Sought

  “It’s a tough call, all right.” Rast blew out a breath and ran a hand through his short golden brown hair. “But I need to let her know. I can’t keep taking her money when there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Hold off on telling her just a little while longer,” Sophie pleaded. “Maybe Deep and Lock—the warriors that are going tomorrow—will find out something about where she’s being kept or…or what they want her for.”

  “We might even be able to arrange for you to come up here to the Mother ship and talk to them after they get back in person,” Liv said, having an inspiration. “I could ask my husband to ask the Council for a special dispensation.”

  “I fail to see how taking a tour of your ship will help me locate Lauren,” Rast growled. “But I would like to conduct interviews in person rather than over this damn viewscreen.”

  “Let me see what I can do,” Liv said smoothly.

  “And in the mean time, can you hold off on telling Aunt Abby?” Sophie pleaded.

  Rast sighed. “I’ll think about it. As I said, I don’t like taking her money without doing my job.”

  “But you are doing your job,” Liv pointed out quietly. “You didn’t quit until you got answers about where Lauren is.”

  Rast got a stubborn look on his chiseled features. “Your aunt hired me to find Lauren and bring her home safely. Until that’s accomplished, my job isn’t done.” He nodded briefly. “I’ll let you go now, but I’ll be in touch. If you find out anything, the communications officer I spoke to has my contact information. Call me any time of the day or night and I’ll come straight down to the Human/Kindred Relations building to talk on the viewscreen.”

  Sophie nodded. “All right, thank you, Detective.”

  His face softened slightly. “Thank you for telling me the truth. Now we just have to hope to God that the warriors you’re sending find something.”

  “I’m sure they will,” Liv said, making a mental note to talk to Lock about it. Just because he and Kat and Deep were mainly visiting the Scourge home planet to get their “soul-divorce” as Kat called it, didn’t mean they couldn’t also dig for clues. She knew the light twin would take the assignment very seriously if she asked him to.

  Rast nodded once more and then the viewscreen flickered and went blank.

  “Wow, he’s really dedicated,” Sophie murmured.

  Liv nodded. “I can see why Baird respects him so much.” She sighed. “Well, the cat’s out of the bag, now. I wonder how long he’ll wait to tell Aunt Abby.”

  Sophie looked troubled. “Maybe…maybe we should tell her. It doesn’t seem fair to put that decision on him. And we are family.”

  “You were the one begging him to wait,” Liv pointed out. “And besides, I think you were right. Kat and the guys might find something worth knowing. If they could even get the exact wording of the prophesy, we might have a clue about exactly what they want Lauren for and where they might be taking her.”

  Sophie nodded reluctantly. “All right. I just feel so bad that we’re keeping it from Aunt Abby. But it still seems worse to just come out and tell her that the AllFather has Lauren without being able to offer her some kind of hope.” She looked at Liv. “Do you think if we can somehow prove she is aboard the Fathership the Council will approve an attack or some kind of rescue attempt?”

  “I don’t know.” Liv sighed. “That would mean full scale war which would probably have some serious fallout effects on the Earth. It’s one of those “the lives of the many are worth more than the lives of the one or few” kind of things.”

  “But Lauren is blood! She’s our cousin.” Sophie’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, poor girl. I wish I knew where she was right now.”

  “Me too.” Liv gave her sister a comforting hug. “Me too, Sophie.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “The girl will have to be moved. Ssshe will come with usss to the home world.”

  “The home world?” Xairn frowned at his father, who was seated on the black metal throne etched in glowing green runes. He was surrounded, as always, by four enormous vat grown soldiers he’d had specially made for his own private guard.

  “Yesss.” The AllFather nodded, his shadowy hood billowing with the movement to reveal burning red eyes. They did not glow quite so brightly as they had in the past—since he had lost his primary source of sustenance, Xairn’s father seemed to move more slowly and speak with a little less vehemence.

  He is weakening before my eyes. Xairn supposed he ought to feel pity for the male who was his father but since he, Xairn, had been the AllFather’s main source of nourishment, he couldn’t find it in him to care. In fact, he cared about nothing lately—which was the reason the AllFather could no longer feed on his negative emotions. He had none.

  “We mussst go back,” the AllFather hissed. “There are facilities there to augment my power.”

  “You need more power?” Xairn kept his voice neutral.

  “Imbecile! You know that I do!” the AllFather raged in a weak voice. “Now that your pain no longer nourishesss me, I have only the vat grown to feed on. And their emotionsss are vague ssshadows—not nearly enough to sssustain me.”

  “What of the humans you took just yesterday with the beam?”

  The Allfather made an irritated gesture. “Too weak. They are already sssucked dry.”

  “I’m sorry you can no longer harvest my pain, Father,” Xairn said blandly. “Perhaps you should have taken more care not to destroy your primary source of sustenance.” When he had been forced by his father to kill his beloved pet, Sanja, Xairn’s emotions had died with her. He was empty inside thanks to the AllFather’s cruelty. Not that he cared.

  “Never mind. Sssoon I ssshall have no need of your pain.” The sunken eyes glowed a dull red. “My peak approachesss—the time when my ssseed will be most potent. I ssshall have more than enough pain to sssustain me when I breed the girl.”

  Xairn felt a flicker of uneasiness which he quickly extinguished. The human female was nothing to him—was she? Of course she’s not, he told himself firmly. “When will you reach your peak?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow—I feel it building.” The AllFather rubbed his skeletal hands together in anticipation. “Which isss why we must prepare to fold ssspace at once.”

  “The Kindred instruments will pick up our movements,” Xairn objected.

  “They would—if we were fool enough to fold in this sssector,” The AllFather said. “We will be taking the adjunct ssship sssome distance away and using a thinner fold. If they detect usss at all, they will think it a sssimple anomaly.”

  “Very well.” Xairn bowed. “When do you wish to leave, Father?”

  “At once, asss I sssaid. Have the girl moved and the adjunct ssship primed for take-off within the hour.”

  Xairn felt a dark impulse stir within his soul but he quickly repressed it. “And are we to be the only passengers? You and the girl and myself?”

  The red-on-black eyes flashed bright crimson for a moment. “Do you think me a fool? My guardsss will come asss well.” Reaching out, the AllFather patted the massive forearm of the nearest vat-grown solider. Though Xairn well knew how repulsive his father’s touch was, the huge male didn’t even flinch.

  “But the home world is deserted,” Xairn pointed out. “What need will you have of them?”

  “I may find a use for them.” Grasping the soldier’s arm more firmly, the AllFather pulled himself to his feet. “They will ssserve me well, won’t you, Alpha?” he crooned in his high, evil voice.

  “Yes, AllFather.” The vat grown male looked straight ahead, never blinking.

  “You sssee?” The AllFather nodded.

  Xairn shrugged. “As you wish. I will get the girl.”

  “Sssee that you do. And let her know what isss in ssstore for her. Tell her how I ssshall ssspread her legs and breed her.” The red eyes gleamed hungrily. “Her terror when I take her will be all the sssweeter for the anticipation.”

  For some reason Xa
irn’s large hands curled into fists. She’s mine! I’ll never let you—He frowned and pushed the thought away. Where had such a foolish, possessive impulse come from? What the AllFather wanted, he got—it had always been so. And if he wanted to breed Lauren to fulfill the prophesy, then he would have her. It was as simple as that.

  Yet, for some reason Xairn’s chest felt tight when he imagined the Earth female’s delicate form pinned beneath the AllFather’s shadowy black robes as he ravaged her. Stop being so stupid, he told himself. You feel nothing. But still…

  “Xairn?”

  He looked up to see the AllFather eyeing him hungrily. “Yes?” He kept his voice carefully neutral.

  For a long moment those hateful red-on-black eyes, so like his own, seemed to pierce right through him. Then the AllFather shook his head. “Nothing. For a moment I thought I felt…but I sssuppose I was wrong.”

  “Yes, Father.” Xairn bowed again and turned to leave. But he couldn’t help throwing a glance over his shoulder as he descended the broad, black steps that led to the throne.

  The AllFather seemed shrunken and depleted, leaning for support on the arm of his Alpha guard. But Xairn could still read the malice in his eyes, could still feel the hunger and dread emanating from him like a poisonous miasma. His father might be weak, but

  he was still strong enough to do what he wanted—to take Lauren.

  And though Xairn knew he shouldn’t care, he couldn’t stop his jaw from clenching or his hands from curling into fists again. Mine, whispered a voice in his head. She should be mine…

  * * * * *

  Lauren looked up in surprise when her cell door clanged open. Xairn had just been to see her a few hours before, to bring her morning ration of cardboard pop tarts, as she thought of the nutra-wafers. He shouldn’t be back again until supper time, which was when they usually got to talk. Or rather, she talked. Xairn mostly listened.

  His face was expressionless as he looked down at her, but somehow she knew something wasn’t right.

  “What is it?” she asked, clutching his heavy black cape tightly around her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

  “Get up.” His deep voice was charged with tension.

  Lauren scrambled to her feet. She gasped as he clamped one huge hand around her upper arm in a grip tight enough to hurt. “What’s happening? Where are we going?”

  “To the home world.”

  “What? Why?” she asked desperately as he dragged her out of the cell and down a long metal corridor.

  “Why do you think?” He threw her a glance, his red-on-black eyes burning.

  “I…I don’t know,” Lauren faltered.

  “Yes, you do.” He dragged her along so fast she had to run to keep up with his long strides. The interior of the ship went by in a dull-gray blur around her but she had eyes only for his face. His expression remained impassive but his eyes blazed.

  “Please, Xairn,” she begged. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Not as much as you’re going to be hurt.” He glanced at her briefly as they rounded a curve and went through a low archway. “Here we are.”

  “Where is here?” Lauren looked around uncertainly. They were in a vast room filled with ships of all sizes and shapes. Most of them were long and narrow and sleek, their outer skins an oily, inky black that was hard to look at for some reason. Xairn chose a larger ship and herded her toward it.

  “The docking bay. We’re taking the adjunct ship to the home world.”

  “Do you mean your home planet—the place you came from?” she asked as he dragged her through the echoing space to the chosen ship. The metal floor was freezing under her bare feet.

  “It was never my home. But it is the place my people originated, yes.” He placed his large hand against the inky black side of the ship. Lauren watched in amazement and fear as his fingers seemed to sink right into the strange black metal—as though he’d put his hand into a puddle of oil. The ship shivered and oozed open—there was no other word for the way the gaping hole suddenly appeared in its side.

  “But…why are we going there?” she asked as he half pushed/half boosted her into the strange ship. Why are you taking me so far away from Earth? From my mom and everyone I love? She didn’t dare to say it aloud but the fear that she would never return rose in her throat, almost choking her.

  “The AllFather needs to draw power from his place of origin.” Xairn’s voice was tight as he pushed her to the back of the ship where Lauren could see a holding cell. It looked much like the one she’d been kept in on the Fathership except it was smaller—much smaller.

  “Please!” She turned to face Xairn when he would have pushed her into the cell. “Please, wait.”

  “We don’t have much time. The AllFather will be here soon and he will expect the ship to be primed and ready.”

  “Just tell me one thing,” Lauren said, trying to control her panic and keep her voice level and calm. “Why does he want me?”

  “He wants to breed you. You are the fulfillment of a prophesy—the female we have been searching for.” He looked down at her, his eyes blazing. “Only you can replenish our race. Only you can bear daughters born of the AllFather’s seed.”

  Lauren had been afraid something like this was to be her eventual fate but she hadn’t allowed herself to think about it. Now, faced with the truth, she knew she could do one of two things—panic and give up hope, or save herself the only way she could.

  “Why does it have to be him?” she asked in a low voice.

  Xairn frowned. “What do you mean? What are you asking?”

  “I said, why does it have to be him who, you know, does it?” Taking a deep breath, she took a step toward Xairn. His broad chest was at the level of her face and she had to look up to see him looming over her. But she didn’t flinch, not even when his red-on-black eyes bored into hers.

  “I don’t understand you.” He shook his head.

  “Why can’t it be you?” Slowly, gently, Lauren raised her hand and cupped his cheek. His skin was warm and slightly scratchy under her palm though she had never noticed any beard shadow on his face. Up close she could smell his scent—the same warm, exotic spice that permeated the cloak he had given her.

  “Me?” His deep voice was hoarse.

  “Yes, you,” Lauren said patiently. She hoped desperately that she wasn’t overplaying her hand but this was all she had and she would rather die than submit to the hideous AllFather. “You’re his son. You have the same blood—the same DNA. Why can’t it be you who…who breeds me?” The word stuck in her throat but she forced it out anyway.

  Xairn jerked back from her light touch as though he’d been burned. “Are you asking me to rape you?”

  Lauren swallowed hard and let her hand drop to her side. “It doesn’t have to be rape,” she said in a low, steady voice. “Not if you’re gentle. You can be gentle, can’t you, Xairn?”

  For a moment his face twisted and then he shook his head. “I have no gentleness in me. Only cruelty and brutality.”

  “You’ve never been cruel to me,” Lauren protested. “Please, Xairn. If…if someone has to do that, I want it to be you. Not him. Never him.” The tears were filling her eyes but she blinked them back, not allowing herself to cry. Have to stay calm. In control.

  “Even if I wanted to breed you, I couldn’t.” His deep voice was cold but his eyes blazed. “Those desires are buried in me—never to emerge.”

  “You’re saying you can’t do it because you don’t want me? You don’t find me attractive?” she asked.

  “I…” Xairn frowned. “Certainly you’re very beautiful. But beauty means nothing to me. My sexual urges are dormant and shall remain so.”

  “Oh?” Lauren had no idea if she was doing the right thing or not. She only knew she was desperate. Taking a deep breath, she unfastened the neck of the long black cloak and let it drop. It pooled at her feet in a heap of fabric. She felt horribly naked and vulnerable without it, but she refused to cover herself.

&n
bsp; “What are you doing?” Xairn’s voice was a harsh whisper now.

  “Look at me,” she murmured, holding her hands out to her sides. She was no Victoria’s Secret model but she had curves in all the right places and she knew it. Her bare breasts were high and full and firm and her berry-brown nipples were tight in the cool air. The neatly trimmed thatch of black curls between her thighs was soft and inviting.

  “Why should I?” he demanded but his eyes burned over her body, devouring her hungrily, making her feel even more naked.

  “I want you to see me,” Lauren said clearly. “Not just as a sex object or a female animal with the right bloodlines. See me—see Lauren. The girl you’ve been talking to for so long.”

  “I see you.” His eyes stopped roving over her body and he looked into her eyes. “But I still don’t understand.”

  “I’m asking you to help me,” Lauren said softly. “And I think you will.”

  “What would lead you to believe that?” He sounded uneasy.

  Lauren took a step closer until she could feel the heat of his large body against her bare skin. “Because you clothed me when I was cold and fed me when I was hungry. Because you comforted me when I was sad. You care, Xairn—I know you do. So please, help me.”

  “I cannot. I must not.” But he didn’t move away from her this time.

  “You can,” Lauren assured him. Taking his hand, she placed it carefully between her bare breasts, pressing his palm to the smooth skin of her chest. “Feel my heart. Look into my eyes. You can have me if you want—I won’t fight you. Just don’t…don’t let him have me. Please.”

  Xairn looked down at his large hand between her breasts and then back up into her eyes. “I—”

  The sound of boots echoing outside cut him off.

  Lauren looked toward the door in the side of the ship with alarm. “Who—?”

  “Quickly!” Stooping, Xairn retrieved the cloak, wrapped it around her, and pushed her into the small holding cell almost in one motion. “Be silent,” he warned in a low voice. “Don’t bring attention to yourself.”