Parallel Seduction

by Deidre Knight

  For the second time in one night, he became his truest self, an Antousian ghost shifter.

  Veckus Densalt sat at his makeshift desk, nothing more than a warped piece of plywood atop two industrial drums, and wondered why the Refarians were so taken with traveling through time. He'd felt them penetrate inter-dimensional space the first time, weeks ago. And now, yet again, he'd sensed the moment when a future traveler had stepped through a time vortex. His perception had been keener on this second occasion because the traveler was a fellow Antousian, a fact that had rippled over time and perception with a different sort of clarity. Perhaps in the future his people had finally gained mastery over the mitres weapon, at long last, and that was why one of his race had utilized the unit. That was certainly a possibility, but something unsettled the warlord about this particular traversing of the time-space continuum.

  He leaned back on the empty crate he was using as a seat. This latest post in an abandoned warehouse was ratty and substandard. Veckus did not work or live in such a manner, but after the botched attack at Warren, he figured more time with the grunts who followed him was probably an expedient idea. Later that night he would return to the battle cruiser that kept position in orbit around Earth at all times. The craft was mostly stealthy, and certainly came in handy as necessary—like in the recent battle at Warren. If not for their protective shields on the very advanced ship, well, they'd have been blasted out of the sky.

  Veckus realized his hands were bunched at his sides, clenched in anger. Of all times for Jareshk to have unraveled the mystery of the mitres, why did it have to be when their well-crafted battle plan was finally about to come to fruition? Warren should have worked. Those missiles should have been his to control and use against Earth's pathetic denizens. This planet should have been his. His, gods damn it. Earth's only destiny was as an adjunct of the Antousian species. All the mystics had foretold it.

  A minor species, prone to self-destruction and ruin, will serve their greater masters, offering their bodies. And what they do not offer shall be taken.

  That was the prophecy. Veckus had been raised on it, and the plague had nearly killed them all—but not before revealing what had to be done. Humanity had a special role in saving his people … and, of course, with the plague itself. Yes, those missiles at Warren should have been his—and would still be his—even if Veckus lost every Antousian under his command bringing the prophecy to pass.

  So where did this newest future traveler fit into the scheme of things? Veckus formed a temple with his hands, propping them beneath his chin. The data: First, one traveler had crossed the portal. Result? His well-orchestrated attack on Warren was totally thwarted. Five years in the making and meticulously planned, but ruined. The data: A new future traveler arrived, crossing the time-space continuum. Result? A fellow Antousian brother was here, on Earth, possessing no end of knowledge about the course of the war.

  Data: Veckus would locate this brother and bring him in. Drain him of everything, every scrap of knowledge about the future.

  Planned result: Veckus would still gain control of the missiles at Warren and use them to effectively subdue mankind.

  Jake shoved the motel room door shut behind them, and Hope heard the room key land on one of the twin beds. He'd asked for two beds, thank goodness. After leaving the compound, he'd quickly hot-wired one of the Suburbans up on the parking pad, and they'd taken off with several of the Refarian vehicles in hot pursuit. He'd managed to lose those tailing them after some twisting turns and hazardous driving, far worse than anything she'd ever experienced with her twin brother, Chris, behind the wheel, even in his most reckless teenage days.

  At this point, however, it was way, way too late for second-guessing. She'd jumped into this thing feet-first, and now she'd landed in a small, drafty motel room somewhere out on one of the local highways. A motel that felt eerily similar to the one she'd been dreaming about, the one Scott had made love to her in: up against a wall, on the bed, over and over and over. Only now she was alone with another man, not Scott. A veritable giant who, when compared to her hundred and five pounds, had to be at least two hundred and thirty pounds of rock-hard muscle and bone.

  "You'd better catch some sleep while you can," Jake told her, and she heard the springs on the leftmost bed creak beneath his heavy weight. "We're only stopping for a few hours."

  "Where are we going then?" She remained standing by the closed door. It was dark, much too dark to find her way to the other bed without possibly breaking her neck.

  "I'll tell you when we get there."

  She shook her head. "That's not fair, Jake. You know it isn't."

  "Maybe I'm not taking you any farther than right here." His bed groaned in complaint as he shifted atop it like a giant felled redwood.

  She stuck a hand in front of her, fanning it in an arc, wishing she could walk toward him without stumbling. "You didn't bring me this far to leave me behind." With another sweep of her extended fingertips, she tried to get a sense of what was around her, but felt stupidly blind. Helplessly disabled. She cursed and finally dropped both hands to her sides. "I didn't have to come with you, you know," she snapped.

  There was the sound of a heavy, thoughtful sigh. "I'm sorry." Another sigh, then: "I shouldn't have dragged you into this, Hope, but I just couldn't seem to help myself."

  "Because I'm her."

  "Her?"

  She released a sad laugh. "The girl you loved once upon a time."

  She didn't get an answer. He just rolled over on the bed again until it creaked like it might collapse beneath the sheer weight of his colossal body. But he said nothing, finally growing still and quiet, even though his breathing was heavy enough to betray emotion that was anything but quiet.

  "You should tell me what happened between us." She took a couple of tentative steps closer to him. "And what happens to me in the future. If I'm in this with you, it is absolutely fair for me to know everything. You owe me that, don't you think?"

  "I can't tell you anything about the future. That was a very specific condition when we used the mitres."

  "A very specific condition imposed by whom?" she asked, then added with a slightly hysterical laugh, "Wait! Don't tell me … you can't say."

  "You're starting to figure this thing out, Hope."

  Annoyed, she asked him to turn the light on. It was too damn dark to see a thing. He sat up in bed with a start and apologized, then switched on the bedside lamp, and the room was flooded with bright light.

  "What, I'm not blind in the future?" She felt suddenly frightened by all that this man knew about her destiny—but that she did not.

  "You're not blind now," he told her gently.

  "I'm legally blind, but clearly you're not used to that fact or you wouldn't have left me standing here"—she stamped the floor for emphasis—"completely stranded in the pitch-black dark. You strike me as far too chivalrous to be that rude, so that tells me you're not used to my blindness."

  "Inconsiderate." He lay back down on the bed. "I believe that's what you called me once upon a time. Guilty as charged. I never change, and that's what I told you then."

  "In what context?" When he didn't answer her, she repeated, "In what context did I call you inconsiderate?"

  "I believe you'd just thrown all my clothes at me and told me to get out of your room."

  "That's quite a picture there, Jakey," she spit sarcastically.

  "You were quite a picture that day yourself, sweet Hope. Good gods, but you're beautiful naked."

  "Aha! See, you just broke your own vow; you just told me something about the future."

  He snickered, crossing what looked like two booted feet as he stretched his legs out on the bed again. With the bedside light, she could at least get a better visual sense of what he was doing. "Don't worry, I won't transgress again."

  She tried to think of a snappy comeback, but her rational mind had deserted her completely. They'd been lovers! She'd already suspected as much, but it was beyond frea
ky to realize that it was true. After all, it was overwhelming enough knowing what she and Scott would share, or had shared in some alternate timeline—that they were destined to become hungry, desperate, insatiable lovers. Now this total stranger was giving her the same kind of intel, but in his case she hadn't received any dream transmissions or half memories to serve as confirmation. Well, there had been the one about Scott, with him urging her to trust Jake when he showed up. Then again, she'd been a full nine months pregnant with Scott's own child in that dream, so it hardly validated of any kind of romantic connection between Jake and herself.

  Maybe Jake was making this up about their being lovers? Then again, he knew about her scar, although there were a hundred different ways he might have acquired that knowledge, all the way down to rape. Still, he wasn't making any unwanted advances right now.

  With a weary, depressed sigh, she walked to her own bed and collapsed on the edge, facing him. "I'm sorry I came."

  He rolled toward her, and she had the distinct impression that he was studying her hard. "I'm sorry you feel that way." His voice was infused with genuine sadness, totally sincere, which both surprised her and … didn't.

  "I have nothing to offer on this expedition of yours, no skills. I'm basically nothing more than a hindrance. So why in the hell did you say you needed my help?"

  He didn't reply, seemed to consider his answer. "Go to sleep, Hope," he said at last.

  "Tell me why."

  There was a long silence; then the room went black as he turned out the light once more. Just when she'd decided he would never answer, his husky whisper punctured the blackness. "Maybe I just needed you with me one more time," he whispered. "Maybe that was the only reason, sweetheart."

  She opened her mouth, but had no words; neither did he, it seemed, because moments later he began snoring heavily. A nagging suspicion told her it was a put-on, just a ruse to silence her questions, but she wasn't inclined to go jump up and down on his bed to find out. So she kicked off her boots and for a long time just sat there, feet dangling against the floor, wondering why she trusted this alien stranger so completely. More than that, she wondered why he felt eerily familiar to her. Whatever the reason, the familiarity and trust were twined tightly together like an impossible Gordian knot.

  Like a mist, Scott moved through the woods, over dense farmlands, and along the highway shoulder. Banks of snow, headlights, sounds of plows. All of these details hummed about his awareness, yet he refused to slow. Weaker by the moment, he remained in his invisible Antousian state, searching. Searching for Hope. He would find her, would trail her across the galaxies if need be, in order to discover where his enemy was taking her. He prayed to All that Anna was keeping pace with him, even as he knew his own progress grew slower and weaker by the moment.

  At a turn in the road, when the highway curved one direction, his path turned the other, and he simply no longer had the strength to continue. Stilling, he settled in the midst of a snow-whitened field, near some tracks left by a moose. He did not change form, did not even try to; the brutal cold would kill him quickly if he were to pass out in his physical body. So he didn't change at all. He simply stopped moving. The trail leading to Hope wound along that bend in the road, followed somewhere into town and beyond, but he would never make it.

  Feeling the cold ground prickle his awareness, the wind slam into him, and the full moon spear his body, he'd never felt so insubstantial before. Then again, he'd only made this physical change two other times before in his life.

  Let the wind take me, he thought bleakly, as headlights shone through his body and snow impaled him. Let the night own me. I am done.

  But the sound of a bird, the beat of her wings near him, brought him back to the moment. Suddenly Anna was there, no longer a night bird, but his friend. She couldn't see him, yet she swept her gaze in a wide perimeter just a few feet away from him. She'd never stopped tracking him.

  "Sir," she hissed into the darkness. "Are you all right?"

  No, I'm not all right. I haven't been all right for a long damned time.

  "Sir!" Her voice was more frantic. He'd shape-shift and come back to himself so she wouldn't worry, he thought. But as he reached for transformation, the energy for that Change just wasn't there. He sank lower into the snow, more invisible, more a ghost than he'd ever been in his heart. He was fading away, molecule by molecule, here on this lonely stretch of snow and road.

  "Scott Dillon!" Anna shouted, and he could hear every labored breath she was taking, the way her body shook with each inhalation.

  People love me, he thought dimly. Hope loves me … she does. I know she loves me .…

  But even with that thought, the night landscape became darker, then gray, then bright as a light until Scott felt absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.

  Chapter Ten

  Hope woke to blackness, the motel room wrapping its silent arms about her. Jake's snoring was missing, but more importantly, so was his breathing. She was alone. Had he abandoned her here, determined to make a go of it on his own? She wasn't sure, but sat up in bed, just listening to the darkness all around her. Almost immediately she heard the door unlatch, the clicking sound of the lock disengaging.

  A figure filled the doorway, a looming shape backlit by the exterior hall lights. Masculine for sure, based on his size. Vaguely, Hope registered that he seemed out of place, but she didn't dwell on that, not while faced with such danger.

  "Who's there?" she called in a firm voice, clutching at her heart. "Who is it?"

  There was no answer, and the door closed behind him—now he was inside. Heart slamming in her chest, Hope reached on the table for something to use as a weapon, but came up empty-handed. "Stay back!" she cried.

  "It's me, Hope," came Scott's whispered voice. "It's okay, it's me."

  "Damn it!" Tears filled her eyes. She kept her trembling hand on the side table, unable to fully believe that he wasn't an intruder, even though she recognized his voice. She heard his uneven, halting steps on the floor.

  "What has he done to you?" he asked, as he reached her at last and collapsed onto the side of the bed. He reached for her, but for some reason she felt angry. He'd frightened her; why hadn't he just identified himself to start with?

  "I'm fine." She remained stiff as he pulled her into his arms, but not for long. Not when he held her like a desperate man, running his hands up and down her body, clearly needing to know that she was all right. "I really am fine," she told him much more gently, relaxing into his embrace. His heart slammed against her chest, and a strange odor filled her nose: It was tangy and exotic, but laced with something frightening and wild too.

  She jerked back. "What's that smell?"

  "Don't worry about it."

  "That's not good enough." Not when she was half-blind and shrouded in darkness. Although she knew he really was Scott, something about him was different—smelled different—signaling that something wasn't right. "Tell me what I'm smelling."

  "Hope, it doesn't matter. I had to shape-shift for a while in order to come to you. That's all."

  "That shouldn't create a different kind of odor, should it? Or does it?"

  She sensed him shaking his head, shrugging off her words. "Where did he go, Hope?" he asked her, suddenly all soldier. Yet he kept his hands about her waist, as if to release her would cost him a great deal. As if she might flee from him again. "I need to know so I can track him. His trail ended right here, with you."

  She leaned her forehead on his shoulder. "I don't know." She sighed.

  "He forced you to go with him," he spit angrily, "and when I find him, he will pay. With his life, he will pay."

  "No, Scott, don't," she told him gently, and his hold on her hips tightened, fierce in its intensity. "He didn't hurt me; that wasn't his intention," she argued, pushing away from him.

  He seemed to glance about the room then, even stood for an unsteady moment, but immediately sank to the edge of the bed once again. "He abducted you. How can you possib
ly defend that bastard?"

  "I came willingly."

  A long, bottomless silence filled the space between them. "I see."

  "Do you? I don't think you do."

  She heard him run his hands through his hair. "Why would you have come with him?" He didn't sound angry, not exactly, more weary and hurt. She hated that she'd caused him pain.

  She'd followed Jake because Scott's dream self had asked her to, but it had also been far more than that. She realized it now—especially now—when Scott was forcing her to explain her actions. "I have to understand … what I mean to him," she told him in as even a voice as she could muster. "What happened between us in the future. It's important that I understand it all."

  "So he told you? About using the mitres?"

  "Yes." She reached a hand toward him, feeling with her fingertips along his arm.

  "What's to understand?" he demanded, clearly pissed off. "He's my enemy, the worst of what we're fighting, but you came with him? Willingly? I don't think I'll ever understand that."

  "He and I have a relationship," she explained quietly, taking hold of his shirtsleeve. "In the future."

  He jerked away from her. "Stop."

  "It's why I have to know," she persisted. "I have to know how it all fits together."

  "You've had the same dreams I have." He turned on the bed and took hold of her, rough. "You know what we are together. You're my wife, damn it! You're the mother of my child! So what in All's name are you doing with this vlksai bastard?"

  "Because in one of my dreams about you, I saw him. Standing right beside you and me." She buried her face against his chest. She felt his wild heartbeat, heard his labored breathing.