Harper had expected to see Shad the minute she stepped through the doorway. Instead she found herself in a small, plain room furnished with a rough wooden table and a single chair.
On the chair sat a small man with a pair of gold, antique-looking spectacles on his nose. He was dressed like someone out of a Charles Dickens novel in old-fashioned looking brown trousers and a black waistcoat with beautiful, curling embroidery on the front. Hanging from the front of this lovely piece of clothing was a fine-link gold chain with an antique watch attached to it.
“So, you’ve arrived.” The little man spoke without lifting his head. He was hunched over the table working on something that glowed and shimmered. No matter how much Harper stared at it, she couldn’t decide exactly what it was—it shifted around so much in his small, deft hands it was impossible to tell.
“Um…yes.” Harper looked around her. “Where am I, please? I thought I was going to be with my, uh, bonded mate, Shad.” It seemed strange to call him that but she knew it was what the Kindred and their wives called each other.
“Yes, yes—that’s what the Goddess—the Mother of All Life—said as well. She has asked that I open a portal into your future and I have agreed.” He sighed and put down the strange glowing object to look at her at last. “Are you ready then? Do you have questions?”
“Questions? Um—well, who are you?” Harper asked the first thing that came to mind. Her eyes caught on his old-fashioned looking pocket watch. “Wait—are you the Time Warden? The one who gave Shad the looper that made him able to come save me in the first place?”
“Precisely, my dear.” The little man looked extremely pleased—a smile lighting his small, plain face. “Yes, I am he. I was charged by the Mother of All Life with helping to preserve her children and so I did for I see that…” He picked up the glowing thing he’d been working on and stared at it intently. “I see that you are going to a future which is much altered from the one which Shadow left when he first came back in time to get you.”
“So everything is all right there?” Harper asked. “I mean, I know we defeated the Hive and they’re all dead—”
“I beg your pardon,” the Time Warden said sharply. “They are not all dead. But do not worry,” he added, clearly seeing the anxiety on Harper’s face. “They do not survive in the form you knew them in and they do not look likely to wipe out the entire Kindred race or take over the Earth.” He frowned and peered into the shiny thing again. “Although one of them may yet cause you a spot of trouble.”
“They will? How?” Harper asked anxiously.
But the Time Warden shook his head.
“I may not tell details of the things I see in the future—too much detail can cause a paradox.”
“What about me leaving my own present to live in the future?” Harper asked. “Won’t that cause some kind of paradox or a rip in the spacetime continuum or something like that?”
The Time Warden laughed. “My dear, I’m afraid you’ve been reading too much science fiction. I control the threads of time and believe me, I would not have manipulated them for you if by doing so I would have warped or torn the fabric of the universe.”
“So…it’s okay for me to go? I won’t change the future by not living in the present?” Harper persisted. She wanted to be with Shad no matter what, but she was curious about what effect her absence in the present would make.
“Hmmm…” The Time Warden consulted the glowing thing in his hand again. “Well, if you were to remain in the present I see that you would quit your marketing job and go back to school in order to become a veterinarian, which was always your dream anyway. You would open your own small animal practice and be quite successful.” He looked up at her. “Would you rather go back and live your own present and do those things?”
“No,” Harper said at once. “No, I want to be with Shad.”
He nodded, a smile playing around the corners of his thin-lipped mouth.
“As I thought. The Mother of All Life was right about you—you are devoted to your mate.”
“I miss him so much.” Harper heard the longing in her own voice and didn’t even try to control it. “Please, can you send me to him?”
“I can and I will.” He smiled at her. “And please tell him, for his peace of mind, that the past he fought so hard to change—the time path where the Hive destroyed the Mother Ship and took over the Earth—is completely and irrevocably closed. Only you and he will remember the events that happened in that altered path for it is how you met and came together in the first place.”
“But…will we meet? In the past I mean, if that path never happened?” Harper protested.
“You will because you have,” he said simply. “Just because no one else lived through that meeting in that other time path doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Although,” he added thoughtfully. “You might have to make up a small…fiction to explain how the two of you fell in love and mated when speaking to people whose realities were altered. Shad’s brothers and his cousins and friends may find it difficult to hear that they went through a season of Hell—even if it was in another time line that they do not remember.”
Harper smiled. “I think we can do that. I’ll tell Shad when I see him.” She looked at the little man hopefully. “Now…could you send me to him please?”
“Of course, my dear. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave your robe here.” He nodded at her simple white garment. “Nothing but living tissue can travel through time.”
“Oh…” Harper blushed. “Should I…take it off?”
He nodded. “Simply shed it before you enter the door.”
“What door?” Harper asked but when she turned her head, she saw a blazing line of light again—just as she had in the Sacred Grove. “Oh…” she breathed, stepping towards it as it grew, opening to admit her.
“Safe travels,” the Time Warden said. “And a long and happy life to you, my dear.”
“Thank you,” Harper murmured but she wasn’t looking at him as she spoke. Her eyes were fixed on the lighted doorway which led to the future…and Shad.
Taking a deep breath, she let the robe fall to her feet and stepped through.
* * * * *
“She must be somewhere on Earth,” Peace said reasonably in his deep, quiet voice. He was the one Shad had chosen to confide in and tell the story of the altered time path and his lost mate. That was because Peace, of all his siblings, cousins, and friends, was the best listener and the most likely, Shad felt, to believe him.
“I tell you, I’ve looked everywhere.” Shad sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s been months and I can’t find her anywhere either on Earth or any other Kindred home world. It’s like she just…vanished shortly after I was drawn back to my own time.”
“Tell me again what her mother said.” Peace frowned thoughtfully and looked down at the grassy ground.
They were walking up and down outside the Sacred Grove—a place Shad had been drawn to ever since his return to the Mother Ship of his own time, although he didn’t know why. It seemed to bring him peace somehow to be near the shrine of the Goddess. And since he couldn’t find Harper anywhere, he sorely needed all the peace he could get.
“She said Harper told her she was leaving to be with a Kindred warrior she’d fallen in love with and she was going far away and probably wouldn’t be back for a while,” Shad recited, although the words made him feel sick. “But what other Kindred would she go with? And why? She’s mated to me—did our bond mean so little to her?”
“I’m sure it meant everything to her,” Peace said reasonably. “Maybe her mother got the details wrong somehow. After all, didn’t you say she was somewhat elderly? Maybe her memory is failing.”
“I don’t know,” Shad said bitterly. “All I know is that the bond I have to Harper aches with emptiness and she’s nowhere to be found, Goddess damn it. I just—”
“Shad…” There was something in his brother’s voice that made Shad look up. Peace was staring into the trees that filled the Sacred Grove, a strange look on his face.
“What is it? I don’t—” The words died on Shad’s lips. For somewhere in the center of the grove a light was glimmering—a light which grew brighter all the time, so bright it was almost blinding. Yet he couldn’t look away.
“What is that?” Peace asked, sounding bewildered. “Are the priestesses doing some kind of new ritual or ceremony?”
“I don’t know.” Shad was already toeing off his boots and striding in among the trees. Pushing the branches full of green and purple leaves aside, he watched in awe as the pinpoint of light grew, lengthening into a line. Then it began to widen.
“What is it?” Peace was right beside him, eyes wide.
“I think…” Shad’s voice was strangled as he tried ruthlessly to hold back the hope that threatened to choke him. “I think it’s a time door.”
The line of light widened, becoming a wedge like a door cracked open and a warm, powerful, familiar feminine voice filled the Sacred Grove.
“Warrior,” it said. “Take back your own.”
And then someone stepped out of the brilliant wedge of light—someone with warm café au lait skin, long, curly, toffee colored hair, and jade green eyes.
It was Harper—but not twenty years older as he had thought he would next see her. She looked just as she had when he had left her, young and lovely and…completely naked.
She blinked her eyes as though blinded by the light and looked around blindly.
“Harper?” Shad could scarcely believe it. “Goddess, Harper—is that you?”
“Shad?” She reached for him tentatively and he grabbed her and pulled her to him.
“Sweetheart—Kallana,” he growled. “Gods, you feel so good in my arms! Is it really you?”
“Oh, Shad!” She was laughing and crying at the same time. “It’s me—it’s really me! I—”
But Shad cut her off with a kiss.
Her mouth tasted so sweet—just as he remembered—and her soft, curvy body was so firm and yet at the same time, perfectly yielding in his arms. Shad felt like he couldn’t get enough of her, like he never wanted to let her go. He swung her up so that her legs were locked around his waist and held her tightly, rubbing his hands up and down her bare back, wanting to assure himself through touch and taste and the sweet, wild scent of her that she was real and really here with him at last.
At last the frantic kiss broke—mostly because both of them ran out of breath. Harper kept stroking her fingers through his hair and framing his face with her hands as she stared into his eyes. It was as though she, too, was trying to assure herself that this was really happening and that Shad wasn’t going to fade away again.
“I missed you so much,” she whispered, kissing him again. “I thought I’d have to wait years and years to see you again!”
“How long did you wait? It’s been about…two and a half Earth months here,” Shad told her.
“The same for me,” Harper told him.
“I wonder if the Goddess was evening up the time for us—letting us experience the same level of misery for some reason,” Shad murmured thoughtfully. “I suppose that’s certainly much more fair than you having to wait twenty years for me while I would have gotten to see you immediately after coming back to my own time. If I could have found you,” he added.
Harper laughed. “Have you been looking?”
“Of course! I began searching for you the minute I turned up naked in the Sacred Grove. Speaking of naked…” He looked around but Peace had left the Grove, no doubt to give him and Harper privacy for their reunion.
Shad put Harper down for a moment and unbuttoned his green uniform shirt to drape it around her shoulders. She slipped her arms into the sleeves and smiled gratefully. It was so long on her it fell to her mid-thighs, almost like an oversized dress.
“Thank you, baby. So you were looking all over for me?”
“Your mother said you’d gone off to be with some strange Kindred you fell in love with.” Shad laughed. “I guess I was that Kindred, huh?”
“You were. Your younger self came and told me it was time to go to the Mother Ship.” She frowned. “Wait—you don’t remember that?”
Shad shook his head. “A different time path, I guess.”
Harper looked thoughtful.
“The Time Warden must have merged several threads of time to get us both to this point. It’s kind of confusing but I don’t really care as long as we’re together.”
“I agree.” He stroked her cheek and smiled at her. “Come on—I want to introduce you to my brothers and cousins. You’ll be meeting them again for the first time—this time under much happier circumstances.”
“Of course I want to meet them,” Harper said. “But can you tell me about my Mom? Is she—?”
“She’s fine,” Shad assured her. “She’s extremely spry for her age.” He sobered a little. “I’m afraid your stepfather passed on though, several years ago. She lives by herself in a retirement community. Maybe we can bring her up to the Mother Ship to be with us.”
“Could we really?” Harper looked at him hopefully. “I mean, we just got bonded. Are you sure you want your mother-in-law living near us?”
Shad shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Your mother-in-law—my mother, Kat, will be living near us, here on the Mother Ship. What’s the difference?”
“Oh, I love your mom!” Harper gushed. “She’s the one who finally listened to little Shad—the younger you—and came to see me. She convinced me to come back to the Mother Ship and try to get back to you.” She frowned. “I wonder if she’ll remember me? The Time Warden told me you and I will be the only ones to remember the alternate timeline where we met and fell in love. He said that your brothers and cousins and friends—all the ones who were with you fighting in the Resistance all those years after the Hive took over—won’t get it.”
“I’ve already told Peace and he believed me,” Shad pointed out. “And whether my mother remembers you or not, I’m sure she’s going to love you. Everybody here is.” He looked at her hungrily. “But you know, now that I have you with me, I find that I don’t really want to share you with anyone else. At least, not right away. Why don’t we let them wait a little while?”
Harper batted her lashes and gave a little purr of desire.
“Hmmm…what did you have in mind, baby?”
“My suite—our suite—isn’t far from here,” Shad murmured, letting a hand trail down the curve of her waist. “How about if we go back to it and spend some time sealing our bond all over again? I want to suck your sweet nipples and feel your pussy all tight and wet around my shaft.”
Harper sucked in a breath, her jade green eyes going half-lidded with lust.
“How fast can we get there?” She stood on tiptoes and pulled him down for a passionate kiss. “I can’t wait to have you inside me again,” she whispered in a low, sultry voice that Shad swore he could feel all the way down to his balls.
“Gods, Kallana…” He swung her into his arms and held her tight. “I know a short cut through the Sacred Grove. Come on.”
And the two of them vanished into the trees together.