Secret Santa Surprise: Book 29 in the Kindred Tales Series - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,47

acting.”

“How was she acting?” Sonja asked, raising her eyebrows.

“She taught us an Earth game called ‘Truth or Dare,’” Clear told her. “It was most…entertaining.”

“Truth or Dare, huh? Mm-mm-mm.” Sonja shook her head. “No wonder she’s embarrassed! Melanie is not the type of girl to put on a skimpy little outfit and go over to a man’s house to play sex games with him—or them. She’s much more reserved than that.”

“I always thought so too,” Clear remarked. “But she seemed…very different last night.”

“She might have been tipsy from the punch,” Strong pointed out.

“But she only drank a few sips,” Clear objected.

“Hey, I only drank a few sips and that stuff made me act weird too,” Sonja said, frowning.

“You weren’t like your usual, lovable self at all, last night,” Sahran agreed, earning himself a frown. “Well, I’m sorry, darling, but you weren’t,” he said.

“And this morning, we all have headaches and hang-overs,” Strong said, frowning.

“I don’t,” Sahran said.

“Did you drink the punch?” Strong asked him.

The Blood Kindred shook his head.

“I heard there was Fireflower juice in it—I can’t stand that stuff.”

“And you feel fine?” Strong asked him.

Sahran shrugged.

“I feel the same as always. So yes, I suppose I feel fine.”

“But all of us who drank the punch feel wretched today,” Clear said slowly. “And the human females who drank it were acting extremely amorous last night.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Sahran said dryly, which earned him another stern look from Sonja.

“I’m beginning to think something was in that punch,” Strong growled, frowning. “I wonder if there’s any left that we could analyze?”

“I doubt it. They probably cleaned up the conference room and washed out the punch bowl by now,” Sonja said.

“That’s true…” Strong nodded. “But that shouldn’t stop us from getting to the top of this situation, as the humans say.”

“You mean getting to the bottom of it,” Sonja corrected. “And what are you going to analyze if all the punch is gone?”

“The blood of all of us who drank it, of course,” Strong said. “If the punch was that strong, there must be some chemical residue left in our systems.” He looked at Sonja. “I’ll especially want to see your blood analysis—if there was something in the punch, it seems to have affected females much more than males. At least, human females.”

“There were one or two Kindred females there too,” Sonja pointed out. “Some of the priestesses from the Sacred Grove dropped by—I know I saw at least one of them sipping punch.”

“Goddess…” Clear shook his head. “Aren’t they sworn to chastity?”

“I have a feeling some of them might have broken their vows last night,” Strong said dryly. He pointed at Sonja and Sahran. “I’m going to the Med Center—you two go round up as many people from the party last night as you can. We need to get to the top—I mean, the bottom of this.”

“We will.” Sonja nodded grimly and looked at her fiancée. “Honey, you go get a Think-me and start calling everyone you can from the PR and Marketing department. Clear, you call the peeps from accounting.”

Clear nodded. “I will. What will you do? Are you going to call Melanie?” he asked hopefully.

Sonja shook her head.

“Not yet—we need to know what’s going on first. I’m going to go to the Sacred Grove and talk to the priestesses and see if the punch affected the Kindred women like it did us human women.”

“Good.” Strong nodded. “Send everyone you can to me at the med center for a blood test. Let’s go!”

17

“Now what did you say was going on again?” Liv, who was one of the human doctors working at the Med Center, asked Strong.

“We think the punch from the Christmas party for the Accounting, Marketing and PR, and Administration departments was spiked with some kind of drug,” Strong explained. He was watching the monitor of his chemical analyzer carefully as he spoke. The very first thing he had done when he got into the lab at the back of the Med Center was to draw a sample of his own blood and feed it into the machine.

“Has someone told Sylvan?” Liv asked, frowning.

“No one had to—I’ve been seeing patients all morning reporting strange symptoms.” Commander Sylvan, who was the head of the Kindred High Council and also a doctor, came into the lab as well. He looked at Strong. “Do you have anything yet?”

“Maybe…” Strong frowned at the readout of the analyzer. “There’s definitely something strange going on, but it’s hard to tell because my body has