Twice Upon a Time (19 page)

“I’d rather sit here buried in your warmth and say things that make you rol your eyes at me.”

She giggled. “You’re so sweet to me. That must be why I love you so much.” Reece’s heart gave an unpleasant pang. He didn’t deserve her. His thoughtlessness had resulted in her death and this leaping from one time period to another wasn’t an easy life. Adventurous, yes, but difficult. She deserved to know the truth and make a decision about how they should proceed. He only prayed that she would see things his way and agree the most important thing was keeping her alive and in his arms.

“Lara, I really need to tel you something.”

She tilted her chin and looked up at him impishly. “Is it that even though your current host is a jerk, you’re glad you have bal s this leap?” His jaw dropped and then he laughed until he got a stitch in his side. “No.” He hesitated. “Well, yes, I am glad I have balls, but we need to talk about what happened when the amulet was first activated.”

There was a loud crash on the opposite side of the compound near the huge front gates that protected the Shogun and his people from the outside world. “It’s going to have to wait,” Lara said, rising from his lap and adjusting her kimono. “It seems we have company.”

By the time Reece and Lara reached the front gates, the samurai were in ful battle dress. Frightening masks in red and black concealed their faces. Armor made of smal , square overlapping plates covered them from shoulder to mid-thigh. About half of them were standing on the top of the wall with arrows notched in long bows. The rest stood inside the gate, their long katana unsheathed and ready for battle.

“Who is it?” Reece called to one of the archers.

“A group of about fifty villagers. They’re armed and determined to penetrate the fortress, but al they have are farm tools and kitchen knives.”

“Hold your fire,” Reece said.

He couldn’t see the man’s face beneath his demon-like mask, but he shook his head slightly as if to say,
Of course, what do you think I am? Stupid?

Lara stepped up to the gate. “Let me out. I’ll talk to them.”

“Let Hana talk to them,” Reece suggested to the masked samurai in a whisper.

“Do you trust her not to send her village racing through the gates to meet certain slaughter?”

Reece nodded. “She’s reckless, but not ignorant. She knows her people don’t stand a chance if they insist upon a battle.”

“Your daughter is safe and not being held against her will,” one of the samurai cal ed down to the group standing on the opposite side of the gate. “She would like to come out of the gate to talk to you. Step back.”

The six warriors on the wall lifted their bows and pulled their bowstrings taut. “Step back!”

A few tense minutes passed and then a smal door next to the gate opened. Hana was ushered outside.

The door closed behind her.

Kojiro’s heart sank into his toes when he heard Hana shout, “These are not my people! Let me back inside,” before all hell broke loose.

Lara was more than happy to let Hana take the lead as the disguised mercenaries revealed their intent. These were yet another group of peasants paid to attack. Sent to die in a coward’s place. Just like her brother. She knew lives would be lost if she didn’t make them see reason. For an instant she considered joining the cause. She didn’t know who was attacking Kojiro’s people or why, but if her brother had thought it was a cause worth dying for, then it must be. Yet something spoke to her heart—Kojiro perhaps—and she knew these ninja did not fight for honor. They fought for coin and that was not something worth dying for.

Hana operated on her skil as a ninja, cursing her stupid feminine kimono twenty-fold as she attempted to sweep the nearest adversary off his feet. He stumbled but did not fall as her foot connected with his ankle. She could hear Kojiro shouting to his men on the other side of the gate. “Do not fly your arrows. You might hit Hana.” The best thing she could do for Kojiro was get out the line of fire, but if she wanted the opposing side—the side she would have been on not two days ago—to breathe another day, she had to get through to them somehow. They had asked for her by name, so at least someone in the group knew of her.

“You will be slaughtered,” she shouted. “Whoever bought your skil s must know that.” She paused as the words escaped her lips and lifted her gaze to the trees beyond the wide field. She caught a slight movement. A frightening face masked in red and black appeared amongst the brush before disappearing again. Samurai. Obviously under the direction of a different Shogun. Did they intend to take these lands? To annihilate all of Kojiro’s people? Were they using this farcical battle as a distraction for the true onslaught to come? Is this how her brother had died? This senseless reason?

Her fists clenched with rage. These people,
her
people, were being used as pawns, nothing more than sacrifices, in a battle between warlords. A battle that affected them only because they would be forced to contribute to the wealth of a different man. If they were fighting for freedom that would be one thing, but they weren’t. They were trading one overlord for another. And for what?

A loud battle cry sounded behind her and a strong arm circled her waist before she was drawn back into the fortress and the gate was closed. The mercenaries had been too stunned by Kojiro’s reckless move to prevent him from taking Hana.

Safely behind the castle wall, Hana turned and grabbed Kojiro’s tunic in both hands.

He seemed to want to comfort her, but she didn’t want comfort. She needed to warn him. “In the woods,” she said. “I saw samurai. Beyond the field. The ninja are here only as a distraction. They are my people, Kojiro. Please, spare them if you can.” Kojiro nodded in understanding and made several hand gestures to the men on the wall. They drew their bows up and aimed for the sky, shooting over the heads of the mercenaries in the yard, aiming for the distant trees.

An increasingly loud roar thundered across the field as the warriors in the distance made their move. Kojiro’s samurai were not intimidated, but most of the ninja fled in terror. They were skil ed in stealth and assassination, not frontline battle. Without the distraction the mercenaries offered and under the onslaught of a barrage of arrows, the opposing samurai soon retreated. Sheer force would not penetrate the fortress walls of the stronghold. Hana had realized that from the beginning. She’d used stealth to make her move against Kojiro. Had she attacked outright, she never would have made it through the gate.

When the danger had passed, Hana wrapped both arms around Kojiro and trembled against him. “It was like this when my brother attacked, wasn’t it?”

“Except it was night and the samurai never advanced.” One of the survivors had specifical y told her that Kojiro had been the one to end her brother’s life and she had centered all of her anguish on retaliating against him.

“When my brother left, I wanted to join him. I thought he was fighting for something important.”

“Hana…” Kojiro murmured against her hair.

“But his death meant nothing! I wonder what they told them to get them to fight. He said that he was protecting innocent villagers. Did he know what he was doing?”

“I don’t know, my love. But it cannot be changed. You should not dwell upon it.” He was right. There was nothing she could do about the past, but perhaps she could shape the future. “We have to stop this from happening again.”

“If you have an idea…”

“It’s simple,” she said. “Pay them. They will switch sides for a price. Instead of sending them to attack, put them in the forests to watch for advances by your enemies.

Employ their stealth. They will not let you down.”

“Your mind is sharp, Hana-chan,” he whispered, “your heart pure. I wish you to be at my side always.”

She stared up at him—her chest swelling with pride, her heart with love. “I wish to be samurai.”

He smiled—a warm smile that touched his dark eyes and made her heart thud in her chest. “It would be my greatest honor to teach you the ways.”

“Then I will do so,” she said, “at your side.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

Their lips had just met when the amulet around Reece’s neck began to hum.

Startled, Lara jerked away. “It’s early,” she said, her heart thudding with apprehension. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“No. Some leaps are shorter than others,” Reece said.

“We were supposed to set a trap for Carl this leap.” Reece chuckled. “I think we were a bit distracted. I’m ready to find another adventure. Aren’t you?”

She sank her hands into his hair and said, “I’m always ready for adventure with you, Reece.”

“No matter what?”

She nodded, wrapping a hand around the humming amulet. The sound grew louder by the second. Soon Carl would crackle into existence and they would disappear to find themselves in a new land. A new time.

“Lara, I didn’t tell you the entire truth when I first found you back in the museum and we started this journey together.”

“What are you saying, Reece?”

“When I told you that some religious cult had killed you to try to get the amulet, that wasn’t exactly what happened.”

She’d never seen him look so serious. “What happened then?” she asked.

“Exactly.”

“It wasn’t intentional,” he said. “I didn’t know that you were the sacrifice it required.

When Carl and I activated it, it took your life.” She was too stunned to speak. She just stared up at him while his hand surrounded hers and the amulet. He began to recite the incantation that would send them on their way again.

He
was responsible for her death.

Reece was?

How was that possible? She trusted him. She loved him with al of her heart and soul. She had been certain that he loved her in return, but how could he risk her life on a frivolous whimsy?

From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Carl approaching them, currently possessing the body of Kojiro’s mother. “Reece,” he called. “You can’t keep running forever.”

“Yes, I can, Carl,” Reece said before the world slipped from beneath their feet and they were propel ed through space and time once more.

“I trusted you,” she whispered and then struggled out of his grasp. “Without question, I trusted you and you lied to me!”

He didn’t release her until her bare feet came in contact with a hard wooden deck of a large ship. Loud booms rattled her teeth and flashes of ignited gunpowder lit the night sky. Overhead a skull and crossbones banner fluttered in the turbulent wind. She cocked the hammer of her flintlock and pointed at Reece’s chest. “I’l be relieving you of your ship now, captain.”

To be continued...

in

Third Time’s a Charm

Lover’s Leap (Book 3)

Coming Soon!

From the high seas with a gang of ruthless pirates to life behind the scenes with a 1980s hair band, can Lara and Reece help two more couples find their happily ever after or will Lara be unable to forgive Reece for his deceit?

~*~*~♥~*~*~

About the Author

Olivia Cunning writes steamy erotic romance novels with tender, tattooed, bad-boy heroes who meet their match in successful, strong-willed heroines. She currently lives in Nebraska and is always working on something new. Discover more about Olivia and her books at
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