“If you haven’t lived thousands of years, your sensitivity to everything is dull, or immature, so you can’t grasp what we know.”

“Grasp what?”

He stands to his feet and just the movement alone makes the rhythm of my heart change. I watch as he walks around the bedposts until he is standing in front of me. Once again, his serious eyes stare into mine.

“Sit up,” he instructs. “And put your hand out.”

“My hand?”

“Yes.”

Embarrassed that my hand is unstable, I rub it on my shirt first. It doesn’t help.

“Now close your eyes.”

Sitting on my knees on the soft bed as he stands on the hard wood floor just in front of me, there is no telling what he might do. With closed eyes, every sense is heightened. Even a small whir of the wind outside becomes amplified.

It is unexpected when he lays his fingertips on my palm. Slowly he begins to trace along my hand. From my wrist to the tips of my fingers, he smoothly outlines every angle, but it isn’t this action that surprises me. This act is sensual, yet it is the feeling left on my skin after. Where his fingertips pass, the sensation is different—like someone blowing on wet skin. The spark remains as though his finger is still stroking that part of my hand, even though he has gone on to another. My blood courses through my veins like he is directing its flow. Just this slight touch makes the rest of my body spring to life in a way I have never felt before. The loss of focus is uncomfortable, so I snatch my hand back and, strangely, it takes a moment to recover. My chest rises and falls like a person who has just run a marathon, while the places he has traced are still alive.

“What is that?”

“That’s how we know.”

“What do you mean?”

“No one else would feel that way from my touch.”

“I could name a thousand girls who would be all too happy to have you do that.”

He grins. “But they wouldn’t feel the way that you did.”

“You’re kidding. How does anyone know this?”

“The same way humans have figured things out over the years. It’s the natural progression. I was born a hundred years before you and for those first hundred years, I felt things for other women . . . then I met you. You were only twenty-five and I’d lived many years . . . but it was never the same.”

“Twenty-five years as a Velieri I would still look like a child?”

“For the first thirty years of a Velieri’s life we grow at a normal rate. Then the growth process dramatically slows. Our body learns to fight aging.” His eyes don’t leave mine. “After working in England, I came back to Switzerland, where I was born and raised. My father was working for your family and I began working with him. When your father introduced us, I shook your hand. That was enough.”

The idea of not remembering this moment between us frustrates me, until my cheeks turn red. Or it could be the way he’s looking at me . . . as though I’m her. If only he knew that in this moment, that is my only wish.

I change the subject. “Why don’t you and the others have accents? If you are from here, or spent years in England…”

“We all are taught to turn it on and turn it off. We’ve learned so many of them over the years, we adjust.”

This is the first time that I am able to see the Arek that might be hiding within—a man who is able to let go of his duty for just one moment. Part of me desires this to linger just a bit longer. “You had no desire to remarry?”

“There would be no reason.”

“For thirty years you’ve held on to Remy’s clothes?”

“Time is nothing.”

There is quiet, as I hold my breath. In some bizarre way I am treading on ground that feels like none of my business. We are talking about me, yet at the same time, it isn’t me—not Willow. It is Remy. Who was she? Who had Arek Rykor been in love with? How had she died? Why had she died?

“We need to sleep.” He places his hand out to me to help me roll back into bed.

The window reflection, once again, catches him as he walks away, lies on a couch too short for his long legs, and reaches up to turn the light off. My hand runs along the empty space beside me as a picture of the two of us pops in my head. Our room and our home, my clothes and my husband . . . things that have been missing from the other life. Yet here, they place handcuffs on my wrists.

“My husband,” I whisper. No stranger words have ever come from my mouth.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Willow.” The voice wakes me even at a whisper. My tired eyes blink at the glass ceiling, while it takes a moment to remember where I am. The cold air has the smell of pine. “Willow,” the whisper comes again.

I turn to find Arek leaning over me. He reaches out and touches my lips with one hand while telling me to be quiet, “Shhh,” he warns. “We need to go.” His voice is quiet but still urgent. I have seen the same intensity before when Navin was near. He places his hand out and when I reach for it, the early morning chill makes me want to recoil under the covers. His hand is warm as he helps me to my feet, which makes the rest of my body envious.

Arek is fully dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, but no shoes, which immediately tells me that we’re moving fast. He has always been ready for what is next. We hurry across the wood floor; his feet carry lightly, which makes me mirror his careful movement until we press up against the wall near the door to the hallway.

Carefully he reaches out, the door handle just inches away when he places his finger to his mouth once again to warn that there needs to be silence. Something out in the hall makes him swiftly reach for his gun that has been resting within the waistline of his pants, while his back arm reaches out like a seat belt in front of me.

“Back up,” he whispers, but before my feet can shift, the door bursts open and sends fragments of wood scattering about the floor and splinters hit my face.

Arek grabs the man by the arm, tucks him under his armpit, and sends him onto his back. Yet in seconds the well-trained man jumps to his feet to fight back. I keep glued to the wall as Arek twists the attacker’s wrist at the joint, sending him to his knees, but then he kicks Arek’s feet out from under him. Somehow, before this man can strike, Arek twists around to face him and grabs his head in a guillotine while his strong legs lock around his waist. The veins in Arek’s bicep pulse as he clenches the man’s arteries. In just moments the man’s arms stop fighting. When Arek lets go, the man falls lifeless to the floor.

Arek peels my body off the wall, then rushes out into the hall where another man pounces, but the fight doesn’t last long before the attacker is left lifeless on the ground as we rush on. My eyes widen at Arek’s ability and power.

Unexpectedly Kilon flies around a corner, barely missing Arek and sending him to the floor. “Kilon!” Arek breathes out with relief that he didn’t hurt Kilon . . . as does Kilon. “They got in. I don’t know how many there are,” Arek explains as we continue through the house. His tense fingers grip my hand.

“We know. They’re everywhere,” Kilon explains.

A large pop explodes at my side and sends me to my knees. Glass chunks fly, hitting and penetrating my skin everywhere Arek can’t cover with his own body. I press my hands against my ears when Arek reaches over me to send loud bullets into the white meadow; the dominating smell of gun powder now overwhelms the earthy pine.

“Come on!” Kilon yells, his bare chest tensing with every shot outside, giving Arek and me the chance to continue down the hall and past the windows. We find a corner and huddle together, my body nestled behind Arek and Kilon as they reload.

“Where is everyone?” Arek asks.

“I sent them out to prepare the cars.” Kilon nods, “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

They stand, keeping their guns aimed and eyes ready, as we push through the halls in order to make it to the nearest exit . . . or at least that is what I hope. A pain starts small like a ball of pressure at my neck. Then it grows, seizing every muscle.

“It’s happening again,” I groan, pressing my palms into my eyes.

Kilon and Arek look back with surprise. “He’s gotta be close,” Kilon states. “Just hold on, Willow.”

Again, the pain shoots deep through my head and down my neck. They search the windows from where we stand in the den off the garage. “I don’t see anything!” Kilon shouts from a window in the living room.