Hidden Rage: Kindred Tales

This was too many questions and they didn’t seem to have anything to do with the memories she’d been having. Confused, Bobbi opened her eyes.

She saw a man looking down at her—a huge man with black hair slicked back from a high forehead and bronze eyes fringed thickly with black lashes. He was the one supporting her head and he looked familiar somehow.

“Who are you?” Bobbi asked dreamily. “Do I know you?”

“I’m Dragon,” he said, frowning. “I took you from Avria Pentaura. Have you forgotten?”

Avria Pentaura? That name was familiar, Bobbi thought. She seemed to remember large bird-like people laying eggs…

And then lizard men came and took the eggs and one of them took me too…

Suddenly, everything came rushing back and Bobbi woke all the way up. The man holding her head was the big Kindred called “Dragon,” she remembered. He had stolen her away from her research project on Avria Pentaura and taken her to Saurous and now he had apparently decided to strip her and put her into a kind of pool or tub.

Looking down, she saw her bare breasts bobbing just above the warm water, her tight pink nipples poking above the surface like two little telescopes looking up from a submarine. Or was the word periscopes? Either way, the fact was that the big pervert had stripped her while she was unconscious and put her naked into a huge tub!

She sat up in a rush, intending to cover herself, only to feel a bolt of pain go through her head.

“Ow! Ow, ow, ow!” she moaned, clasping the sides of her head in her hands and pressing her forehead to her knees. “Oh, God—that hurts!”

“Is it your head again? Are you all right?” He sounded honestly anxious about her but Bobbi wasn’t about to let him off easily.

“I’d be fine if you hadn’t kidnapped me and dragged me to this freezing hell hole!” she snapped. She was already shivering, now that the top half of her was out of the warm water. “God, my head,” she rubbed her temples fiercely. It felt like someone was driving railroad spikes into her eyes.

“My mother is making a posset for your pain,” Dragon told her, still sounding worried.

“Your mother?” She spared him a glance and then closed her eyes and winced as the light from overhead caused fresh spikes of pain. “You brought me home to meet your mom? Seriously?”

He frowned.

“Where else should I have brought you besides my family’s compound? And my mother is a healer—she knows a lot about mammalian physiology. She’s also the one who recommended I put you into the soaking tub,” he added.

“So stripping me naked was your mom’s idea, huh?” Bobbi demanded. “God, what a weird planet!” She wondered how long she’d been lying there, floating naked in the water while he was watching her—maybe even touching her. The idea made her feel violated and angry.

“She said I had to get you warmed up—that most mammalians are delicate and they don’t do well on Saurous because of the cold,” he rumbled. “Are you ready to get out now or would you like to soak some more?”

Part of her wanted to stay where it was warm—but a stronger part wanted to get out and get decently covered. She’d spent the last six months wearing extremely revealing clothing, but she’d never been fully naked and besides, she’d been living in a village of all women.

“I want to get out. Do you have a towel I can dry off with?” she demanded. “And something I can wear to keep me warm?”

“Here.” He held out a large blue sheet for her. “Do you need help to stand up?”

“You’ve helped quite enough, thank you very much,” Bobbi snapped. “Just give me the towel and turn around so I can have some privacy, please.”

He gave her a doubtful look but turned his head, pointedly looking away as he continued to hold out the towel.

Bobbi gripped the sides of the tub—which were extremely high—and hauled herself to her feet. God, she felt so dizzy. She held onto the tub for a moment, shivering in the chilly air. Then, when she could stand it no longer, she snatched the towel from his hand and tried to wrap it around herself and step out of the deep tub at the same time. But her foot slipped and suddenly, she found herself overbalancing.

“Oh!” She gave a shriek as she slipped over the side of the tub and headed for the black tiles of the floor below.

Turning with inhuman speed and grace, Dragon caught her in midair and held her, dripping, to his broad chest, which was still bare, she noticed distractedly. The colorful tattoos that covered his arms and shoulders didn’t extend to the broad expanse of his muscular chest and it was hard to say if there were any on his back or not—not that she cared at the moment.