On the way down from the Mother Ship, he had been planning to confront her. She was a little tease, he’d thought grimly. A female who had probably gone into the Puppet House on a dare or just for fun to catch some unsuspecting male unawares. He was going to give her a tongue-lashing she wouldn’t soon forget.
She hadn’t made it easy to find her—she’d given the wrong name which had led to a female relative of hers—the same one who had apparently been with her on the Mother Ship. One look at her artificially blonde hair and too-skinny body let him know it wasn’t Brandi and he didn’t even speak to the girl.
Slade had left but the bond he shared with Brandi let him know he wasn’t far off the mark. It drew him to her until he was close enough to follow his nose to her exact location.
But long before he got to her, he had begun getting her thoughts, loud and clear—as though she was broadcasting them right into his head. He listened in to her worries about him but also her feelings for her daughter, whom she loved with all her heart. Though he’d tried not to let it sway him, Slade couldn’t help softening towards her just for that.
She’s a good mother, he thought with grudging approval. And she seems to be a decent person. Maybe she didn’t have any malicious intentions when she came to the Puppet House.
But then…why had she come? Slade had to know. He had parked the Kindred shuttle he was flying—which turned into a land vehicle on Earth—outside a community of long, metal domiciles, many rusted or in bad condition. There was a verdant wilderness located on one boundary of it and the heat and humidity reminded him he was in a tropical climate. Slade was glad he’d traded the Kindred uniform shirt he’d been given for the lightweight cotton t-shirt, which the owner of the shop he had visited had informed him was an article of clothing many humans wore.
As he continued on foot, Slade had heard the roar of a combustion engine and then Brandi’s frantic thoughts when she realized her vehicle wasn’t working. She’d been worried because of something about her supervisor. Mr. Grabbit? Grabbem? Slade hadn’t quite gotten that part—he only knew that she was afraid being unable to get to work would be a bad thing.
Of course, his first instinct was to help her at once—but if he gave her a mode to get away, he was sure she would. He wanted to talk to her for a minute—at least learn her name.
That was when he’d gotten the biggest surprise—when her young one had jumped out of the rusted vehicle and launched herself at him. Slade had caught her out of instinct more than anything else but the minute the little girl had thrown her arms around his neck, Slade’s heart had melted. He didn’t even know her name—he’d heard Brandi calling her several names, “Emmie-bear,” and “sweetpea” among them—but the little girl had him wrapped around her little finger the moment she jumped in his arms.
Brandi, of course, was worried and upset about Emmie’s instant affection for a strange male—he picked up from her thoughts that her daughter never acted this way around strangers. Slade had always wished for young ones and he didn’t blame her for being protective of her daughter—it only raised her in his estimation. He also had no idea what to make of the little girl’s claim that she had dreamed of him. Could it be some kind of coincidence? But she’d acted like she knew him. It was very strange.
He had begun to feel confused as to his purpose. He still needed to confront Brandi but he could no longer feel as angry and upset as he had. He didn’t see her as a temptress anymore but as a single parent leading a hard and stressful life and doing the best she could to make a good life for her daughter. As to why she had done what she had in the Puppet House, he could still hear her words in his head.
“I just hadn’t had sex in three years and sometimes I just get so hungry to have a man touch me…”
Another little bit of the anger he’d carried like a burning torch down from the Mother Ship fizzled out. He understood the hunger for touch—for sexual love—who better than he? He’d been tormented for fucking years by the eroto-lust enhancer his old mistress had given him. And he had to admit, Brandi had helped cure him of that. No matter what the consequences, at least he wasn’t tormented by sexual desire anymore.
Except when he was close to Brandi.
Standing so near her, listening to her thoughts about how much she wanted him, hearing her heart pound, and smelling her sweet, feminine fragrance nearly did him in. He had been so close to kissing her again—to taking her behind a nearby tree, pulling down her panties and lapping her sweet pussy, as he hadn’t gotten to do during their first encounter.
Only the fact that her young daughter was watching and it would be completely inappropriate stopped him. Instead, he had let her go—though he really didn’t want to—with a promise to talk later.
But when is later? Slade asked himself. Should he give her a few days? A few weeks as a cooling off period?
Every instinct he had rebelled at the idea.
Now, whispered a dark, possessive voice in his head. I want to be with her now—she’s bonded to me which makes her MINE. We ought to be together!
Slade shook his head, trying to push the crazy, possessive thoughts away. They had bonded by accident, he reminded himself—and neither of them actually wanted to be bonded to the other. It would really be better to try and ignore the bond, rather than coming down here to confront her about it as he had.
I have to leave her alone, he told himself grimly. Go back and concentrate on my new life on the Mother Ship. He had been given a job in the mech-bay, fixing the fleet of ships and shuttles the Kindred maintained for getting around. It was work he enjoyed—he’d always been good with his hands, as he had told Brandi—and it paid well since much of it was technical.
Of course all Kindred were paid a living wage and had access to free health care—that was as it should be. But it was nice to have a job he was good at—even though he hadn’t been at it long.
I should get back to it now, Slade told himself. My shift starts in an hour. I’ll give Brandi some time and then maybe I’ll come back…or maybe I won’t. Maybe if we stay away from each other the bond will wither and die.
But that thought brought such a grim feeling of unease with it, that Slade had to pace back and forth in front of Brandi’s domicile several times before he could calm down.
As he walked back to his shuttle, he was more confused and had more questions than when he’d come from the Mother Ship in the first place. Part of him whispered that he should leave Brandi and her little girl alone but another, stronger instinct urged him to go find the two and hold them close—to protect them and guard them with his life.
Slade tried without success to push the strong emotions away. He told himself he had no claim on their little family. Brandi and her daughter were doing just fine without him. Well, if not exactly just fine, they were at least getting by.
But what if you got her pregnant? whispered a little voice in his head. What if she suddenly has another mouth to feed when you heard her thinking she can barely afford to clothe and feed herself and her daughter now? You need to provide for them, Slade—you need to protect them and care for them!
It was such an overwhelming urge that he had to force himself to fly back to the Mother Ship at once. Because he knew if he didn’t, he would seek Brandi out when clearly all she wanted was to be left alone.
Goddess, what a mess! He promised himself grimly that he wouldn’t ever bother her again.
It was a promise that lasted all of one entire day.
Chapter Eight
“Oh, Brandi! Well you came and you gave what I’m takin’—but I sent you away! Oh, Brandi…”
Mr. Grabbar’s singing was off-key and very flat. The first time he’d trotted out the old Manilow song in reference to her name, Brandi was new on the job and wanted her boss to like her. So she had laughed and pretended to think it was charming.
Big mistake.
Now Mr. Grabbar—Grabass, she thought resentfully—sang the song whenever he was in the mood to try something.
In fact, Brandi had begun to take it as a kind of musical warning—like the da-Dum, da-Dum music from Jaws. When she heard her boss butchering the old Vegas lounge favorite, she knew his wandering hands weren’t far behind…or far from her behind, since he seemed to have a special affinity for her ass.
“Oh, Brandi! It’ll be all the sweet love we’re makin’…”
Brandi gritted her teeth. He couldn’t even get the words right! But that didn’t stop him. Her boss seemed to genuinely believe he had a wonderful, sexy voice and he was wooing her in some way with his awful singing.
Mr. Grabbar’s performance reminded Brandi of those contestants on the old American Idol game show that remained absolutely convinced they had wonderful voices even after the judges told them they were terrible. Though of course, she had never had the nerve to tell her boss exactly how bad his singing was. She usually just smiled weakly and watched her back.
“Oh, Brandi!” Mr. Grabbar sang loudly. He had had his own office and hers was connected to it, so he felt free to sing as loud as he wanted—as well as to try and grab her whenever he pleased, since there was rarely anyone else around.
Brandi hated the office layout of the downtown branch of the Bank of Tampa. Maybe it was supposed to isolate and protect the bank manager in case robbers came in and demanded the codes to the safe or something but all it really did was keep herself and her boss out of sight of anyone else. Which gave him complete freedom to try all the nasty little tricks he wanted to.
“Oh Brandi, well I’ll eat all the muffins you’re bakin’ and I need some today!”
He was right behind her now, as she stood at his personal copy machine. Sometimes Brandi pretended it was out of toner just so she could go make copies at the communal machine in the main part of the bank. That way she wasn’t standing around unprotected.
Sure enough, a sly hand started to feel its way across her bottom.
“Mr. Grabbar!” She whirled around but then she was face to face with him, which was arguably much worse. Harold Grabbar was fifty, fat, and balding with terrible coffee breath. He looked not unlike a certain movie producer who had recently been in the news as a serial harasser and abuser of women.
Not that Brandi had anything against Plus-sized people—she was one herself, after all. And she didn’t care about age either. But her boss constantly rubbed her the wrong way—by literally rubbing her—as he had just now done.
“Oh Brandi…” he sang, blowing the smell of stale coffee and unbrushed teeth right in her face.
“Mr. Grabbar, please—I’m trying to make copies!”
“Just having a little fun, Brandi-darlin’. We do like to have fun around here, you and me—don’t we?” He winked expressively at her in a way that turned Brandi’s stomach.
“Excuse me,” she said, grabbing the fresh copies and stalking back to her desk. “I have work to do.”
“Now don’t be like that, Brandi.” To her dismay, her boss followed her into her office and sat on the corner of her desk. For some reason he seemed to be in an abnormally good mood—even more-so than usual, which worried Brandi.
What is he thinking? What is he going to try next?
Unfortunately with Harold Grabbar, she could never be sure—she only knew that whatever he came up with was sure to be nasty and some form of sexual harassment.
Look at me, she thought angrily as she pretended to ignore her boss and tapped determinedly at her computer. I was thinking to myself that the #MeToo movement had passed Crystal by but I let it pass me by too. Why don’t I march down to Human Resources and say something?
But she knew the reason to that. The corporate culture at Bank of Tampa could best be described as a “boys club” and as such, they weren’t exactly open to sexual harassment complaints. The president of the Bank, Leon Grouse, protected his branch managers fiercely and any complaints were swiftly dealt with in the form of firings or transfers to other, less-well paying positions.
Brandi simply needed this job too much to risk losing it. It paid better than most secretarial posts—probably, she now acknowledged—because whoever was in her position would have to put up with Mr. Grabbar’s wandering hands.
Ugh—she hated it when he touched her! And almost as bad was the way his piggy little eyes crawled all over her body, as though he had every right to ogle her. Most men at least tried not to stare at a woman’s breasts or ass but Mr. Grabbar’s eyes hardly ever made it up to her face, which was why he probably didn’t see the looks of disgust she couldn’t help giving him.
“I know something you don’t know,” he said in a sing-song voice, apparently speaking to her breasts, since that was where his eyes were directed.
Brandi sighed. She knew he wouldn’t go away unless she humored him.
“And what would that be?” she asked, just wanting to get it over with.
“Today is your first-year performance review!” He said it the same way he might have said, “Today is your birthday!”
Brandi stared at him, wide-eyed. Had she really been doing this miserable job for a whole year now? Apparently she had because Mr. Grabbar was beaming at her.
“Is it?” she finally managed to ask. “I mean, I didn’t even realize…I haven’t had time to prepare…”
“Oh, no, no, Brandi darlin’…” He shook his head. “No preparation necessary. It just means that after lunch today you and I will sit down together and take a look at your job performance. Your strengths…your weaknesses…areas you really need to improve on…”
He wiggled his eyebrows expressively and Brandi’s heart sank.
“Is my salary somehow tied to this?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“Oh my yes—I’m afraid it is. In fact, you can earn some very lucrative bonuses if you know what I mean.” He wiggled his eyebrows some more which made him look ridiculous and lecherous at the same time.
Dirty old man, Brandi thought angrily. But she felt helpless to do anything about her situation. She needed this job. It was the only way to keep Emmaline in the nice private pre-K she drove thirty minutes every morning to get to. Plus she paid half the bills on the double-wide and had to get food and clothes for herself and Emmie too. And health insurance kept going up…
I’m trapped, she thought angrily as she looked at her boss. I’m stuck here and that bastard knows it.
“We’ll revisit this right after lunch,” Mr. Grabbar promised, a greedy gleam in his eye. “In my office at one sharp, all right?”
“Sure. After lunch,” Brandi mumbled. “I’ll be there.”
But she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that followed her through the rest of the morning.
* * * * *
Slade was halfway through his shift at the Docking Bay when he started getting a bad feeling—a feeling that something was going wrong with Brandi, down on Earth.
At first he tried to ignore it.
You’re imagining things, he told himself as he worked to fix the landing mechanism on the shuttle he was repairing. She’s fine. She’s all the way down on Earth—there’s no way you could feel her emotions all the way up on the Mother Ship. Even the strongest bond-link has limits. There’s no possible way what you’re feeling is actually coming from Brandi.
But the feeling grew and grew, like an itch he couldn’t scratch until at last he couldn’t stand it anymore. Turning off the cadmium torch he’d been using to solder a tricky bit of wiring, he went to find his supervisor—Commander Raik, a Beast Kindred who had been on the Mother Ship for years.
“Commander…” Slade had cleared his throat, unsure how to broach the subject.
“Yes, Slade?” Raik’s molten gold eyes, very like Slade’s own right eye, were fixed on him, waiting to hear what the problem was.
“Commander, I know my shift isn’t finished and I’m fucking sorry about that but I have to go,” Slade said in a rush.
“Oh?” Raik frowned. “What’s the problem?”
“My…my mate…” Slade didn’t know wha
t else to call her. They were bonded, after all so it was technically accurate. “She…I think she’s in trouble. I can’t be sure because she’s all the way down on Earth but I feel that she is.”
“Ah yes…your mate.” Commander Raik frowned. “I had…heard a bit about that.” He cleared his throat. “Bonded by accident, were you?”
Slade clenched his jaw. He’d had an idea that there were some stories floating around the Mother Ship about how he’d gotten accidentally bonded to Brandi. Most of that was his fault, though. He’d been upset about what had happened and the fact that he couldn’t find her and had made a complaint about the running of the Pairing House. Unfortunately, word had gotten around.
“We were,” he said shortly. “But I still feel responsible for her and I feel very strongly that something is wrong. I need to leave and go look after her.”
“Very well. A male must take care of his mate.” Raik frowned. “But in the future, Slade, you might think about moving her up here to the Mother Ship. You could be assured of her safety much more easily that way.”
“Understood,” Slade said neutrally. There was no way he was going to explain that Brandi didn’t want anything to do with him so the possibility of getting her to agree to move to the Mother Ship was basically zero.
“Be here for your next shift,” Raik said. “Now go take care of your mate.”
“Thank you,” Slade said.
As he walked to his shuttle, the feeling of wrongness grew stronger and stronger and Slade walked faster and faster. Soon he was running.
Whatever was happening to Brandi it was bad and he had to get there in time to stop it—he had to.
Chapter Nine
“Now, let’s start with the obvious things.” Mr. Grabbar was sitting at his desk with his hands folded, an open copy of Brandi’s file and an annual performance review form in front of him.
Brandi was sitting on a hard wooden chair across from him, twisting her fingers in her lap. She knew she was a good worker but there were just enough incidents—a few tardies when the ancient Chevy broke down and that stupid stunt Crystal had pulled, giving out her work email and causing her to get suggestive spam—that could definitely be counted against her.
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