Uncharted Read online

  Maybe it was the Need, he thought, tapping at the outdated keyboard, hoping to access some kind of planet-wide information system. Whatever it was, something had skewed these people so far from the original Kindred beliefs, they appeared to have lost them entirely.

  Terex wondered if the Nixians even worshipped the Goddess—he didn’t think so. He seemed to remember one of them invoking a deity who doled out punishment when the Kindred Goddess—the Mother of All Life—was supposed to be all about love and compassion.

  Not that she’s been very loving or compassionate to me, Terex thought bitterly. He felt a twinge of guilt for his blasphemous thoughts but pushed it aside. What he was thinking was no more than the truth. Why should he feel shame for expressing his true emotions?

  Finally, he found his way into the information network and began to call up news and history articles on Master Torin Valdor.

  He was surprised to find that Master Valdor had actually been a philosopher and social scientist with a half Kindred heritage. Several articles mentioned the fact that he had attempted to “bridge the great divide” between the Kindred and the Nix during their troubled past.

  Reading further, Terex found out that Valdor had lived at a time when the tensions between the Kindred and the Nix, whom they had made a genetic trade with, were running high. The Kindred had been seeking to change the way the Nix treated their women, arguing for an equal status between males and females. The Nix faction, however, resisted strongly, refusing to agree to even the smallest compromise.

  Valdor’s greatest opponent was a male called Senator Krumf. He had called for a repudiation of everything the Kindred stood for and an expulsion of “the alien foreigners” as he called them, from Nixian society. After Valdor left on his historic mission, vowing to go seek the wisdom of the Letites—a race of ancient beings that were known to be male and female in the same body and so had unique knowledge of both—Krumf had taken over.

  First Krumf had become the leader of the Nixian senate and then he had gone on to become the first Supreme Leader of the planet. He was ruthless to his opponents, mounting a campaign to seek out and destroy all the Kindred who remained. The articles Terex read called this “the Great Cleansing” though what it amounted to was genocide, he thought, feeling sick.

  According to the article, part of Krumf’s influence had to do with the spread of the Need. Once it swept through the female population, males like Krumf were able to argue that females were inferior creatures—emotional… unpredictable… unstable. How could they be given equal status when they so clearly needed males to guide and protect them? And of course, to ease their symptoms if they were afflicted with the Need.

  Under Krumf’s rule, the treatise on Female Conduct was passed. Though several prominent females rose up and spoke against it, they all seemed to disappear or die in mysterious circumstances. With no more opposition, the new law was ratified and the divide between male and female became broader than ever. Until, at last, the present situation of complete male domination had come to pass.

  “Valdor should have stayed to fight instead of flying off to seek answers from the Letites,” Terex muttered to himself, flipping to other articles which praised the wisdom and iron-fisted rule of the first Krumf. It was plain to see that under his influence the entire planet had gone backwards in leaps and bounds, not only in its treatment of women but in social and educational issues as well.

  Krumf had passed his legacy on to the next generation and the next and the next. At this stage in the game, it appeared that the Kindred reverence for females had been all but wiped from the social consciousness of the entire planet.

  This is why the Kindred High Council at the time didn’t want to allow a genetic trade with the Nix, Terex thought, remembering some of his history. Back when the trade was first being contemplated, the High Council had voiced its fears that the Nix wouldn’t be willing to change their ways and that any Kindred who traded with them would become polluted by their insistence on dominating their females.

  They were right. Terex remembered the silent market and the Needy Ones standing on the street corner, begging in their own mute, pathetic way to be hurt. To be spanked.

  You hurt Solange that way, whispered the voice of guilt in his ear. You allowed yourself to fall into the same trap these people have been snared in.

  No! He shook his head, trying to clear away the shame of his past. I always valued her—always loved her. I never—

  A light knock on his door made him jump. Quickly he cut the power to the console and stood up.

  “Come in,” he called.

  The door opened and Elaina walked into the room with her head down and her hands clasped tightly before her.

  “Master?” she murmured. “May I enter your presence?”

  Terex opened his mouth to speak but found he literally couldn’t say a word. She was wearing an outfit that showed…well, it showed much more of her than he had seen in the past, that was for damn sure.

  A long, shimmering see-through sheathe of a dress draped her luscious curves. A smattering of tiny, sparkling stones adorned the dress, strategically clustered over her breasts and the V of her sex but they didn’t hide everything. When she moved, Terex could see the pink arcs of her areolas and the tight buds of her nipples. A shift of her hips showed the smooth mound of her pussy, the plump, pink lips visible through the shimmering stones…

  You’re staring at her! Stop it! he commanded himself. But he felt helpless to drag his eyes away from her lush body. His own body was reacting to hers—his shaft achingly hard and his fangs so sharp he drew blood simply by touching the tip of his tongue to one of them.

  Elaina, for her part, simply stood with her head bowed, waiting for him to answer her request for entrance.

  “Master?” she said at last, daring a quick peek up at him.

  “What…” His voice came out in a hoarse growl and he had to clear his throat and try again. “What are you doing? You know you can come in.”

  “I’m practicing for our visit to the palace.” She kept her head down, eyes fixed firmly on the floor. “According to Jessa—that’s the Ambassador’s slave girl slash wife or whatever crazy relationship they have here—this is how I’m supposed to act.”

  “I don’t like it.” Terex felt the blood surging through him, and guilt following close behind. Because he did like it—at least his body reacted to it. There could be no denying that.

  Calm, he told himself. I have to be calm. But how could he be when she was acting like this? When she was acting as Solange had used to act when they “played?”

  “This isn’t right,” he growled.

  * * * * *

  There was a wild light in his blue and silver eyes—a look of possible danger—but somehow that only spurred Elaina on more.

  You got us into this, Commander Terex, she thought. So deal with it.

  “Have I angered you, Master?” she asked coquettishly, just as Jessa had coached her.

  Coming forward, she fell to her knees before him. In a graceful gesture of submission, she leaned forward and rubbed her cheek against his thigh.

  “Forgive me,” she purred, looking up at him at last. “Do not deny me the pleasure of your companionship.”

  “Elaina—” Terex shifted uneasily, trying to move away from her light touch.

  “And if the stern hand of discipline is needed, I will of course, submit myself to your will,” she murmured, parroting the words Jessa had taught her.

  “Elaina, don’t.” There was a low, dangerous note in the big Kindred’s voice that made her pull back at last.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked in a more normal tone. “Does this bother you for some reason? It’s the way I’m supposed to act at the palace. And everywhere on this stupid planet—at least according to Jessa.”

  “I guess she would know if she’s mated to the Ambassador. Here…” He offered her his hand. “Stand up. I don’t like to see you kneeling like that.”

  “Yo