“Ooo…I knew I shouldn’t have let you use the Think-me. What was I thinking? And now if anyone finds out we’ll be in serious trouble for compromising your claiming period.” Jillian was wringing her hands in agitation.
Liv took a deep breath, trying to control her own emotions. It was true that the afternoon had taken a bad turn but previously she’d really enjoyed her time with her old classmate. It seemed like a shame to let her bad mood ruin Jillian’s day. “Don’t worry about that,” she said, trying to sound calm though she was seething inside. “I’m not going to tell a soul. My lips are totally sealed.”
“But you’re mad at Baird now and it’s all my fault.” Jillian had apparently heard enough of Liv’s side of the conversation to piece that together at least.
“It’s not your fault. And just because I’m mad at him doesn’t mean I’ll tell him you let me make a long distance call,” Liv said, trying to reassure her. “I’m an adult, Jillian, I can handle this.”
“Well…if you’re really sure. And you swear not to tell on me…” Jillian’s tone was so pathetic that Liv felt moved to give her a quick hug.
“Of course not. Believe me, I didn’t like what I found out but I’m still glad I found it out. And I really enjoyed our time together.”
“You did?” Jillian looked at her hopefully.
“Are you kidding? You introduced me to my new favorite food. From now on I’m going on a strict all-worm diet—next time you see me I’ll probably be ten pounds lighter.”
Jillian giggled. “Wouldn’t the girls back on Earth be jealous if they knew? I only wish I could tell my old cheer squad. They would just die.”
If Liv remembered correctly, most of the girls Jillian was talking about had already been either anorexic, bulimic, or a combination of the two. Finding out they could go on an all protein diet that tasted like chocolate would probably have them foaming at the mouth. But she tactfully didn’t say so. “I bet they would.” She smiled at Jillian. “Look, I should really get back. Baird will be coming home from his conference soon.” And I’ll have a few choice things to tell him when he does.
“All right.” Jillian returned her hug and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Be careful going back and be sure you avoid the unmated males section. I had to plot you a course right by it on your way here because it was the quickest way.” She looked thoughtful. “Well, actually, it would have been quicker for you to go right through it but I didn’t want you to have to do that. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is don’t wander in there on the way back. You know, in case you decide to do any sight-seeing.”
Liv remembered the dark, forbidding warren of shops and the hungry looks on the males’ faces in that area and shivered. “I’ll pass on the sight-seeing for today. Especially since I don’t really know how to make the push-me pull-you, uh, Take-me, do much of anything.” She patted the shaggy green animal which was waiting patiently to take her back to her side of the ship.
“Oh, that’s easy. Now that you’ve ridden it once, you’ve established a connection with it. All you have to do is think where you want to go and it’ll take you there—no problem.”
“Really?” Liv looked at her mount, which was still the size of a large dog, doubtfully.
“Honestly—they’re mildly telepathic. It makes them easier to train.” Jillian gestured to the waiting Take-me. “Go on, straddle it and think what size you want it.”
“Uh, okay.” Liv did as she said, making sure she was positioned right over the middle of the sway-backed animal and thought at it, “Twice as big.” Immediately the Take-me doubled in size and she found herself sitting on it instead of straddling it. “Wow. That’s amazing.”
“Cool, huh?” Jillian patted the Take-me’s closest neck and smiled up at Liv. Then her expression grew serious. “Look, Livvy, I don’t know what you found out from your sister that made you so upset but please, try not to let it ruin the rest of your claiming period. There’s so much to see and do and experience here and you’ll never find a man who loves you like your Kindred warrior. I mean, sure they can be stupid sometimes but show me the man who isn’t, right?”
“I guess,” Liv said grudgingly. “I don’t know, Jillian. I’m just feeling kind of…betrayed right now. And I think it’s going to take me a little while to get over that.” If I ever do at all.
“Whatever it was Baird did, you can be sure he didn’t do it on purpose,” Jillian said earnestly.
Liv frowned. “You don’t even know him. How can you say that?”
“Because I know the Kindred—I know how they are. They love their women to distraction and would never hurt us on purpose.” Jillian sighed. “Just…give him a chance. Will you at least promise me that?”
“I’ll try.” It was the best Liv could do. “I really do need to get going,” she said. “But thanks for a great time, Jillian. I hope we can do it again.”
“I hope so too.” Jillian pressed her hand affectionately and gave a little wave. “See you next time then.”
“Okay.” Liv gave her a strained smile and then looked down the long metal corridor. Then she thought at the Take-me, “Home, as fast as possible.”
“I’m tellin’ you, Sylvan, I have a bad feeling about her. I’m worried.” Baird glared at the lighted control panel of the shuttle that was bringing them back from the meeting on the Earth’s moon. The entire conference had been one long painful session of “let’s remember” with his superior officers trying to get information on the AllFather by reviewing what had happened during his numerous torture sessions.
Baird had tried to tell them that the leader of the Scourge had been too busy sucking out his emotions and twisting his memories to let anything slip about his battle strategy but they didn’t want to hear that. They had heard from somewhere that the AllFather was looking for something or someone—a girl from Earth who could fulfill the strange prophesy about the fate of their dark race.
Baird had tried to tell them he didn’t know anything about the prophesy but his superiors didn’t want to listen—in their opinion, any warrior who had been a prisoner as long as he had without breaking mentally under the strain should also have had some way of extracting information from the enemy. Baird was exhausted from telling them he didn’t—it had been all he could do just to keep his sanity. Without Olivia, it would have been impossible.
And now, just to make a bad day worse, she wasn’t answering the holo unit when he tried to call her at the suite.
“Try her again,” Sylvan said reasonably. “Maybe she’s just not answering because she’s still upset with you. You did say that you had a disagreement before you left, correct?”
Baird sighed. “Yeah, we did. She’s still determined to hold out. But I think by now she’s getting the idea that she can’t—that she won’t be able to. And since tonight is the start of our tasting week I was hoping to bond her to me permanently.”
Sylvan frowned. “What about not wanting to bond her unwillingly? From what you’re saying, her body is willing but her mind isn’t. I thought you didn’t want an incomplete bond.”
“I don’t.” Baird ran a hand through his hair as he punched in the coordinates of his home holo unit again. “But after what the priestess told me, I’d rather have an incomplete bond and have her safe by my side than no bond at all and know she was in danger somewhere.”
Sylvan looked skeptical. “I don’t know, Baird. I know Father raised us to revere the Mother and believe me, I do. But I’m not sure I’d make such an important decision based on what that priestess told you. Didn’t you say she was vague about the details of her vision?”
“How many details do you need?” Baird growled as the holo unit beeped over and over with no answer. “She said Olivia would be in danger. How can I protect her if she’s not with me? And what better way to keep her near than to bond her to me? Besides, her body needs it. Her scent has been so hot lately you can smell it from two corridors over. I don’t even dare to take her out of the damn suite since she won’t let me
scent mark her.”
“That must be hard,” Sylvan said neutrally as he guided their shuttle into the docking bay.
“You have no fuckin’ idea. With her smelling so sweet and not wanting me to touch her…it’s worse than if she was walking around naked all day. All I can think of is how much I need her under me.” Baird sighed and punched the button, cutting off the unanswered call. “You don’t think she tried to run away, do you?”
“Where would she go? And didn’t you say she agreed to stay in the suite while you were gone?”
“Yeah but she might have changed her mind. I got the feeling she thought I was just trying to order her around.” Baird sighed again. “Damn it, maybe I should have told her what the priestess said. But I didn’t want to scare her. And I—” He broke off as a strange presence filled his brain. “What the hell?”
“What’s wrong?” Sylvan asked.
“I’m getting…someone I don’t know is trying to bespeak me.”
His brother raised one ice blond eyebrow. “Damn rude of them, whoever it is.”
“Yeah but what if it’s about Olivia?” Baird felt a surge of fear. “I’d better take it.”
Closing his eyes, he tried to open himself to the unfamiliar connection and after a moment he could hear a voice in his head.
“Baird, my brother in arms, I am calling on an urgent matter. Will you hear me?” The mind voice had the soft double resonance of a Twin Kindred. Baird frowned, wondering if it was someone he and Sylvan had known from the time they spent on Twin Moons after their father had found his third and final bride.
“I’ll hear you,” he thought gruffly. “But you’d better have a damn good reason for bespeaking me instead of leaving a message on my holo unit.”
“What I must say is too important to wait—it concerns your bride.”
Baird felt like someone had punched him in the gut. “Olivia? What’s happened to her? Is she all right?”
“I don’t know. She was visiting our bride, Jillian, and left our suite before my twin and I got home. However, we couldn’t help noticing her scent. It’s very…” The Twin warrior hesitated, obviously trying to think of a delicate way to put it.
“Yeah, I know what she smells like.” Baird frowned. “And I know there’s none of my scent on her to warn anyone else off.”
“Exactly.” The male sounded relieved that he didn’t have to go into details about such a private matter. “Well, from what Jillian told us she rode your Take-me to our suite with no problem and she was supposed to go back the same way she’d come. Unfortunately when my twin tried to track her, he found that her scent trail diverged from the older path.”
“Diverged? How? Where did she go?” Baird was so upset by now that he was talking out loud even though it wasn’t necessary.
There was a pause that went on for so long he thought they’d lost the connection. Then the unknown Twin Kindred said hesitantly, “I’m sorry, brother. We believe she went into the unmated males area.”
Chapter Twenty
Liv swayed along on the back of the Take-me, lost in thought. The scenery which she’d admired so eagerly on her trip up to see Jillian was now just a blur.
It wasn’t that Baird had lied to her, exactly, she decided. But he hadn’t told her the absolute truth either. Of course, what would she have done if he had? Would it have made it easier to deal with her body’s betrayal? Would knowing that she was being chemically manipulated have made her more able to refuse him, to not ask him to…to take her completely? She still didn’t want to think the words bonding sex or what it entailed, even to herself. Baird’s mating fist was a pretty scary part of his anatomy, but not nearly as scary as what would happen if she let him use it on her.
I’ll be stuck here forever. Never knowing if I really loved and wanted him or if I was just addicted to his damn smell. If that’s all there is to the Kindred should skip the whole claiming period. It would be faster if they brought the Earth women they wanted up here and turned them loose in the unmated males’ area. Then we could all sniff around to see who smelled the best and get matched up that way.
The thought made her sad and she looked down at her hands, curled in the shaggy green mane of the Take-me. She’d been feeling more for Baird lately than she wanted to let on, even to herself. He was patient and caring and funny—when they were able to ignore the sexual tension between them and just talk, that was. And there was no doubt he was hands down the most skillful and giving lover she’d ever had even though they hadn’t actually made love yet. No—not ‘yet’, Liv scolded herself. It’s not going to happen. It can’t happen. Not after what I just found out.
“Hello, Earth female. What are you doing here?”
“Huh?” Liv was so deep in thought that it took her a moment to realize that she was no longer in a part of the ship that she recognized. The Take-me had left the plain metal corridors behind awhile ago and entered the bright, open center of the ship. But when she looked up, it wasn’t the park-like expanse of trees and grass that she saw or even the touristy area filled with neat little shops and eateries. What she saw was the dark alleys and narrow, crowded shops she’d passed on the way to Jillian’s suite.
The unmated males’ area—Oh my God! What am I doing here? And speaking of unmated males, there was one standing right in front of her. He was eyeing her the way a starving man might look at a steak. Only you don’t want to do the nasty with your steak. My God, what am I going to do?
“I…uh…” Liv didn’t know what to say. The warrior standing in front of her was obviously a Beast Kindred like Baird. But unlike Baird there was no patience to temper the hunger burning in his golden eyes. The Take-me had stopped obligingly and was standing there stupidly as though waiting for further instructions. “Why did you bring me here? Bad Take-me!” Liv thought at it fiercely but it only shifted from one set of legs to the other and made a braying sigh from both of its mouths. She remembered the fleeting thought she’d had of Earth women being transported to the unmated males’ area and sniffing out prospective husbands. Could it be that the stupid Take-me had heard her and decided she wanted to go here? “You stupid thing, I wasn’t thinking literally”, she told it but her anger seemed to have no more effect on the shaggy green animal than her scolding had.
“Are you here looking for a mate?” a second, warrior, who looked like he might be a Twin Kindred asked.
“Why else would she be here?” replied a third who appeared to be the second one’s twin. At least, their facial features were very alike although they had different colored hair and eyes.
Liv’s head was spinning. How could this be happening? She’d only let her attention wander for a few minutes and now, here she was, in the most forbidden area of the ship surrounded by unmated warriors. All three males were wearing the tight black uniform pants and jewel-toned shirts of the Kindred military but it wasn’t their clothing that worried her. It was the lust in their eyes.
“Back off,” snarled the first one—the Beast Kindred. “I saw her first.”
“You’re staking a claim?” the first Twin Kindred said, his voice a low, menacing growl.
“Well, are you?” The second Twin Kindred came to stand shoulder to shoulder with his brother. One of them had light brown hair and blue eyes while the other had black hair and green eyes but the look on their faces was identical—lust.
“What if I am?” the Beast Kindred growled, his yellow eyes glowing with hostility.
Things were rapidly getting out of hand. Hoping to stop a fight, Liv raised her hands and spoke in what she hoped was an authoritative tone. “Look, there’s been a mistake. I didn’t come here looking for a mate. In fact, I’ve already got one waiting for me back on the other side of the ship.”
“Is that right?” The Beast Kindred stepped closer—a lot closer than Liv liked. Starting at the side of her neck and moving down to her crotch he took a deep sniff.
“Hey!” She shied away from the intimate contact but the Beast Kindred was smili
ng.
“I don’t smell another male on you, pretty one,” he growled, his eyes glowing a hot yellow. “All I smell is a female in heat. A female that needs to be bred and bonded to the right male.”
“I don’t care what you think you smell, I am not available. I have a mate—a really big angry one so you’d better leave me alone.” Liv nudged the Take-me with her knees, wishing the damn thing would take a hint. “Go home—now!” she thought at it desperately but it seemed unwilling to move as long as the Beast Kindred was blocking its path. Maybe he smelled like Baird and that confused it but for whatever reason, it looked like she was going nowhere fast.
“You wouldn’t be here smelling the way you do if you weren’t searching for a mate,” one of the Twin Kindred—the one with black hair—said, frowning. “It is known that no unbonded female would enter this area unless she wished to provoke a Tis’Dane.”
“A what?” Liv stared at him confused.
“A fight between rival males for the right to a fertile female,” growled the brown haired twin. He looked at the Beast Kindred. “A fight my brother and I will surely win so I suggest you leave now, friend.”
“I’m not your friend and I will not leave until both of you are bloody and broken on the ground,” the Beast warrior snarled.
Liv thought about protesting that she wasn’t interested in any of them again but it didn’t seem to have any effect. And since the Take-me refused to go anywhere, her only option was to get down and try to run away on foot. Wonder how far I’ll get? she thought dismally, eyeing the fight that was building before her eyes. The smell of male aggression hung heavy in the air, like some kind of musk. It made her feel dizzy, but not in the good way Baird’s mating scent did. As she watched the Beast warrior began stalking toward the Twins who were standing shoulder to shoulder. She had to get out of here fast while they were still focused on each other.
She thought of shrinking the Take-me down to size in order to dismount but decided that might draw too much attention. At the moment her prospective suitors were staring at each other and not at her, which was how she wanted to keep it. Trying to move quickly and quietly, she threw her leg over the Take-me’s back. Gripping its shaggy green coat, she slid awkwardly down its left side. The animal made the plaintive braying sigh again but thankfully none of the warriors who were fighting over her gave it so much as a glance.