Awakened by the Giant: Brides of the Kindred Read online

  Better be careful, Calden, whispered a little voice in his head. You’re getting awfully attached here and you know you can’t afford to—you know that in the eyes of FATHER and the Mentats, Madeline is just a specimen—one with a limited shelf-life. As soon as her time is up, the self-termination unit in the back of her neck will—

  No! He tried to push the thought away but it wouldn’t go. He was beginning to think—no, to know—that implanting the unit in Madeline when he was growing her in the nutrient bath tank had been a big mistake. He should have disobeyed FATHER and left it out. After all, the sentient AI wasn’t omniscient—it couldn’t see everything.

  But then if he had, the Mentats would have known at some point. No specimen lived forever. And it was a moot point anyway because Madeline did have a self-termination unit implanted and the only one who could turn off the timer which was even now ticking away the seconds and minutes and hours of her life was FATHER. And Calden was very much afraid that the sentient AI would never agree to that.

  But what if I presented her as a valuable asset to the station? he asked himself. Another scientist—one who has special knowledge of Earth species. Considering all the specimens we have to study that we collected from her ship, we could be working for years to catalogue and study them all. It would make sense to make her a permanent addition to the station.

  Could he really convince FATHER that turning off the unit in the back of Madeline’s neck and letting her live at the station permanently was a viable option?

  He would have to, Calden thought grimly. Because already the idea of watching the little Earth female die in his arms was unthinkable.

  I can’t lose her, he thought and had to fight the impulse to squeeze her hard against him, to feel her soft, curvy body press against his own. I must protect her! She’s mine—I have to keep her safe!

  But in order to do that, he would have to prove her worth to FATHER.

  “Calden?” Her soft, melodious voice drew him back from his musings. He looked down at her.

  “Hmm?”

  “Is everything all right?” Madeline asked, a worried look on her lovely face. “You just have the most intense expression. Like you’re determined to do something really difficult. You’re not going to dive again, are you? Please put me down in the shallow end first if you are.”

  “Of course not.” Calden held her even closer. “No, I was just thinking—we’ve been in here for some time. How would you like to come see my specimen lab?”

  “I’d love to.” Madeline smiled. “And I know you want to know about animals from Earth but I’d like to know about some from your home world too. Or whatever you have that’s alien and interesting.”

  Calden smiled back, loving her curiosity.

  “I think we can manage that. In fact, I have a new litter of branthas growing now that you might like to study.”

  “Like the one I saw in your lab? With orangish-red fur?” she sounded hopeful.

  Calden nodded. “Exactly. I instructed the nutrient bath to grow some on the accelerated setting. They should be opening their eyes any moment.”

  Excitement shown in Madeline’s silvery-green eyes.

  “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

  Her enthusiasm was catching. With a smile, Calden carried her out of the fizzing enzyme baths and back through the steam room.

  It was almost time for Mid Meal now and several of the Mentats had stopped their work long enough for a quick steam and a bath before gulping down the four liquids which kept them going until Last Meal. Several of them gave Calden disapproving looks as he carried Madeline close to his chest but he ignored them. His little female was too delicate and fragile to trust around the big brutes—the run in with Grack-lor the day before had proved that, he told himself.

  So what if they stared at him as he carried Madeline—let them stare. He wasn’t going to put her down and trust them to behave. He had thought that he knew these males that he lived and worked with but the addition of a female to their motley mixture proved it wasn’t so.

  He might never have been with a female before, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to treat one, Calden told himself. As a Kindred, respect for females was imprinted on his very DNA. He could no more hurt one or allow one to come to harm than he could willfully cut his own hand off. So he watched over Madeline with careful, protective eyes as he moved swiftly through the steam room and back to the changing area.

  To his intense displeasure, he saw that Grack-lor was standing in the corner of the room, hanging a stained white lab coat on a hook. But he said nothing, for which Calden was glad—only watched Madeline with a hot, avaricious gaze as Calden held her close to his chest.

  But just as he had reached the hooks where their clothing was hanging and was about to put her down, another big Mentat named Jong-tar approached him.

  “I see you have your new little female with you, Calden.” His voice was harsh and accusatory. “Grack-lor told us all about her—how FATHER gave you a special dispensation to have her. What gives you the right to a female when the rest of us have none?”

  Madeline stiffened against him but Calden gave her a warning look. He put her down and pushed her gently behind him as he confronted the Mentat.

  “Madeline is not my female in the sense that she is my mate—I have sworn the oath not to take a mate, as did every male here aboard the station,” he said calmly. “But she is a sentient person and she wanted a bath. Since I have used up most of my allotment of bathing water for the standard week, I brought her here at a time when I thought the baths would be mostly empty and we would bother no one.”

  “But it does bother us.” Jong-tar squared his shoulders belligerently, like a male looking for a fight. “It bothers all of us Mentats that FATHER made an exception for you and let you have a female—to bed and breed—when the rest of us have none.”

  Calden felt his hands curl into fists at his sides and his vision grew hazy and red.

  “I am not bedding or breeding Madeline! You have only to look at our size difference to know how impossible that would be! Now stand aside so that the two of us can get dressed. We are going to my lab and Madeline is going to help me classify some of the specimens the droids found in the wreckage of her ship.”

  “Yeah, I bet you’re just going to work in the lab,” Jong-tar sneered. “Work on getting your shaft inside her, most likely.”

  “You will take those words back or I’ll make you eat them with my fist,” Calden growled, meaning it. He had never been a violent male before but this intimation that he would do improper things with Madeline and the insult to her virtue were too much to bear.

  Except you were doing improper things with her earlier, weren’t you? whispered a little voice in his head. Remember how you rubbed her soft little pussy until she got wet enough for you to slip your finger inside her? Remember how she moaned and begged you to do more…to touch her deeper?

  Calden pushed the memory away. That had been a…momentary aberration. A kind of experiment, in a way. After all, he had never been with a female before so he was naturally curious about it. No one could fault a scientist for trying to satiate his curiosity—could they?

  “You Kindred liar! I won’t take it back—you’re breeding her, I know it!” Jong-tar snarled, breaking his guilty train of thought.

  Calden pulled back a fist to punch the bastard right in the jaw when a new voice interrupted.

  “Already it begins,” cawed the harsh voice of Kro-thur. “Just like on our home world when there were not enough females to go round. If one male had one, the others all wanted her. Truly it is a shame that FATHER was willing to allow one in our midst again to cause such strife. I predict that this will be a serious problem.”

  Calden rounded on him.

  “The only problem is that you Mentats seem to think that a female is a ‘thing’ to have and to use only for slaking your lusts. Madeline is a person—a sentient being—who deserves respect.”