Falling for Kindred Claus Read online

  “Give me a moment. I’ll have him call you with his decision.”

  The viewscreen flickered again and went blank. But it wasn’t long at all before it came to life again and a new face—this one a blond Blood Kindred with fangs and pale blue eyes—appeared.

  “Commander Sylvan,” Asher nodded his head respectfully. “Thank you for calling me. I was hoping to ask—”

  “Commander Drugair has already told me all about both your dilemma and your solution to it,” the other Kindred interrupted. “And I have to commend you for solving the problem already.”

  “Does that mean I get to go?” Lisa blurted, then bit her lip. She should have let Asher do the talking, especially since this was clearly a military-type chain of command.

  But Commander Sylvan didn’t seem upset with her.

  “Do you want to go?” he asked seriously.

  “Do I want to go?” Lisa took a deep breath. “Let me put it this way—for as long as I can remember I’ve dreamed of traveling to new and exotic places. A whole other planet on the other side of the galaxy is about as new and exotic as you can get.”

  Commander Sylvan smiled, the corners of his pale blue eyes crinkling with apparent amusement.

  “Well, your enthusiasm is certainly a plus. You’ll have to stop by the Mother Ship for a short time of course, to get a shot of translation bacteria so you can understand what’s being said on Helios Beta.” He looked over his shoulder. “Oh, and my mate, Sophia, is telling me that you’ll also probably need to get some new clothing to match whatever is fashionable on the planet right now. But since you’ll be folding space to get to the coronation instantaneously, I believe everything will be all right.”

  “That’s fine, Commander Sylvan, but there is the matter of payment,” Asher said, when it looked like the other Kindred was about to sign off. “Lisa should be compensated for her time and trouble—especially this close to the Earth holiday of Christmas,” he added.

  “Oh yes…” Commander Sylvan frowned. “Let me see. That’s emergency pay plus holiday pay which I believe at the current rate of KC to Dollar conversion equals about…” He squinted his eyes as though doing math in his head. “About two thousand dollars an hour,” he finished at last and looked at Lisa. “Will that be acceptable?”

  “Two…two…” She couldn’t make her mouth say the words. Forget California—two thousand dollars an hour would get her a plane ticket to Hawaii or Europe and the start of a whole new life!

  “Is that not enough?” Commander Sylvan asked, frowning. “I understand from my mate that working on or near Christmas is especially onerous, especially when one would rather be with family. What about two thousand, five hundred an hour?”

  “That…” Lisa licked her lips. “That would be fine. Just fine,” she finally managed to get out. “Thank you so much.”

  “Very well.” Commander Sylvan clapped his hands in a gesture of finality. “Then the two of you need to get up here quickly and get ready to go. We have no time to lose.”

  “Very well, Commander.” Asher nodded formally and, as the viewscreen went dark, he began pressing buttons that made the little car-ship rise into the air.

  They were on their way.

  Twelve

  The trip through space from the Earth to the Mother Ship, which was orbiting the moon, was amazing for Lisa, though Asher seemed to take it as a matter of course. She was all eyes, as her mom always said, as the sleek Kindred shuttle flew through the transparent atmosphere bubble and landed in the vast Docking Bay on the huge white ship.

  There was a welcome committee waiting for them—Commander Sylvan and three human women. To Lisa’s surprise, one of them was familiar.

  “Oh, hi again!” Liv exclaimed, coming forward to give her a hug as she climbed out of Asher’s ship. “This is Lisa. She’s the girl I told you about,” she explained to the other two women. “This is my twin sister, Sophie,” she said, pointing to a woman with dark brown hair and green eyes who looked very much like Liv herself. “And this is Kat.” She pointed to the other woman, who was plus sized like Lisa and had long auburn hair.

  “Hi,” Lisa said, smiling. “Nice to meet you.” She looked around at the immense Docking Bay, filled with hundreds of Kindred ships and gave a shaky laugh. “Wow, this is all happening so fast. I can’t believe I’m up here.”

  “We felt the same way when we first came to the Mother Ship,” Sophie said, smiling. “It is a little overwhelming, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is.” Lisa made an effort to stop gawking and looked at the welcome committee again. “Um, thank you for coming to meet me—but why are you here?”

  “To get you ready to go, doll!” Kat exclaimed. “Now look, I haven’t had much time—”

  “Try twenty minutes, since I called her right after you guys hung up with Sylvan,” Sophie put in, grinning.

  “Yes, thank you for the heads up,” Kat continued. “But anyway, I looked up some formal dress designs for the Chorkay people and I just need your measurements to get started.”

  Lisa looked at her, amazed.

  “You’re going to make me some dresses to wear to the coronation now? But…how will you have enough time?”

  “I have a special machine that can do it like that.” Kat snapped her fingers and grinned. “We’ll have you outfitted in no time flat!”

  “And I’m afraid I have a less-fun part to play in getting you ready,” Liv said apologetically. “I’m going to need to give you a shot of translation bacteria.”

  “They have it in pill form too, but the pill is huge,” Sophie confided to Lisa. “So it’s kind of up to you which one you prefer.”

  “Um…translation bacteria?” Lisa asked. She remembered that Commander Sylvan had said something about that as well, but it hadn’t really sunk into her brain which had still been busy thinking about making twenty-five hundred dollars an hour at the time.

  “Sure—so you can understand the Chorkay language and speak it back to them,” Kat said. “Look girls, can we walk and talk at the same time? Sylvan said we have less than an hour to get Lisa ready so we really need to move.”

  “All right but I need to say something to Asher,” Lisa exclaimed. She looked around and saw the tall Kindred standing to one side and talking earnestly with Commander Sylvan. He saw her looking for him and gave her a nod.

  “Go get ready, Lisa—I’ll meet you back here in an hour,” he said, breaking off his conversation with Commander Sylvan for a moment.

  “Okay—see you soon,” Lisa said and then she was hustled off by her three new friends to get what Kat called, “a Chorkay makeover.”

  “She’s very lovely,” Commander Sylvan said quietly, watching his mate and the other two women take Lisa away to get ready.

  “She is,” Asher admitted uncomfortably. “But I swear that is not the reason I recommended her for this mission. I watched her work tonight and she has an excellent work ethic and a very good character. I feel she will be an asset.”

  “You don’t have to justify yourself to me,” Sylvan said mildly. “I trust your judgment, Commander Asher. You wouldn’t have been entrusted with this mission otherwise.” He leaned closer. “The Council really wants the Chorkay method of communication. It would be a great asset to us so it’s very important that we don’t offend them in any way.”

  “I understand.” Asher nodded. “I’ve been trying to find out more about their culture but there is regrettably little information other than the fact that they share emotions with their mate or mates and expect others to do the same.”

  “And do you think that you and Lisa can work as a team and pretend to be sharing emotions?” Sylvan asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Asher nodded.

  “She’s very good at conveying her emotions to me already. We worked together tonight and I thought we made an excellent team.”

  “Yes, Olivia told me about the misunderstanding which left you playing ‘Santa Claus’ this evening in my brother Baird’s place,�€