a moment of silence, then Caolan says, “Forgive me, the spell struggled to translate that. You are saying that my species lives longer than yours does. This is true, but also not true. We live as long as we choose to, unless we are killed.”
The glass slips from David’s hand. Fortunately, the rug is thick enough that it doesn’t break. Poor David. He likes order and rules, and it seems that the elves don’t care about any of that.
I look over at Andrew. He’s looking back, a wicked gleam in his eyes. Caolan might be a good match for David, after all—help him loosen up. And I’ve always fancied myself a matchmaker… after all, I didn’t kill Gideon when he hooked up with Sam.
Aidan squeezes my hand, and I glance over to see him shake his head warningly.
“What?” I mouth, widening my eyes innocently, and he just shakes his head again. I guess he doesn’t want to be part of my super awesome plan to get David laid by an elf from another dimension.
Too bad.
“That’s fascinating.” Noah’s fully engaged, seemingly past his initial wariness of Caolan. “If you don’t mind me asking, were you alive when the travel ban was implemented? Had you visited Earth back then?”
Caolan tears his gaze reluctantly from David and shakes his head. “I was born some centuries later. This is my third visit to this dimension—I have scouted here previously.”
“Oh. I was hoping you could answer some questions for us about humans of that time. Our records tend to leave them out. They’re also very sketchy in reference to your people.”
“There are others who may be able to answer your questions,” Caolan assures Noah. “Perhaps if you make a list? We would be happy to do this as a gesture of good faith. We can also consult the living archive.”
Noah grins, and even David comes out of his shocked stupor somewhat at the thought of getting some answers, but Percy says, “I’m going to ask that we put that on hold for the moment.
We keep getting sidetracked, and the magic is telling me we really need to hear your story.
You were saying that after the species wars, those who had made money from opening portals were faced with change. ”
“Yes. éibhear was one of those. He had amassed a vast fortune and resented not being permitted to continue. Some turned their attention to locating alternative destinations in other dimensions, but finding inhabited dimensions that also contain planets with suitable environments amongst the many millions that exist is painstaking and dangerous work. To this day, only one other has been located, and it currently does not have an evolved higher-intelligence species.” He smiles.
“Which makes it a boring place to vacation.”
“éibhear wasn’t one of those people, was he?”
Caolan shakes his head. “No. Exploring new dimensions is time consuming and dangerous, and éibhear has ever been someone who wanted a quick, easy result. We’re not sure what his thought process was, how he discovered it was possible, or even if he understood from the outset what the dangers were, but what he chose to do instead began the destruction of our dimension.
“He began opening portals through time.”