He had to save her. 

He had to save her. 

He had to save her. 

Future Emory holding his hands again. Guiding him. 

Once more standing on the side of the grave. Once more, Khal’s lips pressed to his, then being thrown into the coffin. He reached out this time to stop the lid, screaming as it crushed his hand, but did not completely close. It didn’t matter. One of Khal’s slaves jumped down and flipped the lid up, pushing Rene back, then slamming the lid shut.

He had to save her. 

He had to save her. 

He had to save her. 

“Wait!” He cried, just as Khal was about to drop him into the coffin. Khal looked at him, an eyebrow raised in anticipation of whatever Rene was going to say to defend himself. 

Rene completely blanked, panic winning over in that moment. 

Once more, he was tossed into the coffin. 

Once more he was buried alive. 

Once more he had to save her. 

Khal was kissing him. Rene suddenly pushed back into the kiss, giving it everything he had. Khal was so startled that the men holding onto Rene let go of his arms, and Rene gripped Khal’s face in his as they continued to consume one another. Khal pulled back, gasping for breath. 

“I know what you’re trying to do.” Khal said quietly, dangerously. “And it won’t work this time.”

“I do love you.” Rene said, finding the words now that he thought Khal needed to hear. “I was scared, but I never hurt you…this time. I never would. We were going to change the world together. We still can.”

Khal looked pained, as though someone had slapped him across the face. He let out a shuddering breath as he gently caressed Rene’s cheek with his hand. 

“I wish I could believe you. But I don’t. I know you’re doing this to save Ari. But you don’t seem to realize that I’m doing this to save you. I’ll find you in the next life. I promise. I always do. And then everything can be okay.”

“What if I remember?” Rene asked, acutely aware of how close he was to the edge of the grave. Three steps back, and he’d be right back in it. 

“Emory won’t be around us then. Our goddess will bless us as she always meant to. Eternal life, for both of us.”

“I can fix it now.” Rene insisted. “We can fix it now. If you kill me, you can’t undo that.”

“If I don’t kill you, then all of it was for nothing.” 

“Khalid. My lover. My brother. Please. Please don’t do this.”

Khal shook his head, his voice a soft purr as he spoke again, “Rene, I love you with all my soul. But this is the only way. I’m sure you can see that.”

Rene flinched as Khal took a step toward him. He stumbled back a bit, as Khal placed a gentle hand on his chest. 

“So strange, but the truth is you have to die now to live forever.” Said Khal. A moment later, he shoved Rene back, and Rene fell right back into that horrible coffin. 

As the dirt began to cover his coffin once more, Rene let out a great sob. He couldn’t do it. There was nothing he could say or do that would make Khal change his mind now. It was over. Khal would find him in the next life, and he would forget once more all of the horrible things his lover had done to him through the ages. 

He would forget Misha. 

And Ari.

And Emory. 

“I’m so sorry.” He whimpered, covering his eyes as the tears and despair overwhelmed him, as he tried to consider the exact words that would change Khal’s mind, and in his panic was unable to do so. 

He felt Emory’s presence reach for him, pull him out of that coffin and onto the beach with the bungalow and its gently billowing curtains. 

“I don’t know how to do it.” Rene said, shaking his head, his lip trembling as he looked at Emory with all the love a father could feel for his daughter. 

Emory shook her head, an anxious look creasing her brow.

“I know you can do this. The energy it has taken me to step away from Aset into this realm is great, but through my love for you and my mother, I was able to overcome her. Some of that strength comes from you. You have it, I know you do. But you’re stuck, in this loop. You have to go back to when you could fix it. You have to go back to before he had all the c-c-control…”

Rene watched in horror and awe as the form of Aset slowly began to absorb back into his precious Emory. Aset’s eyes were glaring at him, looking through Emory’s, furious with the situation. With Emory getting away. 

Would he even be able to get back after this?

“Emory!” Rene called. He could see her eyes through Aset’s, see the fear in them. And something else. 

The resolve. 

Go back. 

Go back to before it was too late. 

Go back to before. 

Save them. 

Rene dived deep down into his soul, using everything he had to pull himself back. 

Back before he was at his grave.

Before he was on the run. 

Before he was injured by Khal in a moment of anger, making him completely vulnerable to Khal’s whims. 

It was like being stretched as a rubber-band, pulled so far that he was certain he would snap. Anything to see his baby girl again. He concentrated on a moment, a time just before everything went so wrong. 

With a gasp, he opened his eyes, and found himself sitting at his kitchen table, looking at a very pale Khal. 

Rene shoved his chair back, standing up and stumbling back as he tried to get his bearings. Khal jumped up, looking at him in shock. 

“What is it?” Khal demanded. “Are you okay?”

Rene took a moment to realize where he was. He saw the kettle on the stove now. The brand new kettle, that in a few moments would have been colliding with the back of his skull. He realized where and when he was, and turned to Khal with wide eyes. 

“S-sorry. Thought I saw a sp-spider.” He stammered. 

Khal frowned, “I’ve never seen you react that strongly to a spider before.”

“I uhh, had a nightmare about them, last night.” Lied Rene. “Awful. Awful. What was uh, what was I saying?”

“You were telling me how much you appreciate what I’ve done for you, and that I was a lifesaver. And you were happy that I’d gifted you Aset.” Said Khal, looking like he was going to be sick. 

This was the moment, the moment right before Rene had broken up with him. Before everything had gone to shit.

The moment before Khal had explained who and what they were to each other, and just how many lives Rene had actually lived. Before he’d gone to the hospital and remembered how they received their gifts from Aset.

His gift. 

It hadn’t been Emory, it had been time travel. Going back in time to save his loved ones. And Khal didn’t know that, because Rene had never dreamed it before and written it down in his journal. In fact, Khal had no idea just how much he knew now. 

“Right!” Rene broke into a relieved smile. “Right! Your house! The one you wanted us to move to. I think it’s a great idea! I think it’s a wonderful idea! It’ll help Emory so much to get out of here. Too many sad memories, you know?” 

He hoped he wasn’t overselling it, but the relief he felt now was palpable. He wasn’t faking his excitement. They had the chance now to do the right thing. 

Or rather, not to do the wrong thing. 

Rene crossed the floor and pulled Khal into a very passionate kiss, that clearly caught him offguard. The kettle began to whistle as Rene pulled Khal’s face close to him, half enduring, half enjoying one of the most intense kisses of his life. 

After a moment, they broke apart, both gasping for breath as the kettle screamed behind them. Rene fought to ignore the sound of it, the fear that came with that sound and what had happened before. He watched Khal hurry over and take it off the burner, before turning to look at him thoughtfully. 

“I thought…I was so sure that you were going to break up with me.” Said Khal. “After how you acted last night.”

“No.” Rene shook his head adamantly. “No. I was upset last night, but I love you. I love you in a way that’s hard to explain. In a way I never loved Misha even. Khal, you are my soulmate. I can feel it.”

He watched the smile break out on Khal’s face, the look of pure and utter relief, and Rene felt, for the first time in months, like he could breathe again. 

Khal believed him. 

Khal didn’t know that he knew everything. 

They were safe, for now. 

Ari was safe. 

The world was safe. 

No dropped nukes.

No global unrest. 

He had a moment to think. To breathe. 

To try and figure out how to actually kill Khal for good. 

How did one kill an immortal?

*****

The first thing Rene did upon reaching his bedroom under the guise of getting ready for the day was open his dream journal and rip out the latest page. The one he had written the night before, detailing the dream where Emory had reminded him of the event with Cody burying Khal alive. He took the page into the bathroom, tore it to shreds, and flushed it down the toilet. Over the last few months in what now appeared to be the alternate timeline, he had come back to that entry over and over. That dream, that set him on the path that hadn’t ended so well. 

He hoped Khal hadn’t read it yet. Was certain he must not have, since he seemed positively content now. Knowing he might see it, might suspect that Rene knew more than he was letting on was a terrifying thought, and so Rene flushed the page with great satisfaction.

He wondered at the dream. Wondered at Emory’s motivations for showing him the truth. Had she known what might potentially happen if he broke things off with Khal? Had she assumed things might go some other way?

Had it been the only thing she could do in the moment with Aset exerting great influence on her? She would likely have hoped that Rene would find a way to get them away from Khal’s influence. But she understood how unstable Khal was, and how very difficult it was to escape a man with his abilities. 

Rene yearned to talk with her again. To figure out what else she knew. If she was from the future, then she had some idea of what things would come to. Some inkling of the path that he and Khal would take. And with her connection to Aset, she had to know more still. She must have an idea of how to stop Khal once and for all. Would she have the strength to share this information with him if Aset was fighting against her doing so?

Rene would wait. He would wait for Emory to visit him again. He would wait for the chance to change everything, to put a stop to the monster currently enjoying his cup of tea in the kitchen. 

Whatever it took, Rene would do it. 

*****

Rene felt crushing unease when he looked at Ari now. He knew that she was under Khal’s control still, and there was no way to ask him to remove that control without letting him know what Rene knew about him. She was alive though. She was safe, as long as she was no threat to him. He mused though that she might not rather choose death than being controlled against her will by the whims of a madman. 

Rene was going to save her, though. He was going to save all of Khal’s current victims.  

After a few days of pretending that everything was normal, Rene began to realize how very alone he was. He could confide in no one what was going on, for fear that Khal would find out. He could no more trouble his darling Emory with the information, as no parent should lay that burden upon their child. Plus, he couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t let something slip, and Khal would find out anyway. As protected as Emory was from Khal’s wrath, being Aset’s chosen vessel, Khal would certainly take out his rage on Ari, or anyone else they cared about to keep them in their place. 

So, Rene played the role of the doting partner. The man so madly in love that he could hardly keep his hands off of Khal, though the act of doing so made him sick to his stomach. Every night he hoped to dream about that bungalow with the billowing curtains, but Emory never visited. What then could he do but continue to pretend. To make sure that his loved ones were safe. 

One day, Khal drove him to the new house, and walked him around the property. It was all Rene could do not to vomit as he looked at the section of grass where he knew Khal had dug out the hole and placed the coffin just for him. His eternal resting place. How strange it would have been for Khal to find him in his next life and bring him here to walk daily over the bones of his past self without a clue. What sadistic glee would Khal have garnered from watching him do so?

“I love it!” Rene lied, trying not to let the loathing show as he looked on that dreaded house with seething anger.

“I knew you would!” Exclaimed Khal, pulling him into another passionate kiss. There were moments where Rene could let go and get caught up in the bliss of kissing the man he had once loved more than any other. Now was not one of those moments, but he played the part, returned the kiss in full, and was thankful that Khal could not read his mind and the wrathful thoughts he had in that moment. 

The trip to that horrid house took a lot out of him, and when Rene got home, he went to his room to rest and despair for a moment, always just a moment, away from Khal so that he could collect himself. He ended up falling asleep on his bed, dreaming a montage of past lives. Little Nita, playing with her cousin, young Charun, proudly telling his parents of his plan to work at the temple of Durga, child Cody, pulled into a strange life on the streets of London by nefarious men. Little moments from each life. Every life. Even his life, as Rene. Passed from foster care to foster care. Finding family, and losing them just as quickly. Always pretending to be okay. Pretending just as he did now, the skill he realized he’d learned from a lifetime, from perhaps many lifetimes of struggling. 

Rene woke with a start to see Emory staring at him from where she stood beside the bed. 

“Wh-what is it darling?” Rene asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. 

“Mommy said it’s time to wake you up for dinner, and…” She trailed off. 

“And what, Em?” Rene looked at her curiously. 

“And I’m trying to figure out if you remember.” She spoke so quietly. 

Something clenched in Rene’s stomach, a mixture of excitement and horror. 

“Remember what?”

“Everything. The cabin. Running away.  All of it.”

Rene’s eyes widened as he looked at her, and for the first time in days, he felt a sense of relief. He wasn’t alone anymore. 

Chapter 49 – Her Diamonds