* * *
Think-Me—a thin silver wire worn around the temples which facilitates mental communication between people who already have an intimate connection.
* * *
Touch-U—a flat black mat-like animal native to Tranq Prime which the Kindred have adapted to be a home health appliance. The Touch-U is capable of giving a gentle massage or an all-out erotic experience depending on which button is pushed.
* * *
Twin Kindred—come from Twin Moons—a world of vast, stormy oceans dotted with craggy but beautiful islands. True to their namesake, Twin Kindred always come in pairs. The brothers are not identical, however. There is always a light twin and a dark twin. These labels refer not just to skin, hair, and eye coloring but to the twin’s moods and perceptions of the world. The dark twin in the pair is usually more moody and withdrawn while the light twin takes a substantially brighter view of life. The twins are closely linked and able to sense each other’s emotions. They cannot be separated by long distances or for long periods of time without severe pain. They must also share a woman, linking her into their mental and emotional exchange for very intense ménage sex.
* * *
Urlich—a type of dog bred by the Scourge. At maturity they are modified with machinery to heighten their sense of smell and intelligence which results in a cyborg-type animal. Once in pursuit of whatever scent has been programmed into their brains, the urlich are utterly single minded and incapable of stopping until their prey has been cornered and captured.
* * *
Wave—a Kindred cooking appliance which emits thousands of finely collimated beams of heat to cook food in under a minute.
* * *
Zichther—an animal native to the jungles of Rageron, the zichther resembles a small bright blue teddy bear in appearance until it opens its mouth and reveals three rows of incredibly sharp, shark-like teeth.
Found
Brides of the Kindred, Book 4
A warrior with a scarred heart who doesn’t know how to love. And the woman who must teach him how before it’s too late…
The son of the evil AllFather, Xairn is filled with conflicting emotions. On one hand, he has finally gained his freedom and cut the ties that bound him to his race and the sadistic male who is his father. But doing so has unleashed feelings in him Xairn would rather keep buried. Desires that he prayed would never manifest now rage through him and they are centered on one woman alone…
Lauren Jakes is the long lost cousin Liv and Sophie never knew they had. Abducted by the Scourge, she formed a connection with Xairn more meaningful than any other in his life. But though Lauren thinks she knows him, there is more to the huge Scourge warrior than she comprehends. A nightmare childhood and a cruel father have scarred Xairn’s heart almost past the point of healing. But that is nothing to the secret inside him—the forbidden desires coded into his very DNA itself, which urge him to commit unspeakable acts in order to sate his newly awakened hunger.
Now a conflict is brewing—both in Xairn’s soul, and aboard the Fathership where the twisted AllFather has hatched a new, malicious plot to bring his estranged son home. Can Xairn resist the brutal lust growing within him? Can he fight against his very nature which urges him to dominate and control any female he mates? Can Lauren heal his heart before the AllFather’s trap closes on both of them?
And can she teach him how to love before it’s too late?
One
Lauren Jakes was bored.
Although how it was possible to be bored when she was a hundred light-years from Earth on a strange planet in a far off galaxy where no other human had ever set foot was beyond her. By all rights she ought to be soaking in the exotic sights and immersing herself in the fascinating alien culture. It was certainly better than the tiny metal cell she’d been kept in on the Scourge Fathership.
The Scourge were a menacing alien race which had come to Earth searching for the one female they believed could mate with their evil overlord, the AllFather. She and she alone would be able to revitalize their race by bearing daughters. Lauren was that female and she had been taken and held within their immense ship for weeks.
While she was there, however, she’d made a connection with Xairn. The huge alien with the burning red-on-black eyes was the AllFather’s son, but he had severed his ties with both his father and his race in order to free Lauren and take her home. Of course, first they had to travel through a wormhole to another galaxy in order to get their DNA modified which, according to Xairn, was the only way they could go back to Earth safely. Lauren wasn’t thrilled with that but if he said it was necessary, she believed him. So she’d been prepared for danger and adventure and excitement…but not for boredom.
Because in order to soak up exotic sights and immerse herself in the alien culture, she would have to leave the small silver Kindred spaceship where Xairn had left her. And the enormous Scourge warrior had made it very, very clear before he left that she wasn’t to do that. Sighing, Lauren remembered their conversation…
“Under no circumstances should you step foot outside the ship,” he told her sternly as he was about to leave himself.
“Why?” Lauren looked out the viewscreen apprehensively. Xairn had landed them in a dark alleyway in a city he’d said was called O’ah, but she could catch glimpses of the street beyond which seemed to be the site of a busy marketplace. “Are the native people dangerous or hostile?” she asked.
“Anyplace is dangerous if you don’t know the language and customs,” he replied obliquely. “I’ll be back in one of your Earth standard days. Until then, stay in the ship and speak to no one.”
“All right,” Lauren agreed. After everything they’d been through together on the Fathership and the Scourge home world, she trusted Xairn implicitly to keep her safe. Still… “I know you’re going to find the uh, DNA guy,” she said, looking up at him. “But I still don’t understand why I just can’t come with you. Wouldn’t that make it easier—save you a trip? After all, you got me some decent clothes.”
She nodded down at the voluminous robe that reminded her of the muumuus her elderly neighbor, Mrs. Goldman, liked to wear back on Earth. It wasn’t very pretty, and the silver-blue material it was made of was extremely scratchy, but it covered her from neck to ankles which was all Xairn seemed to care about. After the cloak he’d loaned her had been ruined, Lauren hadn’t had a thing to wear but the thin towels she’d found in the small ship’s bathroom—a fact that had seemed to bother the large warrior greatly. So much so that the first thing he did when they landed in O’ah was to go out and buy her the silver-blue muumuu dress.
“It wouldn’t be safe for you to come. The splicing quarter is too rough for a female like you,” Xairn growled.
“What do you mean ‘a female like me’?” Lauren put a hand on her hip and frowned at him. “Do I need to remind you that I helped when we were fighting your father’s guards? I may not be as strong as you but I’m not stupid, Xairn. If you give me a weapon I can take care of myself. I won’t slow you down.”
“I didn’t mean that you were stupid or weak.” He sighed and ran a hand over the thick, glossy black hair he kept in a club at the nape of his neck. Lauren had been dying to see his hair let down from the moment she’d met him. With his stern, proud features he would have looked almost Native American if not for the strange coloring of his skin and eyes.
“What did you mean then?” Lauren demanded.
“Your kind has never been seen here. You’ll be considered very…exotic.” His red-on-black eyes flickered over the faint outline of her body under the voluminous muumuu, making her feel warm all over. “Many males will want you.”
Lauren was getting exasperated. “Xairn, are you trying to say I’m too pretty to go with you?”
“That word does not describe you accurately.” He looked away from her, frowning. “It doesn’t do you justice.”
Lauren found herself unexpectedly touched by the oblique compliment. Up until a little whi
le ago Xairn had claimed to have no sexual urges at all toward her or anyone else. Even now, when he had admitted to her that she had woken new and unfamiliar emotions inside him, he still seemed hesitant and uncertain about expressing those emotions. Lauren thought it was because he’d never been given any love as a child—how could he learn to show affection for anyone else when he’d never received any himself? She was determined to work on that, to try and help him as much as she could. But now wasn’t the time for a therapy session.
“That’s very sweet of you, Xairn,” she said. “But I’d still like to go with you.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. Your beauty makes you priceless here in O’ah. Any splicer would give his left hand for a chance to replicate your flawless skin and lovely eyes. I am only one male and there are gangs that search for exotics. If they set on us all at once, I don’t know that I could protect you.” He lifted his chin. “I would die trying, of course. But that would be of little comfort to you if they killed me and took you away to a stripping shed.”
“A stripping shed?” That sounded bad to Lauren.
“A laboratory where candidates with good or unusual DNA are rendered into their component parts for maximum cloning potential.”
Lauren felt sick. “So they kill you and cut you into little pieces?”
Xairn nodded. “Essentially. But that’s only in the splicing district. Not here in the main part of O’ah.”
“But how do you know this…this splicer person you’re looking for won’t want to do the same thing?” Lauren demanded. “How do you know he won’t just kill me and strip me down for parts like a stolen car?” She shivered at the thought.
“Because the DNA specialist I am searching for is one I have had dealings with before. His name is Vrr and he will not betray me.” Xairn reached out one large hand awkwardly as though he wanted to comfort her somehow.
Lauren leaned toward him— after hearing about the grisly things they did on this planet she needed all the comfort she could get. “Xairn,” she whispered.
His long fingers almost brushed her cheek, but then he drew back without touching her. His hand flexed into a fist at his side. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, Lauren,” he said in a low voice. “Planning it. I’ve wanted to get away from my father almost my entire life. This is the only way to get away from him forever—for either one of us. Only by changing our DNA will we make it impossible for him to lock onto either of us with the molecular transfer beam.”
Lauren shivered. “Was that the way he kidnapped me in the first place?” She well remembered the way it had felt to be turned into a million tiny pieces and sent flying through the air. It was not a pleasant sensation at all.
Xairn nodded. “We have to alter ourselves enough so that he can never transport either of us again.”
“And you can do that?”
“The alteration house can. I built the beam for my father—I know exactly which sequences have to be altered in order to make us untraceable and untransportable.”
She sighed. If Xairn really had been planning his escape for as long as he said, then he must know what he was doing. “All right,” she said at last. “I told you before that I trusted you, Xairn, and I still do. But please…don’t take too long.”
“No more than one of your Earth standard days,” he promised, nodding. “Two at the very most.”
That had been three days ago…
Lauren frowned moodily and looked out the front viewscreen at the busy alien marketplace. Though she didn’t want to admit it to herself, it wasn’t boredom that was really bothering her.
It was fear.
What if something happened to him? What if he’s dead or hurt somewhere with no one to help him? What if he never comes back?
She tried to push the troubling questions to the back of her mind, but she could no longer manage it. Xairn was gone and she was all alone on an alien planet a hundred light-years from home.
What was she going to do?
There was plenty of food, at least. The Kindred ship was stocked with tiny food cubes which expanded into a full sized meal when they were put in the rehydrator. Xairn had showed her how to work the microwave-like machine before he left and Lauren estimated there were hundreds of the sugar-cube sized meals stored neatly in a cabinet at the back of the ship.
True, some of them were pretty strange—she’d rehydrated one that contained what looked like a writhing nest of worms. Lauren had thrown it away—she didn’t like to waste food but there was no way she was eating anything alive. Just thinking of it made her feel queasy. But the other meals seemed edible enough and the portions were so large she could often eat an entire day off a single cube—probably because they were intended for huge Kindred warriors and not Earth females.
“So at least I won’t starve to death,” she muttered, staring out the viewscreen some more. She wished Xairn had parked a little closer to the entrance of the alley. The light in O’ah was a dim, dusky violet that never got much brighter than twilight on Earth. She could make out shapes in the weak, purplish light, but it was hard to tell for sure what the alien inhabitants of the city looked like. Lauren wondered if they were humanoid at all or something completely different—huge insects maybe. Or amphibians or reptile-like creatures with claws or beaks or—
“Stop it Lauren,” she told herself firmly. “You’re just giving yourself the heebie-jeebies. So just stop right n—”
Before she could finish the sentence something hopped right in front of the viewscreen. Lauren let out a startled squeak and nearly fell backwards off the black leather seat she was sitting on. “What the—?”
There it was again. The thing hopped up, obviously trying to get her attention on purpose. With one more hop, it finally managed to scramble onto the nose section of the silver Kindred ship. Then it stood up and waved its hands in the air … only they were more like…
“Paws,” Lauren murmured to herself. She pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart was beating like a drum because she’d been certain at first that she was being attacked. But now she wasn’t so sure.
The alien hopping and waving in front of the viewscreen didn’t look the least bit menacing. In fact what he looked like was a very large…
“Bunny rabbit.” Lauren finished the thought aloud. “Oh my God, he’s the spitting image of Mr. Kittles!”
Mr. Kittles had been the brown and white lop-eared bunny her mom had bought her for her twelfth birthday. He’d been Lauren’s favorite pet and had slept in her bed every night. Extremely intelligent for a bunny, Mr. Kittles had learned to use a litter box just like a cat and had begged for carrots on his hind legs like a dog. Lauren had been heartbroken when he’d gotten out of the house and been run over by a careless driver in a huge SUV when she was seventeen. And now, here he was again—almost ten years later and a hundred thousand light-years away … how was it possible?
“Well, he’s not exactly like Mr. Kittles,” Lauren murmured doubtfully. Which was true. For one thing, Mr. Kittles had never worn clothes and this bunny—or the alien who looked like a bunny—was. His short, furry frame was draped in a shimmering purple cape and he wore soft brown boots on his hind feet. He was still waving frantically as though he wanted her to let him inside.
Lauren was tempted to do just that from sheer boredom but she remembered Xairn’s warning and decided against it. “Sorry, little fellah,” she said, watching the caped and booted bunny hop around like crazy. “No can do. No matter how cute you look, you might be bad news and I can’t take the risk.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than an earsplitting roar shook the ship. Lauren had the speakers on the viewscreen turned down but even so, she covered her ears and winced. What the hell was that?
The answer wasn’t long in coming. Suddenly the narrow entrance to the alley was filled with an enormous red reptilian face. It had fierce white eyes outlined in black and a square snout, reminding Lauren of the stylized paper dragons that a
ppeared around the Chinese New Year.
The bunny rabbit’s huge brown eyes suddenly widened with fear and it hopped up and down even more frantically. Its whiskers trembled and it seemed to be mouthing a plea at the viewscreen.
The dragon-like creature saw it and roared again, its jaws gaping open to reveal rows and rows of jagged pale blue teeth. It was a tight squeeze but it began pushing its massive head into the alley. A forked tongue licked out of its mouth and slithered over the rabbit’s right boot before cinching tight. With a jerk of its head, the dragon lifted the terrified rabbit into the air and for a moment it seemed certain that it was going to eat the helpless little creature right before Lauren’s horrified eyes.
Then, at the last minute, the boot came off and the rabbit fell back onto the Kindred ship with a hollow thump. The scrap of brown leather disappeared into the dragon’s gaping maw and it roared angrily when it found its prey had eluded it. The tongue snaked out again…
But by then Lauren had already slapped a palm over the door release mechanism and was beckoning for the frightened rabbit-thing to come in. “Hurry!” she urged, waving at it. “Come on—get in here quick!”
She had no idea if the rabbit could understand her or not but it seemed to comprehend her gestures. Barely eluding the seeking tongue again, it slid across the slick silver surface of the Kindred ship and right into her arms.
Lauren pulled it tight to her chest and slammed the door just as the forked black tongue was curling toward her. The very tip of one fork caught in the ship’s door and was amputated in a gout of slimy black blood as the silver panel shut. It fell to the floor with a wet smack and lay twitching at Lauren’s feet like a snake that has been cut in half but doesn’t have the sense to die.
Brides of the Kindred Volume One: Books 1-4 Page 128
