Cougar Christmas Read online

  The skin tone was startling but Terex thought the hair looked surprisingly realistic. It was even flecked with specks of silvery-gray in the same places his own blond color was, though it was much more noticeable now that the main part of his hair was black. The color extended to the closely clipped beard he now wore as well. Most Kindred were clean shaven, but lately Terex had begun to break with tradition--in more than one way.

  "Ah--very good! Very good!" Yipper exclaimed.

  "Yes, it's…interesting." Terex put his thumb to his temple again and returned himself to his normal skin color. But the black hair he rather liked. It matched his mood of late. He decided to keep it.

  “Tell me, Commander Terex, how do you plan to find the one you seek?" Yipper asked him. "I have heard that the probes of the Scourge Home World, where it was thought he had gone, found no life signatures.”

  “I have been promised help in that regard,” Terex said gravely. “I was told by one of the priestesses who has the gift of Sight that she would meditate upon the matter and let me know when she had some insight.”

  “Ah, the priestesses are very wise, so they are, so they are,” Yipper murmured. “Truly, they serve the Goddess well.”

  “Certainly,” Terex said neutrally. In point of fact, he had given up trying to understand the motivations of the Mother of Life—the Kindred Goddess who had created their race and who some said still took an active part in it. Terex was no longer sure if that was true or why a supposedly divine and perfectly good being would allow so much evil to befall one of her children.

  Then the old guilt surged up in him again.

  Don’t pretend you don’t know why, whispered a little voice in the back of his mind. The evil which befell you was not of the Goddess’s doing but of your own. The sins you committed in the past can be expiated with nothing less than pain. The agony you have endured, both physical and mental, is of your own making.

  Yes, but would he never be done paying? Every time Terex thought the scales were at last balanced, some other evil would befall him, reminding him yet again of his misspent youth and the wrongs he had committed. Wrongs which could, apparently, only be paid for in blood.

  Well, he was through paying, Terex told himself. He would seek out Two’s Scion with the help of the Seer Priestess and kill the bastard good and dead. In the process, he prayed that he might be killed himself. Then and only then would he finally be freed to enter the presence of the Mother of all Life. Maybe he would even see Solange again. That would be sweet. His beloved mate had been gone over ten cycles now—it would be good to gaze upon her lovely face once more.

  But what if your sins still aren’t paid for? whispered that voice in his head. What if you wind up in one of the Seven Hells instead of in the Goddess’s presence with Solange?

  Terex examined the thought and found that he didn’t really care. As long as he was gone from this plane of existence, he would be well content. For a time he had thought there might be something still worth living for—the image of a female with green and gold flecked eyes rose for a moment in his mind but he pushed it away. The female that bore those lovely eyes was not for him—no female was for him.

  There was nothing for him now but vengeance, pain, and if the Goddess granted it, death.

  “Commander Terex, are you well, are you well?” Yipper sounded concerned and Terex realized he had been staring off into space, contemplating his own demise as calmly as one would consider what to have for lunch. It occurred to him that his newly fatalistic attitude towards life ought to bother him. But it didn’t. Nothing bothered him anymore—nothing touched the shell that had formed around his heart. There was that, at least—he was safe from emotion, safe from pain. And wasn’t it better to be cold than in agony?

  Yes, much better, he told himself. Aloud he said to Yipper, “I’m fine, my friend. And I wish to thank you for your fine service.”

  “You’re very welcome, so you are, so you are.” The little Tolleg nodded earnestly. “If there is anything else you need or require, please don’t hesitate to call on me.”

  “I will,” Terex said, smiling a little. “I—”

  Just then he got the strange tingling sensation in his temples which meant someone was trying to bespeak him. He frowned—he had no close friends aboard the Mother Ship, not anymore. Who would be trying to contact him in such an intimate fashion?

  “Excuse me,” he said to Yipper. “Someone is trying to communicate with me.” Striding out of the surgery, he rounded the corner and stood in an empty hallway where he could concentrate. Closing his eyes, he opened himself to the call and heard a strong but feminine voice in his mind.

  “Warrior, it is I, the priestess Nirobe. You consulted with me and asked that I meditate to learn the whereabouts of the last scion of Two, he who tried to destroy us.”

  “Yes—yes, I did.” Terex felt a surge of excitement shoot through him. “Have you found out where he is?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” the priestess replied evasively. “I have information you can use but it comes at a price. Will you pay it?”

  Terex frowned. “What is the price? I thought the advice of those who make their home in the Sacred Grove was freely given.”

  “In most cases it is but this is a special occasion,” Nirobe sent primly. “Will you pay the price?”

  “How can I offer to pay when I don’t even know what you want?” Terex demanded, feeling frustrated. “What if you ask for more credit than I have or can borrow?”

  “The payment I require is not in physical wealth but in spiritual riches,” the priestess replied obliquely. “All will be made clear in the abundance of time. Come to the Sacred Grove this very evening directly after Last Meal and we will discuss what you owe and how you can pay it. Then and only then will I impart the knowledge which the Goddess has given me.”

  “Very well.” It was an irritating caveat but Terex knew better than to complain. The priestesses who served in the Sacred Grove almost always spoke in riddles—it was useless to expect a direct answer out of one of them.

  “I will see you at the appointed time. Until then, warrior, be well.” The presence of Nirobe faded from his mind, leaving Terex frowning and uncertain.

  What knowledge did the priestess have for him…and what payment would he have to promise in order to get it?

  Chapter Two

  “Hey, little sis, how are you doing today?”

  Elaina Benet sat on the edge of her little sister’s hospital bed and tried to smile.

  “Oh, you know—fabulous as always.” Her sister Gina gave her a tired smile and a weary thumbs up. But the small gesture seemed to exhaust her because she had to close her eyes and breathe deeply, her thin chest rising and falling strenuously under the blue and white hospital gown.

  Elaina’s own smile faltered as she looked at her little sister. Once Gina had been plump, always complaining that her butt was too big and her thighs were too thick, but that had been before the cancer. Now her sister was thin to the point of emaciation—her body almost skeletal. Beneath the unflattering hospital gown, Elaina could see the sharp angles of her hip bones. Gina’s collar bones stuck out like a terrible necklace and Elaina thought she could almost count her ribs.

  Oh Gina, she thought, swallowing back a sob as she looked at her sister’s sunken face, the cheekbones jutting under her formerly round, pretty cheeks, and the dark circles beneath her tired eyes. Oh little sis, you’ve changed so much…

  The diagnosis had been a cruel surprise—an unexpected shock. Cancer didn’t run in their family and Gina had never been a smoker. But apparently Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia didn’t care about any of that. It was an aggressive kind of cancer that mostly affected people over the age of sixty and even then it was much more prevalent in men. Again, CCL didn’t seem to care that Gina was only thirty one and female—it set up shop inside her once plump and healthy body and refused to be eradicated though the doctors had tried everything from radiation to bone marrow transplants