They’d jumped somewhere into the future. She didn’t know where, but they had to be in the same relative location where Tuckerville had been. It was colder, and it was raining. Not hard, but icy enough to be uncomfortable.
Goen dropped her onto the ground, ignoring her soft cry of pain as she landed on her right shoulder that sent jagged spikes of pain down her spine and across her back. She was aware of him checking the area before he crouched down next to her.
“I know Cayn will come looking for you,” he told her in a voice that sent shivers through her. “We will let him get close enough so I can stop him, and then we will jump again.” He grinned, but there was no humor in it. “I want to make him feel as helpless and frustrated as I have felt all these years searching for you. And when I get tired of the chase, I will stop him…indefinitely."
Indefinitely. She remembered how her body had refused to draw air, and she knew what he meant. “Until he suffocates. Is that what you are telling me? You will keep him frozen in time until he dies?” Her voice was hoarse.
Goen glanced around them again. It was clear he was enjoying this moment. “I believe I am owed a small reward for all the misery you have put me through.”
He stared back down at her when the grin evaporated from his face. “What?” His gaze dropped to her belly and his face paled. The next instant, his expression hardened, and his eyes glittered with anger. No, with rage. And resentment.
“You are…with child? You whore!”
“I am no whore! Cayn and I exchanged vows!” she retorted. “I gave myself to him on our wedding night!” It was the truth. She and Cayn had spent that night making love between briefs bouts of sleep. What she wouldn’t tell him was that he had taken her virginity centuries before. But at that time, the two of them had already pledged themselves to each other for all eternity.
Eternally.
Goen straightened and stood over her. His hands clenched into fists, and she prepared herself for the beating that would come.
“I will rip that bastard from your belly, and the only cub you will whelp will be mi—”
A cry that was almost a scream interrupted him. Something plowed sideways into Goen, and they went tumbling over and over in the mud and water puddles. She was barely aware of Cayn struggling to hold onto Goen as he pounded him over the head.
Juda struggled to get to her feet as she watched the two men fighting for dominance. Fighting for possession of her. Or in Cayn’s case, fighting for her life and his. And the life of our child.
She looked around, trying to find something she could use as a weapon, when she remembered what Haram had said. A downed branch from the storm lay a short distance away. Running over to it, she picked it up and hurried back to where Goen had Cayn pinned to the grass. He raised a hand to stop time around her husband when she brought the branch down across the back of his neck and head with as much force as she could muster. It wasn’t enough to knock him out, but Goen let out a grunt of pain upon contact. She hit him again, giving Cayn the chance to roll out from under him. She watched as Cayn remained on his knees, shaking his head, trying to shake off the dizziness left by the pounding.
Goen gave a loud growl of anger and got to his feet. He raised his hands again in Cayn’s direction but turned to stare at her. “Just for that, I am going to—”
She dropped the branch and threw up her hands the way he did. The way she’d seen Cayn gesture before using his ability.
“She…sends us…forward.” Haram’s voice echoed in her head.
“How?” she whispered to herself. “How?”
“Think,” a small voice said. “Think it.”
She looked over to find Cayn staring at her, staring at her hands as blood dripped down his face.
“Get out of the way, whore!” Goen yelled, his hands ready. “Or you shall suffer with him!”
Think it. Think it.
Like the way I do before a jump?
She centered herself, lifted her hands, palms facing outward at Goen.
And then she pushed.
A look of astonishment came over the Nomad’s face. A heartbeat later, he vanished from sight.
It took her a moment to realize Goen was gone. Not until Cayn stumbled toward her and gathered her into his embrace.
“Is he gone? Is he r-really g-gone?” she stammered. Her body was shaking. From the cold, the wetness, or the strain, it was impossible to tell. She clutched him to prevent herself from falling.
“Yes, my love. Yes, he is no longer here,” he murmured into her ear, his voice barely audible amidst the sound of the rain as his arms tightened around her.
“Into the future?”
