Page 6 of Rescued

“Yes, but also observe his eyes,” the female Commander Sylvan remarked. “He has blue irises with white sclera. A true Scourge has red irises and black sclera—this male doesn’t have the red-on-black eyes that denotes our ancient enemy.”

“I am not a Scourge,” Davrik said quickly, hoping to end their suspicion. “My gray skin tones can be attributed to the Giant Kindred blood I have in my ancestry. Though I mostly identify as a Blood Kindred.” He bared his teeth to show his dull double fangs.

“See? He’s not Scourge,” the female Commander Baird said impatiently. “Now could you please step aside, Oliver? I can handle myself—I’m the head of Security for the entire Mother Ship, you know.”

“I know, baby—I just want you to be safe,” the human male with dark blond hair murmured.

“You must be the female counterpart of Commander Baird in my own universe,” Davrik remarked. “Only on my version of the Mother Ship, Commander Baird is the head of the Fleet, rather than the head of Security.” He turned to the female Kindred with the blonde hair. “And you must be Commander Sylvan’s female counterpart—Commander Sylvania?”

“I am Commander Sylvania. And this is my half sister, Commander Bairdida and our mates, Oliver and Simon. As well as my assistant, Commander Lan’ara.” She nodded at each person in her party in turn as she made the introductions and then stepped forward to hold out her arm for a warrior’s clasp. “Welcome to our Mother Ship—and to our universe.”

“Thank you, Commander. I am Davrik, of the other universe where the Kindred are mostly male, rather than mostly female.”

Davrik took her arm carefully, very aware of her human mate’s protective gaze. Both he and the other human male were much taller and more muscular than most human men, though neither was as tall as Davrik himself. His Giant Kindred blood gave him a definite advantage in this universe, he noted. Not that he would use it in any way except to find his beloved Sonya.

When he finished clasping arms with Commander Sylvania, Commander Bairdida came forward and offered her arm as well. Then Commander Lan’ara stepped up but instead of her arm, she held out a slim, lavender shaded hand.

“Please take my aide’s hand, Commander Davrik,” Sylvania said. “She is an Empath Kindred—she will be able to tell your true intentions in coming here.”

“With pleasure.” Davrik took the slim lavender hand willingly in his much larger one and waited to feel the same sensation he felt when a Priestess of his own Mother Ship “Saw Into” him. It was a very uncomfortable process—the feeling of someone rifling through your brain and searching your thoughts and memories, but Davrik was prepared to endure it—he was prepared to endure anything to get to Sonya.

However, the sensation inside him when he took the Empath’s hand was much different from what he had expected. Instead of the feeling of cool fingers rifling through his brain, he had a warm sensation which started at the center of his body and moved outward. It was like coming in from the cold on a chilly day and having a heating element wrapped around him. Only instead of the heat coming from the outside, it was coming from the inside.

At once, he felt some of the anguish he’d carried for the past five years dissipate. It wasn’t gone completely—nothing could completely erase the agony of his loss and the never ending need to find his mate again. But he felt like he could take a deep breath again and look at the world with fresh eyes.

At the same time, however, he saw his own pain reflected in the deep purple eyes of the female before him.

“Ahh,” she moaned softly. “I feel it…to lose a mate you loved so dearly…to break a Bond that entwined both your souls—how terrible!”

“Forgive me!” Davrik pulled his hand away hastily. “I didn’t mean for you to bear my pain,” he said stiffly.

“No…it is all right.” Commander Lan’ara straightened up and took a deep breath, as though trying to rid herself of the pain. She turned to Commander Sylvania. “This male—Commander Davrik—lost his mate in a shuttle crash in his own universe. He has come to our universe to find her again.”

“Or her doppelganger,” Davrik said. “This universe’s version of her.”

Commander Sylvania frowned.

“But surely you know the woman you find here won’t be the same one you lost, Commander Davrik. She will have different experiences.”

“And probably a great deal of trauma if she happens to be human and she’s been trapped down on Earth with the Scourge,” Oliver added grimly.

“Yes, I know all that.” Davrik nodded. “She might not even want anything to do with me once I find her. But I must find her and rescue her. She is the only one left—in every other universe my beloved Sonya boarded a shuttle from the Mother Ship, intending to go visit her family back on Earth. In every other universe—other than this one—the shuttle lost power and she died in the crash.”

He swallowed hard—it was difficult to talk about the horrible accident that had taken his mate from him, but necessary so they could understand his urgency.

“I see.” Commander Sylvania nodded thoughtfully. “Well, we will help you in every way we can, of course. But I’m afraid the Scourge have put an energy net around the Earth which we so far haven’t been able to penetrate. So if she’s down there, we’ll have to wait until the net drops to let another ship in or out before we can swoop down and scoop her up.”

“But she’s not on Earth—not anymore,” Davrik said quickly. “I saw her being taken off Earth by a Saurian slaver ship very recently.”

“Oh!” Commander Lan’ara gasped and her lavender skin went so pale it was almost white.

“What? What is it?” Davrik asked anxiously. He hoped she wasn’t still picking up his emotions and feeling them as her own. He wouldn’t wish the anxiety and pain he felt when he thought of his beloved Sonya on anyone.

“It’s just that Lan’ara is Dream-sharing with a human male and he also was taken off of Earth in a slave ship,” Commander Sylvania explained. “In fact, we were going to try and track the emissions signatures of all the ships that have left Earth in the past twelve hours to try and find him.”

“You said it was a Saurian slaver ship?” Commander Lan’ara asked, seeming to recover herself somewhat. “Because that was what I saw in my dream—a huge, scaly Saurian slaver paying one of the Scourge as the prisoners were marched on board.”

“Did one of them have brown skin?” Davrik asked anxiously. “My Sonya, her skin is a warm, beautiful brown. She has long black ringlets that hang down to the small of her back and big, chocolate brown eyes. She loves chocolate—or at least, my Sonya did,” he added, wistfully.

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