Healing the Broken: A Kindred Christmas Tale Read online

  healing the Broken

  A Brides of the Kindred Christmas Novel

  Evangeline Anderson

  Healing the Broken

  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 is my first ever Kindred Christmas novel and I'm so excited to share it with you. I hope you enjoy reading it 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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek at The Sacrifice

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

  Also by Evangeline Anderson

  About the Author

  Newsletter sign-up

  Chapter One

  “He wanted to bite me. He actually wanted to bite me! Can you believe that?” The slender blonde girl dressed in an expensive looking professional gray suit sounded both incensed and incredulous. “I mean, who’s going to take the position when being bitten is one of the job requirements?”

  Me, thought Sarah grimly. I will. Because I don’t have a choice. Because I need this job too badly to turn it down for any reason.

  She looked down at herself, contrasting her ratty, ill-fitting black skirt and faded blue blouse with the blonde’s professional attire. One of the volunteers at the women’s shelter had kindly loaned Sarah a black blazer to wear with her outfit but it didn’t fit right, bulging oddly over her too-large breasts.

  In fact, all of Sarah was too large—she was definitely what could kindly be called “plus sized.” But that was all right with her. It was better to be bigger, safer to be overweight at the Compound. Father Caleb was far less likely to notice you that way. In fact, Sarah had managed to be overlooked for years until—

  She pushed the image out of her mind. Better not to think of that right now. She’d gotten away from the Compound and no one from The Brotherhood could find her—at least they hadn’t found her yet. And maybe, just maybe if she could get this job on the Kindred Mother Ship, they would never be able to find her again.

  “Sarah Michaels,” called the bored voice of the attendant.

  Sarah started at the sound of her name. She’d thought about giving a fake one but she had to have something real to put on her resume, which contained no actual work experience except for the secretarial duties she’d done in The Brotherhood’s home office.

  She patted her thick chestnut hair, rolled into a bun at the nape of her neck, and adjusted her round glasses nervously on the bridge of her nose. The glasses were another part of her act—her camouflage. The lenses were clear, non-prescription glass—a pair she’d found in the drugstore years ago when her mother had first entered The Brotherhood, dragging Sarah and her father along with her. Sarah didn’t need them to see but they, along with her frumpy clothes and the extra weight she’d put on, kept her from being of interest to men.

  Especially to The Prophet, Father Caleb.

  Several strands of hair had escaped from her bun and she pushed them back impatiently, wincing at the small pain in her palm as she did so. She’d cut her hand somehow, on the steel side of the seat in front of her on the bus. The small wound had mostly stopped bleeding but she hadn’t been able to get a band-aid to cover it. Surreptitiously, she blotted it one last time on the underside of her rusty black blazer, glad that the blood stain wouldn’t show.

  “Sarah Michaels?” said the attendant again. She was a slim brunette seated at a gray metal desk. It matched the gray couches scattered around the large lobby of the Tampa Human Kindred Relations building, where the interviews were being held. Beside her was a twelve foot tall Christmas tree, decorated with red and gold ornaments and tinsel. It was incongruously colorful in the bland surroundings and it didn’t match the weather either—which was hot.

  Of course in Tampa, it was always hot.

  “I’m here,” Sarah said, in a voice that trembled only a little. “I’m ready.”

  She hoped.

  “All right—go in through the double doors. Commander Sazar is in the second office on the left. He already has your resume.”

  “Thank you.” Sarah bobbed her head nervously. “So…I’m interviewing with him exclusively? I mean, there aren’t any other, uh, supervisors or—”

  “Commander Sazar doesn’t let anyone else help make his decisions,” the attendant said briskly. “He’s very particular about who he hires and he won’t allow anyone else to have a say in it.”

  “Oh…okay. So I’m going to be in there alone with him?” Sarah asked.

  The attendant must have seen the look of uncertainty on her face because the bored indifference of her own expression softened a little.

  “Hey, don’t worry—he doesn’t bite unless you give permission first. He’s a Blood Kindred—not a monster.”

  So the blonde applicant who had stalked out of her interview in a huff had been telling the truth—Commander Sazar did bite. Or at least he wanted to bite. Oh God, what had she gotten herself into?

  I haven’t gotten into it yet and I need this job, Sarah reminded herself grimly. I need to get away from Earth and hide somewhere The Brotherhood and Father Caleb can never find me.

  She could still remember the last girl who had run away from the Compound—Jennifer Hastings—that had been her name though everyone called her Sister Jenny.

  Sarah remembered how the Controllers had found her and brought her back, tied and gagged in the back of a van. The way she had screamed and struggled. And later, the drugged, dazed look on her bruised face when she stood before the alter to become a Bride of the Prophet, as all young women in The Brotherhood were expected to do so they could bear holy children to replenish the Compound…

  Sarah pushed the memory away and gripped her tattered brown handbag firmly. Inside it was a cheap comb, a little tube of clear lip gloss she’d gotten as a free sample at the drugstore, and her birth certificate, which she’d managed to steal from the files of The Brotherhood before she ran. That was important because she didn’t have a driver’s license—women in The Brotherhood