Freeing the Prisoner_A Kindred Tales Novel Read online

  He paced back and forth, his rich robes of green and purple encrusted with jewels and stiff with gold embroidery rustling as he walked. Around him his advisors and generals—all males of course—waited also, to hear what he would say. Every word out of the mouth of the Monarch was sacred and must be obeyed without question.

  “A strange ship,” he mused as he walked, his golden sandals slapping against the lavishly decorated mosaic floor. “No, do not destroy it out of hand. If it came from the Blind, we must examine it and find out why it is here. Force it to land and extract the pilot,” he told the communications officer who had reported it in the first place. “Put him in my private interrogation chamber. I will deal with him at my leisure.”

  “Yes, your Majesty! Your word is law!” The officer gave an elaborate salute with his right hand to his breast and the other tucked behind his back. This signified that his heart was completely given to his Monarch and his hand would never be raised against him. Then he touched the mouthpiece implanted under his lower lip and repeated the order to the listening pilots.

  It didn’t take long after that. Dani had rushed through the passages, heedless of the dust and knowing her way in the darkness, until she reached a panel behind the main wall of the docking area.

  The intruder’s ship was long and sleek and silver, unlike the blunt and snub-nosed Goshan ships which were uniformly black. It seemed to shine like a star when it landed and Dani’s eyes went wide as she watched the Goshan warriors surround it, shouting for the foreign pilot’s surrender.

  But the ship itself was nothing to what came out of it.

  Dani bit back a gasp as the silver door slid open and the biggest male she had ever seen descended from the cockpit. He looked like a giant—a full head and shoulders taller than even the tallest of the warriors surrounding him.

  But his size was not the only striking thing about the prisoner. He had thick brown hair that rippled back from his high forehead in waves and his skin was not blue but tan—several shades lighter than Dani’s own creamy brown color. His eyes were the most striking thing about him—a pale, piercing green ringed with black, they seemed to penetrate her very soul when he glanced in her direction.

  Dani put a hand to her beating heart. Those eyes…they seemed like something she had seen before, but she couldn’t place where. Maybe from some half-forgotten dream…

  He can’t see me, she reminded herself as the prisoner stared in her direction. No one can. No one knows I’m watching.

  But she couldn’t help the feeling of unease when those piercing eyes swept over her hiding place once more before the guards dragged him away.

  She knew exactly where they were taking him and she ran ahead, taking a shortcut through a little used conference room and several royal bedchambers before she slipped into her father’s own private suite.

  Once inside, she went directly to the corner where a heavy brocade tapestry hung over a seemingly black wall. Once the tapestry was pulled aside, however, Dani knew the exact combination of knocks to cause the locking mechanism within the wall to release.

  With a low but audible click, a section of the wall—which was covered in blue velvety wall moss—swung open, admitting her to yet another secret corridor.

  Dani went along the corridor, soft and silent in her little slippers, until she got to the door which led into the private interrogation cell. This passage was supposedly only for the use of the Monarch and only his touch could unlock the door.

  That was what was widely believed, anyway. But Dani knew, from trying the door herself, that the palm-pad would respond to her own touch as well. It was based on outdated technology, which read DNA signatures. Since she had much of the same DNA as her father, the mechanism mistook her for the Monarch himself and let her pass.

  Dani wasn’t worried about anyone finding this out. She was reasonably certain no one else ever tried the door besides her father, so no one else knew of the mechanism’s deficiency.

  She peered through the glass panel at the top of the door which would have been too high for any other women to look out of. Dani, being too tall, however, was well able to watch as the guards shoved the giant into the interrogation cell and forced his hands above his head. He had on a kind of uniform shirt made of some brilliant deep blue fabric that looked heavy and shiny. It stretched tight across his broad chest and rippled when he flexed his muscular biceps, straining to break free.

  It was a wasted effort, as Dani well knew. The force of the shielded magnetic field holding the magno-locks in place was so strong that even a herd of wild jorex beasts all pulling together couldn’t have broken free of it, let alone a solitary male.

  Still, it was interesting to watch him try.

  Dani watched him silently, her eyes wide with interest. She had never seen a male with skin that wasn’t blue. Even the savage Thuggors who lived on the Southern continent—the one place on the planet where her father did not have dominion—had skin which was blue, even if it was tinged with gray. Who was this male and why had he come here? She’d heard the guards calling him “Kindred” but she knew very little about that people. She would have to find out more, she told herself.

  Aside from his uniform shirt, the Kindred was wearing a pair of tight black leather trousers and high black leather boots which hugged his muscular calves and went up to his knee.

  Dani frowned—in Goshan society males wore long robes—she had never seen a male’s legs so openly displayed before. It was…strange. His bizarre wardrobe taken together with his wavy brown hair and those piercing green eyes and of course, his strange tan skin, made him the most interesting male she had ever seen. He looked nothing like anyone she had ever met before—she found she could not stop looking at him.

  And then he spoke.

  “Whoever you are, stop staring at me and come out and talk.”

  Dani bit back a gasp. How did he know she was watching? The window in the cell door was one-way glass—there was no way the Kindred giant could know she was there. And yet somehow…he knew.

  “Come out,” he said again. Or are you too fucking cowardly to face a chained male with no weapons?”

  Dani had only meant to stand there and watch him but his words put her on the defensive. Her honor would be tarnished if she allowed him to talk to her in such a way and she would be proving she was a coward if she didn’t take his challenge.

  Taking a deep breath, she pressed her hand to the palm-pad and listened to the hiss of compressed air and the click as the mechanism unlocked. Pushing the door open, she stepped into the room.

  Chapter Two

  She was the most beautiful female Kyron had ever seen but for a moment he was so surprised to see her standing there he just stared. His Touch sense, which made him more sensitive to those around him, had been tingling warningly, but he’d never expected his silent watcher to be a female.

  She was a petite little thing, though not much smaller than the guards who had locked him up. Perhaps all the people on this planet were miniature. Though short, she was curvy. And tiny or not, she had a beauty which transfixed him from the first.

  Instead of blue like the males, she had creamy brown skin which complimented large, dark, exotically tilted eyes. Eyes which looked at him with obvious curiosity and perhaps hostility as well. She had thick, black hair which fell around her shoulders and she was wearing a dress which was a bizarre mixture of the modest and the erotic.

  It buttoned up to her throat and fell all the way to the toes of the small, sateen slippers he could see peeking out from beneath the hem. But though it covered her completely, it was made of a white fabric so sheer he could clearly see the full curves of her breasts and the dark shadow of her berry dark nipples. The triangle of neatly trimmed curls between her thighs was likewise on display.

  Gods, she’s fucking gorgeous! Why is she dressed like that—to torture me?

  Ky shifted uncomfortably on the stone bench, suddenly aware that he was staring and his shaft was more than half hard