Time After Time (Cora's Bond) Read Free Page A

I asked. “How can we get the cultures back?”
    He shook his head. “It’s not just the cell cultures themselves. Those will merely make it faster for the Kyrioi to develop a test of their own. It’s information. Data. And that, once leaked.... ” He trailed off.
    “We can never be sure that it’s not out there, can we? And if they’re smart, it probably already is.” I searched his face for some indication that I was mistaken. I saw none. “What have we started? And what are we going to do?”
    “We’ll do whatever we can,” he said simply. “It’s what we’ve always done. And in the meantime, you’ll finish your school and we’ll have our wedding.”
    “But it doesn’t even mean anything anymore,” I protested.
    He shifted his hand in my grasp so that he was holding on to mine more firmly. “But it does. It does to you, and that’s enough for me in itself. But it still does to all of us, too.”
    His brow lowered as he continued, “Before the research of which you were the first success, the Adelphoi were losing. We had to lose. Historically, it has only been the fights between the various Kyrioi factions, the difficulties of long-distance communication, and our aggressive recruitment of new members that has allowed us to survive at all. Now, perhaps our great advantage has been lost, but we are at least on an equal footing with the Kyrioi for the first time ever. You mustn’t ever underestimate how important that is, Cora. How important you are because that’s what you represent to all of us, my beautiful, brave love.”
    I nodded even though I was neither of those things.
    He continued, “And if we Adelphoi cooperate with humankind, perhaps we gain an advantage that way. It’s that cooperation that has brought us this far, after all. Our basic beliefs have been confirmed—that humans, largely left to their own devices, create far better life for us all than they do when they are enslaved because they have the creative urge that we so utterly lack.”
    “Is that the only reason you aren’t a Kyrioi?” I asked, indulging in my momentary bitterness.
    “No, Cora,” he said softly, catching my elbow with his free hand.
    He pulled me from my chair and into his, gathering me into his lap. The tension ran out of my muscles in the circle of his arms. His touch didn’t make anything better, but I was tired of fighting, too. First I’d fought cancer, then Dorian, and now the Kyrioi and myself. It felt so good to give up, to give in, if only for a moment, and I rested my head against his shoulder, closing my eyes.
    “You know that’s not why I’m with the Adelphoi,” he said, his voice so close to my ear that I shivered.
    “I do. I’m sorry.” I breathed in the smell of him, the sandalwood and musk of his cologne and the heady smell of his cool skin underneath. Would I ever be able to get enough of him? Even the blankets where he’d slept, the pillow where his head had lain could drive me half out of my mind. “But everything’s changed now. How can I act like it hasn’t?”
    “Everything’s changed, but you still deserve your dreams.” Dorian’s voice rumbled against my ear.
    “You don’t think they matter.” I raised my head and looked accusingly into his eyes. “You’ve made that perfectly clear, you know. You don’t think my friends, my college—any of those things—you don’t think they matter. So why are you telling me to go back to a school you don’t care about when everything’s falling down around our ears?”
    He lifted a finger and pressed it to my lips, cutting me off. “Because you care. And right now, of all times, what matters to you must matter to me.”
    Because of his oath not to change me. Because of his damned ethical code that was both my salvation and my curse. Right now, I could see in his eyes how much he wanted to tell me that my petty life with its petty concerns should no longer force him to divide his attention and his resources, not when