“Oh, the things you say.”
Only he meant them, every word. “Leah…”
She placed a hand on his arm. “C’mon, let’s go.”
He nodded. She was right. “I need to touch you to do it.”
Raising an eyebrow, the teasing glint he’d first seen in that picture and had noticed briefly here and there since appeared in her expression. “Even better.”
He sat down on the floor and he tucked his legs under him like a pretzel. “I discovered I could do this by accident and unfortunately in the presence of my father when I was about two years old. I travelled backwards into his mind.” He shivered at the memory. Not too many people could remember things from that age but he could remember doing that. First off, it had scared him that it happened and second because of the way his father had reacted to the whole thing. “He didn’t much care for the experience.”
“Will we get to see what happened to me? Or is it just going to be my childhood, my parents and stuff like that?”
He shook his head; maybe he would actually start laughing at how little he understood what was going to go on. “She-wolf, I have no idea what’s going to happen. I’m so sick of saying that to you. Sit here.” He indicated the spot next to him.
“Do we have to be right there next to each other or can it be just that you’re touching me?”
And it was already starting. She didn’t want to be near him. Well, he had warned her.
He shifted slightly trying to cover his discomfort. “Just sit close enough for me to be able to reach you with the tips of my fingers.”
She nodded. “Right.” Moving to him, she placed herself directly on his lap, her back pressed up against his chest. “Does this work?”
Yes, it worked. His heart pounded hard and his groin jumped to attention. Shit, she smelled so good. All he wanted to do was stick his face into her colored hair and stay there for eternity. Forget anything that didn’t exist outside of Leah. “Um, yes. It works.”
He heard her laugh slightly. “I saw your face. You thought I didn’t want to sit near you.”
Okay, now he felt foolish. She squirmed in his lap and before he could stop himself, he groaned. Her tight, snug ass moving on top of him nearly undid him.
“Are you going to be able to concentrate?” Her voice had taken on a low, husky sound.
“No, but don’t you dare get off.”
She snickered and he grinned at the sound.
“Alright, let’s do this.”
He placed his right index fingers on her temples. She closed her eyes and sighed under his touch. Even though it wasn’t necessary, he ran his other hand down her face tracing her features with the pads of his fingers.
“You’re so beautiful.”
“That’s not true. Right now I’m really funny looking.”
He closed his eyes. “For the rest of my life, I will be able to picture the perfection of your face in my mind’s eye.”
“Are you sure you’re a scientist? You sound like a poet.”
With that strange thought in his mind, he pressed his hand harder against her temple until he could feel her pulse. Three seconds passed and the strange falling sensation he hadn’t had since he was a child gripped him. Everything went black. He heard screaming and had no idea if it was Leah or he. Not that it mattered. They were both going in.
Chapter Seven
Leah landed on her butt, rolling to her side as soon as she made contact with the ground. Hearing an oomph, she saw Az land next to her. Raising her head, she looked around warily. The room where they were was darkly lit. Two lights made to look like lanterns glowed on top of two glass tables illuminated what, she quickly determined by the number of book shelves on the wall, was some kind of library or study.
“Az, is this typical?” She pulled herself up to her knees looking around.
“Yes, but most of the time the person knows what memory they’ve landed in. We’re going to have to hope it triggers something otherwise it’ll be a little like watching a play with yourself as the actor, I suppose.”
He stood and offered her his hand. She took it, loving the feel of his rough fingers closing around hers. Everything about him was so much bigger than her. She guessed it could make others feel small. To her, it just made her feel safe.
She looked around one more time. Az was right, like something out of an action play she watched herself stomp into the room. Her eyes widened as she recognized the sound of her voice yelling.
“I said no. I’m not going to speak to him. Not now, not ever.”
A tall man with silvering hair and high cheekbones covered in stubble entered behind her. She could see parts of her own face reflected in his. They had the same chin and the curvature of the top of her face looked like his.
She whispered. “I think that’s my father.”
“He looks like the picture in the articles I read. We don’t have to whisper. This already happened. There is nothing we can do that they can hear or be aware of. We’re not really there. This is coming out of your head.”
That was good news. At least it meant the memories were still in there somewhere.
What would have happened if there had been no memories? She turned to ask Az but then heard her past self screaming again. She noted that her hair looked like it had in the picture. Hot pink streaks but no multicolored stripes.
“Mom never would have wanted this. It’s exactly what she didn’t want. She told us ‘never ever go anywhere near the shifters or Kendrick Kane.’ She couldn’t have been more explicit. She’s not dead two months and you want to arrange a meeting with the man?”
“Leah, baby, your mother was overwrought. Do you think if there really were people who could shift into wolves that the American military and the government wouldn’t know about it?” He threw his hands in the air. “For goodness sake, I sit on the Senate Committee that gives out money to the military for special research. I would know.”
Leah shook her head. “Mom was adamant and she wasn’t given to flights of fancy. Other than this one subject she never said anything to me in my entire life that wasn’t down to earth and easily proved with facts and data. The woman was a biologist for god’s sake. She said she and I are wolf shifters and that Kane is dangerous. I’m choosing to believe her. I will not see the man.”
“I’ve already set up the meeting.”
Leah expected to hear her past self argue some more and was surprised that she said nothing else for a few moments. “Why would you do that?”
Her father sat on the edge of his desk. “You know how much I love you.”
She nodded. “I do know that, Dad.”
“I loved your mother that much too…which is why I always let her believe this little lie. Truth is, I think something terrible must have happened to your mom when she was a child. Kendrick Kane is barely thirty years old. He couldn’t have possibly had anything to do with it.” He ran a hand through his silver, grey hair.
“But maybe he knew her family; maybe you have some family left that you could know from her side. Now that she is gone there is no reason to continue on with this farce. Besides, if someone hurt your mother so badly she was forced to live her life with this delusion then I want to know who it was so I can hurt them.”
Her father exhaled and Leah in the future knew he looked tired. “Have you ever seen a wolf become a man or vice versa? Has it ever happened to you? Did you ever see it happen to your mother? Do you hear voices of wolves speaking to you in your mind?”
Past Leah shook her head. “No, Daddy.”
Next to her, Az swore. “I know exactly what happens.”
Barely able to form words, Leah looked at Az’s hard profile. “Tell me.”