Found (5 page)

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Olivia
objected. “He was just there on a pilgrimage.”

Nadiah shrugged. “I can only tell you what I
saw. And the only other glimpse I got was of me kissing him.”

“The luck kiss.” Sophie smiled sentimentally.
“It seems like just yesterday I was scared to death about having to
perform it with Sylvan.”

“Well,
I’m
not scared.” Nadiah gave
her a grin. “I’ve been looking forward to my first Kindred kiss
since I was a little girl. I promise you, Sophie, I’ll make sure
your union to Sylvan starts off with a bang.”

“I know you will.” Sophie gave her a hug and
then cocked her head. “Oh my God, the music’s starting. How do I
look?”

“Gorgeous.” Nadiah hugged her carefully,
trying not to disarrange the transparent white panel she wore over
her face which the other Earth girls had called a veil. It was a
beautiful and interesting custom—one she was determined to emulate
in her own bonding ceremony.

And who knows,
she thought as they
lined up behind Sophie and began the slow procession out to the
sacred grove.
Maybe I’ll be meeting—and kissing— my future mate
in the next few minutes.

Of course she knew that was nonsense. The
blood bond between herself and Yo-dah was practically unbreakable.
Her parents had seen to that. Still, a warrior who genuinely cared
for her might be able to challenge the bond…

Humming softly along with the lovely Earth
music, Nadiah followed her friend out of the changing tent.

“Well…that wasn’t so bad,” Lauren murmured
after Blix finally left. She shut and locked the door carefully,
checking it twice to make sure it was secure, before shaking out
some of the clothes in the pile.

She had to admit they were a vast improvement
over the silver muumuu. There was a tight-fitting blouse with long
flowing sleeves in a shimmery see-through pale blue that felt as
soft as silk. It fit Lauren so exactly she wondered how Blix could
know her size.
Probably picked it right out of my head like
everything else.
The idea made her frown but Lauren pushed it
away. If the worst thing that came out of her meeting with the
alien mind reader was a new set of clothes she supposed she
couldn’t complain.

The only problem she could see with the
blouse was that it was revealing—
very
revealing. Her full
breasts and tight nipples were clearly visible through its shimmery
fabric. Just as she was thinking there was no way she could wear it
out in the open, she saw a solution. The next piece of clothing she
unfolded was a red sash. It was about the width of her palm but so
long she was able to wrap it around her several times and still
knot it on one side. It looked a little strange when she was
done—kind of like the wrapping on a kimono—but it was better than
showing God and everybody her boobs.

The skirt that went with the blue blouse and
red sash was deep cobalt. Lauren caught her breath at the lovely
color and was pleased to see that it was completely opaque. It fit
just above her hips and fell to her ankles in a snug but
comfortable sheathe. There was a long slit up one side that showed
most of her left leg when she walked but Lauren shifted it over so
it didn’t reveal as much as felt satisfied with the result.

The only problem now was shoes—she didn’t
have any. In fact, she’d been barefoot for weeks, ever since the
AllFather had first kidnapped her and taken her aboard his
Fathership. Lauren wasn’t wild about the idea of going barefoot on
an alien planet—who knew what she might pick up out there? But when
she looked down again, she saw something she must have missed the
first time. A pair of deep blue slippers with crimson soles was
lying where she’d put the pile of clothes. Lauren tried them on and
found that they fit perfectly and were deliciously comfortable.

She went to look at herself in the bathroom
viewer and was pleased with what she saw. “Sooo much better than
that ugly silver muumuu,” she murmured, running her fingers through
her long black hair. She wished she had a little lipstick to
brighten up her face but other than that, she looked ready for a
night on the town—well, a strange alien town, anyway.

Which led to a dilemma—should she leave the
ship and trade a few food cubes to Blix or should she stay tucked
inside the spaceship as Xairn had instructed?

On one hand she
had
promised to stay
inside. But on the other hand,
he
had promised to be back in
one day. Lauren didn’t want to let herself think that something had
happened to him—the very idea put a lump in her throat and not just
because she’d be stranded on a distant planet without him. As
fierce and moody as he was, Xairn had become very dear to her. She
felt safe in his arms and wanted to help him work through his
troubled past. Not to mention that when he looked at her with that
burning red-on-black gaze she felt hot and cold all over and
wanted…what
did
she want from him? Lauren wasn’t quite sure
but she did know she didn’t want to lose him.

Right now, though, she had to be practical.
What if she
was
on her own now? Marooned on a distant planet
in a galaxy light years from Earth. What was she supposed to do?
How would she survive when the food cubes ran out? There were
hundreds of them but not a lifetime supply. And besides, did she
really want to live the rest of her life cooped up in the small
silver spaceship?

When she thought about it that way, there was
no choice. “I’ll do it,” Lauren said out loud. The sound of her own
voice seemed to give her courage. Lifting her chin, she went to the
cabinet and began sorting rapidly through the cubes, looking for
the ones that had the little squiggle that indicated worm based
cuisine. When she had a handful she tucked them into the pocket of
the skirt. Then, taking a deep breath and gripping the stunner
Xairn had left her firmly in one hand, she unlatched the door and
went out.

She hadn’t gone two steps, her crimson soled
slippers soundless on the stones of the alley, when a girl with
deep orange skin and strangely tilted eyes suddenly appeared before
her.

Lauren gasped and held up the stunner. “Stay
back, I’m armed!”

“I’m Vlanka. Don’t be scared—Spider sent me.”
The girl smiled, revealing blue teeth. Instead of hair she had two
large, fleshy tentacles with purple tips growing out of either side
of her head. They twitched and moved, seeming to have a life of
their own—reminding Lauren of an elephant’s trunk. Other than that
and the coloring of her skin and teeth, she looked more or less
humanoid and seemed to speak English as well as Blix had. She was
also wearing the same kind of outfit Lauren had on, right down to
the blue shoes with red soles.

“You mean Blix?” Lauren asked, still keeping
the stunner level with the girl’s midsection.

Vlanka shrugged. “If you want. Around here we
mostly just call him Spider. He said you’d be out. Sent me to bring
you to him.”

Lauren frowned. “I thought his, uh, booth or
stall or whatever was just around the corner.”

“It is.” The girl smiled mysteriously. “But
you got to know which corner to go around. First though, you’re
wearing your
tok
all wrong.”

“My what?” Lauren asked but the girl was
already rearranging the red sash Lauren had wrapped around herself
so carefully. She used both her hands and her hair trunks, as
Lauren was beginning to think of them, for the job. Lauren couldn’t
help noticing that she had seven fingers on each hand, tipped with
long purple nails. Several of them were missing joints, however,
and ended in stubs instead of nails. Lauren wondered if Vlanka had
lost them in some kind of accident.

At last the alien girl stood back to admire
her handiwork. “There. Better.”

“Hey,” Lauren protested, looking down at
herself. The long red sash now crisscrossed between her breasts and
tied at her waist in an elaborate knot. Unfortunately, the new
configuration left her breasts exposed through the sheer pale blue
top. “I can’t go out in public like this,” she said, trying to pull
the sides of the sash over enough to at least cover her nipples.
She was only partially successful.

“You got to,” Vlanka said implacably. “That’s
the only way to wear a
tok
in the trade.”

“A what in the where?” Lauren asked but
Vlanka was surveying her with a frown.

“You got this wrong too.” She twitched the
long cobalt skirt around until the long slit was directly up the
front, flashing a lot more of her crotch than Lauren was
comfortable with. But before she could protest again, Vlanka said,
“Come on. Spider’s waiting.”

Taking her by the hand, she pulled Lauren
down the alleyway toward the busy marketplace beyond.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Rast
said, looking down at himself. The black haired warrior named Deep
had made him strip down to his skin. Then he’d given Rast nothing
to replace his clothes but a furry green kilt-thing to wrap around
his waist and green fur boots to match.

Deep raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t
like it?”

“Of course I don’t fucking like it,” Rast
growled. “I look like a reject from a
Conan
movie.”

“Too bad.” Deep clapped in on his bare back.
“Because the ceremony’s starting and I promised my female I’d have
you dressed and in line in time to participate.”

“What do you mean? What am I supposed to
do?”

But Deep was already leading the way out of
the changing tent and around the side of the grove of green and
purple trees Rast had seen earlier. He felt beyond strange in the
weird alien outfit but at least there didn’t seem to be many people
in the immediate vicinity to witness his shame.

Taking a deep breath, Rast decided to try and
go with it. It pissed him off to no end that he had to change into
some strange get-up in order to even
talk
to Commander
Sylvan but he supposed it must be part of the Kindred culture. It
was bizarre but he would have done stranger things than wearing a
furry green kilt and matching boots in order to solve this case and
bring Lauren home safely to her grieving mother.

He followed Deep, who was stalking around the
side of the grove of trees purposefully. The warm scent of growing
things almost made Rast forget he was inside a spaceship and the
artificial green sun hanging overhead beamed down on his bare
shoulders in a way that was strangely soothing. Again he was
overcome by the oddest feeling. Not déjà vu exactly. More
like…homecoming. As though he belonged here somehow. As though—

“Here we are,” Deep hissed, breaking into his
musings. “We’re just going to slip in the side here.”

Rast nodded and followed him through a narrow
path in the green and purple trees. He felt like he had as a kid,
playing Cowboys and Indians, stalking silently through the trees to
ambush…

A wedding.

Rast stared blankly at the assembled group of
people. Yup, no doubt about it, for some reason he was about to
take part in a Kindred wedding. The groom was Commander Sylvan and
his best man was Commander Baird. Both of them were dressed in the
same fur kilt and boots outfit that Rast was wearing but the
bride—one of Lauren’s cousins—was wearing a traditional white lace
wedding gown and her bridesmaids were wearing simple pale gold
sheaths.

It was obvious what was going on, but
not
why he was being made to take part in it. “Hey,” he
whispered to Deep, who was already pushing him into line beside
Commander Baird. “I think there’s been some kind of mistake.”

“No mistake,” Deep growled softly. “Just
stand there and shut your mouth. You don’t have to do a damn thing
until the luck kiss.”

“The
what?”

But Deep had already faded back into the
trees, leaving Rast to watch as a beaming Commander Sylvan said his
vows to his bride in front of a very stern-looking priestess.

He looked around uncertainly. Should he just
stand there and do nothing? He didn’t want to make a scene and,
regardless of how strange the situation was, he was a nice enough
guy not to want to ruin someone else’s big day. But what was it
that the dark Kindred had been saying about a kiss? Was
he
supposed to kiss someone? And if so, who?

Rast looked speculatively at the two
bridesmaids standing across from him. One was Lauren’s other
cousin—he recognized her from the conversations they’d had on the
viewscreen. The other was a tall, slender girl with long, pale
blonde hair that flowed over her shoulders like a golden shawl. She
had sharp, clever features and bright blue eyes which were
currently fixed directly on him.

Why is she staring at me?
Rast thought
uneasily. He returned her look, giving her a challenging gaze in
return. But instead of dropping her eyes and blushing like most
girls would have done, the blonde bridesmaid stared back. A teasing
little smile curved the corners of her lush mouth and Rast couldn’t
help thinking she had the softest, pinkest looking lips he’d ever
seen.

The rest of her wasn’t bad either. She might
be slender, but she had curves where it counted. The pale gold
dress clung to her lovingly, making it apparent she was all woman.
He raised his eyes to her face again and saw her arching an eyebrow
at him. Obviously she’d seen him checking her out. Rast felt his
cheeks burning—he’d been ogling her like a horny teenager. But he
refused to look away. Instead he looked into her eyes, taking their
staring contest to the next level.

He willed her to drop her gaze but the blonde
girl clearly wasn’t one to back down from a challenge. Rast wasn’t
either. Though it was uncomfortably intimate to look into a
stranger’s eyes for such a long time, he held her gaze
unflinchingly.