Time Thief: A Time Thief Novel by Katie MacAlister
“You do not consider my nephew’s life valuable?” William gasped, holding tight to Lenore Faa’s arm. “Did you hear that? He does not consider the life of Gregory valuable. Does this not prove what I have said? Does this not validate our complaints—the complaints of all the family—against this man? He seeks to destroy us! Do not give him the means to do that.”
“What’s this about Gregory?” Kiya asked him.
“Do not act as if you had no hand stealing Gregory’s time!” Andrew screamed, shoving aside the old woman in his haste to get at them. “We know the truth! Gregory is gone, and it is you and the whore who killed him!”
“Whore?” Kiya rolled up her sleeves. “Oh, you did not just say that again. No, not even you, the man who kept stealing my time, and probably hit me on the head so I thought zombies were after my brains, not even you would be so stupid as to use the word ‘whore’ in reference to me a third time. Because not only is that insulting to your grandmother—it shows that you have a tiny little penis and are compensating for that fact by slandering others in a pathetic attempt to pretend that your gentleman’s personal wang is an outie, and not an innie. Which it most likely is.”
Andrew sucked in approximately half the existing air in the caravan.
“IN ADDITION TO WHICH,” Kiya finished loudly, forestalling the inevitable explosion, “Peter would never steal anyone’s time, let alone that of his own cousin, because he learned that lesson with the tragic situation with Sunil. Not, I should point out, that it was his fault a drunk driver mowed down Sunil. So if you are implying that he killed Gregory by taking all his time—the very act that Peter is in the process of investigating, although obviously not concerning Gregory, since he was very much alive a little bit ago when I saw him coming out of my tent right behind you—then you are not only at a deficit in the penis department, but in brains, as well! And you can just take back that whore slur before I show you what a really pissed-off half-Traveller woman of great virtue does in response to such slander!”
“Of all the outrageous statements coming out of their mouths, the word ‘whore’ is what you fixate on?” Peter asked Kiya, unable to keep from smiling just a little. How she delighted him. Not only did she surprise him with almost every word out of that deliciously sweet mouth; she actually stood up for him. In front of his family. He had definitely made the right choice in selecting her for his bride. If only she’d acknowledge that fact, they could get on with the business of being deliriously happy together.
“The woman is deranged!” Andrew told his grandmother. “How can you tolerate her presence? Do you not see what a threat she poses to the others? Do you care about your own family so little that you would tolerate an obviously insane slut like her to contaminate the very air we breathe?”
“Insane slut!”
Peter had to physically keep Kiya from attacking Andrew, and even then, he might not have been able to stop her from getting to him if Lenore Faa hadn’t spoken at that moment.
“That will be enough, Andrew. Kiya Mortenson, cease flailing your arms. Peter has enough common sense to not allow you the freedom to act upon your ill-conceived desires.”
“Just let me have a few minutes alone with him in a small room,” Kiya begged. “Just me and a rubber hose. Or maybe a baseball bat. A sheep gelding device would work, too, not that I think that he has much to—”
“Kiya!” Peter gave her another squeeze. She grumbled, but relaxed into his side. Pleased, he gave her a quick smile before fixing his gaze on the old woman, who shrugged off William’s hold and hobbled forward to stand before Kiya and him.
“You have left me no choice but to agree to the kris,” Lenore Faa told him.
Peter met her gaze without flinching, an odd feeling of empowerment stealing over him. He tried to pinpoint just why he felt that way, and was startled to realize that Kiya was responsible. She was warm pressed against him, a delicate presence that nonetheless made him feel both extremely protective and astonishingly in control of the situation. He was half-inclined to examine this strange sensation more deeply, but recoiled in horror when he realized that such actions might qualify him for the label of “self-aware, sensitive man.”
“You have been caught red-handed, as the mortals say.”
Then there was the matter of this kris that Lenore Faa threatened to hold. But even in the face of such a situation—one fraught with danger, if his memory of the history of Travellers was accurate—even in the face of that, he was calm.
“And now I’m told that it isn’t just our property that you have stolen, but the life of a most-beloved grandson.”
“That is utter bull, and you know it,” Kiya snapped. “Gregory is no more dead than I am, not unless someone offed him in the last few minutes, because he was perfectly hale and hearty when I saw him coming out of my tent.”
His arm tightened around her. How she delighted him. Look at how irritated she was now, talking back to the woman who not only employed her but held a great deal of power. But his Kiya did not let that scare her. No, she was as brave as she was smart. She would give him strong, intelligent children.
“When was this?” the old woman asked.
He just wouldn’t mention to her the fact that their children would be born full-blooded Travellers. She might balk a bit at the idea of children who could control time.
“A little bit ago.” Kiya touched the side of her head. “Someone bashed me on the head—again, which I can tell you I don’t appreciate in the least. It’ll be a miracle if I don’t suffer some sort of permanent brain trauma. My poor id will be all mixed up with my superego, who she dislikes intensely because my superego tries to tell the others what to do, and my ego will think he’s an id, which is ridiculous, because he’s not in the least bit idlike.”
The thought of making those children was an absorbing one, but regretfully not suitable for the moment. He made a promise to himself that he’d trot out the idea later, when he could act upon his whims.
He became aware that Lenore Faa and the two others were staring at Kiya as if she’d just said something outrageous. He searched his memory of what it was she had been saying. Something about her inner voices?
She gave a little embarrassed cough. “Anyway, Gregory was fine just before I was knocked out, and since it’s still night, that can’t have been that long ago.”
Peter looked down at her, anger gripping him in a red-hot vise. “Someone struck you?”
“Weren’t you paying attention? I mentioned that ages ago. Well, almost a minute ago.” She squinted up at him. “Why do you have that confused look? Were you daydreaming while we’re being falsely charged with offing your male-model cousin?”
“I wasn’t daydreaming. I never daydream. I wouldn’t know how to daydream if I wanted to. I was merely thinking about our children,” he told her calmly. Zen, that was the word to describe his mental state. Other than the fury over the idea of someone striking her. He was Zen with a side of fury.
She looked startled. “What children?”
“The ones we’re going to have. Don’t worry about training them—I will help with the process. Who struck you?”
“We’re going to have children?”
“Kiya,” he said sternly, giving her his best frown. “Please keep your mind on the situation at hand. Who was it who hit you?”
She rubbed her head. “You’re the one who brought up kids. And you bet you’re going to help with the potty training. I don’t know for certain who whomped me on the brain, but I’m willing to bet it was him.” She pointed at William.
Peter turned his eyes to the man who was his father, and for the first time in his life seriously considered using his abilities to harm another person.
“Oh, no,” Kiya told him, clearly reading his expression accurately. “If I can’t, you can’t. It’s only fair. And besides, he’s your father.”
“If he was the one who struck you, then it matters little who he is.” The fury in him grew with the thought of h
She was his, the woman with whom he had decided to spend his life, the woman who gave him immense pleasure, and a sense of belonging. If his family thought they could harm her, then they must be taught otherwise.
The choking, sputtering noise brought him back from the mental vacation he took to a place of unlimited fury. William’s face was turning a deep purplish red. He was mildly startled to find that he was holding his father by the throat, the latter’s feet dangling a good ten inches off the ground.
He wasn’t surprised to find Kiya at his side, fending off Andrew so that he could better throttle his father.
“Put Vilem down!” thundered Lenore Faa.
Peter released his father, not, he told himself, because the old lady ordered him to do so, but because he was an officer of the L’au-dela, and thus charged with protecting and defending citizens of the Otherworld and mortal world. Vengeance had no part in his life.
“Not unless you never touch Kiya again,” he growled at the man who lay gasping at his feet. “She is mine.”
“Whoa, now, Carl the Caveman!”
“You harm her at the risk of your life,” he added, ignoring Kiya when she turned an exasperated look on him.
Andrew snarled threats in Besh, the language Travellers used when they wished to exclude outsiders.
“Hey! None of that,” Kiya said, turning back to Andrew. “Didn’t you hear your grandma? She said knock it off. And don’t give me that look, you tiny-premised little twerp. I may not know what you said to Peter, but I can tell it was nasty just by the way you said it.”
Peter couldn’t help himself. Kiya was just so irresistible, so perfect. Despite the anger at his father, despite the worry about the loss of the evidence—and he was fairly certain that by now it had been destroyed—despite the pain of knowing he had failed Dalton, he was unable to keep the laughter inside. It just seemed to bubble out of him as he pulled Kiya into an embrace and soundly kissed her.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
Her startled expression melded into one of pink-cheeked pleasure. She slid a quick glance at Lenore Faa, then asked him, “For what?”
“For making my life infinitely better.”
“Oh, Peter.” She gave his lower lip a little bite. “If you keep saying things like that, I really will have to marry you.”
“That is my intention. Just as soon as I wrap up this case, I will take you home and make you mindless with pleasure.”
“Oooh,” she said, “that sounds fabulous. Where do you live?”
“Paris.”
Her eyebrows rose. “The one in France?”
“Yes. It is just an apartment, but it consists of the entire top floor of an eighteenth-century house. I think you’ll like it.”
“Paris,” she cooed, giving him a sultry look. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“If you are quite finished?” The whipcrack voice cut through all pleasurable thoughts that Peter was at that moment indulging.
He turned with Kiya to face Lenore Faa. She gestured toward William, who had gotten to his feet, his face still red, and hatred in his eyes. “Where is Gregory?”
“Gone.” William stopped rubbing his neck, obviously forcing his voice into one containing the bare minimum of civility. “He said he was going to confront this one and the woman about their plans to make trouble for us with the Watch. That was more than an hour ago. His car is still here, and he was not seen leaving the camp. We have looked for him, but can’t find him. He does not answer his phone.” William leveled him with a look that would have dropped an elephant. “He was seen going to the woman’s tent a little bit ago.”
“Andrew! Search for your cousin.”
“He’s not here—”
“I gave you an order. See to it.” Lenore Faa turned to her son. “Wake the others. I want this area scoured for Rehor.”
“It will do no good. He’s gone—”
“Do as I say!”
“And if he’s not found?” William asked, gesturing toward Kiya and him. “Will you hold them accountable for what they’ve done to him?”
“I feel obligated to state at this point that we have done nothing illegal, to Gregory or anyone else,” Peter said, his Kiya Zen once again firmly in place.
The old woman was silent for a few seconds, her gaze—oddly—on Kiya. “Yes,” she said finally, the words weighing down on him like heavy iron chains. “If Rehor is not found, before the sun rises, we will hold the kris.”
“And until then?” William asked as she turned and hobbled toward the door. He jerked his head toward Kiya. “What of the mahrime ones?”
“Do as you will.” Peter braced himself for the attack that he was sure William would make, but Lenore Faa’s voice snapped like a whip around them all.
“Understand me, Vilem, I want no harm to come to them. I hold you solely responsible for their welfare.”
William said several obscene things under his breath, but Peter relaxed slightly when he realized that his father’s hands were tied. Not literally, of course. That honor belonged to him.
“I hope you realize that as a member of the Watch, I am trained in any number of ways to escape confinement,” he told William a short time later as the man who had sired him bound his hands tightly behind his back with a roll of duct tape.
“Then I shall see to it that you have ample opportunity of practicing your so-called skills,” William said in a taunting tone of voice before adding another layer of duct tape to Peter’s wrists, bound behind his back. Already the circulation was being cut off to his hands, the adhesive on the tape pulling painfully on the skin. “And just because I’m tired of hearing your lies…”
William ripped off another hunk of tape and slapped it over Peter’s mouth.
He quickly repeated the process with Kiya’s hands, shoving her down onto the couch, but leaving her mouth unbound.
“If you move out of this caravan,” he told Kiya, gesturing at her with Peter’s own gun, “I’ll shoot you both. Him first.”
He expected his future wife to have something to say about that, and she didn’t let him down. “You really are the lowest thing I can possibly think of,” she told William, her eyes narrow and glittering with fury. “You’re like a donkey-porking, pedophilic, prejudicial, genocidal dictator who has an abnormal interest in dressing up in women’s underwear!”
William spat at her feet, and left the caravan, the door slamming behind him.
“What a horrible man. I can’t believe his sperm was responsible for you. You’re nothing at all like him, and I don’t mean just in personality. Andrew looks more like him than you do. And I’m sorry to say this, Peter, but he’s not very bright.” Skirting the spittle, Kiya moved over to the small kitchen area and spun around, her fingers groping blindly for a knife. “It obviously didn’t occur to him that I could just cut that tape right off you.”
He made an encouraging nodding gesture, hoping she’d take the tape from his mouth first.
“Dammit, where is the…” She turned back to face the counter, then swore. “Who the hell doesn’t have a knife in their kitchen? Maybe they’re in a drawer. I’ll try opening a few.”
Five minutes later, panting slightly from the effort of rummaging through William’s caravan with her hands bound behind her, she stood before him. “That bastard deliberately took all the knives out of his trailer. Which is just more proof that he set us up.” She looked forlorn. “Hold me!”
He gave her a look.
“Well, do the best you can,” she amended, sitting so she was straddling his legs. She leaned forward the better to rest her head on his shoulder. It was an awkward pose for them both—her knee was in the process of squashing his left testicle—but he did what he could to please her, nuzzling her head in a manner that he hoped was both erotic and yet comforting.
“You know, this could be fun,” she murmured,
Even with the pain from the crushed testicle, he was very aware of her scent and warmth and the nearness of her plump breasts, but until she removed the tape from his mouth, he couldn’t tell her that now was not the time to try to distract him with kisses and nibbles, and by the gods, did she just bite his nipple?
His eyes crossed.
“Mmm. You seem to like it, too, judging by Mr. Happy down there. I wonder if I could lock the RV door with my hands behind my back? If so, I could take care of that little problem you have in your pants.”
His eyebrows rose in outrage.
“Sorry. Beefy problem.” She gave his earlobe another nibble. He was about to demand—just how, he wasn’t quite sure—that she cease teasing him and impale herself on his penis when a soft whooshing noise heralded an arrival.
“Peter-ji! Are you being in here? I have been looking—oh la la la! What is this going on? Popsy! What have you done to Peter-ji?”
Sunil buzzed in an irritated fashion around Kiya’s face. She looked from the ball of light to the door. “How did…? That was closed…. How did you open the door?”
“If I am telling you all my secrets now, then we will have nothing to discuss later,” Sunil answered, zipping over to blink in front of his eyes. “Peter-ji, nod twice if this is some sort of kinky sex sport. Once if you are properly bound by villains.”
Peter rolled his eyes, but nodded. Once.
“Very well then. Popsy, you must be vacating Peter-ji’s lap so that I might free you both.”
Kiya seemed to be having some trouble getting over the fact that Sunil had entered the caravan, for suspicion was evident in her face. “I demand that you tell me how you opened that door when you don’t have hands, let alone a whatchacallit…corporeal body.”
“Peter-ji, please be telling her that we do not have time for this. It was only by the very most amazing luck that I returned to tell you about the magician, and for that reason was seeing through the windows that very nasty man bind you with electrician’s tape.”