“Well, I didn’t have to carry either of my girls for a whole year but I certainly remember reaching the stage where I was ready to get them out of me,” Vicky said politely. Though inside, she was wondering what in the world Kat was here for and why she had brought her pregnant friend. “Um, can I ask why you came, Kat?” she said, hoping it didn’t sound too rude. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but—”
“Not rude at all, doll,” Kat assured her easily. “I came to bring you this.”
She opened her purse, brought out a thick envelope and handed it over to Vicky.
Vicky opened it and was shocked at the amount of money she saw. She looked up from the stack of hundred-dollar bills and stared at Kat blankly.
“What’s this?”
“Your fee for going on the mission to Priima Belle to get the T’lix-Kruthe, of course,” Kat said. “Sylvan was going to transmit it directly to your bank account but then we realized we’d forgotten to get that information from you when you were up on the Mother Ship. So I offered to bring it because I wanted to see you again and have you meet Lizabeth.”
“Well, this is way too much!” Vicky protested, trying to give back the envelope. “I mean, I didn’t even do that much and Chain told me he was only going to be sure I got half of the fee. Surely this is more than that.”
“It’s the whole fee,” Kat acknowledged. “Chainor wanted you to have it all—he specifically requested it.”
Vicky’s heart throbbed at the mention of the big Kindred and she couldn’t help thinking that she would rather have him back in her life than all the money in the world.
“I can’t accept it,” she said again. “It’s too much.”
“Chainor said there was some damage done to your house when those awful Varians came to find the first half of the T’lix-Kruthe,” Kat said. “He wanted to be sure you had enough money to replace your carpet and your drapes and the window in your bathroom.”
“But this is enough for an entire bathroom and living room remodel!” Vicky protested. “Really, I just can’t take it.”
“Well, then maybe you should tell him that.” Kat arched an eyebrow at her. “I’m only authorized to bring it down to you—not take it back up again. Once the money leaves my hand, it’s legally yours and I can’t touch it again.”
“Kat’s right,” Lizabeth put in, joining the conversation. “I should know—I’m an expert on Kindred law.”
“Oh, you’re a lawyer?” Vicky asked, impressed. She knew a lot of people didn’t like lawyers but she’d had a helpful one during the divorce and she had been grateful to have him at the time. Without his intervention, Kevin would have left her with next to nothing.
“She is a lawyer but that’s not why I brought her down here,” Kat said. “Tell me, doll…” She leaned forward, her hands on her knees. “Why did you let Chainor go?”
“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.”
“Into Rage?” Vicky asked hesitantly.
“It’s a kind of be
rserker fury a Kindred warrior goes into if he thinks the woman he loves is being threatened,” Kat explained. “Their eyes go red and they pretty much turn into killing machines—they’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt their woman or die trying to save them.”
“Which is pretty much what happed with Lone on Yonnie Two,” Lizabeth said soberly. “When he found the men that were…hurting me.”
“I’m so sorry,” Vicky said soberly. “That sounds awful for you.”
“It was,” Lizabeth said calmly. “But something good came out of it. I finally realized that Lone wanted me despite our age difference—wanted me so much he was willing to do anything to protect me and heal me from the trauma I went through afterwards.” She smiled and rubbed her belly again. “And now we’ve been together almost a whole year and I couldn’t be happier.”
“Well…I’m happy for you and thank you for sharing your story,” Vicky said. “But, um, I’m not quite sure what it has to do with Chain and me.”
“Oh, don’t you see?” Kat exclaimed, “This is all just a big misunderstanding! He thinks you don’t want him because he’s an M-Switch Kindred and you think he doesn’t really want you because you’ve got a little age difference.”
“A little age difference?” Vicky demanded. “I’d say sixteen years is a pretty substantial age difference.”
“You wouldn’t if it was the man who was sixteen years older,” Lizabeth pointed out quietly. “Because our society here on Earth has conditioned us to think that’s okay—that it’s normal. Nobody bats an eye when a male movie star shows up with a girl fifteen or twenty or twenty-five years his junior on his arm. But if the situation is reversed…” She whistled and shook her head. “Look out—the press is all over them. Because how could a younger man possibly want to tie himself to an older woman. Right?”
“Well, I guess so.” Vicky shrugged. “But that’s just the way it is, right?”
“Not in Kindred society,” Kat said firmly. “The Kindred value all females, regardless of age or weight or any kind of physical disability they might have because they believe we all have a spark of divinity—a little piece of the Goddess inside. If Chain loves you, he loves you and he doesn’t give a damn what the age difference between you is.”
“But that’s the thing, I don’t know that he loves me—I mean, he never said that!” Vicky protested. “He only told me that if we made love, we’d be bonded together for life.”
“He did, huh? And what did you say?” Kat asked.
Vicky shrugged. “Well, I said we shouldn’t risk it, of course. I mean, I figured he was trying to give me a way out—to give both of us a way out before something, uh, permanent happened.”
“See—I knew it was a miscommunication!” Kat said, slapping her knee. “He wasn’t telling you that you needed to back off—he was saying that he cared so much for you that if you made love, a bond would form. M-Switch Kindred only form a bond when they feel like they’ve found their soul-mate,” she explained when Vicky gave her a confused look. “Now do you see?”
Vicky shook her head doubtfully.
“Honestly, I’m not sure that I do. “I mean, I won’t deny that my time with Chain was special and unforgettable. But I don’t know that a day and a night is enough time to let you know if you want to be with someone for life.”
Even though to be honest, the idea that Chain might truly want her as his “bride” as he had put it, made her stomach flutter and her heart jump with hope. But it seemed too good to be true—just wishful thinking on Kat’s part, she was sure.
“Okay, I understand what you’re saying.” Kat sounded mildly exasperated. “Honestly, I thought one of my husbands wouldn’t care for me either because I’m plus-sized.” She sighed. “We let all this crap the media and society teaches us about not being good enough or thin enough or young enough get into our heads and run our lives, you know?”
“We certainly do,” Lizabeth agreed. “I think what Kat is trying to tell you, is to just give your Kindred a chance,” she told Vicky. “Date him for a while and get to know him more if it makes you feel better. I can understand why you’d want to do that before making a life-long commitment. “But just try.”
“Well…okay.” Vicky shrugged. “Although I don’t see how I can when I’m down here and Chain is up there—on the Mother Ship. I mean, how can we date from over two hundred thousand miles apart? That’s a really long-distance relationship, you know?”
“Which is why you need to come back with us to the Mother Ship right now,” Kat urged. “Chain is going to be presenting the T’lix-Kruthe to the Kindred High Council tonight. You helped to get it so that’s as good an excuse as any for you to go up there and see him again. You can come to the ceremony and just kind of run into him, you know?”
Vicky frowned. “Don’t you think that sounds a little desperate? Besides, I can’t go right now—my two girls are coming over so we can have a mother-daughter movie night. I almost never get to see both of them together anymore since they’re both off to college and grad school—I don’t want to miss them.”
She didn’t add that she was too afraid to go with Kat—afraid that Chain would look at her in that same, pitying way that Kevin had when he had first announced he was going and Vicky—in a stunned panic—had begged him not to leave her.
She didn’t want to seem desperate—didn’t want to be pitied. And no matter how Kat interpreted the situation, she still couldn’t quite believe that Chain had been trying to find a way to ask her to marry—or bond—with him the last time they’d been together. It seemed too incredible to be believed.
No, it was just too risky, she told herself. There was no way she was going back up to the Mother Ship. Let Chain come down to her if he seriously wanted to date her—or mate her, as Kat seemed to think. Otherwise, Vicky was staying right here on Earth to protect her bruised and tender heart. She’d been hurt too much by men in the recent past to do anything else.
Kat looked frustrated but then she threw up her hands and sighed.
“All right, if you don’t want to come, I can’t make you. Can I at least tell Chainor you don’t hate him for being an M-Switch Kindred?”
“Of course I don’t hate him!” Vicky exclaimed. “I could never hate him.”
“All right then.” Kat nodded. She looked at Lizabeth. “I guess we’d better be getting back to the Mother Ship.”
“If you don’t mind.” The other woman put a hand on her swollen belly. “I’m getting kicked internally here—the twins are restless right now. I’d like to go lie down for a while.”
“Well, thank you for coming,” Vicky said as she and Kat helped Lizabeth up and she saw them to the door. “It was really nice of you to make the trip all the way down here just to try and, uh, set things straight.”
“I just wanted to make sure you and Chainor got a second chance,” Kat said. “He’s going back to his home, soon, you know. He doesn’t live on the Mother Ship.”
“He doesn’t?” Vicky asked. “Well…where does he live?”
“I heard him telling my hubby, Lock, that he has a ‘lovely little domicile’ in the Alpha Centauri system,” Kat said. “That’s almost four and a half light years from here, in case you were wondering. Which means that, without folding space, it would take you somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred and thirty-seven thousand years to get there.” She raised an eyebrow at Vicky. “Now that’s a long-distance relationship.”
Vicky let out a low whistle.
“That’s…a lot,” she admitted.
“Uh, huh.” Kat nodded. “Well, we’d better go.” She turned but Vicky reached out a hand to stop her.
“Wait,” she said. “Would you…could you please ask Chain to come and see me before…before he goes all that way?” she asked. “Tell him I’d really like to see him again.”
“Of course, I would—I’d love to.” Kat’s face broke into a wide smile. “I’ll be more than happy to pass on that message.”
“Thank you.�
�� Vicky smiled at her and then gave her a spontaneous hug. “Thank you,” she said again. “You didn’t have to come and tell me all this. I still don’t know if I can believe that a young, handsome warrior like Chain could actually want me. But, well…just thank you.”
Kat hugged her back.
“My pleasure, doll. Now let me get back to the Mother Ship so I can pass along your message.” She winked at Vicky. “I’d say you ought to save an extra seat on your couch for movie night. I’m thinking you’re going to have one more than you planned on.”
She gave her arm to Lizabeth, who seemed to be leaning on it rather heavily, and waved once more before turning to go.
Vicky watched the two women leave, her heart pounding as she considered the possibilities. Part of her insisted that it couldn’t be true—that Chain couldn’t really want to be with her permanently. But a small seed of hope had been planted by Kat’s words and her certainty. Maybe Chain did want her.
She supposed she would have to wait until tonight to find out.
Thirty-Six
They were halfway back to the Mother Ship when Lizabeth clutched her belly and groaned.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Kat asked, instantly attuned to her friend’s distress.
“These pains I’m having…” Lizabeth’s face was gray and she was sweating. “I thought they were just false labor back at Vicky’s house. But now…” She shifted and moaned again. “Now I’m not so sure,” she finished, panting.
“Oh my God, we have to get you to the doctor now!” Kat exclaimed. “And we have to call Lone—didn’t you say he’s your birthing coach?”
Lizabeth nodded.
“He is. He should be in the law library on the Mother Ship. Can…could you have the driver call him and ask him to meet us in the Docking Bay? I’m trying to use our link but the pain seems to be interfering—it’s kind of making the mental signal go fuzzy or something.”
“Of course, I will!” Kat leaned forward and spoke to the Blood Kindred who was piloting the ship. He was very young—probably only in his early twenties—but he seemed to take his duties seriously. Maybe because Deep, Kat’s Dark Twin hubby, had impressed upon him how very important it was to be careful when flying her and Lizabeth back and forth to Earth.
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