Awakened by the Giant: Brides of the Kindred

by Evangeline Anderson

  A mischievous grin lit up Tabby’s freckled face. “As a matter of fact, yes. There was this one time…”

  “I hope you don’t mind me springing this on you,” Liv murmured to Maddy as Calden and Tabby continued to talk. “I just kind of thought it was too good to pass up—a sister already here aboard the Mother Ship.”

  “You thought right,” Maddy assured her. “Thank you for bringing her. But…did you, uh, tell her my secret?” she asked in a much lower voice.

  Liv shook her head. “That’s not my secret to tell, though I really think it’s nothing to be ashamed of. You can tell your sister—or not—when you feel ready.”

  “Thank you.” Maddy felt a rush of relief. She thought that someday—maybe even someday soon—she’d be ready to tell Tabby and the rest of her family that she was a clone…but not yet. For now she wanted to enjoy the reunion with her sister and hopefully everyone else too.

  “I still can’t believe you’re here,” Tabby said, turning back to her. “Wait until I tell Mom and everyone else! She’s going to want to have a huge party to celebrate! And she’s going to want to meet your new hubby. Uh…” She cleared her throat. “What happened to Pierce?”

  “It’s kind of a long story and I promise I’ll tell you later,” Maddy murmured. “For right now, though, I’m just happy to see you again, little Sis.”

  “I’m happy too. Give me another hug!”

  As Tabby pulled her into another bone-crunching embrace, Maddy’s eyes met Calden’s topaz ones and they exchanged a small, secret smile. She knew she had him to thank for all of this. For she never would have come back home or had this happy reunion if he hadn’t brought her back and she never would have found love again if she hadn’t been Awakened by the Giant.

  The End

  If you have enjoyed Awakened by the Giant, please take a minute to leave a review HERE. Reviews are the author's lifeblood in an era when the e-book market is incredibly crowded. They let a new reader it's okay to take a chance on an author they have never heard of before. Plus, they give me the warm fuzzies. : ) Thanks for being an awesome reader!

  Hugs, Evangeline

  PS--read on for a Sneak Peek at Hitting the Target, my next Kindred Tales book releasing in March.

  Hitting the Target

  A girl sent to kill the one she is dreaming of

  Her target? A Kindred warrior with a beast inside

  Can Mia complete her mission?

  Or is Trey Hitting the Target when he aims for her heart?

  Chapter One

  The recording device in the toe of Mia’s right shoe was malfunctioning again. When she checked its output on the tiny handheld device she had been issued by the Commandant, she saw only wavy, blurred lines and heard only static. Damn.

  A worried frown creased her forehead as she toed off the clunky, uncomfortable shoes and slipped into a pair of soft-toed clogs instead. Of course it was nice to have an excuse to wear her more comfortable shoes to the Care Center. As a healer’s aide, she worked long shifts and was on her feet for ten to twelve hours at a time.

  But the comfort she gained was more than offset by the distress and anxiety she felt when she thought how she would be unable to offer the Commandant the full range of surveillance she was responsible for.

  Well, she still had the tiny camera shaped like a Mercy Star that she wore on the lapel of her pale blue uniform, Mia comforted herself. And the images it took were really much more valuable because the angle was so much better for faces than the recording device in the toe of her shoe. The Commandant would understand. She would just explain during their next scheduled meeting that she needed a new device—or more likely a new pair of shoes with a device implanted in them. He would issue them and that would be that.

  “Mia, child—are you in there? Could you make me a cup of nettle steep?” a whispery voice called.

  “Of course, Neemah.” Quickly, Mia slipped the handheld output checker into an antique sweetener bowl and, standing on tiptoes, pushed it to the back of the top shelf where her grandmother would never find it. If Neemah ever found out she was working for The EYE, especially after what had happened to Mia’s parents…

  But the thought didn’t bear thinking about. Instead, Mia turned to the ancient stove. Switching it from electric to fuel, she threw a chunk of fire rock which stained her fingertips dirty orange into the grate and pressed the ignite button. The stove had been modified to burn fuel because the electric current wasn’t exactly stable. At least twice a day—sometimes more often—there were energy flickers and rolling outages which lasted sometimes just a few seconds, but often up to several hours.

  Mia had heard it whispered that the Republic caused the power outages on purpose to keep people in line or to catch dissenters trying to sneak across the Great Barrier. But the SSCC—the State Sponsored Communications Channel—blamed Bountiful, the country to the south of the People’s Republic. According to the SSCC, the Republic was full of spies and saboteurs from the decadent South—one could never be too careful because they were everywhere.

  Mia had never been to Bountiful herself—and had never wanted to go. Not that she could have gotten to the sprawling country which took up the southern half of the single continent on her little world, even if she wanted to. Making any attempt to leave the People’s Republic and cross the Great Barrier to get south was a crime punishable by death and Mia had no intention of dying anytime soon.

  The stove top was red-hot now so she half-filled a chipped ceramic steep-pot from the faucet, which was little more than a pipe sticking out of the wall over the sink, and sat it on the glowing coil. Her grandmother’s spice rack was hanging on one wall, hiding a spot where the grayish-yellow paint was peeling. It was arranged, as always, exactly to Neemah’s specifications with the sweet spices on the top shelf and the savory ones at the bottom. Their kitchen might not be much to look at, with its pealing walls, exposed fixtures and half-broken appliances but Mia’s grandmother insisted on keeping it neat as a pin.

  Mia took the jar of ground sweet nettles from the top of the spice rack and carefully measured out exactly one spoonful of the fine pale purple powder into a pretty old cup. It had tall, fluted sides and a picture of a lady with a pink head scarf drinking steep under a blue and white uanna tree on one side.

  The cup had been part of her Neemah’s inheritance and it had been made before the Great Revolution, Mia was fairly certain of that. When the People’s Republic came into power in the North and granted equality to all and erected the Great Barrier to keep the undesirables out, they had stopped the production of such frivolous items. Nowadays everything had to have a practical purpose—and everything was utilitarian and plain.

  Mia had always liked the cup because Neemah said her eyes were the exact same color as the pale blue flowers on the uanna tree. People said they were striking, her eyes—they set off the creamy brown of her skin dramatically. They made her face almost pretty enough to balance out the fact that she was too plump to be what the Republic considered an “ideal female.”

  Sighing, she looked up at the cloudy pane of plasti-glass that covered the window over the sink. She didn’t look particularly striking now—just tired. She’d been working double shifts for the past three days ever since Jania, the other healer’s aide who worked on her floor, had gone missing.

  Mia wondered if Jania was being held somewhere, perhaps in the basement of The EYE’s headquarters. That was where the police arm of the Republic took dissenters, mostly. She wondered if Jania would ever come back and if she did, would the other girl retain enough of her mind to continue working at the Care Center. But most of all, she wondered if any of the surveillance she herself supplied had been instrumental in Jania’s detainment.

  Oh please, no. I hope not. I really hope not!

  After all, it wasn’t like she wanted to be an informant and a VAR—volunteer agent of the Republic. Despite the title, there was nothing voluntary about it. Mia had been dragged into the Commandant’s
office and given no choice. He had said—

  A strident whistling from the steep pot interrupted her thoughts. The water was boiling. Putting on a worn hot-mitt with stuffing coming out of its quilted seams, Mia picked it up and poured the heated water into the tall cup with the lady under the uanna tree. Fragrant steam rose from the cup and she swirled the pale purple liquid around, breathing in the sweet aroma of the ground nettles and trying not to think. But though she tried to banish them, her dark thoughts continued anyway.

  It didn’t matter about her surveillance—Jania was always going to be taken by The EYE—really, it was only a matter of time. It wasn’t that she spread sedition or openly talked about wanting to cross the Great Barrier. She didn’t distribute pamphlets calling for freedom or the end to the People’s Republic or anything like that. But she was too…Mia frowned, trying to find a word to describe her late friend and coworker. Jania was too free. Too happy. To light and easy and cheerful all the time.

  Though there was no law against it, The EYE didn’t like to see people behaving in such a manner. Decorum was necessary—even vital to everyday existence. Accordingly, an air of dignified gloom prevailed, especially in public. Laughing aloud or even smiling broadly was sure to draw disapproving looks and the wrong kind of attention.

  People might be a little more laid back at home with family, but not much. Even in the heart of your home, you could never be quite sure that someone wasn’t watching you and reporting back to The EYE. Mia had heard terrible stories of brothers reporting sisters and wives reporting husbands or of a child spying on his or her entire family which resulted in all of them winding up in the basement of The EYE’s headquarters.

  It was dreadful, really—it made her glad there was only herself and Neemah in the broken down little flat on the sixteenth floor of the monotone gray high-rise, so exactly like every other building in the city. Her parents had been taken when she was only a little girl and she had never had any siblings.

  “Mia, child—is that nettle steep ready yet?” Neemah called.

  “Ready right now. Coming Neemah.”

  Carefully, she carried the lovely old cup with its pale purple steep into the tiny living area. Her grandmother was sitting in a worn overstuffed armchair covered in a faded flower pattern. The stuffing had started to come out in places but Mia had laid a bedsheet over the seat and arms to conceal that.

  Neemah was a thin little stick of a woman with darker brown skin than Mia and faded brown eyes to match. Presently those eyes were glued to the lighted communications box where a lively game show was playing.

  Mia frowned as she sat the cup of nettle steep carefully down on the rickety little wooden table to one side of the overstuffed armchair. She could tell by the waves of static that passed over the screen from time to time than Neemah was not watching a Republic approved channel. The EYE tried to block the transmissions from Bountiful but some of them always got through and if you were caught watching them…

  Abruptly Mia slapped a hand over the Mercy Star pin she wore on her lapel. She was grateful it only displayed images and didn’t pick up any sound.

  “Neemah,” she exclaimed, “You know you can’t watch those Southern programs! You need to change the box over to the SSCC now!”

  “But the programs they show on that channel are so boring!” Neemah protested, oblivious to the fact that what she was saying was little better than treason. “They had better programs back in my day—before the Revolution came along and ruined everything.”

  “Neemah!” Mia hissed, horrified. “You can’t talk like that! You know you can’t.”

  “Why not? I’m an old lady—I’ve earned the right to speak my mind. Besides, it’s just you and me here child and it’s not like you’re one of those awful VAR people,” her grandmother said complacently.

  Mia felt a stab of shame and guilt and had to work hard to keep a blank look on her face for a minute. Her throat felt tight. If Neemah only knew some of the things she had done for the Commandant…Abruptly, she shoved the memories and the guilt they caused away.

  “Still,” she said firmly, “It’s not safe, Neemah.”

  “Oh, pooh!” Neemah made a shooing gesture with the hand not holding the steaming cup of steep. “If those silly EYE people get upset with me, I’ll just move up to Beria with my old friend, Fransell. Everybody knows they don’t bother to go up there—it’s too cold.”

  Beria was at the very northern end of the continent, thousands of miles from the Great Barrier. Mia had heard that it got so cold there you could throw a pot of boiling water into the air and it would come down as snowflakes or ice crystals. Such extreme weather wouldn’t be good for her grandmother’s aching bones at all, not to mention the food shortages they often had.

  “Nobody bothers to go up there because it’s where people are banished when they wrong the Republic,” Mia pointed out. “And you can’t guarantee that you won’t end up in the basement of The EYE’s headquarters instead.” She looked at her grandmother pleadingly. “You’re all I have, Neemah—please don’t put yourself at risk this way.”

  Neemah drew in a heavy breath and let it out in a long-suffering sigh.

  “Well…all right then, child. If it’ll make you happy.”

  Picking up the clunky, brick-shaped remote device she pressed a few buttons and the game show was replaced by a man in a dark suit and a suitably somber face.

  “Unfortunately, two citizens of the People’s Republic were lost today in an unlawful attempt to get through the Great Barrier,” he was saying in a deep, sad voice. “During a momentary lull in the electric current, they attempted to cross over into the hated land of Southern Depravity. Those guarding the Barrier had no choice but to execute them on the spot.”

  He shook his head sadly but Mia thought she saw some other emotion in his eyes—a kind of glee. I told you so, that expression said. I told you so but you wouldn’t listen and now you’re dead. You’re dead and you got just what you deserved…got exactly what was coming to you…

  “Let this be a lesson to other citizens of the People’s Republic tempted to try to get past the Great Barrier,” the commentator continued. “Remember my friends, the Barrier is there for your benefit—for all our benefits. To keep us safe from Southern lust and greed and the utter corruption which being exposed to their evil ways inevitably leads to.”

  The commentator had a lot more to say but Mia didn’t have time to listen to it.

  “I have to go, Neemah—I’ll be late for my shift at the Care Center.” She leaned down and dropped a kiss on the wrinkled cheek.

  Neemah looked up, her withered face puckered in agitation.

  “What? Going back again so soon? But you got in so late last night! They’re working you to death, child,” she complained loudly.

  “No, they’re not,” Mia said quickly, glad all over again that her Mercy Star only recorded images and not sound. “I’ve just had to pick up a few extra shifts here and there to help cover for some people who are out.”

  She thought of Jania again and her throat felt tight.

  Her grandmother sighed resignedly.

  “All right. Well, just you be careful out there, Mia child. And come back to me safe and sound.”

  There was anxiety in her faded brown eyes as she spoke the words. Mia couldn’t help remembering it was what her grandmother used to say to her father and mother when they left for work in the mornings too. She spoke them like a protective spell even though the disappearance of Mia’s parents so many years ago proved they had no power to fend off harm.

  But they warmed Mia’s heart anyway.

  “You be safe too, Neemah,” she said, kissing the wrinkled cheek again. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Pulling on her warmest coat, she stepped out into the biting wind, being careful to shut the door quickly so the chill wouldn’t get into the flat and make her grandmother’s bones ache. All around her was a barren landscape of gray concrete. There were a few sickly trees planted here
and there on the street corners but their bark was rusty orange from the fire rock dust which gusted out of vents in the sides of the tall monolithic buildings. The cold wind stank of burned fuel and the exhaust of the multi-level busses which trundled over the cracked pavement like enormous black beetles.

  For a moment, Mia wondered if it had always been this way. Had the city been so bleak before the Revolution, or had everything been better like her grandmother claimed?

  Unbidden, a picture flashed in her mind’s eye—another city but a greener one. Clean air and flowering trees everywhere surrounded high, white buildings with big, shiny glass windows. And he was there—smiling at her. His hair like a golden brown mane around his face, his eyes clear green like a tropical sea. Clear green until they turned golden that was…golden and animalistic and his features began to change. He beckoned to Mia and said her name in a deep, growling voice. He…

  No. Mia pushed the strange image away. It was nothing—just a fragment of a dream but somehow it filled her with fear…and made her ache inside. Why did she keep having the strange dreams every night? Was it because of what she’d done at work—because of the act the Commandant had forced her to commit? Was her mind trying to take her away to someplace else, someplace where she could finally be at ease? But if so, why did the man’s eyes change? Why did his voice take on that strange, growling quality?