“Forget it,” she said tersely. “I don’t believe you, anyway. You just wanted a girl along so you could have a good time on your mission and now that it’s over, you’re trying to let me down easy. Well, I’m not buying it.” She stabbed a finger at him. “This is a shitty thing to do, Asher, and you know it. Especially on Christmas Eve. Even if the holiday doesn’t mean a damn thing to you, believe me—it’s shitty.”
“Lisa—” he started again but she was already out of the ship and marching across the Docking Bay. They were expected and she could see Kat and Liv and Sophie waving at her down the long metal corridor lined with Kindred ships. “Lisa, please!” she heard him shout behind her. But she was damned if she was going back.
She turned her head and shot him one last glare.
“Have a nice life,” she flung at him and then she faced front resolutely and resolved not to look back again.
Asher watched her go, feeling like someone had stabbed him in the heart with a dull knife and was twisting the blade. How had things gone so wrong so quickly? Maybe he shouldn’t have told her he never wanted to see her again.
But it would have been too difficult, seeing each other all the time, he argued with himself. Too tempting.
And ultimately too painful when she inevitably found another Kindred warrior to be with—one which could bond her to him in the way Asher could not. The idea of that—of Lisa with someone else—was more than he could bear. He had decided he would rather not see her at all than see her with another male.
But maybe that had been the wrong decision. And he had certainly told her in the wrong way. But what else could he do?
What you can do is spend your life alone, whispered a little voice in the back of his head. Because you’ll never find another female like Lisa and you know it.
He looked down at the single chewchie egg left on the pillow and felt grief wash over him. Alone.
He would always be alone and it was his own fault.
Forty-One
“Lisa, are you sure you want to go back down to Earth tonight?” Liv asked, frowning. “I mean, it’s almost midnight in Florida right now. Don’t you want to at least spend the night and go back tomorrow morning?”
“No.” Lisa lifted her chin, willing herself not to cry. “I’d like to go tonight, please. I know it’s a pain in the butt,” she added. “But there are some things I need to get done.”
The main thing being, to get as far away from Asher as possible, she thought. There was no way she was going to move up to the Mother Ship now. No way she would ever risk seeing him again—especially knowing he wanted nothing to do to her. She was going back tonight and never coming back again.
“But don’t you want to wait to get your money?” Sophie asked. “I mean, you earned an awful lot, since you stayed that extra day and everything. But there’s no way Sylvan can get it all together tonight. If you’ll just wait—”
“Sorry but I really don’t want to wait—I need to go now,” Lisa emphasized.
“Well…” Sophie closed her eyes and appeared to be concentrating.
“She’s talking to Sylvan using their bond,” Kat explained when Lisa frowned. “Asking him what can be done about the money, probably.”
So Kindred were able to communicate with their mates via some kind of telepathic bond, Lisa realized. And Asher had been certain he couldn’t form this kind of bond with her—not that he would, even if he could, she thought bitterly. He wanted nothing to do with her now. Well the feeling was mutual!
At last Sophie opened her eyes.
“Sylvan says he can have a cashier’s check ready for you at the HKR building in downtown Tampa but not until the day after Christmas,” she said apologetically. “I’m really sorry but apparently it’s a pretty big sum so the High Council has to approve it and they aren’t meeting again until after the holidays.”
“That’s fine,” Lisa said, though she couldn’t help feeling a touch of unease. She’d been planning to go back to her apartment, gather her things—especially the picture of her Dad—and get on the first bus out of town. Now it appeared she was going to be stuck in Tampa at least two more days.
It shouldn’t be a problem, she told herself firmly. After all, Cameron thinks I’m in Miami and that’s a big city. He’s probably still driving around down there looking for me.
She was sure it must be true—or at least she told herself she was. Everything was going to be fine—she just needed to get some distance between herself and Asher and she would feel much better.
“Are you sure you have to go, doll?” Kat asked, trying one more time, even though her friends had failed. “You don’t really want to spend Christmas by yourself, do you? Why don’t you hang around here and come by my place? You’d be more than welcome.”
“You’re very kind.” Lisa smiled at her. “But honestly, I just want to go home.”
“Would this have anything to do with Commander Asher?” Liv asked, frowning. “Because I was sure the two of you were hitting it off.”
“Yeah, I was sure of that too,” Lisa muttered.
“Oh no—what happened?” Sophie asked.
Lisa shook her head.
“I’m sorry, but I’d rather not talk about it. I just want to go home.”
“Well…” Liv and Sophie and Kat exchanged helpless glances and at last Liv nodded. “I’ll get my hubby Baird to fly you,” she said. She closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated before opening them again. “Okay, he says he’ll meet you at the Docking Bay in fifteen minutes. Have you got everything you need?”
Liv patted the carry-all cube with her clothes and the precious chewchie egg inside it.
“It’s all here. As long as I’m allowed to keep the clothes I wore on Helios Beta?” she asked, looking at Kat.
“Of course, doll—they’re all yours.” Kat nodded. “Wear them in good health and come back and see us some time, all right?”
Lisa promised she would, though she knew it was a blatant lie. There was no way she was ever coming back to the Mother Ship—not as long as Asher made it his home.
She never wanted to see the big bastard again.
Forty-Two
The egg hatched around noon on Christmas Eve. Lisa had been sitting on the couch, watching a Christmas movie marathon on the boxy old TV which the previous tenant had left in her apartment when she’d heard a cracking sound coming from the tiny, postage-stamp sized kitchen table behind her.
Lisa, who was sitting on the sagging couch, turned around to look. One of the reasons she’d taken the crappy little apartment in the bad part of Tampa—sometimes known as “suitcase city” because people moved in and out with such regularity—was the fact that it was fully furnished. Not that it was furnished very well—every piece of furniture from the ancient couch to the squeaky bed had been cheap to begin with and they were all aging badly.
Which meant that the pink-speckled chewchie egg looked wildly exotic, sitting as it was on a ragged old pillow on the rickety table. As Lisa watched, a crack formed in the creamy shell and then the entire egg split in two with a sudden, loud crrrrrkk!
“Oh my goodness!”
Lisa jumped up and ran to the table. The newly hatched chewchie had bright pink fur—much like the speckles on its egg—which was still damp and sticking to its tiny, shivering body. It opened wide, dark, liquid eyes and immediately began sniffing around, as though it was looking for something.
When it didn’t seem to find what it was looking for, it looked up at Lisa and gave a high, piteous cry.
“Oh, you poor little thing!”
Lisa brushed the broken egg shell aside and gathered it up—pillow and all, since she was afraid to handle the newborn creature—and cradled it to her chest.
The chewchie cried again and for a moment, Lisa almost thought she heard words in its cry. It sounded like, “Where? Where?”
“Where what, little girl?” she asked softly, for somehow she was certain the chewchie was a female, though she could
n’t have said how she knew.
The little pink creature crawled up Lisa’s sweater and clung there, looking directly into her eyes. Lisa stared down at it, mesmerized. She couldn’t have said why, but she felt a strange connection to this little alien animal. Somehow, when she looked into the soft liquid black of the chewchie’s eyes she seemed to see herself staring back—as though the little creature somehow knew all about her and loved her anyway.
“Where? Where?” the chewchie cried again and this time Lisa began to see a picture forming in her mind. It was an egg—a chewchie egg, she realized—and it was creamy white with smoky-gray splotches.
“Whoa…did you just send me that?” she asked, awed. “Did you send me a…a thought message?”
Which was probably crazy but it was the only way she could explain it to herself.
“Where? Where?” the chewchie asked again and the image of the gray and white egg grew clearer.
“I…I’m afraid your little friend isn’t here,” Lisa told it. “He, er, had to stay with someone else.”
Then she realized what she was doing. She was talking to an animal as though it should understand her and believing that it was sending her thought messages. Was she going crazy with loneliness and grief, wanting to believe that the chewchie could talk to her?
Feeling a bit shaky, she took the alien animal over to the couch and sat down again with it in her lap. The little pink creature was dryer now—it’s soft fluff of fur frizzing out in all directions to make it look like a bright pink cotton ball with a face.
Lisa had been eating a Lean Cuisine frozen dinner for lunch. It wasn’t the best Christmas Eve meal but it was all she had in the freezer and she couldn’t face going out to shop for food when she knew the grocery stores would all be filled with people getting last minute supplies for their Christmas dinner with friends and family—of which she had neither. So the frozen lasagna sat half-eaten on the rickety coffee table and beside it was a banana which was spotted with brown.
Picking up the banana, Lisa peeled it and offered a tiny bite to the chewchie. The little creature sniffed it and then took a nibble. It seemed to like the flavor because it looked at Lisa and suddenly a new image formed in her mind—one of herself giving the little creature another—much larger—bite of banana.
“Did I think that myself or did you send it to me?” Lisa muttered. But regardless, she broke off a bigger piece of the soft banana and handed it over.
The chewchie took the chunk of fruit delicately between its two tiny hands and began to nibble it ravenously, its big black eyes closed in obvious rapture. Strangely, Lisa seemed to feel this emotion as well—the feeling of eating something that was sweet and creamy and good and the best thing she had ever tasted…
Wait, the best thing I ever ate was a brown banana? I don’t think so—what’s going on?
Things were getting weird. No, scratch that—they had been weird since the little pink chewchie had hatched. And yet Lisa couldn’t bring herself to feel horrified or scared at all. It was more like her life had changed suddenly but somehow she was okay with it—which wasn’t like her at all. She was definitely not a fan of sudden and unexpected changes.
After it finished the bite of banana, the chewchie sighed in contentment and climbed up Lisa’s sweater again. It settled itself on her shoulder, between her neck and her long brown hair, and curled into a fluffy little ball.
“Hey, you comfortable there?” Carefully, Lisa put up one finger to stroke the soft, fluffy pink fur.
In return, she felt a wash of emotions coming from the chewchie—contentment after eating the delicious new food, drowsiness after the hard work of breaking out of its shell, and more than anything, love for Lisa herself. She seemed to see herself through the chewchie’s eyes—and somehow she was the most beautiful, benevolent person in the world. The giver of all good things…a protector…a goddess of kindness…
“Wow, no wonder the Chorkay love you guys so much,” Lisa murmured to the sleepy little creature nestled on her shoulder. How could anyone help loving a creature that was so, well, loveable?
The chewchie—no, Lisa realized—her chewchie sighed in contentment against her neck and settled itself down to sleep. But before it did, it sent her one last picture of the gray spotted egg.
“I’m sorry little girl,” Lisa told her new…pet? No, that wasn’t a good word. Maybe companion would be better. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “But I’m afraid your little friend is far, far away.”
“Not friend…mate,” whispered a tiny, high voice in her mind.
Lisa jerked in surprise, which made the chewchie grumble and wiggle to get comfortable again inside the little nest it had made in her hair.
“You…you can talk?” she whispered to the little creature, craning her neck to try and see it, as it perched on her shoulder.
“Mate. Must find mate,” the chewchie sent again. Then it yawned hugely. “But sleep now,” it added. “Tired—so tired.”
“You sleep then,” Lisa told her gently. “I guess I’ll have to come up with a name for you,” she added. “Unless you already came with one?”
The chewchie sent her a feeling that seemed to be a no.
“All right then. When I was a little girl, I had an invisible friend named Isabel. I played with her all the time because I didn’t have any brothers or sisters,” Lisa told her new friend. “How would you like that name?”
The chewchie perked up a little and sent Lisa a warm feeling of approval.
“All right—Isabel it is, then.” Lisa smiled down at the little pink creature. “Take a nap then, Isabel. Getting hatched is probably a very tiring process—you need your sleep.”
She got another warm, sleepy feeling of agreement and then Isabel settled on her shoulder with a deep sigh and promptly went to sleep.
Lisa sat there on the sagging couch, amazed at how her life had suddenly changed. She was glad, now, that she hadn’t taken a bus as soon as she got home. Just imagine if Isabel’s egg had hatched on a Greyhound! It would have caused a lot more attention than she wanted and also, it wouldn’t have been a very good environment for her new little friend.
She felt a surge of love for the little creature on her shoulder and even in her sleep, Isabel seemed to pick up the emotion, amplify it, and return it ten-fold. Suddenly, Lisa didn’t feel so alone and hopeless anymore.
I wonder if Asher’s egg has hatched yet? I wonder if he’s having the same experience I am with his chewchie as I am with Isabel?
The thought brought her crashing down and she couldn’t help wishing that they were together again—sitting on the couch watching the Christmas movie marathon while their chewchies played or rested together, curled in a fuzzy heap.
The image was so strong it brought tears to her eyes but this time Lisa knew the idea was her own—she was longing for the big Kindred the same way Isabel had been longing for her mate.
But there was nothing she could do about it. Asher was out of her life now and he was never coming back.
Forty-Three
“You didn’t have to take time away from your family holiday festivities to debrief me, Commander Sylvan,” Asher said, as he offered the other Kindred a drink.
“Thank you,” Sylvan nodded as he took the glass of water. He settled at the small dining room table in Asher’s quarters and looked up. “I don’t mind. And anyway, I wanted to do more than debrief you—I wanted to thank you for a job well done on Helios Beta.”
Asher took the seat opposite the other male, careful not to displace the large, gray-splotched chewchie egg which was still resting on its velvet Sacred Blue cushion in the center of the table. He had been staring at it before Commander Sylvan had knocked at his door—staring at it and trying not to think about its companion egg, the one Lisa had taken with her. Trying not to wonder where she was now and what she was doing…
“I only did what any trained operative would do,” he said, trying to push the thoughts of Lisa out of his mind.
/> “On the contrary, you did a great deal more than that,” Sylvan protested. “You not only made the Chorkay a firm ally to the Kindred, you also preserved their Matriarchy and the well-being of their people. You saved a whole nation with your quick actions, Commander Asher. And for that, I must commend you.”
“Well…thank you,” Asher said uncomfortably. In truth, he was rather uncomfortable with praise, especially when he had only been doing his job.
“I see that the Chorkay have also given you a mark of commendation,” Sylvan said, nodding at the egg. “Is that one of the tiny, fluffy creatures you spoke of in your report?”
“It is a chewchie egg—yes.” Asher nodded. “Lisa and I were both given one as a mark of their gratitude. She…” He had to stop for a moment to clear his throat. “She took hers with her when she left.”
“I see.” Sylvan nodded and for a moment said nothing. “Would you…care to speak about why she left?” he asked at last. “My mate, Sophia, said she seemed extremely upset.”
“Of that I have no doubt.” Asher sighed. “She was…unhappy when I broke things off between us.”
“You broke things off?” Sylvan raised his eyebrows in surprise. “But why? I thought you were given the First and Second signs when you met her.”
“So I was, but that is no guarantee that I would be given the Third sign,” Asher said. “She has, after all, no Tangala DNA and a failed bonding would only be painful to us both.”
“Are you sure she needs Tangala DNA to bond with you?” Sylvan asked.
Asher frowned. “Of course, I’m sure. No Tangala Kindred has ever successfully bonded to any female without Tangala DNA.”
“But has any Tangala Kindred ever tried to bond with a female from Earth?” Sylvan asked,
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