“So where exactly did you go?” Devon asks. “In the first instance.”
“We already told you,” I say.
“No, you must have explained it to the other us.”
“Oh.” I am beyond weary now. “Xane, I need you,” I say instead. “I need your energy.”
“Of course,” he says, smug to be asked, and takes my hand in his. I just sit there, as I don’t even have the energy to pull on his energy.
“Liv?” he says.
“Hm, what?” I ask.
“Get her some blood,” CK snaps. “She doesn’t even have the energy to feed that way. It’s ridiculous.”
“I’ll get it,” Jess says. “My first duty as your assistant.”
“Thank you,” CK says shortly, avoiding her gaze. I find the energy in me somewhere to chuckle at him.
“I don’t think she is yours anymore, my love.”
“Yours?” Sebastian says in horror. “She was yours?”
“Seems so,” he says, thoroughly embarrassed. “You may let go of her hand now,” he says to Xane, who just shrugs but doesn’t let go.
“As soon as she has enough energy, she can feed from me.”
“I guess time travel uses up all your reserves,” Cole says. “Tell us where you went.”
CK fills them in as best that he can, while I drink the blood that Jess hands me rather ironically. Once fed, I feel a little better and try to add what I can to the story. “Somehow, when CK and I were arguing and I wished to be back in the past, the Power took me literally. I am still struggling to understand how it is possible, but it just worked the same way as Astralling. I thought it and it happened. Took me a few goes to get it right but then, the same can be said for anything I suppose. Practice makes perfect and all that. But past and future aside the fact that a whole other world exists parallel to here, is even more disconcerting.”
“You can say that again,” Lincoln mutters and everyone agrees.
“But how come everyone ended up switching places?” Devon asks a damn good question.
“It didn’t happen every time. When we went back to the past, we saw ourselves there,” CK says.
“I can only imagine that we aren’t supposed to be occupying each other’s spaces. Although why Past us remained in their time is a mystery.” I add.
“Perhaps because when you thought about going to the past it was for a specific purpose to change it,” Xane says. “When you tried to get back you were literally bouncing around with no sense of where you were going and as you were the one doing the time traveling, you ended up pushing the other’s out of their own existences. Once you all realized that the other’s existed, and in fact that time travel was an actuality, it made it possible for you to be in the same spaces.”
We all stare at him. Where did he pull that from?
He shrugs and says, “It’s just a theory.”
Well, can’t say as I have a better one and by the looks of everyone else, neither do they.
He holds his hand out to me. I take it and we disappear into the bedroom for a bigger feeding session. I pull on his energy, taking enough to make myself feel stronger again.
“I love that you take it from me. So, I can make you stronger.” He dips his head and kisses me and says, “I can make you so strong, Liv.”
“Oh, Xane,” I whisper. “I do want you. I do feel everything you are, but they won’t understand. The rest of them, they won’t understand.”
“I just care about us. Just let it be for us. You don’t need anybody else. I love you.” He kisses me again, but I pull away as I sense Cole at the door. I step back as he comes in. “Are you finished?” he asks. “We should get off this jet and to the hotel.”
“Yes, of course. What time is it, anyway? I feel like we have been gone for hours but probably haven’t really,” I say.
“It’s two in the morning. We should get you in bed. You look exhausted.”