Vanished

by Evangeline Anderson

  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 ho
pefully. “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.

  Epilogue #1

  Back in the Present

  When all was still—when the invading hordes of Kindred had left and there was nothing but silence in the long, echoing tunnels under the mountains of the planet the Earthlings called Mars—the scholar-worker at last emerged. He had been hiding in a tiny cavern deep in the subterranean depths, waiting for the carnage to end. Access was limited by a long, narrow, convoluted tunnel which led into the heart of the red rock mountain itself and the entrance was camouflaged by a heap of stones and rubble.

  The scholar-worker came forth slowly, hampered by his need to carry the small, precious burden he had hidden away so many days ago—his personal pet project. Sovereign X'izith had objected to it on the grounds that it was a perversion of all the Hive stood for, but the scholar-worker had persisted in his work. Now he was glad he had done so.

  “Here we are,” he buzzed gently, holding the tiny gestation tube, no larger than an Earthling’s palm, close to his thorax for warmth. The workers whose glowing abdomens had supplied the tunnels with heat and light and oxygen had been killed along with all the rest. The scholar needed none of these things but the egg within the tube did—at least it needed heat for now. Later it would also want light and air.

  It was a hybrid—or would be when it grew. A being composed of Sovereign X’izith’s DNA and the genetic material of a Kindred warrior, collected in one of the early skirmishes with that race. It—he, for the egg within the gestation tube was male—would never have the majestic appearance of the Sovereign who was its partial father. On the outside he would look like any other Kindred warrior—although perhaps larger than most. But he would have X’izith’s memories—his dreams and aspirations.

  He would carry on the legacy of the Hive and do what X’izith himself had been unable to do—subdue the Kindred race to his will.

  “The Nameless Ones, Gods of Nothing let it be so,” the scholar-worker murmured, stroking the tube gently. “You shall grow young one—grow and conquer that the Hive may live forever.”

  Epilogue #2

  Also Present Day

  “So how was your meeting with the Mistress?” Baird took a sip of his Junian ale. The dark pink liquid fizzed and bubbled, the bubbles turning a bright green just before they popped. It was a specialty of the small bar near the control center of the Mother Ship. Since Sylvan was the Head of the Kindred High Council and the bar was close by, the brothers had taken to coming here to relax at the end of a long day.

  “Well enough,” Sylvan said but it was clear the false heartiness he forced into his voice didn’t fool his brother.

  “Well enough, huh?” Baird asked flatly. “It was bound to be fucking weird meeting face-to-face with one of those Yonnie Six females who thinks all males are scum under their boots. What did she do—try to break you to her will?”

  “No—no, nothing like that.” Sylvan sighed and took a sip of his own ale. “She had no need of me—she had a slave with her already.”

  He frowned as he remembered the troubling encounter with the Yonnite Mistress…

  He hadn’t wanted a face-to-face meeting but Mistress Hellenix had insisted and since the cargo he was delivering was precious, Sylvan had felt bound to agree.

  The cargo in question were the Druvian E’lo stones which had been found among Sovereign X’izith’s possessions when the lair under the mountains of Mars had been sacked. There was one seer stone—a large green one as big as the palm of his hand—and one smaller, purple stone, about the size and shape of the small chocolate Earth candies called M&Ms.

  When the stones had been discovered, Sylvan had attempted to return them to the auction house they had been stolen from. However, he was informed that a private buyer had already bought and paid for the stones before they had been taken. Sylvan was asked to return the rare gems to their rightful owner and he had agreed—though he was sorry he had when he found out exactly who he would be meeting.

  The stones had been claimed by Mistress Hellenix, a prominent member of the Yonnite social scene. Apparently she owned a large estate outside their capital city of Opulex where she held court at a number of functions. She also owned several other properties both on and off planet and traveled more than most Mistresses, many of whom tended to stay within their little female-dominated bubble on Yonnie Six.

  Sylvan found out these facts because he did some research into the matter before he met with the Mistress—he didn’t like to go into any meeting blind—no matter how brief or perfunctory.

  Mistress Hellenix had swept into the private room she’d rented for the purpose, on a space port orbiting Garna D’na—a planet almost exactly halfway between Earth and Yonnie Six. It was the meeting place she had requested and Sylvan had seen no reason to object.

  “So… Commander Sylvan of the Kindred.” She had looked him up and down as Sylvan rose courteously and bowed.

  “Mistress Hellenix. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  “Likewise, I’m sure,” the Mistress purred. She didn’t offer to shake hands or clasp arms for which Sylvan was grateful. He had no wish to touch her, lovely though she was.

  “Please, have a seat.” He motioned to the chair across from him.

  “When I’m ready. You look like a strapping boy,” she remarked, circling Sylvan in her six-inch black heeled boots—like a tiger stalking its prey, he thought—before finally dropping gracefully onto the purple tergle-hide cushion of the seat he’d offered her.

  “I am average for my kind,” he said neutrally. “All Kindred males are large.”

  “Indeed they are. Even so, I’m surprised some enterprising Mistress hasn’t brought you to heel.” She smiled, her lush crimson lips parting to reveal white, even teeth. “I’d be willing to undertake the enterprise myself if I wasn’t so busy.”

  “Thank you but I already have a mate whom I love very much,” Sylvan replied blandly, thinking that if Sophia could see Mistress Hellenix she wo
uld probably have some choice words for her—the term “man-eater” leapt readily to mind.

  “Never mind that.” Mistress Hellenix waved one hand languidly. She had long, straight black hair which fell like a curtain around her exquisite features framing her large dark eyes and crimson lips. “I already have a Kindred of my own, anyway.” She raised one bejeweled hand and snapped her fingers sharply. “Slave! Where are you? Why are you dawdling outside the doorway instead of protecting me as you’re supposed to?”

  A massive male came into the room—big even by Kindred standards. He had long, wheat-colored hair which hung to his shoulders and his eyes were pure, piercing silver.

  Sylvan frowned and looked more closely. Silver eyes? Which kind of Kindred was this male? The only warriors who had pure silver eyes and attained such large size were the Volt Kindred. But they had all been killed off years ago when the artificial intelligence they allowed to run their world systems had become self-aware and rebelled, murdering them all. Now the entire planet was completely uninhabitable—run and ruled entirely by machines which were hostile to any organic life forms.

  It was a great tragedy among Kindred kind and also the main reason why AI usage aboard the Mother Ship was strictly monitored. No one wanted a repeat of what had happened on Uriel Two, the Volt Kindred’s adopted home world.

  “Brother?” Sylvan said, speaking to the slave. But the massive warrior ignored him. He was, Sylvan saw, dressed completely in shiny black leather with a thick collar cinched cruelly tight around his brawny neck. Even if he was a Volt Kindred, it was clear he wasn’t able to use his natural abilities to free himself. The collar probably saw to that—inhibiting his power and giving him a nasty shock when the Mistress wished it to.

  “I’m afraid he speaks only to me and only when commanded to do so,” Mistress Hellenix snapped at Sylvan.

  “He is a living, sentient being—a free creature,” Sylvan growled back. To the Seven Hells with diplomacy. He couldn’t sit by and watch one of his Kindred brothers treated like this! “You cannot subjugate another to your will in this way—it isn’t right.”