Ancient Hearts: A Time Travel Fantasy Romance (Kingdom of Sand & Stars Book 1) Read online

  Kingdom

  of

  Sand & Stars

  Book one

  Ancient Hearts

  By

  Candace Osmond

  Copyright © 2020 Candace Osmond

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-988159-71-3

  First Edition

  Digital Version

  Cover Design by Majeau Designs

  The characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are completely fiction and are in no way meant to represent real people or places. Although the province of Newfoundland is an existing location, the use of it in the book is for fictional purposes and not meant to depict true historical accuracy.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Love was a complex creature. An ever-changing beast of emotions and promises. And we, like the gluttons for pain we are, crave love as it craves us, and then die with it when we let it burn out.

  I knew this. I wasn’t a fool.

  But as I stood there on the terrace of my father’s old Victorian townhouse and drank in the otherworldly beauty of the man before me, I happily accepted my fate. I’d let my love for him set me afire until there was nothing left but a pile of ash.

  He was so worth the burn.

  Silas gripped the edge of the wrought iron railing as he cast his face up to the moon and closed his eyes, drinking in the pale glow that poured down on us with a loving hunger. The moonlight enhanced everything about the man. The golden sheen hidden in his dark brown waves. The flawless skin that covered his body, like the color of wet sand drying in the sun. I watched intently, carving out every feature; his pointed nose, sharp jaw, the soft lips of his wide mouth. Finally, Silas opened his large eyes. Two dark holes lined with hints of mossy gold and looked to me standing in wait.

  “You always do that,” I said and shifted closer, our hands touching as our fingers wrapped around the railing together.

  Silas regarded me innocently, mirroring the smile I gave him. “Do what?”

  “Look at the moon like that. As if–” I shrugged with a grin. “As if you’re in love with it.”

  Silas laughed. An infectious sound that always tickled my heart. “Perhaps I am.”

  “Are you saying I should be worried?” I slapped his arm and gave a mock look of surprise.

  He turned then and gently grabbed me by the waist, pulling my body tight against his. The warmth and nearness of Silas melted my bones and I became putty in his arms. A place I’d happily stay forever. He looked intently into my eyes and I saw something I never witnessed there before. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. An inkling that touched the bottom of my gut and registered the seriousness of the words that must have been rolling around in his mind.

  “Never,” he replied in a whisper that brushed across my face. “You don’t ever have to worry about the way I feel for you, Andie.” His long fingers slowly tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear as he sighed thoughtfully. Distantly. “I love you.”

  I felt my cheeks fill with color as I ran my own fingers through his silky, haphazard waves. I tried to ignore the tinge of sadness I heard in those last three words and forced an uneasy smile.

  “I love you, too. A part of me always has. Even when I was younger, I just…I just didn’t understand the complexity of what I was feeling.”

  Three years ago, the university bestowed an assistant upon my father, the brilliant Alistair Godfrey. Scientist, archeologist, professor, well-known recluse, suddenly had a young field assistant who hardly left his side. Some say it was the best choice he ever made as his research advanced years overnight. His digs were always fruitful, and people came from all over the world to study under his teachings of Egyptian history and mythology at Dal.

  That field assistant was Silas.

  I remembered the very day he walked in the front door three years ago. I was a sullen and bitter fifteen-year-old, but something awakened inside me that day. Something warm and alive. I recognized him as one of Dad’s students, but he seemed different somehow. Older, even though he was barely nineteen. They’d just returned from their first dig over near the coast of the Red Sea. Dad had grumbled before the trip, saying that the university was making him take Silas as part of some field study portion of the class. But they returned with some sort of unspoken understanding between them. Silas never left my father’s side after that. And I secretly fell more in love with him with each passing day.

  “I know.” Silas sighed through the heavy silence that hung between us as he gently nodded, his eyes lost in some place I’d never get to see. “I ignored it at first, this…feeling. Your father would have killed me if he knew…”

  More silence carried in the nighttime breeze that whipped around our faces. I inhaled a deep breath of that crisp cool air, let it fill my lungs. Despite the happy occasion, I couldn’t shake the strange sense of dread that marked his every word. That flashed across his face when he looked in my eyes.

  “Are we going to tell him before you guys leave?”

  Silas’s thick dark brow arched. “We leave first thing tomorrow.”

  “So? Let’s tell him tonight,” I said anxiously, desperate to prove to myself that nothing was wrong. “Let’s go wake him up.”

  I pursed my lips at his quiet laughter and Silas took one of my hands. He stared down at it thoughtfully, mulling my fingers through his. “I’d rather we have something more to tell him. Something more than just the fact that we’ve been dating behind his back for the last year and a half.”

  My eyes rolled involuntarily. “Us dating is about as much news as my father can handle at one time, Silas.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched as he stifled a smile, one that surely never would have reached his eyes, even if he let it. “Still. I think we should wait. This trip will be the biggest discovery of your father’s career. He cannot have distractions.”

  I blew out a huff of impatience as I rested my head against his warm chest. “Yeah, if you guys even find what you’re looking for.”

  Silas waited a few beats before responding. “We will.”

  I pulled back and glanced up at his vacant face. Unsure if I should say anything. But I saw then, all the emotion he’d driven from his expression had pooled in his big green eyes and glistened in the moonlight. Happiness mixed with uncertainty.

  “Silas, what’s wrong?”

  His brow creased in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not an idiot.” I tipped my head to the side. “I can tell something’s up. Tomorrow is the biggest day of Dad’s career. Of both your careers. You guys have worked toward this for nearly three years. This tomb they found…” I shook my head to gather my thoughts. “What you guys find in there could change history as we know it.”

  I tried to inch away, to give myself breathing
room, but Silas refused to let me go. His hands kept a firm grasp on the small of my back, pressing me against him. As if he were afraid to let me go. So, I let him hold me.

  “What I’m getting at is that you should be excited,” I continued and spread my hands out to smooth the hard lines of his back as we swayed to the gentle sounds of Etta James cooing from the tiny speaker on the old glass patio table.

  “Do I not seem excited?”

  My eyes widened. “Seriously? Silas, I don’t know where you’ve been all night, but it hasn’t been here.”

  I slipped one of my arms back from around his waist and cupped his cheek in my hand, willing him to come back to me. My thumb brushed the stressed skin under his eye and then slid down to his lips where I traced the perfect, sharp ridge that lined them. It always fascinated me. Slowly, I reached up on my toes and touched my mouth to his and sighed internally when those lips pressed hard against mine.

  Breathless, I pulled back and gleamed up at him. “Just come back to me.”

  Finally, Silas’s mouth widened with a smile that pulled his distant gaze back to the moment. “I never left. I’ve always been right here. With you. For you.”

  His arms, lean but more than able, scooped me up and spun around the spacious balcony before he set me down and left another slow, warm kiss on my lips. I watched as he then reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a tiny black velvet satchel, pulled closed with a thin drawstring. Glancing down at it in his hand, the other still holding me tightly, he seemed to be contemplating his next words carefully.

  “Tomorrow, your father and I leave on a trip that could take me away from you for a long time.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I replied with a shrug. “I know it’s dangerous. No one’s ever been down there. You don’t know what you’re going to find. I get it. But I’ll come visit during my breaks.” I suddenly regretted registering for the summer program to shorten my course length. The sadness began to seep back into his eyes, and I urged him with mine. “It won’t be so bad, I promise. And I’m sure Dad will give you breaks to fly home. It’s only fair.”

  He guffawed. “Nothing is ever fair.”

  I chose to ignore that statement and let him continue, leaning back as he pulled open the drawstrings on the small bag. I watched as he turned it over and dumped the contents into his palm. A beautiful pendant, a jagged and cloudy gemstone partially encased in gold where it attached to a thick chain. Silas looped it around his finger as he held it up to dangle in front of me. It was gorgeous. I stared in awe as the silver moonlight filtered through the milky stone, reflecting off the flawed particles and revealing what looked like a tiny universe inside it.

  “What’s this?” I asked in a breathy whisper. “It’s amazing.”

  The corner of Silas’s mouth quirked. “It’s somewhat of a family heirloom. My mother gave it to me many years ago. This stone is very much a part of me, Andie. In more ways than I can properly explain.” He moved to grab my hand and turn my palm up, open, to let the pendant pool heavy in the center. “I want you to have it. To take care of it while I’m away. Never let it go.”

  I stared down at the stunning piece of jewelry in my grip and my heart fluttered with all the possibilities of us. Of our future. Of my love for this man. Proudly, I looped the thick, yet lightweight chain over my head and felt the cold stone press against my chest. Directly over my rapidly beating heart.

  “Thank you,” I told Silas as I beamed up at him. “I’ll never take it off.”

  He gently pressed on the pendant and I knew he must have felt the hard thump of my wild heart beating through it. My breathing quickened, matching his, and we stood connected as our bodies fell in sync with every breath and beat.

  I felt his chest vibrate with the deep hum of his voice as Silas leaned even closer, his hand firm against the back of my head and pulling me in. Our faces met with a new intensity, a deep burning heat that constantly smoldered under the surface, waiting to ignite. I threw my head back in sheer bliss as Silas’s soft lips touched against the tender skin of my neck and sent a wave of goosebumps flourishing across the surface of my body, pooling in the center.

  Absently, my hands worked to remove his leather jacket and lift the black long-sleeved shirt over his head, revealing the gorgeous shape of his lean muscles. Our lips hungrily danced together as he took a few steps forward, pushing me back against the heavy, glass patio table. I opened my legs, welcoming him, and Silas leaned into me as they wrapped around him tightly.

  A devilish grin smeared across his face. “Andie,” his voice smooth, those lips just a sliver away from mine. I mumbled some response, dizzy from the nearness of him. Silas nuzzled his face in my hair and his warm mouth lightly caressed my ear with a breathy whisper, “Happy birthday.”

  Chapter Two

  I crept down the hallway to my father’s study, the one place I knew he’d be since I discovered his bedroom dark and empty only moments ago. No sign that he even went to bed at all. The door was slightly ajar, and I tapped three quick knocks with the back of my knuckle.

  “Come in,” he called from inside.

  I pushed open the heavy door and entered, my bare feet hugging the warm wooden flooring. A relief from the old slate tiling of the never-ending hallways. My father glanced up at me from a cloud of cigar smoke and stared through the tiny spectacles which balanced on the end of his nose. An accessory far too old-fashioned for how young he truly looked. Like a scruffy Kevin Costner. He smiled and cleared his throat as he closed the book he’d been reading.

  “Andelyn,” he spoke with surprise and stole a quick glance at the pocket watch hanging from his side. Another relic he loved. “It’s nearly two a.m. What are you doing up?”

  “I could ask you the same, Dad. Don’t you have to leave in a few hours?” I plopped down in the oversized brown leather lounge chair across from his long messy desk.

  He eyed me curiously. “Now, don’t you worry about me. I have too much to do and I can sleep on the plane.”

  I swung my legs over the giant arm of the chair and rubbed my tired eyes. I’d gone to bed after my evening on the terrace with Silas. But I couldn’t fall asleep. My mind wouldn’t stop racing and obsessing over his peculiar behavior and the fact that he was leaving me for who knew how long.

  “In fact, Silas should be here with me. Going over everything again,” Dad added as he busy-bodied about the books and papers that devoured his desk. Behind a thin puff of cigar smoke that wafted up from the ashtray.

  “He’s asleep in the spare room,” I told him and snickered internally. “He was…tired.”

  My father continued to absently sift through the items in front of him, mumbling under his breath as he did.

  “Dad,” I said, serious now as I swung my legs down and leaned forward. He peeked up at me. “What’s up? Why are you and Silas both so off-put about this dig? You’ve done this a million times, and this is one you’ve been preparing for a long time.”

  Dad sighed and sank down into his old emerald green leather chair. “It’s not like anything we’ve ever done, dear. I’ve studied the map that surrounds the area and cross referenced it with every resource I could find. There is nothing that speaks of this tomb. Nothing at all. It’s as if it never existed.”

  “Or it was a big secret,” I added.

  Dad’s brow rose as his eyes widened with excitement and a hint of pride. “Exactly. And a tomb that far down that’s been kept a secret for all these years is bound to hold some secrets…and some dangers.”

  I stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean? How far down are we talking?” The locals who’d found the entrance immediately went through the right sources and the news eventually got to Dad. This was his thing. His specialty. But he and Silas gave up very little information to me about this particular project. A detail that egged me to no end. I was always included in everything he did. But not this one. I stood and leaned over his desk, looking down at the documents he had spread out.
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  Dad rolled out another map and pointed to a spot. I stared down at it intently, eager to find out what I could, and realized that it wasn’t a map at all but a blueprint of some kind. I turned my head from side to side before understanding just what I was looking at.

  “The Great Pyramid?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Dad replied and indicated with a finger the inner workings of the structure, tracing the many narrow tunnel lines and tiny chambers that made up the ancient building. This had been the basis of his work for years. “Remember that chamber Silas and I helped uncover?”

  I filed through the endless bits of information in my mind. “Yeah, underneath the pyramid, right? You guys spent three weeks there last summer. I thought it was some kind of weird bathroom or something?”

  Dad chuckled and unbuttoned his dark green sweater. Nearly the same color as the chair behind him. “No, Andelyn. It was a secret chamber. Its purpose completely lost to the history of Egypt. No one ever heard of it. No one could find anything remotely close to a depiction of it anywhere.” He rubbed at his tired face. “Until Silas and I got down there. We determined that it’s some sort of ritualistic chamber. The walls are marked with hieroglyphs never before seen.” He cleared his throat. “Until now.”

  I swallowed nervously, mostly from excitement. I loved my father’s work, admired him from his side my whole life. I wanted nothing more than to grow up and become an archeologist just like him. But I’d been distracted the past three years. Sure, I got into the program. I’m in my second year. But a small part of my love for all things old and dust covered disappeared to make room for the feelings I harbored for Silas.

  I had to tell Dad.

  I watched again as he yanked another piece of paper, a large photograph, out from underneath a rustled pile. “So, here we are,” he said and poked at a rust colored mountain. “The tomb is here, and the entrance bears the same unknown markings as that chamber under the Great Pyramid. The two must be connected. And, if Silas’s research is correct…” Dad stopped and scratched nervously at his scruffy face. “Then this could change the face of humanity as we know it.”