Chapter Forty-four
“She was taken by the Night Terror when I was five, so I don’t have many memories of her. But what I do have is clear. I was only four when my mother told me something I’ll never forget.” Helena walked around the car, running her fingertips along the chrome and admiring the way magic kept fingerprints from forming. It was her magic; she’d worked it into the car when she’d repaired it. “She was talking about dad,” she continued, laughing softly. “Dad loved his car.” She stopped and felt her face fall. “It was a 67 Shelby. Just like this one.”
She could feel William watching her. His attention had a weight to it, physical and real. Even now, after he’d seen all of her, and done quite a bit too, it was humbling to think that a man as monumental as William found her that interesting.
“She said, ‘Helena, never fall in love with a man who’s in love with his car.’” Helena smiled and glanced over at William. “She was doing the dishes at the time, and I remember each dish hitting the water with more force than necessary. Some would bang against the metal of the sink. She was pretty pissed.” Helena continued around the car, then stopped in front of it and crossed her arms over her chest. “She said, ‘There’s no competing with the car, angel. You’ll both grow old. But while you become the antique, the car will become a classic.’”
William cocked his head to one side and regarded her with a glint in his jade colored eyes. The corners of his mouth were turned up. “I know a way around that,” he told her.
“I’m not finished,” she said, cutting him off. Besides, she knew what he was going to say. Now that she remembered who and what he really was, she also knew what he was going to offer her. She felt it in her heart.
Maybe that was why she kept talking.
She lifted her chin. “That’s why I decided that I would be the one in love with the car,” she said defiantly. “Then I would never have to fight with it for a man’s attentions. He could be the one to grow old and become the antique. My car would be the classic. And I would be behind the wheel, driving the entire time.”
Control. That was what she’d fought for all her life. Control over what happened to her and the ones she loved. It was why she’d followed in her father’s footsteps, why she policed the paranormal realms for those in charge and never stopped long enough to consider the effect it had on her existence. Nor had she stopped to ask why it was the way it was to begin with.
“So you began… fixing up cars,” William said, finishing her story for her with a gentle tease. She looked up as he turned in the field and his gaze roved over the lines of cars in rows across the grass. They filled an entire acre. “Or one car in particular,” he said.
They were all Shelbys. They were all the exact same car. Different paint maybe. Some with leather, some without. Some with flames up the sides and others with stripes. But they were otherwise identical.
No one knew this was what she did, this was where she came, and this was how she dealt with her obsession. This was how she maintained control.
And now that she looked out over the plethora of perfectly restored 1967 Ford Mustang Shelbys, she realized she’d been out of control the entire time. For two reasons: One, this was crazy. And two, this was William’s car. She’d been competing with fate all along and hadn’t even known it.
Now she was mad. She turned her gaze down at the car, so gleaming and gorgeous. It was her latest addition to the army of perfect vehicles born of her magic. But this one with the green flames had felt special to her. It was her favorite. She’d even given it a name. Angel.
Angel had been her mother’s nickname for her. Perhaps not entirely original, but when she’d said it, it felt good.
“You’re no angel,” she whispered to the car. In her imagination, the shining black beast grinned cockily up at her and winked. Even the car had more control over her life than she did.
William slowly strode around the car, his long legs carrying him toward her while his eyes kept her where she was. When he looked at her like that… she felt the chains of his magic tying her down.
“You are real, Helena. Your life, your past.” He shook his head, his eyes glittering. “It all happened.” He stopped a few feet away, giving her the space she needed like he knew she needed it. “The fact that it happened in another dimension makes it no less real. We?” he said, gesturing to the world around them, “We’re the alternate dimension to other worlds. Everything is relative.”
“Thanks, Einstein.”
“I’m not finished,” he continued teasingly, his deep voice and timeless accent smoothing out the edges of her anger as he crossed his sculpted arms over his vast chest and continued around her. “The dimensions have collided,” he said, looking at the grass. “Time separated itself and then slammed back together. Things are different now. Aside from your special case alone, nothing is ever mended to perfection. There are always scars.” He stopped and faced her. “And a select few of us will notice those scars.”
She knew what that meant. Only certain people would be powerful enough to know that the status quo of the world now was not the way it had always been. The Time King was one of those people.
“And so are you, Helena,” he told her as if he knew her thoughts.
She looked away, turning her gaze nervously to the car. Her hands were shaking, a small tremble that sabotaged her calm veneer. So she shoved them into the pockets of her jacket, and turned her back on him entirely, closing her eyes to think.
“Become my queen,” he said, his lips at her ear.
She jumped, but his strong arms slid around her, holding her fast. He’d moved in so quietly, and so quickly. He was green lightning and the emerald fire on the sides of her car.
Helena looked at those flames and thought of his eyes and found herself weakening into his embrace. She relaxed there and let him hold her for a moment, shutting her eyes again to experience the hard warmth of him.
When she wanted to turn around and face him, he finally let her. She placed her arms against his chest and leaned in to press an ear to it. For some reason, she wanted to hear his heart.
There it was. It was a slow and steady rhythm, utterly normal at first. But if you listened close enough – and if he allowed you to hear it – you would catch the deeper ticking of a primordial clock. The sound was distant and soft and unimaginably ancient, but she heard it. Time was the blood that flowed through William’s vessel and continued the immortal beating of his heart.
She remembered that about him now too. She knew that she’d had other lives, many before the one she knew now. She’d been reincarnated over and over again for the last several thousand years. She knew he was the Time King, William Solan, the oldest being in the multiverse.
Become my queen. His words echoed in her thoughts. “I don’t know how,” she finally told him, her eyes still closed, her ear still listening. Then she opened her eyes and lifted her head to look up at him. She had to crane her neck. He was so tall. “Time runs through your veins, William. Not through mine.”