Lizabeth had already had a good foundation in Kindred law after helping the alien warriors win several cases in the World Court. She had championed the landmark decision that stated that a Kindred warrior could not be prosecuted for hurting or killing someone who threatened his mate. The Kindred protective instincts were simply too strong for them to hold back—when they went into Rage, they were forced to attack anyone who harmed the female they loved.
The case had been brought in the first place by a would-be rapist who had tried to sexually assault a girl who was mated to a Beast Kindred. The Beast Kindred had ripped the man’s genitals off and literally shoved them down his throat. The man had survived but had sued for grievous bodily harm and assault and battery.
Lizabeth had won that case. The World Court had ruled in favor of the Kindred and she had been representing them ever since. But in this case, she needed to know more than just Earth or Kindred law—she needed to know Yonnite law as well—which was turning out to be a tricky proposition.
“Here you are, Counselor Paige.” Stands Alone, her legal assistant who also happened to be a Twin Kindred, placed a steaming mug of coffee in front of her. Lizabeth knew without even tasting it first that it would be perfect—two creams and two sugars—just the way she liked it. It was an indulgence, especially considering that she wasn’t as thin as she had been once. But in this case, she felt she deserved it.
“Thank you, Lone, but you didn’t have to do that,” she objected. “Just because you’re assisting me on this case doesn’t make you my servant.”
“I’m honored to serve you.” He had a soft, deep voice and serious, pale gray eyes like a Light Twin, though his hair was dark—as black as a raven’s wing—like a Dark Twin.
Lizabeth supposed her assistant’s physical dichotomy had been caused by the fact that his twin brother had died at birth. Lone was one of those sad, rare cases of a Twin Kindred with no twin and, as often happened in such cases, he had taken on some characteristics of both.
He was easy on the eyes too, Lizabeth mused, as she thanked him again and took a sip of her coffee which was—as expected—just right. But of course, that was a silly and unprofessional thought. Lone was at least twelve or thirteen years younger than her and besides, Twin Kindred who lost their twin almost never called a mate. They were almost always unable to bond a female to them alone and most professed not to have any sexual feelings at all. How could you want to join with a female when half of you was missing? That seemed to be the prevailing attitude, as far as Lizabeth could tell from her research.
Because she had researched it. Purely out of professional interest, she assured herself. It wasn’t like she wanted anything other than their current relationship of mentor and assistant with Lone. He was much too young for her and anyway, she’d decided to swear off men after her divorce which had been a bitter affair.
“How is your research going?” Lone asked, breaking into her musings.
“To be honest, not as well as I’d hoped.” Lizabeth took another sip of coffee and sighed. “Yonnite law is convoluted to say the least. And these documents…” She lifted a piece of stiff parchment and let it fall to her desk. “They’re so dense with double meanings and mentions of Yonnite culture it’s ridiculous. I’m beginning to think I’d have better luck understanding if I went there and learned from one of their own law professors rather than trying to learn it second hand like this.”
“But if you went to Yonnie Six, I couldn’t go with you,” Lone pointed out. “Unless you want me to pose as your slave?” He gave her a shy grin and suddenly dropped to his knees in front of her. “Please, Mistress,” he begged softly, “Use me however you want. Only let me serve you…coffee all day long,” he ended with a warm, rumbling laugh.
Lizabeth laughed along with him at the ridiculous little farce but she couldn’t help noticing how broad his shoulders were or how the light from the green-shaded lamp she was using caught his gray eyes and turned them nearly silver. It made her think of a dream she’d had of him once, when they first started working together—a dream she couldn’t quite remember except that his eyes had looked like that—almost silver and so full of meaning…
You really need to get back to those Yonnite documents and stop daydreaming about your assistant, whispered a stern little voice in her head. You’re not going to get anything done at this rate except make yourself uncomfortable for no reason.
Lizabeth had to agree with the little voice. It was far better to keep the relationship between herself and her assistant professional. Still, she couldn’t keep herself from reaching out to ruffle his short, dark hair. Lone didn’t seem to mind such affectionate gestures and try as she might, Lizabeth couldn’t seem to help making them. Her hands wanted to touch him even when her brain told her not to.
“Don’t be silly,” she said to him, as she slid her fingers through the silky black strands of his hair. “Get up now and stop acting the fool, Lone.”
A shiver ran through his big frame.
“Is it foolish to want to serve you…Mistress?” he asked and his voice had dipped down until it was almost a growl. “Is it wrong to want to give myself to you and please you, any way I can?”
Lizabeth felt her heart thump hard against her ribs. Somehow her traitorous hand had crept down and she found she was now cupping her assistant’s cheek, scratchy with stubble. Lone was looking up at her, though even kneeling he didn’t have to look far. The pupils of his eyes had dilated to a deep, drowning black leaving only a thin ring of pure silver around their outside edges.
“Is it wrong, Mistress?” he murmured again.
“Lone,” she said unsteadily. “Don’t…don’t you think you’ve taken this little charade far enough? I know you’re only teasing but—”
Suddenly she smelled something strange. Something sweet. Like chocolate or caramel. She looked up at the ceiling of the Mother Ship’s law-library and frowned at the vents. Was it coming from there? And why did it make her feel so strange?
“Lone,” she said unsteadily as she put down her coffee cup. “Do you smell that? What is it?”
The Twin Kindred frowned and lifted his head, sniffing the air.
“As a matter of fact, I do. I have no idea what it could be though.”
“It makes me feel…dizzy.” Lizabeth stood up and took a wobbling step away from the table where she had been sitting, meaning to go into another part of the ship and get some fresh air.
But the room spun around her and she stumbled and would have fallen if Lone hadn’t caught her.
“Lizabeth, what’s wrong?” He lifted her easily and peered anxiously into her face as he cradled her in his arms like a baby.
Lizabeth had never been this close to her assistant before and she found it uncomfortable precisely because it felt good. This close, she noticed another scent in the room besides the cloying, sweet odor coming from the vents. The new scent was warm and spicy and deeply masculine…and it seemed to be coming from Lone.
Surely that’s not his bonding scent, she thought, frowning up at him. How could he make a bonding scent without a twin to help him? And why would he make it for me? He can’t—
Just then she felt a sharp pain in her breasts, followed by a sensation of fullness.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, looking down at herself.
Lone looked too and his pale gray eyes grew wide.
“Councilor Paige…Lizabeth, what is happening to you?”
“I…I don’t know!” To her horror, her breasts were growing right before her eyes. They were straining the buttons of her nice blue professional blouse as her formerly perfectly respectable C-cup breasts turned into double D-cup melons. It was like something out of a porno-fantasy, Lizabeth thought. And not a good one, either.
“What…what’s going on?” she gasped, her eyes still glued to her chest. And then she felt the sharp pain again and wet spots appeared on her blouse, right where her nipples would be. Was she leaking? But how was that possible?
; God, what was happening to her?
Lizabeth had no answers—she only knew that her breasts were full and they hurt terribly. Somehow she had to get some help but how? Lone was the only one with her in the deserted law library.
What was she going to do?
All over the Mother Ship, similar incidents were taking place. In later times they would call it The Great Needing, but for now, the entire ship was simply in an uproar. Nobody knew what to do and only Sylvan realized—too late—that the Xi-46 compound had been dispersed throughout the ship. And though he had his warriors search thoroughly, the source of the chemical attack wasn’t immediately apparent and the effects went on and on for hours.
It was a mess of epic proportions that would go on to affect every single woman of mating age on the entire ship and take weeks to clean up and nobody knew what the hell to do about it.
Twenty-Five
Dru took a deep breath as he waited for the Council meeting to begin. He was aboard the Mother Ship again with Annie, waiting to testify to the Kindred High Council. He would have to talk about Xi-46 which had caused such a complete mess among his fellow Kindred and also explain how he had allowed his Drake to get loose. Then he would hear their judgment on him. Would he be sent back to his home world in disgrace?
Goddess give me courage, he prayed as he waited. And then Commander and High Councilor Sylvan strode to the front of the room and began to speak.
“This meeting of the High Council will now come to order.” Sylvan banged the Speaking Stone on the Council table and looked around at his fellow councilors. “Is everyone able to attend?”
There was a general nodding of heads and a few scattered words of affirmation.
“Good.” Sylvan put down the stone. “Our contingency rules remain in effect at this time. So if your mate bespeaks you due to an, er, emergency, you have the Council’s permission to get up and leave to go tend to her. We all understand that sacrifices must be made until we can, ahem, contain the current needing crisis.”
“You told us you had someone who could help us with that, Councilor Sylvan,” one of the older Councilors sitting around the table called out. “What can be done? I love my mate but I’m too old to be dealing with this kind of constant needing.” Suddenly he clutched the side of his head and groaned. “Oh, not again!” He looked up with a long-suffering sigh. “Forgive me, but I must go. My Myrna needs me again.”
There were murmurs of sympathy around the table and Sylvan nodded at him.
“Go Councilor, Torrik—we understand your mate’s need.” He cleared his throat and looked around at the rest of the Council. “We have several people to see at today’s meeting who can hopefully shed light on our current crisis and help us find a solution to it.”
“Well, bring them out,” another Councilor called. “We have to hurry or half of us will need to go service our mates before we can get through the meeting.”
There was a general murmur of assent.
“We’ll dispense with our usual opening remarks and reading of the minutes and get started at once,” Sylvan promised. “I am now calling to the floor a member of the Kindred Elite Espionage Corps—Commander Drugair of the Drake Kindred.”
Dru came to the front of the Council room and made a low bow.
“Greetings, Councilors. Thank you for having me. I will cut directly to the point—I believe the ‘Great Needing’ as the current crisis is being called—has been caused by a foreign agent called Xi-46 which was released into the atmosphere of the Mother Ship several days ago. The agent has dissipated by now, but it has long-lasting effects that continue to precipitate our current crisis.”
“But what is this Xi-46 and how was it brought to the Mother Ship in the first place?” one of the Councilors demanded.
“It is a compound derived from the Lust Blossom on Carnal Four. As to how it was disseminated, please watch this security footage.”
Dru pulled a tiny vision cube out of his pocket and thumbed it on. Immediately a holographic image of one of the service droids which moved about the ship cleaning and repairing public property came into view. It was holding some kind of a brush or mop over its head on a long pole and swabbing it around an air vent.
“We believe this is the work of the saboteur, Zar’ren—a half-Kindred who holds a grudge against our people for some reason,” Dru went on. “Somehow he slipped the Xi-46 compound into the cleaning fluid used by the service droids and they, unknowingly, spread it to the entire ship. It is invisible and undetectable until it is activated, at which time it gives off a sweet, dessert-type smell which affects any female of mating age who inhales it.”
“That’s putting it mildly!” Councilor Harex said testily. “It hasn’t been so bad for the mated females aboard—although the Goddess knows it’s difficult to get anything done when one’s mate has cravings which must constantly be tended to. But the unmated females…” He shook his head.
“I have reason to believe there won’t be many unmated females aboard for long,” Sylvan remarked dryly. “Most of those who were affected and who touched an unmated male at the time, have now bonded with them. With very few exceptions, that part of the problem, at least, is working itself out.”
“Thank the Goddess that the compound didn’t reach to the Sacred Grove,” one of the other Councilors remarked. “If the priestesses who have vowed not to take a mate had been affected it would have been a crisis of faith as well as a crisis of the more physical kind.”
“The Goddess was good to protect them,” Sylvan said, nodding. “Although she does not demand celibacy from her priestesses—most of them simply choose it.”
“What else can you tell us about this compound, Agent Drugair?” Councilor Tarn asked him. “How long can we expect our females to continue having these…needing attacks?”
“Zar’ren bragged to me that the effects would be long-lasting. My own mate, Annie, was affected by the compound before any of the females on the Mother Ship and she is still having, er, episodes,” Dru answered. He nodded at Annie, who was sitting quietly at the back of the room and she gave a little wave.
“Then what hope do we have?” another Councilor demanded. “How will we ever get back to normal? This constant needing is crippling to the entire Mother Ship. We are vulnerable to an outside attack if our warriors cannot leave their mates long enough to defend us!”
“Thankfully we have enough unmated males to counter any attack that might be made—though we have considerably fewer than we had,” Sylvan said dryly. “As to how we will get back to normal, I have two of the finest scientists here aboard the Mother Ship to speak to us.”
“Excuse me, Head Councilor,” Dru interrupted before he could introduce the scientists in question. “But I have something I must briefly bring before the Council if I may.”
Sylvan nodded. “Briefly, then. Continue.”
Dru took a deep breath.
“While I was on Earth, after returning from my mission to the Maw Cluster, I allowed the Drake which inhabits me to come out for a period of about twenty minutes.”
“You did, did you?” Councilor Harex frowned. “And? So?”
Dru frowned, not certain that they understood the gravity of the situation.
“And it burned a human man who was attacking my mate to death,” he continued. “Also, it is a great shame among my people to allow one’s Drake to escape.”
“I understand those are the beliefs of your people,” Commander Sylvan said formally. “And it would perhaps be more of a problem if your Drake had come out while you were aboard the Mother Ship. But the fact that you were on a planet with plenty of room and—I am assuming since I didn’t get any complaints about it from Earth—in a private place, certainly mitigates the situation somewhat. As for the fact that your Drake killed someone—that is regrettable but if he was attacking your mate, it is also understandable.”
“It was in a private place,” Dru acknowledged slowly. “But I felt I must admit the fact that my Drake came ou
t to the Council and give myself over to their judgment.”
“Do you feel like this is going to continue to be a problem?” Sylvan asked, raising an eyebrow. “Is your Drake unreliable now—will it come out whenever or wherever it wants and you are unable to stop it?”
“By no means!” The idea shocked Dru to his core. “It only came out on Earth because my mate was threatened and because the attacker shot me through one of my hearts, causing me to lose control of it.”
“Those would seem to be extremely mitigating circumstances,” Councilor Gerrund said. “Besides, Head Councilor Sylvan—don’t we have another Drake-type Kindred living on Earth at the moment so that he can have plenty of room to, er, shift to his other form when he wishes?
“A Rai-ku Kindred, yes.” Sylvan nodded. “He lives in a mountainous area where there is little chance of the humans seeing him change forms.” He looked at Dru. “It is the judgment of this Council that you and your mate shall live on Earth, where your Drake can have plenty of room to, er, stretch his wings, as the humans would say.”
Dru could hardly believe what he was hearing.
“So you’re not sending me back to the Drake Kindred home world? My only punishment is that I must live on Earth in a place where my Drake can come out into the open without attracting attention?”
“It’s not really a punishment,” Sylvan said mildly. “Earth is really quite beautiful.”
“And…my career?” Dru asked. “Will I be allowed to continue working for the Elite Espionage Corps?”
“As long as you can keep your Drake from coming out while you are on the job, I don’t see why not,” Sylvan remarked. He looked around the table. “Those in favor of allowing Commander Drugair to continue in the K.E.E.C.?”
There was a chorus of “Ayes.”
“Those opposed?”
No one spoke.
“There you have it,” Sylvan said briskly. “Now forgive me, Commander Drugair, but we must move on to more pressing matters.”
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