. something like that. Who can keep track of when everybody died? Anyway, she was mega-gorgeous, with a gorgeous fall of shiny blond hair and the biggest, prettiest brown eyes I’d ever seen. Pansy eyes, my mom called them.
“Have I mentioned,” Sinclair began, smiling for the first time since the Marc Thing made his presence known, “that I adore having you around?”
“Oh yes, my king. You are good enough to make frequent mention of it.”
“You’re not really theeeeeere,” the Marc Thing sang. He acted like standing in a hostile house surrounded by enemies, and with an earful of gun, was all in a day’s work. Which it prob’ly was.
“On your knees. Slowly, if you please. And . . . yes.” Tina kept the barrel of the gun socked tightly in his ear as she bent at the knees to accommodate the Marc Thing getting on his. “Now on your stomach. Yes.” Sinclair shifted so his foot was resting lightly on the Marc Thing’s wrist. My husband smiled pleasantly at the Marc Thing, who leered back, and everyone in the hall knew that if the Marc Thing even twitched, Sinclair would grind his wrist into splintered bone. Which made it safe for Tina to pull back and step back. Still: maybe next time Sinclair should rest his foot on its neck. Call me hospitable.
For the first time I realized Garrett had also come out of the kitchen, which was something of a shock. In my timeline, Garrett had been a wreck, a shell, a disaster of a man. A coward, but not without reason. He’d been murdered, then driven insane, then murdered some more . . . and in my timeline, it drove him to suicide.
“Uh, maybe you should go back in the kitchen and keep an eye on Dee-Nick and Jessica. Back in the kitchen. And not in here.”
“Dee-Nick sent me out here.” Garrett correctly read my look of surprise, because he lifted his left shoulder in a slight shrug and added, “Antonia died right in front of me. There’s nothing to be scared of now.”
He was wrong, of course. But I didn’t have the heart to disabuse him of that sorry-ass notion. He was almost a hundred years old, but I’d always felt older than him in both timelines.
CHAPTER TEN
I caught Sinclair’s eye and tipped my head to the left, indicating another hallway. Before things went even thirty seconds further, I had to talk to my husband.
“Tina, if you please.”
“Of course.”
“Garrett—”
“Yes, King Sinclair.”
King Sink Lair. Hee! It wasn’t the time or place (it so rarely was) but I couldn’t swallow my giggle. There was an annoying amount of my king and Your Majesty and dread king, but I didn’t think anyone had ever used King Sinclair in my hearing.
“I shall not even ask why you found that amusing,” he sighed as we stepped into the darkened hallway. “Are you well, my own? Not hurt, yes?”
“Not hurt, no. Okay. Real quick, because I don’t like being out of the sight line of that crazy fuck . . . one of the skatey-eight zillion things I haven’t had a chance to tell you about Laura and Betsy’s Time Travel Follies is that we went to the future, too, a thousand years in the future, and in that future Ancient Betsy tortured Marc for decades and drove him insane.”
Sinclair’s composure, as much a part of him as his Cole Haan loafers and big dick, slipped, and he stared at me with wide eyes and a shocked expression.
And I was ashamed . . . more than I had ever been in my life. Ashamed that I was capable of that, that I could grow into someone who could/would do that to Marc. And ashamed that, now, Sinclair knew, too. He wouldn’t be the last person I told, either . . . I’d have to warn everyone. I’d have to let my friends and family know about the awful thing I hadn’t done yet. Just when I thought their opinion of me couldn’t plummet further . . .
“I-I thought you should know.” I shook my head and stared at the floor. It was very hard to look my husband in the eyes just now. “I didn’t want to tell you.”
“No. I imagine you didn’t.” He put a finger beneath my chin and raised my head. “Do you know, I haven’t been afraid of anyone until you cured Jessica’s cancer? After my twin was murdered, I feared nothing. I felt nothing. Now the only thing