“But that’s so sad! It must break your heart!” She remembered the limp brantha corpse she’d seen in his lab the first time she’d been in it. Was Snuffy, still sitting on her knee, the clone of that animal? And how many other clones had there been?
“It is sad and somewhat painful,” Calden admitted heavily. “But there is nothing I can do about it. I try not to get attached to my specimens but…” His eyes met hers and looked quickly away. “I cannot always help it.”
“I’m sure you can’t.” Maddy stroked Snuffy again, listening to his contented burbling through his trunk-like nose. She sighed, already feeling blue for the little animal’s eventual fate. “So the nutrient bath is good for growing clones as well as healing things, huh? It must have a really unique chemical composition,” she said, trying to change the topic to something less morose.
For some reason, Calden looked uncomfortable again.
“It is…unique to the Mentat station. It was developed here specifically so they could grow biological specimens for study and research purposes.”
“Well, I’m glad you had it to put me into. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have survived the crash of the Kennedy,” Maddy remarked.
Calden’s mouth went tight for a moment, then he seemed to make a pointed effort to relax his features. He took a deep breath and his expression became neutral.
Poor thing, Maddy thought. He must still be upset about losing the first batch of branthas. What a shame they have such a short life span. I wonder if it’s because they’re clones? She thought about asking him the specifics but he was already upset and she didn’t want to make his pain worse.
“I guess my guardian angel must have been watching out for me when you found me,” she said instead.
He frowned. “Guardian angel? What’s that?”
“Oh, a religious belief from my home world—from Earth,” Maddy explained. “I just feel like God must have been keeping an eye on me—how else would I be the only one who got rescued?” She frowned. “What about you, Calden—do you have any religious beliefs?”
He shook his head. “My people, the Kindred, worship the Goddess—the Mother of All Life—but I have never been much of a believer.”
“You worship a goddess, huh?” Maddy gave him an appraising look. “No wonder you’re so protective of women.”
“We revere all things female.” He nodded gravely. “Though I have never believed in the goddess, I have always believed in the sanctity of female life.” He cleared his throat. “Especially now that I have begun to know you, Madeline. I always knew intellectually that females were special but now I know it here as well.” He pressed one big fist to his heart.
“Oh, Calden…” Maddy bit her lip, wishing she could hug him or ask him for a hug, as she had at breakfast. But what if he misunderstood her meaning?
What is your meaning, anyway? whispered the voice of guilt in her head. Do you really just want a hug because you like what he said or are you looking for an excuse to get close to him again?
Maddy was very much afraid it was the latter and not the former. It was probably better that she was sitting on the floor of the brantha enclosure with Snuffy firmly planted on her knee so she couldn’t grab the big Kindred.
“I’m glad you’re learning new things from having me around,” she said instead, smiling up at him. “I’m learning from you too.”
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “How so?”
Maddy looked at him appraisingly.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met a guy quite like you, Calden. Not just because you’re a different species from me, either—you’re just different. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who was so innately a gentleman before.”
“A…gentleman? Do you mean a male who is gentle or—”
“Not quite—although you certainly are,” Maddy said. “You could break me in half with one hand if you weren’t.” She eyed the big hands in question, resting on the top of the brantha enclosure. “But what I mean by ‘gentleman’ is someone with good manners—someone who treats a woman like a lady—like she’s worthy of respect and care. Does that make more sense?”
He nodded. “I think so. In that case, I am pleased you find me to be a ‘gentleman.’”
“You most certainly are.” Maddy smiled at him. Although I haven’t exactly been acting like a lady, she mentally added with a touch of guilt. Not after the way I acted in the steam room with him.
But even now, despite her guilt, she found herself wanting to do it again—wanting to touch him and feel those big, warm hands on her skin. His topaz eyes seemed to burn into hers and his spicy scent filled her senses. For a moment she wanted him so badly she could scarcely breathe. What was wrong with her? Why did she feel so strongly drawn to the big Kindred?
At last, as though by mutual consent, they looked away.
“I have also grown some of the creatures from your home world, using several of the frozen embryos you had aboard your ship for DNA,” Calden said, obviously changing the subject. “Would you be kind enough to come tell me about them?”
“Oh, sure.” Gently, Maddy dislodged the littlest brantha from her knee. He squeaked and burbled in protest, not wanting to go but she shook her head. “Sorry, Snuffy, I have to go but I promise I’ll be back later to give you more skritches and pets.” She looked up at Calden and held out an arm. “Uh—help me up, will you? My hands are still really weak.”
“They will be for a while, but I’m pleased with the progress you’ve made,” he told her. “I think from now on you’ll just have to sleep in the gloves and we should see improvement every morning.”
Ignoring the arm she was offering, he leaned over and lifted her by the waist over the side of the brantha enclosure as easily as though she was a child.
“Oh!” Maddy exclaimed as he set her gently on her feet. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to you just picking me up like that!”
He frowned. “Would you rather I didn’t?”
She shook her head shyly.
“No. Actually, I…kind of like it, I think. I’m just not used to it—that’s all. I’ve never been with a guy who was big enough and strong enough to lift me and carry me all around like you do. Not that we’re, uh, together or anything,” she added quickly, not wanting to give him the wrong impression. “I just mean…well, you know what I mean.”
“I know.” Calden didn’t seem perturbed by her choice of words, which was good. Maddy didn’t want him thinking that she thought they were in some kind of relationship just because he had rescued her from the remains of her ship and healed her. There did seem to be some kind of attraction between them but there was no point in pursuing it—clearly they could never be together because of their size difference and it wasn’t like she ought to want to be with anyone anyway so soon after Pierce’s death so—
“…called?”
“Huh?” Maddy looked up, realizing she had missed his question because her brain had been running in guilty circles.
“I said, could you please tell me what these specimens are called on your home world?” Calden asked, pointing into a new enclosure near the corner of the large room. In it were a number of fluffy yellow chicks, peeping and cheeping and exploring their new world on shaky legs.
“Oh, you found the chicken embryos!” Maddy exclaimed. “Aren’t they cute?”
“Are chickens a domestic animal then? What is their purpose?” Calden asked.
“Well, they lay eggs and they taste great deep fried.Though I don’t know if I could eat one of these little guys—not after seeing them like this, all cute and fluffy.” She frowned. “Hopefully they’ll live a little longer than the branthas so you can study the complete lifecycle.”
“Hopefully.” Calden nodded neutrally. “So tell me more…”
* * * * *
As they talked, Calden couldn’t stop the guilty feeling that was growing in his gut.
Tell her, whispered a little voice in his head. She needs to know she’s a
clone! She thinks you only healed her with the nutrient bath—she doesn’t know you grew her a whole new body and awakened her to second life!
But if he admitted she was a clone, he’d also have to tell Madeline about the self-termination unit implanted in the back of her neck. And that would only upset her.
No, he decided, better to go to FATHER and get her status as a permanent member of the scientific community here aboard the Mentat station settled first. Once he had FATHER’s permission, he could ask the AI to deactivate the self-termination unit she wore. Only after deactivation could it be safely removed. Otherwise it would be like detonating a bomb inside her body—triggering a blast which could very well blow her entire head off.
The very thought of that made Calden’s stomach clench like a slick fist and a feeling of possessive protectiveness rose inside him so strongly he could barely breathe.
Mine, he thought. Mine to cherish, mine to protect. I must get FATHER to deactivate her unit so that I can remove it—I must get it to agree that she can stay here aboard the station with me.
Of course the Mentats wouldn’t like that—not one bit. But Calden found that he didn’t give a damn. He was beginning to see his colleagues in a whole new light and it wasn’t exactly favorable. He didn’t trust them around Madeline—not even a little.
He couldn’t help remembering all the stories he had heard—mostly from Grack-lor but from others as well—boasting of the females they had bedded and discarded or even brutalized. Unlike his own people, the Mentats didn’t revere females—they thought of them as a commodity to be owned and bought and sold—a luxury item which was difficult to get due to scarcity but not especially valuable otherwise.
Calden frowned. His evolving emotions regarding the Mentats, their feelings about females in general, and about Madeline in particular might present a significant problem in the days to come. Well, they would just have to get used to her and get used to the idea that they couldn’t touch her, he decided. He would be certain of that as soon as he got permission from FATHER to make her a permanent resident of the station.
But he wouldn’t go to the AI overseer right away, he decided. There was still plenty of time on Madeline’s self-termination unit and he needed to prove her worth. He had to gather as much data from her as possible so he could have a wealth of information to offer as proof of her right to life here aboard the station.
All knowledge is valuable, he would remind the AI. Madeline is a prolific source of knowledge—we cannot afford to be without her.
Yes, he was certain he could make his case in a few days. In the meantime, he had to gather as much data from her as possible. He turned back to her, surreptitiously activating a small recording device and began asking her more questions about the lifecycle of the tiny, fluffy yellow creatures she had called “chickens.”
Surely FATHER would understand how valuable she was after seeing the recordings—Calden was positive of it.
Chapter Ten
When they came back to Calden’s quarters at the end of the day the strange silver-green plant he kept by his work station had bloomed.
“What’s that amazing smell?” Maddy lifted her nose, inhaling deeply to breathe in more of the heavenly scent. It was wild and tropical but delicate too, somehow—like orchids and peach blossoms and magnolias all at once.
“I don’t know.” Calden frowned and looked around, scanning his area with sharp topaz eyes. “I have never smelled it before.”
“Me either but it’s fabulous. Oh look!” Maddy caught sight of the blooming plant and ran over to get a closer look at it. The flowers it put out were huge compared with its size—bigger than her hand and shaded in a rainbow of warm tones. Starting at the point of the trumpet-like blossoms, the flowers went from pale yellow, to warm peach, to vivid pinkish-purple to deep crimson around the edges of the petals. They were absolutely stunning and like nothing Maddy had ever seen.
Burying her face in the blossoms, she inhaled deeply. The sweet scent filled her lungs and her senses, making her feel almost dizzy and for a moment the tips of her nipples throbbed and her pussy felt suddenly hot and wet and swollen.
Maddy shifted, pressing her thighs together. She still had on only the shirt-dress Calden had made for her and no underwear so it was easy to feel how wet she was getting. God, what was going on with her? Did it have anything to do with the strange plant? But surely not…
“Madeline? Are you well?” Calden had come over to stand beside her and he was looking at her anxiously.
“Fine. I’m fine.” She straightened up, though part of her wanted to keep smelling the strange, sweet blossoms. “I wonder what happened to your little plant to make it bloom? It was almost dead this morning—though it did look perkier at lunch.” They’d had a quick but satisfying Mid Meal, as Calden called it and honestly, she wasn’t really hungry for supper even though it was technically dinner time.
“I don’t know.” Calden frowned. “But maybe you should step away from it, Madeline.”
“Why?” She looked at him anxiously. “Is it poison?”
“No—certainly not,” he said quickly. “But I have never seen it bloom before and the scent is very strong.”
“It’s wonderful,” Maddy said, inhaling deeply. “But if it’ll make you feel better, we can go over to the bed and talk.”
Now why had she said that? But she was already going to sit on the high side of the vast bed and Calden came to sit beside her without question.
“What is it you wish to talk about?” he asked. “What to have for Last Meal?”
“No—I’m not hungry right now,” Maddy said. Not for food, anyway, whispered a little voice in her head. “I think…think we need to talk about what happened earlier—in the enzyme baths.”
“If you were feeling threatened when Jong-tar kept insisting that you and I were mating in some way—”
“No, that was kind of scary but I knew you’d protect me,” Maddy told him. She put a hand on his knee and let it rest there lightly. “I’m talking about what happened before when you were, you know, spreading the gel on me to protect me from the enzymes in the baths.”
God, what was she doing? There was no way she ought to be talking like this—bringing this up, she told herself. They’d spent the entire day not talking about what had happened that morning, by mutual silent consent. They had talked about branthas and chickens and cloning and just about everything and anything but the way he had slid his long fingers deep in her pussy and nearly made her come. And here she was, bringing it up while they sat side by side on his bed.
Calden cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. But Maddy noticed that he didn’t move her hand from his knee and the bulge in the black trousers he wore proved that he was just as interested in the subject as she was.
“Um…if I touched you inappropriately, I apologize,” he said. “I…should not have done what I did.”
“You did it because I asked you to,” Maddy said frankly. “So I’m the one who ought to be apologizing. I don’t…don’t know what got into me.” She looked down. “I shouldn’t want to do anything like that with you—with anyone—so soon after…after Pierce died.”
“You shouldn’t feel bad,” Calden objected. “Suffering a loss doesn’t mean that your body stops having needs.” He cleared his throat. “I am the one who should not have done what I did. I took an oath when I came here to the Mentat station to swear off all females and any contact with them. Also—it is dangerous to do such things in public. I don’t think old Nusper-veis saw us but if he had—”
“You could have gotten into a lot of trouble,” Maddy guessed, finishing for him. “I’m sorry, Calden—I would never want to hurt your standing here at the station. I never…never should have asked you to touch me so intimately.”
“Don’t say that.” He cupped her cheek in his big hand and turned her eyes up to his. “It was my very great pleasure to touch you, Madeline,” he murmured. “To stroke and pleasure you with my fingers. You
are so soft inside…so wet and hot. I never imagined…”
“Because you’ve never been with a woman before, right?”
He shook his head hesitantly. “Never.”
It was hard to believe but it appeared that the big Kindred really was a virgin. Of course, if his people had run out of women to mate with, that made sense. And it wasn’t like Maddy could mate with him now—it was impossible due to their size difference. But it did give her an idea.
“Calden,” she said, “I know you said it isn’t safe to do…that kind of thing in public, but what about private? Does your computer boss—FATHER—watch you here? In your room?”
He frowned. “Of course not. Our privacy is sacrosanct.”
“Well then…” Maddy let her hand slide higher up his thigh. “I was thinking—you know how you say all knowledge is valuable?”
“Yes…” Calden cocked an eyebrow at her. “What are you saying, Madeline?”
“I’m saying that I can provide you with knowledge you can’t get any other way,” Maddy said. “I can show you how it is between a man and a woman. Not completely, of course.” She eyed the bulge in his black trousers which was now positively huge. “But some. I could teach you how to kiss, at least.”
She couldn’t believe she was saying this but somehow Maddy couldn’t stop—the warm, tantalizing scent of the beautiful blossoms that had appeared on the little plant seemed to invade her brain and make her lose her inhibitions completely.
Awakened by the Giant: Brides of the Kindred Page 12