“Be well,” Nirobe told her. “And do not forget my first prophesy to you.”
“We know—‘Seek the little healer which cannot fail and the silver sphere which finds the trail,’” Terex recited. “’These you will find within the Blind.’”
“Do not forget the last line—‘Submitting first to ties that bind.’” The priestess’s eyes flashed. “That is very important, Warrior.” She looked at Elaina. “Especially for you.”
Elaina thought about saying she didn’t understand again, but then decided not to. She didn’t think the priestess was going to give them any more guidance than she’d already offered. She would just have to go with it and hope that the oblique prophesies would make sense later.
She hugged Sophie and Liv once more and Terex shook hands—or rather, clasped arms as was the Kindred way—with Baird and Sylvan.
“Go with the Goddess, Brother,” Sylvan told him solemnly. “The rift is already open for you.”
“We placed the exit coordinates a few parsecs outside the Blind,” Baird said. “So you’ll have a little room to maneuver and find the best place to enter.”
“We will pray for your swift success and speedy return,” Sylvan added.
“Thank you,” Terex said stiffly. “I appreciate your well wishes and prayers.”
And then he was opening the door of the space ship and motioning Elaina inside.
Biting her lip, Elaina climbed up the stairs and ducked inside the hatch. She wanted to turn her head and say one last goodbye to Sophie and Liv and what they represented—namely Earth and humanity and everything that was known and loved and familiar to her—but Terex was already right behind her, clearly impatient to be off.
So instead of waving again, Elaina went quickly to the front of the craft.
As she looked out the front viewscreen of the little ship, she wondered what was going to happen to her and if she would ever see Earth or her sister again.
Chapter Six
“Prepare for lift-off. That’s your chair.” Terex impatiently indicated the seat on the left side of the cockpit.
Elaina settled herself into it quickly, not wanting to make him mad. It didn’t seem like he’d thawed a bit since the night before. In fact, if anything he seemed more irritated and remote than he had earlier.
Great. She sighed to herself. This was going to be a fun trip—going off into the dangerous unknown with a huge warrior who hated her. It’s not supposed to be fun—you’re supposed to be finding something to save Gina’s life, she reminded herself sternly. You can put up with a cranky Kindred for a little while to do that.
Terex was already in the pilot’s seat, which had a vast array of complicated looking controls and a steering yolk in front of it. Elaina thought it looked a little like an airplane’s cockpit but about five times more complex.
A little less complex, but still confusing, was the array of buckles on her own seat. They seemed to be made for someone much larger than her—probably a Kindred male, she reasoned. Also, it seemed like they were supposed to crisscross over her chest and there was one strap that seemed made to come up between her legs but she couldn’t find the buckle that one attached to—
“Can’t you manage even the simplest thing?”
Suddenly Terex was looming over her, glaring at her for her ineptitude.
“I’m sorry,” Elaina said with as much dignity as she could muster. “I’ve been in Kindred ships before but never one like this.”
“This ship has been specially outfitted for long range, deep space exploration,” he said, frowning. “Here.”
Rapidly, he began arranging the straps, buckling them tight across her breasts and pulling the strap between her legs into position to buckle just under her sternum.
Elaina bit her lip and held still for the operation, even though having the huge Kindred so close to her made her feel uncomfortable. He was so big—she could feel the heat radiating from his muscular body and smell his warm, masculine scent, which seemed somehow intensified this morning. In fact, he smelled amazing, Elaina couldn’t help thinking. That scent made her want to climb in his lap and kiss him senseless.
Wait a minute—what? Why am I thinking about kissing him? That’s crazy! she scolded herself. But her stern reprimand didn’t stop her from wondering what his lips would taste like. And when his hands brushed over her body, she felt herself reacting, even though she didn’t want to.
Her nipples got hard as his fingertips brushed her breasts impersonally while he buckled her in. And her pussy began to feel damp when he pulled the strap up firmly between her legs.
“There.” Terex stepped back, frowning down at her. “Do you feel secure?”
“Um…” Elaina shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe…maybe a little too secure,” she admitted. “You’ve got these straps really tight.”
She’d expected Terex to loosen the straps and maybe even apologize for tying her down so tightly. Instead, he gave her a stern look.
“They’re tight for your own good. The better to keep you safe when we enter the Blind.”
Then he strapped into his own harness and started the ship.
Elaina gave him an uncertain look as he piloted them up and out of the translucent atmosphere dome which covered the Docking Bay and allowed ships to land and take off without allowing the atmosphere to depressurize or the oxygen in the Mother Ship to escape.
“Um…so that’s it? You’re going to keep me tied up the whole trip?”
“If I have to. It’s for your own good.” He gave her a look like she was a naughty school girl who might need to be punished. “Stay where you are until I tell you otherwise. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir.” Elaina meant the words to come out sarcastic. Instead, they sounded disturbingly meek and obedient. What was going on with her? She normally didn’t have a hard time standing up for herself, even if she did hate confrontations.
It’s just that he’s the captain of the ship and I’m only a passenger. I have to do what he says, she tried to tell herself. But she couldn’t help thinking that they were setting a precedent—a dynamic between them that was going to be difficult to break later.
* * * * *
Why did I strap her down so tightly and then forbid her to move? Terex asked himself. Why was I so rough and stern with her?
There was the obvious reason, of course—Elaina represented an almost overwhelming distraction to him. It was incredibly difficult to make himself concentrate on piloting the ship when she was right beside him, making his shaft hard and his fangs sharp. So it was better to have her restrained to minimize that distraction.
But there were other forces at work inside him—forces he’d thought were dead and buried. Feelings he had sworn off forever, which disturbed him greatly.
Suddenly the priestess’s words came back to him. “You will encounter an old perversion—that which is anathema to you…You must embrace it.”
Terex shook his head angrily. Surely she hadn’t been talking about that. Never, he had sworn never to indulge in such practices again. Not after Solange died.
But then what else could she have been talking about?
Forget about it, he advised himself. Just concentrate on the mission…concentrate on killing that foul scion of Two.
“What’s that?” Elaina’s voice sounded awed and he realized they were approaching the rift, or fold in space. He could understand why its appearance would make her nervous—it looked like a long, bloody gash in the black fabric of the universe and they were headed right for it.
“The Kindred Mother Ship has the ability to fold the fabric of the space time continuum,” he explained, trying to keep his voice neutral and even. “It’s the only way, besides stable wormholes, to traverse the vast distances of the universe. Without the Kindred’s ability to fold space, we would have died out as a people long before we found others to make genetic trades with.”
“Oh, I see.” She still sounded nervous. “And is it…safe to, uh, go through
that thing? That—”
“The fold,” he supplied, nodding at the red rip in space. “Or some call it the rift. Yes, it’s perfectly safe.” He looked at her sharply. “Unless you’re with child?”
“You mean am I pregnant?” She let out a surprised sounding laugh.
“Yes. Are you?” Terex growled. “I need to know now before we enter the rift.”
“Hardly!” She laughed again. “I broke up with my ex five years ago and there hasn’t been anybody since him. Not even a one night stand. I mean…” She trailed off and from the corner of his eye, Terex could see her cheeks coloring. “Wow, that sounds kind of pathetic when I say it out loud,” she murmured. “But no—I’m perfectly safe. There’s no way I’m pregnant.”
“You don’t have to feel ashamed for not being promiscuous,” Terex felt compelled to tell her. “My own mate, Solange, died over ten cycles ago and I have had no female since then.”
“Ten years?” Her voice softened. “You must have loved her very much to preserve her memory so beautifully.”
“I did,” Terex said shortly. He didn’t wish to speak about Solange now. She belonged to the past and he needed to look towards the future—at least until he completed this mission.
“I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. Death is way harder than divorce.”
“Why did you leave him—your mate?” Terex was surprised to hear the question come out of his mouth. But once it was out, he found he wanted an answer. He turned his head to look at Elaina whose cheeks were flushed again for some reason.
“Um…you know, the usual. Money problem. Miles like to gamble and he lost a lot of our savings that way with online poker.”
“That is a grave fault,” Terex remarked. “But were there others? Forgive me,” he added. “I’m trying to understand. We Kindred do not leave our mates willingly for any reason. The only dissolution possible in our relationships is death.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard you guys don’t do divorce.” She cleared her throat. “Well, we had other disagreements. We weren’t…” She cleared her throat. “Weren’t as, uh, compatible in some ways as I would have liked.”
Terex was intrigued despite himself.
“What ways?” he insisted.
“Sexually, all right?” Her cheeks were nearly scarlet now. She lifted her chin and made a visible effort to calm herself. “I wanted…to try new things. Miles didn’t.”
“So why didn’t you try them with someone else once you parted ways with him?” Terex asked. It was a rude and imposing question but he still wanted her to answer it. Wanted to know, for some reason, what ‘made her tick’ as the humans said.
“I guess…” She bit her lip. “I guess I never found the right person to try them with. Never found someone I trusted enough. Listen, do we have to talk about this?”
“You started it by stating the reasons you could not be pregnant,” Terex pointed out. “But no—we can drop it for now.” Although he very much wanted to know what sexual practices she was talking about.
He looked over at her again and for a moment the plain black seat harness with its shiny silver buckles morphed into something different…something sinister and forbidden.
You’ll wear this, he heard himself saying. This and nothing else. You’ll display yourself for my pleasure. Do you understand?
No! Roughly, he pushed the image which was half fantasy/half memory away and concentrated on piloting.
“Brace yourself,” he told Elaina without looking at her. “We are about to enter the rift.”
* * * * *
The trip through the red gash in space wasn’t as bad as Elaina had thought it might be. She was actually more frightened by what she saw on the other side—a huge black wall of nothingness greeted their eyes when they emerged. There were no stars, no moons or planets. Just blank blackness.
“Whew.” She gave a shaky little laugh. “I can see why they call it the Blind.”
“It is a very daunting sight,” Terex agreed in a low voice. “But it’s where we have been ordered to go.” He looked at Elaina. “Are you certain you wish to accompany me? This is your last chance. I can always take you back through the rift to the Mother Ship and go on by myself.”
She lifted her chin and looked at him defiantly.
“My sister’s life is on the line here—I don’t care where we have to go or what we have to do, I have to try and save her.”
A look of reluctant admiration passed over Terex’s stern features.
“Bravely spoken, Elaina,” he remarked. “Very well—I’m setting a course. We’ll be flying visually blind, of course, but my instruments will let me know the moment we find the solar system the priestess foretold.”
“The first habitable planet in the first solar system.” Elaina couldn’t help shivering. “I wonder what the people will be like?”
“As to that, I cannot say. I only know they hold the answers we seek. Let’s go find them.”
His face set in a determined frown, Terex gripped the steering yoke and guided their small craft into the Blind.
Chapter Seven
The first galaxy was only a few parsecs beyond the vast black cloud of space dust. In fact, they seemed to have inadvertently come through in one of the thin areas, where the cloud was only parsecs rather than light years thick.
The Goddess must be guiding us, Terex thought—and then pushed the idea away. The Goddess didn’t give a damn about him anymore—the recent events of his life proved that. The fact that they had come through one of the few thin areas in the massive dust cloud was dumb luck—pure coincidence.
They came almost at once to a binary solar system—a yellow sun much like Earth’s own star—locked in orbit with a brown dwarf, which was a failed star without enough hydrogen and helium to fully ignite. Terex knew that the brown dwarf wouldn’t emit much heat of its own but it was probably quite visible passing through the orbit of the blazing yellow sun as they were locked in their eternal dance.
The system boasted five planets, according to his instruments. One large gas giant, about the size of Jupiter which was too close to the suns it orbited to sustain any kind of life even on its moons, and three rocky, frozen worlds on the outer fringe of the system where the temperatures would also be incompatible with life.
But the second planet from the yellow sun was a green and blue and purple globe, much like Earth, although considerably larger in circumference.
“There.” Terex pointed it out on the viewscreen. “The first habitable planet of the first solar system in the first galaxy past the Blind. And look—there are ships and stations orbiting their world. Clearly they have the technology to be a space faring race.”
“Is that good or bad?” Elaina asked apprehensively.
“It depends…good, if they’re reasonable and can be bargained with. Bad if they’re warlike and want to use us for target practice.”
“That won’t happen—will it?” She looked at him with wide eyes. “I mean, the priestess wouldn’t have sent us if we were just going to get killed by the first people we met, right?”
“The mind of a priestess is impenetrable,” Terex muttered. Then he cast a glance at Elaina and saw how frightened she was. It showed in the way her big brown eyes were so wide and the way she nibbled her lush lower lip. Suddenly, he wanted to reassure her. He had no reason to care if he got killed on this mission but Elaina did—she desperately wanted to get back to save her sister. “I’m certain we’ll be fine,” he said stiffly.
“Gee, thanks.” Elaina looked away from him, fixing her attention on the blue and green and purple world growing larger by the minute in the viewscreen. She sighed. "Will I be able to understand them—once we get down there, I mean."
"You should," Terex said. "You were given translation bacteria on the Mother Ship in preparation for this mission, were you not?"
"Yes, Liv was nice enough to make sure I got some." She nodded. "She said—"
Suddenly a bur
st of static interrupted their view of the planet and a strangely accented voice filled the cabin.
“Unidentified craft, this is Nixelle Prime-Beta ground control. Please identify yourselves.”
“They’re hailing us,” Terex muttered.
“What do we do?” Elaina asked, her eyes getting even wider.
“Talk to them. But first I want to look at them.”
Flipping a switch, Terex brought a different view up on the viewscreen. A young, broad shouldered male with a shock of pure black hair and skin so white it looked ghostly suddenly appeared on the broad screen. He was wearing a black leather vest heavy with silver chains and he had blue-green eyes—but not the way a human or a Kindred would have. His eyes were actually divided into three separate and distinct colors—an outer ring of baby blue, a middle ring of pale green, and an inner ring that was almost navy. The effect was exotic, to say the least.
“Wow,” Elaina muttered. “He looks really…I don’t even know. I mean, those eyes. Can he see us too?”
“Not very well,” Terex muttered. “He’s trying to scan us but I’m jamming his signal. He’s getting a lot of static”
“You can do that?” She looked at him in surprise.
“Of course.” Terex shrugged. Then he spoke up. “Do you care to explain why you’re attempting to scan me and invade my ship’s privacy, ground control?”
“Standard operating procedure for the protection of our home world.” The chalk-skinned male was frowning. “Stop jamming my signal and show yourselves clearly if you don’t want to be blown out of the sky!”
“Oh my!” Elaina put a hand to her heart and froze in place. “Could they…would they do that?”
“If they choose—they certainly appear to have the technology,” Terex said blandly.
“Oh,” Elaina whispered. She was plainly terrified but trying not to show it too much.
Once more Terex took pity on her. “Probably not,” he said, relenting. “Just give me a minute to negotiate.”