Harper couldn’t have been more surprised if the woman had announced she was the Queen of England.
“I’m sorry,” she said, almost stumbling over the words. “Who did you say you are?”
“I’m your mother-in-law and these two…” The red-haired woman who had called herself Kat nodded at the two tall Kindred warriors. “These are your fathers-in-law.” She came forward and took Harper by the hand. “I know you bonded with Shad before he was called away,” she said in a low, earnest voice. “You left too quickly for us to get to know you but I want to change that—I want to make it right.”
“You…know Shad and I bonded?” Harper shook her head. “But I didn’t tell anybody. How could you know?”
“Shad told us,” rumbled the Kindred with black hair and eyes whom Kat had introduced as Deep.
“He did?” Harper asked uncertainly. “But…how? Do you have some way to communicate with him in, the, uh in the future?”
“I’m afraid not,” the brown-haired Kindred called Lock said gently. “We didn’t speak to future-Shad, for want of a better way to say it. We talked to present-day Shad. Or rather—he talked to us.”
“In our time—in the present, now—he’s still a little boy,” Kat explained. “But he’s always been a special child. He’s always just known things. And, well…” She gestured helplessly. “He told us that you were bonded to his future self and that we needed to come and see you.” She raised her hands, palm up. “So here we are.”
“Harper?” Her mother was looking back and forth from the visitors to her. “Honey, none of this makes any sense. Do you want me to get your step father to ask these people to leave?”
“No, mom.” Harper shook her head quickly. “No, I know it doesn’t make any sense to you but believe me, it makes perfect sense to me. Please just let us talk for a little while.”
“Well…all right.” Her mom looked at her worriedly. “Would anybody like anything to drink?” she asked, obviously trying to be a good hostess despite how confusing her guests were.
“Some water would be great.” Kat smiled at her gratefully. “I’m so thirsty. Or maybe some ice tea?”
“I don’t have any on hand but I can make some up,” Harper’s mother said.
“Oh, would you?” Kat exclaimed. “That would be so nice of you! I haven’t had really good sweet tea in ages—it’s just one of those things it’s really hard to get up on the Mother Ship.”
“All right. Well, you all just…make yourselves at home.” A bemused look on her face, Harper’s mother wandered into the kitchen.
Harper looked at Kat gratefully—she knew what the other woman was doing—buying them some time to talk, really talk without sounding crazy in front of her mom.
“Thanks,” she said in a low voice. “So…Shad the little boy told you I was bonded to Shad the man?”
Kat nodded, her red hair gleaming. She certainly was pretty, Harper thought, though it was hard to think of her as a mother-in-law. She was so young—probably the same age as Harper herself if not just a little younger.
“We didn’t want to bother you in your time of grief,” Lock said gently. “But Shadow, well…”
“He’s been waking up with bad dreams for weeks,” Deep rumbled. “He’s been begging to come see you—telling us we needed to come see you.”
“He has?” Harper shook her head. “I don’t understand—why?”
“He says the Goddess has something to say to you,” Kat said with a perfectly straight face. “I’m sorry—I don’t know if you’re a believer or not, in the Kindred Goddess, I mean—but she is real. And she speaks to Shad quite often, or so he tells us.”
“Yes, he told me that too.” Harper nodded. “I…I believe. After everything I’ve seen—everything Shad and I went through together—of course I believe.” She shrugged. “But if the Goddess wants to talk to me, why doesn’t she just talk?”
“Shad says she needs you to come up to the Sacred Grove for some reason,” Lock said. “We don’t understand it ourselves but he’s been very insistent.”
“We finally had to come down here and ask you to come back with us,” Kat said apologetically. “Although we’re aware you might not want to see us. It might…remind you too much of Shad.”
Harper felt a lump rise in her throat but somehow she managed to swallow it down again.
“Of course I want to see you,” she said in a voice choked with emotion. “Of course I want to meet Shad’s family. I’m just…” She sniffed. “Just so sorry I didn’t try to meet you earlier, back when I was on the Mother Ship. I was in a bad place and I didn’t even think—”
Suddenly the front door crashed open and a high, childish voice could be heard.
“The pretty lady! The pretty lady! Harper!”
A little boy with velvety black eyes and hair so blond it was practically white came barreling into the room and headed straight for Harper.
“Shad, no!” Kat looked aghast. “What are you even doing here?” she exclaimed.
The little boy ignored her and threw himself into Harper’s arms. Enthusiastically, he gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek.
“Harper!” he exclaimed. “You have to come back to the Mother Ship with us. The Goddess told me so—you have to!”
“I…I…” Harper didn’t know what to say—how to reconcile this sweet little boy with the man he would grow into—the man she would come to love. Though his hair and eye coloring were different, she could see the ghost of Shad’s chiseled features in the soft, childish face and hear the beginnings of that familiar voice when he spoke, though it would be years before it reached its deep adult timbre.
“I’m so sorry.” Kat got up and reached for Shad. “He must have stowed away in the ship. I never would have let him come down here to upset you on purpose, I promise, hon.”
“No, no—it’s okay.” Harper held the younger Shad in her lap. She was aware of what a strange situation this was but somehow she couldn’t let him go. “Why do I need to come with you?” she asked the little boy. “Do you know why the Goddess wants me to come?”
“She said it’s time.” He nodded with absolute certainty. “She said you should say goodbye to your mom for a while—maybe for a long time.” He looked at his own mother and then back at Harper. “That’s really sad, I know. But the Goddess says to tell you you’ll be happy again soon. But you have to come to the Mother Ship in order for that to happen.”
Harper felt a flutter of hope around her heart. She couldn’t help remembering how Shad had told her that the Kindred Goddess talked to him as a child…and how she had told him from an early age that Harper was his reason for existence. Could it be she was speaking to him again—giving him a message to give to Harper so that she might see his older self again?
“You see how he is,” Kat said, almost apologetically. “I know it sounds crazy but, well—will you come? Even if nothing happens we’d love to have you as a guest and get to know you for a little while.” She smiled. “You’re so gorgeous—I can see why Shad would fall for you.”
“Thank you. And yes,” Harper whispered, her heart in her throat. “Yes, I…I’ll come.”
“Come where?” Her mother appeared in the door of the den, a tray full of ice tea glasses in her hands. “Where are you going, Harper?”
Harper took a deep breath and rose. Keeping the younger Shad’s hand in hers, she turned to her mother.
“Mom,” she said. “Don’t get upset but I need to go with these people. And I might be gone for kind of a long time.”
Chapter Thirty-two
“You have come today to ask a boon of the Goddess.” The priestess who met them at the Sacred Grove was obviously one of the extremely rare female Kindred. She was well over six feet tall with long brown hair streaked with green. Her eyes, also, were unusual—both the whites and the irises were different shades of green. The green-within-green eyes, Kat had explained in a low voice, were often a hallmark of the priestesses of the Goddess.
&
nbsp; “Yes.” Harper bowed her head respectfully. She was dressed in nothing but a simple white robe which fell to her ankles and the grass felt cool and prickly against her bare feet. She didn’t know what to expect from this meeting in the Sacred Grove and she was trying desperately to keep her hopes in check. But she couldn’t get the young Shad’s words out of her head.
“The Goddess says it’s time,” he’d told her.
But time for what? Time to go to Shad—the older Shad—who she hoped was waiting for her in the future? Or simply time to meet her in-laws and get to know them?
Kat and Deep and Lock and all their children were wonderful—especially little Shad who could make her laugh one minute and make her heart ache fiercely the next, when she remembered his older self. But Harper couldn’t stop hoping that she would soon be with the man she loved—held in his strong arms once more as she felt the bond between them come to life again.
“The Goddess has spoken to me of you.” The priestess, who had looked so forbidding at first, got a gentler look in her green-within-green eyes. “She tells me you have suffered much and have sacrificed much and that it is time for you to have your reward.”
“And what…what is that?” Harper asked hesitantly and Kat squeezed her hand. She was there with Harper for moral support, though the rest of the family had been left outside the Sacred Grove.
“It is that which you seek,” the priestess said obliquely.
Harper felt a surge of impatience but she kept it in check. Kat had told her how maddeningly opaque the priestesses of the Sacred Grove could be.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
“Are you ready to rejoin him whom you love and are bonded to?” the priestess asked. “Have you made your peace and said your goodbyes? The Goddess is a mother too and she did not wish to grieve the heart of another mother—this is why she gave you time to make peace with those in your home.”
“I’m ready,” Harper assured her. It hadn’t been easy explaining things to her mother—she’d ended up with the idea that Harper was going off-world somewhere to be with a Kindred warrior she had fallen in love with. It was the closest Harper could come to explaining the convoluted situation without making her mom think she was crazy by bringing time-travel into the mix. But at last, her mother had thrown up her hands and given Harper her blessing.
“I can see you love this young man,” she’d said to Harper. “And I trust your judgment, honey. I didn’t raise you to be a fool.” Her eyes had grown wistful. “Are you sure you’re going to be gone for such a long time? You can’t even come back once to visit?”
Harper’s heart had ached at that.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” she’d said as gently as she could. “But I don’t think it’s going to be possible. Shad is a long, long way away from here. I wouldn’t go if I didn’t love him so much but I just…” She put a hand to her chest. “I feel like I’m dying inside without him.”
“I can see that.” There were tears in her mother’s eyes as she hugged Harper for the last time. “You be sure he treats you right. And if he doesn’t, you know you can always come back home.”
Of course, Harper knew that if this worked—if she really was somehow able to go twenty years into the future—there would be no going back, but she couldn’t tell her mother that.
“I love you, Mom,” she said, hugging her back. “And I promise I’ll see you again as soon as I can.”
With the memory of her mother’s warm hug and her last kiss on the cheek, Harper stood before the priestess now. Nothing but the ache of the empty bond and the deep, all-encompassing love she felt for Shad could have made her willing to leave her family for such a long time. She saw now that she’d had to experience the pain of his loss and process it a little in order to make this decision. But now it was made and she wanted to go—she just hoped and prayed the priestess could help her.
“I’m ready,” she said again. “Please—can you truly send me to Shad?”
“I cannot,” the priestess said. “But the Goddess can.”
Suddenly a brilliant line of light seemed to split the air right in front of Harper. It was a golden radiance so dazzling it was hard to look at, yet Harper found she couldn’t take her eyes away as it began to grow.
The line of light widened until it resembled a doorway cracked open just wide enough for Harper to step inside.
“Come daughter.” A warm, powerful, feminine voice filled the Sacred Grove. “I know you are longing to be with the male you are bonded to. Come forward and meet him once again.”
Harper’s breath seemed to be caught in her throat and she didn’t know what to say. She turned to Kat who gave her a spontaneous hug and smiled.
“Go on, doll,” she murmured in Harper’s ear. “Go be with Shad I’ll see you in twenty years or so.”
“Thank you,” Harper breathed.
She stepped through the doorway of light…
And vanished.
Chapter Thirty-three
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 con
trol 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.”
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