The Kinsmen Universe (Kinsmen #1-3) - Ilona Andrews Page 0,21
them, the heat of her body ignited his, and he sealed her mouth with his, hungry for a taste. She threw her arms around him.
“I’m no longer Celino Carvanna,” he said, kissing her. All that he was, all the power, respect, prestige that came with being the head of a kinsman family, he had left it all behind.
“And I’m no longer Imelda Galdes,” she whispered, her voice a breath in his ear.
“I fly to New Delphi every month to that damn eatery, hoping to see you there. I bought your house and I sit in your garden, like some sort of imbecile, hoping you’ll come through the door.”
Celino tasted salt and realized she was crying. He swallowed, pressing her tighter to him. A curious feeling claimed him, a powerful lightness. He felt strong, capable, and yet impossibly content. “I love you,” he said, his voice a raspy growl. “Promise me you won’t vanish this time.”
“I promise,” she said and kissed him back.
SILVER SHARK
Prologue
In the course of space colonization, there arose a need for humans with enhanced abilities - men and women who could survive harsh conditions, who were superb warriors, gifted hunters, and brilliant scientists.
Some enhancements were technological in nature: an array of implants with various functions. Their effect ended with the death of the person who carried them. Other improvements were biological and these enhanced capabilities persisted, lingering in the bloodline, changing and mutating into new abilities in the offspring of the original carrier. It was quickly realized that the advantage of these biological enhancements lay in their exclusivity. Thus, the biologically enhanced united and shut down all further biological modification.
Collectively known as kinsmen, these exceptional beings gave rise to several dozen families, which now form the financial elite of the colonized planets. The kinsmen strictly control their numbers and their loyalty to their families is absolute. Like the Sicilian mafia families and feuding Corsican clans of the old planet, the kinsmen exist in constant competition with each other. It is this competition that rules the economy, begins and ends wars, and drags human civilization to greater technological and scientific progress.
Kinsmen with the ability to telepathically attack the minds of others are called psychers.
Chapter One
Claire awoke early. Her grey ceiling hung like a bleak shroud above. She looked at it, trying to gather enough willpower to leave the bed.
A digital screen flared into life on the wall, presenting her with a digital clock. A female voice with a flat, computer- generated intonation announced, "Good morning. You have thirty minutes until scheduled departure to work, Captain Shannon."
She stared at the ceiling.
"Twenty-nine minutes. You are now one minute behind schedule."
"Twenty-eight minutes. You are now two..."
"Dismissed," Claire said.
The screen died. She sat up and pushed off the bed. Around her, the apartment offered a dreary monochromatic palette: grey walls, dark floor, paler ceiling. No splash of color interrupted the drabness.
She walked to the window. The shutter's photosensor detected her presence, and the thick panels of grey plastic slid aside. She was on the fortieth floor. Buildings rose around her, half-a-kilometer-tall rectangular boxes, separated by deep grim canyons of narrow streets. Above the city, the smog-smothered sky sifted chemical rain. The rainwater wet the sides of the uniform skyscrapers, bleaching long drip-trails in the concrete.
Her quarters were in the barracks of Intelligence Building 214. The apartment where she grew up with her mother was located ten blocks east. Looking out of her window, she could tell no difference between the view from her current rooms and that apartment. Even the bleach patterns seemed the same.
If she were to leave the city, which was practically impossible, she would find a barren rocky plain. The planet of Uley had only two relatively small land masses, neither of them inviting. The Eastern Continent was colonized three hundred and twenty seven years ago by the Melko Corporation. Three years later the Brodwyn Mining Consortium landed on the Western Continent. Melko voiced their claim to the entire planet and demanded that all Brodwyn colonization efforts cease immediately. Brodwyn declined to comply.
Both conglomerates began rapid exploitation of natural resources in an effort to achieve industrial and military superiority. Every industry on either continent was designed to serve the arms race. Forty years before she was born, the hostilities exploded into an open conflict: Melko against Brodwyn, Native against Invader.
She was a Brodwyn retainer, an "evil invader," if the propaganda of the Melko group was to be believed. She could've just as well have been born a "greedy native" on