“I do too.” Sophia sighed. “I really want to meet her.”
“Me too!” Olivia put in. “To think that for so long after Mom and Dad died we thought we didn’t have any other family! I can’t wait to have a reunion as soon as she comes back.”
“If we don’t hear from her soon I’ll get the guys to do another recon mission with me,” Kat promised. “We can keep checking on her until—” She stopped abruptly, a look of intense concentration on her face.
“Until what?” Olivia asked, frowning.
Kat looked up, her eyes shining. “Guys, you’re not going to believe it but Lauren is home—I mean, she’s back on Earth. Deep just bespoke me. He’s in the viewing room right now talking to Lauren and her mom and Detective Rast.”
“Seriously?” Sophia jumped up at once. “Tell them to hold on—we’ll be right there!”
Kat and Olivia were already off the couch too, looking excited. Nadiah stayed where she was.
“Hey, aren’t you going to come?” Sophia looked back at her expectantly. “Come on—you’ll get to meet her in person. Or on the viewscreen, anyway, but you know what I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Nadiah said uncomfortably. “Maybe…maybe I should just stay here. Didn’t Kat say that the human detective was with them?”
“Who, Rast?” Olivia made a face. “Look, I know what happened with him and the luck kiss was awkward, Nadiah, but don’t let that bother you. Just ignore him and concentrate on Lauren. Come on, we’re all dying to meet her but we want you with us.”
“Yes, come on.” Sophia and Kat both took one of her hands. Together they tugged her to her feet. “You’re one of the group now,” Kat told her, grinning. “So you have to come with.”
Nadiah sighed. “Well, all right. But I really don’t want to see him again.”
“Then pretend that you don’t,” Olivia said. “Don’t let him pee in your Cheerios, Nadiah. Repeat after me, ‘I am too good for Detective Rast.’”
Nadiah laughed. “I am too good for Detective Rast.”
“Good.” Olivia nodded approvingly. “Now just keep that in mind.”
“Come on.” Sophia tugged at her arm impatiently. “I have to see her!”
“Coming.” Despite her misgivings, Nadiah allowed herself to be led out of the suite and down the hall toward the viewing room. I am too good for Detective Rast, she repeated to herself. And I don’t care a bit about seeing him again. He’s not even Kindred!
But if she didn’t care about seeing him, why was her heart pounding so hard and why did her palms feel clammy?
Chapter Nineteen
It was rather overwhelming to see so many eager faces crowding around the viewscreen at once, but it gave Lauren a warm feeling in the center of her chest, just the same.
There were her cousins, Olivia and Sophia and their friend Kat, who she’d already met on the Scourge home world. There was also a slender blonde girl with exotic looking eyes who introduced herself as Nadiah. Apparently she was Sophia’s cousin-in-law or something like that. She seemed nice enough but Lauren couldn’t help noticing that Detective Rast, who her mother had hired to help find her, started looking tense the minute she came into sight on the viewscreen.
“So you’re really okay?” Kat asked anxiously, leaning in toward the viewscreen. “We were so worried about you!”
“You shouldn’t have been.” Lauren smiled at her warmly. “You knew I had Xairn taking care of me, right?”
“We figured he would.” Kat nodded. “I was a little worried about him being a, you know, a Scourge, but Deep and Lock were sure he was one of the good guys. Um…” She peered from Lauren to her mom to the detective. “Where is he, by the way?”
Lauren bit her lip, not wanting to say too much. “He’s someplace safe.”
“If you’re worried that the Kindred will object to his presence, don’t be.” Deep, one of the Kindred warriors Lauren had met on the Scourge home world, came into view. “If he treated you honorably and brought you safely home, we have no quarrel with him.”
“Thank you.” Lauren felt a rush of relief. It had been nerve wracking when they were flying through the protective net the Kindred had placed around Earth. Because Xairn was flying a Kindred ship, they were able to get through, but Lauren had been sure they would be captured if they weren’t careful.
“You are welcome,” Deep said gravely. “And please communicate to him that we are here to help him, should the need arise.”
“Okay.” Lauren smiled and nodded. “I don’t know what help he might need but I’ll tell him you said so.”
“Thank you.” Deep nodded and put an arm around Kat. “My brother and my mate and I are very happy to see you safely home on Earth.”
“Mate?” Lauren looked at Kat questioningly. “But I thought you said…”
“Things changed.” Kat looked up at her man affectionately. “Deep and Lock and I are together now. We haven’t had a joining ceremony yet but it won’t be long.” She brightened. “Hey, maybe you and Xairn can do the luck kiss!”
“Luck kiss?” Lauren frowned. “What’s that?”
The slim blonde girl, Nadiah, spoke up for the first time. “It’s a kiss at the end of the joining ceremony performed by the best man and maid of honor. The intensity and passion displayed during the luck kiss is supposed to be directly related to how lucky the new couple will be in their future lives together.” As she spoke, she looked directly at Detective Rast who turned red and began to cough.
“Oh, well…” Lauren smiled. “That sounds nice. Just let me know when the ceremony is—I’d love to be part of it.”
“We’ll let you know as soon as we plan it,” Kat promised.
“But you shouldn’t wait until then to come up and see us!” Sophia protested. “Liv and I are dying to meet you.”
“Sophie’s right,” Olivia chimed in. “We didn’t even know we had a cousin—or an aunt for that matter—until Aunt Abby called us after you went missing.”
Lauren couldn’t help smiling at their eager faces. “I want to meet you guys in person too. I’ve always wished I had more relatives. But, well, I’ve been through kind of a lot in the past month or so and I feel like I need to get my life back on track before I do anything else. I mean, my store has been standing empty and my apartment is full of dust. There’s nothing edible in the entire fridge—you know what I mean.” Not to mention the fact that I have a very restless Scourge warrior pacing around my postage stamp sized condo. She still wasn’t quite sure how she was going to fit Xairn into her life—she only knew she couldn’t do without him.
“Oh of course, we totally get it.” Sophia nodded quickly. “And don’t worry, we won’t come barging in on you.”
“Though we can’t promise not to come visit your shop once you get it up and running again.” Olivia licked her lips. “Isn’t it a cupcake boutique? I was reading your menu online—your Deep Dark Devil’s food chocolate cupcakes sound absolutely divine.”
Kat laughed. “Don’t mind Liv—she’s pregnant.”
“Oh, are you?” Lauren smiled at her blonde cousin. “Congratulations. Do you know what it is yet?”
“A boy,” Olivia said promptly. “It’s always a boy with Kindred. Well, almost always.”
“Oh, of course.” Lauren nodded. “Well I would love to bake you a whole batch of cupcakes—just let me get everything up and running again. In fact, if you want I could send some to your baby shower. Unless you’ve already had it?”
“Not yet.” Olivia smiled. “I’ve got awhile to go. I’m only just now into my second quadmester.”
“Quadmester?” Lauren said, frowning.
“You heard her right.” Kat grinned. “When you’re carrying a Kindred baby the pregnancy lasts a whole year. Can you imagine?”
“Hey, you’re the one who’s going to have twins—if you ever get around to it,” Olivia pointed out.
Kat made a face. “God, I can’t even imagine. I’ll get a big as a house.”
“You’ll be even more lovely, little Kat.” Deep kissed the top of her head.
Sophia looked wistful. “I know a year is a long time but I don’t think I’d mind so much.”
“Your time will come.” Olivia hugged her twin sister before turning back to the viewscreen. “Sorry, Lauren, we didn’t mean to leave you out. We get started talking and we can’t stop.”
“That’s okay.” Lauren smiled and then stifled a yawn. “Look, it’s really nice to meet you guys but I think I ought to get going. I’ve had a super long day and I have, uh, lots of unfinished business back at my apartment.”
“Oh, of course.” Kat winked. “I get it.” She looked at Lauren’s mom. “It was really nice to talk to you again, Mrs. Jakes.”
Lauren’s mom smiled. “Please, Kat, call me Aunt Abby like Olivia and Sophia do. I’ll never forget that you gave me hope when things looked darkest.”
“She did?” Lauren looked at her mom questioningly.
“Kat and her men are finder/seekers,” Sophia explained. “They have a way of finding missing people.”
“A very interesting way.” Olivia winked and Kat elbowed her gently in the ribs. “Ouch!” she complained, laughing. “Take it easy on the pregnant lady.”
“What Liv is trying to say is that Kat and her guys checked up on you after you and Xairn left,” Sophia explained. “And they checked again recently because we had reason to fear you were in danger.”
“I was, several times,” Lauren admitted, surprised. “But how did you know?”
“I saw you,” Nadiah said quietly.
“You saw me? How?” Lauren frowned. “Are you a finder uh, person like Kat, too?”
“Nadiah has a gift—the Sight. She had a vision about you,” Sophia explained.
“A vision?” Lauren asked, looking at the slim blonde girl. Beside her, Detective Rast coughed and shifted impatiently but she ignored him.
“I know it must sound strange, but it’s true.” Nadiah lifted her chin defiantly. “I saw you walking in a dark alleyway filled with purple shadows. You were wearing an outfit that was all blue with a long red sash and blue shoes with crimson soles.”
“Oh my God!” Lauren put a hand to her mouth. “That happened! You really saw that?”
Nadiah nodded gravely. “I did. And I felt as though you were walking into a trap.”
“I nearly did.” Lauren shivered at the memory. “If Xairn hadn’t come and saved me just in the nick of time I’d still be there—stuck in O’ah.”
“Where the purple mists never recede,” Nadiah whispered. She put a hand to her head and her eyelids fluttered. “Oh, Lauren, I felt such fear for you!”
Beside her, Detective Rast shifted again and cleared his throat. He looked like he wanted to say something but in the end he kept silent.
“Thank you,” Lauren said to Nadiah. “It was pretty awful but I’m okay, thanks to Xairn.”
“Sounds like you owe him a lot,” Olivia murmured.
“I owe him my life,” Lauren said seriously. “Several times over.”
“You may still be in danger,” Nadiah’s big blue eyes widened dramatically. “I’ve had another dream about you. At least, I think it was you.” She frowned. “Um, Lauren, do you have any giants in the town you live in? People of really large stature maybe around, um…I’m trying to work it out in your system of measurement…around twenty feet tall?”
“Twenty foot tall giants? In Sarasota?” Lauren shook her head. “Uh, no, sorry but we don’t. Was that part of the dream?”
“It was.” Nadiah looked frustrated. “You or someone who looked a lot like you was standing beside two giants who were kissing. The male had the female bent over his arm and they were frozen there, not moving. I saw you standing beside them and then suddenly you disappeared. And somehow…somehow I knew you had been taken someplace terrible.” Her voice dropped. “Someplace you might never return from.”
“Do we really have to listen to this?” For some reason Detective Rast was glaring at Nadiah’s image on the viewscreen. “I mean, you had me going for a minute with the whole purple shadows and the blue and red clothes but giants kissing? Come on.”
Nadiah stiffened. “Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.”
“I don’t have to understand something to know it sounds crazy,” he shot back.
“No, wait a minute.” Olivia held up a hand. “You said the girl in your dream just disappeared? Like she’d been taken somewhere? Maybe transported by the molecular transfer beam the Scourge have?”
“Oh no.” Lauren felt suddenly sick. “But that’s not possible! Xairn took me to O’ah to have my DNA altered specifically so the AllFather couldn’t kidnap me that way again.” She shivered and her mom wrapped an arm around her shoulders comfortingly. “Please tell me it can’t happen again.”
“I know how you feel,” Sophia said sympathetically. “It happened to me too. It’s awful—like somebody put your entire body through a cheese grater.”
“That’s exactly how it is.” Lauren shivered again and pressed her face to her mom’s shoulder. “Ugh, I really don’t want to think about it.”
“I’m sorry.” Nadiah looked regretful. “But I thought I should warn you. Just in case.”
“It sounds like Lauren will be just fine as long as she stays away from kissing giants,” Detective Rast said dryly. “Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
“Very funny.” Kat’s blue eyes flashed. “Did you ever think that since it’s a dream the giants Nadiah saw might stand for something else? Maybe they’re some kind of symbolism.”
“The symbol of a fraud, maybe,” he growled.
Olivia put a hand on her hip. “Seriously, Detective Rast, does it say ‘professional jerk’ on your business cards or what?”
“No, it says that I find missing persons,” he snapped. “And I don’t need a bunch of psychic mumbo-jumbo to help me do it.”
“I never offered you my help.” Nadiah gave him a look that could freeze a laser beam. “And don’t worry, Detective, I never will.”
His striking green eyes flashed. “I wouldn’t take it if you begged me.”
Nadiah put her hands on her hips. “Begged you? Are you out of your tiny human mind?” She sniffed and her eyes flickered down to his crotch. “Though I’m sure that’s not the only thing that’s tiny about you.”
Detective Rast, who was as big as Xairn or any of the Kindred warriors Lauren had seen, raised an eyebrow at Nadiah. “Are you saying you want to come down and check out my equipment? Because that’s certainly what it sounds like.”
Nadiah’s cheeks went bright red. “Of course not. I have no interest in your…your…in that!”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “They why were you looking south of my belt?”
“I…I was looking at your weapon,” Nadiah protested. “I have no interest in anything else.”
“My weapon, huh?” He smirked. “Well I think I can promise you it’s a larger caliber than you could handle.”
Nadiah looked furious. “Why, you—!”
“Okay now,” Lauren’s mom said, putting out a hand. “Maybe we should all say goodbye. It’s awfully late and I know Lauren is exhausted.”
Lauren, who had been fascinated in the exchange between the detective and Sophie’s cousin-in-law, quickly manufactured a yawn. “Uh, yeah. I really am.”
“We’re sorry for keeping you,” Kat said, smiling warmly.
“And I apologize for disturbing your reunion with your kin,” Nadiah said formally. “Truly, it wasn’t my intent. I simply wanted to warn you to be on your guard.”
“I will be.” Lauren smiled at her. “I promise. But don’t worry—I have protection.”
“We know you’re in good hands.” Kat smiled at her. “Say hi to Xairn for me.”
“I will.” Lauren smiled. “I hope to see you all in person soon.”
“And don’t forget you promised to come for my b
aby shower and bring cupcakes,” Olivia said quickly. “I think we’ll need at least three dozen.”
“Yeah, but what are the rest of us going to eat, Liv?” Sophie grinned at her sister and gave her a nudge. “You know I’m kidding. Though I think you ought to ask Lauren if she does some of the weird flavor combinations you’ve been craving before you place your order.”
“Somehow I doubt there are any ketchup/sauerkraut/chocolate cupcakes on her menu,” Kat said dryly.
“I can accommodate almost any request,” Lauren said, smiling. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up with a new flavor I can use. I’ll call it ‘pregnancy cravings’ or ‘eating for two’ or something like that.”
“I seriously doubt you’d want to sell some of the things Liv has been eating,” Sophie said, grinning. “But you never can tell.”
“We’ll contact you again when we plan the shower,” Olivia promised. “But now I think we should probably go. All this talk about cupcakes has made me so hungry.”
“Liv, you just ate a whole carton of Chunky Monkey!” Sophia protested.
“Right.” Olivia grinned unrepentantly. “And now I want some real food. Who’s up for pizza?”
“I’ve got the ingredients at my place,” Kat volunteered. “As long as you don’t want anything weird on it.”
“Nothing too strange,” Olivia promised. “Just pepperoni and mushrooms. And…”
“And what?” Sophia demanded.
“Well…” Olivia bit her lip. “Does anybody have any black jellybeans? You know, the licorice ones?”
“Black jelly bean and pepperoni pizza?” Kat rolled her eyes and looked at Lauren. “You see what we have to put up with over here?”
Lauren couldn’t help laughing. “I think it’s hilarious. And listen, Olivia, I promise to make any kind of cupcakes you want. Even sardine and pickle or anything else you can come up with.”
Olivia rubbed her stomach. “Mmm, pickles. Has anybody ever had a pickle pizza?”
“Stop!” Sophia sounded horrified. “Please don’t give her any more ideas,” she begged Lauren.
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