Uncharted

  She’d been telling herself that since Gina had first gone to the doctor complaining that she was tired all the time and the least little brush against anything caused huge purple bruises to form on her skin. Elaina continued telling herself the same hopeful, positive things even after the diagnosis of cancer. Through each course of treatment she’d maintained a positive attitude, both for herself and her little sister, certain that this new method or course of drugs would be the answer—would be the cure. Even when chemo, radiation, and the bone marrow transplant all failed, Elaina had stayed positive.

  There’s still a chance, she had told herself. There has to be a chance—has to be help somewhere. And so, after every kind of human medicine had failed, she had gone to ask for help from the priestesses in the Sacred Grove aboard the Mother Ship. She wasn’t a believer in the Kindred Goddess but she was respectful of all religions. Also, working in the HKR building, she’d heard some amazing stories about miracles the Goddess had supposedly performed.

  But while the priestess she’d spoken too—an older woman named Nirobe—had been kind, she hadn’t been able to give Elaina any hope. Her words had been quiet counsel about accepting the will of the Goddess, which was sometimes beyond mortal comprehension. Elaina had left the Sacred Grove feeling like her last hope had been shattered.

  It was almost more than she could bear.

  “Hey…” Her sister’s soft voice cut through the swirl of dismal thoughts in Elaina’s head and she looked up to see that Gina was looking at her.

  “Hey yourself,” she said gently, trying to smile. “You’re looking better today. How are you feeling?”

  “Like crap.” Gina laughed and the laugh turned into a cough.

  “Here.” Reaching for the covered cup with a straw sticking out on the little rolling table by the bed, Elaina helped her take a sip of water.

  “How’s Jake?” Gina’s voice was paper-thin when she finally swallowed the water and could talk again.

  Elaina bit her lip. Jake was Gina’s son—only thirteen years old and terribly angry that his mother was sick. Since Gina’s diagnosis he’d been getting into all kinds of trouble—lashing out in every direction in helpless rage that Gina was being taken from him.

  A former straight A student, he was failing most of his classes and he’d been picked up by the police twice—once for drug possession and once when he and a friend tried to break into a car. Luckily his step father, Gina’s husband, was a good lawyer and had been able to get him off with only community service both times. But the stress of Jake’s teenaged angst and all-consuming grief and rage was beginning to tell on their once solid relationship. Recently, there had been some talk about sending Jake back to his biological father who lived in Oregon.

  Elaina had argued strenuously about that with Gina’s husband, Gary.

  “But if he goes now, he won’t be able to see Gina before…before…” She’d waved a hand helplessly, unable to say the words aloud.

  “Just say it—before she dies.” Gary had sighed harshly and ran a hand through his hair. “I know it, Elaina, I know but he doesn’t go to see her anyway. I’ve tried and tried to persuade him but he hasn’t been to see her in three months now. What good does it do to have him hang around Tampa getting into trouble while she’s slipping away if he won’t even go see her?”

  Elaina knew he was right, but she also thought Jake might change his mind or find his way through the rage that was consuming him. He seemed to blame his mother for getting sick in the first place—as though she could help it in some way—as though she had chosen to get terminally ill and leave him. It wasn’t a rational reaction but then, there was no rational reaction to such intense grief and pain.

  Elaina hoped maybe Jake would somehow get through his rage and misery and decide to visit Gina before the end. But if he made that decision when he was on the other end of the country in Oregon, it might be too late for him to get back to Tampa. If he—

  “Elaina? I said, how’s Jake?” Gina’s thin, whispery voice cut into her contemplation.

  “He’s fine,” Elaina lied as well as she could. “He’s…keeping busy. Some kind of science project, I think. Probably come to see you once he aces it—you know how involved he gets in his projects.” She smiled and pressed her sister’s hand gently. “You’ll be seeing him soon anyway, once you get out of here.”

  In the past Gina had smiled and played along with her, adding to the pleasant fiction that she was going to get better and go back to her family soon. But this time she shook her head.

  “You don’t have to lie to me, Laney.” There was a dreadful sorrow in her face—a look in her gold and green flecked brown eyes, so like Elaina’s own—that said she couldn’t pretend anymore. That she didn’t have the strength.

  “What are you talking about?” Elaina protested, not willing to give up the lie. “You’ll be out of here soon. Dr. Edwards said another round of chemo—”

  “No—no more chemo.” Gina shook her head. “I can’t take anymore, Laney—I can’t. I’m so tired and I hurt all the time. I think if I could just get…just get Jake to forgive me for leaving him I’d be ready to go.”

  “He doesn’t understand,” Elaina said earnestly, pressing her sister’s hand. “He’s so young…so angry. He misses you, Gina. He…” She choked, trying not to cry. “He just wants his mom. I’m sure he’ll come to see you soon.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure too.” But Gina’s voice was cold and flat.

  “Don’t let it get you down.” Elaina tried to keep her voice light though her eyes were stinging. “Listen, I know it doesn’t seem like it now but things are going to turn around. They are.”

  “I don’t think so.” Gina closed her eyes again. “I’m tired, Laney. I need to rest.”

  “All right. You go on and rest. I—” Suddenly Elaina got a strange tingling sensation in her temples. It was almost like the beginnings of a headache but it didn’t hurt. “Um…” She frowned, losing her train of thought as the tingling got stronger. What was going on?

  Suddenly a voice sounded right inside her head.

  “Elaina? Elaina of Earth…it is I, Nirobe, priestess of the Sacred Grove.”

  “What?” Elaina muttered under her breath. She got up and moved to the other side of the hospital room, not wanting to scare her sister. “What is this? Am I going crazy?”

  “Do not be concerned for your sanity, my dear. I am bespeaking you by means of a think-me—a device which allows us to communicate mind-to-mind.”

  “Oh right—sorry.” Elaina had heard of such devices, but she had also heard that married Kindred were able to speak telepathically without them. Apparently it was a bond they formed when they mated. She couldn’t imagine having someone in her head all the time though—just talking to the priestess mentally was weird enough.

  “You can simply think to me, my dear—I will be able to hear you,” Nirobe said. “You came to me earlier asking for help for your beloved sibling who is ill, did you not?”

  “Yes! Yes, I did!” Elaina couldn’t keep the hope and excitement out of her mental voice. “Did you find something that could help her? Oh please tell me you did!”

  “I have not found anything, my child, but it is possible you might.”

  “What?” Elaina felt her heart sinking back down to her toes. “What does that even mean?”

  “Come to the Sacred Grove on the Mother Ship just after Last Meal today and I will explain,” Nirobe promised mysteriously. “Will you come?”

  “That’s around eight o’clock, right? Yes. Yes, of course—anything I can do to help my sister…” Elaina stared at the sunken form on the bed, her cheeks gray, her narrow chest rising and falling so faintly Elaina could barely make it out. “Anything,” she vowed. “I’ll do anything at all to help her.”

  “You may be required to live up to that vow my dear,” the priestess murmured in her head. “I will see you after Last Meal then.”

  “Thank you!” Elaina said aloud, but she sensed th
e connection was already broken—the presence of the priestess had faded from her head.

  “What…what was that?” Gina opened her eyes tiredly. “Who were you thanking?”

  “It’s a long story.” Elaina looked at her watch and saw that it was already a quarter past seven. If she wanted to get back to the HKR building and up to the Mother Ship, she would need to hurry. “I’ll tell you later,” she promised, leaning over to give her sister a kiss on one thin cheek. “It might be something good—something important.”

  “Okay.” Gina’s eyelids fluttered down again and she dozed in the morphine-induced haze her pain meds kept her in most of the time. “See you later, Laney,” she mumbled.

  “Of course you will.” Elaina pressed her little sister’s hand gently and let go. And maybe when I come back, I’ll have a cure with me, she thought but didn’t say. She left the hospital room, closing the door quietly behind her, and then set off down the long hallway at a rapid pace, her heels clicking briskly on the industrial green tiled floor.

  It was time to get to the Mother Ship and find out what she could do to save her sister.

  Chapter Three

  “Hello? Priestess Nirobe?” Terex finished removing his tall black boots and stood barefoot in the green and purple grass at the edge of the Sacred Grove. The grass felt cool and ticklish under his bare soles and he shifted from foot to foot uneasily. Above him, the green sun of the Mother Ship had dimmed visibly, casting the grove of trees with their whispering leaves into shadow.

  “Excuse me, um…Commander Terex? Is that you?”

  The soft feminine voice didn’t belong to any of the priestesses. Turning his head, Terex saw with surprise, a figure heading towards him over the parkland that surrounded the Sacred Grove. It was a female with an hourglass shape, long dark brown hair, and light brown eyes, flecked with green and gold.

  Elaina…

  For a moment his heart stirred in his chest, like a lump of ice being nudged by the briefest Spring thaw. Then, for some reason, his double set of fangs, which all Blood Kindred have, suddenly seemed to grow longer and sharper. Terex frowned and sternly suppressed the sensation. It didn’t matter that he still found Elaina devastatingly attractive—much had happened since last he had seen the little Earth female—none of it good.

  “Hello, Ms. Benet,” he said, remembering her surname. “It is a pleasure to see you again."

  "Oh, I thought it was you. I just couldn't be sure because of…did you change your hair? And you grew a beard since the last time I saw you."

  "Many things about me have changed," Terex said grimly. "What brings you back to the Sacred Grove?”

  Elaina bit her lush lower lip in a way he found distractingly erotic. Terex forced himself to look away as she talked but he couldn’t help it—his eyes kept returning to her.

  “One of the priestesses called me. She said there might be a way…something I could do to help…to help my little sister.” Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “She…she’s very ill.”

  The pain in her eyes was intense—her sibling must be very ill indeed to evoke such emotion. It made Terex remember how he’d felt when his beloved Solange was dying. But no—he pushed the thought away.

  “I am sorry to hear that,” he said neutrally.

  “Why are you here?” Elaina asked, slipping off her shoes and coming up to him.

  Clearly she was trying to be friendly. They’d had a very cordial conversation on their first meeting—almost a flirtation. Which Terex saw now had been a grave mistake. She was too close—her scent was intensely distracting. He felt his shaft harden in his black flight leathers and took a hasty step back from her. What was wrong with him?

  “I am sorry but my business is private,” he said shortly. “Though I wish you much luck on your own endeavors.”

  “Oh. Uh, thank you, I guess.” Elaina looked taken aback at his cold reply but that couldn’t be helped. Terex told himself he wasn’t being rude—it was necessary to limit the information about his mission. After all, not everyone knew of the near-disaster the Mother Ship had avoided when Two had attacked…or the fact that the Dark Kindred had another scion on the loose somewhere in the universe.

  “Ah, my children! I’m so glad to see you here at last.”

  To Terex’s relief, the priestess Nirobe stepped out from the rustling leaves, saving him from further conversation.

  “Priestess Nirobe.” He bowed his head briefly in supplication.

  “Hello, priestess.” To Terex’s consternation, Elaina stepped forward, smiling. “I’m here,” she said. “What did you want to tell me?”

  “Excuse me,” Terex said. “I do not wish to be rude but I am the one the priestess called to a meeting.”

  Elaina frowned. “No, she specifically asked for me. She called me with a think-me and told me to meet her hear around eight o’clock—after Last Meal.”

  “Actually, my children, I have called you both.” The priestess nodded serenely.

  “I see,” Terex said, though he didn’t understand why the priestess would call them both at the same time. It would have been much more efficient to call one of them a half hour later or earlier. Not to mention much easier on his libido since his rebellious body continued to send signals that it found Elaina extremely desirable. “In that case, Ms. Benet may go first and I will wait,” he said, trying to be courteous and put more distance between himself and the little Earth female.

  “No, Warrior—I think you misunderstand.” Nirobe gave him a stern look. “I summoned you both to the same meeting. Your fate and Elaina’s are bound together like two strands in the same tapestry.”

  “What?” Elaina shook her head. “But you said…you didn’t say anything about, uh, Commander Terex. You said you could show me a way to help my sister.”

  “And so I can,” the priestess said, smiling serenely.

  “You also said nothing to me about Ms. Benet,” Terex protested, frowning. “You told me you could point me in the direction of Two’s scion…for a price.”

  “So I did.” The priestess gestured at Elaina. “Meet your price, Commander Terex. Where you are going, you must also take Elaina. Your mission must not be one only of vengeance but of mercy also.”

  “Impossible.” Terex glared at the priestess. “I am hunting a ruthless sociopath—a male who will not hesitate to slaughter anyone in his path. You cannot ask me to take an innocent, helpless female with me.”

  Beside him, Elaina bristled. “I’m hardly innocent—I’ve been married and divorced and I’m thirty-nine, not nineteen! And I’m not helpless either—I can take care of myself.”

  “Down on Earth where the worst threat you face on a daily basis is air pollution or the occasional instance of reckless driving, I’m certain you can care for yourself, Ms. Benet,” Terex said coldly. “But I am hunting a killer. I don’t want to put you in harm’s way or be held back from acting because of my responsibility to keep you safe.”

  “You don’t have any responsibility to me—I told you, I can take care of myself!” Elaina insisted, her eyes flashing.

  “Children, children…please.” The priestess Nirobe held up her hands for silence. “Commander Terex, I am afraid you have no choice in this matter.” Her voice went steely and she gave him a stern look. “The Goddess has revealed to me that without Elaina you will not be successful in your quest.”

  Maybe I don’t want to be successful! Maybe all I seek is a clean death—how can I find it when I am charged with the safety of another?

  The words rose to his lips but he somehow swallowed them back down. It wouldn’t do to inform a priestess of the Sacred Grove of his death-wish. She might try to keep him from his mission and that was the last thing he wanted.

  And there was another reason he didn’t want to take Elaina with him—just looking at her made his fangs sharp and his shaft hard. These were clearly inappropriate responses but ones he couldn’t seem to help. Her light feminine scent, carried on the swirling breeze that rustled the
leaves of the Sacred Grove, affected him strangely, making it hard to think. He didn’t need that kind of distraction when he was fighting for his life…or trying to lose it.

  But this was another fact he couldn’t disclose—how would it look if he admitted to being sexually drawn to one who was supposed to be under his care? He would have to keep his attraction to the little female to himself.

  “Very well,” he said to the priestess, trying to keep his tone even. “And where am I to take, Ms. Benet, as the Goddess is so set on having her accompany me?”

  “Listen closely,” Nirobe told them, frowning. “This is the prophesy I was given:

  Seek the little healer which cannot fail

  And the silver sphere which finds the trail

  These you will find within the Blind

  Submitting first to Ties that Bind.”

  Terex frowned. “Did you say you wanted us to go into the Blind? Really?”

  “What’s the Blind?” Elaina looked worried.

  “An uncharted area of the known universe,” Terex told her. “A dark sector—we call it the Blind because of the massive cloud of cosmic dust, thousands of light years wide, which blankets the entire area.” He frowned. “The cloud obstructs sight and hinders navigation. In fact, no ship which has ever entered the Blind has come out again.”

  “What?” Elaina looked concerned, as well she might. The Blind was uncharted territory and considered extremely hazardous. She looked at the priestess. “I don’t understand—how will going into this dangerous space cloud thing help Commander Terex catch the man he’s hunting or help me find a cure for my sister?”

  Nirobe shrugged. “As to that, I cannot say. I can only tell you what was given me to tell you.” She frowned at Terex. “But I do know, Warrior, that if the Goddess sends you there, it is no death sentence. After all, the Lost Kindred entered the Blind.”

  “Which is why they are called the ‘Lost Kindred,’” Terex said dryly. “Because none of them ever returned.”