“In one and the same fire,
clay grows hard and wax melts.”
– Francis Bacon

Valda is finally free, but her secrets have revealed new puzzles. Hatch and Dirk have been taken. Worse, Oz seems to have abandoned them.

Now, with Andreas at her side, she will wage a war she never wanted to fight against an organization she knows nothing about to save the men she loves.

The answer everyone wants is housed within her mind. Now, if only Valda knew what the question is. No matter what, she will do whatever it takes to save them. They didn’t give up on her.

She will be damned if she will lose them now.

The epic conclusion to the Time Captive trilogy. Brace yourselves, it’s going to be a wild ride.

NOTE::
This is a reverse harem and the author suggests you always read the forward in her books. This is the third and final book in a trilogy.

When we last left Valda, she had awoken to find, Dirk and Hatch were taken and now missing, and Oz was going to leave her to pursue his life again. With her compound destroyed she returns to the island where she was ‘born’ to recover in a way only she can. Oz leaves her in Andreas’ care and goes off to do whatever he needs to do. Let me just say that was a bit of a surprise.

Once Valda awakens, Andreas has a much better understand of who and what Valda is. Still she has recovering to do before they can go after Dirk and Hatch. Once Andreas sees she can undertake the journey they make a call from Campbell’s yacht. They discover that Blossom Foundry has he men in England and Smithson would do anything to get what he wants.

This is a favorite scene.

England.

Hatch and Dirk were in England. They’d been taken halfway around the world, or so Alexander Smithson claimed during the single call I’d accepted from the Blossom Foundry. We’d done it on board the yacht while on open sea away from the island and the Utopia lab. The precaution was one I could agree with, though Andreas was not a fan. Campbell’s ship wasn’t really a yacht, but it was sleek and well-armed. She also cut through the seas neatly, and while the waves offered some sway, it barely dislodged me from where I held my pose on the foredeck.

My muscles protested the position, because I had to maintain vrksasana, tree pose, no matter the ship’s movement as it sliced through the water. The engines had been opened to full throttle, and while there were more than twenty men on board with us, there were even more awaiting us in England.

Campbell had sent a unit ahead to scout and track the actual location. I trusted them to do their job. If he had his way, I would be back in the Utopia bunker. But I refused to stay hidden. I understood the concern. I even appreciated how the man laid out all the ways Smithson and the Blossom Foundry were trying to lure me in. I was the target.

Yes.

Dirk would kill him if they let me get taken.

I understood his worry there as well. I trusted Campbell and his men because Dirk trusted them. Dirk had seen to my security for years, and I trusted him with all of it. It was easier for me to let go of that piece of control to focus on my work, and it soothed him to maintain an iron fist over my safety. What I had only confessed to him once left a mark on both of us, looking back with the perfection of hindsight, I could almost see when the indelible shift in our relationship had begun.

While my faith was absolute, my conviction was devout. I would not let them be kept a moment longer than necessary. They had not abandoned me, and I refused to abandon them. To my surprise and ever-lasting delight, Andreas had taken my side in the argument. He wanted them back, too. We were lovers again, finally. And I’d woken each day since in his arms, wrapped and safe. Yet I could not savor it the way I wanted to while I worried about what was being done to Hatch and Dirk.

They’d been kind enough to provide proof of life.

Bloodied.

Battered.

Proof of life.

All the calm I’d scraped together during my yoga fled as images of Dirk’s shaved, cut head and swollen face filled my eyes. Hatch hadn’t faired much better. There were burn marks on his skull. I didn’t need expertise to know what had been done to them. The images had been geared to show me one thing.

They were alive.

They didn’t have to stay that way.

If the Blossom Foundry did not get what they wanted, they would use Dirk and Hatch to attempt it. Lowering my leg, I dipped into adho mukha svanasana, downward dog, and let out a breath. Maybe the blood rushing to my head could cleanse it from those images.

Still, nothing could fully erase them, and I didn’t want to. I could see Hatch’s beautiful eyes, all puffy and bruised. Blood trickled from his nose. The metallic taste coated my tongue and my pulse throbbed against my eyes as I pushed down into urdhva mukha svanasana, upward facing dog, then I opened my eyes, expecting to see the blue sky and the snow white drift of clouds in the distance.

Hatch stared back at me, a corner of his mouth kicking a little higher, despite the puffiness marring the other side of his beautiful lips. A cut sliced through the bottom one, likely inflicted by a ring slamming a blow there. As if the very thought of it summoned the image, I could feel the blow, and a wet laugh escaped me.

“Hey, beautiful,” Hatch murmured, his voice a little slurred and his head leaning a little to the side as though it were a great effort to keep it up. “This is an excellent fucking dream. You look great.”

My heart squeezed. I didn’t release the pose for fear of losing sight of him.

“Yeah, I’m not pretty.” He tried to shrug, but his shoulders barely moved. A faint grimace pulled taut over his face. “But this is hardly the worst I’ve been. Gimme a hot shower and a good night’s sleep, and I’ll be all better again.”

Tears filtered across my vision, and he wavered.
Heather Long. Fast Forward (ARC Copy): Time Captive Book 3 (Kindle Locations 746-751).

Hatch and Valda seem to have an unusual connection, one they will have to investigate further once they are all together again. The only problem is that it exhausts Valda. So even though Andreas doesn’t quite believe what she says she saw and heard, he doesn’t want her doing it again.

England is where all of this will come to a head. Valda has questions she needs answered and frankly she has no intention of giving in to Smithson.

This is the perfect conclusion to this awesome trilogy. There is romance, lots of action, and that sizzling heat as only Heather writes it.

Don’t miss this book it was definitely worth the wait!

5 Contented Purrs for Heather!

Heather Long

USA Today bestselling author, Heather Long, likes long walks in the park, science fiction, superheroes, Marines, and men who aren’t douche bags. Her books are filled with heroes and heroines tangled in romance as hot as Texas in the summertime.

From paranormal historical westerns to contemporary military romance, Heather might switch genres, but one thing is true in all of her stories–her characters drive the books.

When she’s not wrangling her menagerie of animals, she devotes her time to family and friends she considers family. She believes if you like your heroes so real you could lick the grit off their chest, and your heroines so likable, you’re sure you’ve been friends with women just like them, you’ll enjoy her worlds as much as she does.