Page 2 of Offering Herself to Darkness

Life had settled down into a kind of routine for the next two years and she had officially adopted Anna as her own. She’d even been able to add her to her insurance plan, which was why she’d been able to afford to bring Anna to the doctor when she developed a nasty cough.

At first the pediatrician dismissed it as a cold that wouldn’t go away. But after multiple rounds of antibiotics, she’d finally ordered a chest X-ray…which was when the Pulmonary Chrystalosis had reared its beautiful but deadly head.

A time of frantic searching ensued, looking for the right doctor—a specialist who could cure the rare condition. Finally, they had found Dr. M. Patel, one of the few doctors who knew anything about PC.

The prevailing theory was that the deadly lung disease was caused by inhaling a particular fluorocarbon which was used in the type of car Cora and Anna had been in during The Crash. The company, Pexla, denied all blame—just as they had denied any blame for the wreck when their self-driving car had run into the back of a semi, killing Cora instantly. The billionaire who owned Pexla was rich enough to keep all the cases out of court, or else tie them up in so much legal red tape they would never go to trial.

Nora had been incredibly angry and frustrated to learn that getting justice for her dead twin was hopeless and now she just felt helpless to hear that her niece was going to die from a disease caused by the same faulty automobile. Dr. Patel was certain the cause of Anna’s Pulmonary Crystalosis was the fluorocarbons she’d inhaled directly after The Crash.

The little girl had seemed fine at first, Nora thought bitterly. She’d only gotten a few scratches despite the severity of the wreck. But inside her little body, the PC was already taking hold. It was slow-acting but always fatal, because even when it was caught in time, there was no known cure, as Dr. Patel had explained to her.

But Nora wasn’t willing to believe that. She couldn’t let Anna go—not so soon after losing her twin. It had taken them some time to settle in, but she loved Anna like her own daughter. She wasn’t going to watch her die without a fight!

“There has to be some way,” she said to Dr. Patel as the two of them stared at Anna’s X-ray. “There must be a study or a drug trial—something—anything—that might help her.”

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head regretfully again. “I wish I had something to offer you. But no medicine on Earth can cure PC. All we can do is slow it down a little, but it will ultimately be fatal.”

Nora felt the same awful grief rising inside her—the feeling that had almost swallowed her whole when she got the terrible news of Cora’s death. She might have given up altogether if it wasn’t for Anna. She knew she had to be strong for her niece. But if she lost Anna too…

I’ll want to die, she thought and knew it was true. I can’t lose another person I love so soon and survive it—I just can’t.

Numbly, she thanked Dr. Patel and left the hospital. She had a packet of pills—a new drug that he’d helped develop that would slow the PC down—but even with the rare and expensive medication, he couldn’t give Anna more than six months to live.

Nora drove home in a daze. Over and over again the doctor’s words echoed in her mind. “No medicine on Earth can cure PC,” he’d said. No medicine on Earth…No medicine on Earth…

“No medicine on Earth,” Nora whispered and felt the hot tears trickling down her cheeks. “No medicine on?—”

She stopped abruptly as an idea burst into her mind.

What about the Kindred?

The Kindred were a race of alien warriors who had come to Earth over ten years ago. Because they were 95% male and were genetically compatible with most humanoid species, they were always looking for mates. In return for protecting the Earth from the Scourge, a race of hostile, invading aliens, the World Council had granted them the right to call human women as brides.

Thus began a long and tumultuous relationship between the humans and the Kindred. In the beginning, women were frightened of the Kindred—probably because they were so much bigger than most human men.

You seldom saw a Kindred warrior under seven feet tall and all of them were extremely muscular. There was also a frightening rumor going around that they were all hung like horses and had the stamina to keep going all night. It was enough to make even the bravest Earth girl want to run the other direction when she got called as a Kindred warrior’s bride.

In order to mitigate the humans’ fear of them and foster goodwill between the two peoples, the Kindred had built Human-Kindred Relations buildings in most major cities on Earth. They also gave out cures for some of the more common human diseases. Almost no one died of the more regular forms of cancer anymore.

The thought of the Kindred medical technology gave Nora hope. It just so happened that she worked on the weekends at the local HKR building in downtown Tampa.

She’d started working there as a way to supplement her paralegal salary. After Steven walked out and Anna had moved in, she’d found herself with half her regular income and a child to feed and clothe. Her best friend, Samantha, had gotten her a side job at the HKR so she could earn a little extra cash.

Shortly after getting Nora the job, Samantha had been swept off her feet by a seven-foot-tall Beast Kindred warrior who “thought she hung the moon,” as Nora’s mother liked to say. Seriously, her friend could do no wrong in her new husband’s eyes—it was enough to make anyone jealous.

Not that Nora was, though. She was well aware that most guys had no interest in dating single moms. And besides, what Kindred warrior would want to date a short, plump woman with too much junk in the trunk like her?

So she’d pushed the idea of any kind of romance away but had kept the job because the Kindred paid really well—they believed that everyone ought to earn a living wage, no matter what job they did. And they also offered free health benefits to anyone who was married, or “Joined” as they said to one of their warriors.

“That’s it!” she said aloud and pounded on her steering wheel in excitement. “If anyone can find a cure for Anna’s PC, it’s the Kindred!”

Now all she had to do was marry one of them so she could get her niece in to see one of the Kindred doctors.

Since she’d already decided none of the Kindred would want her, it might seem strange that Nora was considering marrying one to get lifesaving treatment for her niece. However, she happened to know something about one particular Kindred that she thought she might be able to use to her benefit. Not just any Kindred either—it was Commander Xarex, her boss.

Commander Xarex was a Dark Kindred—an especially scary kind of alien warrior because the Dark Kindred had no emotions. They had also tried to take over the Earth and had been repulsed by the regular Kindred, but not until after they had flattened several major Earth cities. Many people on Earth still ran when they saw a Dark Kindred coming—they were easy to pick out since they often wore an exoskeleton of black metal armor that made them look even bigger than they were.

Commander Xarex was even scarier than any of the other Dark Kindred Nora had seen. That was because he was only half Kindred—his other half was some other kind of alien. Nora didn’t know what kind because he never spoke about himself—in fact, he almost never spoke at all. But whatever it was, it gave him dusky blue skin instead of the usual human skin tones of most Kindred and thick silver hair which he most often wore bound in a club a the base of his neck.

---