Uncharted Read online

  Brides of the Kindred

  Book #18: Uncharted

  Evangeline Anderson

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Evangeline Anderson Books

  Brides of the Kindred

  Book 18: Uncharted

  Copyright © 2017 by Evangeline Anderson

  E-book 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 the book retailer of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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  Dedication: With love to all my Kindred readers. Can you believe we're up to book 18 now? And I'm hard at work on book 19, Unbound. Check the end of this novel for a yummy blurb to get you excited for it. : )

  I feel so blessed to have so many awesome people to play "let's pretend" with. Thank you for reading!

  Hugs and Happy reading to you all,

  Evangeline

  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

  Kindred 19 Unbound Blurb

  Planet X Excerpt

  Also By Evangeline Anderson

  About the Author

  Newsletter Sign-up

  Chapter One

  “I’m so glad you decided to let me replace your missing eye and thumb, Commander Terex. Yes I am, yes I am!” Yipper, the Tolleg surgeon bounced excitedly around Terex’s feet, his long, furry ears flopping. With his shaggy gray brown fur and long face, he looked like a cross between a baboon and a hound dog—or so said the humans who inhabited the Mother Ship—but he was the best prosthetic surgeon around.

  “Yes, well…” Terex blinked his new prosthetic eye, which was indistinguishable from the other, and flexed the thumb the little surgeon had grafted seamlessly to his hand.

  He had lost his original body parts in a struggle with Two, the Dark Kindred, who had maimed him in order to gain access to the Mother Ship’s restricted areas. Two had needed the thumbprint and retinal scan of a Council member in order to get into the water processing area, where he planned to dump a toxic virus into the entire water supply and take over the ship. He had ultimately been stopped before he was able to carry out his evil scheme but not before he’d gotten to Terex who had, unfortunately, been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  At least, that was what Terex tried to tell himself when he thought of the shameful episode.

  But try as he might, he couldn’t forget the way Two had overpowered him, shot him up with a paralytic agent—and mutilated him. With the paralytic in his system, Terex had been helpless to stop him. He still woke from nightmares, drenched in sweat, where he felt the bite of the Dark Kindred’s knife sawing through his thumb…felt the sharp tip gouging into the flesh of his eye socket.

  Stop it, he told himself angrily, flexing his new left thumb again. It was a traumatic experience but it’s over now. Get over it!

  It was good advice but Terex was having a difficult time taking it, possibly because the incident with Two wasn’t the only time in recent memory when he had been overpowered. Previous to his struggle with Two, he had been inhabited by Ur, a demon from the Black Planet, who had used his body as a host for his evil designs.

  These two very personal attacks, coupled with the death of his beloved mate Solange, now dead for ten solar years, had made Terex seriously question if he wanted to continue living. The answer, he had decided, was no. But before he died, he had a mission—a quest of vengeance that could not go unfulfilled.

  Two had left behind a single scion—a huge warrior grown in the flesh vats of the Scourge Father Ship. When Two had died, this scion had fled to parts unknown. At first it was thought he might be on the Scourge home planet, but several probes sent to scan the surface of the toxic world had revealed no life signatures.

  Two’s scion was still out there, somewhere, and Terex was determined to seek him out and rid the universe once and for all of the evil bastard. Then he could die in peace—either in battle or by his own hand, after the deed was accomplished. He cared little which way death came—only that it came swiftly and honorably after his vengeance was complete.

  “Tell me, Commander Terex, if you please, if you please,” Yipper said, breaking into his morbid thoughts. “Why did you change your mind and decide to have your body parts replaced after all? I was told that you were dead set against replacements at first. So I was, so I was.”

  “It wasn’t out of vanity, I can tell you that,” Terex said dryly. “I don’t give a damn for how I look any more—it isn’t as if I’m courting a mate. But Commander Sylvan pointed out that I would be at a disadvantage if I allowed myself to stay maimed. When I thought of it, I realized he had a good point. I am hunting an enemy who is larger and stronger than myself—I need every advantage to take him down.”

  “A good point, yes it is, yes it is.” the little Tolleg nodded eagerly. “And the parts I’ve given you will put you at a distinct advantage when it comes to battle. They aren’t just exact replicas of your own lost bits and pieces, no they aren’t, no they aren’t!”

  “They’re not?” Terex frowned and looked down at his thumb. “How are they different?”

  “Your new ocular piece has an extraordinary range of vision,” Yipper explained. “You’ll be able to see four times as far as you would with your normal, organic eye. And you’ll also be able to focus on small objects and magnify them if you so choose.”

  “That’s useful.” Terex closed his right eye and focused his left at a spot on the far wall. Since they were standing in Yipper’s surgical suite slash repair shop, what he saw was a white rack filled with prosthetic hands, legs, feet, and arms. When he concentrated, he found he was able to focus on one particular body part—a foot—and see it in great detail, down to the curving, lifelike ridges on the toenails. “Yes, very useful indeed,” he murmured.

  “Oh, and before I forget, your new retina can mimic the retinal pattern of any creature or person living or dead,” the little Tolleg said. “And your new thumb can mimic any print as well. So no door should be locked against you in your quest.”

  “Is that right?” Terex frowned thoughtfully. It seemed cruelly ironic that he should have been maimed because of Two’s need for his unique print and retinal pattern and now the replacement parts he had been given could, in turn, mimic any pattern he might need in his quest to kill the bastard’s scion.

  Ironic but fitting.

  “Yes that’s right. Yes it is, yes it is.” Yipper nodded eagerly, his ears flopping again. "And I've even installed a pigmentation control that will affect your hair, eye, and skin color."

  "What? But why?" Terex raised an eyebrow.