A Clash of Storms (A Shade of Vampire #50)(67)

My heart leapt in my throat.

This was it. We were going home.

Serena and I glanced at each other. Aida, Jovi, Vita, and Field came closer, excitement glimmering in their eyes. Anjani and Bijarki stayed behind, a mixture of happiness and sadness passing over their faces. They were most likely worried, unsure of what Vita and Jovi would do once they saw their parents again. I wanted to tell them that everything would be okay, but Ruelle broke my ecstatic train of thought.

“I should warn you, though,” she said. “When we placed the shroud over Eritopia, it changed the passage of time between our galaxy and the rest of the worlds… It slowed Eritopia down because we hoped it would give the universes enough time to advance and be able to one day withstand Azazel’s darkness if he ever broke out.”

“Wait.” Serena shook her head, a confused frown pulling her eyebrows closer. “What… What do you mean, ‘it slowed Eritopia down’?”

“Time has flowed differently here,” Rubia explained. “From the moment you came in until now, it has been weeks in Eritopia... but twenty years have passed in The Shade.”

The information crashed into us. I didn’t know what to make of it, or how to react to it. Our parents had forgotten about us. Twenty years had gone by for them.

What would that mean for them? For all of our friends and family? For The Shade?

Or for us, for that matter, once they remembered us?

“We will restore the normal time flow now,” Rubia added, aware of our shock and confusion. “But we cannot retrieve the years that have already passed. I am sorry. We are all deeply sorry…”

“You’re saying our parents, our families and friends… hell, our entire world is twenty years older now?” Aida asked, still having trouble digesting the news.

Rubia nodded in response, then slowly raised a hand, revealing her gold diamond rings.

“It is time,” she said, then snapped her fingers.





Hazel





Forty years had passed since our Nevertide excursion. Forty years since Tejus and I had tied the knot and settled into a beautiful and tranquil life. Not a day passed that I didn’t marvel at the wonderful creature I’d been lucky enough to cross paths with in Nevertide. He worshipped me, and I adored him, and boredom was never part of our lives.

We were both busy with GASP, mostly involved in training new recruits, but also embarking on the occasional mission, and I couldn’t wish for a more rewarding occupation.

It took us a while to start talking about having a child. Looking back now, I didn’t know what I’d been thinking during our first twenty years together. We’d turned into vampires to extend our lifespans, but I lived with a constant feeling that something was missing, that we were, somehow, incomplete.

Tejus felt the same way, so we took the cure and returned to pure sentry form so that we might conceive. For a while, I thought one of us was struggling with fertility issues, but Corrine was quick to brush that concern aside. Then, on our twenty-first wedding anniversary, I was thrilled to give my husband the best news ever. I was pregnant, and I couldn’t think of another time when I’d seen Tejus so happy, other than the day I’d said “Yes”.

Harper was born nine months later, and we were fascinated by the wonderful creature we’d brought into the world. With sentry blood running through her, Harper quickly developed her mental abilities and barrier-building skills. Her True Sight was spectacular, as good as Tejus’s, in fact, covering an impressive number of miles in range.

She was relatively quiet and kept mostly to herself, but she was always a ray of sunshine around Tejus and me. When she turned eighteen, Harper wanted to be turned. After lengthy conversations about what life as a vampire involved, both my husband and I agreed that our daughter was mature and strong enough to understand and transition successfully, and we decided to turn back a few weeks after her.

Her first year as a vampire sentry was a bit rocky, but, with careful guidance from all of us, including Great-Great Grandma and Grandpa Sofia and Derek, she quickly grew into it.

As our only child, she was the focus of Tejus’s and my attention, and as a newly anointed GASP cadet, she was trained in the best tech and gear available, ranging from weaponry to recon devices, and we equipped her with state-of-the-art protective plates that kept her extra safe during training—for now. Soon, Harper would start participating in field missions, and I dreaded the thought of something happening to her. For that reason, I never crinkled my nose when Tejus showered her with the latest in army gear and gadgets.

At the same time, Harper was well looked after by her adoptive uncles—the Hawks were always around, from her first day in this world to her first steps and well into her maturity as a vampire sentry. This was mainly because Harper and Caia, Grace and Lawrence’s daughter, pretty much grew up together from day one, and the Hawks were particularly attached to the little fire fae, thus ending up as Harper’s guardians, too. Fly, Sky, Rock, and Blue had played a big part in honing the girls’ fighting skills, not just during practice but also through surprise tackles whenever they had their guard down.

Our daughter was sharp and fierce, making my heart swell with pride whenever she came back with a grin from a GASP training session, hiding whatever bruise she’d acquired in the process so I wouldn’t worry in the least.