Seeing With the Heart: Kindred Tales Read online

  A warrior taken prisoner, held in chains without hope

  A princess fascinated by the strange alien male

  When Dani slips into the prisoner's cell to learn more about him,

  she doesn't expect to fall in love

  But Kyron is a Touch Kindred…

  able to Touch her even though his hands are chained

  Will he also Touch her heart? Will Dani help him escape?

  Find out in Freeing the Prisoner…

  Chapter One

  “Let go! Let go of me, Goddess-damn it! How many times do I have to tell you I’m not your enemy?”

  Kyron struggled in the unbreakable grip of the Goshan warriors but there were too many of the little blue bastards. Briefly he debated using his Touch sense on them—as a Touch Kindred he was able to stimulate the nerves of others using only his mind and the special gift of his kind. But he had taken a solemn vow when he signed aboard the Mother Ship that he would never use his power as a weapon. Besides, the warriors already seemed to think he was some kind of evil outsider—he didn’t need to make their opinion of him worse or he would never get free of them.

  “Listen to me, I’m a Kindred—we’re a peaceful race,” he exclaimed as they marched him through the huge, echoing docking area where they had forced him to land his ship. “We live on the other side of the Blind and we mean you no harm.”

  The Blind was a huge cloud of cosmic dust, many light years across, which separated Ky’s own part of the universe from another, mysterious sector. Few dared to pass through it into the unknown area beyond, but he had volunteered when Commander Sylvan, the head of the Kindred High Council, had asked for pilots to go explore it.

  He was supposed to be scouting the home planet of the Hive—the race of insectile beings which had invaded the solar system the Kindred called home and now threatened every living thing on planet Earth, which the Kindred protected. Instead, he had barely passed through the Blind when his ship was surrounded by a squadron of vessels who seemed intent on forcing him to land on their planet.

  Kyron hadn’t attempted any desperate maneuvers, deciding it was better to wait and explain himself once he landed. Who knew, maybe he could even get help from this new people in his quest?

  But no help appeared to be forthcoming so far. In fact, he doubted these blue warriors—who were much smaller than him but too numerous to fight—were even listening to him.

  “I tell you I’m a Kindred—we mean you no harm!” he exclaimed as one of them clamped a pair of magno-lock manacles around his wrists.

  “Kindred,” the male spat contemptuously. “Yes, we have heard of you. A race of giants so weak you allow your women to rule you.”

  “I’ve heard they even pray to a female deity,” another said and the rest roared with laughter.

  “A female deity? Who ever heard of such a thing? Why would any self-respecting male pray to a female?”

  “It is because they treat their women as though they were rational beings. As if they could think like males.” The first male spat again, as though the very notion left a bad taste in his mouth. “Tell me, Kindred,” he sneered, “Do you have a female back home that you worship and allow to order you around?”

  “No, I don’t,” Ky said with dignity. “But if I did she would be neither my ruler nor my slave but my equal.”

  His answer was met with roars of derision and mockery as they dragged him from the landing area down a long metal corridor. Their shouts and the sounds of their marching boots filled the hallway with echoes and filled Ky’s heart with misgivings. What kind of savages had he been taken by? Who were these people who spat on the idea of the Goddess, the Mother of all Life, and a race who considered male and female to be equal?

  Goddess, he thought as they dragged him into a cell. I’m in a bad position here. What the hell am I going to do?

  There were no answers forthcoming. Only more trollish laughter as his captors forced him into a small stone and glass cell. They pushed him down to sit on a rough stone bench and shoved his manacled hands above his head where a metal plate was bolted into the stone wall.

  Ky gave a gasp as a jolt ran through him and the mangno-locks stuck fast to the ferromagnetic plate, holding his arms above his head in a most uncomfortable position.

  “There, Kindred,” the first male, who appeared to be the one in charge, said. “That should hold you.”

  “Wait—don’t you have any due process here?” Ky was growing increasingly angry—he should never have allowed them to take him! “Is there no one here—a magistrate or a judge of some kind—I can explain my mission to?”

  “A magistrate or a judge?” There was another rumble of ugly laughter.

  “Consider yourself lucky, Kindred,” the first male said. “You’re in the royal torture chamber—the one used by the Monarch himself. You can explain yourself to him whenever he gets around to coming down to see you.” His dark blue face spilt in an ugly grin, showing teeth that badly needed cleaning. “But I wouldn’t hold your breath. The Monarch has better things to do than come down to the dungeon and listen to female-worshipers whine.”

  “Wait—” Ky began. But the guards were already leaving, clanging the metal door behind them.

  For a time, Ky struggled with the mangno-locks holding his arms above his head but though his considerable muscles bulged, there was no moving them. Finally he acknowledged it would be easier to tear his arms from their sockets than to break the incredibly strong magnetic field to free his hands. Gods, he was trapped here and he hadn’t even been able to send a distress signal back to the Mother Ship before he was taken.

  What in the Seven Hells was he going to do?

  Wait for their leader—for the Monarch that they talked about—to come. Maybe I can make him understand I don’t pose a threat to them. If I can just explain about the Hive and how fucking dangerous they are, maybe I can even get his help on this mission.

  But how long would it take for the Monarch to acknowledge that he had a prisoner and bother coming down to speak to him? And even if he did come, who could say that he would be willing to hear from a Kindred, whom these people apparently reviled because of their devotion to a female Goddess and their refusal to use women as objects?

  With a groan, he slumped back against the cold metal plate and let himself sag in his restraints.

  I’m in so much fucking trouble here…How am I going to get out of this?

  Again, he had no answers.

  He also had no idea that someone was watching him.

  * * * * *

  Dannella had been watching from the start.

  She was a princess of the Blood and had grown up in the palace, so she knew all the ins and outs of the historic building. In fact, she knew about something no one else did—a series of secret passageways behind the panels with hidden spy holes in the walls. These must have been placed by the builders of the palace centuries ago and then forgotten and Dani, being intelligent and naturally curious, had found them. Now she used them often to get around in private and learn what was really going on.

  She had hiding in the panel behind the throne room instead of studying her needlecraft as she was supposed to, watching her father the Monarch, make a ruling, when the report had come in.

  “Your Majesty, an enemy ship has been spotted invading Goshan space,” one of her father’s communications officers exclaimed, pressing a finger to the receiving device implanted next to his aural nerve.

  “What kind of ship?” Her father had frowned deeply, worry lines creasing his indigo skin. He had the deep blue skin tones that were common to the males of the Goshan people while Danella’s mother, who had died suddenly when Dani was only six, had had a pale, creamy brown tone which Dani herself had inherited.

  “Unknown, your Majesty. Shall we blow it out of the sky?”

  “No…” The Monarch frowned, pursing his lips, and rose to pace around the richly appointed throne room. Its high, vaulted ceiling was made of concentric rings of the shin