Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 67092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
“That’s my cue,” Kara muttered to herself. Making certain she stayed in the center of the cloud of trade ships as they lifted off en mass, she pulled on the steering yoke, bringing the little shuttle smoothly up to hover in midair.
To her left, she caught a glimpse of a big black ship with red markings—Raak’s vessel. She’d seen him boarding it as she was choosing a shuttle to borrow and had been immediately tempted to go tell him she was also going to Tranq Prime. But two things stopped her.
First, she didn’t want to seem desperate. What if Raak thought she was only going to Tranq Prime because he was going there as well? What if he thought she was throwing herself at him when they barely knew each other? Kara didn’t want the big warrior to think she was some kind of stalker chick, crazy to be with him for life when they’d only had a few hours together.
Her dignity demanded that she keep her distance so no matter how fiercely her fangs throbbed when she saw his muscular form, she kept quiet and stayed to the shadows so he wouldn’t see her.
The second reason she didn’t seek Raak out was because she’d told Kaleb that this time she was taking away from her family was for her—and that was absolutely true.
She was a grown woman who still lived in her parents’ house, was still a virgin, had never had a long-term relationship, and had never been on any kind of adventure. When she thought about it, Kara decided that was kind of pathetic. She listened to her mother and her Aunt Liv and Aunt Kat and Aunt Lauren talk about the amazing things they had done when they were Kara’s age. Why, Aunt Kat and Aunt Lauren had actually met for the first time on the Scourge home world! And her own mother had been to First World and Tranq Prime and…well, the list went on and on.
Kara had never been anyplace but the Mother Ship and Earth, which was boringly tame compared to some of the planets her mother and aunts had visited.
Of course, it wasn’t like Tranq Prime was as wild as Rageron, the Beast Kindred home planet, but it was a whole lot colder than anything she was used to from her life in the climate-controlled Mother Ship. As insurance against the freezing temperatures, she had packed her thickest boots and her father’s old vranna skin coat—made from the pelt of the fearsome beast which he had killed when he was only twelve cycles old.
Kaleb had wanted to try killing a vranna too when he’d heard that story as a boy but their mother had firmly vetoed the idea. Kara was glad about that—she’d heard that a grown vranna was taller than a polar bear from Earth and twice as fierce. Still, she was glad she had the soft, warm coat of turquoise fur. It should keep her from freezing when she walked from the landing area to the entrance of the grotto where her great aunt and uncle lived.
Kara hoped they wouldn’t mind her popping up unannounced but she was afraid if she called them they might alert her father and tell him where she was.
And I don’t want anything to spoil the surprise, Kara told herself. The next time I see my family my fangs will be normal-sized and all my unladylike urges will be gone.
It was a happy thought and she held onto it hard as she guided her little craft into the red gash in space—flying through the Fold for the first time on her own.
Seven
Folding space was always a strange sensation—one which she had only experienced once or twice when her father took his family with him on a diplomatic mission. But even then she and her brother had always been confined to the shuttle.
This time I’m on my own and I’m going to get out and explore and see anything I want to, Kara told herself. There’s nobody holding me back—I’m going for it!
Luckily, her great aunt and uncle lived in the largest grotto on Tranq Prime and that was where most of the trading ships were headed. Kara followed along, looking at the frozen wastes that flew by beneath her ship and reviewing the planet’s history in her head.
The frozen Blood Kindred home world was also home to a race called the Primes. The Primes were a proud people—they had been there before the Kindred and had welcomed them grudgingly onto their planet, allowing them to call brides from their people only when it appeared that an epidemic of Blood Fever might wipe out the entire female population. But after the epidemic was over, the Primes had tried to push the Kindred out, saying that they needed to purify their bloodlines. There were still some Blood Kindred here but many had migrated to the Mother Ship and other Kindred home worlds where they felt more welcome.