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)
Must be on a timer, Chain thought. They probably go off and on the same time every day and night.
Though he couldn’t imagine this house needed much artificial light during the daytime—not with the vast banks of windows that covered every wall.
He started to put Victoria down on the silver mattress and go do some more scouting, but she made a murmured protest in her sleep and clung to him. Chain felt his heart squeeze like a fist at her unconscious gesture.
“Beautiful Victoria,” he murmured, a tender smile curving the corners of his mouth.
Instead of putting her down and leaving her, he crawled into bed with her and pillowed her head on his chest. It was better that way than leaving her in the bed alone, he reasoned. She would feel safe and warm, even sleeping on an alien world, if he stayed beside her.
Victoria murmured again and turned towards him, cuddling against his side with a contented sigh like a sleepy kitten. Feeling like his heart might burst, Chain stroked a strand of dark and silver hair out of her eyes and looked at her sleeping face.
She was lovely in repose, so soft and trusting—so completely relaxed against him. They fit together as neatly as two pieces of a puzzle, he couldn’t help thinking. Like they had been made for each other.
Well, you’ll be fitting together a lot more closely if you go through with the “final exam” they have planned for you and Victoria tomorrow,” whispered a little voice in his head.
Chain reflected that it was true. Though he had never imagined that he, as a reviled M-Switch Kindred, could ever have a mate, by tomorrow he might be bonding his bride to him.
Of course, different branches of the Kindred bonded females to them in different ways. But for the M-Switch, all that was necessary was for the male to truly love and desire the woman he was making love with—to feel in his bones that she was his fated mate as he came deep inside her. That was enough to form the life-long soul bond which developed between a Kindred warrior and his female when they came together as one.
Which meant that if he made love with Victoria tomorrow to display the “technique” she had supposedly taught him, he would wind up bonding her to him for life.
But how will she feel about that? he wondered, looking down at her sleeping face. Will she want me for a mate? Will she want to spend her life as the bride of an M-Switch Kindred?
Would any woman want that? All his life, experience had taught him the answer to that question was a resounding no. And he had learned that lesson early—the lesson that he was different, wrong—not to be trusted, at least, not in the long run.
He had gone to a school on Twin Moons for a time when he was a boy—a school that specialized in diversity and took in all kinds of students, even those from off-planet.
It was after his father had been put in jail for using his Snatching ability to rob an interstellar bank and his mother—who was a female from Tranq Prime—had decided to move off-planet for a fresh start. She had found the school for Chain after much searching and had been assured that they accepted all kinds of Kindred children—even M-Switch ones.
At first Chain had been happy. There were many different kinds of Kindred children there—Beast Kindred, Blood Kindred, Wulven Kindred—even one Touch Kindred, though it was rare for them to live away from their home world. It seemed like everyone fit in and got along, despite their differences.
Chain had been only about seven or eight cycles old—unsure of himself, but eager to make friends. But this was before he could quite control his ability to switch bodies with other males. And—quite by accident—he had unfortunately slipped into the body of a Beast Kindred several years older than him and much larger.
He hadn’t meant to—it had been a complete accident. The other boy had been doing a presentation on planetary orbits—using a special light model he had built himself with a holographic projector. The presentation was so interesting and the model was so engrossing that Chain had found himself wishing he could operate the projector himself.
He watched the older boy’s hands on the controller as the holo-planets whizzed by in the air above their heads. They were so beautiful—so lifelike. He wished with all his might that he could play with that projector and control the planets just once…
And suddenly, he had been. He had looked down at his hands—which were suddenly bigger and with darker skin than he’d had before—and watched in amazement as he saw himself operating the apparatus that ran the model.
“I’m doing it!” he thought with excitement. “Look—I’m doing it!”