Seeing With the Heart: Kindred Tales Read online

  Seeing with the heart

  A Kindred tales Novel

  Evangeline Anderson

  Seeing with the Heart

  Evangeline Anderson

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Evangeline Anderson Books

  Copyright © 2017 by Evangeline Anderson

  E-book License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book 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 the e-book retailer of your choice 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*

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  *Author's Note: This book, like my previous novel, Bonding with the Beast, was inspired by a reader suggestion to have a blind heroine. I always say I get the best ideas from my readers--you guys rock! I hope you enjoy reading this novel as much as I enjoyed writing it!

  Hugs and Happy Reading!

  Evangeline 2017

  Table of Contents

  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

  Sneak Peek at Freeing the Prisoner, the next Kindred Tales novel

  A Note from the Author about Brides of the Kindred and Kindred Tales:

  Also by Evangeline Anderson

  About the Author

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  Chapter One

  The warmth of the rising sun pouring through her bedroom window woke Dr. Molly Reynaud a few minutes before her alarm went off. Her large brown eyes fluttered open, unblinking despite the brilliance of the sunbeams bathing her face. Though she could appreciate the sun’s warmth, she couldn’t see it, so the brightness didn’t bother her.

  Molly was completely blind and had been from the age of sixteen.

  She frowned as the warmth bathed her face. She’d been having a dream…such a strange dream but now she could hardly remember any of it. Something about a man with golden eyes…

  Molly dismissed it with a shrug. She’d probably had the dream because she’d gone to bed with the Kindred and the rest of her upcoming project on her mind. And speaking of her project…

  Today’s the big day. Her heart fluttered with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. Today she would take a huge leap for someone in her profession. As a Cultural Anthropologist, she had studied many different societies and subcultures within those societies. But today, for the first time, she would be studying not just a whole new society but a whole new race who weren’t even human.

  She had been chosen for an exclusive grant, co-funded by the Kindred, to go and study the people of Tal’os Trenta—a small world on the other side of the Milky Way.

  The Kindred, Molly thought. Now there’s a group of people I’d like to study. A culture of mostly males who revered females surely had to be a rarity—at least it was on Earth. But though the big aliens who had come to save Earth during the Scourge crisis some years ago were making an effort to be more accessible, they still hadn’t agreed to allow any kind of anthropological or cultural observer to study them.

  Well at least they’re making my latest project possible, Molly thought philosophically. Let someone else study them—I get first crack at the Tal’ossi.

  She felt another surge of anticipation. Being chosen as the first anthropologist to go off planet and study a new and completely alien race was an exclusive and prestigious honor but that wasn’t why Molly was so excited. She genuinely loved learning about new people—their ways and customs, their religious beliefs and social mores. Differences fascinated her—she couldn’t wait to get going.

  “Six forty-five. Time to get up,” said the mechanical voice of her alarm clock.

  Molly felt for it automatically and hit the off switch.

  If you’re so eager to get going, what are you doing still lying in bed? Get up, lazybones! she told herself.

  Getting out of bed on the right side, as always, she picked up her phone and disconnected it from the charger. Holding it in one hand, she walked exactly five steps from the edge of the mattress and felt with her toes for her yoga mat. A quick kick unrolled it and Molly settled herself in the center and spoke to her phone.

  “Open Down-Dog ap.”

  “Opening Down-Dog,” answered a mechanical female voice. Soothing flute music began to play and, at another touch of her finger to the screen, the voiceover feature of her phone began to list the various workouts she could chose from.

  Molly picked a fifteen minute session with hip opening sequences—her hips were always tight—and the workout began. This was her usual morning routine and as she flowed through the poses that the unseen instructor described, she tried to focus her mind and steady her thoughts.

  Everything she needed was already packed. Her MacBook Pro with enough battery packs to keep it recharged for three months, which was how long she was going to be gone… her clothes and toiletries were all neatly arranged in her suitcase in the specific order Molly had devised for travel… an extra supply of hair bands to contain her wild caramel colored locks… her recorder, likewise supplied with backup power sources for taking field notes…

  She ticked them all off in her head and concentrated on her breathing at the same time. By the time her workout was complete, she felt more centered and relaxed. After rolling up her yoga mat, she made her way to the shower and turned it on.

  Two fresh towels were hanging on hooks on the wall beside her shower stall, put there the night before by Molly herself. She placed her phone on the small table especially for that purpose and stripped out of her sleep clothes, placing them in the laundry hamper right beside it. She pulled the band out of her long, wavy hair and put it beside her phone, making sure it was in the right spot so she could find it later.

  One way she dealt with her blindness was by being always one step ahead of the game and part of that was being meticulously organized. Everything in her life was labeled and in its proper place. Not that Molly didn’t enjoy being spontaneous sometimes—she did—but being a little bit anal about organization helped her life run more smoothly.

  After feeling the water and adjusting the temperature, she stepped in and gave a little sigh of pure contentment as the warm flow pulsed over her. She felt for her shampoo bottle. It was the exact size and shape as the conditioner—not ideal—so she felt for the small sticky label she’d placed on the bottom. A pattern of bumps—Brail for the letter S—told her she had the right bottle and she proceeded to wash her hair with confidence.

  After stepping out of the shower, she reached for the fresh towels and wrapped one around her body and the other around her long, wet mass of freshly washed hair. She touched a button on her phone and the voiceover function told her the time and that she had no new calls.

  Molly frowned to herself. It was almost seven-thirty—where was Denise?