Guarding the Goddess Read online

  “Guffin will always be close to me.” Ellina sighed as she folded his handkerchief and handed it back to him. “I just won’t see him again until I ascend to be with Thufar.”

  “My people believe we go to be with the Goddess,” he told her. “Speaking of which, oh Goddess in the Flesh, are you ready for your public audience on the Grand Balcony?”

  “I guess so.” Ellina nodded. “No, I know so,” she amended, lifting her chin. She was, indeed, the “Goddess in the Flesh” as he had reminded her—it was time to act like it. Especially when she was going to be appearing before the full court and all the common people at once.

  “Here.” The tall Kindred rose smoothly, though he had been kneeling all this time, and offered her his arm.

  “Thank you.” Ellina took his arm, noticing again how muscular he was. She looked up at him, trying to be bold at meeting those strange changeable eyes of his. “You know,” she told him, “I wasn’t sure if I liked you before this. But now, well…I feel almost like you’re a friend.” Which was nice—she could use a friend besides her grandmother and Lor.

  Then she wondered if she had been overly familiar—perhaps the big Kindred wouldn’t like to be thought of as a friend. Perhaps he was only there to do a job and befriending her was no part of it.

  “That is, I mean, only if you wish to be friends,” she said quickly. “Not that you have to be, Commander Ty’rial. I know you’re only here to protect me, so—”

  “You can call me Ty, my Lady,” he interrupted her gently. “It’s what all my friends call me,” he added, with a smile.

  “Oh. All right…Ty.” Ellina returned his smile with one of her own and nodded her head regally. It was time to put on her dignity. “Thank you,” she said. “You are most kind, Ty. And you may call me Ellina—but only when no one else is around,” she added. “Because it wouldn’t be considered proper.”

  He nodded.

  “I understand—in your position, you must preserve appearances at all costs.”

  “I really must.” She sighed. “The nobles of the palace are horrible gossips—especially if they think one of their stiff-necked protocols has been broken.”

  “Well, we’d better go or we stand in danger of breaking one now. Come, my Lady—your people await you.”

  “Yes.” Ellina took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “They do.” And lifting her chin, she stepped forward and let Ty open the door of her sleeping chamber and usher her out.

  She no longer felt so afraid, so hopeless and trapped as she had before. And the swirling grief inside her had been lessened greatly by sharing it with the big warrior. Perhaps Grandmamma had been right about the Kindred after all.

  He’ll keep me safe, she thought, looking up at the tall warrior. Lor chattered softly in her ear in agreement. I’ll be all right as long as Ty is by my side.

  Though it might be only a short time, she felt more secure and relaxed, knowing that the big Kindred was with her, willing to do whatever it took to protect her.

  Raising her head, she strode forward to greet her people.

  Three

  Ty strode down the hall, a step ahead of the Potentate to clear the way before her. A phalanx of Kindred guards, hand-picked by himself personally, surrounded her, ensuring that nothing and no one could get through to harm her. He kept a watchful eye on the surroundings, ready to put himself between the blue-skinned girl and any danger that might confront her.

  And for the first time, he began to have second thoughts about this job, which he had accepted from Commander Sylvan himself. He began to wonder if he had been wise to take this mission.

  His mind drifted back to the initial interview when he had first accepted what had seemed like a harmless task…

  * * *

  “Commander Ty’rial, thank you for coming.” Commander Sylvan, head of the Kindred High Council, rose from his seat and leaned across his desk to offer Ty’rial a warrior’s clasp.

  “The honor is mine, Commander Sylvan.” Ty had taken the offered arm and clasped it firmly. “I understand you have a new mission for me,” he said as he sat down.

  “Yes, I do. But only if you choose to take it. It is rather…” Sylvan cleared his throat. “Delicate is probably the best way to put it.”

  “I can handle delicate,” Ty assured him. As a member of the Kindred Elite Espionage Corps, he was often called to do jobs that required all kinds of dangerous and diplomatic negotiations.

  “I know—which is why I thought of you,” Sylvan told him. “You’re not just a blunt instrument like some of our Corps members. You have finesse when the situation calls for it. But the reason this mission is delicate doesn’t have to do with the details of the job. It’s more…” He cleared his throat again. “Your background.”

  “My background?” Ty said blankly. “Why should that have anything to do with it?” He frowned. “Unless the mission is located somewhere on Yonnie Six?”

  “No, no—nothing like that,” Sylvan said hastily. “At least, the mission doesn’t take place there. But there are…similarities in the duties you will be required to do and the ones you were originally trained for.”

  Ty frowned, trying to decipher this bit of information. His background was unusual to say the least, but it had never interfered with his taking a mission before.

  For rather than being born to a loving father and mother, as most Kindred were, Ty had been genetically engineered on an elite slaving station on Yonnie Six.

  The female-run planet was well known for their brutal treatment of males and their insistence that those with Y chromosomes were lesser creatures, fit only to be servants and Body Slaves.

  A Body Slave was devoted to his Mistress and served her sexually as well as in every other way. Having a big, muscular male to stand at one’s back and serve was considered a status symbol among the ruling class of Yonnie Six, which was what the elite slaving station that had created Ty had been banking on.

  His DNA had been molded from several different types of stolen Kindred genetic material, giving him the most desirable qualities of every kind. He had the fangs of a Blood Kindred—though his served more than just one purpose. He also had the ability to cause his shaft to form a mating fist like a Beast Kindred’s—but only if his Mistress wanted him to. He had the gentle manners and diplomatic skills of a Light Twin and the fierce intensity of a Dark Twin of the Twin Kindred and to all that, the scientists who had manipulated his genes had given him extraordinary physical beauty, increased strength and speed, and extra abilities that no other species of Kindred possessed.

  Ty didn’t know if he could rightfully be called a Hybrid, despite his strange combination of DNA. He thought of himself more as a Modified Kindred, since he was able to do so many things his more conventionally conceived brethren could not.

  But along with all the beneficial modifications, came one which was decidedly not to his benefit. For the scientists who had played God with his genes had taken the trait which caused all Kindred warriors to be loyal and to long to be of service to females and strengthened it exponentially. Then, to compound this error, they had raised and trained him at the station to serve one single female slavishly the rest of his life.

  Ty still remembered his early training—the way his instructors had taught him and the others of his kind to long for the day their Mistress would choose them.

  “When she comes and puts her mark on your heart, you will be hers forever,” the Headmaster of the slave training program had told them. “When she chooses you, you will belong to her body and soul. You will do anything to keep her safe—to pleasure and protect her. Your whole existence will revolve around her for she will be your Sun and your life will orbit hers forever.”

  How he had longed for that day! Ty thought sourly. How he had wished that a Mistress—his Mistress—would choose him. He had spent the entire first nineteen cycles of his life waiting and wishing for her—whoever she might be.

  He had trained in the arts of pleasure
and protection, as well as healing. He had made his muscles strong for her, this soon-to-be Mistress of his heart, and studied all the classic literature and vids, for he wanted his mind to be as pleasing as his body. He wanted her to find him handsome and desirable—well-trained and well-educated to meet her every need and fulfill her every whim.

  They made me into a whore, he thought bitterly. A whore willing to sell myself for the pleasure of whatever crumbs of approval my hypothetical Mistress happened to toss my way.

  He cringed now, remembering the hours of labor and sacrifice he had put in, all in the service of the elusive “Mistress” he hoped to one day meet and be owned by. The scientists who had mixed his DNA and the instructors who had trained him had persuaded him to sacrifice everything in the hopes of one day being the perfect slave.

  Thankfully, that hadn’t come to pass. When he was nearing his twentieth name day, which was the age when the “perfect Body Slaves” (as they were advertised to the Mistresses of Yonnie Six) were sold, a Kindred raiding crew came calling.

  They had heard of the misuse of their DNA and were angry on behalf of the Mod-Kindred who had been grown specifically to serve the cruel Mistresses of the female-run world. Ty had been one of the number they had rescued when they burned the slave station to the ground, destroying the Kindred DNA the escaping scientists might have otherwise used to start again.

  Then had begun a gray area of his life—a deprogramming of everything he had ever been taught to believe.

  “You were brainwashed,” Kairn, the Beast Kindred who had taken Ty under his wing had explained. “Of course, there’s nothing wrong with finding the right female and loving and protecting her for life—that is the Goddess’s will for our people. But the idea that you must submit to being owned and serve a female slavishly, acting more like her pet than her mate, is wrong and insulting. The Goddess gave us all free will—she expects us to use it.”

  In time, Ty had come to see that his new mentor was right. Because Kairn was in the Elite Espionage Corps, he had joined also. And thus had begun a whole new way of life—in service to his people, rather than to some elusive Mistress, Ty had finally found his calling. For he was able to carry out difficult and dangerous missions without losing his free will, which had become everything to him.

  It had been twelve cycles since that day and he had never looked back. In fact, he hardly thought about his strange beginnings at all anymore.

  Except now, when Commander Sylvan was bringing them up.

  “You’re not asking me to go undercover as a Body Slave, are you?” he asked Sylvan suspiciously. “Because I must tell you, Commander, that I would have to respectfully decline such a mission. Despite the ‘deprogramming’ of my early teachings, I believe I might still have certain…tendencies which might compromise a mission of that kind.”

  Of course, the tendencies he feared were the tweaks that had been made to his DNA to force him to love and serve a Mistress who claimed him as though she was the Goddess herself. It wouldn’t do to put himself in the vulnerable situation of pretending to be a Body Slave and then having the ruse become his reality.

  For if he ever allowed himself to serve a female the way his makers had intended, if he allowed himself to fall in love and give his heart to her completely…

  It would be the end of me, he thought, frowning. The end of my free will—the end of my autonomy. Every action, every decision I made would be determined by her. I wouldn’t be able to think for myself anymore—I’d only want to serve her blindly until the end of my days and I wouldn’t give a flying fuck about anything else as long as she was safe and happy.

  He knew it was true—knew it to the marrow of his bones—which was why he guarded his heart so carefully and refused to put himself into any position where his genetic vulnerability could be exploited.

  But Commander Sylvan was shaking his head.

  “No, Ty,” he said, frowning. “I would never ask you to put yourself in such a situation. No, the mission is not to serve as a Body Slave to a Mistress. Though it is to guard a female ruler of a nearby planet—the Potentate of our new allies, the Chorkay of Helios Beta.”

  “Really? Explain, please.”

  Ty frowned and folded his hands loosely in his lap, prepared to listen thoroughly before making a decision.

  Sylvan had explained rapidly about the recent mission his fellow Espionage Corps member, Commander Asher, had made to the planet of Helios Beta. He told of how Asher had foiled an assassination attempt and how the new ruler—the Potentate—was now vulnerable because her entire cadre of personal guards had been compromised and implicated in the plot.

  “The Chorkay are our allies and they have asked for our help specifically because they know that we Kindred revere females and refuse to harm them,” Sylvan had explained. “This is a temporary mission only. I’ve already sent some Kindred troops to keep her safe but I need a seasoned warrior who’s a good judge of character to head them up.”

  “Oh? Why so?” Ty asked. “What would my job there entail?”

  “You’d have to personally guard the new Potentate and pick a new squadron of guards from her own people—males who can be trusted to be loyal to her once we are gone.”

  “That doesn’t sound too difficult,” Ty said, frowning. “Why did you think my upbringing might complicate the matter? Because I would be serving and protecting a female in power?”

  Sylvan shrugged. “I suppose. I know there’s no direct correlation between the Mistresses of Yonnie Six, whom you were raised to serve, and the Potentate of Helios Beta, but I thought it might be…awkward for you.”

  Ty shook his head.

  “I have no problems taking orders from a female—or protecting one,” he told Sylvan. “I simply have to watch myself and see that I do not become slavishly devoted to one.” Which was why he guarded his heart so carefully…so jealously.

  “Well, if that’s how you feel, then I’d like to have you on this mission,” Sylvan said, nodding. “I can’t think of a better male for the job.”

  “I can,” Ty said bluntly. “What about Commander Asher? He took the first mission to Helios Beta and saved this Potentate of theirs in the first place. He already knows the people and their customs—why not ask him to go back and finish the job?”

  “Because Commander Asher has recently Claimed a bride and gotten bonded,” Sylvan explained. “He has requested some time off to be with his new bride and I don’t blame him.” His face grew serious. “He almost lost her to the rage of an abusive ex-mate of hers that she was trying to escape.”

  “Oh?” Ty couldn’t hide his surprise. “But I thought Asher’s kind couldn’t call brides without their specific DNA?”

  Sylvan shrugged. “Asher thought so as well but the Goddess made a way for him and gave him a bride. I can’t fault him for wanting to spend time with her when he never expected to have that blessing in the first place.”

  Blessing. Right, Ty thought sourly. It was the last thing he would have called being bound to a female for life—though he was well aware that almost all of his Kindred brethren felt differently. For most of them, finding the right female and bonding her to them was their goal in life. It was simply the way they were wired.

  Only they were wired by the Goddess, Ty told himself. I was genetically engineered for that purpose—artificially made to fall hopelessly, helplessly in love with whatever female chose to buy me and then to devote my entire existence to pleasuring and protecting her.

  But aloud, he only said, “I see,” in a neutral tone of voice.

  “If you take the mission, I’d like you to go see Asher.” Sylvan made a wry face. “Be sure to call first, though. You know how newly-bonded couples can be.”

  “Of course,” Ty had said, still in that same, carefully neutral tone of voice. “I don’t foresee any difficulties. I’ll take the mission, Commander.”

  “Thank you.” A relieved smile crossed Sylvan’s face and he rose and offered his arm again. “You’re the righ
t male for this job—I know you are, Commander Ty’rial.”

  “Thank you for your faith in me.” Ty had clasped the offered arm. “You won’t be sorry, Commander Sylvan.”

  And then he had left, to go track down Asher.

  Four

  His old friend had been blissfully ensconced in the new couples’ suite he’d been assigned after his bonding. His bride, a girl with long brown hair and big blue eyes—Lisa was her name—had been busy arranging wall-hangings on the far wall as Asher invited Ty inside and asked him to have a seat in the living area.

  “Well, you look…different from the last time I saw you,” Ty had said as he settled himself on a chair.

  “I am different—completely different.” Asher settled himself on the couch and a small, furry creature with smoky gray splotches on its fur ran up his arm. It perched itself on his head and chattered in a conversational tone, almost as though it was talking.

  “Um…what is that?” Ty pointed to the creature.

  He couldn’t help noticing that Lisa, Asher’s new mate, had one as well but hers was bright pink. It was sitting on her shoulder and chattering in her ear as she decided where to hang the various pictures she was placing. She seemed to be talking back to it in a low voice, too—almost as though the two of them were debating the proper placement of the various art.

  Which was ridiculous, of course, Ty told himself. Why would anyone consult a pet on such a matter? Especially when a pet couldn’t answer back?

  “This is something you’re going to have to get used to if you go to Helios Beta.”

  Asher reached up and stroked the small creature perched on his head and the little beast responded with a sound like, “Gruff! Gruff!”

  “Yes, all right—I’ll tell him,” Asher said, apparently in response to the noise. “This is Gruff—my chewchie. And he wants you to know that he’s more than just an animal so please stop looking at him as though he’s your inferior because he is not.”