Taming Two Warriors (Kindred Tales)

“Should I tell him he smells good? No—that’s too embarrassing. Maybe I should say I want to go take a bath. But what if he feels like he needs to help me? I don’t know how I feel about him seeing me naked. I mean, he says he likes plus-sized girls but does he really? And even if he does, I’m shy about letting him see me. He might get the wrong idea and think I want him to try something and that’s no good because nothing can ever happen between us. Oh, I wish it could, though! He smells so good. Wish I could climb in his lap and just cuddle him and smell him all night. Is that weird? Wanting to smell him? He’d probably think so—I better not say that.”

Liosh frowned. Obviously she didn’t know that her thoughts weren’t private. She must think that he could only hear the things she intentionally “sent” to him and she didn’t know her entire stream-of-consciousness was coming through loud and clear over the Think-me.

He didn’t want her to know he’d just heard all her inner-most thoughts so Liosh cleared his throat.

“Melinda?” he asked aloud.

“Oh, sorry—I was trying to decide what to say,” she said apologetically. “Um—here goes.”

“Hi again!” she sent to him. “This is really weird but it’s cool too. Thank you for sharing the Kindred technology with me.”

Liosh smiled at her as she removed the Think-me.

“You’re welcome, Melinda. It’s the least I can do when you’re sharing Earth technology with me.” He nodded at her forgotten laptop.

Melinda made a face. “Oh, but after the uh, Think-me thing, the Internet looks like nothing! Oh well…” She sighed. “Where were we? Right—let’s get you an email address…”

She tapped at the keyboard in silence for a minute, giving Liosh time to think about the candid inner monologue he’d overheard. He wasn’t surprised she was shy about him seeing her naked—they had only just met, after all, and Melinda seemed like a very modest female. He was also determined to help her get a bath if she wanted one. He could keep his eyes closed and lower her into the tub if necessary.

As for her thinking that he smelled good, the explanation for that was simple. His fangs had sharpened for her, which meant he must also be exuding his Mating Scent.

When a Kindred warrior found the female his body wanted to bond with, it tailor-made a pheromone-based scent exactly formulated to lure her to him. It wasn’t done on purpose or with any intentional forethought—it just naturally happened when a Kindred found his perfect female—the one the Goddess had set aside only for him. He could no more turn it off than he could make his fangs become blunt again—it was just a fact of life.

And that’s what Melinda is for me, Liosh thought, running the golden wire of the Think-me between his hands as he watched her work. She’s the one the Goddess set aside for me—I know it.

But how could he convince the curvy little Earth girl that they were right for each other? And why was she so certain they were wrong?

Liosh didn’t know, but he intended to find out. He wished for a moment that he’d let her leave the Think-me on just a little longer…but that would have been dishonorable. No, he would just have to find out the hard way—through patience and persistence. But that was all right—he could wait.

Melinda was worth waiting for.

“So now you’re all set up to get email—you can check it on my laptop anytime you want,” Melli told the big Kindred. “Just be careful never to click on attachments—you could download a virus onto the computer. Oh, and you’d better not click any links either or you might end up on a porn site.”

Liosh frowned in apparent confusion.

“Porn?”

“Oh—short for pornography,” Melli explained, feeling her cheeks get hot. “You know—naked pictures and vids of people, uh, having sex?”

“Your people allow themselves to be recorded doing such intimate things with their mates?” Liosh looked surprised.

“Well, it’s not usually with their mates, I don’t think,” Melli confessed. “A lot of times it’s professional actors and actresses and sometimes it’s just people doing it for fun. You mean the Kindred don’t have any kind of porn?”

“The Blood Kindred certainly don’t.” Liosh shook his head. “Well, not visual pornography anyway,” he amended. “Though we do have what we call ‘scent books’.”

“Scent books?” Melli asked, confused. “What’s that?”

“Well…” He shifted on the couch uncomfortably. “It’s a collection of the scents of unmated females when they are aroused.”

“Really?” Melli was both embarrassed and fascinated by this idea. “I knew that the Kindred had really sensitive noses but I never dreamed they would rather smell a girl than see her.”

“Don’t get me wrong, my Lady—we like the sight of a beautiful woman as much as the next male,” Liosh said. “But it’s disrespectful to take pictures of a female undressed and then ogle them later—it objectifies women and strips away their dignity—it makes them into nothing but subjects of lust. A warrior and his female might occasionally take pictures themselves for their own private usage but you won’t find pictures of random nude females for sale in any Kindred culture.”