Brides of the Kindred Volume One Read online

  “Injured? Oh no, no I’m fine.” Lauren sniffed and tried to smile. “Just a little shaken up, that’s all.”

  He shook his head. “It’s more than that, I can tell.” He held out his arms and then let them drop, helpless to his sides. “I…I want to comfort you but I’m not sure how to go about it.”

  Lauren looked up at him. “Hold me,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “If…if you can stand it, I mean. I just…I need your arms around me now. Please, Xairn.”

  “Of course I can stand it,” he said roughly. Coming forward, he swept her into his arms and held her tight against his chest. “I love you, Lauren,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head. “I’m sorry I don’t show it the way I should. I feel like I’m doing everything wrong but please know that I do love you.”

  “I love you too.” Putting her arms around him, she buried her face in his broad chest and breathed in the warm, spicy scent of his skin. God, he always smelled so good, so perfectly right, somehow. It was as though the deep, masculine musk he exuded was part of her—just smelling it could make her feel better.

  Xairn held her for a long time and she reveled in the feeling of being close to him for the first time in ages. A few more tears leaked down her cheeks but they were more tears of exhaustion than anything else. She’d been up all night analyzing their relationship and now she had a huge mess to clean up. Lauren sighed. Well, no time like the present.

  Reluctantly, she disengaged herself from his embrace. “Thanks but I think I’d better get to work now. I’ve got a hell of a mess to clean up before I can even think about making any cupcakes.”

  Xairn nodded as he let her go. “I’ll help.”

  “You don’t have to,” she protested. “It’s my shop, I can do it.”

  “I want to.” He looked around the kitchen. “Besides, it won’t be the first time I’ve cleaned. I helped in the urlich kennels when I was a boy—you should see the mess that fifty untrained animals can make in a night. It’s not pretty, I assure you.”

  Lauren gave a little laugh. “Okay, well that does kind of put things in perspective.” She reached for the industrial sized garbage bags she kept in a box on the counter and tore off one for Xairn and one for herself. “I, uh, have a question,” she said, looking at him from the corner of her eye as she shook the bag out.

  “Yes?” He copied her motions with his own bag, found the opening, and began to load it with the flour-covered trash.

  “You were just, uh, holding me pretty close a minute ago.” Lauren concentrated on filling her own bag as she talked, almost afraid to look at him as she asked what was on her mind.

  “Yes, and?”

  “Well…” She cleared her throat. “In the past after we’ve been close you had to, uh, excuse yourself.” She risked a quick glance at him. “But you’re not this time. Why?”

  “Are you asking me why holding you didn’t arouse me?”

  “Uh, yeah. I guess.” Lauren looked at him curiously.

  Xairn frowned, his trash bag held open in one hand. “How could I become aroused? You were in pain, crying. My instincts were to protect and comfort you—not fuck you.”

  “Oh Xairn…” Lauren shook her head, not sure what to say. “Honey, I know this sounds strange, but that’s one of the sweetest things you’ve ever said to me. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He nodded gravely and then bent to pick up another empty beer can.

  “I wonder if the human DNA you got from me is working in this case?” Lauren said carefully. “I mean, from what you’ve told me about your people…”

  “Yes.” Xairn sounded thoughtful. “A normal Scourge would have been aroused by your pain. Rather than wishing to alleviate it, he would have tried to increase it. Of course, emotional pain and sexual pain aren’t quite the same thing.”

  “Sexual pain?” A shiver ran through Lauren. Part fear and part…something else. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s part of the training a female goes through when she is claimed by a Scourge male.” Xairn suddenly seemed very busy with cleaning and wouldn’t look at her. “She is taught to be obedient—to treat her mate as a master to be obeyed at all costs.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” Lauren’s heart was racing but she didn’t know why.

  “She will be punished,” Xairn said in a low voice. “The punishment takes many forms. Her master might attach weights to the rings piercing her nipples and pussy—so she is reminded of her disobedience with every move she makes. Or he might chain her to the wall and flog her. In severe cases he might employ the torture of a thousand sighs.”

  “The what?” Lauren heard the tremble in her own voice but she couldn’t seem to stop it. “What’s that?”

  “He puts her over his knee and orders her to spread her thighs.” Xairn’s voice was rough and he still wouldn’t look at her as he spoke. “He spanks her—she’s already naked so he has full access to her ass and pussy, of course.”

  “Of course,” Lauren murmured, her heart giving a jump. “Then…then what?”

  “He touches her. Pleasures her. Explores her inner pussy with his fingers until she’s moaning and writhing on his lap.” Xairn cleared his throat. “Then he spanks her again. He alternates pain and pleasure—sometimes for hours, never letting her come. Until…”

  “Until what?” Lauren’s breath was coming short and she felt wet and hot and swollen between her legs for some reason. God, was Xairn’s description actually turning her on? But I’m not interested in this kind of stuff, she told herself. Apparently she was, though. Or her body was and someone had forgotten to send her brain the memo because what he was saying was definitely making her hot. “Until what?” she asked again, realizing that Xairn was just standing there, silent.

  He shook his head. “We shouldn’t be talking about such things.”

  “Why not? You can’t leave me hanging like this,” Lauren protested. “Tell me what he does to her next? How does the torture of a thousand sighs end?”

  “It ends when she calls him ‘Master’ and begs for his cock deep in her pussy.” Xairn looked at her, his eyes blazing. “It ends when he fucks her and fills her with his cum.”

  “God.” Lauren put a hand to her heart to still the racing. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to speak.” He finished filling the trash bag and knotted it closed savagely. “Your face says everything.” He put down the bag. “I’m going to get a broom.”

  “Xairn, wait,” she said but he had already stalked out of the room, his broad shoulders stiff with tension.

  Lauren was feeling pretty tense herself. Why did his description of the sexual punishment practiced by his people turn her on so much? It was along the same lines of what her boyfriend in college had been interested in but then it had just seemed silly. With Xairn it seemed…primal somehow. Wild. Intense. Lauren could almost see herself spread out over his knee, her panties down around her ankles while he alternately caressed and spanked her with those big hands…Stop it, she told herself sternly. Things are hard enough for him as it is. It’s obvious he’s ashamed of what his people do. I shouldn’t have made him tell me about it.

  Then again, maybe what they really needed to do was talk about it—all of it. Maybe if they could just talk things out—

  Xairn interrupted her train of thought by coming back into the room with a broom and dustpan. “You should probably wipe off the surfaces first to save time,” he said, nodding at the smears of flour on the stainless steel countertops.

  “Um, yeah. Sure.” Lauren got moving. Obviously now wasn’t the time to talk. But she still couldn’t get the image of herself over his knee out of her head.

  * * * * *

  Xairn cursed himself as they finished cleaning the food prep area. Why had he told Lauren about the torture of a thousand sighs? It was clear from the look on her face how much his descriptions had bothered her. Her breathing had been uneven and her eyes had been wide and uncertain as he talked. It