Purity Read online

  Purity

  Evangeline Anderson

  KINDLE EDITION

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Evangeline Anderson on Kindle

  Purity

  Copyright © 2013 by Evangeline Anderson

  Amazon 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.

  Author's Note:

  Hi and thanks to everyone who is giving Purity a chance. I know you're all waiting for Ruby Shadows, the next Born to Darkness book and I promise it's coming—I hope to have it out this fall. I'm even including a snippet of it to keep you going. Look for it at the end of the book.

  As always I would ask you to please not pirate my work. I keep the prices low so everyone can enjoy my books but this is how I make my living. If you're stealing my work or selling it or giving it away for free to strangers, you're taking money out of my pocket and harming my ability to care for my family. Please don't do that and if you see anyone else doing it, please e-mail me at [email protected] and let me know about it so I can stop it.

  A final note here—Purity is not a book of the Kindred series but it IS science fiction erotic romance. So if you like the Kindred, I'm reasonably sure you'll enjoy Purity as well. It was supposed to be a stand alone novel—just something for my muse to work on between Kindred and Born to Darkness books. But as I was writing the epilogue, I realized that I was, in fact, working on the first chapter of the next book. Go figure. So while Purity is not the start of a new series, it will at least have one sequel, titled Tainted, which I hope to put out by the end of 2013 or the beginning of 2014.

  Well, that's all for now except to say thank you to all my loyal readers, especially those of you who care enough to leave reviews or write me personally to let me know my work has touched your life. I always say that I write and read to escape and if you are able to open one of my books and get away from your troubles and the real world for a little while, then I'm doing my job right.

  Hugs and happy reading to you all!

  Evangeline on August 2013

  Chapter One

  K knew she was dead the minute she woke up.

  Her death sentence was written in the neat row of black stitches marching along her inner thigh like orderly insects. The fact that she could see her own thigh—that it wasn’t obscured by the black mesh of her skinsuit—was her first clue, but stitches in her flesh clinched it.

  She had been contaminated—maybe fatally so. Still, she hoped. She prayed to Purity that she might still remain untouched. She couldn’t remember anything—not the way she’d gotten the wound, or the person who had sewed it up. She didn’t even know how she’d ended up on a table in the small bare room with battered metal cabinets and chipped white countertops.

  She only knew her head throbbed like a rotten melon about to burst and her suit was gone, leaving her helpless.

  Get hold of yourself, K. You’re a fourth level Paladin. You can handle this. You can handle anything. Even being naked and alone, stripped of her weapons and defenses? Yes. She raised her chin and tried to examine the room where she found herself, though her vision kept wavering in and out of focus alarmingly. You’re not defenseless, she reminded herself.

  Paladins went through rigorous physical training from the time they could walk and K was no exception. Looking down at herself she could see that her body, which she hadn’t seen nude since childhood when she had first been fitted for her skinsuit, was strong and lean. In fact, other than being considerably bigger—she was almost two meters, tall for a female—it looked much the same as it had back then.

  Her chest was flat as a Paladin’s should be. Breasts only got in the way during combat, presenting the enemy with a sensitive target. She thanked Purity that hers were almost nonexistent, the nipples a pale, innocent pink that blended into the white of her skin. Glancing further down she noted that her hips were narrow and strong and her sex was barely noticeable—a colorless slit between her thighs. This was as it should be. Her body was strong—fit to fight—and that was all K ever asked of it. Nothing else was required.

  K looked around. There was a flat metal panel bolted to one wall of the room. A viewscreen? It wasn’t transmitting anything at the moment and in its shiny surface she saw her face. The image staring back at her seemed strangely vulnerable without the cowl of the skinsuit to frame it. The thick blue-black cable of her hair—the only soft part of her—was still coiled in a braid at the back of her neck and her black-on-black eyes marked her level and achievements.

  All Purists had black irises—it was a trait of their people. But as they progressed toward true Purity the black bled outward, obscuring the white sclera. It was a slow process and painful—it had cost K much to get where she was today with only a thin white ring around the outer perimeter of her eyes. When she reached the fifth level and surrendered herself completely to Purity even that would be gone. She would be as cold and empty as space itself, hollow inside. A vessel filled with holy nothingness. It was what every Purist worked for tirelessly, though few achieved it.

  There was one who had achieved it though—the High Sentinel. He had taken an early interest in K, making her his protégé despite her routine origin, a fact that would have pleased her immensely if she had still been subject to strong emotions. A Paladin of her level was not, however.

  The capacity for feelings was lessened as the black within a Paladin’s eyes grew until only cool, pure reason remained. Being devoid of violent emotions kept one from making rash decisions in battle or giving in to hysteria. At the moment K was grateful for the cool nothingness she felt within. That and her training were the only things that kept her from leaping off the table she found herself on and running from the room in a blind panic.

  K took a deep breath and tried to think steadying thoughts. The High Sentinel came to mind again, as well as the last words he had said to her. Her head throbbed as the memory came back in a rush…

  “You appear to have everything in order, Commander K.” The Sentinel’s pale face looked up at K from the com-link on her wrist. Though he was a Paladin of the highest level he wore no skinsuit. He needed none—his eyes had been completely black since before K had been expelled from the artificial womb that had birthed her in the newlife center.

  “I thank you, Sentinel.” K inclined her head to him, a mark of respect. “My squad is ready and the ship is primed to attack.”

  “You have the Erian filth in your sites?’

  “We do. Our sensors show a small party only and the ship has no weapons—they should present no major difficulties. We will board them shortly.”

  “Good. Kill on contact, Commander. Take no prisoners.”

  K raised an eyebrow. All her life she had been taught that the natives of Eros were evil, decadent, depraved. Why else were the Purists at war with them? But to enter an unarmed ship and slaughter all those aboard…

  “Forgive me, Sentinel,” she said, trying to pick her words carefully. “But they are, as I said, unarmed. There would be no honor in the kills.”

  “No honor except ridding the universe of more Erian filth. They must be purged in order for Purity to expand—all of them.” His eyes flashed in what might have been anger had he still been capable of feeling or displaying such an emotion.

  K tried once more. “The pshalite mines on Midas need new workers. If we engage our hyperdrive we can deliver them in less than�