Found (15 page)

“
I
trust you,” she said softly,
lifting her chin to look him in the eyes. “Even if you don’t trust
yourself.”

Xairn felt his heart clench like a fist. “You
shouldn’t.” Before she could say anything else or try to stop him,
he left.

It was the only safe thing to do.

Lauren lay on the bed, curled in a ball after
he left. She shut her eyes tightly and tried to think about home,
about the fact that she’d be seeing her mother and walking on the
warm, sandy Florida beaches very soon now.

But the images filling her mind were too
disturbing.

Lauren wrapped her arms around herself
protectively. God, the things Xairn had told her had been awful!
And he’d spoken so dispassionately. His voice was utterly flat as
he described the atrocities his race perpetrated against women.
Clearly females were nothing more than property to them—to be won
in barbaric contests and then marked like cattle.

But though his voice had been flat as he
talked, his eyes had been burning. The way he’d looked at her when
he spoke made it clear that each word hurt coming out.
He didn’t
want to tell me. Didn’t want me to think he was a monster.

Lauren sat up in bed and ran a hand through
her long black hair. It felt rough and tangled and she wished for a
hot bath and a hairbrush.
He’s not a monster,
she told
herself forcefully.
He’s protective and sweet and thoughtful. I
know he would never hurt me.

But he’d admitted that he wanted to mark her
as his—to put the ‘marks of possession’ on her. Lauren shivered.
She supposed she could do the collar and maybe even the
piercing—well, the nipple piercing, anyway. But there was no way
she was going to let any man—no matter how much she was beginning
to care for him—brand her or give her a piercing below the navel.
There were lines she simply wasn’t willing to cross for
anyone
.

Well, she’d have to think about it later.
Maybe talk to Xairn some more when he wasn’t in such a dark mood.
Sighing, she got up and went to see about getting the hot bath
she’d been longing for.

She was happy to find a small but luxurious
bathroom with surprisingly Earth-like accommodations in the
adjoining room. There was a recognizable toilet which looked
completely normal except for being a startling shade of bright
blue. A matching marble tub with gold taps sat in one corner and a
shower stall in the same color stood across from it. There was even
a plush purple robe hanging from a hook on the back of the
door.

Lauren was glad to shed her scratchy
silver-blue muumuu and put on the robe instead. It fell to her
knees and felt as soft as feathers whispering against her bare
skin. Then she turned to the tub and twisted one of the gold
taps.

To her dismay, instead of water, a thick
stream of what appeared to be bright pink oatmeal started pouring
from the gold spout between the taps.

What the hell?
She twisted the other
tap but that only made the pink oatmeal flow faster. Already the
bright blue tub was more than half full of what looked like
psychedelic breakfast cereal. It was like the Quaker oat man had
taken a dose of LSD and then decided to cook up some new flavor.
Shocking strawberry, maybe.

Lauren twisted the knobs this way and than
but with no result other than to completely fill the blue marble
tub with the thick, viscous stuff. At last she got them turned off
and stood there, her hands on her hips. The steam rising off the
shocking pink oatmeal actually smelled pretty good—kind of
flowery—but there was no way she was getting into it.

She was just going to try the shower instead
when she heard a soft chiming at the door of the guest suite. Could
it be Xairn coming back to continue their conversation?

Wrapping the plush purple robe more tightly
around herself, Lauren ran to open the green door. She was
disappointed, however, to see that it wasn’t Xairn. Instead, a
creature which looked very much like a crane, completely with long,
skinny legs and a feathered orange crest on its head nodded at her
from behind a bulky black cart.

“Yes?” she said politely, keeping a firm hold
on the door.

The creature said something in a strange,
burbling language and nodded at the cart with its long orange
beak.

“I’m sorry,” Lauren told it. “I don’t
speak…whatever it is you’re speaking.”

The crane-thing raised one arm—it did have
arms, not wings at least, Lauren noted—and tapped a small silver
box it was wearing around its neck. When it spoke again, the
burbling somehow became English.

“These are your evening comestibles, courtesy
of Master Slk.”

“Oh—dinner!” Suddenly Lauren was famished. It
had been hours and hours since her last Kindred food cube and her
stomach was rumbling. “Great.” She nodded eagerly at the tray with
its domed metal cover. “Bring it in.”

The stork-thing maneuvered the rolling cart
into the small room with some difficulty, squeezing it between the
bed and the couch. Then, with a flourish, it raised the lid from
the tray and made her a short bow.

“Oh, uh…wow.” Lauren’s enthusiasm faded
quickly. The food on the tray looked strange and smelled even
stranger. There was a mound of blue stuff that stuck together
rather like rice except the grains were four times as big. Beside
it sat a thin cut of what appeared to be ivory meat marbled with
olive green streaks. And to finish the meal, there was a goblet
filled to the brim with something that looked like clear, watery
Jell-O. It jiggled in a most unappetizing way when Lauren poked
it.

“Only the finest comestibles for the guests
of the House of Slk.” The stork creature sounded extremely proud to
be serving her green streaked meat, giant blue rice and whatever
the drink was.

“Thank you.” Lauren smiled weakly. “Um…what
is it?”

“Thenolian slugs from the Serba region,” the
stork said, pointing to the blue rice. “The prime cut of a venga’s
brain pan,” pointing to the meat. “And your libation is purified
slime from the wounds of a tren.”

“Uh…slugs, brain and slime? That’s what’s on
the menu?” Lauren tried not to sound as horrified as she felt. God,
this stuff made the weird
Grieza
worms from the Kindred food
cubes look positively delicious. Suddenly homesickness washed over
her so strongly she had to gulp back tears. All she really wanted
was a thick slice of her mom’s meatloaf and homemade mashed
potatoes with brown gravy. Instead she got
this.
She knew
she probably ought to be grateful—obviously this was the
O’ah
version of a gourmet banquet. But it was all she could
do not to retch at the sight of it.

“As I said, only the best for the guests of
Master Slk,” the stork repeated, interrupting her dark thoughts.
“Oh, but I almost forgot the most important part.”

“There’s more?” Lauren said weakly.

“Of course. Dessert.”

“Dessert?” She wondered what in the world it
could be. Probably some kind of pie made of alien bug intestines if
the rest of the meal was any indication.

“Dessert. A sweet confection eaten at the end
of the meal,” the stork said, as though reciting a memorized
definition. “We have no such thing in our culture, of course, but
Master Slk told me that you do. He commanded me to bring you
this.”

With another flourish, it produced a small
platter from a lower level of the cart and thrust it right under
Lauren’s nose.

Her first instinct was to recoil but before
she could, a rich, familiar aroma assaulted her nose.

“Chocolate?” She looked down at the small
platter and saw a thick, fudgy brown rectangle sitting on it. “A
brownie? Is that a brownie?”

The stork nodded, its orange feathered crest
rustling. “Master Slk said I must ask your pardon for it. He saw
your liking for such confections inside your mind and commanded me
to make it for you. He says to tell you he did not wish to pry,
only to please.”

“Tell him he’s forgiven.” Eagerly, Lauren
picked up the delicious looking brownie and raised it to her lips.
She was almost afraid to try it for fear it wouldn’t taste as good
as it looked and smelled. But another whiff of the heavenly,
chocolate aroma did away with her hesitation. Carefully, she took a
small nibble from one corner. The rich, delicious and, best of all,
familiar flavor exploded across her tongue and she took another,
larger bite. And then another and another.

Before she knew it there were nothing but a
few fudgy crumbs left on the small platter. She looked at them in
dismay—how in the world had she managed to inhale the brownie so
quickly? Guilt poked at her—she should have saved half of it for
Xairn. It was certainly a hell of a lot better than those horrible
cardboard Poptarts he’d grown up eating on the Scourge
Fathership.

I’ll make it up to him,
she told
herself, licking her fingers.
I’ll make him some of my Deep Dark
Devil’s-food cupcakes as soon as we get home.

In the mean time, she was beginning to feel
warm and sleepy and content. Though she’d been wishing for a bath
earlier, that somehow no longer seemed like a priority. Now all she
wanted to do was lay down and sleep.

“I trust it was to your satisfaction?”

The stork’s voice startled her. It had been
standing as still as a statue, watching her polish off the brownie,
and Lauren had almost forgotten it was there at all.

“Yesh, it wash…was d’lishious,” she said and
frowned. Why was she slurring her words? And why was the room
swaying around her? She tried to take a step and fell. Luckily she
landed on the bed, which was just beside her, but she was lying at
an awkward angle with one arm pinned under her and her other hand
dangling limply off the edge of the mattress. “Wha…wha’s goin’ on?”
she slurred, trying to look at the stork. Her eyes kept crossing
and there appeared to be two of him in the room. If it w
a
s a
him—she realized she didn’t even know.

“The effects are temporary,” he/it said,
coming toward her. “And regrettably necessary. I must finish my
assignment before Master Xairn comes back.”

“Wha ‘signment?” Lauren asked but her voice
sounded weak and slow.

“This.” The stork took a firm grip on her
hand—the one dangling limply over the edge of the bed—and raised
what looked like a massive pair of red metallic fingernail
clippers.

“Wha—?” Lauren started to say and then there
was a muffled
snap
and she felt a sharp agony at the base of
her little finger.
My finger! Oh my God, he cut off my
finger!

But though she was freaking out inside, she
was now completely paralyzed. There was nothing she could do but
watch as the stork applied some clear gel to the bloody stump of
her finger and then sprinkled it with strange pink granules.

“There. Rest now,” it said, nodding at
her.

How am I supposed to rest? You cut off my
freaking finger!
But despite her horror and the sharp ache in
her hand, she could feel her eyelids closing.
Have to wake up!
Have to find Xairn, tell him…warn him…

But then her eyes closed and the world was
eaten by sleep.

Xairn wandered the house for awhile, looking
at Slk’s gallery of art and oddments. Vrr had had quite an
impressive collection and his son had added to it. Many of the
displays were alive and a good number of them were obviously Slk’s
work. His talent at DNA recombination was plain to see, which Xairn
supposed should make him feel confident.

Instead he had a feeling of dread. What if
his own DNA infected Lauren somehow? What if it already had? Could
that be the reason she still wanted and trusted him, even after he
had revealed the vile and cruel practices of his people? Xairn
could think of no other reason why she would still want to be with
him after hearing the Scourge mating practices.

Well, he would just have to make even more of
an effort to stay away from her, he decided. If she didn’t have
enough survival instinct to stay away from him, that was. Though
the gods knew how hard that was going to be. Every time he saw her
he wanted her more. Wanted to make her his, to mark her as his own
forever…
No!

Shaking his head, Xairn took a deep breath
and decided to return to the room. Lauren had been alone long
enough and he couldn’t avoid being near her forever.

When he got back to the green door, he found
one of Slk’s servants just leaving. It was a Bleek and it nodded
its long beak genially as it left. “There are evening comestibles
for you, Master Xairn. Mistress Lauren has already eaten and is
resting.”

Xairn frowned. “She’s resting? You mean she’s
already gone to sleep?”

“The effects of the gene alteration.” The
Bleek seemed to speak a little too quickly. “It makes one tired
sometimes. I bid you good evening, Master.” It took off in an
awkward trot down the hallway on its long, backward bending
legs.

Still frowning, Xairn pushed his way into a
room and stepped around a cart laden with
O’ah
delicacies.
Sure enough, Lauren was tucked neatly into the sleeping platform,
one arm beneath the covers and the other resting at her side. She
was breathing softly and evenly, her silky hair spread across the
pillow like a shining river of midnight black.

So beautiful,
he thought, tracing the
delicate lines of her face with his eyes.
So perfect and pure
and sweet…
Too perfect and sweet for one such as him, he was
sure. No matter how much he wanted her, Lauren wasn’t for him.

Sighing, he looked down at the food cart.
After years of eating only nutra-wafers, he found such fare mildly
repulsive. It didn’t look like it had appealed to Lauren
either—nothing appeared to have been touched. Xairn frowned. Hadn’t
the Bleek said she had eaten? Well, maybe she had tasted a bite of
everything to be polite. Whatever the case, Xairn didn’t want
any.