Kiss Across Worlds (Kiss Across Time Book 7) Read online

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  Table of Contents

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  About Kiss Across Worlds

  Praise for the Kiss Across Time series.

  Title Page

  Four Years Ago…

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Elsewhere…

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  Copyright Information

  About Kiss Across Worlds

  He must find a way to be evil.

  To save Veris’ and Brody’s son Aran from sex traffickers, Neven Zoric must step into the life of his alter ego in this timeline. Kristijan Zoric is a hardened crime boss Neven doesn’t understand. Worse, Neven must fool Kristjan’s lethal, ruthless lieutenant, Remi De Sauveterre, a vampire who survived the French Revolution and now gives no quarter.

  Then Kristjan’s estranged, bitter wife arrives in Serbia. London McCallum wants nothing but her freedom from the vile tyrant that rules her life--except he’s not as hateful as she remembers…

  Reader Advisory: This time travel novel features two super-hot alpha vampire heroes, and explicit sex scenes. Do not read this book if frank sexual language offends you.

  The time-space continuum was restored to order at the end of this book. Promise.

  This book is part of the Kiss Across Time paranormal time travel series:

  1.0: Kiss Across Time

  2.0: Kiss Across Swords

  2.5: Time Kissed Moments*

  3.0: Kiss Across Chains

  4.0: Kiss Across Deserts

  5.0: Kiss Across Kingdoms

  5.1: Time And Tyra Again*

  6.0: Kiss Across Seas

  7.0: Kiss Across Worlds

  7.5: More Time Kissed Moments (upcoming)

  [*Time Kissed Moments are short stories, novellas and collections that featuring the characters and situations featured in the Kiss Across Time series.]

  A Time Travel Vampire Romance Novel

  Praise for the Kiss Across Time series.

  [She] has created characters that are engaging, unpredictable, outrageously funny and down-right appealing to readers who will steal their hearts. Shannon for The Romance Studio

  I think you’ll be as entertained and affected by the chemistry between the characters as I was. A fast-moving romance that spanned several lifetimes and included a paranormal aspect that was a fun and totally unexpected surprise. Honeysuckle for Whipped Cream Erotic Romance Reviews

  This was a great story with wonderful and surprising plot twists. The chemistry between the three is tangible. Stacey Krug for Siren Book Reviews

  Paranormal erotic romance doesn’t get any more creative than [this]. Chris for Romance Junkies

  This is a story, and these are characters, that stay with the reader long after the story is finished. Clare for Happily Ever After Reviews

  Four Years Ago…

  At times, her family could be more average than any other ordinary family out there. Like right now, when the last thing Marit wanted to deal with was normal shit.

  It didn’t help that it was past three in the morning and Los Angeles was going through one of its biennial cold snaps. When they had stepped out of LAX an hour ago, everyone had stopped on the pavement next to the limousine in shock.

  Marit breathed out heavily, watching her breath hang in the air. “It must be below freezing.”

  “Not quite zero yet,” Neven said, with an air of experience. “Although nearly. I didn’t think it got this cold here?” he added, looking at Veris. It was Neven’s first time in L.A. in this particular timeline. His first time in the States, too.

  “It’s freezing!” Aran said, with a whine in his voice. His eyes were red and his temper uneven. He didn’t like commercial travelling. “Can we just get in and go home, please?” He opened the door.

  “It’s unusual to get this cold,” Far said, moving around to the trunk to help Athair. Athair—Brody, as Marit was coming to think of him more and more lately—already had it open and was shoving luggage in. He didn’t seem to care that people might notice his super-human strength. Although, he had been sitting next to Aran as they crossed the Atlantic, so even Brody’s usually calm temper would be strained.

  Then the rain started. Not just a sprinkle, but a deluge that California rarely experienced. It was cold and it was falling hard enough to sting.

  Everyone scrambled to get into the limousine, while Far and Athair slung the bags in and slammed the trunk, then piled in themselves. By then, everyone was some degree of wet. Marit’s hair was dripping down her back, inside her jacket.

  Their group had seven people, three of them big men, so it was a squeeze even in the family limousine. Marit was in the middle of the backwards-facing seat, next to Veris. Aran sat right next to Veris on the other side.

  If they’d had more time to settle in the car, Marit would have contrived to have Aran sit next to her Mom. Taylor had the patience of a saint when it came to the twins—probably because they could spark Athair and Far into exploding on a regular basis and Taylor tried to counter that tendency.

  That was how Marit’s family were more ordinary than average. Marit sometimes wondered why two vampires, both in their second millennium, didn’t have more wisdom when dealing with cranky thirteen-year-olds. Aran and Alannah, though, could wind them up faster than master fishermen.

  She could feel Veris’ tension in his stillness and silence and the rigor of his normally relaxed body. He was beyond soothing, now, so she held her silence.

  All the way home, Aran marveled at the rain, the cold, the long lines they’d had to put up with to get through Customs. He even bitched about having to wait for Neven to be processed through the foreigner station, which had an even longer line.

  Neven apologized—again—for holding them up.

  “Not your fault,” Brody said shortly. “The passport didn’t have a lot of history so they were cautious. Your new ID will have a track record soon enough, though.”

  By
the time they reached the Hills, even Marit was wishing they were home already. She usually had more sympathy for the twins. Like her, they had to pretend and lie and keep the lies straight in order to go through a normal childhood and blend in at school. It was frustrating. Now, though, Aran was starting to drive Marit crazy, too. Alan was baited by her brother into complaining about how tired she was, to which Taylor murmured in sympathy.

  “It’d be so much easier if we could just time jump here,” Aran said, as they pulled up under the portico at the side of the house and finally, thankfully, got out of the car. The portico protected them from the rain, but not the cold, which hit them twice as hard, because this was Los Angeles, the place of mild winters and torrid summers. It made coming home feel odd and off-kilter.

  Everyone automatically headed for the library, the center of the house. It was nearly as cold inside, because there had been no one inside the house for well over a month. The humans in the room—Neven, the twins and Marit—were all shivering.

  Veris slapped the switch to turn on the big gas fire in the brick fireplace as they gathered around. Nothing happened.

  Marit held her breath as Veris growled. It was a low, animal sound that she had only ever heard him make when he was in Northman mode—triggered to defend himself or protect someone else. Cold fingers walked up her spine.

  “It might be easier if everyone who needs sleep just went to bed,” Taylor said diplomatically. “They’ll be warm, there, at least.”

  “I don’t want to go to bed yet,” Aran said. “I want a drink. Something that’ll warm me up. Whiskey.”

  Marit caught her breath in shock. What did Aran think he was doing?

  Veris grew still.

  “That’s it,” Brody snapped. “Go to bed now, before I take you to bed. No one wants to listen to your whining anymore.”

  Aran squared his shoulders and scowled. He was Brody’s blood, yet his frown was pure Veris. “I told you, I’m not ready to sleep yet. I need to unwind. I hate planes. I told you that.”

  “You can have a hot chocolate,” Taylor said gently. “The milk will help you sleep, too.”

  Aran wrinkled his nose. “Chocolate? What am I? Six years old?”

  No one dared try to answer that.

  “Aunt Sydney let me drink port, in Spain,” he added.

  It had been one small glass she had offered him, to prove just how disgusting the stuff was. Marit’s glass had been just as tiny.

  “Go to bed,” Brody said flatly. “Now.”

  “I don’t want to!”

  Veris lunged for him, in one of his cat-quick reactions, his big hand out.

  Aran actually yelped in surprise and jumped back.

  Then he disappeared.

  Marit gasped. So did everyone else.

  “Veris!” Taylor cried, her voice rising with panic. “What did you do?”

  Veris was staring at the spot where Aran had been. “I didn’t touch him,” he said, his voice controlled and even. When a true emergency occurred, both her fathers had an amazing ability to focus only on the important stuff. Everything else, including tempers, hurt feelings and frustrations, was shrugged off.

  It was at moments like this that Marit could see the full weight of their years. It made her love them and appreciate even more how wonderful it was to have them as her fathers.

  Brody gripped Veris’ elbow. “It was a jump,” he said, his voice just as low. “Just as Taylor does it.”

  “Then why isn’t he still here?” Taylor demanded. “If it was really a jump, then his body should still be here!”

  Veris turned to look at Marit. “Can you see where he is?”

  Marit dropped her chin and tried to focus as Veris and Brody had. Her heart was running too hard. She tried again and could feel/see the timescape in front of her and reached out with all her senses for any signs of Aran.

  “I wondered if Aran might become a jumper,” Neven said quietly. “Your family is full of them, after all.”

  “Where is he?” Alannah asked, her voice higher and more frightened than Taylor’s.

  “Where have you been in history, Alan?” Taylor said. “Is there a place you’ve been to more than once? A place you like? Somewhere that draws you? Think, honey.”

  “We’ve only done the two jumps back, with Aunt Sidney,” she said defensively.

  “And that off-the-books jump to Panormos,” Veris growled, for that jump had been the one that had revealed that Alannah could jump through time, just like Marit and Taylor.

  “He could be anywhere,” Brody added.

  “He didn’t think about it,” Neven said. “He jumped instinctively. He’ll land somewhere that’s known to him…or will be known to him. I’ll help Marit search the timescape. There will be a bookmark somewhere in time that draws us just as it would have drawn him.”

  “Anything, Marit?” Far asked her quietly. He was trying to avoid jolting her out of the timescape.

  Marit brought herself back to the present moment. “Nothing,” she said, trembling. “There’s nothing out there.”

  Neven came over to her. His black eyes were calm. “Maybe the two of us can find him. Together.”

  Veris’ cellphone jangled with the heavy Scandinavian electronic folk music track he used as a ringtone. He had selected the track just to drive Brody crazy. He pulled his phone out of his jacket.

  “At three in the morning?” Taylor breathed.

  “Now what?” Brody added with a sigh, pushing his hand through his long hair. He’d taken the band out in the limousine and rubbed furiously at the scalp. Now it lay damp and curling over the back of his shoulders.

  “Sydney!” Veris said sharply. “Wait, I’ll put you on speaker.” Then he thumbed the screen and laid the phone flat on his palm and held it up.

  Sydney’s voice emerged from the speaker. “I thought I should phone immediately. You’re probably panicking. It’s three in the morning there. Aran looks as though he hasn’t slept for two weeks.”

  “Aran is there?” Taylor said sharply.

  “He landed in our living room five minutes ago, damp and terrified.”

  Marit’s heart gave a little squeeze. How had Aran done that?

  “How did he manage that?” Brody asked sharply, echoing her thoughts. “He jumped from here five minutes ago. How does a time jumper make a jump and not move through time?”

  “Oh, my sweet lord,” Neven breathed. “Time. Of course…”

  Everyone looked at him, waiting.

  “Neven?” Sydney asked on the phone, prompting him.

  Neven’s single word had shifted everything and Marit understood. “He did move through time,” she said, moving up to where everyone was standing around Veris’ hand and the phone. “It’s a time-space continuum, remember? Aran moved through space and stayed on the same time axis.”

  “You can do that?” Veris asked, sounding not just curious, but even a bit excited. It was as if the possibility was setting off all sorts of ideas in his head.

  Brody laughed. “And we just spent nearly thirty fucking hours in a flying tin can…”

  Sydney’s voice came through the phone, sounding lower and somehow more regal. “This has ramifications we’ll need to consider carefully. In the meantime, I’ll coach Aran on how to get home again. I suppose I should congratulate everyone. Your family has not only a new jumper, but a new skillset, too.”

  Marit sighed. Her family were ordinary most of the time…until they weren’t. Now she was going to have to ride herd on Aran and Alannah even more than before. What would they try next?

  Chapter One

  Present day.

  Guilt was a great emotion. It could make one of the most delightful days of the year horrid. Right up until Mary Powell came running up to London as she was wrapping the shawl around her shoulders for the walk home, London had been having a perfectly wonderful day. It was October. The leaves were turning and all the plane trees and the bays lining the road off King’s Road were red and orange a
nd yellow. It was still warm enough to enjoy walking outside, too.

  Then Mary Powell opened her mouth and ruined it.

  Mary was a good administrator. She made the group home a warm, comfortable place for the six residents and she treated all the residents with genuine caring and sensitivity. It was a shame her empathy didn’t extend to more ordinary people.

  “London! London! I’m so glad I caught you before you left.” Mary puffed to a stop next to her. “We’re taking everyone to Hyde Park tomorrow and I need two more companions. Could you possibly spare a few hours? I know it’s a lot to ask, only you did say you like walking among the trees at this time of years, so I thought…” She grimaced.

  London gave her a stiff smile. “I’m heading to Serbia tonight, Mary. I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh.” Mary blew out her breath with a dramatic sigh. “I always forget about these trips of yours. Oh, dear.” She wrung her hands.

  “You’re that short on companions?” London asked. The residents of the group home were high-needs adults. They needed constant supervision, which was why the group home administration had been almost pathetically grateful when London had volunteered, three years ago. They had quickly filled up her schedule, to the point where London had been forced to work with them to arrange time off well in advance. They did need the help quite desperately. “Perhaps Lisa, or Jean Woodall could spare a few hours? Have you asked them?”

  Mary chewed her lip. “I suppose I should. I’m sorry, it’s just that you were here and a walk in the park seemed to be just your thing. I’ll find someone. Not to worry, dear.” She patted London’s hand. “You have a lovely time in Serbia and don’t worry about us at all.”

  London gave her a small smile and stepped out of the home and made sure the door was properly shut and the electronic lock clicked into place. It wasn’t unheard of for one of the residents to take it into their minds to go for a walk without telling anyone. A keyed door helped prevent those types of alarms, which could upset everyone for days.