The Isis Knot (44 page)

She was no longer walking blind through a strange land. Now she clutched a map, and all she had to do was figure out how to read it.

“Isis wanted…” All moisture evaporated from her mouth, taking the words with it.

William kissed her then, sweeping his tongue inside and making her dizzy all over again. When she still couldn’t speak, he kissed her until her spine softened. Now he was taking away her concentration, making her want him all over again, when there were much larger things to think about.

She rocked to her feet before him, and she tried hard not to acknowledge how powerfully sexy he looked, sitting there on his heels, hands on his thighs, those blue eyes turned up to her through his golden lashes.

“All along,” she finally said, “she wanted me to have your baby.”

His lips pressed tightly together.

“Think about it,” she said. “When Ramsesh and Amonteh made love in that cave, they became Isis and Osiris, as the goddess intended, as she’d told Ramsesh what would happen in the temple. But they died before they could give Isis the weapon she wanted. Their son: Horus. The one thing she needed to fight and defeat Seth.

“Then Amonteh gave his
ka
to you and Ramsesh gave her
ka
to me, but in two different eras, hundreds of years apart. Isis had her pieces but now she had to find a way to bring us together. To send me to you in England was too risky. Seth had taken over Moore, and he was there. So Amonteh gave you the visions. First to keep you one step ahead of Moore, and then, when Moore was getting too close, he sent you as far away from England as possible. He put you on a course so that you and I would meet in a place Isis thought to be safe.”

“New South Wales.” William shook his head, the wind ruffling his curls. “Christ.”

“And Isis couldn’t bring you to me because Malik had already taken me prisoner by the time I wore the cuff. He would’ve killed you, Amonteh’s
ka
would’ve died with you, and there would’ve been no chance for Horus.”

“So as soon as you left the cave and found Sirius, she sent you here. To me.”

A deep exhale did nothing to calm her.

William slowly reached up, his hands gripping her hip bones. His eyes dropped to her flat belly. He looked reverent. Confused. And maybe just as scared as she was.

Don’t love him
.
Don’t you dare love him. It only complicates things. I forbid you to love him.

Too late.

“So this”—he leaned forward and nosed up her shirt to kiss the bare skin below her navel, and she shivered—“is supposed to defeat Seth?” Then he turned his head and pressed his cheek to her belly. “We raise him, keep him safe until he’s old enough to challenge Moore. Or whoever Seth might be by then.”

Him. This strange person who didn’t yet exist. This hero.

She wasn’t a mother yet, but she recognized the surge of protectiveness the moment it kicked in.

Behind that came a wave of anger and resentment. Something Isis probably never considered or even cared about.

“How dare she?” she murmured.

William pulled back and stood up. He looked down at her patiently, his brow drawn in his silent, assessing way.

“How dare she do this to us?” Sera said, her fury rising. “Taking both of us away from our worlds, stealing our lives. Giving me all this power I don’t want. Using me as a fucking incubator. And now bringing a baby into it? Bringing an innocent child into a war he’d otherwise know nothing about? Raising him to be some kind of war god?”

William’s hands settled around her shoulders. “He also could be just a child. Our child.”

She knew he was just saying this to talk her down, using that strong, gruff way of his, but it only frustrated her further.

“And give birth to and raise him
here
?” she cried. “In this awful place?”

The way he glanced around grimly told her he was thinking the same thing. “What’s it like? This colony in the future?”

She threw up her hands. “It still wouldn’t matter. We’re two hundred years away from anything I know.”

That seemed to stun him. He clenched his jaw, looking dazed. “The only thing I know is the sea,” he said softly. “And England. But we have neither.”

“We couldn’t go to England now anyway. Moore is there and…” She gestured vaguely to her belly, thinking about how what she and William had created was nothing more than a clump of molecules right about now. Hardly the effective weapon. “I’m not ready,” she choked out.

Not ready for any of this.

“So we’re supposed to stay here in the colony? I can’t keep running like we have been, Will. Not when I’m huge and fat. And definitely not when I’m holding a baby.” It felt so weird to say.

He nodded dully, then took her hand and held it between his own. Just held it, like he hadn’t realized he’d made the tender gesture and then didn’t know what to do with it. “They aren’t hunting you though. You can blend in, make a life here. Other colonists and freed men are doing it.”

“And what if Seth sends someone else? You think he won’t use another poor soul like he used Elizabeth? If she could stumble on us halfway across the world, so could another. Between America and here, he might consider the possibility the cuff might’ve left for one of the colonies. He could easily take another body and come here. And then what?” He said nothing. She pulled her hand free. “And then what?”

“No one knows
you
are here, Sera. You’ll be hidden.”

“The Waldgraves do.”

He hissed between his teeth. “Aye, they do.” His face brightened. “So does Viv. You could go to Viv’s again. He lives halfway to nowhere and he’ll keep your secret.”

“And he’s also halfway to dead. What happens when—wait.” A sickly flutter took up in her stomach. “You’re talking like you won’t be around.”

He aimed a level gaze directly at her, and she hated his placidness. “You and I both know what happens to bolters.”

The thought of him not being here with her—the entire concept of going through a pregnancy and birth and existing in this time and place without him—felt like being shoved hard in the chest. She retaliated the only way she knew how: with anger.

“Don’t! Don’t you dare say that.” She threw a hand in his face, but he didn’t recoil. Didn’t even budge.

But they both knew he spoke the truth. They let the doomed future rise between them like a wall of barbed wire. They could see each other through it, but reaching across would slice them to shreds.

Neither one of them blinked. Neither one of them moved. Until they both moved at the same time, him taking her hips and hauling her up against him. Her wrapping her arms around his neck and shoulders and constricting him like a snake.

She processed everything he’d just said, and when she came to her own decisions, they matched up with his.

Kissing his neck just below his ear, she said into his skin. “So we go back to Viv’s. It’s the only way.”

The only way to survive. But would that really be life? Could she really do that?

And then William tightened his hold on her. She didn’t think she’d ever tire of the pressure of his strong forearms on her lower back, the way the simple embrace kept her clamped to him.

“Maybe he’ll teach you how to shear a sheep,” she said. “It’s not the worsted wool factory. At least there’s that.”

“Okay,” he said, and she sagged, laughing at what was quickly becoming her favorite word. A foggy sheen mysteriously appeared over her vision.

Sliding his hands up to her ribcage, he gently pushed her away. “We need to go back to Fort Philip first.”

She shook her head. “No, you can’t. Why would you want to do that?”

“The ring. Elizabeth thought I’d put the ring in my pocket when you were questioning her, but I slipped it into my boot instead. Then after you left, I knew that wasn’t safe. You told me to throw it in the harbor, but I just couldn’t do it. There were too many questions around it and not nearly enough answers. Getting rid of it felt like more of a danger than keeping it around. It was why I remained at the fort for a little while, stupidly giving Elizabeth her chance to escape and attack me. I hid the ring before she hit me over the head.”

“Where?”

“I buried it just outside the fort walls.”

“Where?”

“Ah…I don’t remember. I’d have to see the wall to know. There are markings I’ll recognize.”

“Fuck it. Leave it there. Anyone who finds it won’t have a clue what it means, and by then we’ll be long gone.” To where, she didn’t know, but maybe if she kept saying it, they would have to make it true. Maybe they’d actually get away from New South Wales. Eventually.

She’d heard word about Van Diemen’s Land—Tasmania in her time—but they’d need a ship to get there. They needed a ship to get anywhere. The
Remembrance
still rocked in the harbor but that was a dead end, with William having no contacts on board and she no money to bribe the captain. Sure she could steal some piece by piece, but could she live with herself doing that? And by the time they gathered enough to approach the captain, the ship would likely have sailed. Or they’d be caught.

So they’d stay in New South Wales. And go back to Viv’s.

William looked down on her with aching sadness. “What about what’s been left to us? What about what we’ve made?”

They’d known about the child for mere minutes and her connection to it was tenuous at best. She was still so angry with Isis for doing this to both of them. William, however, was right there in front of her. Her eyes and heart and emotions were connected directly to him. Slice Ramsesh from her existence and there would still be William; Sera was sure of that now. To think about what kind of danger a kid might have to face twenty, eighteen, or sixteen years from now? The idea was abstract and intimidating.

She wanted William with her here. Now. She wanted him safe.

“I was there when Elizabeth was telling those guards about you. She said she’d killed you up at the fort because you’d raped her.”

He winced, and she felt his fist clench by her waist. She pressed closer to him, her focus drawn to the blood-crusted gash Elizabeth had given him that was now turning his whole temple black and blue.

“They were really interested in that,” she went on. “They knew your name, who you were. What if they went up there to make sure you were dead and your body wasn’t there? What if they’re waiting for you to come back?”

He scratched at one side of his face. The hair there had grown long and soft and fair from the sun.

“No other choice,” he muttered. “Have to take that chance.” With a little shake of his head, he blinked briefly into the sun. “I think you should—”

Oh no. He was not going to take off without her again. Not now. “I’m not staying behind. I’m not leaving you. We’re not separating.”

His lips twitched in a small smile. “I was going to say that I think you should come with me, but that we should wait until dark. Find some food and water first.”

Some of the tension unknotted within her shoulders, but then she knew what he’d meant by finding food and water. They couldn’t exactly walk up to that lone house sitting back on the land and ask for handouts, and heading back into the Rocks would be asking for death or capture.

In the end, he refused to let her steal. When he slinked back from the homestead holding a loaf of bread, she didn’t even ask how he’d gotten it and he didn’t say.

He settled his back against a rock, pulled her into the circle of his arms, and she said, “Tell me about the navy. Tell me about the ships and what you did on them.”

He did, in his short way, in that voice that somehow sounded like the water itself. He described squalls and battles and everyday life on board. The things he loved.

They watched the sun march down below the hazy blue mountains in the west. Darkness fell, they waited several more hours until the night was long and black, and then they crept back to Fort Philip.

The chaos in Sydney seemed to have settled, and now the town, though somewhat in the distance, rang horribly quiet. Unease made a mess of Sera’s stomach and she walked silently next to William, both of them scanning the shadows for movement.

Ahead, the fort loomed dark and silent, alone at the edge of the settlement. He started determinedly for it. She clamped a hand on his arm and dragged him behind a bush.

“I thought I saw something,” she whispered.

He covered her hand with his own. “What? Where?”

She pointed across the open space in front of the fort, to a stand of small trees where she could’ve sworn she saw a glint of light. Like a reflection on metal. “Over there. Maybe we shouldn’t’ve come in the night. Maybe we should wait for daylight, so we can see what’s around. Or who.”

He rolled his lips together. “Waiting until morning means traveling under the sun. It has to be now. Tonight.”

That fucking ring…

“Please,” she whispered. “Just a little longer. I could’ve sworn I saw something.”

He looked long at her face, then nodded and settled back, staring into the trees. The hour grew later and her muscles cramped from huddling in one spot for so long, but she was so tuned up she couldn’t even think about sleep.