Page 1 of Tashama
1
Tashama’s stomach roiled with upset. She knew she had to return to her time and place, but she was happy here in Dallas, Texas. Could she really make a difference in her world? Her guardian, Balthazar, the sorcerer of her royal house, believed it was so. He had two goals—return her safely to her home and help restore her to power so she could bring peace to the region.
She’d been away for years. Everyone believed she was dead. How could she, at twenty-three, return and take over? She thought the notion ludicrous. No amount of entreaty would change his mind, though she’d tried. He was too powerful, too all-knowing. She would do as he bade.
“Can you feel the air pressure changing, Tashama?” Balthazar asked, his electric blue eyes studying her with concern.
“Yes, a storm is approaching. But you’re changing the subject.”
He tilted his chin down, giving her one of his annoyed teacher-to-pupil looks.
She glanced out the kitchen window and saw nothing but the cornfields bent over in the West Texas breeze. He had saved herlife, then closely guarded her in this new world to keep her safe. Which meant he hadn’t allowed her any associations with the male populace, making her rebel for years. Today, as much as she didn’t want to return to her medieval world of Karthland, it was her duty to set things right, to find her mate, and rule in her parents’ place.
But she had finally adjusted to this world and all its amenities. And no one even knew she existed any longer. Who would care if she returned to Karthland? Worse, she knew how dangerous it would be.
Someone had wanted her dead before. How would that have changed? It wouldn’t have. Not when those same powers learned she had returned.
Balthazar’s beard, like white cotton candy, draped over her tiled countertop while he concentrated on a banana. Watching his bony fingers strip the green peel from the still-hard fruit, she realized then he would never taste another morsel like that again. She knew, too, she wasn’t ready—not for the move she would soon have to make from Texas to a world she barely remembered—not now—not ever.
“We’re in for stormy weather.” She shook her head at him. “The banana isn’t ripe yet.”
Balthazar leaned over and sniffed the banana. “Smells just right to me.” He bit into the firm fruit.
“Too hard, isn’t it?”
His whiskers curled up slightly.
She stuck a coffee cup into the dishwasher. “I don’t want to go back.”
“You have no choice, Tashama. I’ve told you all along?—”
“I know—I know.” She mouthed the words softly. Leaning her chin in her hands, she rested her elbows on the counter. “I didn’t think I would ever get used to this strange world when I first arrived—what, ten years ago when I was thirteen?” Shethrew her hands up in the air. “But now, well, it’s different. I don’t want to go back.”
A sense of disquiet nudged at her. She hated to leave her friends and the new-fangled toys she enjoyed here to return to a place so foreign to her. She only vaguely remembered the screams of terror in the palace before Balthazar took her away, never again to see her parents alive.
Her computer screen, sitting in the breakfast nook, turned black, then mesmerizing zigzags of color burst across the monitor. She sighed deeply. “No television, computers, internet, or cell phones. And what of old Bessy?”
“Bessy?”
“My Pontiac Grand Am.”
He shook his head. “You’ve taken riding lessons for years. That’ll be all you need when you return.”
“There’s no Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter. No Veteran’s Day Parades or Columbus Day holidays.”
“They celebrate their own holidays. You must remember.”
“I barely remember anything about…”Home,she almost said out loud. But I have lived here nearly as long as I have lived there. So, where is home really anymore?
“There, Tashama.”
“They don’t have bananas there.”
Balthazar’s now pale blue eyes twinkled in the bright kitchen light.
She took a deep breath. “Are you certain that in ten years they have not made any progress?—”
“The war drags on there, Tashama. You’re twenty-three now. Not only must you lead your people to victory, but your mate awaits you.”
