with you.”
“What…what subject?” Kara’s mouth was dry and she wished she could sink through the ground and disappear. Anything to end this embarrassment.
“It’s about your fangs,” her father said heavily. “Sometimes when they start growing in they can give you…urges that are hard to control. And you might feel—”
“I don’t want to talk about this!” Kara burst out, yanking away from his hand on her shoulder. “I shouldn’t have to. I shouldn’t have these stupid fangs in the first place—everything always comes back to my fangs!”
“Well, sweetheart…you’re unique.” Sylvan raised his hands, palm up. “No one has ever heard of a Blood Kindred female with fangs before. Personally, I believe it’s an effect of the way your mother’s human DNA mixed with my Kindred DNA.”
“I don’t care why I have them! I just wish they were gone. Or I could…could shrink them somehow.” Kara felt tears stinging her eyes.
“Don’t wish to be someone you aren’t, my daughter.” Her father’s voice was low and grave. “You are beautiful and perfect and precious—so precious to me and your mother. You are exactly as the Goddess intended you to be.”
“Then why does everyone talk about me?” Kara burst out. She remembered the hurtful words of the women at the Rainbow Mountain—the way they’d talked about her being “deformed.” And the way Jason had broken up with her—the way every male she knew looked at her like there was something wrong with her. Everyone but Raakshas had looked at her that way.
Is it any wonder I was drawn to him? she thought desperately. He accepted me, fangs and all. Who else besides my family is willing to do that? No one! I’ll never have a normal life and all because of these damned fangs!
“Kara, sweetheart—” her father began but Kara couldn’t stand anymore.
“I have to go.” She raced for his study door and yanked it open. But she stopped in the doorway. Turning, she half-met Sylvan’s eyes. “I’m sorry I shamed you, Father. It…it won’t happen again.”
He opened his mouth—probably to protest or to call her back—but Kara couldn’t bear to stay. She rushed out the door, her eyes filled with hot, angry tears.
Her fangs—it was always her fangs. They made her recognizable enough that everyone knew she was the Chancellor’s daughter. Kaleb didn’t have to put up with such instant recognition and retribution and why? Because it was normal for a Blood Kindred male to have fangs. And as for what her father had tried to tell her about the fangs giving her urges…
Kara shuddered with embarrassment at the thought. But then a little voice inside her spoke up.
It’s true, isn’t it? Haven’t you been having the urge to bite someone—to bite a male—for a long time? Doesn’t the ache in your upper teeth make you shiver with need? Isn’t that why you “accidentally” bit Jason? You were hoping he might ask you to bite him again, in a different place, weren’t you? But instead he dumped you. It’s the story of your life, the damn fangs mess up everything.
Well, maybe it was time to do something about them. Kara dashed the tears out of her eyes and thought again of her mother’s words the other night when Sophia had thought she and Sylvan were alone. “I’ve heard of a treatment…on Tranq Prime…”
I’ll go there, Kara suddenly decided. Of course it would mean “borrowing” a long range shuttle from the Docking Bay but she could manage that—hadn’t she been taking piloting lessons since she was twelve cycles old? She could outmaneuver most anyone but Uncle Baird himself. Still, a long range shuttle wouldn’t get her all the way to Tranq Prime, which was hundreds of light years away…
Then she had a thought. Hadn’t Raak said there was a cadre of trader ships going to the Blood Kindred home world tonight? She was certain he had. So if she could borrow a shuttle and fly out with the rest of them, she could slip through when the Mother Ship folded space and no one would be the wiser.
I can call Great Aunt Zeelah and Great Uncle Grennly and I’m certain they’ll let me stay with them once I explain who I am. I bet they’ll help me find the right doctor to perform the procedure or the treatment or whatever it is too.
What the procedure was, Kara had no clear idea. She had a vague mental image of a serious but kindly physician handing her a tube of toothpaste-like medicine and telling her gravely,