Found (21 page)

“Lauren?” he asked again.

“Coming.” Take a deep breath, she opened the
door.

Xairn was leaning against the frame, his wide
shoulders filling the doorway completely. His shirt was still
hanging open and he was so tall that Lauren found she was just
about at eye level with the brand.

“Hi,” she said brightly. “I was just looking
for some burn gel for you. So I could treat your—you know…” She
gestured to the raised black lines on his chest. They were an angry
red around the margins and had to be hurting him terribly.

“You were crying,” he said, studying her face
intently. “I could hear it though I’m sure you were trying to keep
quiet.” Hesitantly, he reached out to brush her cheek with the back
of his hand. “Don’t hide your pain from me, Lauren. Please.”

Lauren bit her lip. “I…I didn’t want to
bother you. You’ve been through so much already.”

“We both have.” He studied her with those
new, piercing sea colored eyes. “But we went through it together,
at least.”

“Yes, I guess so.”

Xairn looked troubled. “I…I want to make you
feel better but I don’t know how,” he confessed. “I don’t know the
correct response or how to ease your suffering.”

“Make
me
feel better?” Lauren looked
at him in disbelief. “What about you?” She gestured at his chest.
“What about that? Why did you let them? The Judge wanted to brand
me—it should have been
me.”

“Are you saying I should have stepped back
and allowed you to be hurt—to be
burned
—without trying to
protect you?” His eyes flashed briefly red-on-black. “What kind of
male do you think I am? I may not know how to comfort you properly
but I would never willingly allow you to come to harm!”

“But look what they did to you!” Lauren
protested. “It must hurt horribly! And how will you ever get it
off?”

“What makes you think I would wish to remove
it?” Xairn asked quietly. “Did I not say I was proud to wear your
name on my body?”

“How can you say that? How can you be so calm
about this whole thing?” Lauren heard the tremble in her own voice
but she couldn’t seem to stop it. “I mean now even after…after you
leave, you’ll always have my name on you like…like a stain you
can’t get off.”

“It’s not a stain,” he said softly. “It is a
brand—a mark of possession. It denotes ownership.”

Lauren shook her head. “I don’t understand.
Whatever point you’re trying to make—I don’t get it.”

Xairn looked at her steadily. “I spoke the
truth when I told the Judge of the Market that you owned me.”

“What are you talking about?” Lauren
protested. “How could I
own
you?”

“Because I am yours—body and soul.” To her
surprise, he sank slowly to his knees and looked up at her
earnestly. “I realized something when I nearly lost you the second
time to the Spider, Lauren—I
cannot
leave you.” His deep
voice was hoarse with emotion. “It is wrong and selfish and I still
fear hurting you—fear it
desperately
—but I simply don’t have
the strength to leave you on Earth and go.” He bowed his head. “You
have mastered me without raising a finger—I am yours.”

Lauren could hardly believe it. Her heart
started pounding like crazy with a dizzying mixture of hope and
fear. “You…you mean it? Xairn do you really mean it? You’ll stay
with me on Earth? You won’t leave?” She got on her knees in front
of him and cupped his face in both hands. “Look in my eyes and tell
me again,” she begged. “Please, I need to hear it again.”

He looked at her, his blue-green eyes filled
with pain. “I am completely serious—I will stay with you. But…”

“But what?” Lauren looked at him anxiously.
“I thought I owned you—there are conditions?”

“Not conditions so much as requests.” Xairn
still looked pained. “I will stay with you for as long as you want
me but I would ask that we limit our physical contact. And that
there should be nothing…” he swallowed. “Nothing sexual between
us.”

“What?” Lauren shook her head. “Xairn, honey,
we can’t be in a relationship with no touching. I don’t know if you
noticed but I’m a really touchy person.” She ran her hands down the
smooth column of his neck and over his broad shoulders to
illustrate her point. “I mean, I just can’t help myself—I
need
contact. And I bet you do too. Don’t you like it when I
touch you?”

“I do.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple
moving convulsively. “Much more than I should. Please, Lauren, this
request is for your own safety.”

“I’m not worried about that,” she said,
squeezing his shoulders. “Not a bit. I feel safer with you than I
ever have with anyone else in my whole life.”

“Well you shouldn’t.” He looked frustrated.
“Don’t you know by now what your touch does to me? How even the
lightest brush of your fingertips across my skin makes me react? I
can’t trust myself with you, Lauren. And you…you shouldn’t trust me
either.”

Lauren let out a surprised burst of laughter.
“Xairn, be serious! You don’t honestly think you’re going to snap
and rape me, do you?”

He closed his eyes tightly and pulled away
from her hands. “That is
exactly
what I fear,” he
whispered.

Lauren was a little taken aback. “Xairn,
honey, you would never…”

“How do you know what I would or wouldn’t
do?” he demanded, his eyes flashing briefly red-on-black. “When I
don’t even know myself? I only know the ways of my people, Lauren,
and they are savage and sadistic.” He ran a hand through his thick
black hair distractedly. “I don’t even know how to
touch
you, how to bring you pleasure instead of pain. I don’t know how to
let you touch me without wanting to do things…things I do not even
wish to think about.”

“Then let me teach you.”

“What?”

Lauren reached out to cup his face again and
was relieved when he didn’t pull away. “Of course you don’t know
how to touch or be touched,” she said softly, looking into his
eyes. “Not after the way you were raised. So I’m going to teach
you.” She stroked his cheek. “And I promise you, baby, we can go as
slow as you want.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “But what if I
lose control? If I hurt you, I could never forgive myself. I would
want to die.”

“You’re not going to hurt me,” Lauren
insisted. “You keep talking about the ways of your people but
you’ve got some of
me
in you now, too. Look at yourself,
Xairn—you don’t have to be afraid. Surely the human DNA you got
from me will help control your Scourge impulses—don’t you
think?”

He opened his eyes and frowned. “I hadn’t
considered that. Maybe…maybe you’re right.” He looked so hopeful
and uncertain that Lauren wanted to hug him and hold him close but
somehow she restrained herself.

“Of course I’m right,” she said firmly. “For
now, lets just get home and everything will be fine.”

“I hope so.” He shook his head. “I truly do,
though I’m afraid this will end badly. I know I should have the
strength to leave you—”

“Don’t you dare!” Lauren glared at him.
“Don’t even
think
about it.”

A small, sad smile crossed his lips. “Let me
finish my thought, please. I was going to say that I know I should
leave you but I can’t.” He gave her a piercing look. “I
can’t.”

“Good.” Lauren stroked his cheek. “And don’t
worry, Xairn, whatever issues you have, we’ll work through them
together. I promise.”

Xairn nodded and sighed. Hesitantly, he
reached up to brush his hand over her shoulder. “Thank you, Lauren.
For accepting me as I am.”

“Thank you for protecting me,” she said
quietly. “For taking the pain that should have been mine. For
leaving your home and everything you’ve ever known to come with
me.” Leaning forward, she pressed her mouth to his in a careful,
chaste kiss. “I love you,” she whispered against his lips.

She felt his big frame tremble and then he
returned her kiss tentatively, his mouth moving over hers with a
shy uncertainty that nearly broke her heart. “I…I love you as well,
Lauren.” His voice was hoarse with emotion and she wondered if she
was the only woman he had ever said those words to. Almost
certainly she was. God how she wanted to pull him close and comfort
him, to show him that everything was going to be all right! To
prove to him that he could trust himself as she trusted him. But
she sensed now wasn’t the time for that.

“Good,” she said lightly, pulling away with a
smile. “Then let’s go home.”

The AllFather tapped his skeletal fingers
against the arm of his black metal throne. It was etched in burning
lines of poisonous green, made of the same tainted metal he
employed in his nutrient slime. Much of his power was derived from
this small reminder of his home world but most of it was inside
him, gathered in the empty barren wasteland that should have held
his heart.

Where can they be? Where will he take
her?
He frowned.
Why, to her home of course—to that
insignificant planet of hers, that is where she will wish to go.
But how can I find them in their altered genetic states? How? What
weakness can I exploit to bring them back?

Then again, why should he bother? His peak
was past and would not return again for many years. He couldn’t
breed the girl as he had originally intended. The prophesy was
voided—all hope for the regeneration of the Scourge race was
lost.

May you be damned, my son. I will bring you
back if only for revenge.

But when he considered it, he realized that
revenge was not the only reason he had to call his errant son back
to the Fathership. He had felt…changes in Xairn during their last
encounter. His son was maturing—coming into his own sexually as a
Scourge male at last. For years the AllFather had doubted it would
ever happen, but the human female had acted as a trigger, undoing
years of repression and releasing the beast within.

And with the advent of his growing sexual
energy, Xairn’s personal power would grow as well. He might even
come to rival the AllFather himself, in time. Power like that could
not be ignored. It must be dealt with and soon. But how?

The altered DNA would keep him from finding
and linking to Xairn—
if
the alteration held. But Scourge
genes were strong—as virulent as weeds in a garden which grew high
and fast, choking the other plants and flowers around them. Such
genes might be masked for a little while but violent emotions
should bring them forth again. But how to evoke those emotions when
he didn’t know exactly where his son was and couldn’t get through
the Kindred’s security net around the planet to search for him?

For security measures around Earth had been
tightened considerably—not even a small transport pod containing an
urlich
could get through. And only Kindred ships were
allowed in and out of the net—a fact that Xairn had no doubt
considered when taking one of those, instead of a Scourge ship,
when he’d left the home world with Lauren in the first place.

“Even if I found him, I could not get to
him,” the AllFather muttered, frowning with his lipless mouth. “I
mussst draw him out—bring him to me. But how?
How?
” Suddenly
it came to him—a solution so obvious he began to laugh—a high,
hissing sound that made his personal guards turn their heads warily
in his direction. “What need have I to draw him out? To evoke
emotionsss in him?
Ssshe
will do it for me,” the AllFather
hissed

It was true. The human girl would provoke the
change in Xairn—would bring his Scourge DNA to the surface and
cause him to mature both sexually and in terms of his personal
power. The moment Xairn took her, he would reach his peak, and his
mind would be open once more to the AllFather’s manipulations.
Then
he would coax his son back to him for a final
confrontation. And once he had Xairn within his grasp…

“His power ssshall be mine. A sssecond birth.
A regeneration.” The crimson eyes blazed with greed.

Of course in order to absorb Xairn’s power,
he would have to kill his only son, but the AllFather didn’t let
such small details bother him. Xairn had spoiled one plan—the plan
to regenerate their race through the female of the prophecy. Very
well then, the AllFather would make a new plan—a far deadlier one.
What need had he of a newly revived race if he himself could live
forever? The girl was now superfluous—the one he needed was Xairn
and Xairn alone.

But it would not do for Xairn to know of this
new direction in the AllFather’s thinking. He needed to believe
that it was still the human girl the AllFather was after. That
Lauren was still in danger. Xairn must not learn that he himself
was now the target. Unfortunately, there was a possibility he would
glean the information from the AllFather’s mind if they established
a new link. Unless the AllFather could cloud the issue.

Frowning, the AllFather left his throne and
began to pace. “What ssshall I do, how ssshall I draw him to me
while keeping him ignorant of my true desiresss?”

When the idea came to him, he began to smile.
It was simple—blood simple. And it had the beauty of fulfilling two
needs at once. The AllFather licked his lipless mouth with a dry,
pointed, papery tongue. He might as well begin the plan at once—it
had been too long since he’d received emotional sustenance.

“Alpha,” he said, looking up at his nearest
guard, which he had regrown in the vats. “Prepare the molecular
transssfer beam. I am hungry…”

“This is really good—what did you call it
again?” Eagerly, Nadiah dug the rounded eating instrument called a
spoon into the cold, creamy confection which came in colorful
little tubs from Earth.

“Ice cream.” Olivia took another bite as
well. “This one is called ‘Chunky Monkey.’”