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  “You…you won’t?” A rush of relief came over her so strongly she felt faint.

  “No.” Xairn shook his head grimly. “I don’t know how I am going to manage it, but I swear on my honor, I will take you away from this place unharmed and bring you back to your home planet. Do you understand?”

  “Oh Xairn!” She almost laughed through her tears. “I…I could just kiss you!” Throwing her arms around his neck she leaned forward impulsively and pressed her lips to his. They were surprisingly soft but before she could register much more, Xairn jerked away from the sudden contact.

  “Don’t.” His deep voice was harsh, strained. “Don’t ever do that again, Lauren. Or I can’t be responsible for the consequences. Do you understand?”

  Not really? Why did a simple kiss upset him so much? But she only nodded contritely. “I’m sorry. I’m just so glad. So glad you care about me enough to help me.”

  “Let us be clear about one thing.” He held her eyes with his. “You have aroused emotions in me—very strong emotions. But that is not a good thing.”

  Lauren stared at him uncertainly. “Do…do you mean that you hate me? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Not hate, no.” He shook his head. “What I feel for you…let’s just say it will be better—far better—if those feelings are never explored or acted on.”

  “I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say,” Lauren said softly. “But I do want to thank you for promising to help me.”

  “There’s no point in expressing your gratitude yet—I haven’t even worked out a plan.” He sighed. “Until I do, I must pretend to comply with my father’s will. And you’re going to have to trust me. Can you do that?”

  Biting her lip, Lauren nodded hesitantly. “Yes, I trust you.”

  “Thank you.” He nodded gravely. “That means a great deal to me. And now I have to put you in one of these cells and secure the rest of the Complex before reporting back to my father.”

  “You’re leaving me alone? In here?” She couldn’t help glancing at the instruments of torture strewn around the surgery suite room again.

  “Nothing will harm you,” Xairn said, his rough voice almost soothing. “We are the only creatures alive on this planet. Well—other than a few minor life forms like the black crested lizards. But they live mainly on the beaches and won’t come inside.” He shook his head. “The point is, you’ll be safe, even if I’m in another part of the building.”

  “But what if…if your father decides he wants to come, uh, see me?” Lauren asked, unable to keep the fear out of her voice. “If he touches me, Xairn, I swear I’ll go crazy. I can’t help it.”

  “He often has that effect on females,” Xairn said grimly. “But you don’t need to worry about him—not yet. He is ensconced in his Souda—it’s a special room within the Complex which channels the power of the planet directly to his person. Once he enters it, a dravik forms.”

  Lauren frowned. “A what?”

  “A dravik—a large bubble made of nourishing blood which forms around him. He can move about the Complex while ensconced within it, but until it bursts, he will be unable to touch you.”

  “But how long will that be?” Lauren protested. The idea of the hideous, skeletal AllFather encased in a bubble made of blood was horrific enough. But the idea of him coming for her after the bubble had burst and he was covered in the stuff—well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

  “At least a few hours—most likely more,” Xairn said patiently. “But you don’t need to fear—I will return for you long before that. I promise. I just have to lull my father into believing all is well and we’ll make our escape.”

  “How? I thought your father had the only key to the ship we came in?”

  “He does but there are abandoned ships not far from here—many of them—from the last battle that was fought here with the Kindred. We can take one of those—they should still be operational.”

  “All right.” Lauren sighed and nodded. “I trust you to do right by me, Xairn. Just please hurry—this place gives me the creeps.”

  “It has been the site of untold horrors,” he agreed, taking her into one of the empty, glassed in cells. “But they’re over and done and in the past. You have nothing to fear now.”

  “I hope you’re right.” As he deposited her gently onto her feet, Lauren reached up impulsively and gave him a tight hug. “Come back soon,” she whispered in his ear. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  “I will come as soon as I can.” Xairn gently disengaged her arms from around his neck and when his face came into view, it wasn’t at all happy. “But you must stop touching me that way, Lauren. It…is not a good thing.”

  “Because it makes you feel?” she asked softly.

  Stiffly, Xairn nodded. “Yes. I must go now.”

  “All right.” She stood with her back to one glass wall and watched as he locked her in. “Goodbye.”

  “I’ll return,” he said shortly. “Remember, you’re perfectly safe. There is no one else on the entire planet besides the two of us, my father and his guards. And they are programmed to stay exclusively with him and protect him.”

  “All right.” Lauren nodded and watched as he left the medical wing. She listened as the echo of his boots died away to silence and then began to pace. The glass holding cell was small—barely bigger than the one she’d been kept in aboard the Fathership, although thankfully larger than the tiny cramped space she’d been shoved into on the adjunct ship. Still, it only took her five steps to get from one end to the other and eight steps to go across diagonally.

  Lauren supposed she ought to conserve her strength but she couldn’t help it—she was nervous. She had faith that Xairn would keep his word—or try to, anyway—but she didn’t like being locked in a cell on a dead planet with an evil being who wanted to rape her. Not to mention his monstrous, soulless guards. Those things were eight feet tall if they were an inch and she had no idea how Xairn was going to get around them if they got in the way when she and Xairn attempted their escape. Or—

  Lauren stopped pacing suddenly and listened. What’s that sound?

  At first she thought Xairn was coming back because the faint noise sounded like the echo of his boots in the hallway. But it was coming from the opposite direction he’d left from and soon she could tell that it wasn’t just one set of boots approaching her. There were at least two, maybe more, and the deep, masculine voices she heard murmuring over the tap-tapping of their boots were wholly unfamiliar.

  My God, she thought, panic rising in her like a tidal wave. There are other people here—strangers—and I’m locked in this cell like a sitting duck. They can do anything they want to me and I can’t stop them, can’t get out.

  She was trapped.

  * * * * *

  “I thought I told you not to disssturb me.” The AllFather floated forward, his skeletal form partially obscured by the round crimson-black orb of the dravik which surrounded him in a bubble of polluted blood. In each of the four corners of the Souda stood an eight foot tall soldier—the AllFather’s personal guard were silent as always. Xairn ignored them.

  “I know what you said, Father, but I wanted to let you know that the Complex is secure.” He kept his voice neutral.

  “I sssee.” The shape inside the blackish-red bubble nodded. “Well then, that isss all to the good. Where isss the girl?”

  “Securely imprisoned within the medical wing, as you requested.”

  “Very good. Sssee that ssshe isss ready.” The AllFather’s voice was a hiss of pure lust. “I’ll take her the moment my dravik burstsss.”

  Xairn felt a muscle in his jaw clench and forced it to relax. Nothing I feel nothing. But it was no longer true. Lauren had woken something inside him. Something that would have been better left undisturbed.

  “My ssson?” The AllFather floated closer, seeming to glide within the confines of the dravik. He was always in the exact center of the glistening, blackish-red bubble, no matter which