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  Brides of the Kindred 19

  Evangeline Anderson

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  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.

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  Dedicated to all my Kindred readers. Thanks for sticking around this long--you're awesome!

  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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Cougarville 1: Buck Naked teaser

  Meet the Shifters of Cougarville

  Also by Evangeline Anderson

  About the Author

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  Chapter One

  They took everything from him—even his name.

  The slavers ripped him from his family—from his father, dying with a poison barb in his heart and his mother, still screaming his name even as they slit her throat.

  But of course, Varin didn’t remember any of that. The memory block took care of it nicely. His earliest memory was from the age of seven, shortly after he was sold. Before then, everything was blank but after her, his life came into focus.

  The first thing in his mind—his true beginning, after the void of blackness that was his first seven years of life—was watching as the nursing attendant brought the baby princess into the viewing room…

  * * * * *

  “You’re certain this will work? That the lad will truly function as you claim?” The tall, pinch-faced male in the rich golden cloak and ruby-tipped crown stared down from his throne at the boy with a look of mild distaste on his aristocratic features.

  The boy stared back, blank-faced and silent. He was tall for his age of seven solar years but scrawny with shoulder blades that jutted up sharply under his ragged tunic. His cheekbones were high and defined and his elbows and knees were knobby. It was his eyes, however, that were truly arresting. A strange, pale bronze, like aged spirits they were—the bronze ringed in black, the same color as his unruly mop of hair. Dark brows, too heavy for his thin, pale face were drawn low over the strangely colored eyes in sullen silence.

  “Absolutely, your Majesty! The Vision Kindred have been used as personal bodyguards to royals and nobility for generations.” The boy’s owner—a slaver draped in lavish purple robes from the Tegba system bowed obsequiously.

  “Vision Kindred, eh?” The King sniffed. “And what makes them so bloody-damn special?”

  “I’m glad you asked, your Majesty.” The slaver smiled an oily, unctuous smile the boy had already learned to distrust. “First, they have an innate ability to immediately target and exploit the weakness of any enemy. And they keep fighting no matter what because they have regenerative abilities—they can regrow a finger or a toe—even an eye—so injuries don’t stop them.”

  “That’s all very well but are they good fighters?”

  “Good fighters? My Lord—you’d scarce believe it—truly, it’s uncanny! A single Vision Kindred warrior can take on ten armed males and reduce them to rubble in a matter of minutes. It has to be seen to be believed!”

  “Are you telling me this child is capable of bringing down ten armed males?” The doubt in the King’s eyes was clear and he drummed his fingertips on the golden arm of his throne.

  “Oh no—no, not just yet, your Majesty,” the slaver said. And added quickly, “But he will once he’s grown. Yes, indeed.”

  “If that’s so, then why are you trying to sell me a child?” the King demanded. “Why not bring me a warrior grown to protect my daughter?”

  “Because of the second reason they’re called Vision Kindred, my Lord—they form the dream-bond when they’re young.”

  “The dream-bond? Whatever is that?” The skepticism was growing on the King’s narrow face. The slaver must have sensed his rich client was losing interest because he hastened to explain.

  “It’s a bond a Kindred warrior normally forms with the female he would mate with later in life,” he said quickly. “It makes him absolutely loyal and inspires protective instincts unmatched anywhere in the universe. The lad will give his life for your daughter, not just because he’s ordered to but because he’s completely and utterly devoted to her. Your Majesty—King Jerund—the Princess Brynnalla will become his entire world.”

  The King frowned thoughtfully.

  “The idea of a completely loyal and devoted bodyguard does appeal but her mother, Queen Isolde and I, don’t have time for an infant daughter right now as we’re trying again immediately for a son. We need a proper heir to the throne, you understand. Therefore the princess will be spending the first eighteen years of her life with the Sisters of Chastity and Obedience. No males are allowed in their convent.”

  “It doesn’t matter, my Lord,” the slaver declared. “If you bind him to her, the lad will have visions of the princess. His bond to her will grow even if he never sees her in person a day in his life until she’s ready for her Presentation Day at your royal court.”

  “But will she also have visions of him?” The King’s eyebrows drew low in disfavor. “I’ll not have my daughter falling in love with a slave due to some strange Kindred bond. She’ll be joined when and to whom I see fit to wed her to. An overly devoted bodyguard—”

  “No, no, your Majesty!” the slaver interjected. “The bond goes only one way! The Vision Kindred form the childhood bond by exchanging drops of blood, you see. The lad will have a drop of hers but she’ll have none of his.” He grinned. “He’ll pine for her all his life, but he shall never have her. He’ll protect her like a jealous lover though he never lays a finger on her.”

  “And how can you be certain he’ll never lay a finger on her?” King Jerund demanded. “If he’s spending his life pining for my daughter, logic dictates he’ll try to have her at some point.”

  “Not with the failsafes we’ve installed, my Lord.” The slaver smiled proudly. “First, the pain cuff—see it there?” He nodded at the boy’s thin left wrist, encircled with a thick black band.

  The King looked down for a moment, examining the plain looking cuff. “What of it?”

  “Why, it’s a bio-synthetic plasti-steel organism bonded to his skin, my Lord—it’s actually alive and it’ll grow with the lad. It�