“I only helped you, that’s all.”
He was about to say that with his wounds he couldn’t have walked anywhere, but that brought up a whole slew of uncomfortable questions, like: What was he still doing alive?
He remembered the tunnel of light...and there was another woman in his memory, that vision of the dark woman on the horse.
“She’s not important,” the woman said, as if she’d read his mind.
He stared hard into her face. “Maybe you can tell me why I’m not dead.”
Her eyes locked on his, and she trembled, but lifted her chin. “Because I’m not going to let you die.”
He felt his chest tighten as she said it, as if...almost as if his heart hurt. He couldn’t understand the reaction he was having to this strange, lovely, possibly crazy woman.
Stay focused.
He had to look away from her to get a grip, and as he did he noticed again the stopped clock.
“All right, then, let’s try something simple, like, what time is it?”
“It’s Now.”
Now. He stared at her. Was that her idea of a joke?
“That’s why you’re still here,” she explained. “Alive, I mean. If it weren’t Now, you’d be dead.” He was struck by the earnest seriousness of her face, but he had no idea what she was talking about.
“None of this makes any sense,” he muttered.
“We’re in the Now, and you’re not dead. But only because you’re in the Now.”
He could only stare at her. “Right. Well, I’m getting out, now.”
He stood up from the sink and walked stiff-legged out the bathroom door...but was hit by a wave of dizziness. He stumbled and she caught him, barely. She held him up through a few stumbling steps and then lowered him to the couch, where he sat with his head spinning, nausea welling up. As if she knew, she took his head in her hands and held him gently, murmuring, “It’s all right. I’ll take care of you.” He rested his forehead against her waist and smelled that honey scent...
From the dream...
He jerked his head up.
“Wait a minute. I dreamed...”
“It wasn’t a dream, Luke,” she said.
“And that, there. How do you know my name?”
“I’ve known you forever,” she said, and her eyes were luminous with feeling; he felt his breath catch at the longing in them.
“Who are you?” he said again.
“I’m your Norn,” she said softly.
Of all the weirdness that had happened so far, this was by far the strangest. He was rejecting the thought even as the sense of unreality washed over him. She really is crazy.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know the word; it was that he did. A Norn wasn’t a real thing at all; it was a fairy tale, a story from the Old Country, something his grandmother used to talk about.
Three goddesses assigned to you from the cradle, they were—well, it was hard to say exactly—a combination of fairy godmother, guardian angel...
Bodyguard, she’d said.
And Norns were something harder to define, something to do with fate, the path of a person’s life.
You have a bad Norn, his grandmother used to say.
But whatever Norns were, they weren’t real.
She was watching him, and she looked distressed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I’m one of them, anyway. Oh, it’s so hard to explain...”
“I’ve heard of them,” he cut her off. “I didn’t know Norns were in the kidnapping business now.”
She looked shocked. “I haven’t kidnapped you.”
“Then I’m free to go,” he said, and stood—or tried to. He would have collapsed on the floor if she hadn’t lunged forward and caught him.
“You can’t go,” she said into his neck, and he felt himself stir in response to the feel of her breath on his skin, her breasts pressed into his arm.
“I’m a captive, then,” he said, a bit breathlessly.
“No. Yes. I can’t...let you die,” she said, and he could feel her heart racing. He was fully hard now, and he suddenly pulled her against him. He felt her breath stop, feeling him pressing into her.
And then he tightened his hands on her arms and he held her away.
“That’s enough. I’m out of here.”
He started for the door and she flung herself at him with surprising strength. Suddenly they were wrestling, and she wasn’t kidding about it, either; in his wounded state it was all he could do to pick her up and swing her onto the bed. Then he was on top of her, pinning her wrists above her head as she struggled beneath him, and her honey scent was all around him and he was harder than he’d ever been, and fire was racing through his blood.
Despite everything, despite the absurd unreality of the circumstances, he was consumed with the desire to kiss her, more than kiss her, to have her, all of her...
Her eyes widened as she looked up at him and she went still beneath him. He leaned down to her...and she arched her back, lifting her head...
* * *
And Time stopped.
Aurora felt Luke go still on top of her and for a heart-pounding moment she didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know where she was, didn’t care what happened to her; she only wanted him...
And then the moment was broken by her sister’s voice—Val, and she was furious.
“I knew it. You little cheat. You have no right. Give him back this instant.”
Aurora managed to wriggle out from under Luke, who was frozen and unresponsive. She stood from the bed, disheveled, to face her sisters: Val, a dark and fiery siren, and Lena, lovely and calm and blonde. Val was in a blazing fury; Lena just looked sad.
It was no longer even the Now; Val had stopped the clocks entirely. They were in the Eternal. Everything was slightly luminous, the colors more clear and sharp. The Wyrd.
Aurora glanced toward the bed, and her heart twisted at Luke’s stillness, although she knew that he was fine, just suspended. It was only Time that had stopped.
They could do that, the Norns: stop Time. Time was their business. Lena, the Norn of the Past, Aurora, the Norn of the Present and Val, the
