Healing the Broken: A Kindred Christmas Tale Read online

  “I’ve been working in the main office since I was eighteen,” Sarah said. “But I’ve been living in the Compound since I was twelve when my parents joined and took me with them. My father left but my mother stayed and I…I stayed with her. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “I see,” he said again and Sarah wanted to shout that he didn’t see—that he could never see or understand what it had been like. Living in dread that she would be called as a Bride of the Prophet, camouflaging herself for years, arguing with her mother who was so brainwashed by The Brotherhood she refused to listen to reason…

  “…living now?” Commander Sazar asked and Sarah realized she had missed a question.

  “I’m sorry?” she asked, leaning forward.

  “I said, where are you living now?”

  Sarah swallowed hard.

  “In a women’s shelter. I…left the Compound a couple of weeks ago.” Left—that was a laugh. More like slipped out in the dead of night after weeks of planning.

  She’d been sneaking pieces of bread and scraps of meat—everything she could spare from her dinner—to Zeus, the fierce Doberman who guarded the front gates of the Compound for ages, trying to make friends with him. He’d still growled a little when she slid by him the night of her escape and Sarah had been so afraid he would start barking and howling—setting off the alarm. But she’d given him a piece of greasy, delectable bacon she’d saved from breakfast and he had stopped growling and remained mostly silent as she slipped away.

  The tears of relief had been caught like a lump in her throat—tears she hadn’t dared to shed until she finally found her way to the shelter after two days and nights of walking and hiding in the tangled overgrowth at the side of the road.

  Sarah had known she was taking a risk in leaving—she remembered what had happened to Sister Jenny. But she couldn’t wait any longer—she was to become a Bride of the Prophet the very next day. And the thought of Father Caleb’s liver-spotted hands sliding all over her body as he “gave her his seed” to form a “holy child” made her flesh crawl.

  Never, she thought. I’ll never go back! If I don’t get this job, I’ll find another. I’ll stay in the shelter as long as I can. Until I find a place I can go.

  Unless they found her.

  The Controllers were very good at tracking down runaways. They were a special squad of men, handpicked and trained by Father Caleb himself. They always seemed to know where to find the girls who managed to make it out of the Compound and bring them back before messy secrets and dirty stories about The Brotherhood could get out.

  Not that anyone would believe me if I tried to tell them, Sarah thought bitterly. Even the shelter people thought she had just run away from an abusive husband. She didn’t dare to tell them the truth.

  Father Caleb had everyone fooled with his blinding televangelist smile and down-home, folksy way of speaking. He helped out in local police fundraisers too, making sure to keep Tampa's finest on his side. People from all over the world donated to The Brotherhood of Peace, thinking they were funding good works and charity.

  And the Brotherhood did do charity—or appeared to. They were always there, on the front lines working hard after natural disasters or handing out baskets of food to the poor at Christmas. Nobody would believe that such a fine, upstanding organization hid a rotten heart—like a beautiful red apple with a putrid center. No one would believe that the Compound wasn’t just a religious retreat but also a prison for the young girls who couldn’t get out of it…

  But I got out, Sarah told herself fiercely. I got out and I’m not going back. I won’t end up like Sister Jenny—I won’t!

  “Would you rather I didn’t call your former employer, Ms. Michaels?” Commander Sazar was giving her a penetrating look from those pale eyes.

  “I…” Sarah swallowed hard. “That would…probably be better. I realize it doesn’t give you much to go on for my past employment but I can give you the name and number of the woman who runs the shelter where I’m staying. She hasn’t known me long but she can tell you I’m honest and a hard worker. I’ve been helping out in their office while I stay there.”

  That was all true. And she was pretty sure the shelter director, Benita Sanders, would give her a good reference—if the huge, intimidating Kindred sitting across the desk from her would only take it.

  Sarah held her breath as he narrowed his eyes, apparently considering her offer. She felt like she had during those tense moments at three o’clock in the morning as she stood just inside the gate of the Compound and offered Zeus her last slice of bacon. Would he give her a chance?

  At last, Sazar nodded.

  “All right, I’ll agree to call the shelter you’re staying at instead of The Brotherhood,” he said. “But…you may not want me to bother when you hear the requirements of your new position.”

  Sarah’s heart jumped. He was talking like she already had the job! Your new position—he’d actually said your new position!

  Then she remembered what the blonde applicant had been complaining about.

  “Is it the biting thing?” she asked flatly, trying to keep her tone cool and businesslike.

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “The biting thing?”

  “Oh, uh…” Yet again, Sarah felt like a fool. “I just thought…I mean, the girl who interviewed before me said…”

  “I am a Pitch-Blood Kindred,” Commander Sazar said in a dry, level voice as detached as hers had been. “Which means I need to consume blood. Not a lot of it and not very often but I do need it. And if you take this job and come with me to Alquon Ultrea, you must be willing to provide it to me.”

  Sarah squared her shoulders and took a deep breath.

  “Will it hurt?” she asked directly.

  “Yes.” His tone was clipped, frigid. “I apologize but I cannot make the experience pleasurable for anyone save my mate. And since I have no mate at the moment—”

  “Where would you bite me?” Sarah interrupted. “I mean…what I’m trying to ask is: is this some kind of a sex thing?”

  He stiffened, his broad shoulders going absolutely rigid as a muscle tensed in his jaw. For a moment Sarah thought she’d gone too far but damn it, she’d had to ask! She hadn’t gone to the trouble of running away from The Brotherhood and Father Caleb just to land herself in another position where she would be abused or molested. Although she had to admit, the idea of being touched by the tall, muscular Commander Sazar was a lot more appealing that picturing the same thing with the aging, oily Father Caleb…

  “Taking blood from a mate can be part of the sexual experience for a Pitch-Blood Kindred,” Sazar answered at last. “I tell you this in the interest of honesty and complete discloser. However, taking blood from you would not be in any way sexual. You are not my mate and I am not yours. I would not be seeking to pleasure you—I would only be taking a small amount for sustenance.”

  Sarah studied his stern, earnest face, which might have been handsome if he smiled, and decided she believed him.

  “All right,” she said at last. “But you never told me where you would bite me.”

  “The wrist. Perhaps the crook of your elbow—both areas offer easy access to veins.” He spoke dryly again, the stiff irritation gone from his deep voice.

  “Not…not my neck?” In every book or movie she’d ever seen featuring vampires, they always went for the neck.

  He raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I can call a vein for drinking from almost any area in your body—that is one of my abilities as a Pitch-Blood. But I would not…bite you there. It would be…too intimate and this is not, as you put it, ‘a sex thing.’ It is strictly about sustenance and survival.”

  “I see.” Sarah was surprised at the slight feeling of disappointment she felt. The idea of the huge Kindred gathering her into his arms and pressing those cruel, sensual lips to her throat was darkly exciting.

  But what was she thinking? She most definitely didn’t want any kind of intimacy with h