Chapter 8- Altered future

"How did I even do that? I can't remember anything." Grace murmured and started pacing again and halted when she saw something in the room. It was a flowing luminous thread. She grabbed onto the threads and pulled them backwards," she added in absent tones. "What on earth is this?"

James raised his brows. The woman was indeed shocked, she was seeing things.

"The... what?" He asked.

"This thread, it's freaky, it's floating in the air…" She fondled it and marvelled at its esoteric properties."

Oh, I'm not seeing anything, but I guess you are seeing the thread of time."

"Ah what?"

He sighed... This was not what he anticipated. He didn't want to teach her again. Back to square one.

"You pulled us backwards in time by using the thread of Kali." James tried to wrap his brain around the mere thought.

He’d never heard of anyone capable of moving through time. Perhaps a spell. Maybe, Kali? the goddesses of time, doomsday, and death, as well as the black goddess? 

Impossible.

Gods and goddesses were forbidden to dwell in the mortal realms anymore, since fifty thousand years ago.

But why, Grace? She was just a not-so-normal-hybrid for her to have such abilities... It was unheard of.

"Isn’t that what you just said already?" She didn’t even bother to glance in his direction.

James flattened his lips. Damn Louie. How could he leave his daughter in his care? Now his life had turned upside down. If he was alive, Louie would never have suggested that James could keep Grace and he would not be in this dire situation. The asshole would never have demanded that he go to the extent of taking her to his lair and stay with her while she played with her newfound abilities.

James could be enjoying time with his many harems. Sparring in the gym. Or eating a massive meal and drinking too much bloody nectar. Instead of standing in this dusty room, trying to squash the urge to ram his head into the nearest wall.

"Just how far back in time did I take us?" She wrinkled her slender nose.

"Well, just three months ago, the next day after we met in the pub.

"Why this time?"

"I don't know, Grace. And surely, I don't want to know."

"Come on, Mr. Grayson, there must be a reason."

"How would I know? I'm not the one who took the thread of the goddess." he halted and motioned her to stop tickling it. "Stop touching it, or you might bring us back to the Dinosaur Era."

"Woah! Is it even possible?" her eyes widened.

"Of course not."

"Aww! OK!" She replied, clearly disappointed. "But wait, why do I have a memory of... um-"

"Of what?" he asked. His curiosity was piqued.

"Like, I intended to bring us to the night that my mother died in the hospital, giving birth to me?"

James grunted in shock. He went to the nearby glass window and gasped. What he saw made him shiver. "This is not good," he said and shuddered under his breath.

However, he wasn’t entirely sure how she remembered those so-called memories because in Louie’s diary, since her birth, he managed to erase her memory from time to time, even when he met her on her birthday every year after year.

But James was not stupid enough to ask. Those parts of Grace’s life were important to all of this. However, if he wasn’t completely out of his mind, then they were currently in a time before he was even born. The possibility was that this was not just three months ago but thousands of years in the past.

The thought made his dumbfounded brain spin.

"Listen—" he started to say, only to be interrupted when Grace tilted her head back, her nose flaring as if she had caught a sudden scent.

"He’s here," she murmured, rapidly heading across the floor.

"Who?"

"I don't know," Grace replied. "Someone... powerful."

"Wait." James moved to stand directly in her path. "Where are you going?"

She frowned as if baffled by his perfectly reasonable question.

"To find me."

"To find you?" James knew he sounded like a parrot, but dammit, he’d just been tugged through time on the thread. Who could blame him for being a little rattled?

"This is the nursery. I want to see my mother," Grace told him, speaking slowly as if he was especially stupid. "I need to find out, I need to see her face."

"Wait, Grace, this is not…" He sighed and followed after her. "Damn it, woman! Listen to me!"

She stepped forward, clearly expecting him to step out of her way. Typical vampire arrogance.

James, however, stood his ground, his expression set in stubborn lines.

"So?" she implored.

He insisted, with exaggeration. "First we need to discuss this."

"There’s nothing to discuss."

His jaw tightened. "Humor me."

She sent him a glance filled with baffled frustration. "We’re wasting time."

James refused to back down. "If you want to see her, you can always give another tug on the thread, right?"

She stilled, easily sensing the edge in his words. "Does it bother you?"

He released a humourless laugh. "To be whisked through a dozen centuries? Yeah, a little."

"What? Why a dozen centuries? I'm not that old."

"Look outside... This is clearly a thousand years ago. Dark times."

It took her twenty minutes after seeing the windows. She gaped. It was like looking at Hollywood's ugliest film ever made in the 1970s. Filth, stink… Nothing else smells worse than urine and human filth on the dirt road.

"This is hell..." she murmured.

"Don't over exaggerate it."

"But you are also capable of manipulating time, right?" she asked, but paused. How did she know it anyway?

James shook his head. It took every ounce of his power to slow time for a day or two. He couldn’t imagine the magic necessary to transfer two vampires through several hundred years.

"Not like that," he muttered, giving a wave of his hand that was covered in flames. "But that’s not what I want to discuss."

Her eyes reflected his vampire-fire, emphasising the dazzling kaleidoscope of colours.

"Well?"

James released a slow breath, trying to restrain his inner beast, who was desperate to reach out and stroke the pearly lustre of her skin. Was it as soft as it looked?

"Can we sit?" he abruptly demanded.

"Mr. Grayson, I'm exhausted. My headache is killing me. I have dozens of questions. I’m—"

"Please."

With the sort of sigh that women learned in the womb, she pivoted on her heel to take a seat on one of the heavy chairs against the wall.

"Fine." She folded her hands in her lap and eyed him with impatience. "Tell me what you want to know."

She sent him a glance filled with baffled frustration. "We’re wasting time."

James refused to back down. "If we need more time travelling shit, you can always give another tug on the thread, right?"

She frowned as he settled into a seat next to her. He was suddenly struck by an odd realization.

Since they’d been jerked back through time, he’d been too distracted to actually consider the fact that James had spent most of his existence in hiding, or being hunted by vampire hunters, completely isolated to prevent anyone from realising that he was still alive.

Damn, how the hell did she know it? Why does it feel like it wasn't even her memories?

He would expect her to be confused, even terrified, at being taken out of her mundane human life. Instead,

she was completely coherent and focused on her goal with alarming intensity.

"Tell me everything," she commanded.

"Excuse me?"

She waved a hand. "Start at the beginning."

He sent her a puzzled glance. "What beginning?"

"When you were cursed."

"How did you know that I was cursed?" He asked.

"I don't know, but I know you are cursed."

"Oh," he shrugged. "That's not helping, but... I was too young to really understand what was happening. All I truly recall was that I was in my bed with my harems when I was hit with unbearable pain."

"The curse?" she asked.

"Yes. Things got very fuzzy, and the next thing I knew, I was in a secluded lair and I was wrapped in my mother’s magic."

She studied him in amazement. "Seriously?" Her tone was calm, almost matter-of-fact. If his life had been destroyed by an evil curse, he’d be screaming in fury.

"You were kept asleep?" Grace couldn't help but ask.

He glanced away.

 "I'm sorry, Mr. Grayson, everything is confusing. One minute, I know something and the next I'm clueless, I didn't mean to pry though." She muttered, her dark hair sliding over her shoulders in a river of ebony.

"It’s difficult to explain. The part of my mind that was compromised by the curse was kept in stasis, but my mother, the queen of Nork, died, yet she was able to keep our mental connection open," he said.

"She could communicate with you from the other side?"

"You mean the underworld?"

"Hmp, yes."

"Not only that, she allowed me to see the underworld through her eyes." He explained.

"But the question is, how... how are we here…"

"I told you I don't know."

Ahh. Well, that would explain why he seemed so comfortable being out of his solitude. Still, it must have been horrible. To be able to see the world and yet know you were trapped by an evil curse was a blessing.

What if she could change his suffering? Will his fate be altered? Was it possible? She asked herself and touched the luminous thread. Then, unexpectedly, she felt a strange tug on her heart. She felt her head swim into the void of the portal between the present and the past.

However, when she closed her eyes, her headache worsened, and then a force yanked her into the oblivion of nothingness, and she awakened in an unknown cabin.

*****

"I need you, Grace." A voice she was so familiar with echoed in her mind, but she couldn't remember.

When she opened her eyes, she knew she was in the meagre cabin. Not ancient, but somewhere modern. Then she did nothing else for ten minutes but puke every liquid in her stomach. "Damn it!"

Where the hell was she?

Who was she?

Then she looked at the note in the package. "I need you, Grace," it says. She placed the note on the kitchen countertop. Why was she here? She asked herself.

"What the hell is this note?" She grumbled under her breath. She doesn't have a memory of who she was before suddenly a mind-shattering load of information loaded into her brain like a USB stick that was now loaded with computer information about her life.

She is Grace Lim.

Alright. "Grace it is."

Then she opened the package.

Grace searched the scarred, leather-bound book resting inside a plain box, surrounded by a sea of raven velvet. A few minutes ago, she’d returned from her five-mile jog. This package had been waiting on her verandah. There’d been no return address. No statement as to why the thing had been left for her. 

Her name was Grace. Damn it!

Nothing. Her mind was empty.

“I'm crazy.” She murmured to herself.

No explanation. Or why Grace was needed. Why would anyone need her? She was a nobody and had only recently repossessed the use of her legs. She had no family. Her mother died during childbirth. Her grandmother was dead, her best friend passed away from a drug overdose, and she had no job. Not anymore. She used to work in a hotel as a secretary but was fired, and had a car accident that almost killed her. Now she lives in a little cabin in the little village in the east that was so secluded, barely a blip in the neighbouring extent of lush green trees and wide open, beautiful blue sky. 

She should have tossed the thing. Of course, nosiness far outweighed the warning. As always, she carefully lifted the book. At the moment of contact, she saw her hands covered in blood and gasped, plummeting the heavy tome on the counter. “What the fuck!”

But when she lifted her hands to the light, they were swabbed clean, her nails neat and painted with a beautiful red.

“Now I’m seriously seeing things,” she grumbled again. “I have an overactive imagination and too much oxygen pumping through my veins from the run. No, I'm not crazy.”

However, the book’s binding creaked as she opened to the middle, where a frayed red ribbon rested. The fragrance of dust and musk wafted up, layered with something else. Something... mouth-watering and a little familiar. Her scowl worsened. She shifted in her seat, a pang of pain hurling through her legs, and she sniffed the ribbon. Oh, yes. Her mouth certainly watered as she caught the subtlest trace of ocean and sandalwood. Her goosebumps broke out over her skin, her senses throbbing, her blood heating.

How embarrassing. And, okay, how intriguing. Since the car accident that wrecked her life many months ago, she had experienced arousal only at night, in her dreams. To react like this in daylight, because of a book... strange. She didn’t allow herself to contemplate why. There wasn’t any explanation that would convince her. Rather, she focused on the pages in front of her. They were yellowed and fragile, delicate. And beaded with blood? Small dots of dried crimson soiled the edges. Gently, she caressed her fingertips along the handwritten text, her gaze catching much information. 

Bonds. Vampire. Essence. Thread. More goosebumps, more tingling. Some blushing. Her eyes narrowed. At last, the sandalwood cologne made sense. For the past few months, she’d dreamt of a vampire male in chains and woken to the perfume clinging to her skin. And yes, he’s the one who'd aroused her. She’d told no one. So, how did anyone know to give her this…journal? She’d researched it for months, as well as what was considered fringe science, paranormal and sometimes studying creatures of "myth" and "legend." Even talked to one expert, Dr. Grey.

She’d conducted controlled interviews online with actual blood drinkers and even dissected the corpses brought to her doctor's lab. Who believes in paranormal stuff? Doctor Grey knew that vampires, shape-shifters, and other creatures of the night existed, even though her coworkers on the quantum physics side of the equation had not been privy to the truth. So, maybe someone had found out and this was a simple joke?

Maybe her dreams had no connection. 

Except, forever had seemed to pass since she’d had any contact with the doctor and her coworkers. And besides, who would do such a thing? None of them had cared enough about her to do anything. Let this go, Grace. before it’s too late. The command from her self-preservation instincts made no reason. Too late for what? Her intuitions gave no acknowledgement. Well, the curiosity in her needed to know what was going on. Grace cleared her throat. "I’m reading a few passages, and that’s that." 

She’d been alone since leaving the hospital several months ago, and sometimes the sound of her voice was better than silence. "‘Chains circled the vampire’s neck, wrists, and ankles. Because his shirt and pants had been removed away, and a loincloth was his only garments, there was nothing to safeguard his already savaged skin. The links cut him deeply, to the bone, before healing—and cutting him open again. He did not care. What was suffering when your will, your very spirit, no longer belonged to you?'" 

She pressed her lips together as a spiral of dizziness rumbled through her. A moment passed, then another, her heartbeat speeding up and thumping exceptionally against her ribs. Raw images tore through her.

This man, this vampire— bound and helpless. Thirsty. His lush lips were pulled tight, his teeth sharp and white. He was surprisingly tanned, temptingly muscled, with dark, mussed hair and a face so eerily gorgeous he would plague her nighttime imaginations for years to come. What she’d just read, she’d already seen. Many times. How? She didn’t know. What she did not know was that in her dreams, she felt kindness for this man, even bitterness. And yet, there was always that low simmer of arousal in the background. Now, arousal takes centre stage. The more she breathed, the more the sandalwood fragrance clung to her, and the more her reality altered, as if this, her cottage, was nothing more than an illusion. As if the vampire’s cell was real. As if she needed to stand up and walk—no, run—until she reached him. 

Anything to be with him, now and forever. Okay, enough of that. She whacked the book closed, even though so many questions were left drooping, and walked away. Such a strong response, coupled with her dreams, utterly nixed the inkling of a joke. Not that she’d placed much hope in that path. Nevertheless, the remaining probabilities upset her, and she refused to evaluate them. 

She showered, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and ate a healthy breakfast. Unsought, she found her gaze returning to the leather binding, over and over again.

She wondered if the enslaved vampire was real—and okay. If she could help him. A few times, she even opened to the middle of the book before she realised she’d moved. She always darted off before the tale could lure her. And maybe that’s why the ridiculous thing was given to her. To hook her, to send her racing back to work. Well, she didn’t need to work. Money was not a problem for her. More than that, she no longer loved the sciences. Why would she? There was never an explanation, only more difficulties. Because when one puzzle piece wobbled into place, there were always twenty more needed. And in the end, nothing you did, nothing that has been solved or deciphered, would save the ones you cared for.