Between (Alternate Places Book 2)

by Power, P. S.

  Zack suppressed another wince. This would mean even more for him to do, no doubt. It was worth it for his friends, but the raw time commitments were building up. Maybe he could get everyone together and do it all at once? At the current time each feeding took, he figured he could manage ten an hour or so. Past that they could go fend for themselves. There had to be limits, or he'd end up having to sacrifice a big chunk of his day to it.

  He wanted to go to the import store next.

  Patricia smiled at him and touched his arm sweetly.

  "I won't put any of our people here on guard detail with you. We will be coming around to make sure you have enough sex however. We each must serve as to our abilities." She wasn't doing much, but Zack had to fight not to end up highly aroused.

  Beatrice looked intrigued.

  “Hmmm. That sounds fun! Maybe you can throw some of them my way?” She whispered it, knowing full well that all of them could hear her. They didn't react though, probably considering it seriously. Patty's inner self felt a little bad that her people couldn't be of more aid to the coming joint venture and none of them had the same problems Zack did with Demons as a group. The bigoted old man there was him. It didn't leave a good taste in his mouth, knowing that.

  He knew that they couldn't get sexual energy from them, but right now, this group of Succubi and Incubi at least, didn't really need to harvest extra energy. So it became a real option for them to consider. Another way to make friends and influence people.

  When they got to the nicely cluttered Import store with its low tables of goods, Ghurian simply looked at him for half a second. Then immediately appointed Yasmine to be part of his day time security detail. The taciturn woman that he'd only heard speak once or twice, simply nodded. Not smiling or showing any other particular emotion. Ghurian grinned behind her back however. Then covered by pretending to straighten his immaculate light brown suit, which Zack knew didn't really exist. Neither did the Djin's body, for that matter. They existed as clouds of fire, hidden behind the illusion of a body. He always wondered that most people couldn't see it. Really, they probably did, but just glossed over the idea, since it was easier to deal with a person than a cloud for most.

  Zack collected more body guards as the visits went on, and an offer to provide a sword for Troy, who may need the protection, from Whelm, the man that worked the Knife and Sword shop. It wouldn't be a summoned blade, but it would be able to cut almost anything it could hit, the man assured him. He took him up on the offer, finding it interesting that the man had thought to arm Troy, who he couldn't have met in more than passing.

  Finally he ended up at Something Wonderful, which seemed to be a real store now, with products arranged on the display tables having a shiny new floor and a cashier's desk with a register on it.

  Zack beamed at Libby, knowing that she needed a bit of extra attention for a while after the hardships that had hit her and the nearly dying that she'd done.

  “This, is amazing! When do we open?” He asked her, holding her hand. Wanting to kiss her, he realized, and do a lot more than that, though he contained himself by force of will.

  “As soon as we get the go ahead from upper management,” She winked at him. “That's you and Norris. I think we should open soon though, so that we all have something to do. Right now we've all just been making up basket ideas and walking around the store for four days.”

  He told her to get with Norris and Ghurian so they could plan out the grand opening.

  Maybe now, Zack hoped, he would get a small break before he had to throw himself into the next situation.

  Then he really wished he hadn't thought that.

  Chapter twelve

  A girl, who looked to be about thirteen, stood next to a tall woman when he got to Candles and More the next day. Right in front of the doors too, which meant they wanted something from inside the place. They didn't say anything, just stood there, facing the door of the place, looking grim. The little girl not even looking up at him, when he got there. The older one, who seemed like she might be about twenty-five, did however. He recognized them as Alede immediately. From their Shadows he knew that the young lady stood half a breath from losing control of herself, spraying lust and passion into the world around her in a way that could cause riots, even worse, if not controlled. She was nearly doing it right then, though Zack was so locked down that way he barely noticed it.

  They kept standing outside the shop when he went in, not moving at all, just waiting for something. For someone, though they didn't know when he would arrive.

  “Hi!” He said brightly, popping his head out the door, after turning on all the lights and facing the "Yes, We're Open!" sign, a rather tacky black and orange thing, to face them. The woman jumped, shocked that he'd come back, he saw. “Why don't you two come in? There should be donuts coming soon, and we can get some coffee in if you want.” Zack loved coffee. He always had. Even the dark bitter stuff was good, at least to his way of thinking.

  Staring at him in an almost wary manner, the mother, who sported bright red hair, green eyes and a flawless complexion, not understanding him at first. Her worry about her daughter was just that intense. The girl had short hair, died to a pretty color of blue. Both wore very normal clothing for one of their kind of people. With no extra skin showing, no revealing curves held behind sheer layers of fabric, or anything. Just regular blue jeans and somewhat baggy sweat shirts. The whole look designed to play down what they were.

  Zack had to admit that he liked it. They looked like real people, a state of being which most Alede didn't even bother to take a swipe at most days.

  Kaitlyn came in with a large box of donuts and a stack of napkins, as well as three cups of coffee. She stared at the two standing in front of the cashier's desk, and smiled at them both. The girl stared back at her, desire written across her face. Naturally she opened up energy wise then, and started to spray lust into the room, her mother gasped in fear. An uncontrolled meltdown like the young lady was about to go into could create massive problems. Orgies, fights and even deaths weren't unheard of. The normal Alede way of dealing with them was execution, if the child in question couldn't control themselves.

  Zack clapped his hands suddenly, catching the girl's attention.

  “Hey, over here! Look away from the pretty girl.” He made his voice sound comical, and spoke to her Shadow gently at the same time, helping her focus, turning away from the distraction that was Kaitlyn.

  “Good! Now, we have jelly, glazed raised, apple fritters, you can't have the cruller, that's for Lisa, our boss. Some chocolate cake, coconut, cherry glazed... Go ahead and have some. We can get more.” He held the box out to the girl, who looked up at him, then over at her mother. The woman nodded. She was also both baffled and a bit scared of him, Zack noticed.

  The girl took a donut, carefully. Shyly. She decided on glazed raised, that being her favorite, her Shadow told him, licking her lips. They hadn't eaten much on the trip from Wisconsin, her mother not wanting to stop unless she had to, afraid the girl would go rogue and that would be the end of things. They'd driven for two and half days straight, except for bathroom breaks.

  He offered the box to the older woman, who looked barely twenty-five close up. She felt older to him, almost twice that. It had taken a while, though he finally had begun to not associate appearance with age directly. So many people around here looked way younger than their years, after all, himself included.

  “So, this is Kaitlyn, and I'm Zack... What are your names?” It took care on his part, but he managed to soften his voice without it becoming patronizing. Both of these women were on edge already. Pushing them would be rude and might just lead to death.

  The woman took a maple bar and took a bite, savoring the flavor before she finally spoke.

  “I'm Angela Bennett, this is my daughter, Felicia. We...” The woman hesitated, eyes downcast. “We heard that Hartley had helped a girl who had almost gone rogue. Really helped her, not just locked her up. I don't know
if it's true, but... There's nothing else I can think of to try.” She teared up then. Kaitlyn went around the corner of the desk and took her in her arms, holding her for a minute while the girl stood staring at the box of donuts, wondering if it would be rude to take another one.

  Zack smiled at her, pushing the box in her direction.

  “We have plenty. I eat a lot, but I won't finish all two dozen by myself.” Not in front of anyone at least.

  The girl took another, this time a raspberry filled. After eating it in a few swift bites, she looked at him and started to speak, then hesitated.

  “So... Are, are you a Mage? This is the Mage place, right?” She looked around the shop with its fake wooden floor and racks of various things, trying to take in the fact that she stood in a candle store that was also an embassy for a different group.

  Zack shook his head.

  “I'm just Human. Kaitlyn's an Alede, like you. Lisa, who we work for here, she's a Mage, the assistant Ambassador." He took another donut himself. Zack had found it easier to get things done if he tried to eat constantly between meals. He'd managed to gain a little weight even, though not enough according to Hilda and Lars, who were his trainers at the gym.

  Angela looked at Kaitlyn, who still held her.

  “You're an Alede? But I can't feel anything coming from you at all.” Then, it hit her. “It's you! You're the girl that Hartley helped, aren't you?” Her excitement rose, sending out a wash of passion and desire, which started to trigger the girl, Zack noticed.

  “Felicia, I want you to focus on what you're doing right now. Think about the donut you want to eat next. Really focus on it. Which one do you want? Do you really want one? Think about that for a bit.” He turned to the mother.

  “Angela.... Rein it in a few notches, please.” He smiled at her, to show he didn't mean it in a bad way, just as something that should be done.

  Kaitlyn answered the woman as if nothing had happened.

  “Yeah, Zack helped me learn control. I took a long time, almost fifteen years. We did this in the void between places, so not much time passed here, but I'm older than I look, nearing forty actually. It isn't easy to do, but I think I was worse off when I got here than Felicia is.” She let go of the woman and looked at her daughter instead for a bit. “I think we can help her, though her childhood is going to have to be over, for the most part. I think that the first thing we should do is get you two fed, then work out what the action plan is. You need someplace to stay, and work?” She looked at Zack.

  He nodded tilting his head at the mother.

  “I think we can get her in at Beautiful Plus, especially if she's willing to turn into a guy. Ever since that bit of trouble with Robert, the gender ratio has been skewed there. Patty hasn't said much, but they have a lot of unhappy ladies coming in over there, looking for attention. Norris can only do so much by himself in that regard.” He thought things through for a moment. “If that doesn't fly, I can probably pull some strings at Something Wonderful... As for Felicia, she can have your old job for a while, taking care of the shelves, running errands and so on, until you get her trained for everything else.” He looked at Kaitlyn, who he figured would be able to handle it, probably better than he had with her, having been through it firsthand.

  Then, trying to look considering he looked at the girl for a moment, thinking carefully what he should say.

  “Right now, just to make things easier on you, Felicia, I'd like to do something. Two things really. The first is kind of like hypnosis or a Vampire's compulsion, we'll use that to make it easy for you to control yourself for now and to help you learn focus quickly. Other than those two things, you'll be in normal control of your mind and body though. Is that all right with you?” He didn't hold his breath, knowing that he needed to project a sense of calm toward the girl right now.

  After thinking for a while, the girl nodded.

  "Good! Now, this might leave you feeling a little scared of me for a while. Don't worry, I'm not that bad, but it's part of the process. No one will hurt you or let you come to harm here. At least not until we go into the void later. That isn't scary, and you won't be alone. But it's different and of course, you could die there if you don't try hard enough. That's just incentive though, so don't let it bother you." Because all of that sounded sane, didn't it?

  Zack did the compulsion part quickly, her mother barely realizing anything had happened at all, except the girl suddenly had no leaks left. No passion running out or anything to even signal she held anything inside her at all.

  The young girl stopped for a second, then looked up at him happily.

  “Hey, that's better! I feel like I can actually think again. So, what's the second thing you wanted to do?” She looked at him, interested in what these people held in store for her, not particularly frightened at all. Not even of him.

  Kaitlyn gave both of them a solid wink, making it less sexy than Alede normally did, which got their attentions fast.

  "Zack, is going to feed both of you energy." She looked at both of the women, the red head and her blue haired daughter, and smiled a bit. "Don't get too excited though, he does it without having sex most of the time. Like a mother feeding her child? It's a bit embarrassing at first, but once you get over the fact that you're being treated like a kid, it's... Pretty close to the best thing ever. Just... Seriously, when he does it, try not to hit him with lust or anything afterward, or he'll cut you off." This was delivered with a wink to the mother, Angela. Who nodded, seeming nervous about it.

  Zack cleared his throat, "If you could lift your shirt? That way you can try it out first and make sure it's safe and wholesome enough." He was actually a little worried on that score. Felicia wasn't even like Kate, who was basically an adult, even if she looked young. This was a real little girl.

  It only took a moment though, and he held his hand to her warm, flat and fairly pale stomach, sideways for wrist comfort as he started circulating and gathering energy from the world around them, passing it to her.

  Angela nearly passed out, having been on short rations for a long while, trying to keep her daughter together. She'd held herself near starvation for nearly two months in order to do it.

  Felicia took it in stride though, it being how she normally got energy, or close enough. Her artificially induced focus subduing her outward reactions a bit. Zack was very careful not to let her reach the point where she would start experiencing the energy feeding as highly sexual. It would probably happen a little bit anyway for her, but that was the cost of doing business with her kind.

  Kaitlyn noticed, but didn't mention it out loud.

  She set the younger girl to work right away, organizing the shelves of the store, noting areas that seemed low, and writing down what they may need to order later. There was also instruction on holding her mind only to the task at hand, bringing her focus back to it when it got lost and she started to think about other things.

  He ran Angela down to Beautiful Plus. Walking quickly enough that Angie seemed worried about it. As if there was going to be trouble, or some kind of cost for his services that she really couldn't afford to pay. Even being his slave, her inner self explained to him quietly, wasn't going to cover that much. Not if feeding them both was part of the deal. Still, she went, willing to do anything it took to keep Felicia from being killed.

  He waved at Norris, who was straightening clothing that hung on a rack. It was the big circular metal kind with plastic hangers that places like this had. This one had silky under things on it.

  "Hey, this is Angela. I'm helping her daughter Felicia out right now, like with Kate? Are you up for testing her when she's ready? She's thirteen..." Zack meant that she was too young to offer up men to after starving her, but the Incubus walked over instantly, his demeanor serious.

  "Yes. How bad is she? Do we need to isolate her first or..."

  Zack shrugged, trying to paint, if not a perfect picture, then one that held hope.

  "So far she's doing well. I think sh
e was nearly as bad as Kate used to be, but Felicia can be fed up to full, which she didn't have the benefit of, which will help. Plus, she has Kaitlyn to guide her through it, not just some jerk that was making the whole thing up as he went. I'm betting that the turnaround is a lot faster on this one." It was the truth, but he noticed that both Angela and Norris were looking at the front of his pants. He didn't look down, getting the idea. Sighing he turned to the pretty redhead, who licked her lips at him, probably by habit.

  "This is a side effect of feeding Alede, we think. It means that I have to have sex a lot, since, um... you know..." Zack actually blushed, which he hadn't thought was possible anymore.

  Norris, without even cracking a smile didn't needle him on the topic either.

  "Masturbation isn't effective. My guess is that it requires some kind of energy merging in order for it to allow release now. The ladies here try to help out when they can. Zack isn't into men."

  Angela seemed worried about that and Zack nearly mentioned that she wouldn't have to do anything with him, of course, but she spoke first.

  "I think I'm supposed to switch forms and try to get a job here... If I'm a man then I can't do that for him? Is that right?" A slow sense of panic was starting to climb within her, as Norris nodded, getting the idea well before Zack did.

  Luckily, he had a solution too.

  "Patricia, our Ambassador, is seeing to that for now. The others take turns, so it should be enough. If it's not, then we'll probably need to work out something different, like not having him feed us all the time. So far that hasn't been mentioned however, so it's fine for now." Then he turned to Zack and grinned. "Say, Zack, what did you charge Patty for helping Kaitlyn again?"

  The voice that came from behind him, connected to a delicious looking brunette in a professional black skirt and red blouse. "Zack didn't charge us at all. I don't believe he accepts money or services for aiding people in need. Do you Zackary?"