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  “I need help to get to her—help to rescue her,” he said out loud, running both hands through his hair.

  And there was only one place to get it.

  “No,” Shad muttered. “No, I can’t…I don’t fucking dare. The Time Warden said there could be dire consequences.”

  But there was no help for it—there was nothing else he could do.

  He would have to go to the Kindred Mother Ship and seek help to get to Mars and get Harper back before it was too late.

  If it wasn’t already too late.

  He rolled the unconscious mind-slave over and searched the pockets of his shorts for keys. He would have to take his vehicle to the HKR building and get a ride up to the ship from there. It was the only way.

  * * * * *

  “Commander Sylvan, forgive me for interrupting your work but there is a strange warrior here to see you,” a voice from his viewscreen said. It belonged to Communications Officer Zern, a Blood Kindred who also served as a kind of secretary to help keep his complicated schedule in order. Zern had a worried look in his pale blue eyes as he spoke. “He is…most agitated.”

  Sylvan frowned. “What? Who is he? Do I know him?”

  “He claims that he knows you,” Zern said. “And he says it is a matter of life and death and…” He cleared his throat. “The Hive.”

  “The Hive?” The short hairs at the back of Sylvan’s neck began to prickle. The Kindred had been searching the Earth’s solar system for traces of the insectile race for months now but they had found nothing. Though he wished the Hive had gone back through the blind to where they had originally come from, Sylvan knew they hadn’t. Their home world was abandoned, so where had they gone?

  “Should I show him in?” Zern asked. “He begged a ride from the Tampa HKR building up to the Mother Ship specifically to speak to you.”

  “Yes, show him in.” Sylvan straightened up and pushed the work he’d been doing to one side of his orderly desk.

  “There’s just one thing,” Zern said. “He…ahem…wants to be certain you’re alone. Specifically, he wants to make sure your Second Brothers Deep and Lock and their children are nowhere near your office before he comes in to see you.”

  It seemed an extremely strange question but it was easy enough to answer.

  “No,” Sylvan said. “Neither my Second Brothers or their children or their mate, Kat are here. I am alone.”

  “All right.” Zern nodded. “I’m sending him in.”

  The viewscreen went dark and after a long moment, there was a knock on Sylvan’s door.

  “Come,” he called and the door panel slid to one side.

  Standing in the doorway was a male of around seven feet with coal black hair and the strangest eyes Sylvan had ever seen—they were white but with shifting rainbow patterns in them. Right now those strange eyes seemed to burn in the warrior’s face as he stared at Sylvan, who moved uncomfortably in his office chair.

  The male looked familiar somehow but Sylvan would have sworn he’d never seen him before in his life. Who was he?

  “Uncle Sylvan,” the warrior rumbled, stepping in and making sure the door sealed shut behind him. “I shouldn’t be here but I have no choice.”

  “I’m sorry…” Sylvan rose from behind his desk and came around to give the strange male a warrior’s clasp. “Do I know you?” He held out his hand and arm but the male recoiled from his touch.

  “I don’t dare,” he said, taking a step back. “I was told it might cause a very bad reaction if I touched anyone from my past—especially people I was close to or my family. I shouldn’t even be in close proximity to you but as I said, I have no choice.”

  “From your past?” Sylvan shook his head. “I don’t understand. And why did you call me ‘uncle’?”

  “Because you are my uncle—my fathers are your Second Brothers. I’m Shad—Shadow, the son of Kat and Deep and Lock,” the male told him.

  Sylvan frowned. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Shadow is a child, less than six cycles old. I just saw him this morning when I dropped my own two children off at the care center.”

  “Kaleb and Kara,” the male who claimed to be Shadow said. “Yes, I know—I grew up playing with them. And with my brothers, War and Peace and my cousin Daniel who is the son of Baird and Olivia as well as Ziza, the daughter of Lauren and Xairn. We all grew up together. But in this time we’re all still children.”

  “What do you mean, ‘in this time?’” Sylvan asked cautiously. He was beginning to wonder if he had a madman on his hands.

  The male who claimed to be Shadow took a deep breath.

  “I’m from the future,” he said in a low, even tone, as though he was hoping Sylvan wouldn’t “freak out,” as his mate Sophia was wont to say. “One possible future, I should say—a future I’m trying desperately to prevent. But it might already be too late.”

  “From the future?” Sylvan couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his voice.

  “Just listen,” the strange warrior pleaded. “Don’t judge my story until you hear it all. My future and yours depends on it.”

  Though his claim was bizarre, his tone was even and he displayed no outward signs of insanity. Sylvan had seen and heard many strange things in his life, he reminded himself, and he’d learned not to discount something—no matter how odd it seemed—until he understood it thoroughly. Maybe this male wasn’t crazy after all. At any rate, he decided to at least give him a chance.

  “All right,” he said, keeping his own voice steady and calm as well. “Prove it to me—my first instinct is to throw you out but I won’t if you can prove your story.”

  “That’s just it—I don’t have any physical proof.” The male claiming to be Shadow sighed and raked a hand through his coal black hair. Of course the child Shad had white hair and big, black eyes but Sylvan knew that a Shadow Twin’s hair and eye coloring reversed at puberty. So that, at least, seemed to be authentic.

  “Tell me something then,” he urged. “Make me believe you.”

  “Gods, don’t you think I want to?” the male demanded. “Every moment I spend here trying to convince you is another moment that bastard X’izith has alone with Harper. Another moment he has to…to breed her.” His face contorted and he spat out the word as though it left a foul taste in his mouth. “She’s still a ten’sora so if he gets his fucking barb in her—”

  “Wait—a ten’sora, you say?” Sylvan exclaimed. “How do you know that word? That information is classified—it was only recently brought to us through a secret mission on Yonnie Six.”

  “I know because in the future—my future—Harper, who is a ten’sora, is taken by the Hive and used to breed an army of their fucking grubs.”

  The words seem to hurt the male coming out—it was like he was ripping out his guts to speak them—but he went doggedly on anyway.

  “Less than five years after they took her, they were strong enough and numerous enough to lay waste to this entire solar system. This—all of it—is gone.” He waved a hand to indicate everything around them. “They blew the Mother Ship out of the sky and overran the Earth in a matter of days.”

  Sylvan shook his head at this bleak vision of the future.

  “If that’s so, how did you survive? You must still have been a child at the time if your story is true.”

  “We were on a field trip to Earth—to the Tampa Theater,” the male explained. “War and Peace and Kara and Kaleb and Ziza and myself and all the others of our age group—our whole class. We were there when the Mother Ship blew.”

  “And you survived? A group of children?” Sylvan asked.

  “We made the theater our base. Daniel became our leader and we formed the core of the Resistance and spent years of our lives fighting the invaders.” He sighed. “We looked out for each other, loved each other. War and Peace finally joined with Ziza but then she was taken by the Hive and…Oh Goddess.” He raked a hand through his hair again, his strange eyes filled with horrors Sylvan