Awakened by the Giant Read online

  Or maybe don’t want to remember, whispered an ominous little voice in her head. Maybe can’t bear to remember.

  Maddy retched again but this time nothing came up, though her stomach clenched like a slick fist. She stared dully as the puddle of green slime that had come up the first time slid towards the dried blood. When the green and maroon mixed, it made a disgusting brown color that made her feel like heaving again.

  Then Calden was sweeping her up into his arms again and cradling her close to his chest.

  “Come,” he said, his voice sounding half tender, half stern. “We need to get you out of here. I never should have brought you in the first place—it’s too much for you to handle right now.”

  “You had to,” Maddy said weakly. “I never would have believed you otherwise. But I see now. They’re dead…all dead. I don’t understand how I survived myself.”

  Calden didn’t offer any opinion on that. He simply carried her out of the vast hangar-like room, away from the wreck of the Kennedy and the remains of her old life.

  Maddy shivered against his chest, trying not to think…trying not to feel. She felt cold and empty and broken inside. And alone…so alone.

  Six

  Maybe I did the wrong thing in bringing her back—in cloning her. Maybe the memories of her own death and the loss of her mate and the rest of her crew is too much emotional pain to bear.

  It was something he hadn’t even considered before starting this project, Calden admitted to himself as he stood and watched over Madeline while she slept. He should have though—should have realized that cloning a sentient being—a person—would have consequences.

  Madeline sighed and shifted in her sleep. Calden had given her a sedative to help calm her down and then taken her to his own room. Most specimens were kept in containment cages when they weren’t being studied and observed but there was no way he could do that to the soft little female. So instead, he had taken her back to his own quarters and had slipped her between the sheets of his own sleeping platform.

  The sleeping platform was the one piece of furniture in the entire station which was built completely to Calden’s scale. Though he compromised elsewhere, he knew he needed to stretch out when he slept so he had made sure he could. Now he watched Madeline shift again, her small form looking tiny on the vast mattress.

  She had been shivering so he had gotten a warming blanket he used on his more delicate specimens and put that over her as well. But despite the extra warmth and the sedative he had given her, she still frowned in her sleep, her brows knitting together as she tossed restlessly.

  “Pierce!” she whispered, clearly talking in her sleep. “Don’t say that…how can you be that way? I thought…thought you loved me. Don’t you care at all anymore? How could you…why did you…”

  Calden frowned. Pierce—hadn’t that been the name of Madeline’s now-deceased mate? Was she dreaming of him? If so, the dream seemed to be unpleasant. As he watched, tears squeezed from the corners of her tightly shut eyes and she let out a little moan of pure unhappiness.

  Unable to bear watching her in pain, Calden crouched by the side of the bed and cupped her soft cheek in his hand. Gods, she was so tiny and perfect! He’d never had much contact with females of his own kind. As he had told Madeline, most of them had died out before he was born and even his own mother had died when he was very young. But he couldn’t imagine a more beautiful female than the one before him now.

  Madeline sighed and pressed her cheek into his palm, her delicate features at last relaxing as she nuzzled against him.

  “That’s right, nieka,” Calden murmured. “Just relax…everything will be all right. You’ll see.”

  Although how it would be all right, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure how to make things easier for her, or even how or if he ought to tell her she was a clone. Madeline had wondered about how she had survived the crash when all the rest of her crew had died but Calden hadn’t thought it was the right time to tell her the truth. She was already so upset—he thought it best to save that particular bit of knowledge for later.

  “It’s all right,” he murmured to her again. “I’ll take care of you. I swear I will.”

  Right up until the self-termination unit in her neck takes care of her for you, you mean,whispered a dark little voice in his head.

  Calden pushed it fiercely away. He wouldn’t think of that now—couldn’t think of it now. He just wanted to stay here, at Madeline’s side, and stroke her soft cheek and watch her sleep. He wanted to protect her and possess her and make her his, though he scarcely knew how.

  He never wanted to let her go.

  Maddy woke in the darkness in an unfamiliar bed. Her head felt fuzzy and stuffed with cotton. She had been dreaming. Dreaming of…Pierce? Yes, dreaming of her husband. She couldn’t quite remember the dream but she did remember the emotions that had accompanied it. Betrayal…hurt…anger… What had Pierce done to fill her with such feelings? What had he done and where was he?

  For that matter, where was she?

  Maddy sat up and blinked in the darkness. She tried to push her hair out of her eyes but found that her hands seemed to be numb. They flopped uselessly at the ends of her arms and she felt a surge of panic.

  Good God, what was wrong with her? Had she had some kind of stroke in the middle of the night which only affected her hands? How could she work at her veterinary practice if she couldn’t use them? What was she going to do?

  I need help!

  Anxiously, she felt with her forearms, sliding them over the mattress, trying to find Pierce. But his side of the bed was empty. Which was not unusual now that she thought about it. Pierce had been sleeping in the guest bedroom for months before they got word that the Kennedy was going to leave ahead of schedule. And after that, he’d done his best to take a different sleeping shift than her so they rarely, if ever, went to bed together. But Maddy had been trying to change that, hadn’t she? She’d been trying to put them back together…struggling to forgive him for…

  Forgive him for what? What had he done? And where was he?

  “Pierce?” Her voice sounded quavery and small in the vast blackness that surrounded her. She tried to make it firmer—more assertive. “Pierce? Where are you?”

  “Madeline?” The deep, somehow familiar voice came from the side of the bed. Who was that? And what were they doing down on the floor?

  “Pierce?” she asked again but she was almost certain whoever was down there wasn’t her husband. Who was it though? Her fuzzy brain wouldn’t let her remember.

  “No, I am not your mate. Lights dim,” the deep voice said.

  A soft, golden glow which seemed to come from the corners of the ceiling suddenly suffused the room. Maddy blinked and looked around, seeing that she was in an unfamiliar bed—an absolutely huge one, so vast it looked like someone had taken two king-sized beds and put them together end-to-end to form one monstrous mattress.

  Then someone sat up beside the bed—a giant with glowing topaz eyes and a concerned expression on his face.

  “Madeline?” he said, frowning. “Are you feeling any better?”

  For a moment she was tempted to scream…then everything came rushing back to her. Waking up in the slime tanks…the Mentats…the lab…the space station…the ruined hulk of the Kennedy…realizing that everyone she had ever known or loved was dead…and the big Kindred carrying her away and giving her something he said would help her sleep.

  “Calden?” she whispered, making his name a question.

  “Yes, Madeline?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you well? The sedative I gave you shouldn’t have worn off yet—it’s still the middle of the sleep cycle.”

  “You’re real, aren’t you? This is real? Not just a dream?” It was hard to believe—hard to accept that all the strange things that had happened to her in the past twenty-four hours were really true.

  “I am not a dream,” he said. “I’m sorry, Madeline—this is reality. I know it must seem strange to you