Hitting the Target Read online

  Hitting the Target

  A Kindred Tales Novel

  Evangeline Anderson

  www.evangelineanderson.com

  Hitting the Target, 1st Edition,

  A Kindred Tales Novel

  Copyright © 2019 by Evangeline Anderson

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art Design © 2019 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

  Hitting the Target

  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

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  The End?

  Twisted

  Chapter 1

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  About the Author

  Hitting the Target

  A Kindred Tales Novel

  A girl sent to kill the one she is dreaming of

  Her target? A Kindred warrior with a beast inside

  Can Mia complete her mission?

  Or is Trey Hitting the Target when he aims for her heart?

  Ormyu Five is the world divided in two.

  To the north, a police state ruled by the heavy hand of The EYE, which spies on its people constantly and keeps iron control over their lives.

  To the South lies Bountiful, a country of free thinkers bustling with trade and blessed with balmy weather. But those from the Northern Block never get to experience its temperate climate for the two halves of Ormyu Five are divided by an impenetrable wall of blue energy called the Great Barrier.

  Mia lives in the North and can’t remember a time when she wasn’t looking over her shoulder. Everyone spies on everyone else and reports to The EYE. It is a land of paranoia—a place of constant fear. Even Mia herself has been forced into the ranks of informants—she works as a nurse but also as a covert agent, reporting weekly to her Commandant in The EYE’s headquarters for new assignments. Imagine her surprise and dismay when she recognizes her new target—a huge male with a mane of golden brown hair and pale piercing eyes—as the one she has been dreaming of for months.

  Treygar is a rare Lei’on Kindred which means he keeps a hungry beast locked within himself. He came to Ormyu Five with his people, looking for a new genetic trade on the strangely divided planet. What he doesn’t expect is to start dream sharing with one of the inhabitants of the backwards world but that is exactly what happens. He wants to go and find the mysterious, curvy little female but before he can, he runs into her at the transport station.

  Mia is scared to death of the huge Kindred warrior. She’s been dreaming of him for months but she assumed It was just that—a dream. Even worse, he is the target she had been sent to the South to track…and possibly to kill. Can she keep herself from falling for Trey and complete her mission? Or is the big Kindred aiming for her heart, Hitting the Target?

  Chapter One

  The recording device in the toe of Mia’s right shoe was malfunctioning again. When she checked its output on the tiny handheld device she had been issued by the Commandant, she saw only wavy, blurred lines and heard only static. Damn.

  A worried frown creased her forehead as she toed off the clunky, uncomfortable shoes and slipped into a pair of soft-toed clogs instead. Of course it was nice to have an excuse to wear her more comfortable shoes to the Care Center. As a healer’s aide, she worked long shifts and was on her feet for ten to twelve hours at a time.

  But the comfort she gained was more than offset by the distress and anxiety she felt when she thought how she would be unable to offer the Commandant the full range of surveillance she was responsible for.

  Well, she still had the tiny camera shaped like a Mercy Star that she wore on the lapel of her pale blue uniform, Mia comforted herself. And the images it took were really much more valuable because the angle was so much better for faces than the recording device in the toe of her shoe. The Commandant would understand. She would just explain during their next scheduled meeting that she needed a new device—or more likely a new pair of shoes with a device implanted in them. He would issue them and that would be that.

  “Mia, child—are you in there? Could you make me a cup of nettle steep?” a whispery voice called.

  “Of course, Neemah.” Quickly, Mia slipped the handheld output checker into an antique sweetener bowl and, standing on tiptoes, pushed it to the back of the top shelf where her grandmother would never find it. If Neemah ever found out she was working for The EYE, especially after what had happened to Mia’s parents…

  But the thought didn’t bear thinking about. Instead, Mia turned to the ancient stove. Switching it from electric to fuel, she threw a chunk of fire rock, which stained her fingertips dirty orange, into the grate and pressed the ignite button. The stove had been modified to burn fuel because the electric current wasn’t exactly stable. At least twice a day—sometimes more often—there were energy flickers and rolling outages which lasted sometimes just a few seconds, but often up to several hours.

  Mia had heard it whispered that the Republic caused the power outages on purpose to keep people in line or to catch dissenters trying to sneak across the Great Barrier. But the SSCC—the State Sponsored Communications Channel—blamed Bountiful, the country to the south of the People’s Republic. According to the SSCC, the Republic was full of spies and saboteurs from the decadent South—one could never be too careful because they were everywhere.

  Mia had never been to Bountiful herself—and had never wanted to go. Not that she could have gotten to the sprawling country which took up the southern half of the single continent on her little world, even if she wanted to. Making any attempt to leave the People’s Republic and cross the Great Barrier to get south was a crime punishable by death and Mia had no intention of dying anytime soon.

  The stove top was red-hot now so she half-filled a chipped ceramic steep-pot from the faucet, which was little more than a pipe sticking out of the wall over the sink, and sat it on the glowing coil. Her grandmother’s spice rack was hanging on one wall, hiding a spot where the grayish-yellow paint was peeling. It was arranged, as always, exactly to Neemah’s specific