Switched: Brides of the Kindred 17 (48 page)

“
Kerov?” she said
tentatively.

“
Yes?” He didn’t look
up.

“
Look…” Frankie wasn’t
exactly sure how to broach the subject. “I know…know we’re not
quite, uh, done yet…”

“
What are you talking
about?” he growled. “Of course we’re done. After the way I treated
you…”

“
No, no—” Frankie
interrupted quickly. “I mean, we’re not quite done doing what the,
uh, priestess told us to do. “She said…” She cleared her throat.
“Said that we had to bring each other to the brink. You, uh,
brought me to the edge but I never—”

“
You don’t have to worry
about that,” he said shortly.

“
Yes, I do,” Frankie
protested. “If I don’t want to be stuck in your body with you stuck
in mine forever. We have to—”

“
I came,” he said flatly
and looked at her with self-loathing burning in his pale gray eyes.
“Came harder than I ever have when I forced you open and took what
I wanted…what you didn’t want to give, even as you begged me to
stop. So you need not worry about fulfilling the priestess’
orders—they have been fulfilled.”

“
I…you did?” Frankie could
scarcely believe him. How could he come just from tasting her? Had
the experience been that powerfully erotic for him or was he just
saying it to end their encounter? She couldn’t take a risk. “I
don’t believe you,” she said flatly. “Show me.”

“
You want proof?” He’d
been leaned over, sitting on the side of the bed with his elbows
resting on his knees. Now he sat up, and pointed to his flat,
muscular belly. Sure enough, Frankie could see the silvery-white
seed smeared on his smooth, tan skin.

“
I…you…” She didn’t know
what to say.

“
You see? I came when I
penetrated you over and over against your will just now.” His deep
voice was low with self-hatred.

“
What?” Frankie shook her
head. “What are you saying?”

“
What does it
sound
like I’m saying?”
He barked a harsh laugh and rose from the bed. “I’m saying it gave
me such pleasure to hold you down and take what I wanted that I
came. How sick is that?”

“
Look, I didn’t say what
you did was
sick
exactly,” Frankie protested. “Just
scary
. That…” she cleared her
throat. “I mean, that was my first time having a guy, uh, go down
on me. Remember I told you that Carlos never would?”

He gave another rueful, jagged laugh. “So
even your ex-mate is more worthy to be with you than I am! At least
he never pinned you down and took what you were unwilling to
give.”

“
Kerov—”

“
So.” He began fastening
his trousers with quick, jerky motions. “Now your opinion of me—and
probably of all my kind—has been proved right. I am unworthy—a
beast.”

“
I never said all that!”
Frankie protested hotly, upset all over again.

“
You said enough—all of it
true,” he growled, pulling on his uniform shirt.

“
Where are you going?”
Frankie demanded.

“
I’m leaving. We’ve done
what we came here to do—we’re separated from each other
permanently. You don’t have to worry about Switching with me again
or ever seeing me again for that matter. I’ll go back to my home
world and you can go back to yours.”

Frankie felt a stab of pain at his brusque,
angry words. So he wanted to just leave and pretend nothing had
ever happened? Wanted them to go back to their own worlds and just
forget each other—after all they’d been through?

“
Fine,” she heard herself
say. “If…if that’s the way you want it.”

“
I think it’s clear that’s
the way things have to be,” he snapped back.

“
All right.” Frankie stood
on shaky legs and began gathering her things. She pulled on the
Sponge Bob pajamas, wishing desperately for something more
dignified to wear. Unfortunately, these were the only clothes she
had, which was going to make it hard to make a grand exit from the
room.

There was something else
that made it hard to exit from the room—Kerov. She couldn’t help
remembering the time they’d spent living each other’s lives—in each
other
bodies
.

Their sexual encounter hadn’t gone the way
she’d thought it would—in fact, it had been the exact opposite of
all her dreams and fantasies. Instead of gentle and tender, it had
been frightening and incredibly intense but it had meant something,
damn it! Hadn’t it? At least to Frankie it had. How could Kerov
desire her so intensely one minute and then want nothing to do with
her the next?

It hurt—hurt a Hell of a lot though Frankie
didn’t want to admit it, even to herself. But there didn’t seem to
be anything she could say to change the situation.

At last they were both dressed and standing
there across from each other. Frankie felt at a loss—what should
she do? Was there anything left to say? Anything else that could be
done?

Kerov solved her problem neatly and
completely. He gave her a cold, stiff bow and when he raised up,
his piercing grey eyes were cool.

“
Kerov—” she started to
say but he cut her off.

“
Farewell, Frankie. May
Fortune favor you in this life and the one to come.”

“
Right.” Frankie was hard
pressed to hold back the tears but she lifted her chin and glared
back at him. “You have a nice life too.”

He inclined his head and made an “after you”
gesture with one hand.

Blinking her eyes fiercely to keep back the
hot droplets she felt gathering behind her lids, Frankie took his
silent invitation and left the bedroom. She didn’t stop when she
reached the living area of the suite either—she just kept walking,
right out the door.

What else could she do?

Chapter Twenty-two

“
Are you
finally
awake? Good. No
doubt you’re wondering why I’ve brought you here.”

The male who looked exactly like him stalked
around Sylvan, grinning maniacally.

“
Wha—?” The world was
still blurry around the edges and Sylvan’s arms and legs didn’t
want to work properly. In fact, they didn’t want to work
at all.
He tried to
clench his hand into a fist but his fingers didn’t even twitch.
Even the dull, throbbing pain he’d had ever since the strange
rodent creature had bitten his thumb had disappeared, though he
could still see the bandage on his injured digit. His entire body
was just…numb.

The one exception was his head which he
could move, but only a little. And there was something clamped
around his temples—something tight and hard and cold. A metal
circlet of some kind? But why?

“
Are you alert now? I
don’t want to have to start again,” the male said, sounding
irritated.

Sylvan glared at him. “Who in the Seven
Hells are you and why do you look like me? And what have you done
to me? Why can’t I move?”

“
Ah—that’s more like it!”
The male who looked exactly like him smiled, clearly pleased. “Now,
as I was saying, you’re probably wondering why I’ve brought you
here. The answer is, my dear Commander Sylvan,
to gloat.”

“
What?” Sylvan frowned.
“What are you talking about?”

“
You heard me—I wanted to
gloat before I truly got my plan under way.” The male who looked
enough like him to be his twin grinned, his fangs, so exactly like
Sylvan’s own, gleaming whitely.

Wait a minute—twin—he
looks enough like me to be my twin!
Sylvan
began to get a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Who was
it who had warned him about twins recently? Rone—Kate’s mate, that
was who. He had told Sylvan that Kate had had a Knowing
dream…suddenly the Wulven Kindred’s words came back to him, as
clear as a bell.

“…
as I was holding her in
my arms, she kept murmuring, ‘Tell Sylvan he’s not safe…tell him to
beware his twin. His twin is danger.”

Sylvan, not having a twin, had discounted
the words completely, thinking that perhaps Kate had been mistaken
or had just had a nightmare. Now he realized that in ignoring her
warning, he might have made the biggest mistake of his life.

“
As I was saying,” his
twin said, grinning at him. “I wanted to see the look on your face
when I told you what I have planned for your beloved Mother Ship
and every single male, female, and child aboard it.”

“
Who
are
you?” Sylvan demanded again.
“And how in the Seven Hells are you wearing my face?”

“
Why, it’s me—your old
friend, Two. Don’t you recognize me?” The male laughed. “But I
guess you wouldn’t, would you? Which leads to the answer to your
other question about me wearing your oh-so-handsome face. It wasn’t
easy, you know. It involved a long and arduous transformation
inside the AllFather’s
Souda
back on the Scourge home world. I think it came
out rather well, don’t you?” He turned from side to side, as though
to let Sylvan admire him. “Of course, first I had to collect a
sample of your DNA but I sent one of my furry little pets for
that.” He looked at Sylvan’s bandaged thumb and made a
tsking
sound. “I see
you’re still injured—so sorry about that! Their bites can
take
months
to
heal.”

“
You’re sick,” Sylvan
growled at him.

“
No one disputes that.”
Two waved a hand as though it didn’t matter. “I’m also quite
completely insane—but in a
good
way.” He laughed—Sylvan’s own laugh but horribly
distorted. “Now listen, because I don’t intend to repeat myself. I
am going to take over your entire ship and there is
nothing—
nothing
you can do to stop me.”

We’ll see about
that.
Concentrating hard, Sylvan reached
for his link with his mate—the soul bond which every Kindred male
forms with his female when he bonds her to him as he had done with
Sophia.

“
Sophia,”
he sent urgently.
“Two’s
aboard the Mother Ship! You need to alert the Council and get
yourself and the children back to Earth and safety!”

But his warning fell flat—or rather, it felt
as though it hit a steel wall and bounced back at him. Try as he
might, Sylvan couldn’t achieve any communication with his mate.
What in the Seven Hells was going on?

“
Ah—I see you’ve
discovered that I’ve blocked the communication between you and your
mate.” Two leaned down and tapped the metal band that encircled
Sylvan’s temples. “This little device is a mental blocker—most
useful when you want to keep your victim from calling for help
telepathically. Or from warning
future
victims. And by that, I mean
your lovely bride and your charming children, of
course.”

“
Let me go,” Sylvan
demanded hoarsely. “If you fucking touch one hair of their heads I
swear by the Goddess—”

“
Oh yes, the Goddess. By
all means, let’s invoke the Goddess.” Two made a dismissive
gesture. “If you’re quite done calling for help from a divinity who
doesn’t exist, can I please get on with telling you my plan? I’ve
been working on it for
ages
and I’m just
dying
to share it with
someone!”

“
You—”

“
Good!” Two clapped his
hands. “Now, speaking of transformations as we were earlier, here
is my plan for the Mother Ship—every single one of them is going to
change
drastically
from the inside out. All thanks to
this.
”

He pulled a small, black leather satchel
from his pocket and flipped it open. Inside were a gleaming row of
test tubes filled with glowing blue liquid.

Sylvan felt sick but he tried not to show
it.

“
What is that—poison?” he
demanded harshly.

“
Poison? Oh no! Well, not
to
most
people.
Although around about ten to twenty percent of the Mother Ship
inhabitants won’t be able to metabolize it and it will surely kill
them in the most agonizing way possible. So I guess to
them
it will be poison,”
Two said musingly. “But to everyone else, this is liquid of
transformation—the water of life! And in fact, the Mother Ship’s
water supply is
exactly
where I’m going to put it.”

“
What
is
it exactly?” Sylvan ground out,
trying to keep both his rage and his panic at bay. There was
nothing he could do right now but listen to Two’s ravings and try
to get as much information from the bastard as he could.

“
Why it’s
me.”
Two beamed at him
but then, clearly seeing the look of incomprehension on Sylvan’s
face, he continued impatiently. “This liquid contains nanobots that
will inject a virus I have specially formulated with my own
personality. I made a copy of myself on the Father Ship of the
Scourge, you see—quite a large fellow, I grew him in the Flesh
Tanks—and I found it
lovely
to have such a like minded person about. In fact,
I liked it
so
much that I decided to make a whole
army
of me-s.”