Sought(90)

For some reason Xairn’s large hands curled into fists. She’s mine! I’ll never let you—He frowned and pushed the thought away. Where had such a foolish, possessive impulse come from? What the AllFather wanted, he got—it had always been so. And if he wanted to breed Lauren to fulfill the prophesy, then he would have her. It was as simple as that.

Yet, for some reason Xairn’s chest felt tight when he imagined the Earth female’s delicate form pinned beneath the AllFather’s shadowy black robes as he ravaged her. Stop being so stupid, he told himself. You feel nothing. But still…

“Xairn?”

He looked up to see the AllFather eyeing him hungrily. “Yes?” He kept his voice carefully neutral.

For a long moment those hateful red-on-black eyes, so like his own, seemed to pierce right through him. Then the AllFather shook his head. “Nothing. For a moment I thought I felt…but I sssuppose I was wrong.”

“Yes, Father.” Xairn bowed again and turned to leave. But he couldn’t help throwing a glance over his shoulder as he descended the broad, black steps that led to the throne.

The AllFather seemed shrunken and depleted, leaning for support on the arm of his Alpha guard. But Xairn could still read the malice in his eyes, could still feel the hunger and dread emanating from him like a poisonous miasma. His father might be weak, but

he was still strong enough to do what he wanted—to take Lauren.

And though Xairn knew he shouldn’t care, he couldn’t stop his jaw from clenching or his hands from curling into fists again. Mine, whispered a voice in his head. She should be mine…





* * * * *


Lauren looked up in surprise when her cell door clanged open. Xairn had just been to see her a few hours before, to bring her morning ration of cardboard pop tarts, as she thought of the nutra-wafers. He shouldn’t be back again until supper time, which was when they usually got to talk. Or rather, she talked. Xairn mostly listened.

His face was expressionless as he looked down at her, but somehow she knew something wasn’t right.

“What is it?” she asked, clutching his heavy black cape tightly around her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“Get up.” His deep voice was charged with tension.

Lauren scrambled to her feet. She gasped as he clamped one huge hand around her upper arm in a grip tight enough to hurt. “What’s happening? Where are we going?”

“To the home world.”

“What? Why?” she asked desperately as he dragged her out of the cell and down a long metal corridor.

“Why do you think?” He threw her a glance, his red-on-black eyes burning.

“I…I don’t know,” Lauren faltered.

“Yes, you do.” He dragged her along so fast she had to run to keep up with his long strides. The interior of the ship went by in a dull-gray blur around her but she had eyes only for his face. His expression remained impassive but his eyes blazed.

“Please, Xairn,” she begged. “You’re hurting me.”

“Not as much as you’re going to be hurt.” He glanced at her briefly as they rounded a curve and went through a low archway. “Here we are.”

“Where is here?” Lauren looked around uncertainly. They were in a vast room filled with ships of all sizes and shapes. Most of them were long and narrow and sleek, their outer skins an oily, inky black that was hard to look at for some reason. Xairn chose a larger ship and herded her toward it.

“The docking bay. We’re taking the adjunct ship to the home world.”

“Do you mean your home planet—the place you came from?” she asked as he dragged her through the echoing space to the chosen ship. The metal floor was freezing under her bare feet.

“It was never my home. But it is the place my people originated, yes.” He placed his large hand against the inky black side of the ship. Lauren watched in amazement and fear as his fingers seemed to sink right into the strange black metal—as though he’d put his hand into a puddle of oil. The ship shivered and oozed open—there was no other word for the way the gaping hole suddenly appeared in its side.

“But…why are we going there?” she asked as he half pushed/half boosted her into the strange ship. Why are you taking me so far away from Earth? From my mom and everyone I love? She didn’t dare to say it aloud but the fear that she would never return rose in her throat, almost choking her.

“The AllFather needs to draw power from his place of origin.” Xairn’s voice was tight as he pushed her to the back of the ship where Lauren could see a holding cell. It looked much like the one she’d been kept in on the Fathership except it was smaller—much smaller.