Unbondable(Kindred Birthright #1) - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,18

Mother Ship. As insurance against the freezing temperatures, she had packed her thickest boots and her father’s old vranna skin coat—made from the pelt of the fearsome beast which he had killed when he was only twelve cycles old.

Kaleb had wanted to try killing a vranna too when he’d heard that story as a boy but their mother had firmly vetoed the idea. Kara was glad about that—she’d heard that a grown vranna was taller than a polar bear from Earth and twice as fierce. Still, she was glad she had the soft, warm coat of turquoise fur. It should keep her from freezing when she walked from the landing area to the entrance of the grotto where her great aunt and uncle lived.

Kara hoped they wouldn’t mind her popping up unannounced but she was afraid if she called them they might alert her father and tell him where she was.

And I don’t want anything to spoil the surprise, Kara told herself. The next time I see my family my fangs will be normal-sized and all my unladylike urges will be gone.

It was a happy thought and she held onto it hard as she guided her little craft into the red gash in space—flying through the Fold for the first time on her own.

Seven

Folding space was always a strange sensation—one which she had only experienced once or twice when her father took his family with him on a diplomatic mission. But even then she and her brother had always been confined to the shuttle.

This time I’m on my own and I’m going to get out and explore and see anything I want to, Kara told herself. There’s nobody holding me back—I’m going for it!

Luckily, her great aunt and uncle lived in the largest grotto on Tranq Prime and that was where most of the trading ships were headed. Kara followed along, looking at the frozen wastes that flew by beneath her ship and reviewing the planet’s history in her head.

The frozen Blood Kindred home world was also home to a race called the Primes. The Primes were a proud people—they had been there before the Kindred and had welcomed them grudgingly onto their planet, allowing them to call brides from their people only when it appeared that an epidemic of Blood Fever might wipe out the entire female population. But after the epidemic was over, the Primes had tried to push the Kindred out, saying that they needed to purify their bloodlines. There were still some Blood Kindred here but many had migrated to the Mother Ship and other Kindred home worlds where they felt more welcome.

Aunt Zeelah and Uncle Grennly are Primes, Kara remembered with a twinge of unease. I hope they won’t mind that I’m half Kindred. I hope they’ll honor our kinship and let me stay with them.

Of course if they didn’t, she could always stay in the public hostel. For centuries upon centuries Tranq Prime had been a closed planet, meaning that if you didn’t have kin to stay with there, you couldn’t stay at all. There were no hotels or motels or anyplace else for a trader or merchant or wanderer to lay his or her head at night in the underground grottos where the people lived. And of course, staying outside the grottos on the freezing cold surface of the planet was unthinkable.

But during Kara’s lifetime, Tranq Prime had finally opened its doors—albeit grudgingly—to outsiders. Each of the larger grottos had built a public hostel and though there were strict limitations as to how long a visitor could stay, it was now possible to visit Tranq Prime for trading purposes, although they still discouraged any kind of vacationers.

But I’m not a vacationer—I’m family, Kara told herself as confidently as she could. She landed her ship a little way away from the rest of the trader vessels and made certain her landing gear was on steady ground. Then she took a deep breath and punched in a number on her viewscreen.

A moment later, two elegant, somewhat older people appeared before her. The woman had ice blue eyes and pale blonde hair, swept up into a tasteful twist at the top of her head. The male beside her had somewhat watery blue eyes and a long, bony face. He didn’t have much hair but what he had was carefully scraped over the bald dome of his head in straggly blond wisps.

Kara recognized them from old holo-pictures she’d seen in her father’s family photo library—this had to