Angel in the Badlands: space opera sci fi romance (Sons of Amber Book 1) Read Free Page A

them and gave them treats when they accomplished something important. Punished them when did something wrong. And she named them all. They could’ve been given experimental numbers, but Dr. Amber had balked at that suggestion. No, she had insisted on finding individual names that had been carried by one of their DNA donors for two main reasons.
    First, she wanted each boy to have an individual identity as much as possible. She wanted them to know they were human, not merely lab-designed experiments. Grounding them with a name one of their forefathers had carried was a good start, she thought, and Zeke had to admit, it had worked with him.
    He’d been curious to learn about the dead man named Ezekiel who had donated more than seventy percent of his DNA to Zeke’s existence. Knowing that his main progenitor had been a scholar and adventurer had helped Zeke understand his own leanings in those directions.
    The second main reason to give them names and not numbers was that Dr. Amber wanted those men who had fallen in the war to be remembered. The Sons may have been designed by Dr. Amber, but the raw material to make them had come from real men who had lived real lives, worthy of remembrance.
    Dr. Amber may have seemed tough at times, but Zeke knew she had a strong, soft heart. She was also a woman of honor, who wanted to honor the fallen and their contribution to the continuance of the human race.
    And the best way to start rebuilding was by helping all those women left on all those worlds, have babies. It was part of every Son’s duty to bed willing females, as well as to produce sperm deposits at regular intervals so females from many different human planets and colonies could have access to it. Any female who wished it, could use Zeke’s, or any of his brothers’ sperm whenever they wished to produce the next generation. He didn’t know exactly how many children he had fathered so far, but Dr. Amber and her scientists kept meticulous track. He knew there were probably hundreds, if not thousands, of little boys running around the various human worlds with his DNA by now, and the thought gave him solace.
    Something of him would live on to help humanity survive, if he never made it off this rock. All those little boys meant his life up to this point had had some meaning. Still, sometimes in the dark of night, something about his life bothered him, leaving him feeling unfulfilled.
    He had come to realize that something vital was missing, but he wasn’t exactly sure what it was. The old storycubes he’d seen from beforetimes showed a much different existence than the one he was living now. He especially liked the stories where one man and one woman would live their lives together in partnership and love.
    He had never really felt love for any of his bed partners, and it was something he wanted to experience at least once before his Wildcard nature led to one risk too many. He looked down at the gentle creature still held tightly in his embrace and realized that if he actually could experience love, he would want to try it with someone exactly like this little angel. Perhaps he could make her love him, though he hadn’t a clue how to go about it.
    “Why are you looking at me like that?” his angel whispered, her pretty eyes staring up at him.
    “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever beheld.”
    Her expression softened and her cheeks flushed with a hint of luscious pink. He would have claimed yet another kiss from her at that moment, but Mother Rachel cleared her throat rather pointedly, reminding them both of her presence. How could he have forgotten she was there?
    Zeke turned to face the woman in the doorway, keeping Angela in his arms. He shifted so she stood slightly in front of him, both of them facing Mother Rachel. He was naked and let Angela’s robes shield him for the sake of the other woman’s modesty.
    “Mother Rachel, I—” Angela didn’t struggle out of his arms, which he found intensely