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  “Then let them sssee usss. We will be hiding in plain sssight.”

  Xairn shook his head. “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind. I have made arrangementsss for all contingenciesss—that isss all you need to know.”

  “I still don’t understand why we don’t try to take them now,” Xairn argued. “I can have the urlich focus on his scent instead—it must be the one that confused them in the beginning when two of the pack were certain they had her. The lead bitch has a marker in her tooth. One bite and—”

  The AllFather shook his head. “Leave them. I want the girl to bond herself to the warrior who guardsss her—or at least givesss him her fragile human heart—before she is taken. That way her pain will be much greater when ssshe is ripped from him. And my pleasure in taking her will be multiplied a hundred fold.”

  The greedy anticipation in those glowing red eyes was obvious. Xairn kept his face carefully blank. Though the AllFather preferred to feed on the psychic pain of his victims, he was not above devouring physical and sexual pain as well. He, like all Scourge, was a natural sadist—it was in his very DNA to cause harm, to demand submission.

  Xairn had never taken a female against her will, though he knew he had those tendencies locked within himself—a brutal legacy from his father. But he had seen too many of the AllFather’s victims, broken and empty, to wish to perpetrate such an act. He had no desires of the carnal nature and only prayed that nothing ever awakened his own dark appetites. That no female ever excited him to such acts of perversity and lust. It would be kinder if the girl was taken sooner, before she forms a bond, he thought. Kinder, yes—but against his father’s wishes.

  “We will wait for the girl,” the AllFather intoned, breaking his train of thought.

  “Then I will remove the urlich. Their pods should still be functional. If they are not, I can use the transfer beam.”

  “No. Let them ssstay until the girl goesss. They must familiarize themselves with the warrior’s ssscent as well—I want it burned into their brainsss. We may have need of them later.”

  “Very well. I will wait.”

  “Yesss, we will wait. But not all pleasuresss must be delayed. Come forward, my ssson. I believe you were expecting a punishment?”

  His heart sank but Xairn squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “I was.”

  The AllFather clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Alwaysss so brave to begin with. Let us sssee how long it takesss to break you. Come.”

  Nothing to do but bear it. Try to get through it. It was a familiar litany, one that had been with him from his bitter, barren childhood.

  Xairn knelt before the metal throne, trying to shield his mind. There was only one thing he cared about, one thing that kept him from despair and madness in his hellish existence aboard the Fathership. It was a small spark of warmth, barely enough to heat the cold corridors of his heart, yet he was desperate to keep it from the AllFather’s greedy, seeking grasp. So far he had managed to keep his secret, but how long could he continue? Each time the AllFather probed him, he got closer to that small, hidden corner Xairn fought so desperately to protect. How long until it was uncovered, the contents rifled and destroyed?

  “Now then…” The AllFather positioned himself, his scabrous fingertips pressing lightly against Xairn’s skull. His touch was corpse-cold and wholly repulsive. No wonder the Earth girls he’d tried to mate with had gone mad long before he killed them. The touch of his father’s hands made even Xairn shiver and he had been enduring it since birth.

  The worst thing was, the AllFather had no need of physical contact in order to scan his subjects—he only touched Xairn because he knew it made the whole experience even worse and harder to bear. Someday I’ll touch him in a way he finds hard to bear—Xairn cut off that line of thought abruptly. It would never do to let his father hear him think such treasonous things even though the AllFather surely knew Xairn hated him. Knew and didn’t give a damn.

  The feeling of icy fingers rifling through his memories was both familiar and repugnant. As usual the AllFather lingered over past pains and sorrows, polishing them lovingly until they gleamed like precious jewels with edges sharp enough to draw blood.

  Being torn from my nurse and told I would never see her again. She was kind to me—the only one who ever was. A Kindred bride the AllFather captured. Yet when I was old enough to be on my own he took her from me and drove her mad. Seeing her later locked in a cage like an animal, her eyes unseeing even when I called her name over and over, begging her to look at me…

  Living like a beast beneath the metal throne—given only scraps to eat for days at a time, no safe place to call my own. Kicked with hard boots, stepped on and trampled if I got in the way, spat on, beaten. I learned the true meaning of hatred then and have known it ever since…

  The pet lizard I found on the home world when we visited—it was black with purple edged scales. I never had a pet before and father let me keep it for weeks, lavishing it with affection before he crushed it beneath his boot while I wept and begged him not to. The sound of his laughter as he watched my tears and feasted on my pain…

  The excruciating flow of memories went on and on, each one blindingly intense and horribly real—almost as though it had just happened. The AllFather liked to keep the pain he inflicted sharp and intact, to allow instant access to the mental suffering he fed from so greedily. Xairn often thought that his father had conceived him not because he wanted an heir, but because he wanted a constant source of nourishment—a deep well of agony that would never run dry.

  He tried to endure, but in the end Xairn lost his composure. It was the question of his true mother that broke him—as it almost always did. “Who was ssshe?” whispered the AllFather in his mind. “And what did I do to her when I was done using her body, done ravaging her mind? Ssshe loved you, you know—cared for you as only a mother can care for her child. Ssshe wept and raved when I took you from her. Begged to be allowed to hold you just once more…”

  The mental image of a woman with tears in her eyes—eyes unlike the glowing red on black of Xairn and his father—filled his mind. Though her skin had been the pale, pearlescent gray of all Scourge, his mother’s eyes had been green—a deep, beautiful green. In his vision they swam with tears as she begged to be allowed to keep her child—to keep Xairn…

  It wasn’t until there were tears in Xairn’s own eyes that the AllFather finally stopped and withdrew his icy presence from Xairn’s mind.

  “Ssstill weak. You always break for that vision.” The AllFather’s voice was contemptuous.

  “What did you do to her? Does she still live?” Xairn had never dared to ask the question before, but this time it seemed drawn from his lips.

  The red eyes buried far back in the shadowy cloak glared. “That I ssshall leave to your vivid imagination. Now go.” The AllFather waved one skeletal hand dismissively. “I am sssated for now.”

  “Yes, Father.” Xairn nodded stoically and rose to stand tall and proud before his father’s throne. The emotional pain he felt must not be echoed by physical weakness. And despite the torture he had managed to keep his secret. The hidden part of his heart was still just that—hidden. A victory, he thought ruefully, blinking tears from his eyes. A small one but I can call it my own.

  Turning, he walked down the long, broad steps that led to the metal throne and made his way from the AllFather’s presence with what dignity he could. Gods above, how he hated the soulless bastard and longed for his death!

  He knew it was a foolish wish. His father spoke of Xairn succeeding him but he didn’t believe it would ever really happen. The AllFather would be there forever—the malignant dark sun he was doomed to orbit for his entire existence.

  For how could one who was not truly alive, die?

  But I will see to the girl, he thought grimly. He has no right to inflict such agony again. After all the many he captured and tortured, looking for just the right DNA sequence to fulfill the prophesy. She shall