Better not to think about that, I decided, scanning the area for my cordura duffel bag.
I found it tucked in the corner with clothing lying on top. A folded dark green jumpsuit—not mine—along with what I recognized as my own comfort bra and a pair of cotton underwear. And…yes, yes, yes!My heavy-duty black boots stood next to the bag with a perfectly dry pair of socks stuffed inside the right one.
For someone who’d tried to kill me last night while hissing, “You shouldn’t be here!” my possible fated mate had thought of everything.
I noted that the jumpsuit fit perfectly, the fabric moving and readjusting until it hugged my body just right. Below the waist, it had flaps in front and back that held together on their own, with no closures I could see. The suit faintly vibrated with the same energy I remembered sensing from the god tech appliances and surfaces in the Bear's secret kingdom.
Could you use god tech in clothes, too? I added that question to the long mental list.
My copper curls could have done with a good detangle, but I settled for pulling it back into the hair band, still miraculously snug around my wrist, despite my drop through the lake—and possibly time.
I rushed right back out the god tech door, too eager to get answers to all of my ques?—
“Whoa, were you just waiting out here the entire time?”
I once again jerked to a stop right before I ran into the giant being, who was directly on the other side of the door.
Instead of answering, he stepped to stand beside me and placed a hand on the small of my back to guide me forward.
It was warm, radiating heat like the pad my human roommate in college used during her time of the month. And though his touch was innocent, the knot tightened in my belly.
“You requested to know when and where you are. It is best that we show you, Dorcas.”
“Please call me Dorie.” I had to crane my neck just to look at him as I told him, “I hate my full name.”
He peered down at me sideways from his superior height. “That is lamentable. We quite like it.”
I wrinkled my nose. “What’s your name, then? So I can call you some version of it you don’t like.”
Yet another long pause, like he was a robot and my question required extra processing.
Wait, was he some kind of robot?
My eyes widened, and I looked down and to the side with the new thought.
Him being a robot would explain quite a few things. Including his poreless skin and way-too-symmetrical looks.
But why would the fating portal send me hurtling through time and space to a robot? Fated mates being so biologically compatible they had lots of babies together was the main point of Fated Mate Time Travel. One wolf scientist I’d gone all the way to Oslo to interview in person for my story on the Michigan queen’s time-traveling Viking Werewolves had even referred to them as fertility portals.
“Aengus.”
I looked up to find the strange being—whose name was apparently Aengus—still watching me as we walked across the huge cavern. His emerald-green gaze steady in a way that felt like a slow devouring.
My cheeks heated, and the knot in my tummy did that weird squeezing thing again.
“Aengus,” I repeated, liking the feeling of it on my tongue. “Is that the Irish Gaelic version of Angus?”
“We are not sure. This name was bestowed.”
“Did the person doing the bestowing know about your intermittent hissing thing?” I asked.
His face abruptly hardened. Several seconds ticked by before he answered, “Yesss.”
Okay, I could tell I’d hit a sore spot. But I wasn’t sure whether I’d insulted him or brought up an unpleasant memory.
Either way. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or bring you down.”
“Our feelings are not hurt. We are glad you have arrived.” He stopped about six feet away from the cavern’s back wall and raised a hand. Hovering it near my face, as if he would maybe stroke my cheek. Touch me…
