A/N: Spoilers for Tempt the Stars, sorrrt of, but also presumably takes place after she rescues Pritkin and has him back. Thanks to the reviewer JeanB for prompting me to make some edits! It still might be improbable, but it might be more possible for her to time travel to prehistoric times with the updated version of events. I also noticed some glaring spelling mistakes, but I'm sure I missed more so if there's anything I can fix feel free to PM me or review. ~AL

I don't know if the knives were confused from the earlier fiasco with the mirror or if they simply had a will of their own. From the way they flew towards me with abandon, maybe it was a little of both. "Stop!" I screamed, but too late. The dagger already embedded into my stomach disappeared.

I'm not sure what I was doing in what appeared to be a – now empty – suite at some cheesy hotel, but I knew I really didn't want to stay. I glanced at the woman who'd been attacking me. She was crumpled in a bloody heap on the floor. No, I really did not want to be here. Not anywhere near a dead body. Even if I had killed her.

I put a hand over the wound to stop the bleeding and slid to a sitting position. Unfortunately for me, it looked like I wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

My breath was coming in sharp, quick pants. Shock. This was shock. I might be an amnesiac, but I wasn't stupid.

Or maybe I was. My eyes looked down at my stomach, still not quite believing there was a hole there—despite the hole-shaped pain.

They'd surprised the hell out of me when they went flying out of the bracelet on my wrist, but since they were the only thing between me and the psychopaths I seem to have offended, I didn't stop to question them. Sure, just trust the magical killer daggers when you can't even remember your name, that's just great, I berated myself.

"Cassie!" The angry blond with bad hair rushed at me.

It was becoming much harder to breath now, and the most I could do was flicker my eyes at him to see his stinging green back at me. I squeezed mine shut, hoping he would make it quick.

As if he could read my mind, he made a noise that was decidedly English. "I'm not going to kill you."

I opened my eyes to see him bent over me. He moved the hand covering my wound aside and put pressure on it himself.

That was good, because I was feeling weaker by the second and I could feel more and more blood pool from the wound and coat my fingers sticky. My eyes rolled a bit and I thought I was about to pass out. But then the angry man muttered something and my pain relieved immensely.

"Oh," I breathed, my eyes flying to his with gratitude. "Thank you."

"That will only stop the pain. Your vampire will heal you better than I can."

"Vampire?" I squeaked, terror filling my voice as I remembered the burly man who'd held me immobile so effortlessly. "No, I don't want to go to the vampire!"

"If only you'd feel that way all the time," he muttered.

I was about to inform him he had a muttering problem when he lifted me with ease into his arms. I screamed into his ear and he flinched. Whatever magic trick he'd done had been useless when he moved me.

"I've seen people survive worse, Cassie," he informed me brusquely. "I've seen you survive worse." But there was a note of concern—almost panic.

Maybe I was wrong to count this man an enemy. An enemy doesn't feign concern or look at you with eyes that green and irritated. I clutched the back of his neck and felt the hair there before the pain made me black out and lose my grip.

I may not know who he is, or who I was, for that matter, but I took comfort in my last thought before I passed out. I knew one thing, I had a friend.

People were talking above me when I came to. Or arguing, to be more exact. One said something about a spell wearing off now that the caster was dead.

I heard something about a senate – an emergency meeting, and Cassie (was my name really Cassie?) – and that one of the voices had to leave.

"Urb." I tried to speak and feel my stomach, but the words garbled and I couldn't lift my hand.

Then a voice filled my head. Rest, Cassandra.

And though I tried to resist the thought that wasn't mine, I still felt weak and I slipped back into sleep.

I remember being in and out of consciousness, despite the fact I couldn't ever actually remember waking. But the conversations were clear in my head as proof.

"It's the result of the spell—" my angry one said.

"You said it would wear off with the witch dead!" Marco yelled (hey, Marco! I knew that voice).

"And it will," Pritkin (what a weird name) said tightly. "Besides, I meant the spell for the pain will wear off soon and she should stop acting so erratically. Its hallucinogenic affects are similar to D-lysic acid—"

"Acid? You gave Cassie acid?"

"It's better than pouring Pythian Tears down her throat!"

"She's vulnerable-" Marco started.

"Mircea is a fool. The Tears are valuable and only for emergencies - "

"She came home with a hole in her stomach." Marco said quietly. "That is an emergency."

"The Tears won't help her heal!" Pritkin said hotly.

Marco paused. "And if there's more danger and she needs to shift away? She's vulnerable. She needs all the help she can get."

Pritkin bite out his next words. "Why do you think I cast that spell? If she's less focused on the pain, she's more likely to - "

"I thought drugs made her incapable of shifting?" Marco cut in swiftly. "How is she supposed to think clearly when she's blitzed? Don't you think LSD is the last thing she needs?"

"When the drugs in question are depressants, yes, but her power it is impossible to predict when it comes to stimulants. And it's not LSD, just...similar."

"Impossible to predict?" Marco all but screamed. "She shifted Fred into the roof pool! He can't swim."

There was a silent beat. "He can't swim?"

"That's not the point!"

"Well, if that's the worst thing—"

"The worst?" He didn't let Pritkin finish. "That was just the first time. One second she was having an intimate conversation with the fridge like they were old pals and the next second-"

"Look," Pritkin interrupted, cutting off whatever Marco was about to say. "I have the necklace now. She'll shift to me and I'll take care of it, if you're too incompetent."

"Too incompetent? I have orders from the master to contain a time-traveling demi-goddess and you are calling me—"

His voice stopped abruptly. I experienced a moment of confusion after listening to their conversation before realizing I'd sent him to Fiji. He'd sounded like he needed a break. And all his yelling was interfering with my nap.

"Well. That was convenient." Pritkin said.

I fell back asleep with a smile.

I woke up in uncomfortable sheets and my head was pounding in an oddly pleasant way. I stretched and rolled over, right onto a bare chest. I snuggled my face into the soft hair and loved the feeling of the warm muscle under my head as the chest rose and fell with each breath. It seemed like the man was in a deep sleep after an exhausting day.

I allowed myself a deep breath. Magic, gunpowder—and dirt? My hand started to caress the shapely chest beneath me of its own accord.

"Cassie?" A tight voice called out.

My eyes popped open and I bolted upright. The sun was just rising and made him perfectly visible.

"Cassie?" The voice was lighter this time. "Do you remember me?" He held out a placating hand, like I was a wild animal.

"Why are you covered in dirt?" I ignored his question.

"Because someone shifted us to prehistoric times." There was a dangerous tint to his voice.

Uh oh. I fought the urge to feel impressed at myself when a hazy kaleidoscope of memories came flooding back. My eyes met his and I tried to make myself look innocent. I saw now that he had the necklace that would keep me from shifting away from him. He probably hadn't considered that it wouldn't stop me that well if I just shifted him with me.

"Cassie," he interrupted my thoughts. "Can you remember?"

"No." I answered quickly.

His green eyes narrowed until all I saw was a sliver of color. "Cassie—"

But then an explosion rocked his tiny room and an irate woman appeared from his closet, probably because her generic brand of shifting was harder to control, and started flinging deadly spells at us both.

I flung myself under the itchy blankets, but it was probably Pritkin's quick shields that saved us. He cursed as he covered my body with his in case his shields failed.

My head popped free from the blankets. "I remember now," I said as I clung to him and shifted.

The trip exhausted me more than it should; I'd only traveled to the hotel lobby. I gasped and clutched my stomach. I found the skin bare and unbroken, but sore as hell. I assumed I was a little off because I was still weak and fighting the drugs and aftereffects of the spell. I had even brought the blanket on our little trip. I let it fall from its tangled position on my limbs.

"Why am I wearing this?" I asked when I was finally free of the blanket, plucking at the leopard print rags that were hanging off my boobs and waist. I looked like a half-naked Barney Rubble.

But I forgot all about my clothes, such as they were, as another explosion rocked the building and made the ceiling shake. Pritkin tugged me along past the security guards who were now racing toward the newest incident.

He swore. "I miscalculated. There was one left."

He was talking about the coven of angry witches who'd just recently tried to curse me with some sort of time-spell meant to wipe me out of existence. I hadn't even done anything to piss them off. I'd realized, too late, that one of my very own disgruntled Pythian court members had been with them helping them bring me down and that they were there on behalf of the Guild. I'd managed to shift – just barely – but I still caught some of the curse and when I woke up I couldn't remember who I was.

I'd killed one, and he must've only taken out two, because the fourth, the adept, was currently hot on our trail. The guards had hardly slowed her.

They were an extreme faction of the guild – and calling them extreme was really saying something – people who thought they could change history to their liking. Mages and witches didn't get along, but the Guild had made an exception to send a trio - no, a quartet- of witches to wipe me from time. Nice to see I could bring people together.

Pritkin continued to pull me at a quick run while I struggled to breathe.

But then he stopped short so suddenly that I slammed hard into his back, but he didn't make a sound or move an inch.

In fact, he wasn't even breathing. I circled around his front, rubbing my bruised chest, and called out to him.

"He won't answer."

I spun around to see the lone adept cutting off our exit.

I placed myself protectively in front of Pritkin. She hadn't just paused time, she'd frozen it. I glared as she started the same incantation they'd tried as a group before. I'd had a host of master vampire guards and a half-demon war mage before. But this time she was alone, too. And I was seriously pissed off.

And now I actually knew what they were doing.

The Guild didn't know what they were messing with. At best, it was artificial time control, filled with messy complications and repercussions. They could wipe me from history with a dangerous spell, but it would be incomplete. I would remain in people's memories, in photos and in spirit. Alone, the adepts would never be able to achieve something this big in scale. But, together, a person who had partial access to the Pythian power and reckless magic users who tried to be time-travelers might actually be able to do some real irreparable damage.

I let my anger fuel my power as I stood up to a woman whose obedience should be sworn to me. They were idiots and it was about time they learned that history was mine. I took control of the rudimentary stream of time meant to kill me and easily commanded it to turn on her, controlling it so all it did was take her body out, but left her place in history. A Pythia knows better than to change the past.

I hardly had time to process my victory before my momentum from earlier caught up to Pritkin and he slammed forward into me with a grunt. We both fell, me face first with him on top of me.

It said a lot that he didn't question where the adept went, why I'd suddenly been in front of him, or even why we fell.

I was content to just lay there after the day I'd had. Cursed out of existence, amnesia, stabbing, and—riding a stegosaurus? The memories that returned fatigued me even further.

From the way Pritkin was still collapsed on top of me, I knew he felt the same.

I used the last of my power to pop us both back into a bed that was currently lacking infamously itchy sheets. The housekeeping in this portion of the hotel left much to be desired. Or maybe Pritkin just spelled it to keep others out.

Still, neither of us moved as he remained in the same position on my back. The lack of covers didn't seem to bother him, and the warmth from being pinned between his chest and the bed was enough for me as we fell asleep.