“I don’t want to talk about this!” Kara burst out, yanking away from his hand on her shoulder. “I shouldn’t have to. I shouldn’t have these stupid fangs in the first place—everything always comes back to my fangs!”
“Well, sweetheart…you’re unique.” Sylvan raised his hands, palm up. “No one has ever heard of a Blood Kindred female with fangs before. Personally, I believe it’s an effect of the way your mother’s human DNA mixed with my Kindred DNA.”
“I don’t care why I have them! I just wish they were gone. Or I could…could shrink them somehow.” Kara felt tears stinging her eyes.
“Don’t wish to be someone you aren’t, my daughter.” Her father’s voice was low and grave. “You are beautiful and perfect and precious—so precious to me and your mother. You are exactly as the Goddess intended you to be.”
“Then why does everyone talk about me?” Kara burst out. She remembered the hurtful words of the women at the Rainbow Mountain—the way they’d talked about her being “deformed.” And the way Jason had broken up with her—the way every male she knew looked at her like there was something wrong with her. Everyone but Raakshas had looked at her that way.
Is it any wonder I was drawn to him? she thought desperately. He accepted me, fangs and all. Who else besides my family is willing to do that? No one! I’ll never have a normal life and all because of these damned fangs!
“Kara, sweetheart—” her father began but Kara couldn’t stand anymore.
“I have to go.” She raced for his study door and yanked it open. But she stopped in the doorway. Turning, she half-met Sylvan’s eyes. “I’m sorry I shamed you, Father. It…it won’t happen again.”
He opened his mouth—probably to protest or to call her back—but Kara couldn’t bear to stay. She rushed out the door, her eyes filled with hot, angry tears.
Her fangs—it was always her fangs. They made her recognizable enough that everyone knew she was the Chancellor’s daughter. Kaleb didn’t have to put up with such instant recognition and retribution and why? Because it was normal for a Blood Kindred male to have fangs. And as for what her father had tried to tell her about the fangs giving her urges…
Kara shuddered with embarrassment at the thought. But then a little voice inside her spoke up.
It’s true, isn’t it? Haven’t you been having the urge to bite someone—to bite a male—for a long time? Doesn’t the ache in your upper teeth make you shiver with need? Isn’t that why you “accidentally” bit Jason? You were hoping he might ask you to bite him again, in a different place, weren’t you? But instead he dumped you. It’s the story of your life, the damn fangs mess up everything.
Well, maybe it was time to do something about them. Kara dashed the tears out of her eyes and thought again of her mother’s words the other night when Sophia had thought she and Sylvan were alone. “I’ve heard of a treatment…on Tranq Prime…”
I’ll go there, Kara suddenly decided. Of course it would mean “borrowing” a long range shuttle from the Docking Bay but she could manage that—hadn’t she been taking piloting lessons since she was twelve cycles old? She could outmaneuver most anyone but Uncle Baird himself. Still, a long range shuttle wouldn’t get her all the way to Tranq Prime, which was hundreds of light years away…
Then she had a thought. Hadn’t Raak said there was a cadre of trader ships going to the Blood Kindred home world tonight? She was certain he had. So if she could borrow a shuttle and fly out with the rest of them, she could slip through when the Mother Ship folded space and no one would be the wiser.
I can call Great Aunt Zeelah and Great Uncle Grennly and I’m certain they’ll let me stay with them once I explain who I am. I bet they’ll help me find the right doctor to perform the procedure or the treatment or whatever it is too.
What the procedure was, Kara had no clear idea. She had a vague mental image of a serious but kindly physician handing her a tube of toothpaste-like medicine and telling her gravely, “Now you rub that on your fangs twice a day for two weeks and they should shrink back down to the size of normal teeth.”
“And the…urges? The way I want to bite someone so badly?” Kara imagined herself asking.
“Why, the medicine will take care of those,” the imaginary physician said, smiling. In Kara’s daydream she was a kindly, gray haired old lady. “You won’t have to worry about a thing—you’ll be perfectly normal in just a little while.”
“Oh thank you—thank you!” Kara imagined herself hugging her and thanking her over and over, tears of gratitude in her eyes. “You’ve changed my life forever,” she would say.
And the kindly gray-haired physician would smile and tell her to go have a beautiful, normal life and everything would be all right.
The vision was so strong in her head that Kara wasn’t even looking where she was going. She nearly ran head-long into Kaleb, who was standing in the hallway directly between their two rooms.
“Oof!” she gasped as she careened into her twin brother’s broad chest.
“Hey, watch where you’re going.” Kaleb grabbed her by her upper arms to steady her. “Where are you going anyway? Did the talk with Dad go that badly?”
“No.” Kara shook her head. “No, he was mostly understanding.”
“Then why the rush?” He frowned. “I watched you—you ran out of his office like your hair was on fire and your ass was catching.”
It was an expression they’d heard from their Aunt Kat on occasion and it usually cracked Kara up. This time, however, she could only muster a small smile.
“I just…wanted to get away. He…” She cleared her throat. “Dad wanted to talk to me about my fangs. About how they give you…” Her voice dropped. “Urges.”
“Oh…” Kaleb let go of her, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “He had that talk with me too—but years ago.”
“Yeah, well…he seemed to think it was long overdue for me.”
“So…um…” Kaleb didn’t seem to know what to say. Looking up at her twin, Kara realized that if she followed her plans, she would be leaving him for the first time. They had never been apart before—not even for a day. And now she would be gone for who knew how long when she left for Tranq Prime.
On impulse, she hugged him.
“Hey…” Kaleb’s arms came around her and he squeezed back uncertainly. “What’s that for?”
“Because I love you. And…” Kara cleared her throat. “And I’ll miss you.”
“Miss me? What do you mean?” Kaleb’s green eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Where are you going? You’re not chasing after that Unbondable are you?”
“No, this has nothing to do with Raak,” Kara said firmly. “It has to do with me—something I have to do for myself.”
“What?” Kaleb sounded mystified. “What do you have to do?”
Kara hesitated for a moment—should she tell him? Normally she could always trust Kaleb to keep her secrets but she knew that if he thought she was in danger; her twin would tell her father and mother for no other reason than to keep her safe. And her father had said that the treatment on Tranq Prime was dangerous.
That thought made her a little uneasy but Kara shoved the feeling away. It was probably only dangerous for male Blood Kindred and since she was female it should be no problem.
She hoped.
“Kara?” Kaleb was looking at her worriedly and she realized she’d taken too long to answer.
“I’m…moving out for a little while,” she said, which was technically true. “It’s time, you know?”
“I’ve been thinking that too,” Kaleb admitted in a low voice. “So, do you want to get a suite together?”
“Oh, uh…” Kara swallowed hard. She ought to have anticipated that her twin would make such an offer. Most sisters and brothers wouldn’t care to live together but Kaleb was more than her brother—he was her best friend and closest confidant.
“Kara?” he asked again, frowning.
“I’m sorry,” she said as gently as she could.
“But…I think I want my own space for a little while. Do you understand, brother?”
“Oh…oh, yes of course. I just thought…” Kaleb shook his head. “Well, I’ll help you move your stuff if you want,” he said, a bit stiffly.
“Not that much to move,” Kara said brightly. “You know all the suites come fully furnished. And I’ve never been much of a clothes horse like Ziza.”
Their second cousin was a fashion icon—with her creamy brown skin and gold-on-black eyes she was a striking beauty and she made the most of it.
No one ever says Ziza is deformed or strange, Kara thought, suppressing a surge of resentment. Her eyes are way more visible than my fangs but nobody ever makes fun of her.
Of course, Ziza had a natural flair that seemed to carry her through life. And she had an added advantage—her father wasn’t the head of the Kindred High Council. Plus, she liked being the center of attention.
Whereas I just want to blend into the crowd, Kara thought ruefully. Well, soon enough she would. She’d be on her way to Tranq Prime to take care of her pesky fangs once and for all.
“Well…okay, I guess.” Kaleb’s face, which still looked worried and uncertain, brought Kara back to the present.
“Love you, brother,” she said and gave him another hug and a swift peck on the cheek. “But now I have to pack. Oh, and…” She bit her lip. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
He gave a confused-sounding laugh.
“You sound like you’re moving to a different galaxy, not just half-way across the Mother Ship.”
“No, of course not,” Kara hastily denied, but she couldn’t meet her twin’s eyes while she lied. “I’ll just…miss living close to you and Mom and Dad—that’s all. But…it’s time I left.” She took a deep breath. “Past time. You know?”
“I know. You take care of yourself too then, Kare-kare,” he murmured, squeezing her tight. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to you. I love you; you know that—right?”
“Of course I do. I love you too.” Kara squeezed him back and then extracted herself from his embrace. She had to hurry if she was going to be ready to go when the cadre of trader ships left for Tranq Prime.
“See you later, brother,” she said, smiling wide enough to show her fangs. Next time he saw her, they would be normal sized and regular-looking, she was certain. Next time Kaleb saw her, she would be a whole different person.
She had no idea how right she was or how scary her journey to “normal” was going to be.
Six
“All ships, you are cleared for take off. The Fold is open. Repeat, the Fold is open and you are cleared for take off,” came the voice of the Flight Controller from her ship’s com.
“That’s my cue,” Kara muttered to herself. Making certain she stayed in the center of the cloud of trade ships as they lifted off en mass, she pulled on the steering yoke, bringing the little shuttle smoothly up to hover in midair.
To her left, she caught a glimpse of a big black ship with red markings—Raak’s vessel. She’d seen him boarding it as she was choosing a shuttle to borrow and had been immediately tempted to go tell him she was also going to Tranq Prime. But two things stopped her.
First, she didn’t want to seem desperate. What if Raak thought she was only going to Tranq Prime because he was going there as well? What if he thought she was throwing herself at him when they barely knew each other? Kara didn’t want the big warrior to think she was some kind of stalker chick, crazy to be with him for life when they’d only had a few hours together.
Her dignity demanded that she keep her distance so no matter how fiercely her fangs throbbed when she saw his muscular form, she kept quiet and stayed to the shadows so he wouldn’t see her.
The second reason she didn’t seek Raak out was because she’d told Kaleb that this time she was taking away from her family was for her—and that was absolutely true.
She was a grown woman who still lived in her parents’ house, was still a virgin, had never had a long-term relationship, and had never been on any kind of adventure. When she thought about it, Kara decided that was kind of pathetic. She listened to her mother and her Aunt Liv and Aunt Kat and Aunt Lauren talk about the amazing things they had done when they were Kara’s age. Why, Aunt Kat and Aunt Lauren had actually met for the first time on the Scourge home world! And her own mother had been to First World and Tranq Prime and…well, the list went on and on.
Kara had never been anyplace but the Mother Ship and Earth, which was boringly tame compared to some of the planets her mother and aunts had visited.
Of course, it wasn’t like Tranq Prime was as wild as Rageron, the Beast Kindred home planet, but it was a whole lot colder than anything she was used to from her life in the climate-controlled Mother Ship. As insurance against the freezing temperatures, she had packed her thickest boots and her father’s old vranna skin coat—made from the pelt of the fearsome beast which he had killed when he was only twelve cycles old.
Kaleb had wanted to try killing a vranna too when he’d heard that story as a boy but their mother had firmly vetoed the idea. Kara was glad about that—she’d heard that a grown vranna was taller than a polar bear from Earth and twice as fierce. Still, she was glad she had the soft, warm coat of turquoise fur. It should keep her from freezing when she walked from the landing area to the entrance of the grotto where her great aunt and uncle lived.
Kara hoped they wouldn’t mind her popping up unannounced but she was afraid if she called them they might alert her father and tell him where she was.
And I don’t want anything to spoil the surprise, Kara told herself. The next time I see my family my fangs will be normal-sized and all my unladylike urges will be gone.
It was a happy thought and she held onto it hard as she guided her little craft into the red gash in space—flying through the Fold for the first time on her own.
Seven
Folding space was always a strange sensation—one which she had only experienced once or twice when her father took his family with him on a diplomatic mission. But even then she and her brother had always been confined to the shuttle.
This time I’m on my own and I’m going to get out and explore and see anything I want to, Kara told herself. There’s nobody holding me back—I’m going for it!
Luckily, her great aunt and uncle lived in the largest grotto on Tranq Prime and that was where most of the trading ships were headed. Kara followed along, looking at the frozen wastes that flew by beneath her ship and reviewing the planet’s history in her head.
The frozen Blood Kindred home world was also home to a race called the Primes. The Primes were a proud people—they had been there before the Kindred and had welcomed them grudgingly onto their planet, allowing them to call brides from their people only when it appeared that an epidemic of Blood Fever might wipe out the entire female population. But after the epidemic was over, the Primes had tried to push the Kindred out, saying that they needed to purify their bloodlines. There were still some Blood Kindred here but many had migrated to the Mother Ship and other Kindred home worlds where they felt more welcome.
Aunt Zeelah and Uncle Grennly are Primes, Kara remembered with a twinge of unease. I hope they won’t mind that I’m half Kindred. I hope they’ll honor our kinship and let me stay with them.
Of course if they didn’t, she could always stay in the public hostel. For centuries upon centuries Tranq Prime had been a closed planet, meaning that if you didn’t have kin to stay with there, you couldn’t stay at all. There were no hotels or motels or anyplace else for a trader or merchant or wanderer to lay his or her head at night in the underground grottos where the people lived. And of course, staying outside the grottos on the freezing cold surface of the planet was unthinkable.
But during Kara’s lifetime, Tranq Prime had finally opened its doors—albeit grudgingly—to outsiders. Each of the larger grottos had built a public hostel and though there were strict limitations as to how long a visitor could st
ay, it was now possible to visit Tranq Prime for trading purposes, although they still discouraged any kind of vacationers.
But I’m not a vacationer—I’m family, Kara told herself as confidently as she could. She landed her ship a little way away from the rest of the trader vessels and made certain her landing gear was on steady ground. Then she took a deep breath and punched in a number on her viewscreen.
A moment later, two elegant, somewhat older people appeared before her. The woman had ice blue eyes and pale blonde hair, swept up into a tasteful twist at the top of her head. The male beside her had somewhat watery blue eyes and a long, bony face. He didn’t have much hair but what he had was carefully scraped over the bald dome of his head in straggly blond wisps.
Kara recognized them from old holo-pictures she’d seen in her father’s family photo library—this had to be her great aunt and uncle.
“Yes?” The woman frowned at her, a sour expression on her thin, elegant features. “Who might you be and why are you calling us?”
“Aunt Zeelah? Uncle Grennly?” Kara asked hopefully. “I’m sorry to call you out of the blue like this but I’m here on Tranq Prime and I was hoping to meet you in person.”
“Meet us? Who are you?” Grennly demanded.
Kara gave them a close-mouth smile, being careful to hide her fangs.
“I’m Sylvan’s daughter,” she said. “Sylvan—your nephew. Or…sister’s son,” she said, remembering the round-about way they named kinship bonds here.
“Oh, good gracious!” Aunt Zeelah’s face cleared and she put her clasped hands to her heart. “Oh Grennly—it’s little Hara! My sister’s son’s daughter!”
“It’s Kara,” Kara corrected her gently. “And yes, that’s me! I came all the way from the Mother Ship.”
“Such a long way! Er…is anyone else with you?” Grennly peered at her anxiously, as though Kara might be hiding all the rest of her family in the back of her shuttle.
“Nope, it’s just me,” she said brightly. “I’d very much like to meet you in person, Uncle Grennly, Aunt Zeelah.”
Unbondable: Book 1 of the Kindred Birthright Series (Brides of the Kindred) Page 5