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  Still, he lifted his chin. “Look at my scars, Holiness—I’ve known pain. Plenty of it.”

  “Not like this. I say to you now, Hybrid—the knife of love will twist in your heart and will you know true agony. Despite your mixed heritage you will form a bond—one which cannot be broken. A bond which will threaten your very life.” The priestess raised her head, a look of regal displeasure written on her strong features. “I have given you enough of my time, warrior. Now go and be at peace…if you can.”

  * * * * *

  Merrick shook his head as he remembered that meeting. The curse had been a bitter benediction and his parting with the high priestess still made him uneasy, although he didn’t like to admit it, even to himself.

  He’d tried not to think about the foolish prophecy but it wouldn’t leave his mind. He had been going to Sylvan’s joining ceremony, and since his old friend had told him he intended to include the luck kiss in the ceremony, Merrick had assumed that the girl he performed it with would be the female the priestess spoke of. Hadn’t the prophecy included something about waking her with a kiss? But of course it turned out to be a moot point, since the run-in with the pirates had forced him to forgo his place in Sylvan’s joining.

  Despite his anger and frustration at missing the ceremony, Merrick had to admit to a sneaking sense of relief, too. To be honest, he’d been dreading the luck kiss. Dreading the look of fear and horror in the poor, hapless girl’s eyes as he gathered her to him for a kiss she surely didn’t want to give. There was no way she would have gone to him willingly, no way she would have kissed him without recoiling, without blanching in fear as all females did when faced with his massive, muscular frame and scarred visage…

  “Goddess damn it, stop thinking about it!” Merrick muttered savagely to himself. He gave the star-duster a little more juice, scooting past a small rust-red planet his star charts informed him was called Mars by the humans. It looked barren to him—apparently Earth itself was the only planet located in the temperate zone and suitable for habitation in the entire solar system.

  Despite his best efforts, his thoughts returned once more to the prophecy—to the curse. The high priestess had to be mistaken—of that he was certain. There wasn’t any willing female waiting for him out there in the vast reaches of the universe. Even his own mother had feared him before he left home—how could he expect anything different from any other female he met? Just as well, he thought, urging the ship to an even higher speed. Don’t need a female. Don’t need anyone. Need is weakness and I’m not fucking weak.

  Earth was coming into view now, as well as its one lonely moon. Circling the pale, pocked lunar surface, he saw two massive ships. One, which had smaller vessels hustling back and forth between its docking bay and the Earth below, was obviously the Kindred Mother Ship. The other was the abandoned hulk of the Fathership—all that remained of the once malevolent Scourge.

  Merrick shook his head in awe as he looked at the dark and drifting Fathership. He’d heard that the Kindred’s old enemy had been destroyed with the help of the AllFather’s own son but it had been difficult to believe. Seeing the proof brought home the truth that the Scourge threat really was no more.

  He was about to turn his star-duster toward the Mother ship when a sensor on his console beeped. Looking down at it, Merrick frowned. “A life pod, huh? Tell me more.” His little ship had a built-in scavenger function that was always scanning for valuable finds. That was how he had had found the equipment which became his worm hole generator—the star-duster had detected the long lost alien technology and brought it to his attention.

  He hit a few buttons and swiped the info-panel with his thumb, requesting a more detailed scan. The read-out came back at once and Merrick’s mismatched eyes raced as he read it.

  “Scourge life pod—probably jettisoned from the Fathership—but no vital signs aboard. Just a bunch of old equipment and…hmmm, that’s interesting.” His super sensitive scanners had picked up a signal so faint he was certain anyone else would have missed it. It was probably just deep space parasites but something about the signal piqued Merrick’s interest.

  Going after the abandoned life pod might take awhile. It appeared to be floating in a huge cloud of debris and sorting through the lot would be a time consuming process. Merrick almost passed it up—his finger hovering over the autopilot control that would lead him directly to the Mother Ship’s docking bay.

  But something made him stop. Call it intuition or hybrid luck or whatever you wanted, but something about the signal from the life pod called to him.

  The skin at the back of his neck prickled and a chill ran down his spine. It was the same, strange feeling he’d had when he had found the alien tech which eventually became his wormhole generator. Something different here, a little voice seemed to whisper at the back of his brain. Something that might be important—damn important.

  Merrick let his finger drop and grabbed the steering yoke with both hands instead. Sylvan had waited this long, he was sure his old friend wouldn’t mind waiting a little longer. Before he went to the Mother Ship to make his apologies, he wanted to find out what was in that pod.

  Chapter Nine

  They were about three standard days away from Tranq Prime when the next spasm of pain hit.

  Nadiah had been expecting it—dreading it—since before they’d left the Mother Ship. After all, her fiancée had made it abundantly clear he didn’t intend to stop pulling on the blood bond until she submitted to him and agreed to their bonding. Still, she’d gone several days without pain, which had made her start hoping that maybe her parents had taken a hand in the matter. Possibly her mother had complained or her father had instructed Y’dex not to hurt her any more. She had even begun to relax a little—had stopped fearing that sharp, burning stab beneath her heart quite so much.

  So when the flaming knife slid between her ribs, it came as an unwelcome, though not completely unexpected surprise.

  When it happened, Nadiah was in the tiny food prep area of the small ship, making herself a cup of hot chocolate. It was a sweet, creamy Earth drink she’d learned to love while aboard the Mother Ship. As a parting gift, Sophia had made sure she had a large supply of the tiny packets filled with light brown powder for which Nadiah was eternally grateful. The warm, soothing drink seemed to ease her mind and make her feel less unhappy somehow, and just at that moment she felt a great need for what Kat called “the healing power of chocolate.”

  It wasn’t just the upcoming challenge that made her upset and anxious—it was the state of her relationship with Rast. Not that what they had could even properly be called a relationship.

  In every old book and story Nadiah had read as a child, the male who dared to challenge the blood bond was passionately in love with and utterly committed to the female he was challenging for. The stories seemed to indicate that it was the intensity of the challenger’s love as much as the strength of his blood that broke the bond. But there was nothing like that between herself and the human detective—nothing but a vague uneasiness and uncertainty.

  Nadiah had tried talking to him but their conversations always came out awkward and stilted. He never seemed to look at her, even when he was talking to her, and he never initiated the conversation. She was growing tired of seeking him out and trying to exchange pleasantries, hoping that they might turn into something more meaningful, which they never did.

  Even worse than their stilted conversations was the fact that Rast seemed to go out of his way not to touch her. If their hands touched by accident or their bodies brushed against each other in the ship’s single, narrow corridor, he jumped away as though he’d been stung. It was painfully obvious he wanted nothing to do with her—not even in a friendly way.

  Back on the Mother Ship, Nadiah had wondered if Rast was acting as her champion because he felt something for her…or simply because of his own sad past experiences. Now she was sure she had her answer. It was time to face the facts—Rast didn’t actually like her v