Vanished Read online

  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