Page 4 of Misadventures with a Time Traveler

“Because I am saving you now.”

“Ventrebleu.”

“Maximillian. Please.”

I look back up to her—but do not want to. In ten seconds, the woman seems to have aged ten years. Her cheeks are sharp and gaunt; her gaze shimmers with surreal light. My heart cracks. “Damn it, Kavia!”

“Please! You must listen to me!”

I lift a grim smile. “Have I not always listened to you?”

“Fermé,” she rebukes. “And do as I say, child.”

The silvery glaze in her eyes locks me down like shackles. My hands plummet as if those bonds are real and my movements are no longer my own.

“Kavia,” I choke out, consumed by the tightening grip of her inexplicable force. “What—are you doing to—”

“Fermé.”

I watch, mesmerized and horrified, as she rocks her head back. The whites of her eyes take over her sockets. Words command her lips, babbling a language I do not understand. She seizes my wrists and digs her fingers into the center of my pulse. She does not relent.

Tighter.

Tighter.

Tighter.

She burns her power into me…

Through me…

“By the Virgin.” I yank back to cross myself, but the woman holds on. She possesses the strength of twelve men. Her grasp is a burning, conquering presence through my being. “Kavia!” I fight her, threatening to topple the wardrobe. “This has gone too far. I order you, as your lord and master, to cease—”

“Au-delà du temps. Au-delà de la raison. Dans ton demain, confiance à ton cœur.”

The words are understandable but illogical. Beyond time. Beyond reason. In your tomorrows, trust your heart.

“Kavia? What in God’s name…”

But I am robbed of words as I gape at the freakish changes in the woman’s countenance. Kavia’s face is still there, but another’s has been layered atop it. The new face appears as if she has worn a veil to church. And the face on that veil…

Is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

Skin like crushed pearls. Eyes like the depths of the forest, with catlike tapers at the corners. Feline lips, full and crimson. And her hair…

By every saint I can remember, her hair.

The thick black mane resembles billows of the finest Paris satin, rivers of the softest Italian velvet. I long to clothe my entire body in its luxury. To wrap it around my bare skin as I do other things to her naked form. To touch her everywhere…

Who is she?

The question burns as potently as my lust. Even now, in this moment of darkness and doom, with a mob raging for my destruction, I crave to claim her. To know her as no one else has. To possess her…

Who is she?

Every fiber of my being screams with need. Every inch of my cock pounds with desire.

Who is she?