“What did the Goddess say through me?” Nadiah asked. “What must we do to keep the Cruel Father at bay?”
“She said we must destroy the Eye of Ten’gu—whatever that is.” Rast frowned.
“The Eye of Ten’gu?” Nadiah sat up straight. “But that’s been hidden for millennia!”
“You know about it?” Rast asked in surprise.
She nodded, her long blonde hair swishing around her slender shoulders.
“Of course—it’s in some of our earliest scrolls and documents. It’s an ancient artifact, as old as the Kindred race itself.”
“Well, what does it do?” Rast asked, frowning.
“I don’t know,” Nadiah admitted. “But I do know that the very first thing the Kindred males who originally left First World did was to get rid of it. They buried it in the side of a mountain on Yown Beta where no one could ever find it.”
“Well it sounds like someone is on their way to find it now,” Rast said grimly. “The Goddess told me we must warn Sylvan and that someone has to go dig it up and destroy it before…” He hesitated, not wanting to scare his wife again.
“Before what?” Nadiah demanded. “Come on, Rast, tell me!”
Rast could see she wasn’t going to let up until he told her.
“She said the Eye of Ten’gu must be destroyed,” he repeated. “Before it awakens.”
Nadiah didn’t reply. She just buried her head in Rast’s chest and shivered.
A time of darkness was coming. The question was, would the Kindred be able to stand against it?
One
The first thing V’rex noticed about the little female, when she walked into the Hell’s Gate Spaceport Lounge, was her ass.
Gods! he couldn’t help thinking as his eyes followed her every movement. That ass…
It was so full and round and she had thick thighs and broad hips to match it. Her top was nice too—a little waist and full breasts but it was her ass his eyes kept going back to.
She was shaped like a fertility goddess from Quorset Three.
Everything else in the noisy, crowded bar seemed to fall away as he watched her move. The sharp smell of spilled Brantha gin, the shouts of the other bar patrons, demanding drinks, the low drumming of the hypnobeats playing over the sound system which was meant to keep fights to a minimum, the sweet-sour stench of tookla smoke, all faded into the background as he focused on her in the dim, crowded room.
V knew lots of males had a “type” they always went for, and then there were some dogs who would just bed anything they could get their hands on. But he had always been picky. Maybe it was his half Beast-Kindred heritage, but he wasn’t interested in just anyone. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time a female had drawn his attention this way.
He wondered if she was a working girl. She wasn’t really dressed like one. The tight-fitting bodysuit she wore didn’t show any skin and she wasn’t flashing her breasts the way most of the pros at the station were. They were all obvious—might as well have a flashing sign over their heads saying how much they cost by the hour. But this female was subtle—unlike the ones who were selling their wares.
V hadn’t come into the bar looking for company, but he decided right then and there if she was for sale, he was buying. And not just for an hour—he would need at least a whole night to explore those lush curves. His hands itched to cup that juicy ass and squeeze while he filled her with his shaft.
The little female must have felt his eyes on her because she turned for a moment and looked up. Their gazes met and locked and V saw she had a face to match the rest of her.
Heart-shaped and pale with skin that looked as soft and delicate as Telethian silk, she was lovely. Her big eyes were a warm, true brown almost the exact same shade as her thick, chestnut hair, which was pulled back into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. Little tendrils of it had escaped, however, to frame her pretty, softly rounded face. They made her look even more vulnerable and uncertain.
Her mouth was an innocent pink, unlike the dark purple and crimson red lip-stain favored by the pros, and she had a little button of a nose with a smattering of Goddess-kisses across the bridge of it. Fucking adorable.
V let the lust show in his eyes, knowing their pale gold, mirrored irises would reflect the girl’s own image back to her. That was the other part of his heritage—his Kru’ell One side. He wasn’t able to read her mind and know her deepest desires like a full-blooded Kru’ell One could have, but if he got close enough and concentrated, he would at least be able to feel her emotions.
But V didn’t have to use his special senses to know how the little female was feeling. After a moment of staring into his eyes like a wild creature caught in the headlamps of an onrushing vehicle, she turned even paler and dropped her gaze quickly.
Damn! V swore to himself. Now he’d gone and frightened her. Clearly she was an innocent, but what the hell was an innocent doing in a place like the Hell’s Gate Space Port?
He had the urge to go to her—to explain that he wouldn’t hurt her, he just wanted to spend some time with her. Not that he wanted to form any kind of permanent attachment, but maybe they could still work out some kind of arrangement. She looked like she was in trouble—like she needed help. There was a smudge of what looked like axle grease on one high cheekbone—maybe her vehicle had broken down.
V thought about offering to help her—for a price. He wasn’t the kind of male to pretend to be kind and gentlemanly and fix her vehicle and then insinuate afterwards that she owed him. No, he would be plain about what
