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  Brides of the Kindred

  Book 4: Found

  Evangeline Anderson

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Evangeline Anderson on Smashwords

  Brides of the Kindred

  Book 4:Found

  Copyright © 2011 by Evangeline Anderson

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

  Author’s Note #1— Again with the piracy—I keep the prices on my Kindred books low so no one will have to steal them. So please don’t. And if you see anyone who is, please send me a link at [email protected] and let me know about it. E-book piracy is a real and growing threat. If it isn’t stopped authors like me won’t be able to make a living doing what we love the most—writing hot new books to share with you, our readers.

  Thank you so much for your kindness and honesty.

  Author’s Note #2—This is the fourth book in the Brides of the Kindred series. I recommend that you read Claimed, Hunted, and Sought before starting Found.

  Hugs and Happy Reading to you all!

  Evangeline Anderson

  Chapter One

  Lauren Jakes was bored.

  Although how it was possible to be bored when she was a hundred light years from Earth on a strange planet in a far off galaxy where no other human had ever set foot was beyond her. By all rights she ought to be soaking in the exotic sights and immersing herself in the fascinating alien culture. It was certainly better than the tiny metal cell she’d been kept in on the Scourge Fathership.

  The Scourge were a menacing alien race which had come to Earth searching for the one female they believed could mate with their evil overlord, the AllFather. She and she alone would be able to revitalize their race by bearing daughters. Lauren was that female and she had been taken and held within their immense ship for weeks.

  While she was there, however, she’d made a connection with Xairn. The huge alien with the burning red-on-black eyes was the AllFather’s son, but he had severed his ties with both his father and his race in order to free Lauren and take her home. Of course, first they had to travel through a wormhole to another galaxy in order to get their DNA modified which, according to Xairn, was the only way they could go back to Earth safely. Lauren wasn’t thrilled with that but if he said it was necessary, she believed him. So she’d been prepared for danger and adventure and excitement…but not for boredom.

  Because in order to soak up exotic sights and immerse herself in the alien culture, she would have to leave the small silver Kindred spaceship where Xairn had left her. And the enormous Scourge warrior had made it very, very clear before he left that she wasn’t to do that. Sighing, Lauren remembered their conversation…

  “Under no circumstances should you step foot outside the ship,” he told her sternly as he was about to leave himself.

  “Why?” Lauren looked out the viewscreen apprehensively. Xairn had landed them in a dark alleyway in a city he’d said was called O’ah but she could catch glimpses of the street beyond which seemed to be the site of a busy marketplace. “Are the native people dangerous or hostile?” she asked.

  “Anyplace is dangerous if you don’t know the language and customs,” he replied obliquely. “I’ll be back in one of your Earth standard days. Until then, stay in the ship and speak to no one.”

  “All right,” Lauren agreed. After everything they’d been through together on the Fathership and the Scourge home world, she trusted Xairn implicitly to keep her safe. Still… “I know you’re going to find the uh, DNA, guy,” she said, looking up at him. “But I still don’t understand why I just can’t come with you. Wouldn’t that make it easier—save you a trip? After all, you got me some decent clothes.”

  She nodded down at the voluminous robe that reminded her of the muumuus her elderly neighbor, Mrs. Goldman, liked to wear back on Earth. It wasn’t very pretty, and the silver-blue material it was made of was extremely scratchy, but it covered her from neck to ankles which was all Xairn seemed to care about. After the cloak he’d loaned her had been ruined, Lauren hadn’t had a thing to wear but the thin towels she’d found in the small ship’s bathroom—a fact that had seemed to bother the large warrior greatly. So much so that the first thing he did when they landed in O’ah was to go out and buy her the silver-blue muumuu dress.

  “It wouldn’t be safe for you to come. The splicing quarter is too rough for a female like you,” Xairn growled.

  “What do you mean ‘a female like me?’” Lauren put a hand on her hip and frowned at him. “Do I need to remind you that I helped when we were fighting your father’s guards? I may not be as strong as you but I’m not stupid, Xairn. If you give me a weapon I can take care of myself. I won’t slow you down.”

  “I didn’t mean that you were stupid or weak.” He sighed and ran a hand over the thick, glossy black hair he kept in a club at the nape of his neck. Lauren had been dying to see his hair let down from the moment she’d met him. With his stern, proud features he would have looked almost Native American if not for the strange coloring of his skin and eyes.

  “What did you mean then?” Lauren demanded.

  “Your kind has never been seen here. You’ll be considered very…exotic.” His red-on-black eyes flickered over the faint outline of her body under the voluminous muumuu, making her feel warm all over. “Many males will want you.”

  Lauren was getting exasperated. “Xairn, are you trying to say I’m too pretty to go with you?”

  “That word does not describe you accurately.” He looked away from her, frowning. “It doesn’t do you justice.”

  Lauren found herself unexpectedly touched by the oblique compliment. Up until a little while ago Xairn had claimed to have no sexual urges at all toward her or anyone else. Even now, when he had admitted to her that she had woken new and unfamiliar emotions inside him, he still seemed hesitant and uncertain about expressing those emotions. Lauren thought it was because he’d never been given any love as a child—how could he learn to show affection for anyone else when he’d never received any himself? She was determined to work on that, to try and help him as much as she could. But now wasn’t the time for a therapy session.

  “That’s very sweet of you, Xairn,” she said. “But I’d still like to go with you.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t understand. Your beauty makes you priceless here in O’ah. Any splicer would give his left hand for a chance to replicate your flawless skin and lovely eyes. I am only one male and there are gangs that search for exotics. If they set on us all at once, I don’t know that I could protect you.” He lifted his chin. “I would die trying, of course. But that would be of little comfort to you if they killed me and took you away to a stripping shed.”

  “A stripping shed?” That sounded bad to Lauren.

  “A laboratory where candidates with good or unusual DNA are rendered into their component parts for maximum cloning potential.”

  Lauren felt sick. “So they kill you and cut you into little pieces?”

  Xairn nodded. “Essentially. But that’s only in the splicing district. Not here in the main part of O’ah.”

  “But how do you know this…this splicer person you’re looking for won’t want to do the same thing?” Lauren demanded. “How do you know he won’t just kill me and strip me down for parts like a stolen car?” She shivered at the thought.