Found (44 page)

Putting the idea of bonding to the side,
Xairn felt a glow of contentment as he contemplated his future.
Despite Slk’s dire predictions that his Scourge DNA would reassert
itself, the human strain he had gotten from Lauren seemed to be
holding up remarkably well, and Xairn was grateful for it. It was
that small restraint which had allowed him to take the submissive
rather than the traditional dominant role during their lovemaking.
Without it, he knew he would have burst his bonds and taken Lauren
to the bed for bonding sex without hesitation. His Scourge
instincts were simply too strong to control without help. Help from
the tiny bit of humanity he carried within him. His eyes still got
hot and changed to their old color when he was under a great deal
of stress, but other than that he looked like a human male and that
was how he was content to stay.

Lauren shifted, her long black hair
whispering over his bare chest, and sighed softly. Xairn thought he
saw a soft smile curve her lips and he smiled himself in answer.
Now that they had finally found a way to be together without
hurting her, he knew he would never leave. He and Lauren and Little
One could stay together forever here on Earth, working in Lauren’s
shop during the day and basking in the glow of their love at night.
Together they were a family—something he had never really had and
always longed for.

Still thinking of the warm, perfect future
than lay before them, Xairn dropped a final kiss on Lauren’s silky
black hair and allowed himself to relax into sleep.

“
Ssson…my ssson…”

The familiar voice was calling him, calling
from a long way away and yet it was too close. Much closer than
Xairn ever wanted to be to the owner of that hissing, evil voice
again.

“
Xairn…” The voice called his name
insistently. “Come to me, my ssson. I have sssomething I think
you’ll want to sssee.”

“
Leave me alone!” he tried to shout but
the words came out in a whisper. Suddenly he was standing in the
great, dark throne room of the Fathership. Sitting on the throne,
etched in poison green lines, was his father.

The sight was a familiar one to
him—something he had seen almost every day from birth. But there
was something new this time. The AllFather’s booted feet rested on
a large rectangular object which had been covered with a cloth. A
box? No, a cage, Xairn was certain. He could hear something
rustling around inside it and the cloth covering billowed,
outlining the thick bars. For a moment he thought he saw the
outline of a hand clasping one of the cruel iron rods, just beneath
the cloth, but then it disappeared and he couldn’t be sure if he’d
really seen it or not.

“
What do you want with me?” he asked his
father. “I renounced you and my entire race. How did you even find
me?”

“
You mean with your altered DNA?” The
AllFather sneered derisively at his changed skin and eyes. “Yesss,
excellent work, that. You look exactly like a human now…and you act
like one too.”

Xairn frowned. “If you called me here to
mock me, I don’t care. I
like
the way I
look now and Lauren likes it too. Not to mention the fact that my
human DNA allows me to control the Scourge urges to injure and rape
I inherited from you.”

The crimson eyes burned. “I cannot believe
you sssubverted your natural urgesss for the sssake of that female.
A female too weak to withstand you in your true form isss no fit
mate for my ssson.”

“
Be careful, Father. She is
my
female and I will hear no word spoken against her,”
Xairn growled.

“
Your
female, eh?” The
AllFather laughed. “How dare you call her so when you haven’t
placed a single mark of possession on her? Where is her brand?
Where are her piercings and collar? Instead, you carry
her
brand on
your
chest as though she were the dominant and you the
sssubmissive.”

Xairn lifted his chin. “I
am
submissive to her and I am proud of it. I would
rather call her Mistress and bend myself to her will for the rest
of my life than dominate and hurt her even once.”

His father made a noise of disgust at the
back of his throat. “Truly you have become a weakling, my ssson.
You ssswear eternal love for this female—you let her brand you with
her name, you even take her DNA inside you. Yet you don’t even have
the ssstrength to bond her to you. At any time ssshe could leave
you and you could not ssstop her for you have no bond.”

“
You know as well as I do what bonding sex
entails for our kind,” Xairn growled. “I won’t put Lauren through
that. And what’s more, I am through discussing it with
you.
Goodbye.” He turned to go, although he
had no idea how to get out of the strange dream, but the AllFather
called him back.

“
Wait, my ssson. I didn’t call you here
sssimply to ssspeak of your little female. I have sssomething here
I think you’ll want to sssee.”

“
Whatever you have, I don’t want to see
it,” Xairn said, but he couldn’t help turning his head.

“
Perhapsss I misspoke. I ssshould have
sssaid I have sssome
one
you might wish to
sssee.” The AllFather leaned forward and patted the cloth-covered
cage, his eyes glowing with evil glee. “Sssomeone you have been
wishing to sssee for a very long time. Your entire life, in
fact.”

Xairn’s heart was suddenly in his throat. He
turned back toward the cage, his hands curled into fists at his
sides. “What have you done? Who do you have in there?”

“
Who do you think?” With a sudden move,
the AllFather rose and yanked the black cloth from the cruel metal
cage, revealing the occupant shivering within.

Xairn’s legs gave way and he stumbled,
coming down on his hands and knees before the cage. “No,” he
whispered as the familiar green eyes looked into his own. “No. Oh,
no…”

“
Oh yesss!” The AllFather began to laugh—a
high, evil cackle that filled Xairn’s head like the tolling of a
bell. He tried to get away from the sound, from the sight that met
his eyes, but he couldn’t. He was trapped…trapped…

Lauren was jolted out of a deep, contented
sleep by a shout of pure horror. “Oh my God, what? What is it?” she
gasped, looking around wildly. Beside her, Xairn was thrashing
wildly, so much so that Little One had retreated to the corner of
the couch and was staring at him reproachfully with her big brown
eyes.

“No!” he was gasping—moaning really. “No, no,
no. Not her. Not
her.”

“Not who?” Lauren demanded, grabbing him by
the arm. “Xairn, wake up. You’re having a bad dream. Wake up, baby.
Wake up!”

At last he sat bolt upright in bed, his eyes
wide open. His entire body was tense and he was panting as though
he’d just run a marathon. “Gods…” He shook his head and Lauren was
both astonished and worried to see that he was
crying
—something she’d never seen him do before.

“Xairn? Baby?” Tentatively she touched his
arm and he grabbed her hand and held on like a drowning man reached
for a life preserver.

“I saw her.” He shook his head, the tears
still pouring down his cheeks. “I thought she was dead but he has
her. I
saw
her.”

“Saw who, baby? Who?” Lauren rubbed his back,
trying to calm him down. Despite everything they’d been through
together, she’d never seen Xairn this upset before—he was
absolutely distraught.

“He has her locked in a cage.” Xairn covered
his face with his other hand, his broad shoulders hunched in
misery. “In a fucking
cage.
The Gods alone know what he’s
done to her. What he’s doing right now.”

“Honey, please, you have to work with me
here.” Lauren stroked his trembling shoulders and then pulled him
close, pillowing his head on her breasts. “Tell me who you’re
talking about. Who did you see?”

“My
mother
.” Xairn pulled away from
her, his eyes wild and desolate. “All these years he let me think
she was dead. He taunted me with visions of her—showed me how he’d
taken me from her when I was still a baby. He showed me the tears
in her eyes, the way she reached for me, begged to hold me just one
more time. I…” He took a deep, hitching breath and shook his head.
“I thought, ‘Well, at least she’s gone and he can’t hurt her
anymore. At least she’s beyond his reach.’” He looked at Lauren.
“But she’s not. She’s still alive and he is still tormenting her.
All these years, I never knew…”

“Oh honey, that’s terrible.” Lauren stroked
his hair. “What a terrible dream! I’m so sorry.”

Xairn shook his head grimly. “It was no
dream. He has her and if I don’t hurry it will be too late to save
her.”

“What?” Lauren had a cold, sinking feeling in
the pit of her stomach. “You can’t be serious—you’re going to go
back up there? To the Fathership?”

Xairn nodded. “I have no choice.”

“It’s a trap,” she told him. “You know it is,
Xairn. A trap to draw us out.”

“Which is why you’re not coming with me.” He
was already out of bed and dressing. Lauren couldn’t help noticing
that he was ignoring all the human clothes her mother had bought
him and pulling on his old black leather flight pants instead.

“But—”

“He wants you, Lauren.” Xairn pointed a
finger at her. “He thinks I’ll come back to his side and reveal
your location if he uses my…her for bait. Maybe he even hopes I’ll
bring you back with me. But that is
not
going to happen.
You’re staying here, safe with Little One while I go take care of
this matter.”

“Stay here while you walk into danger? I
don’t think so!” Lauren frowned indignantly. “I’m coming with
you.”

Xairn shook his head. “That is
exactly
what he wants. Don’t you see? The girls who have been taken—”

“Girls? As in more than one?”

He nodded rapidly. “Yes, I saw on the
flatscreen that another was taken recently and she had hair just
like yours. I didn’t want to say anything but those girls both had
something that made them similar to you. He’s trying to find you
and I can’t let him. I have to save my mother and stop him once and
for all.”

“But you’ll be killed!” Lauren protested.
“There are hundreds of those horrible vat-grown Frankenstein things
up there. Not to mention the fact that your father has all those
weird powers—”

“Like the power to get inside a person’s head
and read their thoughts? The power to make someone do as he tells
them, whether they want to or not?” Xairn said quietly.

“I…yes,” Lauren said in a small voice.
“Xairn—”

“I have those abilities now, too,” he
reminded her gently. “And they’re growing. I’m not sure but I
think
being close to you is making them grow. Our lovemaking
has caused my power to expand somehow.”

“But baby, your father has had them for
years.
He knows how to use them. He—”

“I’m going,” he cut her off. Then his voice
dropped to a more gentle register. “Lauren, please, try to
understand—she’s my
mother.
I have to save her. You love
your own mother very much—you know you’d do the same for her.”

When he put it that way, Lauren knew she had
to let him go. But still, she couldn’t help the fear that filled
her throat—like a wad of dry cotton that made it impossible to
swallow.

“Please.” Xairn held out his hand. “Give me
the ring, Lauren. The ship won’t work without it.”

She fingered the slim, silver O-ring which
had come to mean so much to her. It said he loved her, that he
would stay with her and try to work things out.
And we
did
work things out! We finally found a way to
stay together! And now he’s asking for it back—leaving. Oh, it’s
not fair. Please, God, so not fair…

“I know it’s not fair.” Xairn drew her
suddenly into a desperately tight hug. Holding her close, he
pressed his face to her hair and inhaled, as though he wanted to
take her scent with him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I love you but
I have to go.”

Lauren felt the tears coming but she
struggled to hold them back. He was determined to do this and there
nothing she could say would stop him. At least she could be as
brave as he was about it. “All right,” she said, trying to keep her
voice from trembling. “But…but don’t go alone.”

Xairn pulled back and looked at her,
frowning. “And who exactly am I supposed to take with me? I told
you, Lauren, I won’t let you put yourself in danger by coming.”

“Not me.” She sniffed. “You’re right—I
wouldn’t be much use to you in a fight. But what about Deep and
Lock or some of the other Kindred? You helped them when we all
escaped from your home world. Don’t they owe you one?”

“Owe me one?” He shook his head. “No, I don’t
think so. We fought on the same side on my home world because we
had no choice. But the Scourge and the Kindred are enemies. I can’t
ask them to help.”

“Then
I
will.” Lauren struggled out of
his embrace and began getting dressed herself. “I’m going down to
the HKR building right now to place a call to the Mother ship. I
can’t let you go up there without backup. I don’t care what you
say—they owe you some help. And they strike me as the kind of
people who always pay their debts.”

Xairn frowned and then sighed. “All right. I
don’t expect anything will come of it but I’ll wait a little while
if it will make you feel better. Tell them I’ll be in orbit around
the dark side of the moon. But if they don’t come soon, I’m going
in alone.”

“Don’t do that, please! I’m sure I can
convince them.” Lauren pulled on her clothes hastily and stuffed
her feet into a pair of shoes
. “Please,
baby.”

“I told you I’d wait a little while.” He held
out his hand again. “The ring?”