Señora Tiempo
Senora Tiempo
Rowan
There’s a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure, like when the cabin of a plane changes on take-off, and I swallow to equalise it.
A faint ringing floods my ears, nausea flips my stomach, and the space between my heartbeats stretches through time while I fixate on that silver bullet that hurtles toward Milo’s skull as if in slow motion.
Every cell in my body tenses, and I tighten my grip on his wrist. If I will it hard enough, maybe I can throw that projectile off course, because it can’t connect. It can’t reach its target. I won’t allow it.
I just found him, my mate, and the threat that I might not…
Memories of each interaction since we met race through my mind.
Him looking up at me with those impossible rainbow-grey eyes and silver-blond hair that shimmers in the sunlight.
How his whip-sharp intellect is cleverly disguised under a layer of chaos and iced coffee.
How Milo might not be a werewolf, yet he loves—and fights for that love—just as hard as any wolf would.
The smell of crisp apples. How I never stood a chance, because there’s no one else in the world like him; Milo is my perfect match.
But what crowds out those warming images and chills the blood in my veins, is the petrifying knowledge that I’m not enough.
He ran off to do this alone because of me, because I rejected the mate my wolf chose for us, and if I hadn’t…
If I’d just drawn Milo closer last night, instead of pushing him away, if I’d laid him out on those cushions and claimed him, then our biggest problem right now would be training him to take my knot, rather than the spinning silver bullet suspended three inches from his beautiful face.
Milo opens his eyes.
My heart finally resumes its beat.
“Está bien, Rowan of the Rangecroft Clan, you can lift Milo, last descendant of the Fidelis Family Line, to safety now.” The soft voice is accented—Spanish, or Mexican maybe—but I refuse to take my eyes from Milo to discover who’s speaking.
Milo’s gaze is equally stuck on the bullet that should have ended his life. It’s burning the air around it, as if it’s still moving—but it isn’t. It’s perfectly still.
“Rowan…” His voice is barely audible, even to my wolf.
Kicking myself into gear, I waste no further time hauling Milo up and onto the roof. Still lying down, I draw Milo in close, pressing him tight along the full length of my body. I tangle our ankles, wrap both arms around him, and tuck his head into my chest. Both our hearts are pounding.
“I’ve got ye, Pup.” I dip my chin and kiss the crown of his head.
Milo’s whole body trembles with cold, shock, maybe both, and I inhale his fresh apple scent to help soothe my wolf. “God, have I got ye.”
I squeeze him closer still, then roll us to put Milo flat on the ground. With my bigger frame covering his, I’m better able to guard him, to block any and all threats.
Neither of us move. My wolf and I need Milo close to know that he’s safe. Each exhale he offers forms my next inhale, and for a minute, we breathe each other’s air.
When my heart’s calmed enough, I nudge his cheek to the side with my nose, and rest my open mouth right over where the scent gland on his neck would be if he were a wolf.
I flatten my tongue over his sweat-slicked skin, delighting in the hammering of his carotid artery against it. He’s here. He’s alive.
His fingers have made tight fists in the fabric of my T-shirt where he can reach between the straps of my bulletproof vest, and he twists and tugs at it as if trying to climb inside me. I lick and kiss his hot skin, then gently press my fanged teeth into his supple flesh.
“You should discuss the impact of a claiming bite before you let your wolf follow through with that impulse, Lieutenant Colonel.”
In an instant, my wolf surges forward, forcing a further shift.
My claws fully extend and dig into the shingle either side of Milo’s head.
I untangle our ankles and set my legs either side of his hips, allowing my heels to lift off the floor and my feet to adopt a digitigrade posture.
A full set of lupine teeth fill my mouth, and when I growl, the vibration carries on the still night air.
Underneath me, Milo tilts his head back, resting the top of his head on the sharp ground and elongating his neck so he can see who’s speaking.
My fully formed wolf’s eyes snap to the figure sitting on a chair not five feet away from us in casual repose.
An exceedingly elegant drag queen—no, female impersonator draped in layers of golden material that frames long and tanned legs crossed at the knee—clicks her tongue in disapproval. “Es innecesario, Rowan.”
She taps the end of her cigarette holder against a glass ashtray set upon a small side table that just materialised as if from thin air. “May I call you Rowan?”
I don’t move. If this person so much as points the end of one those jewel-studded shoes in Milo’s direction—
“I promise your wolf that I intend no harm to young Master Milo under there. In fact, it was Milo who invited me.” She stands then, and hinges at the waist in order that she’s also upside down, then she addresses him directly. “I think I made it in time; you are alive, no?”
I growl again at the memory that he almost wasn’t. “Who… the fuck… are ye?”
Milo suddenly shuffles and scrambles from under me. “Oh my goddess, no way!” He manages to roll over onto his front, but it’s a tight squeeze. “You’re Time?”
Milo pokes me with his elbow to give him some space to get up, but my wolf refuses to separate.
Another, sharper nudge from one of his bony elbows forces me to compromise.
I give enough room that he can kneel on the floor, but remain pressed up against his back with my bigger thighs bracketing his and both arms wrapped around his shoulders. Possessively. Protectively.
“Currently, I am Senora Tiempo.” Lady Time gives a deep curtsy, and the swathe of dyed ostrich feathers that crown her head flutter and sway with the movement. “But I go by many names: Time, Le Temps, Die Zeit, Aevum…”
Milo claps in excitement, and she shoots him a wink.
I lean forward to rest my chin on his shoulder, and when he turns sideways, his face displays a wide smile.
“It worked! It actually worked!” he laughs out loud.
It’s a joyous, carefree sound that eases something deep inside me. But there’s also a new and more complex emotion blooming.
“Ye summoned the god of Time?” My voice is quiet, my awe of his abilities having stolen my breath.
Milo blushes, and turns away, “I don’t know that I summoned her so much as I… left an interdimensional letter of complaint.”
Senora Tiempo’s earlier smile drops, and she stands a little taller. “About that…”
She snaps her fingers, and Janus appears leashed and bound by her feet.
Instantly, I shift into full wolf form, and stalk forward to body-block Milo. Snarling and baring my teeth, I hunch my shoulders and store my power in my back legs ready to strike. I’m much bigger like this, and from where Milo still kneels behind me, no part of him is exposed.
Senora Tiempo doesn’t comment when my wolf stretches and snaps in warning at Janus’s chained and prone body.
Instead, she speaks softly to Milo. “When you called, I was in the middle of the second verse of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ by Celine Dion, and it’s such a crowd-pleaser that I wasn’t able to just stop. ”
She pokes Janus with one of her pointed shoes.
“But I heard every word you said. And when the applause had died down, and I’d fought my way back to my station at the rear of the Carpa Valentino, I listened again.
Then I checked in with Anna Perenna and the Parcea.
And then Fortuna, who sent me to you with her blessing. ”
Had Milo not done whatever he did to get Time’s attention, then, he’d be dead.
Janus protests something from behind his gag, but all he achieves is a red face and a puddle of drool. Lady Time kicks him harder. “Silencio! Or I let my amigo, Rowan, use you as a chew toy.”
My wolf likes that idea and stalks forward, but the soft and hesitant grasp of Milo’s fingers on the thick fur of my flank prevents me. I fall back to my mate’s side, and lean in. He smiles up at me with what I interpret as gratitude.
Senora Tiempo yanks on his leash. “This is for show, but I promise that Janus is no longer a threat. Not to the General, his Bloodline, nor to either of you.” Then her voice adopts a more melodious tone, and the chain leash Janus is bound with transforms to a prismatic band of full-spectrum light. “Consider him human, and very mortal.”
I dip my head in a canine form of acknowledgment. Milo replaces his fingers with both arms, and hugs tightly around my thick neck.
“Rowan, if you’d consider adopting your human form, I’d like to invite you both a mi casa to discuss these matters further—in more comfort.” She gestures to the open, windy rooftop of the Colonial National Bank.
I turn to observe Milo, who’s exhausted but wide-eyed with wonder, and lean closer to lend him my strength. We won’t go anywhere he doesn’t want to go. His fingers tangle in my fur, and I love that he isn’t fearful of my wolf, having only seen him once during an attack.
While we’re having this wordless exchange, Senora Tiempo adds, “I won’t keep you long, unless you both choose to stay, and can return you to any point in time that you choose once we’re done.”
Milo inhales, then nods—he’d like to go. And because I’m not letting him from my side, it looks like I’m going too. In harmony with my wolf, finally, about the fact that Milo is our mate, I change back to my human skin.
His grip slips from my neck, but graces my arm and settles into a comfortable hold of my hand. I give it a gentle squeeze, and thread our fingers together.
Lady Time offers us her hands, palms up, and with a kindly smile says, “?Vamos!”