Only In My Dreams: A Time Travel Anthology Read online

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I want…” She sucked in air on a noisy breath as she came to terms with it all. “I want…Raven. I want to know about Raven.” Her shoulders lifted and fell as she faced her truth. “I want to find out all there is about him and most especially whether he’s real.” She straightened in her chair. “If he is real, I want to know where he is and how I can find him.”

  A hand reached out to Grey in mute appeal. “I want to touch him, Grey. To be awake and know that the skin next to mine is his.”

  Grey took her hand in his. “All right.” He squeezed her fingers. “Let’s see what we can do.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Grey released her hand and stood. “I’m not sure if it’ll work, of course, but since this is a pretty unique situation, I’m thinking it calls for a pretty unique approach.” He crossed the room and opened one of the glass doors to a bookshelf. “I found this artifact many years ago. It has legends attached to it that are similar to what you’re experiencing.”

  Renny leaned in to look at the small vessel Grey handed her. “Oh, how lovely.” She ran a finger over the small jar, delicately caressing the engraved markings. “It’s alabaster, isn’t it?” She frowned. “I don’t recognize the glyphs…”

  “Pre-Sumerian I think.”

  “Can’t be.” Renny shook her head. “There wasn’t any writing in pre-Sumerian cultures.”

  “It isn’t writing.” Grey rummaged some more. “There’s something else I need.”

  He picked up the small statuette from her shadowed niche. “It’s time, sweetheart.” He whispered the endearment then dropped a lightning quick kiss on the cold head and carried it carefully back to Renny.

  She was still engrossed in the little jar and spoke as if to herself. “But it looks like writing…like early glyphs…”

  “It’s music.”

  “What?” She looked up at him as he said that, surprise and interest alight in her gaze. “Music? How the hell can you tell that?”

  He grinned. “Trust me.” And the fact that the jar was etched with a song was going to be minimal next to her reaction when she saw the statue. And herself.

  “Here. Look at this.” He held the figurine towards Renny, glad to note that she was as careful with these pieces as he was himself. The archaeologist in her was fascinated as he’d known she would be.

  “Grey…” She breathed the word as her hands took the slim figure from his grasp. “She’s…she’s magnificent.”

  Even a sharp click and squawk from Jakob couldn’t distract Renny from her study of the piece.

  Grey glanced at the bird, frowned then looked back at Renny. “She is, isn’t she?”

  “The same period, I’m guessing. There are similarities in the markings…” Her fingers touched the decoration on the skirt of the figure and brushed upwards over the ruby-tipped breasts. “Are these rubies? They shouldn’t be. I’d expect carnelian or maybe even coral, but rubies…in this time period? That’s a surprise…”

  “Look at her face, Renny. Look carefully.” Grey knelt next to Renny’s chair, slowly lowering himself to his knees so that he could see her face—watch her expression as she learned the truth.

  He heard her swallow. And swallow again. She licked her lips before she spoke. “This woman—she looks familiar.”

  “Yes.”

  “She looks a bit like…”

  “Yes, Renny. Say it.”

  “She looks like—me.”

  *~~*~~*

  It was impossible.

  Completely and absolutely impossible. Of course it was impossible. There was no way in hell that a statue over four thousand years old could look like herself. It had to be the most incredible coincidence.

  “Yes, she does look like you. And here’s something else to consider—suppose she is you? Or was you?” Grey’s gaze was dark and intense as he stared at her. He was near, very near, close enough that she could see the iron-white hairs dappling his eyebrows and the lines radiating from the corners of his eyes.

  “Reincarnation? Is that what you’re suggesting?” It wasn’t a foreign concept by any means, but it also wasn’t something Renny had ever considered as applying to herself.

  “In a way.” Grey leaned back a little. “Suppose this woman was you, that essence inside you that makes you you. Call it a soul, a transcendental energy, whatever you want—it existed in this form thousands of years ago.”

  “Okay.” Renny nodded. This was outside of freaky, but she was also an archaeologist and knew that the past still held many secrets unrevealed to the present. It was foolish to think otherwise.

  “And supposing she could dream-wander?”

  “Now you’re pushing the edges of believability, Grey.”

  “Hmm. I wonder.” He took the statue and placed it next to the small jar on a table between their chairs. “Are you game to find out?”

  She looked at him. “I don’t know. How? What…Jesus, Grey. This is too unreal for words.”

  Grey nodded. “You’re right. It is. But aren’t your dreams pretty unreal too?”

  Renny ran a hand through her hair, distress evident in her eyes. “Yeah, but…”

  He gathered the rest of the supplies he needed from the bookshelf and closed the door. “It’s up to you. I have some herbs and tinctures here that I came across a few years ago when I was researching dream awareness states. They are harmless.” He flashed her a quick grin. “And mostly legal.”

  In spite of her confusion, she grinned back. “Good to know.”

  He sat down in his chair and pulled the table close, settling it between their bent knees. “I can produce a waking-dream state—I guess that’s the best way to describe it—and with your dream-wandering abilities I’m hoping we can direct you back in time to when you were her.” He nodded at the statuette. “I’m willing to bet that it’s when this whole thing began.”

  “You think?” She stared at the figure then looked back at him. “Dream wandering, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can that be?” The reality she’d grasped was slipping away from her. “Grey…it’s asking a lot. I’m having a very hard time coming to terms with all of this.”

  “I understand. But only you know what your dreams are like, Renny. Only you can visit those places in such detail. They may seem like dreams but they were vivid and disturbing enough to bring you here. To me.”

  Her gaze dropped once more to the statuette as her brain fought for comprehension. She sighed. “I guess I’m going to have to go with the flow here. Suspend my disbelief. Believe in fairies or something.”

  He smiled. “Good girl. Now… back to her.”

  Renny pushed her doubts aside and studied the figure. “So this is me in some former life. Maybe four thousand odd years ago?” She glanced at him.

  “I doubt there was a lot going on before that time, Renny. You and I both know that civilization was cradled in Sumeria. That prior to that time there was little in the way of agri-societies or any kind of social structure other than hunter-gatherers. Certainly nothing in the way of representational art like her…” Unconsciously, Grey reached out and caressed one shoulder of the statue. “She’s too beautiful to have been an accidental piece in a sculptor’s hut.”

  “You think that I might find Raven there too? Or then…or whatever?” Renny blinked. “I never realized what a frickin’ hard time science fiction writers probably have with this whole temporal thing…”

  Grey just grinned and busied himself pouring things into the little jar and stirring them with a slender glass rod.

  “I can’t believe we’re seriously thinking about trying to do something which is so unbelievably…unbelievable…” She watched his hands. “If you’d told me I’d even entertain the idea of drugging myself up and going back in time I’d have told you to get some serious help.”

  “We’re not drugging up, as you so eloquently put it.” Grey looked mildly offended. “If we were gonna do tha
t, I’d have a stash of brownies under my chair. And you know what they say. Once you’ve eliminated the impossible, what’s left is the likely possibility. No matter how improbable.” He blinked. “Or something like that.”

  Renny laughed, knowing full well that it was what he’d intended. To distract her a little, lighten her mood, remind her that he knew what he was doing. “Okay, sorry. Poor choice of words. Let’s just say we’re creating a temporal ambience.”

  “Oh niiiice. I like that.” He nodded. “Excellent turn of phrase.” He struck a match and dropped it into the vessel. “Now let’s see if our ambience works, shall we?”

  Renny gulped. “What should I do?”

  “Nothing. Just lie back and relax. Close your eyes if you want, or focus on the statue—anything that makes you comfortable.” Grey’s voice was calm, soothing the flutter of nerves Renny could feel just below her heart.

  He continued. “The herbs will produce a light smoke—scented with their unique fragrance. It’s not harmful, but it should make you a little dizzy which is why I’m suggesting you close your eyes.”

  “Okay.” Renny leaned back and settled into her chair. She took a last glimpse of the statuette before lowering her eyelids and trying to clear her mind.

  “I want you to think about Raven, Ren’na’ila.”

  “What did you call me?” The scent of strange blossoms began to waft through the air around Renny’s chair.

  “Ren’na’ila. The name of the figurine. It suits you as well.”

  “It’s nice…musical…”

  “Yes indeed. Very musical. Ren’na’ila loved music. Loved to sing as she wandered through her town. Her people adored listening to her voice as she made up her own music…”

  The fragrance changed and Renny breathed in air that was pure and heated by a desert sun. It was unique, a dry and yet living scent that reminded her of the first time she’d been to the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

  “I smell…the desert.”

  “Yes, my beloved.” Raven spoke to her softly. Or was it Grey? Renny didn’t know. She tried to open her eyes, or grip the arms of the chair in which she sat.

  Part of her knew she was still in a New England house, in front of a roaring fire in the middle of a snowstorm.

  But that part was growing less important now, vaguer, more indistinct. Her lungs were filling with a new scent, that of a town where winds blew from high mountains and clean waters rippled from far away streams.

  Where there were people living lives far removed from anything Renny could have imagined. And yet where she felt at home. Where the smells were familiar and the sounds around her told her she was where she belonged.

  “Hello my Ren’na’ila. Welcome back. I’ve missed you.”

  She opened her eyes, blinded for a moment by the sunlight. Then a shadow blocked out the fierce rays and firm lips descended on hers.

  His taste and his touch betrayed his identity. It was him.

  It was Raven. But this was a Raven who was living, breathing, his mouth claiming hers with a force and a taste that branded itself into her brain. He was there, holding her—she was firmly in his embrace.

  And he was real.

  Chapter Eight

  Holding her in his arms again brought the sunshine back into Raven’s life. The long weeks without his Ren’na’ila had been dark, without joy and without love. He kissed her long and hard, drowning in the sweetly tangy taste of her mouth, the heated warmth and softness of her body as it molded to his.

  “By the Gods I’ve been lost without you.” He muttered the words around her lips.

  She laughed softly. “Do not take me here in front of the world, my love. Let us at least go inside…”

  He grabbed her by the arm and rushed her into the small dwelling she called home. “Chagra, I’m back…” She called to her servant.

  “Welcome, Mistress, welcome. Blessings that your journey is ended safely.”

  An elderly woman bustled into the hall, arms wide in greeting. Ren’na’ila smiled and hugged her. “My things…will you see to them? I must talk with the Raven.”

  “Of course, Mistress. Do what must be done. I will bring drink and food.”

  “Thanks, Chagra.” She took Raven’s hand and led him to a small room where the walls were open to a garden full of color and fragrance. It was like Ren’na’ila herself, bright and cheerful, with a scent that aroused and soothed all at the same time.

  In spite of the seriousness of their situation, Raven couldn’t help but smile. “Your garden prospers, Ren’na. It seems you’ve seeded it well.”

  She flashed him a naughty glance. “‘Tis its mistress that’s been well-seeded, sir. A certain bird tends her needs most effectively.”

  His cock flexed beneath his robes and he moved to stand behind her, pressing his growing arousal into the cleft of her buttocks in that way she loved. True to her nature, she moaned and rocked against him.

  “Perhaps the bird’s beak is what pleases you…” Raven pushed back, then slid his hands around her and cupped her breasts beneath her loose garment. He tweaked her nipples. “Or perhaps the little pecks and pinches of his talons?”

  She moaned again. “Everything this bird does is a pleasure, sir. I live to fly with him.”

  “Then flex your wings, little dove.” Raven couldn’t wait. He slid her skirts aside and pressed her forward to lean on the low wall. The flowers bloomed but their scent was nothing compared to the flowering of her womb and the fragrance of her pussy. He slipped his cock free and pushed between her thighs, seeking the place he knew waited only for him.

  She sighed with pleasure as his swollen head found her opening and began to penetrate her secret places. “Oh Raven, I have missed you. Missed this…” Her hands lifted to her breasts and she covered his, squeezing their fingers tightly and forcing her nipples against his skin.

  He freed one hand and delved beneath her belly to the crisply curled hair, parting the folds and finding her pearl, swollen and wet and protruding hungrily from its hood of hot silk. She sobbed a breath and forced her ass back into him, pushing his cock deeper inside her body. “Make me come, my love. Make me fly.”

  Her buttocks ground against him as he toyed with her, finding those spots that only he knew. His hand pressed and lifted her breast, more roughly now as her arousal flooded them both with liquids and her muscles hardened against him.

  Raven was blind to the garden, to the heat of the midday sun, to the birds and the insects—it could have been darkest night and he would not have known one from the other. His world was this woman in front of him and her body, welcoming him with a passion he’d still had difficulty believing and accepting.

  He let his hips move—back and forth—plunging now and adding additional abrasive friction to the sensual brew they were creating. He twisted, aligning his cock with her inner walls, rubbing them, finding that place deep inside that made her choke with heat as she boiled around him.

  “Oh Gods above—”

  There—he’d hit it, a small, yielding spot within her softness that he pounded against, over and over again until she was crying out in his arms, writhing madly against him and forcing her hips into him in direct counterpoint to his thrusts.

  He pushed—she pushed. He withdrew—she withdrew. Their bodies slapped like the waves against the hull of a boat, soft and liquid yet demanding and unrelenting.

  Ren’na broke first. With a shudder and a muted scream, she shattered, her body clamping down around his cock like a fist of granite. He couldn’t withstand her demand and exploded into her seconds later, filling her, flooding her, riding her waves of release down to his own flood gates.

  He roared his pleasure to the garden, scattering butterflies from the blooms and sending birds whirling upwards on a spiral that echoed his own passions.

  Spent, they sagged against each other and the wall.

  “My Raven.” Ren’na purred his name as she eased herself from his cock. “You have made me sticky and happy. Again.
” She ran her hand over her thighs and held the shining palm up to the sunlight. “See? Our love made liquid. Mixed inside me by your ladle. I am the pot for your soup.” She chuckled.

  “And we create our own cooking fire when we come together.” Raven slid his soft cock back beneath his robes. “It will always be thus, my love. Always.” His heart ached with loving her. He could not remember a time when his thoughts had not been full of his Ren’na’ila.

  He turned to a low table. “I was busy while you were gone.” He reached for a small covered object. “I made this for you.” Hesitantly he took off the cloth and presented it to Ren’na. “I hope you like it.”

  With a gasp, Ren’na reached for the statuette. “Oh Raven…” Her hands caressed the alabaster figure, leaving tiny slicks of moisture on the woman’s body. “It’s a masterpiece. Your finest yet.”

  “Do you think so?” He was anxious, as any artist would be, wondering if her enthusiasm was genuine or merely polite.

  “By the Gods yes.” She reverently stroked the skirts. “See the folds in the fabric—it’s a miracle in stone. Truly a miracle…” She glanced at him, eyes wide. “And it is my likeness, too, is it not?”

  “I cannot see another. Who else could it be?”

  And it was the truth. For Raven there was no other woman. Only Ren’na’ila. And she swore there could be no other man for her. Ever.

  Which put them both in a rather risky and difficult predicament.

  Because Ren’na’ila was promised to the Goddess. A life of dedicated service in the temple of Light. And once she’d taken her vows, she would never see Raven again.

  He wasn’t sure if he could survive without her.

  He also wasn’t sure if he wanted to.

  *~~*~~*

  Ren’na’s heart was heavy although her body still thrummed with pleasure. She did not have good news for her beloved and knew the time had come for her to tell him of her fruitless journey to the Temple.

  She sighed as they walked from the little room into the sunlit garden. “Raven, I have failed.”