Chained (Brides of the Kindred) (38 page)

“That the implant
wasn’t
the source
of your feelings,” he finished for her.

“Then I must really love you.” Maggie
looked up at him, her eyes wide with understanding. “I really do.”

* * * * *

“Well, that’s it.”
Xandra stepped back from her cauldron in disgust. “We’ve lost him. He may not
know it but he’s bonded her to him. You’ll never be able to indwell him now—the
bond will block you out.”

“Not so.” The burning
eyes of the demon blazed ominously. “The seed that was planted will keep the
bond from growing and taking root. A good dose of anger and hatred will wither
it considerably. And then all we need is to bring Therron to the Black Planet.
Once he has breathed the fumes of my home world and taken the mark of the
shadow stone upon his skin, he will be ours.”

“That is never going
to happen now!” the witch protested. “He’ll stay with her and no amount of
whispering on your part will part them. Besides, even if you could lure him
back to the Black Planet, no mortal being can stand upon it and live. It’s
hotter than the surface of a star—that is why you and all your brothers are
spirit only with no flesh.”

“Once I indwell him,
he will be invulnerable to any and all attacks. And I
will
indwell him, wife. Watch and see.” The
eyes blazed again. “Watch and see what I have planned…”

* * * * *

“I love you,” Maggie whispered and Kor was
suddenly choked with emotion.

“I love you too, sweetheart,” he said
roughly, saying it for the first time out loud. In the back of his mind, he
still wondered how Maggie had heard him earlier, when he was just thinking about
how he felt. Maybe he had said it aloud without realizing it?

“Kor,” she said, looking at him
tentatively. “I’m glad we feel the same way but what about—”

Suddenly a huge
thump
rattled the
door of their room. And then another.

Both of them jerked, startled.

“Oh!” gasped Maggie.

“What in the Seven Hells…?” Kor growled.
“Who—?”

“Open up!” shouted a deep male voice from
outside. “I know you’re in there and I know you’ve got the girl. Open up now or
I’ll break it down!”

Chapter Thirty-one

“Who the Hell…?” Kor growled. He got up,
disentangling himself from Maggie and made his way to the door.

“Kor!” She pointed to him as she hastily
gathered the bedspread to her chest. “I don’t know who that is but you’re still
naked.”

“Fuck that.” His eyes glowed as he went to
the door and flung it open. “Who in the Seven Hells are you and how dare you
threaten to break down my door?”

A tall man with dark hair and a devilish
looking goatee and mustache stood in the doorway. He had a black eye patch over
one eye and a sardonic grin on his darkly handsome face.

“I
thought
that would get you to
the door,” he said, grinning at Kor.

“You’re damn right it did now who the hell
are you and what do you want?” Kor growled.

“I just want to talk to Maggie Jordon. I
assume that’s her on the sleeping platform?”

“It is.” Kor didn’t budge an inch, keeping
himself between the strange man and the bed. “What do you want with her?”

“Well I can guess what
you
want
with her,” the man murmured, his one eye flicking over Kor’s huge, naked form.
“But I assure you, what I want is completely different. My interest in her is
purely professional.”

“And what kind of ‘profession’ are you in?”
Kor growled, still not moving.

“I’m Salix—maybe you’ve heard of me? I
brought in the rogue Balor twins after their little shooting spree on Harmon
Four?”

“Salix? Salix the bounty hunter?” Kor
frowned. “Who sent you—some agent of my old master?”

Salix eyed him thoughtfully. “You
would
bring in quite a payday—wanted escaped felon and murderer that you are. The
price on your head would refit my entire ship…But no. Regrettably, I have no
interest in you, my friend. I simply need to speak to the lady.” He made a deep
bow in Maggie’s direction and she nodded back, not knowing what else to do.

“What about?” Kor demanded.

“Why, about coming home,” Salix said
mildly. “As you may or may not know, Miss Jordon there went missing a little
more than six solar months ago. Her friends and family and most especially her
fiancé…”
he gave Kor a significant look. “Are understandably concerned for her.”

“Oh my God…
Donald
.” Maggie felt her
cheeks getting hot and the little guilt voice she’d somehow managed to banish
earlier when she was feeling so close and connected to Kor suddenly came back.
Look
what you did,
it whispered.
Now everyone is going to know.

“Is that the name of your fiancé, dear
lady? Lucky fellow.” Salix grinned sardonically. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to
hear you’re ah…
intact
.”

“Enough,” snapped Kor. “Get to the point.”

“The point is that I have been employed by
the Kindred High Council to come and find Miss Jordon. And what do you
know…here she is!” Salix ended brightly. “So could I please, if it’s not too
much trouble, have the pleasure of speaking to her for just a moment?”

“No.” Kor crossed his arms over his chest.
“We want no part of you—or the
Kindred
,” he spat.

Salix frowned. “You appear to have some
Kindred blood yourself, friend—as do I. You have a problem with them?”

“My problem is none of your concern,” Kor
growled. “Maggie is with me now—that’s all you need to know. So go back to the
High Council and tell them she’s safe and she’s staying here.”

“Kor, no—wait!” Maggie got off the bed
awkwardly, keeping the red bedspread bunched to her chest. She nearly tripped
over it in her haste to get to the doorway and would have fallen if Kor hadn’t
reached out a hand and caught her just in time.

“Stay back, Maggie,” he said, frowning.
“You don’t want any part of this bastard.”

“Yes, I do—at least, I want to hear what
he has to say,” Maggie protested. “They’re my
family,
Kor. Do you have
any idea how scared and worried my mom must be?”

He frowned, his face as dark as a
thundercloud.

“Really? It’s you’re
mother
you’re
worried about? Not Donald?”

“Of course I’m worried about my mother!”
Maggie snapped. “And my father and sisters and brother. We have a very close
knit family, Kor. If you could just meet them you’d understand.”

“As it happens, that is a wish I can
grant.” Salix reached into the large side pocket of his coat and pulled out
something that looked to Maggie like a rolled up Venetian blind except it was
only about a foot long. He shook it out with a flourish and the slats that made
it up clicked together, forming a small one by two foot screen.

“What’s that?” she asked, frowning.

“A long-distance portable viewscreen. The
latest in Kindred tech.” Salix grinned and then looked pointedly at Kor. “Might
I suggest that you put on some trousers, friend? Maggie’s family is waiting
eagerly to speak to her and seeing a large naked male hovering in the
background might not put them at ease.”

“My family?” Maggie suddenly felt a little
sick. “You mean
all
of my family?”

“What she means is are you also going to
display her precious fiancé,” Kor growled, reaching for his black leather
trousers.

“I don’t know if dear Donald is going to
be in attendance or not,” Salix said blandly. “But in case he is, I’d take a
moment to adjust your bed linens, my dear. They appear to be slipping.” He
nodded at Maggie’s front and she was horrified to see that the bedspread had
sagged, revealing one of her nipples.

“Oh my God—hang on—wait a minute!” She
turned around and quickly rearranged the bedspread, wrapping it more securely
around herself to resemble a kind of toga. “All right,” she said at last,
turning back. “I…I think I’m ready.”

Salix cocked one black pointed eyebrow at
her.
“Are
you? Very well.”

He activated some control on the side of
the small viewscreen and suddenly Maggie was face to face with her entire
family—her mom, dad, both sisters and even her protective older brother, Michael
were all staring at her.

“Oh Maggie!” her mother cried at once.
“Oh, honey—is that really you? Are you really all right?” Her eyes were wet
with tears, her careful make-up obviously smudged from crying.

“Yes, Mom—it’s me and I’m fine.” Maggie
felt tears gathering in her own eyes. She might have her differences with her
sisters from time to time but she had always been close with her mom. “I’ve
missed you so much,” she said to the viewscreen.

“I missed you too! Oh, honey—where have
you been? And what happened to your glasses?”

“Forget the glasses—who’s that gorgeous
hunk of a man standing behind you?” interjected her little sister Tammy, who
was standing beside their mom.

“Yeah, who
is
he?” Michael was
glowering at Kor, who Maggie was afraid was probably glowering right back. “Is
he the guy who kidnapped you?”

“No, no he’s not,” Maggie said quickly.
“This is Kor—he saved me, actually. Without him I’d be a slave on some distant
planet right now.”

“A slave!” Her mother put a hand to her
chest. “Oh my goodness! Then we owe you a big debt of gratitude, Mr. Kor,” she
said, speaking to Kor over Maggie’s shoulder. “Thank you so much for rescuing
our little girl and bringing her back to us.”

“You’re welcome but I haven’t brought her
anywhere,” Kor growled. “Actually, I was planning on keeping her for myself.”

It was the exact wrong thing to say.

“What? What is he talking about?” Maggie’s
father demanded.

“Listen, you punk,” Michael shouted. “You
lay a hand on my little sister and—”

“No, no,” Maggie exclaimed quickly. “He’s
kidding, you guys! Take it easy!” She threw a glance over her shoulder at Kor.
“What are you doing? Why would you say a thing like that?”

He glowered at her. “Just telling the
truth, sweetheart. I think that’s important—
don’t you?”

Maggie bit her lip. “I—”

“So, shacking up with a hot new guy, huh?”
Tammy’s voice interrupted her. “I wonder how Donald is going to feel about
that…
if
he ever wakes up.”

“Hush!” Tricia, her older sister, elbowed
Tammy in the ribs. “We agreed we weren’t going to say anything about that!”

Maggie felt like an icy fist had squeezed
her heart.

“Say anything about what? What are you
talking about? What happened to Donald?”

“Now, honey, he’s all right,” her mother
said quickly. “At least we
think
he is. This all just happened a little
while ago—we were on our way to the HKR building to talk to you when we got the
call. It was all so quick, we didn’t know what to think. We went to the
hospital to visit him—”

“The
hospital?”
Maggie was
horrified. “What hospital?”

“Tampa General and he’s getting the very
best care there, princess,” her father said reassuringly. “So please don’t
worry.”

“But what happened to him?” Maggie
demanded. “What? Somebody, please
tell
me,” she appealed to her family.

“Now, Maggie…” None of them seemed to want
to talk—except Tammy who was clearly bursting to tell.

“Spill it, Tammy,” Maggie ordered her
little sister. “Come on, tell me!”

“Donald got flattened by a bus,” Tammy
said at once.

“Oh come on now,” Michael protested,
frowning. “He wasn’t exactly
flattened.”

“He had his leg broken in two places and a
fractured skull.” Tammy snapped the piece of gum she was chewing annoyingly. “I
call that flattened.”

“He…how did it happen?” Maggie demanded.
“Was he just not looking where he was going?” It wasn’t an impossible scenario.
Donald was the original absent minded professor and since he didn’t drive, he
regularly rode the bus everywhere when she wasn’t there to be his personal taxi.

“Dunno.” Tammy shrugged and snapped her
gum again. “It was weird—one of the guys who came into the ER with him saw it.
He said Donald’s eyes got all glassy and for a minute he could swear they
turned
red
. Then he just stepped
right out in front of the bus. We’re still waiting for him to wake up.” She
brightened. “I got a picture, though—you wanna see?”

Maggie felt sick to her stomach but she
nodded anyway. “Yes, show me.”

“Tammy,” her mother protested. “I don’t
think you ought to—”

But Maggie’s sister was already whipping
out her large screen cell and scrolling through the pictures. “Nope, that's a
selfie of me and Candie…Oh, here it is,” she said, flipping it around and
pushing it close to the viewscreen. “See?”

“Oh…Oh my God…” Maggie put a hand to her
head, unable to believe what she was seeing. There was Donald, lying in a
hospital bed, his narrow face pale and slack. There were tubes and wires poking
out of him and… “Blood,” Maggie whispered, horrified. “There’s so much
blood.”

“Yeah, well, he had a compound fracture,”
Tammy said. “If you look, you can see the bone poking out. See?”

“Oh!” Maggie reeled and almost fell. She
was actually faint and nauseous with guilt.
This is all your fault,
whispered
the mean little voice in her head.
You did this to him. You cheated and
somehow he knew. He knew and it upset him so much he stepped in front of a bus!

Maggie knew it wasn’t rational but the
idea took root in her mind and wouldn’t leave her alone.

You should be home
right now,
the snarky little voice
continued.
You
would
be if
you hadn’t taken up with Kor. If you hadn’t decided to do your own thing you
would have been to Gaia and back again already. Then you could have driven
Donald wherever it was he was going and this never,
never
would have happened!
It’s
all your fault!

“Maggie? Maggie, please, honey—talk to
us,” her mother pleaded.

“Put that damn thing away, Tammy,” Michael
growled. “You’re not helping anyone showing his goddamned bone sticking out of
his leg.”

“That picture Tammy showed you was the
before shot,” her sister Tricia put in quickly. “Donald looked a lot better
once they cleaned him up and set his leg.”

Somebody’s cell phone went off and Maggie’s
father turned away for a moment. “Hello?” Maggie heard him say. “Yes? He is?
Wonderful! Look, can I call you right back? Thank you so much!”

He turned back to Maggie with a relieved
expression on his face.

“Guess what, princess? That was the nurse
at the ER. She said Donald is awake and asking for you—isn’t that great?”

“Great…right…” Maggie whispered, putting a
hand to her head. “Oh my God, what am I going to do?”

“If you’re talking about picking between
Donald and Mr. Tall Dark and Angry over there, I’d say go with plan B,” Tammy
advised. “Looks like you’d be trading up, Sis.”

“Tammy, how can you joke at a time like
this?” her mother snapped. “Maggie isn’t going to leave Donald—especially not
while he’s sick and injured. She
loves
him.”