by A. Star
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Chapter One
“Oh, Bagdi! Oh my goodness, you must have read my mind. How did you get this?” Kimani took another bite of the crisp red apple, rolling her shiny ebony eyes up and fluttering her long lashes in pure bliss. The heady mix of tart and sweet satisfied her longing for food produced by the Earth for the first time in over a year.
“Don’t worry yourself about that. I wanted your nativity to be special, particularly since it will be your last one with me. Arrangements have been made for your safe passage tomorrow. We hired the most highly respected guardian alive, and…”
“Yes, you told me, but Bagdi, we can’t afford him. I’ve always heard he has an intense dislike for humans, and he’s--”
“He is prepared to carry you tomorrow, promptly at sunset.” Bagdi beamed. “Much to the chagrin of our parents, his mother and I formed a bond as children, so he agreed to bend his rule and help me.” She lowered her voice like an admonishing parent. “This war is insidious, and the constant unrest can obscure loyalties, but the shifters are not, nor have they ever been, our enemies, Kimani. Remember this.”
She took on an airy tone again, waving her hands. “Everyone, the entire village chipped in to hire him. We want you safe, and his reputation is the best, plus his village is not far from here–only a few miles.”
Bagdi reached up to cup Kimani’s chin between her hands, the look of love in her warm brown eyes unmistakable. “You will like your new life, yes?”
Kimani didn’t want to worry her caretaker, but no amount of discipline could ease her anxiety about the so-called “divine passage.” Her life thus far had been more normal than any breeder could expect, and she was not eager for it to end. The reputation of the guard her village hired was impeccable, and she had heard tales of his bravery and loyalty, habitually risking his life to save his clients, but in these times, even that might not be enough.
She forced a smile, lightly feathering her fingers around her headpiece before brushing her palms down her electric blue abaya with Moroccan print. She’d chosen it especially for her birthday because it set off the color of her eyes, shiny black pebbles indicative of what she was. “I will do my best. I know it sounds ungrateful for a breeder to say, but you know what I want more than anything, as impossible as it may be – a family of my own, children I can raise myself, and one man who loves me just for me, not because he needs anything from me. I don’t want to be--”
Bump. Thud. Peoong!
“They’re here already,” Bagdi whispered through clenched teeth. “They wouldn’t even allow you one day! Don’t worry about me. You know what to do.”
Moments later, Kimani shuddered and pressed her spine against the cabinet wall. Shh! Don’t make a sound. Control your breathing. She repeated the mantra over and over in her head, slowly taking control of her fear. Just beyond the cabinet door, Bagdi spoke in a rush. The caretaker had broken every law of their time when she insisted Kimani be trained in jiu jitsu.
Kimani replayed Bagdi’s words. By the time she reached her tenth nativity, she knew they were true. “Train hard, daughter. I want to be sure you are as invulnerable as possible. A breeder’s life is filled with challenges. You must be able to meet them head on. You may never see a day without war.”
Kimani closed her eyes and slowed her heartbeat to match her breathing, slow and steady. Using her conditioning to assess the situation, she determined that two men stood over Bagdi, the only mother figure Kimani had ever known. No matter how efficient her training, she couldn’t silence the screams in her head when she realized the tiny woman’s life was in danger.
She gripped the knife, not much of a weapon against laser pistols, but it was what she had, along with a number of daggers, and she’d mastered them all by her tenth birthday–trusted friends you might say. The rogue harvesters wouldn’t kill her. She would wish for death if they captured and encaged her, but her survival was vital to them.
The male spoke calmly, his nasal voice dripping venom, the threat to Bagdi’s life thinly veiled. “I will ask you one more time. Where is the breeder?”
I can’t let her get hurt because of me.
One moment, Kimani repeated the mantra, the next she was out of her hiding place, standing before the man who’d spoken. The other man, larger than the first, glared at her, his thin lips split in a mocking grin as he grasped Bagdi’s hair, twisting her head towards him with one hand and pawing her shoulder with the other.
Kimani took a deep breath before speaking, reminding herself it might not help her cause to call the men bastards or assholes or any of the other colorful epithets running through her mind.
“Don’t hurt her. I’ll go with you.” The evenness of her voice surprised her as she spoke to the man holding Bagdi captive.
He sneered. “You’ll go with me whether I hurt this old bag or not. You seem confused about the power structure. Let’s clear that up right now!”
She knew. No matter what she did, he was going to kill Bagdi.
Kimani lunged, her only goal to distract him and stop him from harming Bagdi. Everything happened in slow motion, shock and anger adding to years of defense training. Kimani whipped the knife into fighting position, sliced through the neck of the man closest to her, then turned to face the man holding Bagdi as the first intruder’s body hit the floor with a thud, his hands moving reflexively to his neck. Too late.
Lightning fast, she leapt toward the remaining intruder, only hesitating a split second when she heard the sickening crack of Bagdi’s neck.
Kimani let out a roar fueled by anger and shock as her would-be kidnapper twisted Bagdi’s neck at an impossible angle, ending her precious life in an instant and allowing her body to crumple to the floor.
One knife meant she only had one shot. She threw the knife, her sharp mind so focused on dispatching the murderer, she barely noticed when the laser beam struck her leg.
Didn’t matter anyway as her knife hit her target, landing in the center of the assailant’s forehead, the force of it sending his body crashing to the floor.
“Where’s your smirk now, you evil bastard?” she whispered as tears blurred her vision.
She took a deep breath and ran to kneel over Bagdi’s lifeless body, ignoring the searing pain in her calf. No time for tears. They hadn’t even allowed her a day, attacking on her twenty-fifth birthday. More would come.
Still kneeling, she glanced at the two dead bodies, wondering who hired them.
She shook her head, fighting the tears clouding her vision. Just a few more hours and she would have been miles away, and maybe Bagdi would still be alive.
She dislodged her favorite knife from the skull of Bagdi’s murderer and wiped it on his leather pants. She wondered if she’d ever reconcile her role as life-preserver to heathenish, selfish creatures who thought nothing of imprisoning her to gain and maintain control.
Kimani glanced around one last time and picked up the burka-style headdress. Sighing, she donned it quickly, placing it over her original headpiece to cover her face in addition to her hair. The burka was constructed of special material that hid her from view but allowed her to see through the fabric. She lifted Bagdi’s tiny body to give her a proper burial.
She secured the laces of her shoes, grateful for the golden, bronze, and soft blush hues of sunset. The near annihilation of the ozone layer caused by constant overextension and misuse of the earth’s resources made day travel nearly impossible, but her throbbing leg challenged her even at sunset. Kimani pushed forward, the smell of burnt earth assaulting her nostrils. Securing this famous shifter guardian’s protection to help her reach the colony had just become a mission.
Chapter Two
“Ahkil, you can’t expect them to turn back the hands of time, but they at least want to preserv
e something, unlike those damn harvesters.”
Ahkil squinted his eyes. Watching humans had been one of his cousin Sarai’s favorite pastimes since childhood. If anyone could vouch for this group of human “undergrounders,” she was the one.
The two panthers sauntered along side by side as Sarai waited for Ahkil’s response. They seldom spoke aloud, choosing to communicate telepathically instead.
After a lengthy pause, he had to know one more thing before he decided. “So you’re sure they wouldn’t enslave her like the so-called colonists? My mother was friends with her caregiver and I still need to be able to sleep at night.”
“It’s not their way. She could choose a mate, have kids, have a life like anybody else, instead of being trapped in a gilded cage like most breeders.”
Sarai turned and started to walk away, throwing the rhetorical question over her shoulder. “What are you so bothered about? You usually won’t even guard one of them at all. Better the underground than delivering her to the colonists to save more murderers, wasn’t that your idea?”
Ahkil had an uneasy feeling about the whole situation. His mother had always spoken highly of this Bagdi, but he’d never met her until very recently. He wondered what his mother would think about what he was about to do, but he had an entire day to think about that. He slowed his pace, thinking. Perhaps he wouldn’t go through with it at all.
As he neared his home, he was surprised by an unusual scent for the area – human.
He glanced up and stifled a growl, curious. Every hair on his body came alive with heat as he simply stared at her. Standing before him covered from head to toe in blue. She feared him, and rightly so. Even her eyes were covered. Her heartbeat remained steady, but she couldn’t disguise the scent of fear. To her credit, she remained steadfast, her stance firm instead of shifting around like most humans in his presence.
Also unlike most remaining humans, this one did not carry the air of superiority.
She motioned for his permission to come closer, her hands covered with gauze. She’d obviously been taught to keep her face and body covered at all times, hiding the color of her skin, a tell-tale sign of what she was – a breeder. There was no hiding that. Her scent alone could drive human men to war.
Ahkil moved toward her instead, wary but intrigued. Born into a family of guardians, he’d been protecting and tracking since his days as a cub, but humans from the artificial breeder colonies had taken everything from his family during his early years. He’d always worked around them, but never for them. Big difference. They were notoriously deceitful, and only the Almighty knew what weapons she hid under all that garb. She was completely covered from head to toe, even her eyes remained hidden.
“Um, hi.”
Ahkil narrowed his gaze, willing her to continue with her soft voice, like silk sliding along his skin. Even in panther form, he possessed the ability to communicate with her telepathically.
“You’re Ahkil, right?”
“Yes, and you are a human breeder who has no right to be in my territory. We’re supposed to be leaving tomorrow, so what brings you to me an entire day early, unannounced?” He glanced at her leg. “And why are you limping?”
“My village was attacked. My caretaker was murdered and one of the bastards shot me in my leg. I need you to take me to my assigned breeder colony sooner than we’d planned.”
The very term–“breeder colony”–made him cringe. Sounded like a roach haven. He stood still, squinted his green eyes and glared at her just to see how she’d react, wondering if she grieved for Bagdi.
He sensed her frown, the atmospheric change heavy with negative energy, and if his panther vocal chords could, he would have chuckled. Despite the fact that she was completely covered, he couldn’t help noticing that her aura was actually quite beautiful for a human. It was as if he could see her soul, and there was no pretense there. Rare.
“If you can’t take me now, I’ll go alone. I can’t stay here and I don’t have anywhere else to go besides the colony. At least they’re expecting me.”
“Are they?” he drawled, wondering if her eyes were the same color as most breeders.
Having achieved the desired reaction, he pushed just a bit more. “Go on, then. If the Almighty allows, I’ll catch up with you tomorrow as scheduled, if you’re still alive.”
He called after her, unable to stop himself. “Make sure your leg doesn’t start bleeding again or you’ll draw all sorts of unwanted fans and that will make my job much more difficult.”
Her flash of fury singed him as she turned and strutted away, limp and all. He had to give it to her–she had exceptional self-control. Most people would have called him a string of names by now, but she simply turned and walked away. Smart little breeder. She’d passed all his tests so far.
Ahkil sauntered after her and slowed his pace to walk beside her. It probably shouldn’t matter to him whether she lived or died, but it did.
She turned her head in his direction and he sensed her displeasure as she folded her arms across her chest, apparently waiting for him to say something. This Kimani was going to be a barrel of laughs.
He chided himself for being so insensitive to her recent loss, but it wasn’t often he had the opportunity to toy with a breeder. In fact, this was his first time ever seeing one in person, if he could call staring at a shapeless blue sheet seeing anything. He’d heard enough to know that beneath the protective attire, her skin would be flawless, her complexion like pictures he’d seen of rich, life-giving soil – dark and warm, depthless.
Breeders were rare treasures, kept in the protective custody of an assigned caretaker, the caretaker’s family, and countless guards willing to give their lives to protect the breeders, the future of the entire human race, or so they said.
Of course, none of his cerebral knowledge of these rarest of human creatures explained his visceral reaction to her, even in his panther form, and he could not allow his unexpected reaction to interfere with his plans.
“Grab those, will you?” Ahkil motioned to a short stack of clothes on the stump of what had once been a fruit-bearing tree.
Kimani picked up the jeans, T-shirt and boots and stepped out of Ahkil’s line of vision to haphazardly stick them in pockets hidden within her burka.
Smart little breeder. She hadn’t even asked the usual inane questions, nor did she hesitate to follow his request. He smiled inwardly. Of course he didn’t actually need the clothes. One of the many secrets never shared with humans was the prevalence of shifter magic. Synced with nature, he had the ability to conjure any natural fiber from thin air, among other things.
He slowly stretched, focusing on the task at hand. An excellent hunter, he could easily provide sustenance for her along their journey, and the combination of razed land and abandoned property left resources scattered at random. Right now though, they had a long way to go, and his new charge guaranteed even more obstacles than he was accustomed to along the way.
Chapter Three
Kimani watched the huge panther hunt. He’d instructed her to sit near the brush in case she needed to hide quickly. Harvesters and thieves were always nearby, he told her. Her entire life had been in preparation for this, but disappointment overshadowed everything else. Her trainers and caretakers told her she would be excited, happy, any number of positive emotions, yet all she felt was disappointment, sorrow over Bagdi’s senseless death, and fear, although she had to admit Ahkil did help assuage some of the fear.
Ahkil’s movements were much like the antiquated DVDs of dancers. Muscles rolled beneath the silky black fur he’d allowed her to rest her head on the night before. This was their third day together and he still barely spoke to her apart from making snide comments here and there to annoy her. The fact that his smart-ass jokes and comments seemed to magically enter her mind while he stared at her with big, beautiful, yet innocent, cat eyes served to make them intimate albeit annoying. Spending time with Ahkil was a far cry from simply knowing shifters existed.<
br />
She’d always been told that shifters, particularly feline shifters, were partial empaths, able to directly share the feelings of others, and evidently they’d at least told her the truth about that tidbit. Ahkil had a way of bumping her or rubbing against her slowly when she felt discouraged, just as she felt right now.
He glanced up at that very moment and squinted his eyes as if she’d called him, a huge paw batting at something in the water. Moments later he stalked over and wrapped his huge body around her. Warmth suffused her and she massaged his muscular neck just behind his ears, enjoying the heavy rumbling purr he gifted her with.
“So, how did you become a guardian?”
He narrowed his eyes and pulled away from her hands. After a pregnant pause, she heard his response. “I was born a guardian, to hunt and protect.”
“Hmm. So you never considered doing anything else? I mean, I imagine it’s hard to have a family or anything traveling all the time.”
He pinned his ears against his head, annoyed. “Who says I want a family? Anyway, it’s not as if you’ll ever have a real family being a breeder.”
“Defensive much? My goodness! I was just making an observation, asking a question. Is that not allowed on this trip?” The sting of his words felt like a slap, and the way he said breeder quickly upgraded his reputation for disliking humans from simple dislike to out and out disdain.
She stepped back emotionally and reminded herself how well they worked together despite the fact he seldom initiated verbal or telepathic communication. She hated to admit it, but the big cat was growing on her, occasional abrasiveness and all. His air of confidence told her he could handle anything. Anyway, right now he was her only ally, so she took a deep breath, braced herself, and pushed forward.
“What have you been told about breeders? About…me?”
She heard a light chuckle in her head. “No, let’s not do it that way. You’re the breeder, so you tell me. Tell me about yourself.”