Enhanced Read online

  Brides of the Kindred

  Book 12: Enhanced

  Evangeline Anderson

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Evangeline Anderson Books on Smashwords

  Brides of the Kindred

  Book 12: Enhanced

  Copyright © 2014 by Evangeline Anderson

  Kindle Edition License Notes

  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 Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  Dedicated to my sister—one of the bravest people I know.

  Author’s Note #1: Many of the situations Mei-Li encounters in this book are based on actual experiences of my brave and wonderful sister. I would like to thank her for sharing some of the details of her work with me and dedicate this book to her. Love you, Biscuit!

  Author’s Note #2: For those of you with friends who haven’t tried the Kindred yet, I now have the first four books collected in one volume. It’s called Brides of the Kindred Volume One and you can find it on Amazon or at my website store. It’s a great way to dip into the Kindred world and you save a couple of bucks buying it as opposed to buying the first four books individually. If readers seem to like it, I may put the next four into another compendium and the next four once I have book 12, Enhanced written.

  Author’s Note #3: Please no piracy. The Kindred pay my mortgage now and without them, I’d have to go back to doing MRI full time. Since writing hot sex and complicated emotions is way more fun than shoving people into a magnetic hole all day, I would ask that you please buy your book instead of trying to find a pirated copy and encourage your friends to do the same so that I can keep writing and you can keep reading. Thanks!

  Hugs and Happy Reading to you all,

  Evangeline Anderson August, 2014

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Cursed chapters 1 and 2

  Kindred Glossary

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “Who are you?” she whispered. “Why am I here?”

  “I…do not know.” Six’s voice sounded rough and uncertain in his own ears. The slender, tiny shape of the girl who haunted his dreams stood before him, her dark eyes wide with fright.

  “I don’t know why I can’t stop having these dreams.” She looked around her at his service room which was where she always seemed to find him, when he was resting in his docking station.

  Her hair fell in a long, straight waterfall of black down her back and her big eyes were partially obscured by strange glass and wire oculars. Six wondered what they were for. They didn’t seem to have the range of his own ocular scanner, the one he’d had implanted over his left eye. Could they be to correct her vision? But if that was the case, why did she simply not have some enhancements done?

  “What is your designation?” he asked, since she continued to stand there. Usually she faded almost immediately. It was disturbing to note that this time she wasn’t leaving.

  “My…designation?”

  “I am Six.” He thumped the breastplate of his exoskeleton impatiently with a metallic clang. “What do you call yourself?”

  “Oh. Mei-Li. My name is Mei-Li.”

  “May-Lee?” Six frowned at the strange mixture of syllables.

  “It means ‘beautiful flower’ or something like that, I think. My mother picked it out when my parents adopted me from China because it sounded exotic without being too hard to pronounce. I…” She took a step back. “I’m sorry, I’m babbling. And I’m still here. These dreams never last this long.” She looked around. “Why am I still here?”

  “I do not know why you remain or why you come at all,” Six said. “You certainly do not belong—you have no enhancements and clearly you are consumed by emotion.”

  “Enhancements?” For some reason she looked down at her small, barely rounded breasts.

  Through the sheer white garment she wore, Six could see that they were tiny but perfectly shaped. For a strange moment, he wondered what they would feel like in his palms. Would the pink points of her nipples, pressing innocently against the thin white fabric, feel good against his fingertips? And what would her reaction be to his touch? Would she moan—illicit emotion overcoming her as he stroked those delicate buds? Would she—?

  He shook his head, trying to clear the strange thoughts away. Where had they come from? And what had he been talking about with the little female? Oh, right—enhancements.

  “Enhancements like my own.” He motioned to his enhanced left hand and the ocular scanner in is left eye. “You have no enhancements. You are not authorized to be here.”

  “That’s what you always say—that I’m not authorized to be here… That you’ll hunt me down and make me pay…” She began to back away from him, fear growing in her eyes.

  “Because you are not.” Six reached up to disengage himself from his docking station and took a step toward her. His exoskeleton made a mechanical hiss and his boots thudded heavily against the metallic floor panels.

  “No—please!” She backed away from him, almost stumbling in her haste. “Please don’t!” She looked around. “Oh God, I just want to wake up! Just let me wake up…”

  Suddenly Six’s eyes opened and the dream—if that was what it had been—was over. He looked around, searching the room with his scanner but it was empty—it was always empty. The girl in his dream was nothing but a figment—an insubstantial wisp who disappeared the moment he opened his eyes.

  But he could no longer dismiss her as nothing but a figment and the dream as nothing but a slight aberration during his recharging period. It was coming more frequently for one thing—the girl was disturbing his sleep on an almost nightly basis now. And for another, the dream seemed to be lasting longer. He had been able to have an actual exchange with her this time—not a good sign.

  Reflexively, he reached behind his head and felt the small metal button of his emotion damper, embedded in the flesh of his neck, just below the base of his skull. Still in working order, he assured himself. I feel nothing. But then why did the dreams keep recurring? And what could he do about it?

  Suddenly the speaker at the door of his service room buzzed to life and the voice of Ter, his domicile’s informations system, spoke.