Brides of the Kindred Volume One Read online

  She raised her left hand to her face and examined it anxiously but everything looked normal. Didn’t it? On closer examination she wasn’t so sure. Her pinky finger looked…strange somehow. Lauren couldn’t put her finger on it—no pun intended—but when she touched the tip of her pinky finger to her thumb it tingled. Also, the nail on it was a lot shorter than the nails on her other fingers. Lauren wasn’t a nail biter and she didn’t remember breaking a nail, so what was going on?

  Don’t be silly, she told herself uneasily, turning her hand this way and that to examine the suspect pinky. It was just a bad dream. Get over it and move on.

  Feeling more awake, she looked around the room for Xairn. He’d said he was going to sleep on the couch across from the bed, but it was empty. Then she became aware that someone was in bed beside her, breathing deeply and obviously asleep.

  Blinking, Lauren turned over to face him. He was lying on top of the covers but sometime during the night he’d wrapped the long trailing edge of the bedspread over his big frame and nothing was visible now except his sleek black hair. She wondered why he never took it out of the club he wore it in at the base of his neck—not even to sleep. But maybe he’d been too tired to bother last night.

  Poor baby. He’s had a hard time lately and all because of me. Unable to resist the impulse, Lauren reached out and tenderly stroked his hair. He stirred a little but she didn’t move her hand. Instead, she caressed him again, letting her fingers trail down inside the cover to cup his rough cheek. Her heart yearned for the man she was touching so gently. He’s so conflicted inside. So wounded. If only he would let me love him, heal him—

  “What in the seven hells do you think you’re doing?” a familiar voice demanded. And then the man beside her sat up and threw off the covers in one fluid movement.

  “I was just…” The words died on Lauren’s lips. The voice sounded like Xairn’s but the man in bed with her was a complete and total stranger.

  “What is it?” he said, frowning at her. “Why are you staring at me that way?”

  “Oh my God.” Lauren’s voice came out in a weak whisper. “Who…who are you?”

  “What do you mean, who am I? I’m Xairn.”

  “No you’re not.” Although, his features did look like Xairn’s. They were still had the proud, stern cast that reminded her of a noble savage or some classical statue come to life.

  But instead of the pearly gray shade she’d become used to, this man had smooth tan skin several shades lighter than her own mocha brown. And the burning red-on-black eyes, which had so frightened her at first, had been replaced by normal human eyes.

  Well, not normal exactly—his irises were a pure pale shade of blue-green that reminded Lauren of the clear waters of a tropical ocean. Gorgeous, she couldn’t help thinking. He looks like a freaking model.

  And as much as she was growing to love him, “gorgeous” was not a word she would have normally applied to Xairn. He was rough around the edges, with more than a little bit of the beast about him. Not this handsome Romeo sitting in bed beside her, wearing nothing but a pair of tight-fitting boxer brief looking things.

  A sudden thought occurred to her. “You’re not some kind of clone are you? Something they send to replace Xairn? Because I don’t care how hot you are, you’re not him. I want him back—where is he?”

  “I’m telling you, Lauren, it’s me.” He ran a hand experimentally over his face. “It must be the effects of your DNA on me. Do I really look that different?”

  “The DNA exchange—of course!” Between her bad dream and the shock of waking up beside a “stranger,” Lauren had completely forgotten that they’d had their DNA altered. So it was Xairn after all. But Xairn as she’d never imagined him. “You look completely different,” she said. “Well, not completely—you’re the same size and shape and your features are the same. But your skin and eye color—”

  “Let me see.” He was already out of bed and running for the bathroom. Lauren caught up to him as he was standing in front of the viewer, examining his new skin and eyes.

  “I am changed,” he murmured, running his hands over his face wonderingly.

  “But I’m not.” Lauren looked at her reflection beside his and frowned. “Look at me—I look exactly the same.”

  “Which is at is should be,” Xairn said, looking down at her. “I asked Slk to leave your physical appearance intact and make the smallest change to your DNA possible, remember?”

  “I remember.” But Lauren couldn’t help feeling disappointed. “It’s easy to see what you got from me,” she pointed out. “But what did I get from you when Slk rearranged our DNA?”

  He shrugged. “It might be something so tiny as to make no difference. You may never know—pray you don’t. I have nothing you want.”

  “You’re wrong about that,” Lauren said quietly.

  “What?” He frowned at her. “You’re not saying you wanted red eyes or gray skin, are you? That you wanted to look like I did before this change?”

  “What I want is to know that there’s a little piece of you inside me—the same way it’s obvious there’s a little piece of me inside you,” Lauren said stubbornly. “I don’t see why that’s so hard to understand.”

  “What’s hard to understand is why you would wish to pollute yourself with my genes—to defile yourself with the toxins in my blood.”

  “It’s not pollution or defilement,” Lauren argued. “I still don’t understand why you think that about yourself.”

  “Because it’s true,” he said shortly. He frowned again as he studied himself in the viewer. “There is one thing I don’t understand—why is my skin lighter than yours?”

  Lauren sighed. “Oh, well I’m half white, you know. I mean, because my mom is,” she said. “It was my dad who was African American. You know—black.”

  “But my skin is not white. It’s a sort of…tan. And your skin is not black. It’s a beautiful, smooth brown.”

  “Well, we say ‘black’ and ‘white’ on my planet, but what we really mean is tan and brown.” Lauren shrugged. “I know, it’s silly isn’t it? But I guess you got DNA from my mom’s side of the family.”

  “Does your mother have eyes this color?” he asked, looking into his own eyes in the viewer.

  Lauren shook her head. “Uh-uh, she has eyes like mine. But I do remember her saying once that my great-grandfather had eyes that color. Sea colored eyes, she called them.” Reaching up, she cupped his cheek and turned him to face her. “They’re beautiful, you know. Not that your other eyes weren’t—they were very…fierce. But now—”

  “Now I conform to your human standards of beauty,” Xairn finished for her.

  She nodded and let her hand drop. “You look like a model.”

  “A model?” His perfect forehead wrinkled.

  “Someone who sells products to others just by looking good. Like if you wanted to sell people a particular brand of clothes, you’d have someone hot, er, good-looking wear them.”

  He shook his head. “Why?”

  “Well…it’s psychological. It gives people the idea that if they buy and wear those particular clothes, they’ll look as hot as the model wearing them.”

  “Why would they think such an illogical thing? And why do they care what their clothing looks like, anyway?” Xairn was clearly confused. “As long as it is adequately functional and keeps them warm, that is all that should matter.”

  “Oh, Xairn honey…” Lauren laughed delightedly. He might look like he’d just stepped from the pages of GQ but he was obviously still the same old Xairn underneath. Honestly, it made her feel better about the change he’d undergone. With his big, muscular frame and those striking eyes, he looked like a movie-star—almost unapproachable.

  So much physical perfection was hard to be around. It made her feel intimidated in a way she never had even when she’d first met him and thought he looked like a beast out of a nightmare.

  Of course, it had been a long time since she’d thought th