“Perhaps not physical pain, but I think we both know that you experienced far worse emotional trauma during your younger years.”
“So have you,” I replied, thinking of the path of destruction left by the clones.
“Dance with me,” Enoch pleaded.
“Now?” The music from inside floated out to us.
“Now.” He gently clasped my hand in his and wrapped the other around me, pressing the small of my back. I rested my free hand on his shoulder.
The distance between us shrank and before I knew it, we couldn’t have fit even a sliver of paper between us. We swayed slowly, moving as one. He curled our hands at the wrists, holding them against his chest. When he placed a tender kiss on my knuckles, my knees went weak, but I tensed as I remembered how he’d almost bitten me earlier.
“I fed. I don’t even feel the draw to feed now,” he whispered.
I sighed and relaxed against him again.
“I wish we could stay right here and never allow time to move forward,” he said.
“Me too.”
He captured my lips in another kiss, and as we swayed and our lips met in the most delicious ways, for a moment, time did stop.
“I know this probably isn’t proper,” I began, “but would you sleep in my room tonight?”
Enoch’s green eyes flickered with flames I knew would burn me, yet in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be scorched. There were glints of mischief and excitement in his crooked smile, his unspoken promise of what the night would hold.
“Just to sleep?” he asked, a challenge in his eyes.
“I thought Nephilim didn’t require it. If you’re too tired…”
He kissed my lips, a smile finally stretching across his face. Enoch pulled me through the garden, and when we were cloaked by tall hedges, he picked me up. My legs wrapped around his waist and I devoured him as much as he devoured me.
He pulled away, wiping his mouth. “Did I nick you?”
I licked my lips. The taste of blood wasn’t on my tongue. “I don’t think so.”
“Something tastes strange.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine. I don’t think you cut me.”
He let out a relieved breath and ran a hand through his hair, gently placing my feet back on the ground.
“Oh, I found something that might belong to you.” I turned and fished the pocket watch out of my cleavage. Dangling it in front of him, I watched as he recognized it.
“Where did you find it?”
“So, it’s yours?”
“Yes. I lost it years ago.”
“While you were living here and building your own home?”
A memory flitted in his eyes. “You found it in the wardrobe.”
“Yep.” I suddenly remembered the letter I’d written. I reached into the slit in my dress and withdrew it. “Would you promise to do something for me?”
“Anything,” he vowed.
“I need you to keep this for me. In the year twenty-one-fifty-seven, find Maru and give it to him. Don’t be nosey and read it. It’s his letter.”
“Eve,” Enoch blurted, “I’ve overheard some of your conversations recently – not that I meant to or intentionally invaded your privacy.”
“What did you hear?”
“You aren’t… Your presence in my life is its biggest blessing. I have merely existed for thousands of years, but only started living when you waltzed through a plague-ridden town and into my life. There hasn’t been a second that I wasn’t glad you did.”
“I’m just worried that our mission to jump through the past is changing things, and maybe changing you, for the worst. If it wasn’t for us, all the bad things you’ve experienced never would have happened.”
“I wouldn’t have them any other way,” he said honestly. “You probably think I’m horrible for saying so, but I wouldn’t change a single thing about any of it. I would go through it again and again if it meant the path would lead to you.”
“Or, you could make different decisions from this point forward and prevent the future that hunts you.”
“You might not exist if I change the past.”
“It would be worth it for a better future,” I told him.
He shook his head. “Nothing would be worth you not existing, or even you not being you.”
I thought of all the memories that had surfaced recently, of the tactics Victor and Kael used to make us the strongest, the ones who would comply, the best soldiers in their armies and the most destructive weapons in their arsenal. Enoch thought going through that was worth finding me, but I feared the Eve who was shoved off the Compound’s roof wasn’t worth saving.
“I won’t know you in my time. I’ll be born, my mother will be killed, I’ll be taken into the Compound’s custody, and shoved into the Asset program. The reason I was placed there to begin with was because of something in my blood and DNA. Otherwise, I would’ve been forced into the military.”
Enoch furrowed his brow as he considered my words. “Why couldn’t you live outside? Why weren’t you free? Are all humans housed inside the Compound?”
“No, there are civilians outside because there’s not enough room for everyone inside. I assume they brought me in because I was a kid. I wouldn’t have survived the vampires on my own.”
I picked at a hedge leaf. Enoch reached up and took my hand in his. “I know a little about what happened to you. When you were sick with fever on my ship, I witnessed you reliving part of it and it made me want to tear the sky apart.”
“You could probably do that,” I laughed.
He shook his head, disgusted. “None of what you’ve experienced at their hands is funny. It’s astonishing to me that you can still find it within you to laugh.”
“It’s a defense mechanism,” I admitted. “Much like sarcasm, which I am fluent in, by the way.”
He shook his head, bemused.
For the first time all evening, the headache faded and my head felt light. My lips tingled, though not uncomfortably, which I attributed to the wine. I’d had almost an entire glass, but since it was the first time I’d drank alcohol before, it must have affected my motor skills.
“I don’t want to leave,” I declared, sloppily throwing my arms around his neck and breathing him in.
“I don’t want you to go.” The way he said the words tattooed them onto my heart.
“Maybe Titus can unlink us and I can stay here,” I suggested.
“Would you really consider it?” he asked, brows raised. His eyes searched mine for the answer I could tell he desperately wanted.
I kissed him. Of course I would consider it. What we needed was to quit doing what everyone else expected and do what we wanted for a change. I’d just make sure Titus was good to return on his own and then ask him to help me remove the tech.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and giggled. My head felt like fizzy water; bubbles surged and popped and rushed to the tips of my toes and fingers.
I couldn’t feel them. They’d gone to sleep.
My lips were numb, too. Really numb. I reached up to feel them and couldn’t raise my hand high enough.
“Are you well?” Enoch asked suddenly, holding me by the elbows.