Free 15 Targeted by Evangeline Anderson Page A

plain black car and shoving her inside. “For your own safety, I need to take you with me.”
    * * * * *
    Somewhere in the darkness of a ruined laboratory on the home world of the Dark Kindred, something stirred to life. A tube filled with nutrient bath stood in the shadows and its single occupant was waking.
    Black eyes with reddish glints opened as the dense, nutrient-rich liquid began to drain. Hair the same, strange color hung around a strong, cruelly handsome face.
    “ Wake,” hissed a voice in the creature’s ear. Or was it in his head? “It is time to wake—the sniffers have failed. The girl yet lives. Steps must be taken and you, my scion, are the one to take them.”
    The creature opened his mouth for the first time and spoke his first words.
    “Yes, Master. As you say.”
    “ Good.” The voice in his head sounded pleased. “I am glad I thought to implant a personality chip of myself in your head before I allowed X to kill my mortal shell. It’s so much better than simply being dead. I live on in you, my scion, and you will do exactly as I say.”
    “Yes, Master,” murmured the creature again. The last of the nutrient bath had drained away now and he stood, nude and hugely muscular in the empty tube, awaiting orders. “What must I do?” he asked.
    “ Well, step out of the tube and dry off to start with. We have much to do, my scion.”
    “You are the Master,” the creature murmured in a low, rough voice. He stepped from the tube into the coldness of the ruined laboratory. “But…who am I?” he asked.
    There was a pause and then a snigger of unpleasant laughter in his brain.
    “ I think I’ll call you Y,” said the Master. “Now get moving—as I said, we have much to do. The girl must die.”

Chapter Seven
     
     
    “Meet Rone and Kate Y’ven. They’re professional trackers.” Sylvan nodded at the two people standing beside him in the Kindred Council chamber. “Or rather Rone is—he’s a Wulven Kindred.”
    “A what?” Thrace frowned at the two who were obviously a couple standing before the large semicircular table. He still didn’t know why he personally had been invited to a Kindred Council meeting. After all—he was Havoc, not Kindred. But Commander Sylvan had been very insistent that he come. So here he was, sitting at the very end of the table and waiting to see what was going on.
    “A Wulven Kindred—there aren’t many of us,” the male said, stepping forward. He had bright blue eyes which seemed to glow when he turned his head. His thick, dark hair was cut short to show slightly pointed ears. But the ears and eyes weren’t the only thing about him that struck Thrace as strange. The big male was somehow animalistic in the way he moved and spoke. It was almost as though there was a beast lurking just below that glowing blue gaze. Yet his female didn’t seem frightened. Though she was so petite she appeared absolutely tiny next to him, she looked up at her male with love and adoration.
    Just the way Trin looks at me, Thrace thought and had a slight twinge of guilt. He loved Trin with all his heart and was very happily bonded to her but there was something that had been bothering him lately—something in the back of his brain that wouldn’t let him rest when he thought of his beloved.
    “There weren’t enough of the Wulven people to make a full trade,” Commander Sylvan said, pulling Thrace out of his contemplation.
    “Ha!” The big Wulven gave a barking laugh. “Don’t pretend that’s the only reason many of the Kindred didn’t want to bond with us, Commander.”
    “Regardless,” Commander Sylvan said. “For whatever reason, there are very few Wulven Kindred. However, their tracking skills are unparalleled.” He nodded at Rone. “Which is why I asked you here in the first place.”
    “So he’s going to try to track the Earth girl? The one targeted for assassination by the Verrak? ” another Council member asked. “I thought we had yet to locate