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)
“The Goddess will send her the right male,” Sylvan said again. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Everything will be all right…”
As he went on comforting Sophia, Kara slipped back to her room. Her appetite had deserted her—her stomach was tied in knots. Her mother must have heard about the break-up with Jason and that was why she was so upset. But her assumption that Kara would never find a male who would accept her as she was shook Kara to the very core. If even her own mother didn’t think there was any hope for her, well…then what hope was there?
At least Daddy still has faith in me…or he has faith in the Goddess, anyway, she thought darkly, crawling into bed. Closing her eyes, she tried to go to sleep.
But the conversation between her parents kept running through her mind and the memory of her mother’s tears kept Kara up long past the time she usually drifted off.
Those awful fangs, she heard her mother saying over and over. It was something Sophia would never have said to Kara’s face—no one would have. And her mother meant no harm—she loved Kara and just wanted her to have a happy, normal life.
But what chance did she have of that when she wasn’t normal herself?
I wonder what that procedure she was talking about was—the one on Tranq Prime?
Her father had seemed to think it was dangerous but Kara was beginning to feel desperate. Maybe it was something to consider, whatever it was. She did have relatives there—her father’s aunt and uncle. Kara had never met them but she knew the people of Tranq Prime were intensely clannish—she was certain if she could get to her father’s home planet they would welcome her as part of the family.
Maybe, she thought as her eyelids at last began to grow heavy. Maybe it’s something to consider. She didn’t want her fangs pulled or anything drastic like that, but if she could somehow shrink them so they became unnoticeable…
And maybe if my fangs shrank, the urges that go with them would shrink too, Kara told herself. It would be such a relief not to have the desperate urge to bite anymore…to sink her fangs into willing male flesh as that same flesh was sinking into her…
Unbidden, an image of the Y’lyn Kindred—the Unbondable—rose in her mind’s eye. He was so tall…his shoulders so broad. Kara could imagine sweeping his heavy curtain of wild black hair to one side and sinking her fangs deep into the strongly corded throat…she could almost hear his low rumble of pleasure as he gave himself to her. And down below, she would be giving herself to him…riding him…taking his shaft deep inside her pussy…
No, she told herself uneasily. No, that would be wrong. I can’t let myself think like that… can’t fantasize about letting him change the color of my eyes…
She knew enough of Tranq Prime heritage that once she had sex with a male it would have an obvious outward physical effect. Her eyes, which were the same ice blue as Sylvan’s, would change color to reflect the fact that she was no longer a virgin. And Kara could just imagine her parents’ reaction if she came to the breakfast table one morning with different colored eyes and she was still unbonded.
Her mom and dad were fairly progressive about a lot of things but her father was extremely old-fashioned when it came to sex—specifically sex outside of a bonded relationship.
And you can’t bond with an Unbondable, she reminded herself uneasily. Still, why was she getting worried about such things? The Unbondable male was only here for a short time and the Mother Ship was a big place. Kara would probably never see him again.
I don’t even know his name, she thought sleepily.
Yet it was his darkly handsome face and those silver-ringed eyes that followed her down into sleep when she at last began to dream.
Three
Kara had a job in the tech hub of the Mother Ship and the morning commute on the public transport was unusually crowded. To one side of her she was jostled by three Kindred warriors with a glittery sheen to their skin, which appeared to change colors subtly as they moved. Kara wondered if it was some kind of camouflage. To her right, were two venerable-looking elders of the Fr’Enson people.
The Fr’Ensons had excess skin all over their bodies, much like a Shar Pei dog, which puffed up when they felt upset or threatened. The unfortunate fact that they also had their organs of sexual reproduction protruding from their foreheads like some kind of floppy, obscene unicorn horn, made them look decidedly strange—at least to Kara.
She wondered why they were here—as far as she knew, no Kindred had ever wanted to bond with a Fr’Enson. Maybe the two elders had other business with the Council. She looked away from the odd-looking aliens and instead tried to concentrate on the scenery of the Mother Ship rushing past the clear panels of the transport.