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SOLON
“Should I try calling her?” Solon asked, looking morosely down at the drink in front of him. It was an Earth beverage called “whiskey” and he didn’t like it very much. It was too strong and burned his throat when he swallowed it. But his friend, Brone, had assured him it was good for “drowning your sorrows” which was what he had decided Solon needed to do.
The two males had gone to a bar not far from the HKR building where Brone worked. Solon had been pouring out his troubles to his friend, who listened sympathetically.
“Hell yes, you oughta call her,” he said now, taking a sip of his own whiskey and putting the glass back down with a grimace. “Ahh—fucking smooth. She’s probably sorry she got rid of you. Call her on the phone or on the Think-me and tell her you still love her!”
“I do still love her, but I feel like she hates me now,” Solon protested. “I even Renounced my Claim on her,” he added, in a low voice.
“You what?” Brone stared at him in disbelief. “I can’t believe that! You know what that means?”
“Yes, I know, I know,” Solon growled. “I have no right to see her unless she invites me and I can’t lay hands on her again unless she gives me formal permission. But I thought it was necessary after what I did.”
“Have you told her that you Renounced your Claim?” Brone asked.
Solon shook his head.
“No, and I don’t know if she’d care even if I did. She can’t stand me now. I punished her attacker in front of people whose opinions matter to her—I shamed her.”
“That’s one thing I’ve never understood about humans—well, besides the fact that so many of the males are sexual predators,” Brone said, frowning. “But what I don’t get is why they put the blame for the attack on the woman who gets attacked? Why do they shame the woman when it’s the fucking human male who’s at fault? Your little female should be able to hold her head high—she survived her Shadowed Past with dignity and strength. She ought to be celebrated for that—not made to feel dirty or ashamed!”
“I couldn’t agree with you more!” Solon exclaimed. “What’s wrong with these humans, anyway? Why don’t they understand that women have a spark of the divine—a spark of the Goddess in them?”
“Warrior, listen to me—I have urgent news!”
The commanding feminine voice that suddenly filled his head came with a presence so powerful that it seemed to suck all the air out of the room. All around them, the humans in the bar kept drinking and talking but Solon suddenly felt like he’d been dumped onto a planet with a crushing atmospheric pressure.
“What…who…?” he gasped, but he knew the answer before he asked the question. It must be the Goddess—the Mother of All Life that all Kindred and Monstrum worshipped. It was said that she came in times of great trouble or need to warn her children, though Solon had never heard from her personally until now.
“Listen—the female I sent to you, whom you so foolishly abandoned—is in grave danger! Evil is stalking her as we speak!” The Goddess didn’t sound happy with him, which was possibly the reason her presence felt like a fucking boulder on his back.
“Abbey’s in danger?” he gasped, having to force the words out. “Where is she? What’s happening?”
“She is in her domicile here on Earth. Go to her now, warrior! If you do not hurry, she will be dead!”
Then the presence was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Solon stared with wide eyes at Brone, who was staring right back at him. Clearly he had also experienced the Goddess’s message, even though the humans around them seemed to be oblivious.
“Fuck,” the Beast Kindred growled shakily. “That was?—”
“The Goddess. And I have to get out of here—Abbey’s in danger!”
Solon was already off his stool and racing for the door.
“Wait—I’ll come with you!” Brone exclaimed and the two of them ran as fast as they could for the parking area.
Solon’s heart was pounding as he ran and all he could think of was that he never should have left Abbey in the first place…never should have left her alone.
He just hoped he could get to her in time.
41
ABBEY
Abbey hid the only place she could think of—she crawled under her bed, which wasn’t easy to do with her vision making everything into a big, dark, scary blur. But somehow she managed it and then she just lay there, heart pounding as she listened to the footsteps outside the door.
She’d considered trying to get out the window, but the handyman Aunt Rose had hired to paint her room last year had painted it shut. Abbey had tried several times to get it open, but it simply wouldn’t budge, no matter what she did. She’d been meaning to take a knife to the paint at the seams—after all, it was a fire hazard not to be able to get out—but somehow she had never gotten around to it.
So now here she was, hiding under the bed like a scared little girl hoping and praying that the intruder would give up looking for her and leave. But so far it seemed her hopes were in vain because she could still hear him pacing around out there.
