East

He waited.

"Are you a traveler? Were you with me in the Old West?"

Batu stiffened. For a moment, I thought he was going to walk away. Instead, he pulled me into his body and hugged me hard. "They found us."

My heart broke. He lied to me. "Why didn't you tell me?" I whispered.

"You did not speak of it either."

"Because I didn't think you'd understand." I pulled away to stare at him through tear-filled eyes.

"And you would understand what I was?" he challenged gently.

He made sense, as usual, but this was more than an oversight or an error made in good faith. This was deception from a man I viewed as too honorable to deceive me. "I don't know you, Batu. Is any of this ... us real? Am I a mission to you?"

"No, Moonbeam," he whispered. "You are my heart."

"Then tell me why you lied!"

He took my hands, quiet.

"Batu, I love you. I want to spend my life with you here. And then I find out it may not even be possible, not because of me, but because you're a time traveler who could disappear at any moment."

"I resigned," he said with mild humor. "Moonbeam-"

"Tell me everything."

He searched my features for a moment before drawing me into his arms again. I wanted to push him away, to sit at a distance that would allow me to discern how truthful he was without the distraction of his body.

But I also needed him at this moment. I shook out of emotion, and he had always been the one to steady me.

"I am from this time. I was … found when I was young and recruited into the agency. Trained in traveler ways as well as Mongol warrior customs. After ten years, I was returned here with the knowledge I'd be called upon from time to time to assist the agency as directed. My life was generally mine, except that I was ordered to become the guardian of the Goddess of the White Path. I was called upon to assess the threat you posed to history after Carter sent you to the eighteen forties and then to protect you, as my handlers had grown interested in your abilities.

"It was about that time that Carter approached me," he paused.

I listened, my stomach in knots. Clinging to Batu's tunic, I couldn't quite shake the fear that I was going to lose him or maybe already had lost the man I thought he was.

"I will say he was convincing." A troubled note, one containing resentment as well, was in Batu's tone. "I could travel forward and backward in time, and he could only send you backward. He needed you at a certain point in time, so I was ordered to make you take the magic beans he gave you, but the agency told me you needed to awaken earlier. So, I destroyed several of the magic beans as they directed, destroyed my connection to Carter and woke you twenty years before Carter wanted it so, in my era. My agency gave you the task of protecting Flowers and me the mission of protecting you. After that, they said I was free."