Kiss Across Chains Read online

  Taylor drew in another breath. “Tall, skinny, dark skin and black eyes?”

  “Yep.”

  “Tira,” Brody muttered.

  “Who?” Alexander asked.

  “The queen is here,” Veris said. “The mountain has come to Mohammad.”

  “Yeah and he came in five white stretch limousines,” Mia added dryly.

  “Oh, sweet lord,” Alexander breathed. “Now what?”

  “You will all come inside. Now,” said a male, flat voice from behind Mia. Six tall men in suits stepped out onto the deck and moved swiftly to stand in a loose circle around them where they sat at the big barbecue table.

  Marit nestled tightly into Brody’s side.

  “I guess we’re going inside,” Veris said mildly, picking up Taylor’s hand.

  Alexander stood aside for Mia and they all moved into the house. Brody stopped at the stairs. “I’m putting Marit down to sleep,” he said, attempting to head off toward her bedroom.

  One of the six vampires shepherding them stepped in front of Brody. “All of you,” he said.

  Marit, perhaps sensing the menace around them, tucked her head even more tightly into Brody’s chest and tightened her arms around his neck. She said nothing.

  Brody simply stared at the strange vampires. Silently, he turned and followed Alexander and Mia into the library, with Veris and Taylor coming last.

  Tira had not changed from the last time Taylor saw her. She was still a tall, exceedingly slender, dark olive-skinned woman with black eyes that seemed older than the rest of her put together. She sat in Taylor’s favorite chair, while everyone else stood around her.

  But Tira was not watching them as they entered the big two-floor book-lined room. She was studying Marit with a hungry, eager expression on her face.

  “Look at me, child,” she said as soon they were brought to a halt in the middle of the room.

  Marit gave a little squeak and hid her face against Brody’s neck.

  Something passed over Tira’s face. Annoyance. She looked at Brody. “Make her look at me,” she demanded.

  “I know what you want to see,” he told her. “It won’t do you any good, my lady. Marit is adopted.”

  Tira’s hand on the flat, polished wood of the chair tightened. “That is not what I have heard, Braenden of the Gaels. I will see her face. Either you will show it to me or I will arrange to see it for myself.”

  Brody locked gazes with her.

  Taylor could feel his temper rising almost like a temperature gauge and wanted to reach out and soothe him. Now was not the time to stir the queen. Not over this. She realized that she was clutching at Veris’ hand compulsively. But Veris’ grip was no lighter.

  Finally, Brody sank to one knee and whispered in Marit’s ear. Marit’s arms unlocked around his neck and she let him lower her to the ground. He straightened her jeans and tee-shirt, then she turned around to face the queen, her eyes narrowed. Brody kept his hands on her waist, his hands looking large against her tiny body.

  The queen jerked forward, her fingers clenching the arms of the chair.

  “It’s true,” she breathed. She snapped her head to look at Veris. “She is a replica of you and the woman.” She pushed herself to her feet, causing everyone else in the room to stir around her. That seemed to make her realize where she was. “Everyone get out,” she snapped. “Gregor, stay here. Peter, too. Everyone else, out. Out!”

  The room began to clear as the people shuffled out of the room, out to the limousines ranged outside. The front door opened then closed, leaving Tira and Gregor, a seven foot vampire with a wild black beard and startling grey eyes, and Peter, a perfectly normal looking man in a suit and tie, standing on either side of her. Tira was wearing a collarless and sleeveless white dress that stopped at her knee, and looked effortlessly elegant. Compared to the jeans Taylor and Brody wore and the scuffed and old leather pants Veris wore, Tira look very much like a queen.

  But Taylor wasn’t about to let herself feel inferior because of clothing. Not for a moment.

  Tira looked them over. “You know the secret of real time travel,” she said. “The proof of it stands right there.” She pointed at Marit, who backed up against Brody. Brody murmured quietly to her.

  Taylor’s heart squeezed. There was a note in the queen’s voice as she spoke that was alarming.

  Tira shook her head. “You have had the key to time travel for years, yet you have not shared this with me, your queen.” She looked at Veris. “I expected more from you, Northman. You of all people I would have expected to understand the strategic importance of this matter.”

  Veris remained silent.

  “This should have been reported to the council and you know it!” Tira railed, fury abruptly pouring from her.

  Veris cleared his throat. “You can truthfully report ignorance, my lady. They cannot gainsay you on that.”

  “They knew of it before me!” she shrieked. “Someone in my own district, someone you confided in before me, went tattling to the Council behind my back! Now they are demanding an explanation from me. From me!”

  Taylor could feel her body wanting to shrink back from the queen’s anger. Only Veris’ rock solid presence beside her and Brody’s unmoving body in front of her kept her where she was. She didn’t turn her head to look at either of them because she knew they would be thinking the same thing as her. None of them had confided in anyone until Alexander. Alexander would not speak to anyone about the travelling. He was as cautious about the subject as they.

  Who knew about their travelling? Who had found out?

  Tira turned to look at Taylor with narrowed eyes. “This all started when you messed up their lives, human. You’re the key.”

  Brody stood up, bringing Marit with him. “Her name is Taylor.” He handed Marit to Alexander and turned back to face Tira again. “I suggest you use Taylor’s name, my lady, as she is both bonded and married to us.” His seemingly casual steps had placed him on Taylor’s other flank, opposite Veris.

  Tira’s big mouth with the thin lips turned down. “Yes, yes, this polyandrous marriage ceremony you arranged for yourself in Tibet. Gregor filled me in on it. You three have been busy while my back was turned. A human marriage that is very nearly legal and off-spring, too. But you have failed in the one condition we agreed to, eight years ago. She is still human.” Tira pointed at Taylor with a long fingernail.

  “We still have some years yet before that condition is to be met,” Brody replied. “And the married is quite legal.”

  “In Tibet, perhaps, but not everywhere,” Tira replied, with a small, dry smile. “You will not distract me from the subject with your legal finesse, Braenden. Taylor is the key to your time travelling.” She stepped closer.

  Brody stepped smoothly out in front of all of them – Veris, Taylor and Marit in Alexander’s arms – so that he was facing the queen alone.

  “Brody…” Veris rumbled warningly.

  Tira smiled. “You don’t want to do this. You have no idea the depth and degree of wrath you bring upon your head if you dare oppose my will.”

  Brody crossed his arms. “Yeah, I kinda do, actually. But you don’t seem to have any clue about what you’re doing here, either.” He leaned forward a little. “Let me clue you in. Don’t get between me and mine, Tira. Not if you value your skinny black arse.”

  She drew herself up to her full height, a thousand years of power squaring her shoulders. “I am your queen,” she said with utter assurance and the flatness of superiority.

  “And I’m a father,” Brody shot back. “I outrank you.”

  Tira laughed. “How cute.”

  “Just try me,” Brody said, his voice more flat and far more sincere than Tira had just managed.

  Her smile faded as she studied him. She switched her gaze to Veris. “Explain to him the danger he’s risking, Northman.”

  Veris shook his head. “I regret, my lady, that on this occasion I agree with Brody. You’re threatening my family.
If Brody wasn’t saying it, I would be. He just happened to say it first and used less syllables than I would. It comes out the same way, though.” His face hardened. “Don’t push me. You’ll regret it.”

  Tira glanced from Veris to Brody and back again. Finally, she studied Brody carefully. “Very well, Brody of the Gaels,” she said, stepping back. “When you are ready to give me the key to time travel, you know where to find me.”

  She turned and walked out of the room, her head perfectly straight, her shoulders square and still. Tira did indeed walk like a queen.

  Her two men, Gregor and Peter, fell in behind her.

  Everyone else remained motionless until the front door closed softly behind them.

  Veris was the first to move. He turned to Mia. “Mia, go home. Pack. Buy a ticket to any country where you would like a holiday and go there for two weeks. You’re on salary, of course, but go and enjoy yourself until we tell you it’s safe to come back to this house and start work again. Do you understand?”

  Mia pursed her lips together. “I could help. With Marit. Taking care of her, I mean.”

  “It’s not going to be safe here at all,” Veris told her. “We won’t be here in an hour, ourselves.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Mia said. “You’ll need help, anyway.” She shrugged. “I don’t like people who try to tell me what to do any more than you do. Having to go cool my ass off on some beach while you’re in danger...it’d just piss me off, you know?”

  Taylor slid her hand under Veris’ elbow. “Let her come.”

  Veris shook his head. “I won’t bring another person into danger.”

  “It’s my choice,” Mia said, “and I can help.”

  Brody put his hand on her shoulder. “Fine, you can help. Veris, pull the stick out of your ass. Mia’s a woman, not a china doll. She can make her own decisions. Mia, pack a bag and if you can pack something for Marit while you’re at it, you’ll have my gratitude. Marit, go with Mia, an bhfuil cuma cad é a deir sí, le do thoil.”

  Marit looked at Brody with big, serious eyes. “If I do whatever she says, what if she tells me to jump off a cliff?”

  Mia picked her up. “You’re causing mischief, mi un poco inteligente. You know very well I would do no such thing.”

  Marit grinned. “But you could,” she said in Spanish, “and then I would have to jump, because Daddy said so.”

  Mia rolled her eyes and looked at them over her shoulder as she turned toward the archways. “I’ll be fifteen minutes, max,” she promised. She tapped Marit’s chest as she headed for the foyer and the wrought iron stair case. “Even if I told you to jump off a cliff, missy smarty pants, you know very well that both your daddies have given you a much older rule, a higher order that says you have to preserve your innards first and foremost.”

  Marit began to argue in clear and well-constructed Spanish and their voices faded as they climbed the stairs.

  Alexander turned to face the three of them: Veris, Taylor and Brody. “Have I been marked by the queen, do you think?”

  Brody grimaced. “Do you want to risk her wrath by assuming you are not?”

  “Who spoke to the council?” Alexander asked. “If we gave her that name, then perhaps we would draw her sting.”

  “No, we wouldn’t,” Taylor told him. “She wants time travel. She wants me. Telling her we don’t know how it works won’t appease her. She wants a secret, something she can give to the council to get them off her back and make herself look powerful and knowledgeable again.”

  Alexander nodded. “So I understood. I thought perhaps a consolation prize might work. I clearly do not know the queen well enough. Then my next assumption may be wrong, too. I had assumed I would be better on my own. Safer.” He raised a brow. “Now I begin to wonder how determined Tira will be to restore her reputation.”

  “Very,” Brody said flatly.

  Veris crossed his arms. “You’d better come with us, Alex. You were never a fighter—“

  “I do know which is the sharp end of a sword,” Alexander objected.

  “But it wasn’t your life’s trade as it was ours,” Brody added gently. “There’s no reason for you to have to pick up a weapon if we’re around.”

  Alexander was frowning. “You think I cannot defend myself?”

  Veris shook his head. “We object to you having to defend yourself. This isn’t your fight. We won’t have you break with your faith’s moral code because of us.”

  Brody swore and reached under his tee-shirt for his cellphone, clipped to the band of his jeans. He pressed the screen and stared at it. “Bugger!” he muttered and thumbed out a fast text message. He looked up at Veris. “Band trouble,” he said. “A break-in on the bus. Cops want us all there to check it over and see what’s missing.” He put the phone back on his belt. “I’ll be as fast as I can.”

  Veris caught his arm. “We all go,” he said. “From now on, we all move together. Everywhere.”

  For a moment Brody looked like he wanted to protest. Then the line between his brows smoothed out and he nodded. “I’ll get the limousine organized,” he said quietly and left, moving fast.

  Taylor caught Veris’ eye. “Coincidence?” she asked, her heart thudding unhappily. She didn’t like how the business with the band’s coach had suddenly occurred right at this moment.

  Veris shook his head, frowning. She could see he was mentally groping, looking for answers where there were few or none yet to grasp. “Let’s hope so.”

  Chapter Two

  Only Brody called the million dollar-plus luxury tour coach the band used to travel around North America a “bus” -- a lingering trace of his British roots. The coach, when it wasn’t in active use, was kept in a shed in the warehouse district in downtown L.A.

  The limousine carrying the five adults and Marit pulled into the big, brightly lit shed forty minutes after Brody got his text message. It wasn’t the first vehicle there. The driver nosed his way through a dozen police sedans and other cars already parked in the empty half of the shed. On the other side, the big, long coach with its dark, wild paintwork under the overhead arc lights sat silently while at least two dozen people stood or walked around it, most of them studying the detailed, endlessly fascinating artwork. The theme was appropriate for a death metal band—death, dying, blood, gods, demons, violence, the mystical, power, sex. The glories of music were intertwined throughout the ageless themes and the band’s logo and name ran across both sides. No one was left in any doubt when Nocturnal Rain rolled into town.

  “Keep Marit in the car,” Veris told Mia. “We’ll be as quick as we can.”

  “We?” Brody repeated, pausing from his slide across the seat toward the door.

  “Yes,” Taylor said flatly. She pushed Brody toward the door.

  Brody shook his head, but he slid out of the car and straightened up to his full six foot height. Taylor glanced at Veris as she eased out behind Brody. “There are too many people for simple theft,” she said softly, in Old Norse.

  “Speak English or don’t speak at all,” Brody growled, not even looking at them. He was watching the commotion around the bus.

  Veris glanced at Brody, a brow lifting. Taylor agreed. It wasn’t like Brody to snarl like that.

  “Let’s go sort this out,” Taylor said, moving forward. Veris shut the car door behind her.

  Brody followed her lead.

  They were met halfway across the grey-painted concrete by a group of six law enforcement types. Three of them were uniformed cops. The other three wore suits, two of them badly. The third wore a suit that looked tailored and pristine. He walked right up to Brody, his eyes narrowed. “You must be Brody Gallagher,” he said. He didn’t push out his hand for a handshake, Taylor noted.

  “I must be,” Brody agreed. There was a fine line between his brows. “And you must be...?”

  “Lieutenant Brixton, Southwest Division.”

  “They pulled you all the way out here for a theft?” Veris asked.

  �
��Something like that,” Brixton said. He had pleasant looking eyes that gave away nothing. “Mr. Gallagher, we’re told that each of you in your band have your own lockers and beds on the coach. Is that correct?”

  Brody glanced toward the coach again. Emerging from the far side, Taylor saw the other three members of his band walking in the middle of a cluster of uniformed cops and detectives.

  “I’d like you to step aboard the coach and identify your locker for me,” Brixton told Brody.

  Fear touched Taylor. “What department is yours, Lieutenant?” she asked. “You didn’t say.”

  Brixton gave a tight smile. “No, I didn’t.” He stepped aside so that Brody could move forward. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Gallagher? It will just take a moment.”

  “Which department?” Veris insisted.

  “Vice,” Brixton said shortly.

  Brody turned to face Brixton squarely. “What’s in the locker?” he demanded.

  His abrupt movement made four of the cops travelling with Brixton jerk for their weapons, only to abort the movement.

  Taylor’s breath hitched and hurried on.

  Brixton dropped any pretense at pleasantness. His face hardened. “Your fellow band members have all confirmed the locker is yours, Mr. Gallagher. That’s enough for the judge. Your confirmation is a formality. As the locker is yours, you should know what is in it well enough.”

  “Nothing that deserves this carnival,” Brody said flatly. Angrily.

  Veris moved up to Brody’s side. “Brody, shut up. Now.”

  Brixton pulled a notebook out of his inner jacket pocket and flipped it open. “We were expecting to find a certain amount of cocaine and cannabis in all the lockers and we did, in amounts usually considered for personal use. Your stash was something else entirely.”

  “My stash?” Brody breathed, his tone choked.

  “Brody, shut the fuck up,” Veris muttered, shaking his arm.