The Art of Stealing Time

FIFTEEN

Gregory did the best he could to shield Gwen’s mother from the lightning that exploded around him in a brilliant blue-white ball of light, jerking her out of the hold in which one of the no-necks held her, pulling her close against his body so as to channel the charge onto himself.

She didn’t even jerk as the electricity crackled and snapped around him, and glancing down, he was astonished to see a protective glow of yellow light skimming her body.

“Mom Two!” Gwen yelled and ran to them.

“I’m all right. Your mother got that protection spell off just in time,” the woman said into his collarbone. He released her just as Gwen reached them. She hugged her glowing mother, ignoring the electricity as it embraced her, then turned a look on him that was so filled with admiration and gratitude, it had his chest swelling with pride.

“Thank you,” she told him, gently touching his face. Her mothers embraced, their voices a low murmur that seemed to fade when he caught that sweet wildflower scent that always seemed to surround Gwen.

He didn’t want her thanks. He wanted her. “My pleasure. It seemed you could use a hand. I hope you don’t mind that I interfered.”

“Mind?” She shook her head in confusion. “Why would I mind that you saved my mom?”

“Some women don’t hesitate to make it clear that they don’t need to be rescued by a man. I had an idea that you might follow that belief.”

“There’s not being a victim, and then there’s being stupidly stubborn and not taking help when it’s offered,” she said, giving him a swift hug. “My mom’s life was at stake. I am more than happy to have your assistance saving her from that bastard.”

“What the devil just happened here?” They both turned when Ethan marched over, scowling fiercely at Gregory. “You, sir! You stole the very lightning from the heavens and wielded it as if it was a weapon!”

“I did.” Gregory considered the two men who lay twitching on the ground before them. Both their faces were blackened, their hair standing on end in unruly clumps, with the faintest hint of smoke emerging from one of them. “My apologies about the smoke stains on the carpet.”

“You are not a thief as you said you were!” Ethan poked him in the chest. His other hand reached up and cupped his pectoral muscle in a surprisingly intimate gesture.

“Down, Diego!” Gwen said, glaring at the hand. “He’s mine. That includes his fabulous chest.”

“Er . . . think nothing about this.” Ethan grabbed his hand and pulled it back, quickly slipping in place the leather harness that held the hand down. “My hand gets confused about genders sometimes.”

“Your hand has issues,” Gwen said. “And not just with genders.”

“The fact remains that you lied to me,” Ethan ignored Gwen to tell Gregory. “You are not a thief. Therefore, you are up to mischief. You will tell me exactly what that is, and then I will call Holly and she will know how to deal with you.”

“I have not lied to you,” Gregory said calmly, wrapping an arm around Gwen. One of the two men at their feet moaned. The other moved his arms and legs in a motion vaguely reminiscent of swimming. “I have been engaged by the king as a thief. It is not my normal form of employment, however.”

“And what might that be?”

“I’m with the L’au-dela Watch.”

“They have no jurisdiction here,” Ethan told him, still suspicious. “And I have not heard that members of the Watch have lightning available at their whim.”

“What is going on in here?” A slight woman with long black hair touched with dark green strode into the tent, her eyes angry and her movements sharp and fast. “There was a huge flash of light and—what happened to those two mortals? Who killed them?”

“They aren’t dead,” Gregory said, nudging one of them with the toe of his shoe. The man moaned and curled up into a fetal ball.

The woman swung around, her gaze pinning him. Her expression turned dark. “A Traveller! What business have you here?”

“Holly! I’m glad you’re here—I was about to call for you. That man is here on the king’s command,” Ethan said before Gregory could answer. “He said he was here to steal that dog and deer statue, but the truth is much more frightening. He smote those two mortals with lightning! He is a lightning-wielder, a manipulator of time and weather, and I for one intend to protest this breach of protocol!”

Holly studied the two men briefly before leveling her gaze on Gregory. The look in her dark green eyes wasn’t at all friendly. “Indeed. That is a clear violation of the War Agreement of 1717 and, I believe, grounds for punitive action. We shall take this up with that blasted no-name knight. Come, Ethan. You must lodge the protest.”

“Wait! What?” Gwen asked, looking confused. “Why is Gregory being a Traveller a violation? He hasn’t done anything wrong. Those guys had a knife on one of my moms!”

“That is of no concern to me. Ethan!”

Ethan had looked like he was about to slip away, but a sharp glance from Holly stopped him from sidling past them. “What is it, dearest?”

“You have to go tell that knight of this atrocity.”

“But I was about to start a new chapter, and you know how I need to concentrate when I do that—”

Holly grabbed his arm and dragged him over to the private section of the tent. Silence fell around them, making it very easy to hear Holly chastising Ethan for lack of enthusiasm about his own martial campaign, and his feeble protestations.

“Why are they so pissed about you?” Gwen asked Gregory.

He shrugged. “To paraphrase the spiky Holly, it is of no concern to me. Do you have time to help me hunt for the missing bird, or must you report for duty soon?”

“I’m not on until the afternoon shift, but . . .” Gwen cast a worried glance toward her mothers, who were huddled together, conferring quietly.

“You’d prefer to spend the time with them?” He ignored the burn of jealousy, telling himself that he wasn’t so needy that he couldn’t share her with her family.

Although really, they’d had her for over a century, and he’d only known her a few days. It was only right that his claim on her time should take precedence.

“No, it’s not that.” His heart lightened at her words. She bit her lower lip and added in a near-whisper, “I don’t like them being here where I can’t easily keep an eye on them.”

“They don’t appear to be in any danger now.” He nudged one of the two inert men, who made an involuntary rude noise. Gwen and Gregory moved away. “If it will make you feel better, I will bind them and secure them in a location away from your mothers.”

“It’s not just them. It’s this whole setup.” She rubbed her arms as if she was cold. “I don’t trust Holly, for one. And Ethan isn’t the most reliable person in the world, what with his self-obsession, and—” She waved her hand around in the air.

“I admit he has odd personality quirks, but I doubt if he means any harm to your mothers. He appears to be quite happy with them.”

“Now,” she said with emphasis. “But I have all too much experience with how a happy relationship with my moms can go pear-shaped. And if that happens, I’d prefer being here to run interference.”

“Are you always called upon to protect them?” He wanted badly to tell her that it wasn’t her job to do so, but wasn’t sure how she would respond to that. She had a strong protective streak in her, that much he knew, but was it so overpowering that it drove her to forgo her own life in order to oversee theirs?

“Goddess, no. If I had to do that, I’d never be able to leave their side and would, at this very moment, be stark, staring insane. I only intervene on the really serious stuff in an attempt to keep things from going too hideously wrong.”

“If it will make you happier to have them near you, then that is what must happen,” he said, relieved that he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life being at his mothers-in-laws’ beck and call.

Mothers-in-law. The words resonated in his head. When had he decided that Gwen was the one woman he wished to bind himself to? He studied her as she watched her mothers, noting her delicate features, the way her hair flowed back from her temples, the fine black line of her brows, the cute little nose and sensible chin. She had a light scattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose, which for some reason, made something in his belly tighten.

Oh, yes, he wanted her, all right . . . but he wanted her in more than just a sexual way. He wanted her in his life. He wanted her waking him up in the morning. He wanted to show her off to his family and watch the looks of envy pass among his cousins. He wanted to make his grandmother appreciate just how wonderful and unique she was. He wanted to see the years pass with her at his side, knowing she wanted him just as much.

He took her hand, and led her over to where her mothers stood. He bowed first to them, then to Gwen, bending over her hand and kissing it. “Gwenhwyfar Byron Owens, I ask you before your mothers to bless my life by joining it with yours. Will you be my wife?”

Gwen’s eyes widened in a manner that had him suddenly worrying they might just pop right out of her head. She tried to snatch her hand back, but he tightened his hold, stroking the back of her fingers. Her mothers exclaimed, one of them clapping her hands happily. “You what?” Gwen almost shrieked.

“Will you marry me?”

“No!” Gwen succeeded in jerking her hand from his.

“Oh, Gwenny!” her mother cried.

He felt like someone had punched him in the balls. She didn’t want to marry him?

“Gwen, I think that perhaps you’re not giving this young man a chance,” her second mother said, frowning at her. “Since you insist on being heterosexual, you might as well take the best that the males have to offer, and this one seems to be very competent and considerate.”

“Thank you,” he said, too despondent to give the older woman another bow.

Gwen’s touch ceased the slow, icy fingers of despair that had started to creep through his heart. She laid a hand on his chest, and said, “I didn’t mean no, I meant . . . I meant . . . oh, I don’t know what I meant. Not no, but . . . crickets on a cracker, Gregory! Do you really think that now is the time to talk about a possible future together?”

“Is it because of what I told you about Travellers marrying their own kind? Because I can assure you that you are worth any sacrifice—not that I believe our life together will be in any way a sacrifice. My grandmother is stubborn, but I believe that she will, in time, be persuaded to see reason.”

Irritation flashed across her face briefly. “Yes, well, that’s a whole other subject—”

“It’s quite simple,” he told her. “I wish to spend the remainder of my days with you. I have been brought up to believe that if I feel that way about a woman, the honorable thing is to marry her, and thus I have asked you to marry me. Do you wish to likewise spend your life with me?”

“We’ve only known each other a few days,” Gwen protested, shifting uncomfortably.

“It’s long enough for me to know that I want you.”

“Yes, but in the overall scheme of things, it’s not exactly normal to tell someone you just met that you want to marry them. I’m not a mortal, Gregory. I don’t believe in disposable marriages. When I marry, it will be forever.”

“That is exactly how I feel,” he agreed.

“I knew I liked him,” Gwen’s mom said.

“He will be a good son-in-law,” the other agreed.

“Moms! I’m not getting married!”

“Marry? Who’s getting married?” Ethan and Holly emerged from the private section of the tent. Holly had marched toward the door, and judging by the submissive way that Ethan followed her, Gregory assumed that she’d reasoned or threatened him into falling in line with her plan. Ethan paused at the door of the tent, his dark expression brightening. “I am perfectly willing to officiate at your wedding.”

“Are you some sort of a religious personage who can do that?” Gwen asked, wrinkling her adorable forehead.

“Not in the least. But my mother is a demigod, you know.”

“I don’t see what one has to do with the other.” Gwen looked even more puzzled.

Gregory smiled at her, just to let her know that he was not upset about the thirteen men with whom she had opted to share her life before they had met.

She looked startled, then pleased, then somewhat flustered. He didn’t think he could adore her more. No, not adore . . . love. He loved her.

He almost took a step back at the revelation, so stunning was it. He loved Gwen. The word rolled around in his mind for a bit while he tried to get used to it.

“We will have to see how he shapes up as a husband.” Gwen’s second mother frowned. “We shall have to have the ceremony at home, though. I’ve always envisioned Gwen marrying her ideal woman at home, in a dignified, quiet ceremony.”

This newfound love was a strange thing to him. Oh, he’d felt infatuation before. Lust came with the territory of being male, but love . . . He narrowed his eyes as he thought about it. Love was new. Love was different. He hadn’t ever loved a woman the way he loved Gwen.

“In the bower!” the first mother said happily, clapping her hands in delight. “When the roses are in bloom!”

It was as if a warm burst of sunlight filled his chest, leaving him gently glowing with the wonder that was love for Gwen.

He looked at her again, wondering if she could see the love spilling out of him.

“Argh!” Gwen screamed, her hands making vague gestures of frustration. “No one is listening to me! Gregory, make them list—are you OK?”

He beamed at her. He’d never been one for beaming before, but all this love had to go somewhere, and although it wanted to go straight to his penis and get down to the business of lovemaking, he was a reasonable man, and he knew that Gwen would have an issue with him simply scooping her up and carting her off to the nearest bed. Therefore, the excess of emotion needed a target, and Gwen was the likeliest recipient.

She stared at him as if he was deranged.

“I’m in perfect health, thank you.”

“OK.” She gave him a disbelieving look. “It’s just that you have this pained expression on your face. I wondered if the lightning hurt you.”

“It’s not pain. It’s love. I love you, Gwen. Marry me so that I can take you off and make love to you for days on end without your mothers being upset that I’m male.”

She froze, her eyes huge. “You . . . what?”

“I love you. With all my heart.” Given the stunned look she currently wore, she needed that clarification.

“Glorious goddess!” Gwen’s first mother said, clutching the second mother. “Isn’t he wonderful? I’m not upset that you’re male at all, young man. And neither is Alice.”

“Well . . . ,” the second mother started to say, but at a look from the first, she added, “Gwen has clearly made up her mind, and since you make her happy, then we shall welcome you to our family without reservation.”

Gwen closed her eyes for a moment, shook her head, then opened her eyes to give him a steely look. He beamed more love at her. He couldn’t stop himself; it just seemed to keep welling out of him.

“Maybe we should talk about this later,” Gwen said, nodding toward the two men on the floor. “Things are a little bit hectic right now.”

“Life,” he said with as much sagacity as he could muster, “is never too hectic for love.”

“August!” the first mother said. “We must have an August wedding. The bower will be in full bloom then.”

“Consuela!” Ethan bellowed out the tent entrance. “Bring my datebook. What does my schedule look like in August? Can I get away for a wedding at a bower? No, I don’t know where it is, but clearly they need me. Diego, no!”

Holly reappeared, grabbed Ethan by his alien hand, and pulled him out of the tent. The faint cries of, “Holly! You’re hurting Diego! You know he’s just going to want more of that later—” trailed behind them.

“Gwen?” Gregory took her hand and pulled her against his chest. The mothers were busily planning what events would take place at the wedding, while Ethan could still be heard, arguing with Holly about whether or not he could leave Anwyn. He didn’t like the stressed look around Gwen’s beautiful eyes, and thought seriously of kissing her silly right there. “You do want to spend your life with me, don’t you?”

She wouldn’t look him in the eye. She stared at his ear, and a line appeared between her brows. The faintest shadow of doubt pricked his skin. What if she truly did not want to wed him? What if she couldn’t learn to love him as he loved her? What if he was just a number on a long list of men with whom she spent time?

Fear gripped him hard in the pit of his belly at her words. “I’m not sure what I want. Everything’s so confused right now, what with those men trying to hurt my moms, and Death chasing me down, and we have to find that bird or else Aaron won’t let us go, and . . . and . . . I just don’t know.”

She didn’t want him. He released her, wanting to stagger over to the nearest chair and weep as he’d never wept before.

She truly did not want him. How could that be? How could he love her so fully and deeply and irrevocably as he did—he ignored the fact that just a few minutes before he hadn’t the slightest inkling that such an emotion existed—and she not reciprocate those feelings?

He wanted to cry. He wanted to yell. He wanted to beg her to love him, even just the tiniest little bit. He’d be happy with just a tiny little morsel of love.

“That’s a lie,” he said aloud, despair swamping him. “I wouldn’t be happy with a morsel. I want it all. I need it all. If I can’t have it, then . . .” The sentence trailed off, unfinished.

He truly did want to cry.

“I’m sorry, Gregory. I just don’t know what I want—” Gwen’s gaze met his, and in her eyes he saw the only hope he had of happiness. And as her pupils flared with awareness of him, of what he hoped they had between them, she gave a little hiccuping sob and threw herself into his arms, kissing his jaw and chin and nose and finally his mouth, and with that touch, the love within him threatened to burst forth in a blaze of . . . well, love. He couldn’t think of an appropriate metaphor, not with Gwen kissing him like she’d been without his lips for a lifetime, and it would have been rude of him not to give that kiss all his due consideration.

“Of course I want to spend my life with you,” she said a few minutes later when he was forced to stop kissing her so they could breathe. “Even though you are the enemy, I want to be with you. But what are we going to do—”

He laid a finger across her mouth, stopping her from finishing the question. She bit his finger. “We’ll work something out. I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me now how very much you love me? Perhaps a quick statement regarding how you can’t live without me, and how life would be bleak if you were forced to do so?”

She stared at him.

“Too soon?” he asked.

“Yes.” She reached behind him and pinched his ass.

He couldn’t possibly love her more than he did at that exact moment.

“What are you going to do about what?” her mother asked. “Is there a problem with you marrying? He’s not married already, is he?”

“No,” he answered quickly. “There are just a few people that must be taken care of. These two”—he nudged the man nearest him with his shoe—“and another woman who’s hanging around Ethan’s camp trying to find Gwen. Not that I’ll let that happen, but I’ll have to deal with her once and for all.”

“Not the reclaimer!” gasped the second mother. “She’s here?”

Gwen stared at them both, openmouthed with surprise. “You know about her?”

The two women exchanged glances . . . guilty glances. “Er . . . yes. Don’t you remember before we came to Anwyn how we hurried you out of that psychologist’s office? That Death woman had followed you there, and we felt it wiser to have you elsewhere.”

“Yes, I remember that. But what I want to know is why you are both looking so guilty now?” Gwen asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You didn’t do anything to her, did you?”

The first mother made a gesture that could only be described as wringing her hands. Their faces expressing their distress, the second mother blurted out, “It’s all our fault that she’s chasing you, Gwen. We weren’t going to tell you because you were safe here in Anwyn, but if you say she’s here now . . .”

“It’s not your fault in the least,” Gregory told them. “If anything, the blame lies with me, since I am the one who made sure that Gwen didn’t stay dead.”

The mothers gawked at him. “You mean she was telling the truth when she said that she died and came back to life?”

Quickly, Gregory explained the pertinent events.

“Honestly!” Gwen slapped her hands on her thighs. “What is the world coming to when your own mothers don’t believe you when you tell them you’ve died and been mysteriously resurrected!”

“The issue of the loss of time is why Death’s minion is after Gwen,” Gregory added when the two women looked doubtful.

“Er . . .” Once again the two mothers exchanged a telling look.

“Er what?” Gwen stopped looking annoyed and switched back to looking suspicious. “What aren’t you telling us? Does it have something to do with the reclamation woman?”

“We might as well tell them,” the second one told the first. “It’s better if they know, Mags.”

“Yes, but . . .” The first mother fretted with the apron she wore, giving Gwen a doubtful look. “Gwenny will be so . . .”

“Angry? Annoyed? Irritated? Because I’m quickly getting to all three,” Gwen told them sternly. “Spill.”

“The woman may say she’s coming after you because of dear Gregory stealing the time to save your life—and really, that was terribly sweet of you, and Alice and I will always be grateful to you for it, because we just couldn’t be without our darling girl—but it’s not exactly the truth.”

“What is the truth?” Gwen asked, taking his hand. He twined his fingers through hers, a sudden sense of contentment stealing over him. Whatever the problem was, he told himself, he and Gwen would handle it together.

“Well . . .”

“No.” Gwen shook a finger on her free hand at them. “No more of those pregnant looks you’re giving each other. Just tell us how bad it is so we can set about fixing the situation.”

He was even more pleased that Gwen now included him in the mop-up duties of whatever mess her mothers had created.

“I love you more now than I did five minutes ago, and that’s saying a lot,” he told her.

She squeezed his hand. “No distractions from the peanut gallery. Mom? Tell us.”

Her mother took a deep breath, and said so quickly that the words tumbled over each other, “Death is annoyed with us because about three hundred years ago we sold him a love charm that . . . er . . . went awry.”

“Instead of attracting the lady he desired, the spell was intercepted by a behemoth. One that had unconventional tastes,” the second mother confided to them.

“He enjoyed unsavory methods of sexual engagement,” the first mother said, waving vaguely toward her derriere. “Very unsavory when you consider just how large behemoths are. And when Death demanded that we fix the situation—you know full well we never offer guarantees when it comes to love charms because they are so unreliable—we tried to reason with the behemoth (his name was Carl), but he escaped us and locked himself in Death’s bedchamber with Death while he was sleeping in order to have his wedding night—did we mention that Carl wanted to marry Death? I thought that was sweet, really, although what Death said happened that night . . . Well, we won’t go into details because that sort of thing is better not mentioned in mixed company, and really, it wasn’t our fault, but Death didn’t see it that way, and he got a bit stroppy and said that he wasn’t going to rest until he made us as miserable as he was the morning after his . . . I suppose you could call it his nuptials, although he had another word for it, and we knew that he would target you once he found out you’d been born to us because you are so very dear to us both, my darling Gwen, and it was all very upsetting and we didn’t want you to know because you make the biggest fusses about things that really aren’t that dire, and you wanted to go back to the States so you could continue your work, so we didn’t tell you.”

Gwen stared at them for the count of seven before turning to look at Gregory. “I’m going to give you the chance right now to retract your offer of marriage. It’s the honorable thing to do, and I just want you to know that I wouldn’t blame you in the least for not wanting to be connected to my family.”

He flicked his thumb over her lower lip to keep from kissing the breath right out of her. “Not even a violated Death would keep me from your side.”

“OK, that’s going to win you some bonus swoon points,” she told him, her eyes warm with admiration. He wanted badly to get her into the nearest bed so he could show her just how much he appreciated that look. “As for you two . . . you are so grounded.”

“Gwenhwyfar,” the second mother said sternly, “I will not have you speaking to your mother like that. We are not children.”

“You sure act as irresponsible as kids sometimes,” Gwen said with a sharp edge to her voice that softened when she added, “Regardless of what you may have done—and don’t think we aren’t going to have a little talk later about hiding things from me—we can’t lay the blame for the reclamation woman on your heads. She’s here for me because she thinks I owe her my soul.”

“Don’t give it to her. You’re not done using it,” the first mother said, picking up a bottle from Ethan’s desk and giving it a sniff. “You’re going to have need of it when you marry dear Gregory. Alice, pink roses or yellow for the bouquet?”

Alice eyed Gwen thoughtfully. “White. With pale pink carnations. And perhaps a carpet of matching pink rose petals.”

“You have such a good eye for details like that.”

Gwen gave him a long-suffering look before turning back to her mothers. “That’s enough premature planning. And before you blast me, yes, I will marry Gregory, but we have more important things to do now. We have to find that bird.”

“What bird?” the mothers asked.

She turned to him, nodding again at the two men on the floor, both of whom were now moaning, fainting, and making jerky movements with their arms and legs. “Can you take care of them? And by ‘take care,’ I mean get rid of them in some nonlethal way so that they don’t come back and try to hurt my moms again?”

“Yes. Because I love you.”

She rolled her eyes, then leaned in and bit his lower lip. “You’re adorable when you’re being sexy. My moms and I will tackle the folks around the camp about the bird. Maybe one of them remembers it and knows where it flew off to. Maybe we can find a descendant of it, too.”

“We don’t have any time to go bird-watching,” the first mother said.

“The sooner we find the bird, the sooner we fulfill Aaron’s demands, and the sooner we can get out of Anwyn.”

“Who’s Aaron?”

As he was leaving to find a couple of strong-looking lads to help him truss up the two hit men, he heard Gwen explaining about Aaron and Ethan’s war.

Everything was going to be fine. He’d have to find a way to get rid of Death’s minion, but he had an inkling of how that might be accomplished, and he was never one to back down from a challenge. He’d make sure Gwen was safe from the reclamation agent, get rid of the two hit men, and then deal with the situation regarding her mothers and the Watch . . . and the vendetta that Death evidently held against them.

Yes, it was all going to work out to his satisfaction. Gwen might not want to admit yet that she loved him, but she did. She had to. He really didn’t think he could bear it otherwise.