Immortals After Dark 03 - No Rest for the Wicked

eyes growing silver.
    Just as he was about to pick her up on the way back to the bed, she shimmied by, then hastened down the hall, hips gently swaying under her towel. Perfect for me. Suddenly, he was completely respectful of fate, since it had had blooded him with exactly the right female.
    When she was out of his sight, the silky underthings in her opened clothes bag caught his attention. Kneeling down to root through them, he picked out a scant black bra and matching panties that resembled no more than artfully arranged strings. He stood and clenched them in his fists, groaning to recall tugging her silk panties aside the night before. He’d shuddered to find them so very wet...
    She appeared, one hand on her hip, the other raised for her underwear. He reluctantly handed it over. When she turned and began dressing under the towel, he said, “I know a bit about the subject of time travel. And I know this key can’t work. Have you ever studied the laws of general relativity?” he asked slowly, not imagining why she would have. His head tilted with each word, gaze locked on the edge of the fluttering towel. He needn’t have bothered angling for a peek. She dropped the towel as soon as her underwear was on—in other words, when the string was in place.
    He hissed in a breath. Again, his feet shuffled to keep himself from falling over. That ass is going to be the death of me.
    “I know a bit about the subject myself,” she said over her shoulder as she donned her bra. “And since the mid-twentieth century, it’s been widely accepted among physicists that the possibility of time travel can be reconciled within the laws of general relativity.”
    His brows drew together. Perhaps he shouldn’t have spoken to her so slowly. But then her words sank in. General relativity was only one argument against time travel. “Even if that were so, time travel is not compatible with the law of conservation of energy. You cannot remove matter and energy from one sphere without creating a vacuum. Nor can you take it and force it into another sphere.”
    Mercifully, she shimmied into her low-slung pants, though she had to bend over briefly, with her breasts threatening to spill out. Half dressed, she began combing out her long, wet hair. He sat back against the headboard once more and savored every sight.
    “True. But only if you believe that all matter and energy are interconnected on a global scale,” she said.
    Could she be any sexier than at this moment, brushing her hair, discussing one of his favorite subjects? Somehow he managed to speak. “It must be. In a closed system, all is integrated.”
    Twisting the mass of curls into a knot on her head, she bared that graceful neck he couldn’t seem to keep his lips from. “The earth isn’t a closed system,” she said with absolute authority. “There are bridges to other dimensions, even other populations like the Lore. I’ve been to some.”
    What? he thought dumbly. Christ, he believed her about this. Though it went against everything he’d learned.
    And just like that, one of the foundational beliefs of his life collapsed while a slip of a female traipsed by in a silken black bra.
    Shaken, he redoubled his efforts to concentrate. He wanted to convince her of this. And to be honest, he wanted to impress her. “And what about the Grandfather Paradox? What happens when a time traveler has a quantum-mechanical intrusion with his past self or his ancestors?”
    “What if he kills his own grandfather? Well, if one believes tachyons—”
    “ You know what a tachyon is? ” he nearly shouted.
    She hooked her shirt at her thumbs, readying it to pull on. While she was under the tight fabric, he heard her say, “Subatomic particle. Travels faster than the speed of light.” He had closed his jaw by the time she’d drawn it on all the way.
    “How do you understand these things?” And how could this blooding be so precise?
    “My dad was a god, and they tend to be quick like that. I inherited.”
    “Of course.” He didn’t like to be reminded of this. Riora had asked him, “Do you have any idea how high you reach for one such as her?” Yes, Riora. Yes, I do. Every day, he had a better idea, and it was killing him. He shook himself. “Tachyons are hypothetical. Their existence would threaten laws of science—”
    “Like radioactivity did?” she asked in a mild tone, glancing up from lacing her boots to cast him a too-pleasant smile.
    He exhaled a long breath.