Burning for Love (Kindred Tales)

Lady Mildew harumphed once more before flouncing out of the bathing room and leaving Rissa’s apartments, banging the door shut behind her on her way out.

13

James waited until he was certain the door to the Princess’s rooms was locked tight and he was tucking her into the big, four-poster bed under the rose-gold coverlet before he asked,

“Princess, what is the purpose of the silver wire you wear around your waist?”

“What?” Her eyes, which had been drifting closed, opened wide and she looked up at him with an expression that seemed to be half shame and half fear. James frowned, wondering why such a simple question should engender such emotions.

“Why you need to wear it all the time?” he asked. “What does it do? I noticed an electrical hum coming from it—does it help to keep you cool during the night somehow?”

She bit her lip and he could see that she was working through several different possible answers in her head. Was she thinking of lying to him? But when she finally spoke, her words had the ring of truth, though her tone was low and shamed and she dropped her eyes, as though she couldn’t bear to have him look at her as she answered.

“Didn’t you hear Lady Mildew? The wire is to…to keep me from reaching between my legs to touch my…my forbidden areas.”

“Forbidden areas?” James frowned. “But why should any part of your own body be forbidden to you?”

“It’s a part of me that only my husband may touch—and only after we are married,” she murmured, still looking down. Her cheeks were pink with a blush.

“But why?” James demanded again. “I don’t understand, Princess.”

“I…I don’t exactly either.” She looked up at him at last and he saw that her lovely amber-brown eyes were filled with tears. “I only know that it’s shameful and wrong and I would never, never do it. Only Lady Mildew is convinced that I would and she’s been making me wear the Chastity Wire for years because she says I am a dirty, nasty girl. But I’m not, James—I promise I’m not!”

Her last words turned into a sob and she buried her face in her hands, her slim shoulders shaking with grief.

James had seen people cry before on the Mother Ship—mostly human females—but once or twice he had seen a Kindred warrior tear up during extreme circumstances. But as a Dark Kindred, he had never cried himself—nor had anyone else’s tears ever affected him.

He found, however, that Princess Ka’rissa’s tears did affect him. He felt a strange yearning sensation in his chest—a feeling like a cruel hand was squeezing his heart.

Her pain, he thought. She’s in so much pain…

And he found that he wanted to ease that pain, though he scarcely knew how to do it.

He wondered how he could help and remembered the last time he had seen someone cry. It had been a human female at one of the dining establishments he had recently been visiting. She had apparently gotten some bad news on her communications device because her eyes had overflowed with tears and she had begun crying, right there in the restaurant.

Her mate, a Beast Kindred, had been sitting right beside her. He had taken her into his arms and rubbed her back, letting her cry for a few moments before gently leading her out of the restaurant where she could express her grief with more privacy.

The whole thing had happened at the table next to his, so James had been able to observe it from start to end. At the time, he had thought it nothing but a flagrant expression of emotion—the kind of thing that would have gotten someone purged on his home world of Zeaga Four. But now he considered it again, analyzing the memory rapidly. How was he supposed to act in this situation? How had the Beast Kindred helped his mate?

He remembered the human female’s flushed cheeks and tear-filled eyes—so like Ka’rissa’s eyes were now. And he thought again of how her mate had gathered her into his arms and simply held her. Was that the way to help ease Ka’rissa’s pain—through physical contact? Though he had never done anything like it before, James sensed that it was.

Sitting on the side of the Princess’s bed, he put an arm around her shaking shoulders and gathered her gently to his chest.

At first, Ka’rissa froze in his arms. But when James only held her and didn’t do anything threatening, she relaxed against him and pressed her face to his chest. Sobs shook her as she clung to him and James felt an even stronger urge to help her—to ease and calm her sorrow somehow.

“Tell me how to help you, Princess,” he growled softly, stroking her trembling back and shoulders as that invisible fist squeezed his heart. “I don’t know anything about curing emotions, but I want to help you cure yours.”