Raised to Kill

She stared at him as the fog which had encased her suddenly rolled away. The compulsion she had felt—the voice that had been controlling her—was gone. But it was too late—too late.

Allara’s hands flew to her face.

What have I done? Oh Gods of All Creation, WHAT HAVE I DONE?

She’d killed him—the husband she had grown to love, the kind, gentle giant who had done nothing but care for her and pleasure her and love her. She had killed him and with him, any chance she’d ever had of breaking free of her people and finding real love.

I need to kill myself, too.

She scrambled off the bed, going to look instinctively for the wedding dress in the closet. It still had the little black poison pill sewed into the hem. She could swallow it and be gone forever in less than five minutes.

But no. She stopped before she even reached the closet door. She didn’t deserve to die. She had killed Brand—the only one who had ever really loved her. For certainly her father and aunt didn’t care for her, except as a way to gain more status among the Seven Great Houses. She had killed her one true love—death was not an option.

“You don’t deserve a quick death,” she told herself. And she couldn’t bear to be in the bedroom and look at Brand with the light dying from his golden eyes one minute more.

Running to the living area, she reached for the communications cube which sat on a shelf. When she had first come to the Mother Ship, Brand had showed her how to use it to call for emergency services.

“Just in case you get into some kind of trouble while I’m gone from the suite,” he’d explained.

Now Allara grabbed for the cube and pressed the buttons blindly, not even sure who she was calling.

The cube buzzed and hummed for a moment, then a pale blue hologram of someone’s head appeared above it. It was faintly familiar, Allara thought. Someone she knew but her brain wouldn’t tell her who it was.

“Hello?” the head said. “This is the Med Center. Allara—is that you?” The face looked worried. “What is it, hon? What’s wrong?”

It was Liv, her brain finally supplied. One of the kind Kindred brides who had met her on her wedding day, what felt like a thousand cycles ago.

“Please come and take me away,” Allara told Liv and now she was beginning to cry—hot tears forcing themselves from her eyes and running down her cheeks.

“What? Honey, what’s wrong?” Liv asked anxiously. “What happened? Is that blood on your face?”

“Please take me away,” Allara repeated. “Take me away and torture me—I deserve it.”

“You deserve to be tortured? Allara, what are you talking about?” Liv exclaimed.

“Take me and torture me!” Allara insisted, as sobs shook her. “I deserve it, Liv—I…I killed my husband tonight.”

Then the sobs overcame her and she could say no more.

Thirty-Seven

Brand woke from a strange and awful dream. In it, Allara was hovering over him, her lovely face slack, her indigo eyes terrifyingly blank. She was holding some kind of dagger and talking about an oath, an oath she had to fulfill…

“Hey, there you are! I was hoping you’d wake up soon,” someone said.

Looking up, Brand saw Olivia—the mate of his kin, Baird—looking down at him. She had an anxious look on her face but she smiled when she caught Brand’s eyes.

“Where…” He coughed and put a hand to his chest when the cough caused a sharp spike of pain. “What—?”

“You’re going to be okay,” Olivia told him. “You had a pneumothorax—a collapsed lung. Sylvan and Yipper were working on you all night. But you’re going to be okay now—we just need a few more hours for the regenerative to finish repairing the tissue and you’ll be good as new.”

Brand shook his head—none of this made any sense. How would he get a collapsed lung in the middle of the night? Then he remembered the awful dream he’d been having. Suddenly, a terrible suspicion began to come over him.

What if it wasn’t a dream?

“Allara,” he said hoarsely, looking up at Olivia. “Where’s Allara? Where’s my wife?”

“Oh, honey…” An agonized look came over Olivia’s face and she sank down to sit on the side of the bed as she gripped Brand’s hand. “You don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what? Where is she?” he demanded, trying to sit up.

Olivia pushed him back down, gently but firmly.

“Brand,” she said quietly. “I need you to listen and I need you to be strong for me right now. Allara isn’t who we thought she was—she tried to kill you last night.”

“What?” Panic gave him the strength to sit up, despite the aching pain in his chest and the drugs still coursing through his system. “You’re lying!” he shouted, but even as he did, he had an awful feeling that she wasn’t. He kept remembering the dream of Allara hovering over him, a silver blade held in her hands as she stared at him with those dead eyes.