Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
After what felt like an eternity, she finally heard Aunt Luna’s soft, calm voice in her mind.
“Hanna, is that you?”
“Oh, Aunt Luna! Please, you have to help me!” Luna sent to her. “Please, I’m in so much trouble—I can’t stay here on Earth one more night! I need to come see you—I need to get away. Please!”
“My darling girl, what ever is the matter? No—don’t try to tell me now,” Aunt Luna sent back. “You just come right to the Human/Kindred Relations building in downtown Tampa. You know where it is, right?”
“Yes—Sam and I saw you and Uncle Bruin off there for your honeymoon, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right. So can you get there?”
“Yes, I think I have enough gas,” Hanna sent, thinking of her nearly empty fuel gage. But she didn’t care if it used up the last of her gas to get to the HKR building—she would do anything she had to in order to escape the fate the Dark Entity had planned for her.
“Good—you get there as fast as you can. Uncle Bruin and I are going to come and get you and take you back to the Mother Ship with us. You can tell me all about it there, once you’re safe.”
“All right,” Hanna agreed. Earlier she’d been worried about disturbing her aunt’s domestic bliss, but now she was concerned with the fate of her immortal soul! She hated to barge in on them, but she knew her aunt loved her and would do anything to help her. And right now, she needed that more than anything—someone to care for her and keep her safe and protect her.
Someone to drive away the Dark Entity who stalked her. Oh God, she hoped that Aunt Luna could help her. Otherwise, what would she do?
5
WRAITH
Wraith drifted around the Docking Bay, looking for something to do. Well, not something to do, really, since he couldn’t actually interact with anything in the physical world. But something or someone new to see would be nice.
Anything new would be welcome. In the century since he’d been killed and left to wander the Kindred Mother Ship alone, sometimes he felt like he’d seen everything there was to see. And none of it mattered because he couldn’t change any of it. Everything was the same for him, no matter what.
Of course his people, the Kindred, had grown and changed in the time since his demise. He’d seen so many warriors come and go, always searching for their brides. And then, about ten or twelve years ago, something new had happened—the Mother Ship had come to protect a small, blue and white planet called Earth.
Wraith wished he could go explore the Earth—its inhabitants were certainly interesting. But he was stuck aboard the Mother Ship. Every time he tried to seat himself on a shuttle that was about to take off, he found himself sucked through the walls and drifting just above the floor of the Docking Bay, back aboard the place where he had died, as usual.
Eventually he had stopped trying, but he still liked to go and see the new people who arrived on a daily basis. Usually the new arrivals were brides from Earth, coming to do their Claiming Period with the Kindred warrior who had called them. The Earth females were beautiful in Wraith’s opinion—they came in so many lovely shades and shapes and a lot of them were Elites, which he loved.
Sometimes he saw uncertainty on their faces when they came to meet their new mates, but mostly it was joy and excitement. It was nice to watch the way the new brides and their warriors reacted to each other, even though Wraith knew he would never have a bride himself.
No one saw him watching, of course. They looked right through him. Sometimes they walked right through him if he didn’t get out of the way fast enough. That resulted in a cold shiver for them and an uneasy feeling of drifting apart for him, so Wraith tried to avoid it.
He wasn’t expecting anything different today, but he knew a shuttle full of new brides was expected in about an hour and he liked to see them as they first stepped off the ship. So he was surprised when an unexpected shuttle came through the Atmosphere Barrier and landed in the Docking Bay. This couldn’t be the brides—it was too early. So who was in the shuttle?
Wraith drifted closer to look. He wished sometimes that he could just walk—he would have paid a million credits to feel his boots make solid contact with the metal floor of the Mother Ship again. But that was impossible—he couldn’t make contact with anything or anyone. In death, he was doomed to be nothing but an observer.
As he watched, the door of the shuttle opened and the steps unfolded. First out was Commander Bruin, a middle-aged Beast Kindred who was a member of the High Council. Wraith approved of him—he often sat in on High Council meetings, just to have something to do, and he thought the male had solid judgment.