Morning, lovelies!

Thank you ever so much to Mel and Pamela!

I

Bella

Las Vegas, Nevada

1 June 2025

My eyes trace up and down the Las Vegas Strip, my heart somewhere in the vicinity of my throat as I take it all in.

I cannot be in Las Vegas.

I can see by the general architecture and the cars below that I'm somewhere likely in the twenty-first century, but beyond that I can't pinpoint anything further.

Twisting away from the window, I pace the room, rummaging around for the TV remote. When I finally find it, I flick the TV on, punching aggressively through the channels until I find a news station.

I perch on the edge of the bed as the brodcasters report local and international events, and it doesn't take me long to piece together when I am.

June 1, 2025.

127 years later than I should be.

Groaning, I turn the TV off before tossing the remote down. This cannot be possible. I have been pregnant. I should not be able to travel anymore. According to the rules my maman explained to me as a child, my time of being a traveler is over.

So why am I here?

I shut my eyes, drawing in a deep and shaking breath. Maybe this is a dream. I do not recall ever visiting this time and place together before, but I could certainly dream it.

Yes, it is a dream. When I wake, I will be in my husband's arms in our bed in India. It will be December of 1897. We will have mangos for breakfast as we flirt, reveling in our newly reborn connection. We will have sad moments, but we will spend the day together, remembering how much we love each other. In my heart, I will know that this is where I am meant to be. Always.

I open my eyes and try not to burst into tears when I find I am still in the hotel room. This can't be.

I have to find Edward.

But first things first. I'm still naked, and if I am going to get anywhere, I have to figure out something to wear.

I scan the room, my eyes taking in an untouched duffel on a lounge chair by the window. Whosever room this is, they never made it back last night.

I cross the room and open the duffel, finding it full of skin-tight dresses. I sigh as I dig deeper, but it looks like the woman whose room I was in had come to Vegas looking for a good time and had no plans to dress any other way.

Frowning, I select what looks like the most modest of the dresses, pulling it over my head.

My body has changed. Pregnancy and living in a different time has made me softer, rounder, less scrawny. The dress—which would have been my size before I met Edward—is so tight I find I am self conscious in it.

Helpless and uncomfortable, I paw through the bag again, praying to find even a set of pajamas.

It's nothing but lace and netting in the bag though, and finally I concede.

I don't bother with shoes after eyeing the killer stilettos in her bag. I know that I'll look like any other drunk girl stumbling back after a long night without them, anyway.

Vegas doesn't usually ask many questions.

I leave the room, noting the number on the door reads 1432. I don't have any intention of coming back to the room, but it is force of habit that makes me pay attention to the little details like that.

I'm not sure which hotel I'm in, but it doesn't matter, really. On the Strip, they might as well all be the same thing.

I make my way to the elevators, my mind racing as I try to piece together how any of this could have happened.

I'd been pregnant. I shouldn't have ever been able to travel again. It went against the rules Maman had always drilled into me.

So why was I here?

I step into the elevator and immediately grip the handrail as the lift begins to move, unaccustomed to the sudden motion anymore.

When the car arrives in the lobby, a wall of cigarette smoke hits me, and I let out a tight breath.

The casino is loud, chiming and ringing with a thousand different bells that echo in my confused mind.

I shake my head and wander forward, affecting a slouch that will read as hungover.

Unfortunately, I've had a lot of practice stealing from people, and Las Vegas provides all too easy a target.

A portly man stands by one of the slot machines, his tokens haphazardly laid out in front and around him. He is an easy mark, and I begin making my way toward him, taking an indirect route so as not to come off as obvious.

Just before I reach him, I let out a small yelp and tumble forward, catching myself on the back of his chair. He jumps up, and in his haste, his chips go flying to the ground.

"Christ on a cracker," he exclaims. "Are you all right?"

"I'm so sorry." I moan. "I tripped. Here, let me help you!"

I drop to my knees, collecting his chips into a small pile.

"Dammit, I was on a winning streak too," he complains, bending over to help me. "Stand up, miss. I'll get 'em."

I reach over, very carefully lifting his wallet from his back pocket. I slip all his cash out before sliding his wallet back into his pocket, hoping that the security cameras haven't caught me.

I nod and climb to my feet, allowing him to scoop up his chips. "I'm so sorry," I say again. "I don't know what I tripped over."

The man glances at my feet and I see him scowl. "Where are your shoes?"

When he looks at my face, I force real tears to the surface and shake my head. It's convincing enough of an act that he suddenly stops asking questions.

He straightens up, groaning and cracking his back from being bent over.

"Did you get them all?" I ask, my eyes wide. "I didn't cost you anything, did I?"

The man quickly goes over his stacks and shakes his head. "No, all here and accounted for," he assures me.

"I'm so sorry," I tell him again.

He hesitates. "Darlin', I don't know what sorta trouble you're in, but you better get some rest, okay?"

I swallow hard, taken aback by his words. "I'll try," I agree.

He frowns then reaches into his chip pile and hands one out to me. "Here," he says. "Maybe it'll bring you some luck."

I'm taken aback by the offer. He's giving me $50—not much to buy anything helpful in Las Vegas—but the gesture is unexpected.

"I can't take your money," I say quietly.

"Nonsense," he argues. "I was probably going to lose it to the house anyway." He winks at me and slowly, I lift a hand and let him drop the chip into my palm. Behind my back, my other hand that is full of bills I've lifted from him starts to sweat.

I shouldn't be stealing from him at all.

What would Edward think of me?

"Thank you," I say finally, closing my fingers around the chip.

"Dosvi, little lady," he says with a kind smile, before he turns back to the slot machine.

I stare at him, confused. What did he just say to me? My chip didn't translate it, so maybe it's some strange form of slang?

I force myself to move and worry about it later. I slip away while I still can, guilt burning me from the inside out.

…

I stop in one of the casino gift stores and exchange the chip for a pair of shoes. They are cheap sneakers, but I don't care. I have enough left over to purchase a boxy hotel shirt that I immediately pull on over my dress. The last thing I purchase is a small backpack. It's way too expensive, but it helps me hold onto the items I'm collecting.

I have three hundred dollars and someone's smartphone in my bag by the time I leave the casino. I don't feel good about any of it, but I am currently desperate.

I head away from the Strip, knowing that the farther from it I get, the more affordable rooms will be.

The Las Vegas sun is bright and hot as I walk down dirty streets looking for an acceptable place to spend the night. I stop by a thrift store where I am able to pick up a packet of new underwear and socks, as well as a pair of shorts and another shirt. Next, I head to a grocery store where I find enough shelf-stable snacks to keep in my backpack to nourish me, as well as a small toiletry kit. A few blocks from the grocery store is a shady-looking electronics store where I'm able to trade in the stolen phone for a prepaid without any questions. Guilt continues to gnaw at me, but I figure whoever owns the original phone will be able to get a new one if they were staying on the Strip.

I finally find a motel five miles away from the Strip that will give me the room for $40. It is a filthy place, full of unsavory characters, but again, I am no stranger to such conditions.

I make my way to my room and lock the door immediately behind me, dragging the dresser so that it blocks the door. I don't trust that I won't get a random visit in the middle of the night. Not in a place like this.

Having everything I need, I settle on the mattress and pull out the phone. I immediately jump to the internet browser and type in Edward's name.

Nothing relevant comes up, though I keep scrolling, hoping that somehow he'll randomly pop up. My husband is a duke; it's very likely he was not forgotten by history.

Still, the internet history turns up nothing and I scowl, tossing the phone down.

I need a plan, some way to track down information about what happened to my family.

Then I need to find my way home.

A few rooms over, I can hear a couple screaming at each other, and I reach for the TV remote, hoping the noise of some mindless channel will drown them out. The screen blinks to life showing me a commercial for some Russian vodka. I shake my head and set the remote down as I pull my backpack toward me.

I dig around for any of my new receipts. There is a pen sitting on the bedside table, and I stand to retrieve it before sitting back down, ready to make my list.

One: I need to get back to London. Edward's family has a house there, and surely there would be record of what happened to them when I'm closer to the source.

Two: I need to find some way to get money. Since getting pregnant, I stopped carrying the bag of gems on my person, which means apart from my wedding ring, I have nothing of value.

I refuse to part with my ring.

Three: I need to figure out why I have traveled. I've never thought about my ancestors keeping any sort of records and documentation, but what if they did? What if there is lore out there that I've been blindly ignorant of?

Now that I have seemingly broken one of Maman's time rules, it feels critical to find out.

I look up from my list and let out a long breath.

How the hell am I going to do this?

The TV flashes to another commercial for the Russian vodka, and this time I look up when I hear the name. Krov' Tsaritsy: Czarina's Blood? Since when did Russia put out any sort of product that referred to the defunct political title of czarina?

I grope around for the phone and pick it up, hopping back into the web browser. I quickly type the brand of vodka into the search engine and then frown when it comes up with a substantial number of results.

I click the first page which is a link to the manufacturer's website. The webpage is clearly branded with deep Slavic roots, displaying a wintery landscape and some of the beautiful towers that make St. Petersburg so magical. The page looks hip and contemporary to the time period that I know, but there is a woman with blonde hair and bright blue eyes depicted on the webpage that the site claims to be the czarina of Russia.

What?

Russia has no more czars or czarinas, not in 2025. There was a revolution, and the Romanovs died. Then Russia was subjected to a series of political and social hardships.

Or at least, that was the world as I knew it.

I run a search on the czarina of Russia, feeling foolish for it. The results won't be productive; I know this because I know how history unfolded.

Except, when the screen loads, there are millions of articles talking about the imperial Russian family and there she is: czarina of Russia, one Irina Nikoleavna Romanova.

What?

I shake my head and set the phone down, standing from the mattress and pacing around the room. What the hell is going on? How is this possible? Of all the times I've time traveled, one thing that absolutely never changed was the history of the world. It was never rewritten; it was never changed. The world is on a set course.

Was, my brain whispers. The world was on a set course.

Something has gone horribly, horribly wrong, and I feel a slick weight settle in my stomach, making me queasy.

Is this my fault?

I shut my eyes and drag in a deep breath. It does little to settle me, so I drag in another before my anxiety gets the better of me. I make my way back to the phone and pick it up. Irina was born in 1998 to Nikolai IV and…

My mind skitters to a halt. Diana Spencer. Princess Diana? The one who was supposed to have died in August of 1997?

I can feel a full blown panic attack coming on. How is it that there is a Russian czarina who is the half sister to the heirs of the British monarchy in 2025? This shouldn't be possible. This can't be possible.

Maybe it's this phone. Maybe I got some unreliable piece of crap and it has some weird joke internet app on it.

That must be it.

I let out a breath and try looking up the nearest library. There is one a few blocks from me, but it looks like it's closed for the night.

Fine, I'll go tomorrow and sort this out.

In the meantime, I decide to keep reading. If this is all a joke, someone went through a lot of trouble to set it up.

I trace the Romanov line back further and further, flummoxed as I come across generation after generation of people who should have never been born.

I finally come to a name I do recognize: Tatiana Nikolaevna, second daughter of Nikolai and Alexandria, the people I thought were the last czars of Russia. I don't stop to investigate why the second daughter of Nikolai ended up the ancestor to the current czarina, and instead focus on her life. She married a man I've never heard of, someone of Prussian background perhaps? When I click on his name I feel the world tilt out from under me. He looks like Edward, not an exact copy, but I can recognize the shape of my husband's eyes and mouth. This young man has fairer hair and though his photo is black and white, I can tell the eyes are lighter than Edward's too. Who is this Mikhail and why does he look like Edward?

I scroll down, seeking more, when I feel the breath catch in my throat.

Mikhail was the first born son to Royce Brandenburg and Rosalie Cullen.

Rosalie.

I feel my palms start to sweat as I recall what Edward had told me about Rosalie going to Russia. She only ended up there because Edward and I had eloped.

Rosalie was never meant to go to Russia.

Oh god, what have I done?