Falling for Kindred Claus: A Kindred Tales Novel (Brides of the Kindred) Read online

  “I don’t know,” Asher sent back. “I have had a…most disturbing dream about her. He shook his head. “Perhaps it was just a nightmare. Ouch!”

  “What happened?” Sylvan sent anxiously.

  “The damn chewchie—it bit me—again.”

  Asher looked down at the little creature in irritation. It had nipped the tip of his index finger sharply—in fact, there was blood welling up. The damn thing had really bitten him hard.

  “That’s enough of that,” he told it aloud, glaring at it. “If you bite me again I’ll—”

  The chewchie opened its mouth but instead of squeaking or howling, a voice came out—a familiar voice, in fact.

  Lisa’s voice.

  “Help me!” it whispered, as though it couldn’t get enough breath and he saw a picture in his mind of the attacker choking Lisa, cutting off her air with one meaty hand. “Help me, please!”

  “My Goddess—-how did you do that?” Asher exclaimed, staring down at the chewchie. “And is it true?”

  “Is what true?” he heard Sylvan ask in his head and realized they were still connected.

  “The chewchie seems to be sending me a message,” Asher confessed. “I know that sounds odd but it seems to be sending me pictures of Lisa in danger and just now it… it spoke with her voice. But how can that be?” He shook his head again. “I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

  “No, you’re not!” Sylvan sounded excited. “The Chorkays’ method of long-distance communication—these creatures might be it. Don’t you see, Asher—her chewchie must have hatched too, and now it’s sending a message to yours.”

  Asher felt sick. If that was true, he might have just seen the woman he loved murdered in front of his eyes—or through the eyes of the little gray chewchie which was still glaring at him angrily.

  “Gruff!” it barked in its high-pitched, angry little voice. “Gruff-gruff!”

  Only now Asher seemed to hear the sounds in his head as words and they were saying, “Now! Hurry—danger!”

  “I need Lisa’s coordinates,” he sent to Sylvan as he got up and began pulling on his clothes. “Now! I think she’s in danger!”

  “I’ll have Baird bespeak you with them,” Sylvan sent back.

  “Good—I’m on my way to the Docking Bay now.”

  Asher ran out the door of his suite, tucking his laser knife

  and his blaster into his pockets, barely noticing as he went that the smoky gray chewchie was clinging to his shoulder. He had to get to Lisa before it was too late.

  If it wasn’t already.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Lisa gasped in terror as the cold hand squeezed tighter around her throat.

  “Well, my dear, so at last I found you,” a familiar voice breathed in her ear. With it came the heavy scent of Scotch and Lisa didn’t even have to look to know who her attacker was.

  “Please…Cameron,” she choked out, trying to speak past the constricting hand around her throat. “Please, can’t…can’t breathe. You…you’re scaring me!”

  “Well, isn’t that too bad,” he snarled in her face, his own face doughy and contorted with rage in the dim light from the TV. “Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you, Lisa? Do you, you little bitch?” He squeezed tighter. “Maybe you deserve to be as frightened as I was when I came home from work and found you gone six…months…ago!”

  With each word he lifted her by her throat and slammed her head against the arm of the couch. Luckily, there was enough padding to keep her from being cut or completely knocked out, but Lisa began to feel sick and dizzy.

  If he keeps this up, I’m going to pass out, she thought woozily. And if I pass out, I can’t talk him out of killing me…

  “Help me!” she gasped but the words came out in a whisper, since Cameron was still cutting off her air. “Help me, please!”

  Suddenly there was a high, unearthly screeching sound and something small and fluffy flew at Cameron’s distorted face. It was Isabel, Lisa saw—in her terror she had completely forgotten about the chewchie but now her tiny companion was fighting for her life, though Lisa’s ex husband was as big as a mountain compared to the little creature.

  “Isabel, no!” she cried but the chewchie didn’t seem to hear her. She was scratching madly at Cameron’s eyes and he was bellowing and beating at her with his ham-sized fists, trying to kill whatever was on his face.

  Lisa watched, her heart in her mouth. If he landed even a single blow it would no doubt kill the fragile chewchie.

  But Isabel seemed to be excellent at avoiding Cameron’s drunken swatting and punching. Every time his hand fell, she hopped out of the way just in time and the blow landed on his own face instead. It was an amazing sight—but how long could Isabel keep it up?

  While Cameron was distracted, Lisa managed to wriggle out from under his bulk and jump off the couch. The minute she was free, she called,

  “Isabel—come here, little girl!”

  The chewchie made an amazing leap through the air, launching herself from the top of Cameron’s balding head, where she had scrambled to avoid his latest blow, to Lisa’s waiting hands. She climbed up Lisa’s arm and nestled herself safely against the side of her neck where Lisa could feel her fragile body quivering and hear her tiny, rapid panting.

  She started to dodge to the right to get by Cameron and head for the front door, but her husband lumbered around and blocked her way just before she could.

  “I don’t think so, my dear,” he said, smiling that cruel smile she remembered so well. “You’re not going anywhere until you’ve had your punishment. Six months of punishment, all at once, in fact.” He sneered at her, his face a mass of bloody scratches in the faint light of the TV. “I wonder if you’ll survive it. Somehow I rather doubt you will.”

  Lisa broke and ran, Isabel clinging to her hair as she whipped down the narrow corridor into the tiny kitchen. She was heading for the back door, which opened onto a postage-stamp-sized backyard, separated from her neighbors’ yards by only a flimsy chain link fence. She was sure if she could just get over it, she could make a run for it and find someplace to hide. If she could just…

  Her hand grabbed the knob and she twisted and pushed—but nothing happened. Heart pounding, breath tearing in her lungs, Lisa twisted the knob again—then tried working the thumb-lock, first one way and then another.

  Still nothing.

  “Oh, I don’t think so, my dear,” Cameron’s voice said behind her. “You see—I’m onto your tricks. I jammed the back door long before I broke in the front.”

  Lisa turned to see him blocking the narrow kitchen door, an evil grin on his bloody face. She drew in a breath and screamed at the top of her lungs,

  “Help! Help me—call the police!”

  The walls were paper thin and she knew her next door neighbors must hear her. But the only response she got was a brief pounding on the wall and someone shouting back,

  “Quiet in there! Peoples’ tryna sleep!”

  “Oh, I think you’ve come to the wrong neighborhood if you think someone from here is going to call the police,” Cameron remarked, still grinning at her. “I drove past at least two fairly flagrant drug deals on my way to find you—I doubt that Tampa’s finest get down to this area of town very often.”

  He began advancing on her again.

  “Which begs the question, my dear—why would you rather live in this dump than in our lovely house out in Shelton Chase Estates? Why would you run away from me in the first place?”

  “Because,” Lisa spat, “At least in this dump nobody gets drunk and beats me up every couple of weeks!”

  Cameron’s face darkened in the dim light spilling in through the kitchen window.

  “Now, now, my dear. I don’t ‘beat you up.’ I simply punish you and only when you deserve it. Like now!”

  He lunged at her but Lisa ducked, jumping to the side of the ancient stove. There was a cast iron skillet there—another relic left by a previous tenant. Lisa had got