“Really?” Kat looked interested as she handed Imani a short, pink lace jacket that matched the band of lace covering her breasts. “Here, put this on—it might help you feel a little less naked.”
A very little bit, Imani thought, as she tried the jacket on. It covered her arms all right but didn’t meet in the middle, which meant her breasts were still exposed.
“Thanks,” she said doubtfully.
“You look gorgeous if it’s any consolation,” Kat told her, smiling. “Better put on your regular clothes though, Sylvan wants us to come to a briefing before you go.”
Imani was more than willing to take off the skimpy Yonnie Six court outfit and slip back into her normal workday clothes of a conservative button-down blouse and pencil skirt. She gave a sigh of relief as she stepped out from behind the folding screen Kat had set up in her office, which also included a clothing simulator—an amazing machine which could print out clothes from on-line images like a 3-D printer.
“Well, you look much more conservative now,” Kat said, grinning as Imani emerged from behind the screen. “Ready for the briefing?”
“Ready.” Imani nodded. She was eager to learn more details of the case she was about to try. She’d been taking a crash course in Yonnite Law from Lizabeth Paige to prepare for it. Lizabeth and her husband, Lone, headed up the Kindred’s legal team but they had new twins to care for, so Imani had been chosen to go take care of this particular case.
Of course, the case would have fallen to her mentor, Allisandra Stone, but she had recently moved to an alternate universe to be with the Kindred husband who had Claimed her—which was mind-bogglingly weird as far as Imani was concerned. But everyone aboard the Mother Ship seemed to take it as a matter of course. Apparently strange things happened all the time when you associated with the Kindred.
Imani just hoped none of them happened to her.
Two
“Now, I understand you’ve been studying both Yonnite Law and the Nightwalker Kindred to prepare for this case.” Commander Sylvan steepled his fingers as he leaned across his desk. He was the head of the Kindred High Council and also the one who had hired Imani in the first place—on the recommendation of her mentor.
“Yes.” Imani nodded seriously. She sat across from Sylvan, and Kat was sitting right beside her.
The full-figured redhead was tasked with getting her ready to go to a whole different planet and she had done everything she could from making Imani a whole new Yonnie wardrobe to making sure she got a shot of translation bacteria so she wouldn’t have to deal with a language barrier. Imani sort of wished she could take Kat all the way to Yonnie Six with her, for moral support, but Kat had her hands full with two husbands and three sons to take care of so Imani was on her own.
“I’ve got the law procedures down pretty well,” Imani told Sylvan. “But the literature I could find on the Nightwalker Kindred was limited.”
“Let me see if I can fill in the gaps.” Sylvan sat back and his deep voice took on a lecturing tone. “Back when the Kindred first discovered Ulle Prime—the Nightwalker home world, a great catastrophe had just swept over the planet.”
“Right—a disease that killed everyone with a Y chromosome.” Imani nodded. “I read about that.”
“Exactly,” Sylvan said. “So when they came, the Kindred found only females. And since we are a race of mostly males, it made sense to make a genetic trade with them. Many Kindred males called Nightwalker brides.”
“That sounds like an ideal situation,” Kat remarked.
“It seemed so.” Sylvan frowned. “Until the first children came along. You see, the original Nightwalker males were much different from their females who were kind and sweet-tempered. But as even-tempered as the females were, they still bore the traits in their DNA that made their sons into Nightwalker males.”
“So, what was wrong with that?” Kat asked, frowning. “I thought Kindred genes usually mix well with the genes of other species?”
“In this case, they mixed too well.” Sylvan’s voice was grim. “You see, the original Nightwalker males were about twenty percent smaller than the females. But they were absolutely savage. Once the Kindred genes were added, that savagery was compounded by size, since the children all inherited the Kindred propensity to be extremely large and muscular.”
Imani frowned.
“I read something about that, but I didn’t really understand. Do you mean they’re all crazy or what?”
“No, not exactly.” Sylvan shook his head. “The Nightwalker Kindred are a little like the Wulven Kindred.”
“The ones who change into a beast at the full moon?” Kat’s eyes widened.
“Yes, but the Nightwalkers don’t change—well, their physical appearance doesn’t change, anyway.” Sylvan leaned forward again. “You see, the Nightwalkers aren’t separate from their beasts—they are their beasts. That savage, wild temperament is always there, just below the surface. It’s said they can go into Rage for any reason—not just to protect a female. And once they are in Rage, it’s very difficult to get out of their feral state.”
“Rage?” Imani frowned.
“It’s a kind of berserker fury a Kindred warrior goes into if he thinks his woman is being threatened,” Kat explained. She looked at Sylvan. “But you’re saying the Nightwalker Kindred are in Rage all the time?”
“If provoked, they can go into a feral state where they are more animal than man,” Sylvan said, nodding. He looked at Imani seriously. “It’s extremely important that you don’t allow your client to become provoked into that state.”
“But what if he gets provoked and she can’t help it?” Kat demanded. “Won’t she be in danger if she has a huge, enraged feral warrior on her hands?”
“Actually, no,” Sylvan said mildly. “Because, like almost all other Kindred, the Nightwalkers won’t harm a female.”
“Which is why we know the
