Brides of the Kindred Volume One

by Evangeline Anderson

  “I’ll be fine,” she promised, trying to smile. “Just stay here and take it easy. Why not take a dip in the pool?”

  “The pool?” Xairn frowned.

  “You know, that big, blue rectangular thing filled with water right beside us?” Lauren raised an eyebrow at him and nodded to the right side of the condo where the gently lapping water was visible from the kitchen window. The proximity to the pool was one thing that had drawn her to the little efficiency even though her mom would have happily put her in a much larger space. The pool was clear and cool and well maintained since people used it year round. It almost never got too cold to swim in Sarasota—even in the winter months.

  “I thought it was a holding tank for drinking water.” Xairn shuddered visibly, and a strange look passed over his face. Terror? Horror? Lauren didn’t catch it completely but whatever it was, it wasn’t good. “You mean you willingly submerge yourself in it?”

  “Of course, why not?” Lauren shrugged as she pulled on her clothes. “What— you don’t like to swim?”

  He shut his eyes briefly and took a deep breath, as though trying to calm some inner turmoil. “I do not swim, no.”

  “Well, I don’t either, really,” Lauren admitted, still wondering about his strange reaction. “I mean, I guess I should, being raised in California and all. But I’d never make much of a surfer girl since I can’t swim a lick.” She smiled. “I do like to get out on one of the blow-up rafts and just lay there and relax sometimes. It’s nice with the sun on your skin and the cool water lapping your toes.”

  He frowned. “You risk your life in the water and you don’t even know how to swim?”

  “Oh please, it’s not that much of a risk,” Lauren protested. “It’s barely eight feet at the deep end and the pool isn’t that big. I’m sure I could get to the side if I had to.”

  “The last I looked you are not eight standard Earth feet tall,” Xairn pointed out. “You should refrain from going into this ‘pool’ until you learn how to swim or grow three more feet.”

  Lauren laughed as she powdered her face and put on some lip gloss. “Well neither one of those things is going to happen anytime soon. I have too much to do to take swimming lessons and I wouldn’t add three feet to my height even if I could. That would make me taller than you and that’s saying something since you’re over six foot six and broad as a barn door.”

  Xairn didn’t join in her amusement. “I would not go into that water for any reason,” he said frowning. “And you shouldn’t either.”

  Lauren sighed. “Fine, I don’t have time to go swimming—or floating—today anyway. I need to get things cleaned up and back in working order at the shop.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” There was a wistful note in Xairn’s tone that made her feel bad but Lauren shook her head firmly. “I wouldn’t mind if I was just baking but I work better alone when I’m cleaning. And I need to be able to think without any distractions. I have a lot to get done if I’m going to be up and running again in time for the weekend crowd.”

  He nodded. “Very well. I will stay and try to absorb some of your culture through this medium.” He nodded at the battered old flatscreen viewer on the wall across from the couch.

  Lauren smiled. “You do that. Just don’t absorb too much. Some of those soaps will rot your brain.” Then seeing his horrified look she added, “Not really. I just meant that daytime television programming is pretty vacuous. Unless you watch the History channel or something like that you probably won’t find anything on with any substance.”

  “I’ll try to learn some of your history, then,” he said, settling himself on the couch. “But I don’t like letting you work while I do nothing.”

  “I’ll be fine. Working clears my head.” Lauren smiled and gave him a light peck on the cheek before she left.

  * * * * *

  Xairn watched her go with a sigh of guilty relief. He loved her to distraction but lately the tension between them made him feel like he was going to explode every time she came near. He was sure Lauren sensed it too—he could see it in the way she looked so hurt every time he flinched from her touch, every time he didn’t return one of her loving caresses.

  But I can’t, damn it, he thought, curling his hands into fists in frustration. Can’t risk hurting her. Better she should think me cold and unloving than that I should injure her with my unchecked lust.

  It was true but it didn’t make him feel any better. If anything, he felt worse. He’d been hoping that the human DNA grafted onto his own would help him control himself. Or else that he would gradually get used to Lauren’s casual touches—but that wasn’t happening. It seemed like every day he had to take himself in hand more and more often but with each painful, self-given orgasm, his desire for Lauren only seemed to increase and become more and more unmanageable.

  Xairn wished there was something he could do to work off the tension that was threatening to drown him but this world was woefully short on stress relief—at least his kind of relief. Back aboard the Fathership he could have thrown himself into his work or sparred with one of the vat grown soldiers which outnumbered the true Scourge now by more than a thousand to one. But here there was no work he could do and no one to fight. There was nothing, in fact, but that damn pool of water which Lauren had pointed out before she left.

  Standing, Xairn went to look out the kitchen window at the blue water lapping the rectangular edges of the pool. Gods, he didn’t want to remember but the memories came rushing back anyway…

  “Sssink or ssswim, my ssson. Only the ssstrong sssurvive.” The AllFather laughed his high, evil cackle as he watched Xairn flail in the deep rectangular tank filled with black slime.

  “Please! Please, Father!”

  He was only a child of seven or eight and he had yet to get the size and strength he would attain as a mature male. He had never been immersed in the thick, black liquid of the drowning tanks before, though he had watched in horror as the urlich were thrown in one by one during their training.

  The modified canines the Scourge used as scouts were forced to swim in the drowning tanks for hours upon hours to prove their stamina and courage. The weaker ones died and sank to the bottom of the black ichor. Their rotting bodies added to the nauseating stench of the tanks and served as a warning for others.

  But not for me, Xairn thought wildly. I am no urlich—I am his only son. Why? Why is he doing this?

  It was a question he asked himself daily aboard the Fathership as his father perpetuated cruelty upon cruelty on the son he claimed to love. The worst thing was Xairn never knew when the punishment was coming. Most of the time his father ignored him completely but sometimes he would be kind and almost loving for days. He would take Xairn around the ship and talk to him about its inner workings, teach him the history of their people and explain their hatred of the race-killing Kindred who had doomed them to slow extinction after the abortive genetic exchange.

  Then, just as Xairn was beginning to trust him, beginning to think that this time his father truly cared, he would do something vicious and cruel, something Xairn could never have expected. This time they had been walking by the urlich kennels while the AllFather lectured him about the proper way to train the modified animals. Then, with no warning at all, his bony, scabrous hands had closed on Xairn’s arms and he had flung him into the deepest tank.

  “Father, please!” Xairn flailed wildly at the viscous black ooze that surrounded him. “Please, I can’t swim!”

  “I know you cannot, my ssson.” The AllFather could barely stop laughing long enough to speak. “But you ssshall learn. Or like the weakest urlich, you ssshall die. Remember, only the ssstrong are fit to sssurvive.”

  “Father, help! I’m scared! I can’t—” He went under, his mouth filled with the noxious slime. Fighting his way to the surface, he spat it out. His arms and legs were getting tired—it was like swimming in glue. But he knew if he didn’t make it out on his own, he would die in the tank. Di
e and sink to the bottom to join the bones below. Summoning the last of his strength, he somehow made his way to the side of the tank. To his immense relief, the AllFather reached down and offered him a hand.

  “Come, my ssson.” His soft, hissing voice was almost soothing. “You have proved yourssself. Well done.”

  “Thank you, Father.” Xairn took the offered hand gratefully and allowed himself to be dragged out of the tank. He lay on his side on the cold metal floor, choking and gasping, trying to get his breath. Over, it was over now. He’d proven to his father that he could survive the tanks. Maybe now he would be loved…

  And that was when those same, bony, horribly strong hands picked him up and threw him in again.

  Xairn forced himself to look away from the window which framed the cool, lapping blue waters of the pool. It was nothing like the slimy black ooze of the drowning tanks aboard the Fathership, but the thought of immersing himself in any kind of deep water still made his flesh crawl.

  He’d lost count of how many times his father threw him into the tanks before he finally let Xairn come out for good. True, he had learned to swim, but it had almost cost him his life. He had been ill for days in the small, lying in the small, bare cot he’d claimed for himself in a hidden corner of the vast Fathership. He’d been half delirious with fear and loneliness as he choked the black slime of the tanks from his lungs.

  Visions of his mother, she of the beautiful green eyes, had danced in his head. Xairn knew she couldn’t come to him no matter how much he longed for her—but his father could. Just one kind word, one gentle touch would have healed not only his body, but his wounded young soul as well. But though he had cried out for him, the tears sliding down his cheeks and wetting his flat, thin pillow, his father hadn’t come to see him. Not once.

  Xairn forced himself to stop remembering. He was surprised at the tightness in his chest and the stinging in his eyes. Why get upset about something that was in the distant past? It’s over, he told himself harshly, turning to pace the rest of the small living space. Why let it affect me now?

  Walking back to the living area, he sank down on the small couch and picked up the remote control for Lauren’s flatscreen. The humans used such devices for entertainment—projecting programs about everything from sporting events to cooking techniques to fictional stories with idealized endings. Xairn didn’t have much interest in any of it but there was nothing else to do. He pointed the remote and clicked.

  “…local girl disappeared from a famous Sarasota landmark just last week,” a human male with perfectly coiffed hair and brilliantly white teeth was saying.

  Xairn frowned as a picture flashed on the flatscreen. A human female who looked to be about Lauren’s age was smiling in the picture. At first, he almost thought she was Lauren. The bone structure of her face was a similar pattern to Lauren’s and she had lovely, creamy brown skin in the exact same shade as Lauren’s too. The eyes were wrong, though. Instead of Lauren’s arresting amber they were a dark brown and her hair was much curlier than Lauren’s long black waterfall. Still, she looked enough like the female he loved for Xairn to find the resemblance disturbing.

  He watched the report awhile longer and heard more about the girl’s disappearance. “Found only her clothes,” the human male was saying. “Her friends said she was with them one moment and the next…she mysteriously vanished.”

  Xairn jumped to his feet. Could it be? Could his father be taking females that looked like Lauren to send him a message? He ran a hand though his hair. Surely not. He has no idea where we are and no way to link to our location. I would have felt him in my mind. It must be a coincidence. Another human must have taken her and left her clothes behind. Right?

  He wasn’t sure if he believed it or not but one thing was certain: he couldn’t sit here idle while Lauren was out by herself in the dim early morning light, alone and unprotected. What if something happened to her? Even if his father wasn’t involved in the other human female’s abduction, it proved that there was danger on this tiny blue planet. Danger that could neither be discounted or ignored.

  Xairn had never been to Lauren’s place of work, but he knew where it was located. She had pointed it out to him when they drove through the circular shopping district near her home. It shouldn’t be hard to find—especially with her sweet scent still lingering in the air to guide him.

  Quickly he pulled on some of his new clothing and started for the door. He would be damned if he’s sit around the living area doing nothing for one minute more. He was going to protect the female he loved whether she wanted him to or not.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “It’s you again.” Detective Rast didn’t seem particularly happy to see her. “What do you want?”

  Nadiah took a deep breath. “I came all the way down from the Mother ship to talk to you. The least you can do is act like a civilized male.”

  “And I came all the way over to the damn HKR building because they called and told me it was urgent,” he growled, crossing his arms over his broad chest and glaring down at her. “So I repeat—what do you want? I thought you’d had enough of me and my attitude—why are you even here?”

  “I’m not here because I wanted to see you,” Nadiah snapped.

  “That makes two of us, sweetheart because I’m not interested in seeing you either.” He frowned at her. “Talk fast or I’m leaving.”

  All the way down in the shuttle from the Mother ship Nadiah had prepared her speech. It was calm and collected and designed to convince him that what she had to say was true. But when she opened her mouth, all that came out was, “He’s going to take another one.”

  “Another one?” Rast raised one eyebrow at her. “Another girl?”

  “Yes. The AllFather is going to snatch her from a dark place.”

  He nodded. “Uh-huh and what else can you tell me?”

  Nadiah frowned and looked down at the scuffed gray carpeting. “That’s all I got this time—I couldn’t even see her face. Sophia woke me up when she heard me, uh, screaming.”

  For a moment, Rast’s icy veneer almost seemed to melt. “Screaming, huh?” he said softly. “Must have been some nightmare.”

  Nadiah looked up at him earnestly, her anger melting away when she remembered the terror of her dream. “I felt her fear. Her pain. He’s going to take her very soon—I’m sure of it.”

  Rast let out a frustrated sigh and shook his head. “Look Nadiah, I believe that you believe what you’re telling me—honestly I do. But I think maybe you should let it go now.”

  “Let it go?” Nadiah frowned at him. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that what you claim to be able to do just can’t be done. And the bad dream you had—maybe it was just that—a bad dream. Maybe it was caused by the bump you took on the head.” His warm fingertips brushed over the tiny mark on her forehead, causing Nadiah’s heart to jump. “Thought I told you to get that looked at.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject.” Nadiah took a step back and put a hand on her hip. “Are you saying you think I’m crazy? That I made everything that I saw up?”

  Rast frowned. “Not on purpose, maybe. But yeah, something like that.”

  “How dare you say that to me? How can you refute what I saw so easily?” Nadiah demanded. “You even asked for my help. You asked me to touch her clothes and try to find her.”

  Rast threw up his hands. “Call it temporary insanity on my part. I was desperate, all right? And besides, what did you see—that she was dead, right? Anyone could have predicted that.”

  Nadiah was getting angrier and angrier. “What about the giants I saw in my vision—the statue? That turned out to be true.”

  Rast shrugged. “I don’t know—the statue is a famous local landmark. Maybe you were reading about Sarasota or talking about it with one of your friends. Haven’t Sophia and Olivia both been there at one time or another?”

  “I have no idea,” Nadiah said coldly. “And I also have no idea why you’
re so anxious to discount what I’m telling you. I saw the first girl taken and she was. I have seen the second girl as well and she’s going to be taken too. Why won’t you listen to me?”

  “Fine, I’m listening.” Rast took a step forward, frowning down at her. “Let’s review the facts, shall we? You said the AllFather took the first girl—Tabitha Grady—up to his ship, correct?”

  Nadiah nodded. “Yes.”

  “He transported her, tortured her, and killed her there—up on the Fathership, right?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So she should still be missing, right?”

  “Well…yes.” Nadiah frowned. “Why?”

  Rast leaned toward her. “Because we found her.” He frowned. “Found her body, anyway. So you see, Nadiah, these fantasies you’re having can’t be true. Tabitha was taken here on Earth and someone here on Earth killed her. They left her body for us to find, right on the same spot where she was snatched. End of story.”

  “What?” Nadiah could barely believe what she was hearing. “But…but it still could have been the AllFather. He could have transported the body back to where he took her from using the molecular transport beam.”

  He frowned. “I’ve been looking into the whole ‘transport beam’ theory. I thought it could only transport living flesh.”

  “I don’t know.” Nadiah threw up her hands. “Maybe he modified it somehow to send nonliving flesh too.”

  “Why would he bother?” snapped Rast. “What is he trying to prove? All this time we’ve been at war with the Scourge, they’ve never pulled a stunt like this. Why start now?”