Sought...Book 3 in the Brides of the Kindred series (2 page)

“
Almost there,”
roared Deep. “Hold
on, Brother. Keep her with us!”

“I’m trying!” Lock’s voice sounded close to
despair. “But she’s so
still
. She’s not responding.”

“Fucking
make
her respond!” Deep
ordered. “And be ready to run the moment we touch down. We’re
taking her stretcher straight to the center of the garden. Directly
to Mother L’rin herself.”

“Yes, all right.” Lock nodded frantically,
still working on her. “Please, lady Kat, if you can just hold on a
little bit longer…”

There was a jarring
thump
that
rattled everything in the shuttle and Kat saw her body jerk. Then
Deep was out of his flight harness and reaching for her. “Go, go
go!” he barked, nodding at the opening which had somehow appeared
at the back of the shuttle.

“Going!” Lock was still holding her hand as
he pushed the floating stretcher toward the pinkish-gold sunlight
pouring in through the opening. “Get the other side.”

“Got it.” Deep grabbed the stretcher with
one hand and Kat’s arm with the other. “Goddess, she’s cold! And
her lips are blue.”

“I know. I—”

But before she could hear what else Lock was
going to say, Kat felt a huge
jolt,
as though she’d been
struck by lightning. Suddenly she was no longer hovering above her
own still body, but rushing toward it on a collision course.

Wait,
she had time to think.
This
can’t be right. I can’t—

There was a flash of brilliant light and
then…

Nothing.

Mother L’rin was a stern, older woman whom
Lock had met only once—years ago when he and Deep had been
confirmed with their mentor F’lir as a finder/seeker team. Now she
paced in front of Kat’s floating stretcher, her bare feet splashing
in the golden waters of the holy stream that ran through the center
of the Healing Gardens. Mother L’rin practiced holistic healing and
drew her powers from nature and the Goddess of All Life. The
gardens around them were filled with herbs and plants mixed with
flowering bushes and trees, all in shades of pink and gold and pale
green.

“I remember you two,” she said, nodding at
them in her slow, unhurried fashion. “Two more opposite twins I
never saw.”

“Never mind about us,” Deep almost snarled.
He was pacing as well, striding up and down the pinkish-gold and
green grass that had been allowed to run wild along the edge of the
stream. “It’s Kat we’re here for. She’s in trouble.”

“Enough trouble for you to land your shuttle
in the center of my garden, almost crushing some very devout
pilgrims?” Mother L’rin raised one pink-tinged eyebrow at them. She
was of the native stock of Twin Moons, with no Kindred blood at
all, which explained the way she blended into her own garden.

“Yes,” Deep snapped back. “I gave them time
to get out of the way.”

“Barely.” Her voice was mild but her pink
and gold eyes flashed. “You must care for her deeply, this
Kat
.”

“Not really.” Deep shrugged, trying to look
unconcerned. “But we
have
been charged with her safety.
So—”

“Yes, we care,” Lock interrupted his
brother. “We care very much.
Both
of us.” He squeezed Kat’s
hand gently and shot Deep a warning look to keep his mouth shut.
“Please, Mother L’rin,” he continued. “She’s already stopped
breathing once. I’m not even sure what brought her back, but it
could happen again at any time.”

Kat was breathing steadily now but Lock knew
he would never forget the feeling of relief that had swept over him
when he saw her draw that first, shallow gasp as they pushed the
stretcher out of the shuttle. He still didn’t know why she’d come
back to them from the brink of death, only that he was desperate to
keep her.

“How did she come to be sick in the first
place?” Mother L’rin looked at them. “What manner of illness is
this?”

Lock took a deep breath—this was the hard
part. “You may have heard that our mentor, F’lir, died a few cycles
ago, Mother,” he said, inclining his head respectfully. “So Deep
and I are without a focus. While aboard the Mother ship, we found
ourselves in a desperate position—we needed to use our skills but
we had no one to—”

“What my brother is trying to say is that we
used Kat here as a focus,” Deep interrupted in a bored tone.

Mother L’rin’s golden-pink eyes widened.
“You used a female as your focus? And an off-worlder at that—one
who is alien to us? You had no idea of what a joining with you
might do to her mind—to her body!”

“That is true.” Lock bowed his head,
accepting her rebuke. “We were, as I said, in a desperate position
but I know that is no excuse.”

“It most certainly is not.” Her eyes flashed
angrily. “Males must join with males and females with females on
the astral plane—anything else is sacrilege. You know that.”

Lock nodded. “We know,” he murmured in a low
voice.

Mother L’rin came to stand at the head of
the stretcher and placed her hands on either side of Kat’s shining
mass of auburn hair. “Very well.” She took a deep breath. “What
were her symptoms after your joining?”

“Well, the first time—” Deep began.

“The first time?” Mother L’rin’s head jerked
up and she glared at him. “You used this poor female more than
once?”

“We used her twice.” Deep lifted his chin
arrogantly. “And the second time we cast a net from Earth all the
way to Tranq Prime. It doesn’t matter that she’s female and we’re
male—Kat’s an amazing focus. She has raw natural talent that—”

“That will die with her,” Mother L’rin
interrupted him.

“What?” Lock’s heart fisted in his chest.
“Please, Mother L’rin, no!”

“Can’t you save her?” Deep’s voice was harsh
but he was paler than Lock had ever seen him. “Are you saying we
brought her to you too late?”

“It was too late the first time you two
decided to attempt blasphemy with this innocent child.” Mother
L’rin stroked Kat’s silky hair tenderly. “An elite, too. One
blessed by the Mother. Such a pity.”

“So she’s going to…to die?” Lock heard the
break in his voice but he couldn’t help it. Gods, to think they’d
killed the woman they loved!
Oh Kat, I’m sorry. So very
sorry…
From his twin he could feel similar emotions to his own.
But Deep’s sorrow was shaded with a guilt so intense it was almost
despair.
Again,
Lock heard his twin thinking in a rare burst
of mental empathy.
I’ve done it again. Gods…

“I will do what I can,” Mother L’rin said,
pulling Lock back from his brother’s thoughts. “But I make no
promises—you deserve none.” She fixed them both with a disapproving
glare. “As you know, the bonds between twin males and their female
is twofold—there must be a soul bond as well as a physical bond.
What you two have done is created an incomplete soul bond with this
girl.”

“An incomplete bond?” Lock frowned. “I
didn’t even know such a thing was possible.”

“It’s very rare. In fact, in all my years of
healing I have only seen it happen once before.”

“So we’re
not
the first male
seeker/finders to use a female as our focus,” Deep said. “What
happened in the other case?”

“The girl died,” Mother L’rin said grimly.
“I wasn’t able to save her.”

Lock sucked in a breath and Deep went pale
again. “Mother L’rin, please…”

“Her spirit is fractured,” she continued.
“Which is why she is hovering between this life and the next. You
must complete the bond in order to have any hope of healing
her.”

“How can we bond with an unconscious
female?” Deep demanded. “That’s called rape and Lock and I don’t
practice it.”

“I didn’t say you should complete the
physical
bond.” The old woman’s eyes flashed again. “I know
this is difficult to understand, warrior, as the soul bond and
physical bond are usually formed at the same time during bonding
sex. But it
is
possible to have one without the other—for a
time, anyway.”

“What can we do?” Lock said eagerly. “Tell
us, Mother, please.”

“Her spirit must be tethered to her body.
But it must
want
to stay—you have to tempt it with pleasure,
lure it back and heal it with your touch.”

“Not
my
touch.” Deep shook his head.
“She’s reacted badly to my hands on her since her collapse.”

“That’s true,” Lock said reluctantly,
thinking of the way Kat’s pulse had spiked after her collapse on
the Kindred Mothership. “Her heartbeat increased abnormally and she
moaned out loud—something about ‘too much’ when Deep put his hands
on her.”

Mother L’rin frowned. “And were you touching
her at the same time?”

Lock nodded. “I was. It was my touch that
stabilized her the first time. But then, on our way here, it
stopped working.”

“Because she needs you both. Do not dispute
me, warrior,” she said when Deep opened his mouth to protest. “I
know what I’m talking about. If you want to have any hope of
healing this poor girl you and your brother so callously injured,
you’ll listen and do
exactly
as I say.”

“All right.” Deep crossed his arms over his
broad chest. “What can we do?”

“As I said, you must bind her spirit back to
her body. It has to
want
to stay on this plane and be bonded
to the two of you.”

Lock cleared his throat. “In that case…”

“In that case there’s no hope,” Deep
finished for him. “Kat wants nothing to do with either of us. A
fact I’ve been trying to make clear to you for over a month now,
Brother,” he said to Lock.

Mother L’rin’s pinkish eyebrows shot up.
“The three of you had an unwilling joining?”

“Kat only participated in the joining so
that we could locate her friend—another Earth girl who was being
held captive by the Scourge,” Deep said. “She never would have
joined with us if need hadn’t forced her hand.”

“But you said the two joinings you did with
her were successful?”

“They exceeded anything we’d ever done with
F’lir,” Lock admitted. “Deep is right about one thing—the lady Kat
is a natural focus. Her ability is unlike anything I’ve ever
seen.”

“It’s not just her ability—she has an
affinity for the two of you, whether she admits it to herself or
not.” Mother L’rin looked thoughtful. “An affinity I’m sure you
felt the first moment you laid eyes on her.”

Lock nodded. “That’s exactly how I
felt.”

Deep said nothing.

“So if there is some affinity—some spark
between the three of you—there is still hope. You have to bring
that spark to the surface. Tempt her spirit back with it and then
bind her to you with pleasure.”

“If you’re talking about sexual pleasure
then we’re back to where we started,” Deep said icily. “Lock and I
won’t take advantage of an unconscious female.”

“Of course she’s unconscious,” Mother L’rin
snapped. “She’s is so much pain she can’t bear it. One of you must
take the pain for her. Only when her agony is gone will she be able
to receive your touch. Only then can you heal her spirit.”

“I’ll do it.” Deep stepped forward at
once.

“Deep, no,” Lock protested. “You don’t have
to—”

“I want to. And besides, Kat needs your
touch to remain stable.” Deep frowned. “You stay with her, hold her
hand. I’ll take care of this.”

“Before you accept your lady’s pain so
easily, you ought to know what it entails,” Mother L’rin said
quietly. When psychic pain is transmuted to the physical plane, it
trebles in strength. And you should know that I sense a great deal
of agony coming from this little one.” She stroked Kat’s hair
gently.

“I don’t give a damn about that,” Deep
growled. “Do whatever you have to. Just hurry up and get
started.”

The wise woman nodded. “Very well.” Turning,
she motioned to a small clump of golden-pink
flana
bushes on
the far side of the stream. “Doby! Bring the whip.”

There was a rustling sound in the bushes and
then the biggest male Lock had ever seen appeared. He was at least
nine feet tall and so heavily muscled it was hard to see how he
moved. His mottled pinkish skin proved he was of native Twin Moons
stock, the same as Mother L’rin, and he wore only a loincloth made
of green and gold leaves to cover himself.

Lock had never seen a native so large—he
must be a genetic anomaly. As far as Lock knew, most of the native
inhabitants of his home world were tiny. Small but fierce, they
mainly lived in the wild lands of the uncharted continent. Mother
L’rin was one of the few who had come to live in the more civilized
and cultured world the Kindred had created when they first traded
with the natives.

As the giant’s huge, flat feet splashed in
the holy stream the leaves covering his groin fluttered. The flash
of leaves caught Lock’s eye and he saw that there was nothing but a
ragged stump where the huge male’s shaft should have been.

Gods!
He recoiled at the sight and
Mother L’rin saw him and laughed.

“My faithful Doby here is an eunuch. It is
the sacrifice he made to come across the golden sea and live here
in the Healing Gardens to attend me daily. Such devotion in a male
is rare.”

“Rare indeed.” Lock cleared his throat
uncomfortably. “What does he have in the box?” For the huge Doby
had produced a lacquered green box from somewhere. He presented it
respectfully to the wise woman, holding it in both huge hands.

“A transference device.” Mother L’rin opened
the box and removed a plain black wooden handle. It was about two
feet long and tapered on one end but there was nothing attached to
it as far as Lock could see.

Deep must have been thinking the same thing.
“I thought you called it a whip?”

“It is. Patience, warrior. All will be made
clear.” Holding the black handle carefully, Mother L’rin pressed
the smooth, round butt of it against Kat’s right temple. “Release
it, child,” she murmured, stroking the shining auburn hair. “Let
the pain go. Let it flow. Another has agreed to bear this burden,
let me take it from you.”