Prologue

[Don't skip this. Or do, I guess, if you want to skip something awesome]

Katherine Miller, From the Distant Future

Unknown Location

-And-

Planet Kronai, The Night Before Matthai Valtrellin's Ordination Ceremony

* * *

Kat shivered violently, attempting to curl in on herself for warmth. But she was shit-out-of-luck thanks to the sadistic—and ingenious—mechanism her captors devised to trap a chronojumper.

Body screaming, Kat's muscles convulsed from pain and exhaustion.

The metallic tang of blood hung in the air. Her blood.

It oozed down her left arm ... drip, drip, dripping into what must by now be a pool.

The goons had abandoned her, strapped to the cold metal table, squinting against harsh white lights. Her attempts to get out of the cuffs—which only had a few inches of give—had proven utterly fruitless.

Instead, she conserved her energy. For thinking.

The stupid restraints. Whoever these people were, they understood she could only sustain a jump through time and space for a brief period before snapping back to her origin, naked.

The jerks rigged a table with a high-tech blanket-thing hovering over it. It slammed over Kat's torso like saran wrap whenever she returned from a jump, then held her ruthlessly until they re-attached these god-awful restraints to her wrists and ankles.

She never had time to even wriggle out of the way.

Finally, they reset the trap, lifting the wrap so they could resume their 'work.'

Her captors also seemed to understand that sufficient stress could force a chronojump. So time had long since lost all meaning in this endless cycle of torture. They pushed her to the brink.

Over.

And over.

They might be able to force her to jump, but she refused to go where and when they wanted. Kat would die first.

Not that they'd allow it. They seemed pretty intent on keeping her alive.

The whoosh of the cursed door sliding open behind her sent a shock of reflexive panic down her entire body, draining away another bit of her will to fight. No matter what she did, they'd torture her until she jumped … and then she'd get a brief respite in the freezing lab.

Though panic clawed at her guts, she remained perfectly still, peering out of the corners of her eyes. The cronies in black full-body suits filed back into the room, each brandishing their preferred torture devices like macabre toys.

They were either Valmorans or humans with access to Valmoran technology—otherwise, they wouldn't have access to that armor or Indiana's neurowhip.

Despite the tireless efforts of Matthai and the others, who scoured the universe for any hint of her whereabouts, the few clues she'd shared when she jumped to them had led nowhere. Not even Vi's supernatural insight or Callum's vast network had made any headway.

Her friends had no clue who was holding her or where in the universe she was.

She'd spent most of her jumps at the apartment she and her sister once shared. No need to torture Matthai and the others, forcing them to witness how often these assholes made her jump.

It turned out her sister, Beth, hadn't eaten all the cookies all those years ago.

Back then, Kat would have told anyone who tried to explain the truth—she was chronojumping from the future and eating all the snacks—that the notion was insane and broke the laws of physics. Yet true it was … and her torturers still hadn't caught on.

You can't starve a chronojumper, dimwits.

As Kat braced for 'the voice,' she surveyed the four who now surrounded the table.

"Hey, Edward! Where's Boris? On break?" Those weren't their real names—only the voice ever spoke to her—but giving them silly nicknames gave her mind something to do.

Plus, she didn't want to give the voice the satisfaction of seeing her broken.

She was reasonably sure there were seven, but with their full-body zylon suits, it was hard to be sure. Their body language and preferred torture implements were all she had to differentiate them.

Edward was into cutting. Boris liked to use his fists. Indiana liked … whips, obviously.

She leaned towards the left, as far as her restraints would allow. "Come, now, Edward—you can tell me. We're friends, right?"

The disembodied voice she'd been conditioned to loathe rang out in the same clinical tone as always. "Hello, Kat. I see you've recovered nicely."

She hadn't gleaned a damn thing from the voice. It could be a man, woman, or even multiple people on the other side of those speakers. They must be using a scrambler.

"Now, Kat. Let's try this again."

As Indiana stalked toward the table with the neurowhip, Kat focused on concealing her terror. The whip delivered a special kind of pain, lighting all her nerve endings on fire at once. The first time they used it, she'd screamed, convulsed … betrayed its effectiveness.

However, there must be some sort of safety limit, since they still primarily employed other, more traditional, torture.

Waterboarding, fun stuff like that.

She braced herself, focused on the details of her old apartment, the phantom scent of vanilla candles, the soft give of the microfiber couch. But at the last moment, Kat faltered and wished for … Matthai.

Pain exploded as the whip made contact, incandescent agony consuming her. The world blurred and tilted as the neurowhip's whine deepened in pitch.

Her body jumped.

* * *

As the clinical smells and sounds of the torture chamber faded away, the cool press of stone beneath her bare skin replaced them.

The scent of plants wafted through the air, but beneath it ran an earthy musk she would recognize anywhere in the universe.

Her heart raced. Joy and relief surged through her, momentarily eclipsing the pain. She struggled to her feet, but her tortured body refused to comply. A broken whimper tore from her throat.

The rustle of fabric and a groggy, familiar groan filled the air, a dim light illuminating the room.

"Matthai?" she said, her voice thin and trembling. It was one thing to fake strength in front of her captors. But seeing Matthai made her want to shatter into a miserable mess and let him pick up the pieces.

Her lip trembled, and she blinked, choking back the tears that threatened to break free.

It killed him to see her in pain, and it killed her to watch him agonize over her suffering.

But he only stared at her, eyes wide and jaw slack, frozen in place. She felt simultaneously relieved and guilty—jumping to him meant tormenting him with the effects of her torture ... and his inability to do a damn thing about it.

Even so, comfort surged through her at the mere sight of him.

"Matthai?" she repeated.

Gritting her teeth against the searing pain, Kat hauled herself upright, her legs trembling with the effort. Each step was agony, but she staggered forward, one excruciating foot in front of the other, until, at last, she fell into his lap.

He curled his arms around her, almost reflexively, but his expression was dazed.

"What's wrong? Where are we? Matthai?" The questions fell from her lips, but his lack of response sent a chill down her spine.

Where was the desperate embrace?

She studied Matthai's familiar yet strangely youthful face, noting the subtle differences—the sleep-mussed cobalt hair tumbling around the points of his ears, his unfamiliar sleep clothes.

His sculpted features held a wide-eyed innocence and deep sadness she hadn't seen in a long time.

Then her breath caught in her throat. This was not her Matthai.

Her power hadn't latched on to the Matthai she knew. Instead, she jumped to the innocent man he'd once been.

Of course, they had always known this would happen because, for her Matthai, it already had.

This moment had loomed over their lives like a guillotine.

This was the day he first met her, the day he learned his mate would one day be tortured, and the day his life became exquisitely complicated.

She cupped his face in trembling hands. This beautiful, lonely man. He'd been so starved for affection his whole life.

Someday soon, he would come for her, but the things that were about to happen in his life would devastate him. She ached to wrap him in her arms, to shield him from what was coming—even to warn him.

But even if she had the strength to fight the pull of this strange loop, she wouldn't.

Everything that was about to happen to him needed to happen. The next part of his life was the crucible that forged him into the man he needed to become.

His arms tightened around her with a tenderness that threatened to break her resolve.

"Matthai," she breathed, her voice breaking on his name. "By all the Gods, I love you. Even after everything, I wouldn't change a thing. Do you hear me? None of this is your fault. You're going to get through this. Come find me. I'm waiting for you."

His brow furrowed in confusion. He gently turned Kat's face to the side, fingers ghosting over the skin behind her ear.

Realization crashed through her. Those jerks had removed her Hix implant. No wonder Matthai couldn't understand her. His Hix implant didn't know English yet.

His fingers drifted to her other ear, finding only smooth skin, before tapping the Hix implant behind his ear. She remembered this part of the story—he was running a diagnostic, checking to see if the problem was on his end.

His hand skimmed the rounded shell of her ear, so different from his own, and he startled at the unfamiliar shape. A ghost of a smile tugged at Kat's lips.

Yep. Kat was indeed not a pointy-eared, blue-haired Valmoran. Instead, she was a non-Kronai chronojumper who defied everything Matthai understood about the universe. A human with dirty blond hair.

And right now, it was literally dirty. Not the way you hope to meet your future mate, with hair caked in … she didn't even want to know what.

She angled her face to meet his gaze and mustered a tender smile. The way he looked at her, you'd think she was wearing a gown rather than rivulets of her own dried blood.

With shaking fingers, she pressed her palm to his chest, right above his heart. The absence of his mate mark, so vivid and precious in her memories, struck her like a physical blow. She splayed her hand and said, "Matthai."

Then she took his hand and guided it to her own mark above her heart. "Katherine," she said, though she already knew he would get it wrong.

It would take him months to break the habit of calling her 'Kat-a-reen.'

Then she pressed their joined hands more firmly against one another's hearts, knowing the next word she uttered would blow his mind and shatter his world.

"Amara." Soul of my soul. My mate.

Matthai went utterly still, wide-eyed and reverent. He grasped her hand a bit too tightly, but she ignored the stab of pain. He would remember this moment for the rest of his life.

"Amara?" he whispered, sounding almost like a question.

Or a prayer.

He wrapped his arms around her again, cradling her against his chest as if she were the most precious thing in the universe. In that moment, she watched as the truth dawned in his eyes—she would become his everything, just as he was hers.

Matthai pressed his forehead to hers, his breath warm as it ghosted over her skin.

Sorrow welled up inside her, fierce and sharp. The path stretching before him was so dark, so fraught with pain and doubt. It would be a long, arduous journey before he found his way back to her.

Matthai drew back, cradling her face in his hands. Cherishing her.

Even in this moment of shock, he was still the sweetest man she'd ever known.

He spoke to her then, his voice low and fervent. She couldn't understand his words, but knew their meaning by heart from all the times he'd recounted the story to her.

'It's going to be okay. I promise I'll find you, that I'll never stop looking.'

"Kat-a-reen, my Amara," he murmured, brushing a reverent kiss against her forehead. Those words, at least, she understood. It was a ritual, one his future self maintained in their life together.

A sickening lurch in her stomach sent dread coursing through her. The end of the chronojump.

If she weren't so weak, she might have been able to extend the moment. But that would also mean altering this strange loop, and that was not something she would ever do, even if she could.

Besides, with an event so intimately tied to her life, it would be almost impossible for her to change it.

She could feel the time stream tugging her back to her origin. That cold, clinical hell. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, a smile tugging at her lips. "I'm sorry for how difficult I'll make it when you come to Earth to find me."

With the last of her strength, she surged forward and captured his lips with her own.

His first kiss, she knew, and perhaps her last.

She clung to him, memorizing the feel of being in his arms for what could be the last time. And then, with a sickening wrench, the time stream tore her away, ripping her out of his arms.

Hurling her back to the voice, enraged by her defiance, her refusal to bend to their will.

* * *

But even as she appeared back on the metal table and the wrap slammed down over her body, she clung to that perfect, shining moment.

As they shackled her wrists and ankles to the table, she savored the taste of Matthai on her lips.

The Matthai she had just left would cross galaxies, risk everything to find her.

Her Matthai could do it again. They just had to keep fighting.

Their story couldn't be over—they still had so much work to do.

And both of their galaxies were depending on them.