Switched: Brides of the Kindred 17 (16 page)

“
Be careful—you’re about to miss your turn,” Frankie’s friend
said.

“
Fine.” Kerov swung the wheel recklessly and barreled into the
parking lot she was indicating.

His passenger gasped
and horns blew again but he barely noticed. He guided the car into
a place indicated by white lines drawn on the black pavement and
stopped the mechanism by removing the key.

“
Hey, you didn’t even put it into park first!” The blonde girl
reached across and did something to the steering mechanism.
“What’s
wrong,
Frankie? Are you just nervous about your test or are you upset
about what I said about the Kindred?”

“
Neither. I am fine.” Kerov stared stoically ahead. But he
couldn’t feel quite as disconnected from his emotions as he wanted
to. The body he was inhabiting—Frankie’s body—seemed to have
feelings that were closer to the surface than his own.

Why am I so upset?
he asked himself.
This is ridiculous—I don’t even really know Frankie.
I’ve never even met her in person.

No, he was just
inhabiting her body the same way she had inhabited his. Somehow it
seemed to form a bond that was both immediate and inescapable. To
hear that she hated his kind hurt—hurt a hell of a lot.

“
Honey, you’re
crying.”
The
blonde girl put her arms around him and drew him into a comforting
hug.

“
I
am?”
Kerov
never
cried. He could not remember the last time tears
had come to his eyes—even when he lost his best lieutenant in a
particularly fierce battle with the Swarm. He pulled out of her
embrace and put a hand to his cheek—sure enough, it came away wet.
What was
wrong
with
him? Was it that Frankie’s body was more prone to
emotion?

“
It’s going to be okay,” Frankie’s friend told him. “Honestly,
it is—you know this stuff cold. Just go in there and knock Sheila
dead.”

Kerov stared at her
in incomprehension.

“
Knock her dead?” Did she mean that he should kill the
instructor administering Frankie’s test if he didn’t manage to pass
it? Was that something that was done on this world? He looked down
at himself—could he kill in this body? It was so much smaller and
weaker than his own and he had no weapon—still, he had hand-to-hand
combat skills that could take down an opponent of any size if the
need arose…

“
You know what I mean—just do a great job.” Frankie’s friend
patted him on the shoulder.

“
Oh. Of course.” Kerov lifted his chin. So no killing was
necessary. That was good. “I will.”

“
Good—then you’d better get going. You’re only five minutes
late thanks to you driving like a bat out of Hell but Sheila
doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

She shooed Kerov out
of the car and he walked up to the building Frankie’s memory
informed him was the Lotus Pond Yoga Studio. Before going in he
took a deep breath—he only hoped his limited access to Frankie’s
memories would be enough to help him pass her test. Otherwise he
didn’t know what he was going to do.

Damn you, Frankie,
he thought.
I’ll do my best for you, even though I know you hate
my kind. But where in the Seven Hells are you and what are you
doing?

Chapter Seven

Frankie woke up to a blaring sound and a flashing light that
scared the Hell out of her. Her first panicked thought was,
Fire Drill!
And for a moment she felt
like a kid again, the hush of a busy school day broken by the loud
bray of the fire alarm.

But when she opened
her eyes there was no classroom filled with kids around her—just a
dim room with pale red light coming in the window. The brighter,
flashing light and the braying alarm were coming from something
else—a black box about as big as her hand on a long, metal arm. It
was hovering right in front of her face.

“
What the…?” Frankie stared at it with
incomprehension.

The alarm faded for
a moment and a voice came out of the black box instead.

“
Wake,” it said in a tinny, robotic voice. “This is your first
call to wake. It is o-six-hundred hours. Wake.”

“
Get away from me! Get out of my face!” Frankie slapped at it
blearily, batting the black box away. Then she noticed that the arm
she reached out to slap it with was long and extremely muscular.
And the hand was large with long fingers and short, neat nails—not
the almond shaped pink ones that tipped her own fingers. Lifting
the arm, she looked at the armpit which had a small tuft of dark
hair—yup, definitely a man’s arm.
Kerov’s
arm.

Oh crap—not
again!

Frankie groaned and
rolled out of bed, almost falling because the big Kindred’s
mattress was placed so much higher than her own. She stumbled to
the 3-D mirror thing to make sure of what she already knew.

Sure enough, Kerov’s strong features and pale gray eyes stared
back at her when she called for the overhead lights and looked at
her reflection. She was back in his body all right—how had it
happened again? And what was she going to do about it? Come to
think of it, what would
he
do about it? He certainly wasn’t going to be happy.

“
Sorry about this,” she said aloud, speaking to him directly.
“I, uh, don’t know how I ended up back here again. I know you must
be sick of me by now.”

She waited…and
waited and waited but there was no answer.

“
Kerov?” she asked, feeling a hard knot of panic begin to form
in her stomach. “Kerov? This isn’t funny—wake up and talk to
me!”

Still nothing and
she didn’t feel him either. His presence in the back of her head
was completely absent.

She was alone in an
alien male’s body hundreds of light years from home.

Okay—it’s okay,
Frankie told herself sternly.
Don’t panic—everything is going to be
fine.

Although she didn’t
know how. What if she was stuck in Kerov this time? What if he was
off inhabiting her body or even someone else’s body and he was
never coming back? What if she never got back to Earth or her own
body again?

No—can’t think like
that! Kerov said his people used to be able to Switch with each
other—that means they must have been able to switch back too. We’ll
switch back eventually—I just have to keep calm until we do.

Frankie decided to
take a hot shower and get dressed to calm her nerves. Then she
would spend a little time exploring his apartment to take her mind
off this whole situation.

She started to look
for some clothes and a towel but she caught sight of herself in the
3-D viewer again. Wow, Kerov’s shaft was really hard this morning!
What had caused that? Was she horny?

She searched her body but no—she felt much too frightened and
worried to be aroused. She
did,
however, feel a certain urgency in her bladder.

Great—I have to
pee!

No
sooner had she thought it than the urgency became much more
intense. Stumbling in her haste, she ran into the bathroom—no,
the
fresher—
and
stood in front of the weird rocking chair toilet.

“
Okay, now how the Hell do I use this thing?” she muttered.
“
Dios—
why
would you make a toilet that looks like this anyway?”

Despite the fact
that it was strange, her first thought was to sit down on the
rocking seat and relieve herself in a seated position as she always
had back in her own body. But Kerov’s shaft was sticking straight
up, pointing at his navel. She would get pee all over herself that
way.

Well, what if she
stood up, like men did? She tried it, awkwardly leaning over the
bowl, trying to get the stupid, stiff shaft to point in the right
direction but she was still afraid she was going to spray
everywhere but in the bowl.

“
Madre de Dios—
how do men manage with these stupid things?” she muttered.
“How am I supposed to pee with this thing pointed straight at the
sky?”

Suddenly, an image
filled her head—a memory or thought that didn’t feel like her own.
In it, she saw a large masculine hand reaching for a small
attachment at the side of the rocking toilet bowl and pulling it
forward.

Frankie frowned—was
this Kerov’s memory? If so, how had she accessed it?

She felt another
urgent surge in the bladder region and decided she didn’t care how
she’d gotten the memory as long as it helped her. Reaching forward,
she groped for the small attachment, found it and pulled it
forward.

It
looked a little like a cup attached to a long tube. Frankie stared
at it, frowning—was she supposed to pee into that? But what if her
aim wasn’t good? And worse, what if it
wasn’t
meant to be used for this purpose at all. This might
be Kerov’s version of a toothbrush that she was contemplating
urinating on. It might be—

Her thoughts were
cut off when the cup seemed to come to life in her hands. It dove
forward like a striking snake and attached itself to the head of
Kerov’s cock.

“
What? Hey! Oh my God—stop!” Panicked, Frankie tried to yank
back away from the thing but it had a firm hold on her now and was
gripping all around the end of Kerov’s penis like a very determined
suction cup.

“
Help!” Frankie yanked at the tubing attached to it with no
result. She tried swiveling her hips but that didn’t do any good
either. In the meantime, she could feel a hard suction coming from
the cup, almost as though the damn thing wanted to suck Kerov’s
equipment right off.

“
Get off me! Help!
Help!”

Frankie was twisting
and turning, trying desperately to get away from the suction cup
when she heard someone clear their throat behind her. Turning her
head, she saw a tall man with narrow shoulders and white-blond hair
staring at her.

“
Uh, Kerov, why are you fighting with the liquid waste
collector?” He gave her a quizzical look.

Frankie wanted to
demand who he was but just in time she realized he must be Kerov’s
friend. And from his rumpled appearance and bloodshot eyes it
looked like he had spent the night. Maybe in the guest room. Did
Kerov have a guest room?

“
Well?” he demanded when she didn’t immediately answer. “What
are you shouting about?”

“
This thing has got hold of Kerov’s—I mean of my dick and it
won’t let go!” she blurted, her panic overcoming her fear of seeing
a strange man suddenly appear. She couldn’t help the urge to cover
her naked body, though—one hand cupped over Kerov’s shaft and the
other arm instinctively covered her chest.

“
Of course it has—it’s waiting for you to relieve yourself.”
The man frowned at her and rubbed a hand over his tousled blond
hair. “It won’t let go until you do.”

“
It…won’t?” She risked a peek at the member in question, which
still had the suction cup attached to its head.

“
Of course not—you know that. Is there some problem with it?
And why are you covering yourself like that?” He nodded down at her
arm which was still draped modestly over her breasts—breasts she
didn’t have while inhabiting Kerov’s big, male body, Frankie
realized.

“
Uh, no problem,” she said, dropping her arm abruptly to bare
Kerov’s flat, muscular chest. “But this damn…waste collection
thing, it’s…it’s, new. I just had it put in last week and it’s kind
of, uh, tight—that’s all.”

“
All right, well try not to shout about it.” The blond man
frowned. “I told you when you let me in last night how much I’d had
to drink—my head is pounding this morning and I’d hoped to get in a
little more sleep before we have to go in for the
review.”

“
The review?” Frankie stared at him blankly. Kerov had said
something about some kind of banquet but he hadn’t mentioned
anything about any kind of review.

“
Of course—the review of troops to be held this morning at
o-eight hundred. Your battalion is leading the parade and mine is
bringing up the rear.” He made a face. “Don’t pretend you’re so
modest you forgot the honor of leading. Although between you and
me, I’d say the only reason Brigadier Tlox put your battalion in
front was because you look so fucking splendid riding Ursa.” He
shook his head. “How you tamed that big bitch I’ll never know but
she
does
look grand at the head of
a parade.”

Frankie was
beginning to experience a different kind of panic than the one
she’d felt when the weird pee-tube latched onto Kerov’s junk.
Apparently she was supposed to lead a parade in less than two
hours, riding some kind of alien animal that only Kerov could
handle. What was she going to do?

“
I, uh, don’t know if I’m up to being in a parade today,” she
said. “I’m really not feeling very well.”

The blond man gave
her an incredulous look. “You think Brigadier Tlox cares if you’re
‘feeling well’? It’s a fucking honor for your battalion to lead the
review—you refuse and not only can you kiss your chance of
promotion good bye, you’ll probably end up in the basement of the
Ministry of Corrections before the day is through.”