Instructing the Novice Read online

  Instructing the Novice

  A Kindred Tales Novel

  Evangeline Anderson

  www.evangelineanderson.com

  Instructing the Novice, 1st Edition,

  A Kindred Tales Novel

  Copyright © 2018 by Evangeline Anderson

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art Design © 2018 by Reese Dante

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writers’ imagination or have been used factiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to a retailer of your choice or evangelineanderson.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only.

  Any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  Contents

  Instructing the Novice

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  The End?

  Awakened by the Giant

  Chapter 1

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  Also by Evangeline Anderson

  About the Author

  Instructing the Novice

  A Kindred Tales Novel

  A successful older woman determined to forgo love

  A younger warrior who desires her desperately

  When the two of them are sent to the sinister Tower of the Higher Mind

  Where Lizabeth is Mistress and Lone is her Novice

  Will it bring them together... or tear them apart?

  You’ll have to read Instructing the Novice to find out.

  Lizabeth Paige is mortified. Ever since a terrorist introduced the Xi-46 lust compound into the air ducts of the Mother Ship, she had been experiencing attacks of sexual needing that leave her helpless to resist her lustful urges. Much to her embarrassment, her assistant Lone helped her with the first attack, but she’s been managing on her own (though not very well) ever since. She feels drawn to Lone, but he’s much too young for her. Lizabeth tells herself it’s better if they keep their distance.

  Lone has been in love with his boss from day one. As a Twin Kindred who lost his twin at birth, he doesn’t think he can call a mate but he wants Lizabeth with his whole heart. Helping her through her first needing attack was like a fantasy come true but now, for some reason, Lizabeth is trying to cut him out of her life. Desperate to bring her closer, he is elated when the Kindred High Council decides to send the two of them to The Tower of the Higher Mind for some extra training.

  But there are dangers lurking at the Tower, which is located at the top of the Sacred Mountain. At its base live the Friezens—a tribe of savage, misogynistic natives who believe women are only useful for sexual-sacrifice. And in the Tower itself, some very strange customs hold sway. Lizabeth is now a “Mistress” and Lone must be her “Novice,” serving her in every possible way. Pulled between two extremes, will the terrors of the Tower draw them together…or kill them?

  You’ll have to read Instructing the Novice to find out.

  Author’s Note

  Please be aware that there is a scene in this book that readers who have suffered attacks or abuse may find triggering. Please read with caution. I promise it all turns out okay in the end!

  Evangeline :)

  One

  Lizabeth Paige was mortified.

  “Mortified,” she muttered aloud to herself. “To be caused extreme embarrassment, humiliation, shame, discomfort, and distress.” Never had a definition fit better.

  “Now plant your feet, arch your back and rise up into downward dog,” murmured the soothing voice from the little pink cube sitting on the far right corner of her yoga mat. Above it, a holo of a girl who was probably all of twenty was projected, lifting herself gracefully into the required position.

  Lizabeth gritted her teeth. She’d been certain she had turned the holo function of her exer-cube to the off position. She’d been doing yoga for years for stress relief because of her career as a highly placed corporate attorney. She didn’t need any skinny-minny twenty-year-old showing her how to get into the old, familiar positions and reminding her that she was plus-sized into the bargain.

  Of course, now that she was no longer living on Earth, the only corporation Lizabeth worked for were the Kindred—the large, male, alien warriors who had saved the planet from the threat of the Scourge, another alien race that had been intent on destroying everything in their path. That had been years ago but the Kindred were still here, their Mother Ship in orbit around the moon—mainly because a genetic anomaly ensured that 99% of their children were male. Which meant they were always chronically short of females and needed to call brides from Earth.

  The Kindred were good clients, she had found—always fair and never sexist. Lizabeth liked that—she’d dealt with her fair share of sexism. Even after breaking the glass ceiling, she still heard male colleagues—human males anyway—mutter that she was a ball-busting bitch. But her assertiveness and aggressiveness in the court room were qualities the Kindred admired—which meant she ought to be having less stress in this job than in her previous career down on Earth.

  “If that’s true then why am I having more stress than I ever have in my life?” Lizabeth muttered to herself. Why was she mortified and trying to do yoga to get her mind off the reason for her mortification instead of studying the Yonnie Six documents she needed to decipher in order to prepare for her next case—Kindred Vs the Proprietors of BleakHall Penitentiary?

  “Now lower yourself into plank,” the soothing voice of the exer-cube instructed and the twenty-something skinny-minny holo complied, taking a firm, perfect plank position she could probably hold all day.

  Grimly, Lizabeth got into plank and tried not to think about the reason for her mortification—the reason she couldn’t look her assistant, Stands Alone, in the eye anymore.

  No, no—don’t think about Lone!

  Her long, dark hair fell over one shoulder as she held the pose and she thought instead about getting it cut.

  Some people thought a woman ought to have short hair after she turned forty-five, as Lizabeth had on her last birthday. Her ex-husband certainly had.

  “Why don’t you cut that?” he’d said, on one of their last meetings to finalize the divorce. “You look ridiculous, you know—trying to pretend you’re still a girl in your twenties.”

  “You mean the kind you left me for?” Lizabeth had demanded, sweeping her hair over one shoulder protecti