by Viola Grace
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Author’s Note
About the Author
An alien genome leads Myra to a world her ancestors called their own and a people who demand that she give them all she has to give.
Humouring her grandparents leads Myra to discovering that a member of her family belonged to an alien race, and that race wants her back now. The people who killed her ancestors demand the last viable member of the Day clan, and she has no idea why.
She finds out that her bloodline is the key to bringing back a portion of the population that have died out. The women. Her alien people survive by abducting their brides from a variety of species, but if she can claim her birthright, she can bring the trigger back and fertility will return.
Arbor-Dren–assassin, warrior and snappy dresser—is the consort that she chooses, and he is more than capable of dealing with her learning curve, and all of her other curves as well.
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Noble
Copyright © 2015 Viola Grace
ISBN: 978-1-4874-0218-1
Cover art by Carmen Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Noble
Terran Times Second Wave
By
Viola Grace
Chapter One
Myra faced her grandparents in their kitchen, the well-worn butcher block warm under her palms. “Can you repeat that?”
Her grandfather smiled brightly. “We want you to apply for the Volunteer Program. We have a suspicion about our family, and we want it confirmed.”
“What do you suspect?”
Her grandmother held her husband’s hand. “We believe that we have an alien in our bloodline.”
Since her grandparents were third cousins, it explained why both of them were keen.
“You have to be kidding.” She rolled her eyes and sipped her hot chocolate with the teeny marshmallows rapidly dissolving as she waited.
“No. Here. This is the family tree, and it goes back five hundred years.”
With reverence, her grandfather opened a book that was surprisingly hollow. A creased and brittle page came out of the box, and he unfolded it with the air of someone holding something sacred.
Myra looked at the unfolding document with curiosity. “What is that?”
Her grandmother smiled. “He told you; it is our family tree.”
She knew she was currently looking at the nuts of that tree, but she examined the page as it unfolded.
The name Elspeth was next to a peculiar icon, and the line joined into a weird nubbly branch that never spread out more than two children of varying sexes until it culminated with her. The oddest part was that the line joined consistently every four generations back into one strand.
“So, we are really inbred.”
Her grandmother sighed. “We are pulled to our own kind. We can’t help it.”
“Our own kind? You are really hopping that we have aliens in our blood.”
Her grandfather pointed to the icon next to Elspeth. “It isn’t any family crest on Earth. That only leaves one option that we can now consider.”
Ah, there it was. Because there were now actual aliens on Earth, they might be able to tell her where her family came from. Myra was betting it was some banal corner of a European country, because what else could it be?
The form was easy enough, but when one of the attendants beckoned her over, she was a little surprised. Myra followed him into a back office where a medical setup was waiting.
“With your permission, miss, I would like to take a DNA sample.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“You have the right to refuse, of course, but our scans indicated that the supposition of off-worlder in your DNA is possible.”
“Why do you need a DNA sample if you have already scanned me?”
“Confirmation. Many races are similar to yours or blended with others. A sample will gain us precise information.”
She nodded. “What do you need as a sample?”
“Blood and saliva as well as a tissue scraping from your wrist.”
She swallowed. “Right. The sooner we start, the sooner this will be over.”
He grinned and pressed a small icon to her wrist before swabbing her cheek. When he finished the cheek swab, he removed the icon and a small triangle of skin had been abraded.
The blood was a finger prick and three bright drops.
“That is it. We will be in touch.”
“So, you will let me know if anything odd pops up?” She bit her lip.
“We will be in touch.” He smiled and inclined his head.
Sighing, she left the medical room and walked back the way she had come. To sooth herself, she put her headphones in while in the hallway, and as the tunes rang in her ears, she calmed.
She breathed more easily, and her muscles relaxed. It was done. She couldn’t say no to her grandparents, so now, her obligation was over.
* * * *
Recruiter Norz looked at the results. “You are certain?”
“Yes, sir. All three samples confirm it. She is a Kameraet, of the Day clan.”
Norz stared at his assistant. “I thought they were all dead.”
“Apparently not, sir. This is a very strong and very pure genetic line, considering what she listed on her form.”
Norz shook his head and ran a hand over his scalp. “I suppose I have to inform them. Damn. I wish it were any other species. Why couldn’t it just have been a stray Dheman or Enjel?”
“Will they insist on landing, do you think?”
“To reclaim the last of that line? I think we will be lucky if we can have her launched from the moon base without a warship panicking the populace.”
Norz went to the long-range com while muttering to himself about genetic lotteries and hoping for luck.
His best bet was the Kameraet ambassador in the court of the Imperium, so that is where he placed the call.
Thirty minutes later, the connection was finalised and the Kameraet ambassador was facing Norz in a holographic display.
Norz inclined his head. “Apologies for disturbing you, Ambassador.”
“I am guessing that this will be worth my time, so proceed, Ontex.”
Norz kept his expression blank, as he had been trained to. “I have come across one of your people. Well, the direct descendant of one of your houses.”
The ambassador raised his brows. “Which family?”
“The Day family. She is a direct des
cendant of the Day clan. There is no doubt.”
The ambassador’s expression was shocked, to say the least. “You do know that this will throw my people into an uproar.”
“I do.”
“Do you have...wait...you said she?” His manner shifted from shocked to predatory.
Norz kept his wince to himself. Indeed, this was precisely what he had hoped would not happen.
“Correct. The descendant is a female.”
The ambassador narrowed his eyes. “How old?”
“She is twenty-six.”
The smile was bright. “I will contact Nimrah immediately. They will be in touch with you at this terminal number for the pickup of our new High Lady.”
Norz nodded. “Thank you, Ambassador.”
The man’s features blurred as the call was disconnected.
Norz sighed. The Kameraet had been master traders throughout the Imperium, but now, they were an organised gathering of highly paid assassins and spies that owned four sealed star systems and everything in them. Their obsession with bloodlines bordered on the frightening, and Norz worried for Myra’s safety and sense of freedom. If she was the last of her line, as they suspected, a line of males would be presented to her, and she would have to choose a lord quickly. If she didn’t make the move, they would feel free to coerce her and that would probably not sit well with her Terran sensibilities.
An hour later, the Kameraet had arranged to send a warship to pick up their newly found member. Norz had negotiated frantically to get them to agree to remain beyond the moon with their ship, and finally, the high lord acquiesced.
Norz had to deliver the woman to the moon base in three days’ time. He hoped that it was enough warning for her, but she had entered her DNA into their system and that system was cross-referenced with the Imperium’s scouting department. Once she offered those samples, she was doomed.
* * * *
Myra was sitting and watching a movie with her grandparents when a knock sounded at the door.
Her grandmother was irritated. She had watched the movie a dozen times, but it was nearing her favourite part. “Who the hell is that?”
Myra chuckled and got to her feet, heading for the door. When she opened it, the person standing on the other side was familiar to her by rumour only.
The small, silvery man in the precisely tailored suit smiled at her with shark-like teeth. “Myra Musgrave?”
She nodded. “I am.”
“My name is Recruiter Norz. I have some news for you. May I come in?”
Myra looked past him to the three vehicles in front of the house, all in sombre black, unremarkable in every way except for their quantity. “Please.”
The sitting room of the old Victorian house that her grandparents made their home was cosy and covered with images of family through the ages.
“Please have a seat.”
He nodded and paused. “Would you ask your grandparents to join us? This is information they have been looking for.”
Myra raised her eyebrows and headed to the living room, turning off the television and explaining. “The man from the Volunteer Program is here with news.”
Her grandparents got to their feet and followed her into the sitting room where Recruiter Norz was looking at the family photos.
“Recruiter Norz, this is my grandmother, Abilene Musgrave, and my grandfather, Albert Musgrave.”
Her grandparents extended their hands in turn and smiled hopefully at the alien in their midst. Everyone took a seat, and Recruiter Norz smiled brightly, not showing his teeth this time.
“Well, Myra came into our offices earlier today, and I have the results of the testing.”
To Myra’s surprise, it appeared that he didn’t want to speak but was forcing himself.
“It is my duty to notify you that you do indeed have an off-world species in your bloodline.”
Her grandfather beamed and her grandmother smiled. Myra watched the recruiter and noted something he wasn’t saying.
“They are called the Kameraet, and they are coming to collect Myra.” He blurted it all out in one statement.
Myra blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
Her grandmother scowled. “You can’t take her.”
“I am not taking her. The Kameraet are coming to take her, and if she is not on the lunar base, they will come to the surface and take her. That is not something that we want to happen.”
Myra cocked her head. “I thought we were a protectorate.”
“Terra is. As a descendant of the Day clan, you are not. You are considered a captured member of their society, and they are coming to retrieve you.”
Her grandparents looked at each other. Her grandfather said, “What about us?”
Recruiter Norz smiled slightly. “They are not interested in you. Your contribution to your bloodline is complete.”
Myra was getting a bad feeling about this. “What if I choose not to go?”
Norz sighed. “You do not have a choice. You are the last surviving member of the Day clan, and they will come to get you. They are, in fact, on their way, and it would be better if you were somewhere where they could retrieve you without any issue.”
She swallowed. “What if I don’t volunteer?”
“It is no longer a matter of volunteering. You have enough genetic proof to make you a non-human, and your people are coming to get you. They usually do so with methods that would not be appreciated by your governments, and so, I am asking you to please pack your bags. The laws of the Kameraet and their worlds now govern you. We need to return you to your people.”
Her grandparents were shocked.
Myra nodded and got to her feet. “Right. Fine. I will pack. Grandma, Grandpa, as soon as I know more about our family, I will let you know. Consider this a more expanded genealogical survey.”
She kissed them both on the cheeks and headed upstairs to pack her bags. Putting her family and her world at risk was not something she was interested in. Learning that she wasn’t completely human was another hit.
She needed some time to think, and a spacecraft was the perfect place to do it. She wouldn’t have to shut out her world; she wouldn’t be on her world.
Chapter Two
Myra was alone on the shuttle with the exception of the pilot. She got up and heaved her bag on to her shoulder.
Music was blasting in her ears, and it kept her in a world of her own as she left the shuttle and was taken down the hall by a solemn, pale green woman in a bodysuit.
The music kept her from panicking, like it always did. Recruiter Norz had provided her with a crystalline player for her music library that would not require charging.
The woman showed her to her quarters and tapped her ear.
Sighing, Myra pulled her earbuds out and looked at the woman.
“Thank you, Miss Musgrave. This is your com station. Your family has been given a matching terminal, and this is the contact location identifier. You can use it anywhere.”
The woman ran through the small dispensing unit in her quarters that would provide her with food for the next two days. She was basically under arrest until the Kameraet came to get her.
When the woman showed her the research terminal, Myra finally got interested. The moment she was alone, she researched what she could, and the more she learned, the more her stomach churned.
Assassins, spies and armies for hire marked what had once been a fairly well-rounded society. The Day clan had been targeted to remove them from power. Several members had tried to run, but they had been hunted until they were extinct in two decades. The one member of the clan that had escaped was reported dead when his ship crashed on a primitive world. Surak Day didn’t have an image in the records, but the picture of his grandfather—Ekohart Day—had the same definite stamp that was on Myra’s own face, even after all those passing generations.
Well, that was something to tell her grandparents. She used the code, and after three minutes, her grandparents were huddled around the ter
minal, listening as she told them what she knew.
Her grandfather wrote everything down, and her grandmother gasped at the image of their ancestor.
Myra didn’t share what she knew of the clans of Night and Eclipse. That wasn’t something that she wanted her only family to think about. Death and disappearance surrounded the history of the Day Clan, and that was just the men. The women simply ceased to be on record. Myra hoped that they got away.
She chatted with her family for a bit and then logged off, citing exhaustion. Air kisses were blown and the screen went dark.
Myra went to the dispenser, got a cup of coffee and settled back at the information station, reading as much as she could about the people who were coming to pick her up.
When she finished, as tired as she was, she had trouble falling asleep.
The learning flash helped her work through documents that didn’t translate well into English. Two more days of learning all she could about the Kameraet and the species they gathered around them made her feel that she was not going to be surprised by what she would be facing in eighteen hours. The ship was coming in, and she just had one more night before she was launching herself into space.
No one at the base was sure what to do with her, so they were leaving her alone. She was left with her research and her music, and she immersed herself in both.
When the knock struck her door, she jolted to her feet. “I will be right there.”
Myra took a deep breath, grabbed her bag and opened the door.
There was a wall of matte black chest plates in front of her, each attached to a large male with a mask covering his eyes and cheekbones with black cloaks hanging to their ankles, the hoods drawn up.
“Um, hello.”
One of the men extended his hand, and she recognised the small scanner from her time in medical. She held out her hand and turned her wrist up for the sample to be drawn, tugging her sleeve out of the way.