Taming Two Warriors: A Kindred Tales PLUS length Novel

by Evangeline Anderson

  “It’s the perfect camouflage,” Liosh admitted.

  Vorn grinned.

  “Thanks, Brother. I’ve been perfecting it for some time. I was going to introduce it to the High Council after I did a final test for effectiveness.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Guess this is a pretty extreme test, but it ought to prove the image projector works.”

  “It certainly should,” Liosh agreed.

  “Well, we’re ready to go.” Vorn nodded in apparent satisfaction. “Were you able to isolate the emissions trail of the ship that took our females?” he asked.

  “I was,” Liosh said. “They led directly to the largest structure on Varia—a massive dome called The Breeding Forum.”

  “What?” Vorn frowned. “What in the Seven Hells is that?”

  “Apparently every twenty cycles the Varians perform a kind of sexual ritual in order to fertilize their eggs,” Liosh said. He had been researching the alien race as Vorn piloted. “And this is one of the years they do it—it’s called “The Festival of Fertilization.”

  “But why would they take Jodi and Melli there?” Vorn asked, his frown deepening. “What do they have to do with those damn Varians’ breeding rituals?”

  “I don’t know.” Liosh shook his head. “But from what I could gather, I think they were using the T’lix Kruthe as a central part of the festival.”

  “That still doesn’t tell us what they want with our females,” Vorn growled. “If they lay one scaly finger on them…”

  “I don’t think they would be interested in Jodi or Melli sexually,” Liosh said, hoping his research proved to be true. “From what I’ve read, they consider the idea of breeding with a non-Varian species to be anathema—it is abhorrent to them—an utter abomination.”

  “Well, that’s good at least,” Vorn said gruffly. “But that still doesn’t answer the question—what in the world do they want them for?”

  Liosh shook his head.

  “I think we’ll just have to go down and find out ourselves.”

  “Agreed.” Vorn sighed. “Let’s go—I’m going to land us in stealth mode and we’ll get in and out with the girls as fast as possible.”

  “From your mouth to the Goddess’ ear,” Liosh murmured. “Come on, Brother—let’s go.”

  Forty-Two

  Jodi’s legs shook as she climbed the stairs to the tall stage she was going to be killed on.

  Not just killed—bled to death, whispered an ominous little voice in her head. They’re going to whip you until you bleed out, Jodi. How’s that for a fun way to end your life?

  Shut up, she told the little voice fiercely. I don’t want to think about it.

  But of course, it was all she could think about. That and the fact that she had left Melli behind her, weeping in a cage made of metal bars where she was apparently going to be forced to watch the spectacle.

  Jodi had begged that her little sister be spared the sight of her death but the Varian female—who, it turned out, was their High Priestess of Fertility—said sternly,

  “Your sister had been spared the Sacrifice of Blood, which you willingly took upon yourself, but she must witness your death in order that she may bring the word back to your people. They must not be allowed to think that they can steal from the Varian people with impunity.”

  So Melli had been locked in a cage at the back of the vast auditorium while Jodi was being marched up the stairs to the tall, round stage in the middle. Her little sister had clung to Jodi and cried at the end so pitifully that Jodi had found she couldn’t help crying herself. At last, though, she had unwound her sister’s arms from around her neck and let the guards take her to her fate.

  After all, there was no point delaying the inevitable.

  Already the vast auditorium was filling with Varians—both male and female. Most of them seemed to be dressed in ritual costumes of red and white for the females and red and green for the males. They looked strangely Christmassy to Jodi as they thronged around the stage.

  They were a surprisingly silent crowd and she didn’t hear much of their hissing language. They seemed to be waiting for something.

  Which is probably for you to be whipped so they can translate your pain energy into erotic energy and start getting it on, the helpful little voice in Jodi’s head pointed out.

  Gee, thanks, little voice—just what she needed to hear.

  At last Jodi and her guards reached the top of the extremely tall stage. She estimated she was at least fifty feet above the milling crowd below—her only hope was that she was so far up that Melli wouldn’t be able to see her being tortured. The stage itself was circular and about twenty feet in circumference, so at least she didn’t have to fear falling off.

  Not that it looked like she was going to get to move from the middle of the stage, Jodi thought as the guards nudged her towards the center.

  Hanging from the ceiling, was a long, heavy chain that looked like it would be strong enough to support a truly massive chandelier. Instead, there was a large hook attached to its end, which dangled about three feet above Jodi’s head.

  “Here,” one of the guards hissed and lifted her hands, which were bound in front of her with rope, to hook them over the curving hook. This stretched Jodi’s arms high above her head, making her feel utterly vulnerable.

  “It wasss conssiderate of you to dresss in the color of breeding,” the other guard remarked to her.

  Jodi looked down at herself. She was still wearing the outfit she’d had on to greet James—a nice black pencil skirt and a red button-down silk shirt which was now stretched taut over her breasts. She had on thigh-high hose under the skirt and black heels completed the outfit.

  He must mean the red shirt she had when he referred to “the color of breeding” since all the female Varians were also wearing red. They also had their tails unwrapped, Jodi noticed distractedly. Was that a sex thing here? Was wearing a naked tale like baring your breasts or pussy for an Earth female?

  Whatever the case, she was at least glad that the Varian guards didn’t strip her. She was standing here, feeling horribly vulnerable and afraid and about to be whipped to death, but at least she wasn’t naked in front of all these people.

  She had often had fantasies of being paraded nearly-nude by her Master through a crowd, but those were sexual desires and despite what the Varians seemed to think about Blood and Lust being interchangeable, there was nothing even remotely arousing about the situation she found herself in now.

  “Now, we leave you,” one of the guards told her. “Soon the Master of Whipsss will come and your Ssacrifice will commence.”

  Jodi didn’t know what to say to that so she just stood there silent and tried to close her eyes and take herself away. But a strange music was coming from the crowd that surrounded the stage now—a low, thrumming, humming sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

  Opening her eyes, Jodi saw a strange sight—the male Varians in the crowd had large red chin pouches that were rhythmically inflating in time to the thrumming. No—they were actually making the humming sound, Jodi realized. They were puffing their scarlet chin pouches out like some kind of signal to the females as they hummed and thrummed.

  In turn, the females were turning their backs and lifting their tails. Under each tail was an orifice which seemed to iris open for just a moment to show a flash of white. Then the white thing would disappear and the opening beneath the tail would iris shut again.

  Jodi squinted, trying to make out these strange details from high on the stage. There were lizards who lived in Florida who had those same kind of chin pouches, she remembered. When they inflated them, the pouches were almost the exact same size and shape as a penny. So she and Melli had called it “showing their money” when they saw the male lizards inflating their pouches. Was that what the male Varians were doing now—showing their money to get the females aroused? Was it some kind of mating signal?

  And what about the females and their behavior? Were those
white flashes beneath their tails the eggs that needed to be fertilized? Maybe they needed the male’s seed on the egg before they could lay it and be sure it contained a viable embryo.

  It was actually a fascinating mating pattern and the academic in her would have loved to study it more closely. But her intellectual curiosity was abruptly nipped in the bud by the sight of someone new ascending the stage.

  It was a huge Varian—as big as any Kindred warrior she had ever seen—and he was stripped to the waist. His scaly hide rippled with muscles which just looked wrong to Jodi—it was like watching an alligator who had gotten into body-building. Weird.

  He was followed by the High Priestess of Fertility who raised her arms above her head in a gesture for quiet.

  At once the thrumming-humming fell silent and all the yellow, lizard-like eyes of the crowd raised to rest on the priestess.

  “My people,” she called, her hissing voice filling the vast auditorium. “Let the Festival of Fertility begin!”

  Forty-Three

  Melli couldn’t seem to stop crying. The Varian guards had taken Jodi away and led her up to the tall stage-like platform in the center of the auditorium. Now her big sister was standing there, chained to a hook, completely helpless and waiting to be killed.

  She almost wished she couldn’t understand the Varians’ hissing language so she didn’t know what was coming next. But Liosh had offered her some of the Kindred translation bacteria which enabled the taker to understand almost any language and Melli had accepted, thinking it would be fun to understand all the languages around her without having to work to learn them. She was pretty sure Vorn had given some to Jodi as well. Never had she imagined she would be using the bacteria this way, though. This was awful.

  I can’t stand this, Melli thought. If Jodi dies, I want to die, too! I don’t want to live in a world without my big sister in it!

  Jodi had always been there for her—protecting her, taking her to therapy after the awful night with Jason Sykes, putting Melli back together piece by piece when she felt like she was falling apart. How could she bear to lose her? What would she do without her?

  Suddenly one of the Varian guards—an extremely tall one—came closer to the metal bars of her cage.

  “Melinda,” he murmured. “Melinda, can you hear me?”

  Melli looked up at him and frowned. His voice was oddly familiar but he looked the same as any of the other Varian guards—well, except for being much larger than most of them.

  “What do you want?” she asked, sniffing. “Who are you and how do you know my name?”

  “It’s me, Talli—it’s Liosh,” the guard murmured. “Vorn and I are here in disguise.”

  Another extremely large guard nodded at her as though to corroborate the first guard’s statement and Melli realized it must be the big Beast Kindred.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked in his low, growling voice. “Why is Jodi chained up in the center of that platform?”

  “Because she volunteered to be the…the sacrifice.” Melli could barely get the words out. “The Sacrifice of Blood, the Varians call it. They say it’s the only way they can mate and fertilize their eggs and since we stole the T’lix Kruthe, we have to be the ones to pay for it and make it so they can breed. Only Jodi asked them to let her be the only one and send me home. But I don’t want to go home without her!” she ended in a sob.

  “You won’t,” Vorn swore. “Liosh and I have come to get you both and bring you home with us.”

  “But how, Brother?” Liosh objected. “It will be easy enough to steal Melinda away—I can bend these bars and have her back to the ship before anyone is the wiser. But every eye in this place is on that stage where Jodi is being held. How will you get to her, let alone bring her down unharmed with thousands of Varians in the way?”

  “I’m thinking,” Vorn growled. He looked at Melli and she thought she saw a flash of gold behind the slitted yellow lizard eyes of his disguise. “Tell me again, exactly what’s going on. Why do they think Jodi is a good substitute for the T’lix Kruthe?”

  Rapidly, Melli explained exactly what the High Priestess of Fertility had told them about the ancient artifact generating the necessary erotic energy to help the Varians breed and how they planned to use Jodi’s blood and pain as a substitute, though they really didn’t want to.

  Vorn nodded at last, in understanding.

  “So they’re looking for sexual energy, huh?” he muttered. “Well, I think we can manage that.”

  Liosh frowned at him.

  “Brother, what are you planning?”

  Vorn shook his head.

  “Never mind. Just get Melli out of here and back to the ship. If everything goes well, Jodi and I will join you soon. If not, well…” He shook his head. “Give us a couple of hours and if we haven’t come, assume we aren’t going to and go back to the Mother Ship without us.”

  “What?” Liosh exclaimed. “You can’t expect us to just leave you.”

  “Hopefully you won’t have to,” Vorn told him. “Now get Melli out of that cage and go back to the ship. I’ll see you later if the Goddess wills it.”

  Melli couldn’t stay quiet any longer.

  “But Vorn, what are you going to do?” she asked.

  His eyes gleamed gold again.

  “I’m going to rescue my female or die trying. Now go!”

  Forty-Four

  Jodi tried to brace herself as the huge, muscular Varian uncoiled a long, wicked-looking whip and swished it through the air like an evil black snake. She tried not to flinch as it whispered past her ear, snapping and cracking in a way that made her want to cringe and try to make herself as small as possible.

  Take yourself away, she thought desperately, closing her eyes as tight as she could. Take yourself away and don’t look, don’t feel, don’t be here. Be somewhere else—think of something else—anything else.

  But that was easier said than done, especially when the Varians were making their strange thrumming-hum again and the whip was whistling all around her, as the Varian Master of Whips got ready to flay the skin right off her back. She wondered distractedly how much it was going to hurt. And how much would she have to bleed before she went unconscious and didn’t have to feel it anymore? How much…

  “The Ssacrifice of Blood will now commence,” the Priestess of Fertility announced and the thrumming-humming grew louder. “Prepare to accept and transmit the energy which will be generated. Prepare to fertilize your eggsss,” she hissed. “Master of Whipsss—you may make the first blow.”

  Jodi heard the whip whistle again and squeezed her whole body tight.

  Here it comes, she thought, her heart pounding so hard she felt faint. Here it comes, here it comes, here it—

  “Stop!” The deep, roaring voice was oddly familiar.

  Jodi’s eyes flew open and she twisted around to see that the huge Varian with the whip was frozen in place. His seven-fingered hand was being held in the grip of an even larger Varian, who had clearly kept him from landing the first blow and was even now holding him back from wielding the whip.

  “Who are you?” the High Priestess demanded, glaring at him. “How dare you interrupt our Festival of Fertility?”

  “I’m only interrupting because I have a better option for you,” the new Varian told her. “A way to raise the erotic energy you need through Lust instead of Blood.”

  Her slitted lizard eyes narrowed.

  “Lust instead of Blood? But how?”

  “How else?” the new male said. “By breeding.”

  The Priestess made a hiss of pure disgust.

  “Do you propose to breed the warm-blooded female yourself? You know such an idea is blasphemy!”

  “Only if I was really a Varian.” And then he pulled something off his head and to Jodi’s shock, the huge guard disappeared and Vorn was standing there in his place.

  The Priestess looked shocked too. Her yellow slitted eyes widened and she stared in surprise at the Beast Kindred. />
  “Who are you?” she demanded, glaring at him as she finally recovered her composure. “And how dare you infiltrate our ceremony?”

  “I’m Vorn of the Beast Kindred and I’m here to Claim my female,” Vorn growled. “But first, we’re going to make this the most fertile fucking Fertility Festival you’ve ever had.”

  “What are you saying, warm-blooder?” the Priestess asked. “Are you offering us Lust in place of Blood?”

  “Exactly.” Vorn’s eyes flashed liquid gold. “I’m going to breed my female here and now on the stage tonight and generate enough erotic energy for your people to fertilize every damn egg on the whole fucking planet. And believe me—we can do it. My female and I are used to making a lot of heat between us.”

  The Priestess seemed to consider his offer.

  “Well…Lust is preferable to Blood. Eggs fertilized with the energy of Lust have stronger shells and hatch younglings who are much more likely to survive to maturity.”

  “Then let us enhance your ritual,” Vorn urged her. “In return, all we ask is that you let us go free at the end. But we won’t stop until you’re satisfied.”

  The Priestess nodded.

  “Very well. If you are able to generate the necessary erotic energy, we will allow you to live and go free after the Festival of Fertility is over. But if not…” She pointed one long scaly finger at Vorn. “Then both your lives are forfeit! Are you willing to take the risk?”

  Vorn nodded. “Hell yes—I’ll take it.”

  “Then go to her.” The Priestess gestured to Jodi. “Go to your female and breed her so that all of my people may breed as well.”

  Forty-Five

  The Priestess and the Master of Whips stepped back and Vorn ran to where Jodi was chained. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling her small body tremble against his much larger one.