“Nobody likes the idea of a Kindred warrior without a soul, but here I am.” Raakshas spread his muscular arms in a ‘take me or leave me’ gesture. “You’ll go crazy if you spend your life trying to please everybody else. Better to just please yourself and have a good time while you’re doing it.”
“You really have no soul?” Kara asked doubtfully.
“Nope.” He shrugged. “Don’t miss it either.”
“But…one of your parents was Kindred. Doesn’t that mean you got at least half a soul?” Kara asked.
Raak laughed.
“You got me there. My father was Kindred and my mother was Y’lyn—a demon with no soul at all. Sometimes the child of a union like that will have a soul or at least a partial soul, since one of the parents does.”
“So…you do have one then?” Kara asked.
He shook his head.
“Not that I ever felt. And I’m sure the people I do business with don’t think so.” He grinned again, showing those sharp white teeth. They looked almost as sharp as her fangs to Kara, though they weren’t nearly as long.
“The people you do business with?” she asked.
“I captain a merchant vessel and we do a lot of trade among the known Kindred worlds,” he said. “Also, I have a very lucrative side business in, shall we say, hard to get items.”
Kara stared at him. “You’re a smuggler!”
“Yup.” He grinned. “Got it in one, baby girl.”
“But…isn’t that against the laws of the Kindred High Council?” Kara demanded.
“Right again.” He laughed that deep rumbling laugh. “But at least I’m not an outright pirate like most of my Brother Y’lyn Kindred. Which is probably why they picked me to come and make the case that the High Council should recognize us as a legitimate branch of the Kindred.”
“Do you think they will?” Kara couldn’t help asking.
“Absolutely not. It’s a fool’s errand and I only agreed to come because I was hoping to make some new contacts for future trade deals.”
“And have you?”
“I’m making one now, aren’t I?” He raised an eyebrow at her.
“What—me?” Kara put a hand to her chest. “What kind of contact am I? I can’t get you any new trade deals.” She had a sudden thought which made her frown. “And if you think I’ll talk to my father about you—”
“Oh, I think that would be a pretty fuckin’ bad idea, baby girl,” Raak rumbled. “I don’t think he’d like hearing that you spent the day with an Unbondable.”
“Spent the day with you? What are you talking about?” Kara demanded indignantly. “I’m on my way to work! I only spent a transport ride with you.”
“Work, huh? Last I heard, there isn’t much work out here in the residential area of the Mother Ship—it’s all in the hub, which we left behind at that last stop,” Raak pointed out.
“Well…” Kara bit her lip and winced—her fangs were still extra-sharp for some reason.
“Admit it—you were supposed to get off at the last stop but you didn’t want anything else to do with those dick-heads,” Raak said. “Which means you’re missing work, which further means you might as well spend the day with me. What have you got to lose?”
“What about you?” Kara demanded. “Weren’t you supposed to get off at the hub stop too?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “But when I saw that you were staying put, I decided to stay too. I thought getting to know you was more interesting than the boring meeting I’m blowing off right now, baby girl.”
“I’m not your ‘baby girl,’” Kara said, annoyed. “And why would you miss a meeting for a female you’ve never even met before?”
“Because there’s something about you—someone inside you I want to get to know better,” Raak rumbled. “I think inside that scared, shy shell of yours there’s a wild woman waiting to break out.” He grinned. “I want to be there when she finally gets free.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Kara said, but inside she couldn’t help feeling flattered. Of course, he could be lying to her—she couldn’t discount that since he was without a soul and therefore completely amoral. But the idea that he would miss an important meeting just to get to know her was extremely flattering, especially considering the way most males would go out of their way to avoid her once they saw her fangs.
“You know what’s ridiculous?” Raak said. “You missing work and getting into trouble with nothing to show for it. Spend the day with me, baby girl. Let’s live a little.”
“Well…I can’t leave the Mother Ship,” Kara said cautiously. She’d been warned all her life never to get into a ship with a stranger. All kinds of people visited the Mother Ship and though most were Kindred and therefore honorable, there were the occasional exceptions. “But I guess we could get a cup of coffee or klava together.”
Raak made a face. “Why in the Seven Hells would we want to do something boring like that?”
Kara frowned. “Well, what do you suggest?”
“I took a little tour of the Mother Ship yesterday when I got here and I saw a place that looked like fun…”
Four
“The Rainbow Mountain? This is where you wanted to go?” The pretty little female looked skeptical as she eyed the artificial mountain spewing multicolored streams of water down its craggy sides. It was about fifteen or twenty meters high, Raak estimated, and shaped like a miniature volcano with a crater at the summit where the water poured out. The warm, rainbow streams pooled around the wide base of the mountain in a sandy area where a few young ones were playing under the watchful eye of their guardians.
But it was the crater at the top which interested Raak.
“Sure,” he said. “I want to know how they color the water and keep the different streams separate.”
“I think there’s some kind of fountain at the top.” Kara waved one slim hand vaguely. “Honestly, I haven’t been here since I was a kid—it’s mostly a place to bring toddlers so they can play in the sand and the water.”
“Well, I’m going to the top.” Raak gave her a challenging look. “When I see something I’m interested in, I go for it. You want to come with me?”
“How?” A frown creased her pretty features. Damn, she really was a beauty, he couldn’t help thinking. He didn’t usually bother with females who seemed like they would want a long-term commitment. After all—he literally didn’t have a soul to commit with and anyway, he didn’t like feeling tied down. But there was something about this little Kindred female—not that she was actually extremely little, like most of the human women were, he thought musingly.
Kara had curves and height to go with them—Raak liked that. He didn’t see how the other Kindred males could want to mate with such tiny, fragile-looking females. He much preferred someone like Kara with a bit of meat on her bones.
“I said, how are you going to get up there?” she said, breaking his train of thought.