Raised to Kill (Kindred Tales)

She did her best to join in the clapping as her new husband came back to sit beside her. But her whole body was still throbbing and she was panting with the internal tumult his Song had caused in her.

“I hope that was all right?” he asked, looking at her uncertainly when he sat down.

“Every…every note was true,” Allara whispered, looking up at him. “I felt your Song, my husband,” she could not help adding. “It touched me.”

She meant it in the most literal sense but she wasn’t sure if Brand understood that. However, he seemed to like what she said because his handsome face broke into a broad smile and he took her hand in his and kissed the back of it gently.

“I’m glad you liked it, baby. I wasn’t sure if I should do it or not but Kat talked me into it.”

Allara didn’t think she ought to thank the red-haired woman for that. She had been sent to kill the evil one and satisfy the Blood Feud. But no one had told her that her new husband would have such a voice! No one had warned her that his Song would touch her and stroke her like a knowing hand and move her body in ways she had never been moved before.

No, that’s not quite true, she thought. She remembered once, long ago, after a performance of a trio of moun horn players at the Song House, how she had come back home to her room and felt compelled to touch her forbidden places. Unfortunately, her aunt had caught her at it and beaten her within an inch of her life.

“Never!” she had screeched at Allara as she beat her with the thick wooden handle of a broom. “Never must you touch yourself there! No female may do such things—that place is for the making of babies and nothing else! Until you have a husband, no one may touch it! Do you understand, you loathsome little beast?”

Crying, Allara had tried to explain that it wasn’t her fault—that the moun horns had driven her to it because of the intense feelings they caused in her. But her Aunt had not accepted this excuse.

“Everyone has ‘feelings’ in the Song House but that is where they must stay—in the Song House!” she had shouted at Allara. “Never, never let me catch you touching your forbidden places again! If I do, you will be kicked out of the house and then where will you go? You will no longer be a maiden of one of the Seven Great Houses. When it comes time for your bride auction, you will be sold by the Space Port—sold to a stranger with no status!”

Her threats had put the fear of the Gods into Allara and she had never, ever touched her forbidden places again. But when Brand had been singing, it was as though he was stroking them with his Song—making her feel things she should not—especially not with the evil one she was soon to kill.

“I hope you don’t mind that there’s no dancing,” Brand remarked, breaking her train of thought. “I wasn’t sure how your people felt about it, so I didn’t have Kat schedule a DJ or anything.”

“What is dancing?” Allara asked him. “And a DJ—what is that?”

“A DJ is someone who plays prerecorded songs so that people can dance to them. Er…move to the music,” he explained.

Allara frowned. “In our Song Houses, sometimes when a Song is very good, the people will rise and sway back and forth,” she said. “Is it like that?”

“Well…” His brow furrowed. “It can be, I guess. There’s a type of dancing the humans do called ‘slow dancing’ where a male and female hold each other and sway to the music.”

“They hold each other? During a Song?” Allara was shocked.

“Sure.” He gave her an easy smile. “Why not?”

“Why…because Songs cause feelings,” Allara tried to explain. “And if the men and women were to touch each other while the feelings touched them at the same time…” She shook her head, not sure how to go on.

But Brand was clearly interested in what she was saying.

“Why is that a bad thing, though?” he asked, frowning. “Is it just because your people want to keep men and women apart at all times?”

“No, it’s…” Allara felt her cheeks going red. “It is just that the feelings might make them…make them do things they should not do together, if…if they were touching when the Song touched them. Do you not understand?”

“I…think so.” His brow was furrowed again, as though he was trying hard to understand her. “The music touches you so deeply it raises certain emotions inside you and you’re afraid you might…go too far if you were touching someone when you hear it. Is that it?”

That wasn’t exactly what Allara had been trying to tell him, but it would do well enough, she supposed. What did it matter if he truly understood when he would be dead by nightfall?