Twisted: Brides of the Kindred 23 Read online

  “Many things are not fair, warrior.” The powerful but gentle female voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. From the rustling trees and the softly babbling brook that flowed nearby—even from the silvery moonlight that poured down from above.

  “Goddess? Mother of All Life?” Instinctively, Malik fell to his knees. He felt her holy presence all around him and knew he must show respect.

  “My son…” The voice was gentle now. “You have worked long and sacrificed much to fulfill the difficult task I set you. And now you ask why you are still here, instead of with me in the heavens?”

  “I don’t understand,” Malik admitted. “I thought I was supposed to fade away when this was all done. But I’ve been wandering around for a week and I’m still here—only I have no place here anymore. Uriel Two no longer feels like my home.”

  “That is because your home is where your heart is and that is no longer here,” the Goddess murmured. “And the reason you remain in this time, instead of fading, is the bond you formed during the last part of your quest.”

  “With Nicole,” Malik breathed and the sorrow and loss he’d been fighting to hold back threatened to overwhelm him.

  He’d thought about taking a ship and going to Earth to try and find her but he knew the Nicole he found would be different—wouldn’t be the woman he had bonded with. The time device he had used on the Knower had blown him ten cycles into the past. Even if she found Nicole in this time, she would be ten years younger and still tied to her mate—unworthy bastard though he was.

  He might have been able to woo her away, but it wouldn’t be the same as being with the Nicole he knew—the one who had gone through so much with him—who had taken him and been taken by him—who had loved him so much she was willing to give him up to save his planet from destruction and doom. That Nicole wasn’t here—would never be here because the past was now changed. He had changed it—for the better.

  But he had paid a heavy price to do so.

  “Yes, warrior—with Nicole,” the Goddess murmured. “Though the love you felt was of a short duration, it was very strong—strong enough to anchor you to reality, even when the reality you knew was swept away, never to return.”

  “Please Goddess, if I can’t be with her, take me home to be with you,” Malik pleaded, his voice hoarse. “I can bear the pain of our broken bond no longer. It is as though someone has cut out half my heart and I cannot go on without it.”

  “I will give you a choice, Warrior,” the Goddess’s voice said. “The Nicole you knew and bonded with still lives, but now the events the two of you shared remain only in her mind as shadow memories.”

  “Shadow memories?” Malik echoed.

  “Yes. She has forgotten you with her mind, but not with her heart.” The Goddess spoke seriously. “I cannot promise you will be able to remind her of the things you shared or bring her back to you, but I am willing to let you try, if you like. If not, I will take you to your eternal reward—you have certainly earned it.”

  Malik’s reply was immediate and definite.

  “I want to try! Please, Goddess—let me try,” he begged hoarsely.

  “She has three sons who need a father, now that theirs has been taken,” the Goddess said warningly. “Will you be to them what the man who originally fathered them was not?”

  “I swear I will,” Malik said fervently. “I told Nicole as much myself. You know I will be a good father to them, Goddess.”

  “I know that you will. You are faithful, my son. Your world could only be saved by the supreme sacrifice—the sacrifice of life and of love so great it breaks the bearer of it,” the Goddess murmured. “You made that sacrifice, and I know how difficult it was. I am well pleased with you.”

  The Goddess’s voice was soft and full of caring—it washed over him like a wave and for a moment, Malik simply breathed, and let himself realize how completely the Mother of All Life loved her children, of which he was one. Then she spoke again.

  “It will not be easy, but I believe if you approach your bonded mate carefully, she will remember you and the shadow memories will come back to her in time,” she told him. “I have arranged with the Time Warden to transport you forward ten cycles, to Nicole’s home world of Earth. From there, what happens is up to you.”

  “Thank you for this chance, Goddess. I won’t waste it.” Malik lifted his face to the sky, feeling gratitude pour through him. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome, my son,” she murmured. “I will be watching. Now go through the door. Soon you will be with your bonded mate again.”

  What door? Malik started to ask but when he turned his head, he saw a shining line of light drawing itself, as though by some invisible hand, right in the middle of the Sacred Grove. As he watched, the brilliant golden light widened until it resembled a door standing ajar right there among the trees.

  Wonder filled him and he stumbled to his feet and through the door, expecting to find himself at once in Nicole’s world of ten cycles in the future…

  Instead, he found himself in a small, bare room furnished only with a simple wooden table and one wooden chair. On the chair, perched a small male dressed in strange clothing with flowering designs on it. The male was working on something small and bright that seemed to be all colors and no color at once. No matter how he stared at it, Malik couldn’t seem to make out what it was.

  He knew at once where he was because he had been here before, when he was given the device that would reverse time on his planet and destroy the Knower. But it wasn’t what he had been expecting.

  “Time Warden!” he exclaimed, looking at the little male, who didn’t seem to be inclined to acknowledge him. “What am I doing here? Where’s Earth?”

  “Well you’re an impatient one, aren’t you?” The little male looked up and Malik saw that he had a pair of wire and glass oculars perched on the end of his sharply pointed nose. “It’s good to see you again,” he added. “The Goddess has asked me to grant you a special dispensation to travel through both time and space.”

  “I thank you,” Malik said eagerly. “Can you send me to Earth?”

  “In good time—all in good time. I have all of it—all the time I need or you need or anyone needs, really,” the Time Warden said. “But before I send you off, I have a warning for you to pass on, I’m afraid.”

  “A warning?” Malik frowned. “A warning for who? About what?”

  The Time Warden sighed and for the first time, Malik realized that the little male looked incredibly weary.

  “It has to do with the ripples caused in the space-time continuum when we changed the fate of your planet,” he said. “Billions…trillions of time threads had to be re-worked and re-woven. Indeed, I have been working on this project for as long as you have been on your quest—for the last ten cycles. It has been a momentous job.”

  “I’m sure it has.” Malik nodded respectfully. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend what the Time Warden did but changing the fate of an entire planet and the two billion souls who occupied it couldn’t have been easy, even with the Goddess’s help.

  “Anyway, I did all I could but there was one thread I couldn’t tie up.” The Time Warden took off the spindly-looking oculars and pinched the bridge of his long, narrow nose. It was a gesture of frustration and exhaustion, Malik thought.

  “What thread was that?” he asked, frowning.

  The Time Warden looked up at him.

  “Moments before you activated the device I gave you, the Knower projected itself into one of its Replicants—as it is able to do, as you know. I say one of its Replicants but it may be more than one,” he added, grimacing. “The time thread is unclear on that point. It may even have projected its consciousness into another entity entirely—some other being with artificial intelligence like a Replicant—another body capable of housing an AI. Again, the time thread is very blurred.”

  “Yes, but all of the Replicants were destroyed,” Malik protested. “I saw it happen myself. They never