Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Let him go?” Vicky frowned. “How could I stop him? He had to get back up to the Mother Ship and I had to get back home to Earth. I have to teach tomorrow, you know. And we’d recovered the second part of the T’lix-Kruthe so I figured…” She shrugged. “It was time we got back to our regular lives.”
“And is that what you wanted? To go back to your boring, hum-drum Earthly existence and let the gorgeous Kindred who’s fallen for you get away?” Kat demanded.
“He didn’t fall for me!” Vicky protested, frowning. “We parted by mutual consent.”
“Yes, but why though?” Kat probed. “Was it because he’s an M-Switch Kindred?”
“You mean did we go our separate ways because of his, uh, superpower?” Vicky asked, mystified. “The way he can jump into other guy’s bodies and make them do things?”
“Yeah—that,” Kat said, nodding.
“Well, no—of course not!” Vicky exclaimed. “I thought that was pretty cool. You know, he used his, uh, switching ability to save me the first night we met—on Valentine’s Day, you know.” She gestured with one hand. “He got into the bodies of those alien lizard guys who were chasing me—those Varians—and held them off until I could make a run for it.”
“Wow—that’s quite a story!” Kat exclaimed. “So I guess you don’t have any problem with his switching or swapping whatsoever.”
“No, why would I?” Vicky asked, still mystified.
“Because pretty much every other branch of the Kindred do,” Lizabeth said, answering for Kat. “They hate the M-Switchers for their ability to ‘snatch’ another male’s body. They’re basically despised and mistrusted through the whole Kindred community.”
“They are?” Vicky asked. “I didn’t know that.”
“Chain thinks you do,” Kat said gently. “At least, I’m pretty sure he does from what he told me.”
“What? What did he tell you?” Vicky leaned forward eagerly. She was too impatient to hear what Chain had said to pretend to be nonchalant.
“He thinks you didn’t want him because he’s an M-Switch Kindred,” Kat told her. “He thinks that’s why you, uh, turned him down.”
“Turned him down? I never turned him down!” Vicky protested.
“Okay—so what exactly happened then?” Kat raised one auburn eyebrow at her, skeptically.
Vicky tried to think how she could explain delicately.
“When we were on Priima Belle,” she began, “We encountered a situation where we would have had to, er, get bonded together if we continued. And we made the mutual decision that it was a bad idea. I mean, it would have been ridiculous.”
“It would? Why?” Kat asked.
“Well, I mean…we hadn’t known each other for long for one thing,” Vicky said. “And I’m sixteen years older than him for the second, and much bigger reason. So the idea of us getting ‘bonded’ as Chain called it, was just ludicrous.”
“Ah-ha! I knew it!” Kat turned to Lizabeth. “Didn’t I tell you that was the reason?”
Lizabeth nodded and smiled.
“You called it, all right.”
“Called what? What are you talking about?” Vicky asked frowning at the way the two women were smiling at each other, like they had a secret which was all about her.
“I was pretty sure the reason you didn’t want to bond with Chainor was because of the age difference between you two,” Kat said. “Which is why I brought Lizabeth with me.”
“My husband, Lone, is about fifteen years younger than me, too,” Lizabeth explained when Vicky gave her a confused look. “He was my assistant for several years before we got together. There was always a spark between us, but I never thought it could amount to anything. After all, why would a young, handsome man fifteen years my junior want to bond with me? I thought he ought to be with someone his own age.”
Her words were so similar to Vicky’s own, when she’d spoken to Chain about why they shouldn’t bond, that they sent a chill down her spine.
“So…what happened?” she asked.
“Well, I think you can tell.” Lizabeth smiled and rubbed her rounded belly. “Lone finally convinced me that we belonged together—not that it wasn’t a really difficult truth for me to swallow. I put him off and put him off—in fact, I nearly got both of us killed, I was so sure he couldn’t want me.”
“You did?” Vicky shook her head. “That’s awful. I can’t imagine how, though.”
“We were on a hostile planet,” Lizabeth explained. “Yonnie Two—it has a large population of misogynistic men who practice female sacrifice and mutilation.”
“Wow…” Vicky shivered. “That sounds way worse than Priima Belle.”
“It was no picnic,” Lizabeth agreed. “We were in a safe place but I fought with Lone and ran away from him. Then I got kidnapped and sent down to the misogynistic cult.” Her face grew drawn and white. “I don’t really want to talk about what happened next, except to say that Lone rescued me. He went into Rage and killed every man who hurt me or wanted to hurt me in the process.”