Sought...Book 3 in the Brides of the Kindred series (18 page)

Deep turned from the driver’s seat, his dark
eyes narrowed. “Are you calling us liars?”

“Well, it’s not like you can actually
prove
what you’re saying,” she pointed out. “I mean, if I’d
broken my arm and woke up with a cast on it, I could buy that. But
this whole ‘fractured spirit’ thing—”

“Came straight from Mother L’rin herself,”
Deep said, frowning. “She can explain all about it when we get to
the Healing Gardens. Until then, don’t call us liars until you know
what you’re talking about.”

“Deep, please, I’m sure the lady Kat didn’t
mean to offend,” Lock said quietly from the passenger seat. “She’s
just upset, that’s all.”

“Damn right, I’m upset.” Kat glared at both
of them. “After all that high-sounding talk about how you would
‘never bond an unwilling female to you…’”

“We meant a
physical
bond,” Deep
growled. “Which we could have formed last night if we’d wanted to
instead of—”

“Don’t start.” Kat lifted her chin. “I told
you I didn’t want to talk about…about what we did last night.” In
fact, she preferred not to think about it either.
Stupid bonding
fruit!
She’d been completely out of control, letting the two of
them fuck her with that huge wooden dildo. It made her cheeks hot
with shame just remembering it.
Don’t think about it,
she
told herself.
Just put it behind you and never let it happen
again.

“Don’t want to talk about it, hmm?” Deep’s
eyes were angry in the rearview reflector. “Why not, little Kat?
Don’t you want to discuss the way you spread yourself for us? The
way you gave it up so sweetly while Lock fucked you—”

“That’s enough!” Lock’s voice was almost a
shout. Kat and Deep both stared at him, surprised. “Why,” he
continued in a lower tone. “Can’t the two of you just get along for
two minutes? Why can’t you stop fighting and admit that you care
for each other the way…the way I care for both of you?”

“Because we don’t,” Deep said coldly, before
Kat could answer. “I know you have this sweet, pathetic fantasy
that the three of us are going to end up together, Brother but it’s
not going to happen.”

Lock shook his head. “Don’t,” he said in a
low voice. “I thought after last night…”

“You thought wrong.” Deep’s eyes clashed
with Kat’s in the rearview again and then he turned his attention
back to the curvy, winding road.

“I’m sorry, Lock.” Kat reached up to put a
hand on his broad shoulder. “I didn’t think—”

“And you don’t care, either.” Deep’s eyes
were still angry and the emotions coming from him were like a black
cloud, filling the interior of the car. Filling Kat herself with
hurt and anger and misery.

“Deep…” Lock’s voice held a warning note but
Deep shook his head.

“She doesn’t, Brother—not the way you want
her to. So leave it alone. The sooner we get to Mother L’rin and
have her dissolve our partial bond the better.”

Kat couldn’t have agreed more. But she still
felt horrible as the little car made its way to the Healing
Gardens.
I never wanted it to be like this,
she thought
miserably.
Never wanted to care for either one of them. I don’t
know how my life got so screwed up.
Well, it was about to get
straightened out, she comforted herself. According to Deep and
Lock, this Mother L’rin person could fix everything.

Kat just hoped they were right because at
the moment, a lot more than just her spirit felt broken.

“Looking better today, you are.” The wizened
old woman with strange, jewel-like eyes and pink-tinged skin
circled Kat slowly, watching her sharply as though looking for some
invisible defect. “But deceiving appearances can be.”

“Oh really?” Kat said politely, glad she
could understand what was being said. She’d forgotten all about the
convo-pillar still stuck in her ear until Mother L’rin had started
speaking. Deep, of course, had wanted her to take it out. He’d said
he or Lock could translate for her, but Kat had refused and
demanded to speak to the healer alone.

She wanted to be able to talk confidentially
with the old woman the twins said had saved her life. There were
things she wanted to say and questions she wanted to ask that she
didn’t feel comfortable having Deep and Lock hear. Besides, she was
dying
to get away from their suffocating emotions. After the
fight she’d had with them, riding in the tiny shuttle car all the
way to the Healing Gardens had been like breathing in choking
lungfulls of second hand smoke. Putting some distance between
herself and the two brothers was a breath of fresh air.

Now she was sitting in a lovely little
meadow with flowering bushes all around and a golden stream
tinkling musically to one side and she felt much calmer. She didn’t
know where Deep and Lock had gone—she just hoped they stayed away
for a good long while.

“Very ill, you were. Nearly dead, mm-hmm.”
The old woman nodded wisely and Kat nodded back. The convo-pillar
seemed to be working much better today, though it
did
kind
of make Mother L’rin sound like Yoda.

“Deep and Lock say you saved my life,” she
said. “I wanted to thank you for that.”

“Healing my profession is. Necessary thanks
are not.”

“Uh, okay.” Kat nodded uncertainly. “They
also say you told them to form a soul bond with me—whatever that
is.”

“Half of a true bond, a soul bond is—the
joining of three spirits as one.”

“And the other half is the physical bond?
When you…?” Kat trailed off, blushing.

“Have sex that is bonding,” Mother L’rin
finished for her, eyeing her sharply. “But this you have not
done.”

“No, of course not,” Kat blurted. “Look, I
never meant to get involved with Lock and Deep in the first place
and now everything is all messed up and my whole life feels out of
control! I can feel their emotions filling me up until I think I’m
drowning.
Can you help me block them? Lock said you might be
able to.”

Mother L’rin shook her head. “Only with a
full bond is mind privacy possible.”

Kat’s heart sank. “So you’re saying in order
to have any kind of peace I’d have to tie myself to them for
life?”

The wise woman nodded solemnly. “Bonded to
them you must be.”

“But I can’t be. I don’t
want
to be,”
Kat protested.

“Until you are, weak you will be.” Mother
L’rin poked a finger at her. “The pain…return it will.”

“It will?” Kat felt sick. Come to think of
it, she hadn’t felt anything like the symptoms she’d had while she
was aboard the Mother ship since she woke up. But just the
thought
of enduring that splitting headache again was
hideous.

“You must touch them—one at least. Both is
better.” Mother L’rin nodded sagely. “As greater your weakness
grows, the more deeply must you touch.”

“You mean like a…” Kat cleared her throat.
“Like a
sexual
touch?”

“Yes, yes.” Mother L’rin nodded vigorously.
“The bond it strengthens. Your pain will ease.”

“But I don’t
want
to be bonded to
them,” Kat said, feeling like a broken record. “I mean, Lock is
really sweet and I like him a lot but Deep is so
angry
all
the time—”

“Much loss has Deep suffered,” Mother L’rin
interrupted her. “Took your pain he did.”

“What?” Kat stared at her, confused. “You
mean the headaches and dizziness I was having?”

“Yes,” Mother L’rin said simply.

Kat was still confused. “How could Deep take
my headaches away?” The sharp, stabbing ache behind her eyes had
been intensely painful but she couldn’t imagine how it could have
been transferred to another person.

“Show you, I will.” Mother L’rin raised her
voice. “Doby! The whip.”

There was a rustling in the nearby bushes
and a giant with pink mottled skin appeared. He was taller than a
professional basketball player and about three times as broad. His
loincloth was made of large, flat leaves and he carried a green
wooden box carefully in his huge hands. For some reason he looked
familiar to Kat.
That’s silly. How can a nine foot tall giant in
a leaf loincloth look familiar?
But she couldn’t shake the
feeling and the sight of him made her vaguely uneasy.

“Here I have it, Mother,” he said in a high,
almost feminine voice.

“Good. Accompany us to the Stone Throat you
will.” Turning, Mother L’rin marched off through the long green and
pink grass at a surprisingly fast pace. Kat had to scramble up and
almost run to keep up with her.

The lovely wilderness of the Healing Gardens
was a blur around her as they walked quickly through the grass and
flowering bushes. Kat was feeling more and more uncomfortable
though she couldn’t put her finger exactly on why. But when they
came to the mouth of a cave made of brownish-pink stone, the
feeling grew even stronger.

“Wait a minute,” she said, when Mother L’rin
started into the low stone entrance. “Where is this place? I have
the strangest feeling of deja-vu but I know I’ve never been here
before.”

The old woman only gestured toward the cave.
“Inside we must go.” She went in and the pink giant followed her,
leaving Kat no choice but to join them.

They walked down an echoing stone hallway
with Kat feeling worse all the time. By the time they came to the
green wooden door with the tarnished handle in its center she was
shivering and it wasn’t from cold. But it wasn’t until Doby swung
the door open, revealing a vast, round chamber with a red-streaked
white obelisk at its center, that Kat nearly lost it.

“Oh my God! This room!” She walked into the
echoing chamber on unsteady legs. “I dreamed this. I saw…” She
whirled to Mother L’rin. “I saw him.” She stabbed a finger at
Doby’s mottled pink hide. “He took Deep in here. And he…he…” She
couldn’t go on. Mutely she went to the white obelisk, pointing like
an accusing finger toward the narrow stone chimney above. The red
streaks were there, just as they had been in her dream. But now she
knew what they were. “Dried blood,” she whispered. “My God, he
whipped Deep. Whipped him until he bled.” She turned back to Mother
L’rin. “I saw it all in my dream. What does that mean?”

“Dream sharing you were,” the old woman said
quietly. “Saw everything you did.”

“You mean what I saw was
true?”
She
had a sudden mental image of the night before—Deep’s broad back,
covered in a twisted pattern of white scars. “Oh my God—it
was
true!” Suddenly she felt so faint and dizzy she couldn’t
stand up anymore. She started to fall and Doby put out a huge hand
to catch her. “Get away from me.” Kat pushed away from the giant,
feeling sick to her stomach. “You’re the one who did it to
him.”

“No,
you
are.” Mother L’rin pointed a
crooked finger at her. “
Your
pain he took.”

“But I don’t understand. How could he—?”

“The whip.” Mother L’rin nodded at Doby who
opened the green lacquered wooden box he carried. Inside was a
plain black handle which Kat found sickeningly familiar.

“I…I’ve seen that before,” she said weakly.
Only last time it had long silvery tongues attached to it.
With
spikes
on their ends.

“Transfers pain, the whip does,” the old
woman explained. “Someone had your pain to take.”

“And
Deep
volunteered?” For some
reason Kat found tears in her eyes. “Why?”

Mother L’rin put a hand on Kat’s arm and
looked into her eyes. “Why do you think, child?” she said
gently.

“I d-don’t know.” Kat sniffed and blotted
her eyes against the long sleeve of her toga-dress. “I honestly
don’t. He
hates
me. Or at least he doesn’t like me very
much.”

“Himself he hates,” Mother L’rin said,
releasing her arm. “Cleansed of his hate he must be before you
bond.”

“But I
can’t
bond with him and Lock.
Don’t you see? It would never work out.” Kat thought of her
parents—the constant shouting, the cold silences, the ugly
accusations and names. Her father calling her mother “a fat, lazy
whore” and her mother telling him, “Every time I see you, I hate
you more. I wish you were dead.” And all that was
before
the
beatings started.

Up until they’d finally gotten divorced and
her grandmother had taken her in, the only peace she had was when
she went to Liv and Sophie’s house.
Their
parents had loved
each other and it showed in the little acts of affection, the
kindness and consideration they showed each other. But Kat’s home
had been a war zone. And though neither parent had ever physically
laid a hand on her, only each other, she still carried the scars of
their many battles.

“You don’t understand,” she told Mother
L’rin, aware that she was crying again but unable to help herself.
“I can’t be with them. I can’t be with
him.”

The old woman shook her head and put an arm
around Kat’s heaving shoulders. “Child, come,” she said, leading
Kat back to the green door. “If bonded you cannot be, then a
journey you must make.”

“A…a journey?” Kat blotted her eyes on her
sleeve. If this kept up, she was going to have to change clothes
because her entire freaking dress would be soaked in tears. God,
she hated to cry! “A journey to where?” she said, sniffing and
trying to get hold of herself.

“The
fifilalachuchu
blossom you must
seek.”

“The
what?”
Kat was convinced that
her convo-pillar was acting up again but Mother L’rin repeated the
name and she realized she’d heart it correctly the first time. “But
what good will this uh,
fi-fi
flower do? Will it break the
bond between us?”

“Seek it you must,” the wise woman repeated
firmly. “Back to me you will bring it. Medicine I will make for
you.”