“Well they can’t, generally.” Nadiah grinned. “This is a new kind they’re breeding and Mamam got the very first one. It was going to increase her social status immeasurably—only I got to it and imprinted it first.”
Sophie didn’t care much for Nadiah’s mother, who also happened to be Sylvan’s aunt, so she laughed. “I bet she loved that.”
“Almost as much as she loved me hitching a ride to the Mother ship right before what was supposed to be my own bonding ceremony.” Nadiah sighed dramatically. “Of course I’ll have to go back eventually. Yo-dah and I have the bond of blood between us—my parents saw to that when they enacted our engagement.” She shook her head. “I still remember crying when they pricked my finger with the stylus. I was just a little thing and it scared me to death.”
“Wait a minute.” Kat held up a hand. “Did you just say your fiancée is a guy named Yoda?”
Nadiah nodded. “Yo-dah Licklow. He’s the son of the local magistrate in my grotto.”
“Yoda Licklow?” Kat was cracking up. “Seriously? That’s his name? So if you married him you’d be Mrs. Yodah Licklow?”
“Well, not exactly. When speaking formally, we break up the names to show the possessive of bonding,” Nadiah explained. “So my formal name would be Lady Lick Yo-dah Low.”
“Lick…lick Yoda…low…” Kat dissolved into a fit of giggles and Sophie and Liv couldn’t help laughing too.
Nadiah smiled at them quizzically. “I’m not sure what’s so funny. I got a shot of translation bacteria but maybe they’re not working right.”
“They’re working fine,” Sophie assured her with a smile. “Sorry—I’ll explain why it’s funny later but right now the ceremony is about to start.” She sighed. “I’m afraid there’s not going to be anyone for you to do the luck kiss with, though. It looks like Sylvan’s friend couldn’t make it.”
“Oh, he’ll be here.” Nadiah was unexpectedly serious. “I know he will—I have forseen it.”
“You what?” Liv asked, frowning.
“I forsaw him.” Nadiah blushed and looked down at her fingers. “It’s a new thing for me—I just came into my powers when I came of age. But so far it’s always been accurate.”
“Your powers?” Kat asked blankly. She had finally stopped laughing and was dabbing at the corners of her eyes.
“The Sight. It’s hereditary in my family,” Nadiah explains. “It skips every other generation. My Grandmaman had it and I have it too. Basically it just means I can see things before they happen.”
“So…you’re psychic?” Liv sounded skeptical.
Nadiah lifted her chin. “Call it what you want, but I do have the Sight. And before I came here I saw myself standing in the sacred grove during Sophie’s bonding ceremony and kissing a Kindred male. He’s big and powerful and he has truegreen eyes.” She gave Sophie’s arm a squeeze. “Don’t worry, Sophie—he’ll be here. And when he shows up, I’m going to give him a luck kiss he’ll never forget.”
* * * * *
Detective Adam Rast had the strangest sensation of coming home the moment he set foot on the Kindred Mother ship.
Of course, that made no sense. He’d never even been off the planet before—let alone aboard an alien ship. The closest he’d come to leaving mother Earth was during his stint in the marines where his squadron had been taught to sky dive. Rast hadn’t cared for that much—he preferred to keep both feet planted solidly on the ground. So being in a ship a fourth the size of the moon orbiting high above the planet he’d been born and bred on should have been an uncomfortable experience. Instead it seemed…oddly familiar.
He tried to shake the ridiculous feeling as he climbed out of the shuttle and thanked the Kindred pilot who had ferried him up from the Human/Kindred relations building in Tampa. Say what you wanted about the aliens who were protecting Earth, but they were damned polite. And no-nonsense, which Rast approved of. Time spent in both the military and the police force before he’d left to start his own detective agency had left him with little tolerance for any kind of foolishness. He appreciated the precision and dignity that seemed to be innate to the Kindred.
Of course, he wouldn’t be aboard the Mother ship at all if his latest job hadn’t led him in the strangest direction imaginable. Rast specialized in missing persons cases which meant he was usually tracking down runaways or kidnapped children—usually taken by an estranged parent during or after divorce proceedings. When Abigail Jakes had approached him about finding her missing daughter, Lauren, he’d known that the case was different right from the start. It had appeared that she’d disappeared into thin air, vanishing right out of her clothes which were left in an oddly orderly heap on the floor.