Burning for Love (Kindred Tales)

At last, he felt her cooling. Her breathing became less labored and steam stopped rising where their bodies touched. Her eyes flickered up and she looked up at him uncertainly.

“James?” she whispered. “So thirsty…so hot…”

“I know, sweetheart.” He rose and gathered her into his arms, noticing as he did, that she seemed to have something bulky and metal strapped around her hips that added a considerable amount of weight to her curvy form. “I’m going to take you back to the Mother Ship now,” he told her. “I have some chilled water in the shuttle.”

“Yes…please.” She nestled in his arms and closed her eyes again. “Always so lovely and cool,” she whispered, pressing her hot cheek to his cold chest. “Oh James, it is as though you were made for me.”

Maybe I was, James thought. He couldn’t help remembering the glowing green eyes of the priestess and the way the Goddess had spoken to him through her.

Since it was clear that the deity really did exist, could it be that she had a plan for his life all along? Had she guided the Tolleg scientist who had mixed his DNA, making certain that he added just enough Z’ngu to the mix to allow James to chill his body to meet the needs of the overheated Princess when they met, many years later?

He had no time to contemplate such matters now, James told himself. Right now, he had to get Ka’rissa back to the Mother Ship and do something to cool her down further. What he had achieved just now was only a temporary measure—clearly her Heat Cycle was out of control and needed to be reined in.

For now, he would tend the female he loved and just be thankful that he had gotten to her in time.

55

Rissa woke as someone was laying her down on a soft, giving surface.

A bed, she thought drowsily. Someone is putting me to bed. But who?

“Ka’rissa? Sweetheart?” a deep, rumbling voice murmured in her ear. A familiar voice—a beloved voice.

“James?” She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Am…am I dreaming? I thought I was in the palace gardens, hiding in the bushes.”

“You were.” His voice sounded grim. “You very nearly overheated. I had to cool you down before I could bring you back to the Mother Ship.”

“Oh yes—I am sorry I got so hot,” Rissa apologized faintly. “It is only that…that I have not been able to help myself since you and I were parted.”

“Would that have something to do with this strange metal belt I see beneath your gown?” James was frowning as his metallic blue eyes flickered over the Chastity Device, cinched tight around her hips.

Rissa blushed and nodded.

“I am afraid so. It is made in such a way that I cannot…” She cleared her throat. “Cannot reach myself. And so I was unable to do anything to keep my Heat Cycle from getting out of control,” she explained.

His frown deepened.

“We need to get it off of you. Is it electrified, like the wire was?”

Rissa shook her head.

“I am afraid not. It is locked and the only remote that unlocks it is gone. The Duke threw it in the fire—it is utterly destroyed.”

“The Duke?” James looked surprised. “Do you mean Duke Grabbington? What was he doing at the palace—I thought he was in disgrace after our duel? And how did he get the only remote that unlocks your belt?”

Rapidly, Rissa told him the whole story and her awful discovery that Lord Shammington was actually Duke Grabbington in disguise.

“And then he said he would be happy when I burned to death because then he could be crowned King and rule the planet on his own, as he saw fit,” she finished at last. “And…and I very much fear, he will get his wish. For there is no way to take this horrid device off without the remote, which has been burned up and melted in the fire.”

She shed hot tears that turned to steam on her cheeks at the hopelessness of the situation. She never should have asked for help from the Kindred. Surely she was nothing but a fire hazard here aboard their lovely ship. And she didn’t wish to put James in danger either.

“You had better stand back from me,” she told him now, trying to hold back a sob. “I should never have called and asked for asylum. There is nothing you can do to help me and sooner or later I am certain to combust, just as my dear Mama did before me.”

His eyes hardened.

“You’re not going to die, sweetheart—I swear it.”

“But what can you do?” Rissa nodded down at the metal belt around her waist. “This device is made of solid plasti-steel. It is completely unbreakable.”

“Maybe by regular humanoid hands,” James said grimly. He flexed his enhanced arm and hand and smiled at her. “But I am no regular humanoid.”