Deceived

by Evangeline Anderson

  “I’ll send her over if I see her,” Liv promised and then dragged Sophie through the crowded picnic area near the Sacred Grove. Their family reunion had turned into a celebration of life, though not many people outside their inner circle knew that. Sylvan had told Sophie and Liv and Baird how close everyone aboard the entire Mother Ship had come to complete annihilation and how Commander Naught had saved the day.

  Accordingly, Liv and Sophie had decided to invite the stolid dark twin who looked to be about half cyborg to their party as well as Kat and Lock and Deep and Lauren and Xairn and all their kids. Soon the invitation had been thrown open to all the other Kindred brides Sophie and Liv were friends with and now the family reunion was almost a hundred people strong and growing.

  “Wow, this party is really getting started!” Sophie exclaimed, looking around. More and more people kept arriving, everyone bringing a favorite dish or recipe though most of the main dishes had been catered by Dark. He and Anna were standing behind a laden table and serving out some traditional Rigelian dishes that filled the area with warm, spicy, mouthwatering aromas.

  “I think Dark’s food is a hit,” Liv remarked, surveying the line to the table, which stretched almost to the Sacred Grove. Some of the priestesses had even come out, drawn by the delicious smells, and Sylvan had welcomed them graciously and asked them to stay and eat.

  “It’s a good thing I had Sylvan hold that restaurant spot open for him.” Sophie sounded smug. “He and Anna will be setting up right beside Lauren. It’s going to be perfect!”

  Liv groaned. “My waistline will never be the same with those two right beside each other. I won’t be able to visit one without visiting the other!”

  “That’s the idea.” Sophie laughed. “Dinner and dessert all in one place. And in the meantime, Kat has plenty to do, planning two Joining Ceremonies at once!”

  “That’s right, doll, but I never expected to plan a Joining Ceremony for a pairing puppet!” Kat came up to them, holding a bowl of Nana’s delicious homemade banana pudding. “Not that I mind as long as your Nana keeps on cooking. My God, this is good.” She took a reverent bite of the creamy pudding studded with golden chunks of bananas and crispy vanilla wafers. “I remember her making this for us when we were all kids,” she remarked. “I tried making it myself, but I could never get it right.”

  “It’s her homemade pudding recipe,” Liv said. “It makes all the difference.”

  “Just don’t ask her what she does with the batches that don’t turn out,” Sophie said dryly. “Because you do not want to know—trust me.”

  “Okay, I’m not even going to ask.” Kat shook her head. “I’m just thankful we get to keep your Nana even though all the other personalities have been sucked back into the Shannom-rah.”

  “Yes, it was the kindest thing to do,” Sophie agreed. “Nana was lucky she ended up in a pairing puppet but those others, like the stripper who landed in my Roombie, and the insurance salesman from Ohio who was in Liv’s blood Analyzer, really didn’t understand where they were or what they were doing.”

  “It would be really hard to be happy in the body of a machine when you were used to being in a human body, I guess,” Kat said. “Though I notice your new friend there seems to be about half and half.” She nodded at Commander Naught who was sitting at a table by himself and picking over a plate of food without actually seeming to eat any of it.

  “That’s Commander Naught,” Sophie told her. “Without him, we all would have been vaporized this morning.”

  “What? What are you talking about?” Kat’s eyes went wide.

  Rapidly, Sophie filled her in on the details of the High Council meeting that had occurred earlier that day. When she was finished, Kat was visibly shaken.

  “My God,” she finally managed to get out. “That’s terrible!”

  “He saved Sylvan’s life—all our lives,” Sophie said. “I’d give him a hug and a kiss if I didn’t think he wouldn’t like it.”

  “He’s very stoic,” Liv put in. “We think because the Tolleg surgeons gave him an emotion damper in order to control the pain after his twin died. He probably doesn’t feel much of anything—either pain or pleasure.”

  “So he’s a Twin Kindred who lost his brother? Poor guy.” Kat looked at him sympathetically. “I can’t imagine that loss. Deep and Lock are so close if something happened to one of them…” She shivered. “No, I can’t even let my mind go there!”

  “He’s a hero, but he’s all alone,” Sophie said sadly. “Do you think he would mind if we went and sat with him?”

  “I don’t know, but I think someone beat us to it. Look.” Kat nodded and the three girls watched Commander Naught.

  A young, shy-looking priestess had broken away from the group of her fellow priestesses and was walking towards him. Her full curves were emphasized by the flowing white robe of her order and she had long, blonde hair streaked with every color of green imaginable but her eyes—which were wide and frightened—were not yet the green-within-green that the older priestesses achieved after years of communing with the Goddess.

  “Who is that?” Liv asked in a hushed voice. “She looks familiar but I don’t think I’ve met her before.”

  “I think she’s new to the Mother Ship,” Sophie said. “Sylvan told me there were several new recruits coming from First World—she must be one of them.”

  “Well, she certainly brave to be approaching Commander Naught like that—especially when she looks scared to death!” Kat murmured.

  Indeed, the young priestess’s eyes were wide and uncertain as she made her way over to the hulking Dark Twin but she kept her chin high as she reached him.

  “May I sit with you?” Liv heard her say to Naught.

  He shrugged his broad shoulders—the metal one and the flesh one rolling together with the movement.

  “Do as you wish.” His voice was a harsh growl.

  The priestess’s face grew pale but sat down, directly opposite him. Then, to Liv’s surprise, she reached across the table and took his hand—the right one which was flesh.

  Commander Naught appeared startled too. He looked up at her uncertainly, his one gray eye widening in surprise.

  “Why do you touch me?” he asked, frowning, though he made no move to draw his hand away.

  “I have a message for you—a message from the Goddess herself.” The little priestess looked scared to death but she lifted her chin and looked him right in the eye.

  “Message? What message?” He scowled at her.

  The priestess took a deep breath, as though nerving herself up to deliver news she knew he wouldn’t like.

  “Listen to the words of the Goddess,” she began.

  “Warrior, your pain is deep and strong

  The way you have traveled is hard and long

  I know the question deep in your heart

  To answer it soon a quest you must start

  The answer you’ll find if you travel far

  To the moon of a planet by the double star.

  Find there in the system where all ones are two

  The ease to the pain which torments you.”

  “What?” Commander Naught frowned at her. “All ones are two? That makes no sense. Why do you speak in riddles? And what do you know of my pain?”

  “Only what the Goddess has told me,” the little priestess said. “I speak with her voice. And…” She cleared her throat. “I was told I must go with you on the quest she spoke of.”

  “What quest? This isn’t logical.” Naught pulled his hand out of hers and stood abruptly. “I must go. Please leave me alone.”

  Then he strode off, leaving the little priestess to sit there by herself, looking sad and uncertain but still defiant. Liv could almost read the look on her face.

  Well, I did what you told me Goddess and it blew up in my face. What now? she seemed to be thinking.

  “I think I see someone who needs a friend right about now,” Sophie murmured.

  “I think you’r
e right.” Liv smiled. “Let’s go over and introduce ourselves. Maybe we can help.”

  “I don’t know, girls.” Kat looked doubtful. “Commander Cyborg there did not seem to be pleased with the message the Goddess sent him.”

  “He’ll come around,” Liv said confidently. “After all, it’s the will of the Goddess. Come on girls—let’s go.”

  As they made their way across the green and purple grass to meet the new priestess, she sent a prayer to the Mother of All Life that everything would work out well for Commander Naught. The Mother Ship had so much to thank him for—she only hoped that he could find some healing for his brokenness and the pain she knew he carried.

  Goddess, she prayed. There is no hurt so deep you cannot heal it. Let Commander Naught be healed.

  She felt a sense of peace and deep inside, she knew the Goddess had heard her prayer and was already working on the problem…

  The End?

  Of course not! There are always more Kindred books coming. Look for Trapped in Time, in August! (You'll find a Sneak Peek at it if you scroll down.) But First...

  *If you have enjoyed Deceived, please take a quick minute to leave a review HERE. Good reviews are like gold for an author in the extremely crowded e-book market. They let other readers know it's okay to take a chance on a new author and series. Plus they give me the warm fuzzies.

  Thanks for being such an awesome reader!

  Hugs, Evangeline : )

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  Do you love the Kindred? Do you want to talk about wishing you could go live on the Mother Ship without your friends thinking you're crazy? Well now it's super easy to get them into the Kindred universe. Just share this LINK https://dl.bookfunnel.com/bbomfmojv9 with them to download Claimed, the first book in my Brides of the Kindred series for FREE. No strings attached--I don't even want to collect their email for my newsletter. I just want you to be able to share the Kindred world with your besties and have fun doing it.

  Hugs and Happy Reading! Evangeline

  Trapped in Time

  A woman trapped in the past

  A dark, intense warrior who claims she is his wife

  Will Caroline survive her stay in the parallel universe she has fallen into?

  Or will she be forever...Trapped in Time?

  Chapter One

  “So you’ve really found a way to open a door into other worlds--other universes?”

  Dr. Caroline Lambert, Ph.D smiled—it was a question she got a lot.

  “Not really a door,” she said to the wide-eyed Sophie, who was Commander Sylvan’s wife. Since the big Blood Kindred was the head of the High Council and had authorized her research here aboard the Kindred Mother Ship, she was more than willing to talk about it to him and his wife and her friends, who were also touring her new lab facilities.

  “It’s more like a window, if I understand your research correctly,” Sylvan said, raising his eyebrows at her for confirmation.

  “Exactly.” Caroline nodded, her red-gold curls bobbing with the gesture. She usually wore her long, naturally curly hair pulled back into a tight bun but she had actually tried to dress up a little today, hoping to make a good first impression. Unfortunately, her hair wasn’t cooperating and had started to frizz but luckily Commander Sylvan and his wife and sister-in-law, a doctor who had introduced herself as Liv, as well as their friend Kat, all seemed nice. They were also very enthusiastic about her research too, unlike some of her colleagues back home on Earth who had scoffed at the very idea of opening a window onto the Multiverse.

  “So you can only look at the other worlds—not touch them?” Liv asked, looking disappointed.

  “That’s what all my research has led me to believe,” Caroline said firmly. “I have no reason to doubt it so far. But then, this will be the first time I’m able to test the equipment I invented. It has to be outside the Earth’s magnetic field to operate correctly, which is why I’m so grateful the Mother Ship has agreed to host me.”

  “What do you expect to see?” Kat asked curiously. She was plus-sized, like Caroline herself, and had explained that she was married to Twin Kindred, who liked that kind of woman. Caroline couldn’t imagine finding even one man to hook her life to—let alone two—but it was nice to know the Kindred didn’t exhibit size-prejudice when it came to choosing their mates.

  “Well, if my theory is correct, there are multiple universes layered one on top of each other—like the thin layers of an onion,” Caroline explained. “I don’t want to go into the math, because it’s pretty involved, but what I’m trying to do is just peal back one layer and look into the universe next to ours.”

  “Yes, but what do you think you might see in that universe?” Sophie asked. “Sylvan says that it might be an exact mirror image of our own.”

  “It might,” Caroline said carefully. “That’s a distinct possibility.” She nodded at the shiny brass frame of her Positronic Orbital Rotating Time/Space Allocating Locator—PORTAL for short. “I might generate the window and see a world that looks exactly like Earth, with only a few minor inconsistencies to our own Earth.”

  “So if there are millions of universes that are almost exact copies of each other, would it be possible to look through the portal and see you from another world walking around?” Liv asked. “Could you watch your twin from the other universe and see what she was doing?”

  “Well, it’s possible I suppose,” Caroline said doubtfully. “But the odds against it that are astronomical—like a trillion to one. It would be like flipping on the television and just happening to land on a channel that was playing a satellite picture of your very own house.”

  “Oh, too bad.” Kat sounded disappointed. “I kind of wanted to spy on my Multiverse-double and see what she was up to.”

  “What if you looked and saw that in that particular universe you had never met Deep and Lock?” Liv objected. “Maybe in some of those other universes you went on to become a lawyer and never married or had kids.”

  “What if in some of the other universes the Kindred never came to Earth?” Sophie speculated. “What if we were taken over by the Scourge and the AllFather killed and enslaved us all?”

  “Ugh!” Kat made a face. “What an awful thought, doll! Don’t even say it!”

  “It’s awful but any and all of those scenarios are possibilities,” Caroline said thoughtfully. “I might peal back the first layer and see an Earth decimated by nuclear war, then peal back the second and see another Earth flourishing because the people in that universe decided to ban all nuclear weapons and implemented strict carbon regulations to control climate change.”

  “The possibilities are endless—and fascinating,” Sylvan said. “But would you ladies excuse me for a few minutes? I just got a think-me call which seems important.”

  “Of course honey—go on.” Sophie patted her husband’s arm. “We’ll keep Dr. Lambert busy answering our questions while you’re gone.”

  “Oh please—call me Caroline,” Caroline said, blushing a little as Sylvan left her new lab, all filled with the shiny brass frame of the PORTAL and the computers that ran it. She had worked hard for her Ph.D but she didn’t like to hold it over people’s heads and insist that they acknowledge her status. She was much too shy and retiring to do that.

  “But you worked hard for your title!” Sophie exclaimed. “And we really respect that.”

  “Thanks, but you all seem so nice. We don’t have to be completely formal,” Caroline protested.

  “Well, I don’t make people call me ‘Doctor Olivia’ either,” Liv said, smiling. “Even though I’m pretty proud that I passed all my medical exams to move on from nursing. So I’ll call you Caroline as long as you’ll just call me Liv.”

  “It’s a deal.” Caroline smiled at her. She’d been afraid that moving up to the Mother Ship would be lonely—though that wouldn’t be that much different from her life on Earth had been. Her parents were both dead and she had no brothers or sisters to mis
s her. She would miss her best friend Audrey, but she had recently gotten married and was expecting her first baby so they didn’t have much “girl time” together anymore. That had been one of the reasons she’d decided to make the move, even though she had resigned herself to being alone. Now it seemed like making friends in her new home was a distinct possibility—Caroline hoped, anyway.

  “So who else might you see in the Multiverse?” Kat asked, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Maybe your soul mate from another world?”

  “Well even if she did, she could only look at him, Kat-woman,” Liv reminded her. “It’s looking only—no touching, remember?”

  “I’m not interested in finding or meeting a man anyway,” Caroline said quickly. She was hoping to cut off the inevitable match-making that always followed when new friends found out she was single. Somehow they always seemed to have just the “perfect” guy for her and he always turned out to be a deadbeat or a jerk. Or he might be a perfectly nice guy but Caroline would feel no connection to him at all, which almost always led to hard feelings all around.

  Kat laughed and raised one auburn eyebrow.

  “Oh, I see what you’re saying—you don’t want us trying to fix you up with any friends of our hubbies, right?”

  “Well it’s just that I’m…” Caroline shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to give offense when she’d just met these girls. She really liked them—liked their free and open attitude and the way they had adapted to life on the Mother Ship so perfectly. She didn’t want to hurt their feelings by rejecting any offers of blind-dates out of hand. But still—she had to set the record straight.

  “Go on,” Liv said encouragingly when the words seemed to stick in her throat. “Whatever it is, you can say it. Are you gay?”

  “It’s not that. I…” Caroline swallowed hard. “I just have a hard time…connecting to people romantically. That’s all. Sometimes when people set me up on blind dates and they don’t work out, they get upset with me. I like you three—I don’t want to offend you.”