Himeros' Princess
The Erotes Series

Excerpt

“You bring honor to your family to want to preserve their home and heritage. I’d like to help you if I can.”

He chuckled sadly. “There’s nothing you can do, but thanks anyway.”

“What is this deed that Mr. Watson was talking about? It sounds very important.”

“A deed is the document that says the land belongs to you. I know my parents stored it somewhere. I just need more time to go through all of their things to find it.” He cracked several eggs into a bowl and picked up the whisk.

“Why not just ask your parents where they put it?”

“I would, but they’re dead.”

Icie let out a shocked gasp.

Hawk sighed and put the bowl to the side to add a package of hash browns to another frying pan. “Yeah, it was all very sudden. My parents came out here to pick up my grandfather, and they all came to the city to visit me. They stayed for a week then my parents headed back here to drop my grandfather off, but they never made it. On the way they were in a car accident that killed them all.”

He saw the tears in Icie’s eyes. She reached out to touch his hand, but he turned away from her to hide the tears that welled in his own.

“My grandfather meant for me to have his land when he passed on. I buried my parents up here with my grandfather so they would be near me. I went back home a few days later to sell my condo. I’ve only been here for about three weeks, after being gone for a few months. Now they’re telling me a developer is trying to get all this land to make it into something.” He slid the eggs and hash browns onto a plate and handed it to her.

Icie accepted the plate. “You haven’t really had a chance to process everything that has happened.”

“No, and Mr. Watson has been at my door almost every day for the last two weeks. My condo sold quickly, but even with that money and what I have in the bank it’s nowhere near enough to buy the land. There is so much stuff between my parents and my grandfather that I just shoved it all into storage and what didn’t fit I put in the backyard storage.”

He turned back to the stove, repeated his movements, and joined her at the table.

“I’ve gone through everything of my parents since Mr. Watson’s first visit and haven’t found it. The last of my grandfather’s things are out back, but I haven’t found the papers I need yet.” He shook his head with a sigh, quickly blinked the tears away, and put on his best smile. “Sorry about that. Okay, so, that’s my story. Now eat up so we can talk about what’s really going on with you.”

Icie looked down at her plate; then back at him. She watched him eat vigorously for a while and decided to try the strange looking food on her plate.

“This is good, Hawk. What is it?” she asked, surprised.

He looked up from his empty plate with a raised eyebrow. “All right, for real, spit it out, Icie. What’s really going on?” He pushed his plate back and wrapped his arms around his chest.

She finished her food before she mimicked his movements.

“I have no reason to lie to you, Hawk. All I know is when I ran away from my joining ceremony last night it was eighteen fifty-eight.”

“What you’re saying is impossible, Icie. It isn’t eighteen fifty-eight, it is two thousand eight.” She continued to stare at him, her expression unchanged. “Fine, you know what, I have an idea. If you say you’re from the past, eighteen fifty-eight to be exact, then you should be in the history books, right? My grandfather has lots of history books that go back for years on the Seneca Indian tribe. He used them to teach me about our tribe. Why don’t we see if we can look you up, Miss Time Traveler?”

He jumped up, making his way to the attic, and she followed him. He sifted through many dusty books on an even dustier bookshelf before he found what he was looking for.

“Here’s one that’s dated eighteen hundred to nineteen hundred. So you should be in here somewhere.” He dropped the tomb-like book on the floor before her and sat down, turning pages when the dust cleared. “Here’s something. It says the chief of the Seneca Indians name was Lakota. He was chief from eighteen fifteen to eighteen sixty-six.”

“Yes, that was my father.”

“It says his son, Pallaton, took over in eighteen sixty-seven.”

“Pallaton is my elder brother. It doesn’t say anything about me? Look for something about his daughter.”

Hawk flipped through a few more pages scanning for information. “Here’s something. It says here that in eighteen fifty-eight Chief Dyami was supposed to marry Lakota’s daughter, but right before the ceremony she went to her hut and never returned. Later they discovered she was attacked and killed by an animal. In eighteen sixty-two, Chief Pallaton married Chief Dyami’s daughter when she became of age and joined the two tribes.” He closed the book and stared at her for a time before speaking.

“If that’s really you, how the hell did you get here, a hundred and fifty years in the future, in one night?”

“I don’t know, Hawk, but I am here.”

Hawk led the way back downstairs where they sat on the couch in silence for a while. Icie leaned back, deep in thought; the pajama shirt Hawk gave her seductively high on her legs. He struggled not to look at her, but he couldn’t help trying to mentally push the shirt higher and just as he tilted his head for a better look, Icie’s soft voice broke the silence.
“Why don’t you have a mate, Hawk?”