Excerpt: Splinters of Eternity

“I don’t understand,” Enoch said, puzzled, even as Naamah tugged on his arm to draw him away. He disengaged and stood, facing the men. He realized he had no weapon, but his stubbornness and temper flared anyway.
“Let my wife rest,” he said softly, but with the authority inherent in his true line.
“Ah, but before she was your wife, she belonged to another,” Jabal said quietly.
“The child is his, is it not?” Lamech asked. “Shall I take her to the cave for the birth?”
“It would be best,” Tubal-Cain said, idly tapping a metal hammer against his huge palm.
Enoch felt himself shriveling inside with each word. “That is a lie!” he said. “I do not know what you have done, but she belongs to me. She has loved no one but me, nor will she ever.”
“That is true enough,” Jabal said, surprising Enoch.
“Then what…” he said, knotting his brow.
“Some mysteries are for those born into this line,” Lamech said. Adah and Zillah, unnoticed to this point, nodded soberly and sadly. “You have joined it by default, but you are blind yet to many things only I know.”
“But she is my wife!” Enoch said as the two other women, gently but firmly, grabbed hold of Naamah. She turned terrified eyes to her husband, who stood helpless, captured by the sight of the metal tools tucked into his belt, hooks and spikes and other things that he had not seen before. “You cannot take her!”
“Your promise was to me, not to her,” Lamech said. “Do you remember?”