Pairing with the Protector: A Kindred Tales Novel (Brides of the Kindred)

by Evangeline Anderson

  “And so I do! A couple of new exotic tweedles.” There was a note of pride and suppressed excitement in the mother alien’s voice. “But I can’t show them to you just now—they’re a surprise.”

  Which was doubtless why she had their wire cages draped with thick blue cloths, much to Rafe’s disgust and irritation. He had hoped to get a good view of the Tusker city as they were carried through its streets—an idea of where to go when they escaped. Instead, he could only catch glimpses here and there through the small tear in the cloth he had found but failed to widen, since the fabric was incredibly tough.

  There were snatches of giant walking feet, sidewalks as broad as entire highways back on Earth, and buildings so tall and vast even one of them would have encompassed several city blocks back home. But he couldn’t see enough to mark a way through the giant city or find a safe way to get back to the forest.

  “Don’t bother,” Dood said, as Rafe stood swaying at the bars, trying to catch glimpses of the outside world as the cage jolted alarmingly with every one of Mama Tusker’s rolling steps.

  Rafe turned to face him.

  “Don’t bother to try and escape, you mean?” he sneered at the other male. “Just because you are too cowardly to make the attempt—”

  “Hey, I made an attempt—I tried, all right?” Dood snapped, glowering at him from his seat in the corner. “But I’m telling you, trying to escape in the middle of the Tusker city is suicide, plain and simple. You’d never even find your way out of the building they hold the show in. And even if you did, it’s so far back to the forest where you say you parked your ship, you could spend a lifetime getting back to it.”

  Rafe glared at him stubbornly.

  “If I see a chance, I’m going to take it.”

  Dood shrugged and flipped his hair over one shoulder.

  “Hey man—if that’s your thing, go for it. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Rafe could have done without his warning—it only served to remind him that he didn’t know where they were and Whitney was separated from him. His first order of business if he could get out of this cage was to find her, of course. But then what? Maybe they could stow away in one of the Tusker’s luggage and in so doing, find a vehicle going somewhere near the forest where they had left the ship.

  But even if they were so lucky as to be deposited in the immediate vicinity of the ship, Rafe still didn’t know how to get them home. He knew that Whitney wanted to try using the rogue worm hole that had brought them here, but he also knew the odds of it leading back to where they had come from were slim to none. They might live out their lives, wandering lost through the vast emptiness of space, and never get back to the Mother Ship and Earth again.

  Not that he would mind spending the rest of his life wandering with Whitney, but he knew her well enough to know that she would mind—dreadfully. She was a gregarious female with friends and family she loved and she would miss them all sadly.

  Somehow he had to get her home—to get both of them home.

  But how?

  As he considered the problem, he watched through the tear in the blue cage covering and saw the scene shifting outside the bars. He caught glimpses of a fine marble floor and then a high, frescoed ceiling. There were pieces of enormous red and black velvet furniture scattered around with Tuskers lounging on them and talking or drinking some kind of fizzy blue drink with green bubbles floating on top.

  The whole scene reminded him of an expensive hotel lobby—was that where the tweedle show was being held?

  They stepped into a kind of box with mirrored glass walls and he was able to see—to his relief—that Mama was still holding the cage containing Whitney in her other hand. He couldn’t see into the cage, which was covered with a blue cloth like his own, but he hoped that Whitney was all right and just biding her time as he was.

  Surely these cages will be easier to get out of than the ones back at the Tusker’s dome, he thought hopefully. If only the mother alien would place them close together so he and Whitney could get away without a problem…

  The mirrored glass box shifted and began to move—first up and then sideways and then up again and then down for a few feet until it came to a stop. The doors slid open and Mama Tusker stepped out, murmuring to herself.

  “All right now, room 313…room 313, now where is it?”

  At last, after a long, swaying journey down a richly carpeted hallway, they came to a stop in front of a new door—this one as tall as a ten or twelve-story building, Rafe estimated.

  Mama Tusker used her trunk to do something Rafe couldn’t see to the door and it popped open, revealing a new room, much smaller than the endless hall they had just traversed.

  “Ah, home-sweet-home—at least until after the show, anyway my darlings,” the mother alien announced brightly. “Now let me just set the four of you down on the desk and I can get changed for the opening ceremonies.”

  She plunked both cages down and then stumped away, humming tunelessly to herself in a voice that sounded like rocks tumbling in a riverbed. But Rafe was too distracted by what he saw through the small tear in his cage cover to pay attention to the assault on his ears.

  There, sitting directly across from his cage, was one of the information centers with its vast movie screen-sized monitors and the six-sided cube of a keyboard, whose characters he now understood perfectly.

  A source of information was at hand and with it, the power to find their way home.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Whitney sighed and took another bite of the boringly bland orange stick which Mama Tusker had put in the travel cages for her and Beauty to nibble on. It was the size of a good-sized tree branch and tasted a little like a carrot—only less sweet and with a somewhat woody texture. Honestly, did the Tusker woman ever giver her pets anything tasty to eat? Whitney would have killed for anything with some spice to it—she’d been placed on what was basically a bland, raw vegan diet without her consent and it was miserable.

  Suddenly she heard Mama Tusker stumping around again and then the cloths were taken off the cages. Though part of the cages were some kind of opaque plastic material, the front was bars and she was able to see out at last.

  “All right, my dears,” Mama said, addressing all of them. She was wearing a new gold dress which encompassed enough fabric to make the sail of a ship—a big one, Whitney thought. But then again, when you were a giant, you had giant clothes—it stood to reason. “I’m off to the opening ceremonies now,” Mama told them. “You four be good and rest and I’ll be back in a little while to get you for the show.”

  She blew them a kiss through her trunk which almost knocked Whitney over and then tromped out the door, leaving them alone.

  “Whitney—are you well?” Rafe was standing at the front of his cage, looking at her anxiously.

  She nodded. “Just fine. How about you?”

  He nodded back. “Very well. This could be our chance. See if you can open your lock and I’ll do the same.”

  “All right.” Whitney moved to the door of the travel cage and reached around the bars, feeling for the locking mechanism. It seemed for a moment as though it would move but it seemed to be jammed somehow—or maybe it was just still locked. For whatever reason, however she worked it, the damn thing wouldn’t open.

  Wish I had a bobby pin like they use to pick locks in movies, Whitney thought. Then again, to fit this particular lock, the bobby pin would have had to be three feet long and might have been hard to handle.

  “Can’t you get out?” Rafe was suddenly in front of her door, frowning. “Let me try. I’ll get you free and then we can use the information center to see if we can find any star charts of this galaxy.” He nodded at the huge computer looking thing with its weird, six-sided mouse cube beside them on the desk.

  “Okay—good idea.” Whitney nodded and watched him anxiously. The big Kindred worked on her lock intently, his jaw clenched and his brow furrowed in concentration. Unfortunately, it didn’t so muc
h as budge.

  “Goddess damn it!” Rafe swore angrily.

  “You’re wasting time,” Whitney said urgently. “Who knows when Mama Tusker will be back? Go see what you can get from the computer thingy—this could be our only chance.”

  “You’re right.” Rafe gave her a brief nod. “I’ll come back as soon as I learn what I need to know.”

  “Okay.” Whitney watched as he ran across the vast broad desktop—like a huge barren plain she thought—towards the towering structure of the computer monitor. The six-sided cube mouse was as tall as Rafe and twice as broad—how would he use it?

  As it turned out, he managed fairly well by punching in the symbols he needed and then turning the cube carefully to punch in more. Even so, it took him almost an hour, Whitney estimated, to get anything resembling information to appear on the vast monitor.

  She frowned as she tried to make sense out of the alien words that scrolled across the black screen. It was like the beginning of a Star Wars movie if the scrolling words at the start were in a whole other language, she thought. She had learned a lot from Yancy the day before, but the article Rafe had found appeared to contain a lot of technical jargon she didn’t understand. Still, she kept trying to read it until they heard the sound of a key in the door.

  “She’s back—she’s back,” Whitney hissed at Rafe. “Quick—get back to your cage—go!”

  The big Kindred paused only a second—long enough to push the button on the cube-keyboard which blanked the entire screen. Then he raced back to the cage where Dood was waiting with a skeptical look on his face. Clearly he still thought they were idiots for wanting to escape from the show.

  Not that we’re going to at this rate, Whitney thought dismally. Why couldn’t we both have a loose lock? We could have been hiding under the bed or squeezed under the door by now!

  Again, her Grannie Washington’s saying about beggars and wishes and horses popped into her mind.

  We’ll get another chance, Whitney told herself, trying to believe it. We have to!

  Rafe got into his cage and closed the door just in time. A second later, Mama Tusker was entering the room, humming to herself as she came.

  “Well now, that was a lovely opening ceremony and now it’s time for the show! Who’s hungry?” she added, bending down to look at Beauty and Whitney especially. “You can’t go to the show on an empty stomach, my dears!”

  Pulling out a container which looked small in her seven-fingered hands but which was actually the size of a good-sized coffin, she took something out of it and pushed it through the bars of the cage.

  “Eat that,” she told Beauty and Whitney. “And you’ll be all ready for the show!”

  Beauty ran forward at once, her pert nose sniffing the air like a cat smelling a scent it likes. Whitney was a bit more skeptical, thinking it was probably just more giant veggie sticks. But when she caught a whiff of what Mama Tusker had given them, she grew considerably more interested.

  The scent rising to her nose was sweet and spicy at the same time—like cinnamon and Siracha mixed together. It should have been an awful combination but somehow it wasn’t and the smell drew Whitney to its source.

  Lying on the floor of the cage were several round things about the size of basketballs. They were bright green and spotted all over with vivid scarlet dots, giving them a festive air.

  “What are these—edible Christmas ornaments?” Whitney muttered to herself.

  Beauty had already picked one up and was holding it with both hands while she demolished it in tiny, neat bites. Though Whitney had never seen the tweedle girl do more than nibble at the other food Mama Tusker gave them, she was tearing into this new offering like she couldn’t get enough. In fact, one half of the basketball sized fruit in her hands was already gone.

  “Goodness—where do you put it?” Whitney asked her, eyeing the other girl’s slim figure. “That must really be good—mind if I try one?”

  The tweedle girl didn’t answer. In fact, she didn’t even look up—she was clearly too engrossed in her eating to be distracted. Shrugging, Whitney picked up one of the green and red spotted fruits herself. She had expected it might be heavy—it looked a little like a watermelon, except for the weird red spots. But it was surprisingly light in her hands and when she bit into it she found that it was crunchy rather than moist.

  The taste that invaded her mouth was a little like honey roasted nuts with some cayenne pepper sprinkled over them to cut the sweetness. The sweet and spicy flavor filling her mouth took her by surprise. It was really delicious—a wonderful break from the usual bland giant veggies.

  “Wow, this is good!” Whitney mumbled through a mouthful. “We should go to the show more often if we get special food like this!”

  Beauty didn’t answer, only kept eating steadily. And indeed, Whitney found that was all she wanted to do as well. Even after her stomach told her she was full, she kept on. Somehow the spicy, sweet, nutty crunch of the basketball thing in her hands compelled her to keep eating it until almost all of it was gone. She felt almost like she was in a trance—one that she didn’t really want broken, until Mama Tusker said,

  “Now that’s enough my dears. Don’t make yourselves sick.”

  At the interruption, Whitney found she was able to stop eating and put down the weird nut-fruit at last.

  “Ugh!” she exclaimed, leaning back against the wall of the cage at last. “Why did I do that? I’m so full.”

  Beauty, of course, gave no answer but she was also lying quietly in one corner with a hand pressed to her over-full belly.

  Whitney wondered how in the world either one of them would be ready for any kind of a show after eating such a large and filling meal. She only hoped it wouldn’t be like a dog show where the owners had to put their pets on leashes and make them run all around for the judges to watch. She was sure that if anyone tried to make her run right now she was going to puke all over them so Mama Tusker had better beware!

  “Good,” Mama said from outside her cage. “Now you two just rest quietly for a while and let that take effect. I’m going to freshen up a bit and we’ll go to the show.”

  Whitney frowned to herself. What does she mean by “take effect?” Does she mean the food? And what kind of effect is she talking about?

  Before she could mull Mama Tusker’s words over any further, she heard a familiar voice.

  “Whitney!” a hissed whisper came from the other cage. “Whitney, can you hear me?”

  The sides of her cage were mostly solid but there was a kind of little barred window running along the top of it. Whitney stood with a groan and pushed her face to the bars. She didn’t feel like going all the way to the front of the cage—she was too damn full!

  Rafe was looking at her from the side of the other cage, an anxious look on his face. Mama Tusker was nowhere in sight but there was water splashing in the other room, so presumably she was in the bathroom—or whatever the Tuskers called it.

  “What is it?” she asked Rafe, keeping an eye on the corner to make sure Mama Tusker didn’t appear and catch them talking between cages.

  “I just wanted to tell you—Dood says that sometimes Mama Tusker gives the female tweedles a special food right before the show,” Rafe told her. “Whatever you do, don’t eat that food.”

  “What?” Whitney began to feel very uneasy.

  “Don’t eat it!” Rafe said again. “I would have warned you earlier but she was right here. Damn it, here she comes again!”

  He ducked down to the bottom of his own cage just as Mama Tusker came around the corner and Whitney did the same. But even as the giant Tusker hummed through her trunk and gathered the cages into her massive hands, Whitney was worried. She placed a hand to her full belly as they left the hotel room behind.

  What was in the “special food” Mama Tusker had given her and Beauty and what, if anything, would it do to her?

  Whitney had an uneasy feeling she was going to find out.

  Chapter Twenty-seven


  The show room was vast—as cavernous as an airline hangar, or maybe the Docking Bay aboard the Mother Ship, Rafe thought. It was filled with Tuskers—most of them female, all sitting on massive, solid-looking stools or standing around the edges of the auditorium.

  Mama Tusker marched proudly right down the middle of the crowd and the others made way for her—clearly she was a person of some importance in this community. She set their cages down in the middle of a long, raised table-like platform covered in a vast, white cloth and went around to stand behind them, as though waiting for the show to begin.

  The other Tuskers muttered in their sonorous, rumbling voices and leaned forward on their stools, trying to peer into the cages which lined the long platform. From what Rafe had seen, he estimated there were over two dozen cages, some with single tweedles and some with two or three or more in them.

  There was also a larger, empty cage in the center of the platform which reminded him ominously of the matching pen the alien mother had at her own domicile. Were he and Whitney going to be forced to “perform” again?

  If so, Rafe promised himself that their performance would be entirely faked. He had already broken his vows—both his professional one and his personal one—and he didn’t intend to break them again. He and the female he was only meant to protect—not to care for—were getting too close and the situation was too dangerous.

  He’d been in a situation like this before—with danger all around and a woman he cared for and would have given his life to save. And it had ended badly—so badly it had scarred his heart beyond repair.

  I won’t allow myself to feel that pain again, Rafe told himself grimly. Never again after Tenda. I won’t allow myself to form a bond with Whitney which will only be broken by death.

  Because after studying the star charts and reading the analysis of the leading Tusker scientists, which he had found after browsing on their information system for some time, he knew a terrible truth which he didn’t want to tell her.