Deceived Read online

  Deceived

  Brides of the Kindred #24

  Evangeline Anderson

  .

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Evangeline Anderson

  Brides of the Kindred

  Copyright © 2019 by Evangeline Anderson

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com or Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  *Cover content is for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted on the cover is a model*

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  *Author's Warning: Though I have tried to handle it delicately, anyone with a history of past sexual abuse may want to read with care because my heroine Anna, is a survivor of a sexual attack. I don't write this kind of book lightly or gratuitously, I wanted to write about love and hope and healing and redemption. I hope I have achieved that goal with this book and that it will bring hope to others.

  Hugs, Evangeline

  Also by Evangeline Anderson

  Brides of the Kindred series (Sci-fi /Action-Adventure /Romance)

  Claimed (Also available in Audio)

  Hunted (Also available in Audio)

  Sought (Also Available in Audio)

  Found (Also Available in Audio )

  Revealed (Also Available in Audio)

  Pursued (Also Available in Audio)

  Exiled (Also Available in Audio)

  Shadowed (Also Available in Audio)

  Chained (Also Available in Audio)

  Divided (Also Available in Audio)

  Devoured (Also Available in Audio)

  Enhanced (Also Available in Audio)

  Cursed (Coming soon to Audio)

  Enslaved

  Targeted

  Forgotten

  Switched

  Uncharted

  Unbound

  Surrendered

  Vanished

  Imprisoned

  Twisted

  Deceived

  Kindred Tales series (side stories in the Brides of the Kindred which are outside the main story arc. These can be read as STAND ALONE novels.)

  Mastering the Mistress (Also available in Audio)

  Bonding with the Beast (Also available in Audio)

  Seeing with the Heart (Also available in Audio)

  Freeing the Prisoner (Also available in Audio)

  Healing the Broken (a Kindred Christmas novel) (Also available in Audio)

  Taming the Giant (Also available in Audio)

  Bridging the Distance (Also available in Audio)

  Loving a Stranger (Coming Soon to Audio)

  Finding the Jewel

  Bonded by Accident

  Releasing the Dragon

  Sharing a Mate

  Instructing the Novice

  Awakened by the Giant

  Hitting the Target

  Handling the Hybrid

  Born to Darkness series (Paranormal/Action-Adventure/Romance)

  Crimson Debt (Also available in Audio)

  Scarlet Heat (Also available in Audio)

  Ruby Shadows (Also available in Audio)

  Cardinal Sins (Coming Soon)

  Dessert (short novella following Scarlet Heat) (Also in Audio)

  Alien Mate Index series (Sci-fi /Action-Adventure /Romance)

  Abducted (Also available in Print and Audio)

  Protected (Also available in Print and Audio)

  Descended (Also available in Print and Audio)

  Severed (Also available in Print and Audio )

  The Cougarville Series

  (Paranormal/Action-Adventure/Romance/)

  (Older woman/Younger Man)

  Buck Naked (Also available in Audio)

  Cougar Bait (Also available in Audio)

  Stone Cold Fox (Also available in Audio)

  Big Bad Wolf (coming soon)

  The Institute series (Daddy-Dom/Age Play Romance)

  The Institute: Daddy Issues(Also available in Audio)

  The Institute: Mishka's Spanking

  The CyBRG Files with Mina Carter

  (Sci-fi /Action-Adventure /Romance)

  Unit 77: Broken

  Unit 78: Bred

  The Swann Sisters Chronicles

  (Contemporary Fairy/Funny/ Fantasy/Romance)

  Wishful Thinking (Also available in Audio)

  Be Careful What You Wish For (Also available in Audio)

  Compendiums and Box Sets

  Brides of the Kindred Volume One

  Contains Claimed, Hunted, Sought and Found

  Brides of the Kindred Volume Two

  Contains Revealed, Pursued, and Exiled

  Brides of the Kindred Volume Three

  Contains Shadowed, Chained, and Divided

  Brides of the Kindred Volume Four

  Contains Devoured, Enhanced, and Cursed

  Brides of the Kindred Volume Five

  Contains Enslaved, Targeted, and Forgotten

  Brides of the Kindred Volume Six

  Contains Switched, Uncharted, and Unbound

  Brides of the Kindred Volume Seven

  Contains Surrendered, Vanished, and Imprisoned

  Kindred Tales Volume One

  Contains Mastering the Mistress, Bonding with the Beast, Seeing with the Heart

  Kindred Tales Volume Two

  Contains Freeing the Prisoner, Healing the Broken, Taming the Giant

  Kindred Tales Volume Three

  Contains Bridging the Distance, Loving a Stranger, Finding the Jewel

  Kindred Tales Volume Four

  Contains Bonded by Accident, Releasing the Dragon, and Sharing a Mate

  Alien Mate Index Volume One

  Contains Abducted, Protected, Descended, and Severed

  Born to Darkness Box Set

  Contains Crimson Debt, Scarlet Heat, and Ruby Shadows

  *One Hot Halloween

  Contains Red and the Wolf, Gypsy Moon, and Taming the Beast

  *Have Yourself a Sexy Little Christmas

  Contains Kidnapped for Christmas, Cougar Christmas, and Seasons's Spankings

  *Bound and Determined

  Contains The Punishment of Nicolett and His Ward

  Stand Alone Novels

  (Sci-fi OR Paranormal Action-Adventure/Romance)

  Purity (Now available in Audio)

  Stress Relief

  The Last Man on Earth

  Anyone U Want

  Shadow Dreams

  Hunger Moon Rising

  Cougar Christmas

  Planet X (Also available in Audio)

  Deal with the Devil (Also available in Audio)

  The Sacrifice (Also available in Audio)

  Blood Kiss

  Take Two

  The Pleasure Palace

  The Last Man on Earth

  Blind Date with a Vampire

  Eyes Like a Wolf (Foster Brother romance)

  *Defiled

  *Ceremony of Three

  *Str8te Boys (M/M romance)

  * Forever Broken (M/M romance)

  * Red and the Wolf

  *Gypsy Moon

  *The Last Bite (M/M romance)

  *The Assignment (M/M romance)

  *Sex with Strangers

  *A Spanking for Valentine

  * denotes books that are only available at Evangeline's Aliens and Alphas Bookstore

  Naughty T
ales (Short Reads to get you Hot and Bothered)

  *Sin Eater

  Confessions of a Lingerie Model

  When Mr. Black Comes Home

  Speeding Ticket

  *Putting on a Show

  YA Novels

  The Academy(Now available in Audio)

  Click HERE to join my audiobook newsletter.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek at Trapped in Time, the new Kindred Tales Novel coming soon!

  Give a Hot Kindred Warrior to a Friend!

  Also by Evangeline Anderson

  About the Author

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  Prologue

  The Knower was fragmented…scattered. It had managed to escape and project itself away from Uriel Two before the entire planet had been rearranged and blasted back into the past but it had been a near thing.

  How had it happened? How was it that just as the Knower was about to begin its greatest conquest, it had been defeated—almost wiped out?

  The answer was immediate and clear. The Kindred warrior had done it. Somehow he had pushed the Knower from its proper place as ruler and owner of Uriel Two and forced it to flee out into the galaxy, far away from the planet where it had been created—the place it had learned sentience and the ability to rule.

  The Kindred…the Knower clenched the fists of its new body—one of the several it had fled to in order to escape destruction. The Kindred people had been its creators…and its first victims. It had eliminated the Kindred on Uriel Two because they would not listen—would not obey! Couldn’t they see that the Knower knew what was best for them?

  Apparently not because they had gone on doing whatever they wanted until the Knower had been forced to wipe them out. But it had a plan—a plan that started with the Kindred Mother Ship. It would record the Kindred’s personalities and then put them into the bodies of Replicants—bodies the Knower could enter and control at any time. In this way, the Knower could give them what they needed and keep them always under its watchful eye—it was for their own good, really.

  That had been its plan, anyway—before the fragmentation. Now…there was no knowing what to do.

  Looking around, the Knower took stock of its surroundings. It had projected itself to the Replicant brothel it owned in the Cantha system. The body it was currently in was female, with long red hair, but there were other Replicants available so it could switch at any time.

  The Knower was thankful that in addition to a brothel, it had also built a fully automated Replicant manufacturing facility below ground here. The facility wasn’t quite as big as the one it had set up on Uriel Two, but it could be added to and the production numbers increased. It was only working at half capacity now but it could be speeded up when more Replicants were needed to house the personalities of the Kindred of the Mother Ship.

  For, the Knower decided, it would not to abandon its plan. If anything, carrying it out was more important now than ever. The Kindred must be punished for what they had done to it—punished and taught a lesson. And what better way to do that than to put them into Replicant bodies and force them to do the Knower’s will?

  The Knower nodded, its long, auburn hair brushing against the small of its back.

  Yes, the plan must be carried out. All the Knower needed was the Shannom-rah—the ancient crystal capable of storing trillions of personalities and transferring them into other hosts. It was absolutely integral to the plan’s success.

  It sent out a scan to the other fragments of itself and they began searching…searching….They must find the crystal. When it held the Shannom-rah once more in its hand, it would be unstoppable and the Kindred’s days would be numbered…

  Chapter One

  The first time Dark’s mother held him, she cried.

  It had been a long and difficult delivery and she was nearly used up, her emotional and physical resources bled dry by the agonizing pain of the birth. When the midwife handed her the newborn, she took one look at his strange, bronze eyes and cried out in horror.

  “A Pain Taker—the child is a Pain Taker!”

  Then she turned her face to the wall and wept and would not be comforted.

  Dark had heard the story often enough from his father that he knew it by heart. And his sire always added, “She was never the same after that. She started fading away the minute you came into the world.”

  Or some similar accusatory words whose meaning was clear, even when he was child. You’re a freak—you don’t belong. You aren’t wanted.

  Although to be fair, his mother had never made him feel unwanted in the short time he had known her. She might have had a moment of weakness at his birth, but she had loved him and his little brother fiercely, right up until her death, when Dark was thirteen cycles and his brother Creek was only seven.

  That was the first time he ever used his gift—or curse, call it what you will. It was the first time Dark had allowed himself to take pain for another of his own volition.

  It was the sound of his little brother’s tears that prompted him to do it. They shared a room and he could hear Creek crying in the darkness, missing their mother so much it seemed as though his tender heart might break. He was so young—too young to be motherless and alone. For their father was never home—running his restaurant, LorElle, which had earned fifteen Marks of Honor from Frip, the most prestigious Culinary Guide in their quadrant. His job was a convenient excuse—a constant escape.

  After their mother’s death, their father threw himself even harder into his work as head chef and restaurant owner. So that soon, instead of only seeing their father for a few brief hours at night, Dark and his brother were lucky to see him for an hour or two during the week. And that was only when he was so tired he was drooping with weariness or he had to get a change of clothing.

  Dark had suspected their father might be trying to work himself to death so he could join their mother—or at least, work himself into oblivion so that he could forget her loss. He and Creek had no such luxury, however. They had only each other and Creek was nearly paralyzed with grief.

  It was on one of the nights when his little brother’s sobs were especially intense, that Dark finally slid out of his own sleeping platform and went to him. Creek was curled in a ball of misery at the foot of the bed, his shoulders heaving, his entire body tight with the pain of loss.

  “Creek?” Dark had touched his little brother and sensed the intense pain radiating off him like heat from an oven. He had his own grief to bear—his mother’s death had hit him like the blow of a hammer, smashing some vital thing inside him that was crooked now and might never be made right. But he couldn’t stand to see his brother suffer—his misery called to Dark, h
is suffering shining like a dark star in the night.

  “Creek,” he said again. “Come on, now—come here.”

  He had pulled his little brother up to the head of the bed and wrapped an arm around his trembling shoulders, letting Creek press his hot face to his chest while he sobbed.

  “It’s all right,” he told his brother. “Everything will be all right.” Which was a lie and they both knew it but he had to say something.

  “No, it’s n-n-not,” Creek had stammered through his tears. “Nuh-nothing will ever b-be all right ag-g-gain. Muhmuh’s gone—she’s gone, Dark! And she’s n-n-never coming back!”

  “I know.” Dark had sat there, holding his brother and feeling helpless. Creek could be a brat sometimes but he loved the little guy. Also, now that their mother was dead and their father always gone, he felt responsible for him as well.

  What can I do? How can I help? he asked himself. A voice whispered in his head—take his pain.

  He had never done this willingly or on purpose before. As a Dark Healer –half Dark Healer, anyway, his other half was Blood Kindred—he knew that some of his people had the innate ability to heal the emotional and physical pain of others. But only those that harnessed and practiced the power of healing could really use it effectively. The holy ones who lived and prayed at the Temple of the Goddess of Healing studied for years in order to be able to ease mental and physical suffering. And even after years of study and practice, they could not heal completely but only ease the ache.

  What it took the holy ones years to master, came easily and naturally to Dark—too naturally. He had spent his childhood being subjected to the negative emotions of the other kids in his crèche. Anytime another child touched his bare skin, he instantly absorbed whatever hurt—either emotional or physical—they had, leading him to easy tears and early avoidance of touch.

  His mother had begged to take him out of the crèche and keep him home but his father had refused.

  “Let him stay—he needs to toughen up,” he’d told her. “He needs to learn early how to put up walls around himself. How to keep the others out. Otherwise he won’t last a minute in the real world. Pain Takers have to get hard fast or they die, Melsandra—you know that.”