Claimed Page 9

  He felt like he’d been hit with a brick between the eyes. What was it about these Earth women? One minute they were soft and vulnerable and the next they were fiery avengers, demanding justice. They were very different from the women he favored—the icy cool females of Tranq Prime would never dream of having such an outburst. They would have turned their anger or sorrow inward, would have contained and controlled it. Letting their true feelings show, especially in public, would have been unthinkable.

  And yet…the image of Sophia’s face, eyes bright with tears and cheeks flushed with emotion made him shake his head. In a strange way, it was attractive. There was no denying that despite her emotional reactions or perhaps even because of them, Olivia’s sister was achingly beautiful.

  Not that her beauty mattered to Sylvan. He had sworn never to take a bride and it was a vow he intended to abide by. In the mean time, he was wasting precious moments lingering on Earth. The mate of his kin was no doubt waiting for her things and Sylvan had promised to bring them. Still, as he lifted the large cardboard box and headed for the rear entrance of the HKR building, he found it difficult to stop thinking of Sophia and her beautiful, flashing eyes.

  Chapter Nine

  “Ouch! Dammit, where’s the damn switch?” Liv stumbled over something in the dark, stubbing her toe for what had to be the fifth time.

  After Baird had left, the lights in the suite had gotten gradually dimmer for some reason, not that Liv had cared at the time. She sat on the bed in the dark for awhile, crying and homesick, missing Sophie and Kat so much it made her stomach hurt. But Liv wasn’t the type to let herself wallow in self pity for long. Eventually she decided it was time to stop feeling sorry for herself and at least find out where she was going to be living for the next thirty days. Crawling off the bed, she felt her way to the walls and began groping around for a light switch. Unfortunately, she hadn’t found one yet and she’d been blundering around in the dark stubbing her toes and cursing for the last ten minutes.

  “Stupid man,” she muttered to herself, feeling her way down the dim hallway slowly to avoid bruising any more toes. “He could have at least turned on the lights before he left. But no—he had to run off and leave me in the dark, stumbling around like an idiot.”

  Her seeking fingertips encountered a gap in the smooth, cool wall and she felt her way into another room. As with the rest of the suite, there was a soft, diffuse lighting coming from somewhere but it wasn’t enough to see much more than shadows and vague shapes in the gloom, no matter how hard Liv strained her eyes.

  “Where am I?” she asked aloud and noticed that her voice echoed in the new room in a familiar way. The floor was cool and hard under her feet, unlike the soft whisper of carpet in the hallway. Brushing her fingertips along the wall she thought she felt tile, just like in her bathroom at home. Was it possible this new room was a bathroom?

  Feeling her way forward, Liv heard a quiet rushing sound and bent down to find its source. Feeling forward with the tips of her fingers she encountered something wet and warm. Water? She could see a glimmer of the faint light reflecting from a wide oval surface. Was it a bathtub? But why would Baird leave the tub filled if he was going out? And how did it manage to keep from overflowing onto the floor since there was no lip around the bathtub? Must be one of those infinity tubs or something.

  Moving carefully so as not to slip into the water, Liv made her way around the room, feeling her way as she went. From what she could tell there appeared to be a perfectly normal toilet, which was a relief. Baird’s “Me Tarzan, you Jane” primal male act was so convincing she’d been half afraid all she’d find would be a hole in the floor with a pile of leaves beside it. Of course he’s not bad at expressing himself when he’s just talking, she reminded herself. It’s only when he starts getting…amorous that the inner caveman seems to come out.

  Thinking that made her remember the way he’d ripped her black silk panties away with one savage twist and Liv felt a sudden flare of desire in the pit of her belly. God, he’d really been all over her—kissing, touching, grinding against her with that huge, thick shaft she could feel through his tight black pants…Stop it, Liv, she scolded herself. That kind of thing is exactly what you’re trying to avoid—remember? Yes, she remembered all too well. Having bonding sex, whatever that entailed, with the huge warrior would mean she was stuck here forever. So no matter how hot and bothered Baird made her (even though it killed her to admit it) she had to keep her cool. And that meant avoiding scenes like the one they’d had before he stormed out of the suite at all costs.

  When she had made a complete circuit of the room, she found something she’d missed on the way in. Right by the door was a small alcove that seemed to contain nothing but a long flat counter on an elevated surface about waist high. Resting on top of the counter was some kind of mat or cushion—it was difficult to tell in the gloom. It reminded Liv of a massage table for some reason but shoved into the alcove the way it was, there was no room for a masseuse. “Weird,” she whispered to herself and reached out to press two fingers against the dark surface of the mat.

  Immediately the mat came to life, grabbing at her fingers and kneading them firmly with what felt like fingers of its own. Liv screamed and jerked her hand away as every horror movie she’d ever seen flashed through her head. Her shriek echoed eerily in the tiled bathroom, spooking her even more until her heart was pounding so hard she felt like it might break through her ribs.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered unsteadily, putting a hand to her chest. Finally her breathing slowed and her heart stopped its awful hammering which was good—for a minute she’d felt like she was going into cardiac arrest. At least the weird black mat thing had let her go immediately and not tried to suck her down into its thick surface like something out of a Stephen King novel. She’d stumbled backward when the mat had first touched her but now Liv dared to take a step forward and look at it again.

  Studying the narrow alcove where the mat rested, she saw a series of buttons on the wall above it. There was some kind of marking beneath each one but it was much too dark to even tell if it was printing or some kind of instructional symbols no matter how hard Liv squinted. She supposed she could climb up onto the mat to look more closely but there was no way she was risking full body contact with the thing. Damn it, she really wished she had some light! It was incredibly frustrating trying to feel her way around an alien’s apartment in the dark. The minute Baird came back from his little shopping trip she was going to give him a piece of her mind.

  Sighing, Liv pressed her fingers to the wall again and left the bathroom behind. Further down the hall was another dark opening—the doorway to another room no doubt. Maybe there would be a light switch there so she could see where she was going. Or failing that maybe she’d find a flashlight or a glow stick. Hell, at this point she would settle for a candle and some matches. Anything to make navigating Baird’s strange apartment easier. Or at least more visible.

  The new room, when she reached it, appeared to be much larger that the bathroom she’d left behind and Liv wondered what its purpose was. Maybe a living area? The carpet from the hallway ended abruptly at the threshold and she felt a harder surface beneath her feet. It wasn’t as cold as the tile though—maybe some kind of wood? The light was even dimmer in here, making it almost completely black.

  Squinting, Liv followed the wall until her fingertips encountered a different texture. Something cool and smooth like chilled glass made her fingers tingle as she touched it. Before she could draw her hand away (she’d had enough surprises when it came to putting her hands on strange surfaces, thank you very much) there was a soft whooshing sound and a gust of cold air blew out at her. At the same time, a cool white light popped on, finally shedding some much needed illumination on the room around her.

  “A kitchen,” Liv muttered to herself, blinking as her eyes got used to the new light. It wasn’t very bright at all—maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of a ten or fifteen watt bulb—but she
’d been stumbling around in the mostly dark suite for so long it seemed dazzling for a moment.

  What made her think the area must be a kitchen was the dim outline of countertops and something that looked like a sink she could see to her far left. To her immediate left, and much closer, was another flat shiny surface that might have been some kind of a stove or cook top. There was a cluster of buttons on the wall above it but no place to put the food into, like an oven, that Liv could see. Maybe the Kindred didn’t do much baking.

  That thought conjured an image of Baird in a frilly apron helping to make chocolate chip cookies. Yeah, right, Liv told herself. He’s probably just like Mitch when it comes to anything to do with cooking. Her ex-fiancé wouldn’t have known a spatula from a whisk and burned water when he attempted to cook anything. He also had what Liv had privately termed ‘hysterical kitchen blindness’ meaning that he would stand in the middle of the kitchen and say, “Hon, where did you put the ketchup?” while staring straight at the Heinz bottle. It was like he honestly couldn’t see anything in the kitchen, even if it was right in front of him. Even a huge pile of dirty dishes. Especially a huge pile of dirty dishes, Liv amended to herself.

  She wondered if Baird was the same way. If he thought he’d brought her up here for a month’s worth of free maid service, he had another think coming. Just because she had to eat at his table and sleep in his bed didn’t mean she was going to wash his dirty socks and make him steak and potatoes every night or whatever it was that the Kindred ate.

  Speaking of what they ate, she turned back to the source of the light and realized the chilly panel had slid back to reveal what appeared to be some kind of refrigerator. At least it was cold like a refrigerator, she noted, shivering in a blast of frigid air. She was still wearing the ridiculous black lace nighty she’d slept in the night before which seemed a million years ago now. She really hoped that her clothes and the things she’d asked Sophie and Kat to send her got to the Kindred ship soon—like before she had to sleep in Baird’s bed that night.

  Pushing that scary thought out of her head, Liv turned her attention back to the sort-of fridge in front of her. It was cold and rectangular and that was where the resemblance to any kind of refrigerator she was used to ended.

  Inside the Kindred fridge, instead of shelves there were hooks attached to the top and sides with all kinds of strange things hanging from them. What appeared to be pieces of meat dangled from some—but the meat was blue with a greenish tinge and it had a funny smell that made Liv wrinkle her nose.

  Moving on she saw various round and oblong containers hanging from some of the other hooks. They didn’t seem to be plastic but then again they didn’t seem to be glass either—maybe something in between? Anyway, it was what was inside them that interested Liv. Some were opaque white with printing in a language she couldn’t read on their sides but some were clear with different colored liquids inside them.

  Suddenly Liv realized she hadn’t had anything to drink since her ill fated glass of orange juice hours ago. Since then she’d yelled and kissed and cried, all of which were occupations guaranteed to work up a thirst. All of a sudden her throat felt parched and she wanted something to drink in the worst way. But what should she try? The blue liquid in the bulbous container on her right looked a little too much like dish detergent for comfort. The bright purple liquid in the long triangular tube hanging from a hook on the left side of the alien fridge looked weirdly chunky—not what Liv usually looked for in a refreshing beverage. Finally she settled on the white liquid in a rectangular container hanging from a hook in the rear of the fridge, mostly because it looked like milk.

  Carefully she disengaged the container’s handle from the hook and screwed off the round red top. She sniffed carefully but it didn’t smell like much of anything—then again neither did skim milk so maybe that was all right. It sloshed reassuringly inside its clear container and there didn’t appear to be any chunks so Liv decided to give it a try. It wasn’t ladylike to drink straight from the carton but since she had no idea where Baird kept his glasses or even if he had glasses, she decided to go for it. Putting the round mouth of the container to her lips she took a tiny sip, ready to spit the alien liquid out if it tasted funny or wrong.

  It didn’t taste a bit like milk but it wasn’t bad either, she decided after the first sip. There was a mild sweetness like honey with a faint aftertaste that reminded her of vanilla, lavender, and blueberries. Bizarrely, the mixture was really quite nice and Liv took another, longer drink from the rectangular container, quenching her thirst and enjoying the strange new flavor very much.

  The second drink led to another and another until she realized that she’d finished about half of the white milk-looking liquid. After it hit her stomach the coolness of the alien beverage seemed to expand into a delicious heat that penetrated her bones and made her fingers and toes tingle. Soon she was no longer shivering in the cool air that was coming from the refrigerator. Despite being dressed in the thin, skimpy nighty she felt perfectly warm and contented.

  Mmm, nice! Liv took another sip and then wondered why everything had begun to look blurry around the edges. A thought began to make its way into her numb brain. Could it be that the liquid she’d been swigging like milk right out of the carton was alcoholic in nature? It didn’t smell like any alcohol she’d ever encountered but it definitely wasn’t really milk. Also, plain old two percent never sent anyone on a bender and she was feeling decidedly warm and woozy. What would Baird say if he came home and she was drunk? Would he be angry? Try to take advantage of her?

  Instead of frightening her, the thought made her feel warm and tingly other places besides her fingers and toes—like the tips of her breasts and the wet cleft of her sex. Now Liv knew she was in trouble. If thoughts of the big Kindred warrior getting her horizontal were making her hot rather than worried her judgment was definitely impaired. Glad that she had enough presence of mind left to stop before it was too late, she recapped the bottle and reached in to hang it back on the hook in the rear of the fridge.

  She tried several times but somehow the handle of the rectangular container kept missing its intended target. Damn! Maybe if I just…Standing on her tiptoes, eyes narrowed and the tip of her tongue sticking out of her mouth with fierce concentration, Liv reached as far back as she could, intent on putting the container back in its rightful place.

  And then something brushed against the back of her leg.

  Liv stifled a shriek and turned, the rectangular container still clutched in one hand. What she saw made her want to scream again but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a breathless gasp.

  Standing on its hind legs in front of her was what looked like a bright blue teddy bear. A living teddy bear. Liv could tell because it blinked its adorable big brown eyes at her and made an inquiring noise that sounded like a cross between a grunt and a squeak.

  After a moment spent staring at the thing, Liv realized that it wasn’t actually a child’s toy brought to life but an actual animal that just happened to look like a teddy bear. It was about the size of a Pomeranian but it was standing on its stumpy hind legs, staring at her with those big round eyes as though it expected something.

  “Hey, buddy, who are you?” Liv asked it softly. It was as cute as could be—round and cuddly but there was something weird going on with its blue fur which seemed almost to float around it instead of lying flat down on its skin.

  The thing grunt/squeaked again and shuffled toward her on its fat little feet.

  “Aren’t you cute?” Liv cooed, leaning down toward it. She was just reaching out a hand to scratch it behind its adorable fuzzy ears when the bright blue teddy bear opened its mouth and revealed three rows of razor sharp fangs.

  “She’s impossible! Completely fuckin’ impossible,” Baird growled, slumping into the chair beside Sylvan. “She’s hot then she’s cold. She’s madder than hell at me for bringing her up here in the first place and she’s determined not to let me in, no matter
what.”

  “Still no luck even when you got back to the suite, hmm?” Sylvan didn’t sound all that surprised but at least he managed to look sympathetic. Nodding at the bartender behind the plasti-wood bar they were sitting at he ordered a drink for both himself and his half-brother. It was a small bar on the very outer edge of the huge Kindred ship but it was always fairly busy because of its proximity to the docking bay.

  Baird threw back his drink in one swallow and grimaced. On the floor at their feet was the huge cardboard box Sylvan had brought up for Olivia as well as several bags filled with the kind of food humans favored. He knew he needed to get back to his bride and start fixing her late-day meal—it was traditional for a Kindred male to cook and care for his female, especially during the claiming period. But he kept remembering the wounded look in her eyes when he’d left her sitting on the bed and he just didn’t feel he could face her yet. A drink with his half-brother was exactly what he needed before he had to go back to the suite. Sometimes Sylvan had surprising insights into problems that Baird, with his more aggressive, direct personality, hadn’t thought of.

  “Oh, I had some luck all right,” he said after signaling the bartender for another. “At first she didn’t want to go into the suite but then I kissed her—”

  “She let you kiss her?” Sylvan interrupted, raising one dark blond eyebrow over the rim of his mug.

  Baird shrugged. “I, uh, kind of forced the issue. I didn’t mean to but her scent was driving me crazy and that sheer little outfit she had on…” He shook his head. “Anyway, she kissed me back and then one thing led to another and we ended up on the bed.”

  “Fast work,” Sylvan remarked, clearly surprised. “So what are you doing here if she gave in that easily? You ought to be bonding her right now.”