“Let me go! It’s not here—I swear it’s not! The T’lix-Kruthe was taken to the Kindred Mother Ship. Now let me go—let me get to my daughter!” she begged.
“Ssso the thief took it to the Kindred ssship, did he?” the Varian hissed.
It was hard to read his expressions since his face was a cross between an alligator and an iguana but Vicky had the bad feeling he was looking at her with something like skepticism.
“Yes, I swear!” she exclaimed. “Please, just let me go—there’s nothing for you here!”
She struggled to get closer to the still-open window but her Varian captor wouldn’t allow it. He dragged her out of the spare room and into the hallway where she could see two or three others of his kind tearing her bedroom to pieces.
“Where did you hide it?” he demanded, poking the snub-nosed end of his weapon into her ribs. “Where? Tell usss!”
“Look! Sssloar has a captive!” One of the other Varians announced, catching sight of them from inside her bedroom.
His announcement caused a quick exodus from the bedroom and Vicky saw that there were five of the scaly green lizard men coming towards her. Not to mention the one which was still holding her wrists in his repulsive, seven-fingered alien appendage.
As they came towards her, she wanted to scream but the sound seemed to stick in her throat. They would kill her now—she was sure of it. Kill her and she would never know if Melli was okay and if she and Jodi had gotten away. She would never see he daughters again.
The thought made her want to fight—she had to get to her girls! She was just about to hike a knee into her captor’s crotch and hope that the Varians kept their balls in the same place humans did, when one of the other invading aliens suddenly dropped to the ground, half incinerated.
It was the bottom half, as it happened. One moment he was standing there and the next, there was only a blackened stump at his waist and his legs were gone. The top half of him thumped to the carpet, letting out a hissing scream of pain and disbelief before his eyes rolled up in his head and he died.
The other four Varians looked down at their fallen comrade and then stared wildly around, as though trying to figure out where the shot had come from. They looked up and down the hallway and into to the stairwell, but there was no one there.
No one they can see, anyway, Vicky thought and a wild hope bloomed in her heart. Another shot came from a different direction. This time the Varian it was aimed at was cut in two lengthwise, carved from the flat, scaly top of his head all the way down to his crotch. His right and left halves fell in two different directions like a tree split by lightning and the Varians hissed angrily and redoubled their search.
“What’sss happening? Where isss it?” they asked each other, their forked tongues flickering as they waved their blasters wildly from side to side.
Suddenly one of the remaining Varians seemed to trip over something in mid-air. There was a grunting sound and then a human head was suddenly floating there.
No, not human—Kindred! Vicky thought. It was Chain—he must have been wearing his scatterlight cloak when he killed the first two Varians but now he was revealed.
And there were still three left—four if you counted the one holding her—and Chain had lost the element of surprise. The Varians hissed and one of them shrieked,
“The thief! It’s the thief!”
They rushed towards him but Chain was ready. He ducked and dodged as they shot wildly at him. Then, using his blaster almost like a really long laser sword, he mowed all three of them down in one sweeping blow.
He took most of the banister that went with the staircase with them, but Vicky didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything but the fact that Chain had come for her—that he cared enough to risk his life to save hers and that everything was going to be all right.
Well, maybe.
Because at the sight of his three remaining comrades being cut down, the Varian holding her hissed in anger and tightened his grip on her throat.
“Tell him to ssstop,” he hissed in Vicky’s ear. “Tell him to sstand back or you die!”
“Chain!” Her voice came out choked and hoarse because her captor was barely giving her enough air to breathe, let alone speak.
Chain looked up. The cloak was pushed back from his shoulders now, showing his impressive physique. His broad chest was heaving with anger and his eyes were molten, glowing red.
Vicky stared at him, shocked.
Red eyes? But doesn’t that mean…Oh my God, is he going into Rage for me, like Lizabeth and Kat said?
It seemed that he was. Chain seemed to be working hard to control himself, though, because he spoke in low, measured tones.
“Release my female and I’ll allow you to walk out of here and go back to your own world,” he growled, glaring at the Varian. “That is my best offer.”
“Your offer isss not accepted,” her captor hissed. “Now listen to mine, thief. You will give me the T’lix-Kruthe at once or watch your female die ssslowly before your eyesss.”
As he spoke, one of his long fingers—tipped in a curving nail—rose from her throat and drew a stinging line down the side of Vicky’s face.
Vicky gasped and cried out as she felt warm, slippery blood sliding down her cheek. God, that was going to leave a scar—not that a scar was what worried her. Right now she was a little more preoccupied with the question of whether she would live or die.
“You dare to hurt her? I’ll kill you!” Chain roared. He charged forward and the Varian, who had Vicky by the throat with one hand and was holding her wrists with the other, released her hands and drew his weapon instead. He pointed it at Chain and a deadly bolt of energy flew right at the big Kindred.
Things were so mixed up and confused that at first Vicky was certain the energy bolt had missed Chain. But then the big Kindred clutched at his chest and toppled to the ground at her feet.
“No—NO!” Vicky screamed and kicked back at her captor, who was behind her now. She knew very well that he might shoot her too but at that moment she didn’t care—didn’t give a damn about anything but getting to Chain and seeing how badly he was hurt…or even if he was still alive.
“Let me go!” she screamed, kicking again. This time she seemed to connect with something solid because the alien grunted and released her neck. Finally she was able to get away, though his long claw-like nails left bleeding gashes on her throat.
Vicky didn’t even feel the pain. She knelt by Chain, who was lying on his face. It was a struggle to turn him over—he was so big and heavy. But fear gave her strength and with a mighty heave, she finally managed.
His pale, still face was all the answer she needed to her question.
“No!” She felt her face crumple as tears took her. “No, Chain, no—please. Don’t be dead! Don’t be gone!” she wept.
But Chain’s lifeless body made no answer.
She was so wrapped up in her own grief that Vicky almost didn’t notice that something strange was going on with her captor. What alerted her to the fact was when one of the Varian’s booted feet nudged her.
Looking up, she saw that he was doing a kind of shuffling dance, moving back and forth uneasily on the carpeted hallway.
“No,” he was hissing to himself, his weapon clutched tightly in one seven-fingered fist. “No, no, no!”
But then he seemed to change his mind.
“Oh yes,” he said and his voice sounded different—somehow familiar, Vicky thought as she watched the strange act play out through a prism of tears. “Yes, do it—do it!”
The Varian started to bring his blaster up, then slammed it down again by his side.
“No!” he howled. “I will not do this! NO!”
“Yes you will, you fucker!” the second, deeper voice answered. “You hurt my female and now you’re going to pay!”
For the briefest moment imaginable, the Varian’s eyes went from lizard yellow to pure Rage red. Then he lifted his weapon, pointed it at his own face, and
pulled the trigger.
Chapter Forty-two
Vicky screamed as the Varian’s head exploded. Green goo that was probably alien blood and brains rained down around her and it was going to be a miracle if none of that landed in her hair, she thought distractedly.
At first her dazed mind couldn’t tell her what had happened. Why had the Varian blown his own head off?
Then she felt something stirring under her hand.
Looking down, she saw that the hand she had placed on Chain’s chest was moving—was rising and falling with regular, deep breaths.
“Chain?” she whispered, almost afraid to hope. “Chain, are you…are you okay?”
At last his eyes opened and this time they were midnight-blue instead of Rage red.
“Barely,” he said and coughed. Sitting up, he seemed to shake himself, like a man waking up from a nightmare.
“So you only pretended to be shot,” she said, putting it all together. “And instead you used your superpower to jump into the alien’s body and make him shoot himself.”
“My superpower?” He laughed. “Is that what you call it?”
“Well…” Vicky shrugged. “I mean, it does sound like something a superhero could do—jump into somebody else’s body. But how did you get him to kill himself?”
She shivered as she looked at the headless body which had fallen to the ground and was leaking green goo all over her carpet.
“Well, it’s not easy to overcome another sentient species’ survival instinct.” Chain grew suddenly serious. “And I had to time it just right. Had to jump out of the damned Varian and back into my own body a split second after the trigger was pulled and a split second before the blast reached his brain.”
“You did? Why?” Vicky asked, still staring at him in wonder.
“Because. If was still in him when he died, I would have gone too. My soul wouldn’t have been able to get back to my body,” he explained. Then he grinned at her. “Luckily I’m working at the speed of thought when I’m in my incorporeal form so I was able to squeak back into my own body just in time.”
“Oh, Chain—that was so risky!” she protested. “You shouldn’t have done it!”
His eyes grew dark.
“I couldn’t think of any other way to keep him from hurting you—from…from killing you.” He reached for her hands and held them tight. “Victoria, I’ve been such a coward.”
“What?” She stared at him blankly. “What are you talking about? You just came up here and killed six scaly alien lizards single-handed—and you risked your own life to do it! That’s not cowardly, that’s brave, Chain. Incredibly brave!”
He shook his head.
“That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s easy to be brave in combat, especially when the Rage takes over. I’m talking about what happened on Priima Belle. The way I only told you that if we made love, we’d be bonded. But I didn’t tell you that I wanted to be bonded to you, beautiful Victoria. I—”
But just then the tromping of heavy boots could be heard on the stairs and someone said,
“Put me down, you big lug!”
Looking over the shattered and ruined railing, Vicky saw her oldest daughter, Jodi, being carried up the stairs in the arms of a Kindred warrior she didn’t recognize. He must be a Beast Kindred, though, she thought—he had thick, unruly black hair, dark caramel skin tones, and golden eyes.
“I will not put you down,” he growled at her. “You’re fucking injured.”
But though his deep voice sounded irritated, Vicky couldn’t help but notice that he was holding her daughter very carefully—almost tenderly—cradled against his muscular chest.
“Oh, there she is—Mom!” Jodi cried, relief filling her face. “Mom, I’m so glad you’re okay!” Her face went from relieved to worried. “You are okay, right? You have blood on your cheek and neck!”
Vicky reached up to touch the stinging scratches the Varian had made on her skin but she wasn’t in the least worried about herself.
“I’m fine,” she told Jodi. “What happened to you? And where is your sister—please tell me you’re both all right!”
“We’re both fine, Mom,” Jodi assured her. And, just as Vicky felt relief flooding her like a sweet river, she added, “We fell out of the spooky tree when one of those lizard guys shook it. I only twisted my ankle but I think Melli’s leg is broken.”
“Broken? Oh my God!” Vicky’s relief evaporated and she went into total mom-mode at once. “Where is she? Has anyone called an ambulance? We need to get her to the doctor!”
“Please don’t worry,” the Beast Kindred holding Jodi said. “My friend Liosh is with your other daughter and she seems to be in stable condition.”
“He says it’s not a compound fracture, Mom,” Jodi said. “I mean, the bone isn’t sticking out of her leg or anything. But she’s in a lot of pain.”
“We need to get all three of you back to the Mother Ship for immediate treatment,” Chain said, speaking up at last. “They have technology there that far surpasses any medicine you have here on Earth.”
Vicky was sure he was probably right. She’d had a brief glimpse into the Med Center—the Kindred version of a hospital and ER—on her last trip to the Mother Ship and what she’d seen had greatly impressed her.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s go but first I want to see Melli.”
“You can ride with her in the back of our ship,” the Beast Kindred said.
“And I’ll follow in mine.” Chain grabbed her hand and squeezed briefly. “We’ll talk later, after everyone you love had been taken care of.”
“All right.” Vicky felt her heart flutter at the intense way he was looking at her but she was still in mom-mode and right now she didn’t have time for herself—she was more worried about her daughters.
Chapter Forty-three
Melli was white-faced and being held in the lap of a young Blood Kindred, who looked to be only a few years older than she was. He was sitting on the grassy ground under the spooky tree and cradling her in his arms, much the same way the Beast Kindred was cradling Jodi.
“Mom!” she said, reaching for Vicky as her worried face broke into a smile. “Oh God, I’m so glad you’re okay! Jodi and I were so worried. That’s why she got Vorn to take her up to check on you.”
“I did not ask him to take me up.” Jodi sounded exasperated, speaking from her perch in the Beast Kindred’s arms. “I told him I would go up myself but he wouldn’t let me.”
“You’re injured,” the Beast Kindred rumbled, frowning down at her. “And though we were fairly certain the fighting was over, I couldn’t let you go alone. It would have been wrong not to protect a female in danger.”
“Will you listen to this Neanderthal?” Jodi exclaimed. “Hey, buddy, I can take care of myself!” She poked the Beast Kindred in his broad chest. He winced but didn’t let her go.
“You two stop fighting and pay attention to me,” Melli demanded, which made both Vicky and Jodi smile, as she had no doubt known it would.
“Honey, how do you feel?” Vicky put a hand on her daughter’s forehead out of instinct, though of course the problem was her lower leg, which had a bulge on one side where it shouldn’t be, not a fever.
“Pretty bad,” Melli admitted in a low voice. “The old spooky tree got me after all, Mom. I always knew it would.”
“Do you think you can make it to the Mother Ship?” Vicky asked. “Chain thinks they have much better medical technology there than if we took you to the ER here and I’m inclined to agree with him.”
“Oh, so that’s Chain, the famous Valentine’s date?” Jodi exclaimed, looking at Chain who had come with them and was kneeling beside Vicky as she sat on the ground talking to Melli.
“Yes, I am your mother’s Valentine’s date,” Chain said gravely, nodding at her. “I’m very pleased to meet you—both of you,” he said, including Melli in the conversation. “I can see that you both have your mother’s beauty—although you must excuse
me for saying she is the most beautiful of all.”
He gave Victoria a meaningful look that made her blush and clear her throat.
“Chain…”
“Way to go, Mom!” Jodi said, grinning down at her from her the height of the Beast Kindred’s arms. “Looks like you picked a good one! Way better than the guy you met on the app.”
“Yeah—you’re never going to meet a human guy as hot as a Kindred so good job,” Melli said. Then she looked up at the young warrior holding her and blushed. “Oh, I mean…I didn’t mean…”
“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled down at her gently. “I’m not offended by your comment. In fact, I think it’s flattering that you would find my kind of male more attractive than your own.”
“Well, I mean…you’re all so big and so…so handsome…” Melli bit her lip and for a moment her pale face went pink with a blush.
“Enough of this,” Chain remarked sternly, taking charge. “All three of these females have injuries and my own female will not be content until her daughters are seen to. We need to get them up to the Mother Ship right away.”
Vicky felt her heart flutter when he called her “my female” but then she was worried again the next minute about Melli being moved with such an obvious injury.
However, the young Blood Kindred warrior, whose name was Liosh, rose smoothly from the ground, still holding Melli. He didn’t jostle her a bit as he carried her to the waiting Kindred ship. There he deposited her carefully into the long back seat, though Vicky and Jodi got in first and sat waiting to help hold her steady during the trip up to the Mother Ship.
“I’ll meet you at the Docking Bay,” Chain promised before leaving to get into his own ship.
And then they were lifting off and Vicky was leaving Earth’s orbit for the second time in less than a week. She felt extremely lucky and blessed to be going with her daughters this time—especially since she would be able to get them good care for their injuries. But what would happen after they were all patched up?
As she stroked Melli’s blonde hair and squeezed Jodi’s hand, she couldn’t help remembering that Chain had promised they would “talk later.” Just the thought made her feel like a swarm of butterflies had taken off inside her stomach. But of course, her daughters came first.
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