Switched: Brides of the Kindred 17 (19 page)

He only hoped she
was doing a better job fulfilling his duties and responsibilities
than he was fulfilling hers.

* *
* * *

“
Now which one is mine?” Frankie muttered. She was in the
stables, looking for Kerov’s mount, Ursa, but so far she wasn’t
having any luck. It wasn’t a good start to her take-over of Kerov’s
job but then, the whole day was going crappy so far.

It wasn’t just the
crazy pee-tube and water-boarding shower that had made Frankie feel
grumpy. The commute from Kerov’s home to what she assumed was a
military base had been a nightmare. She had at least been grateful
that she wasn’t driving. The crazy traffic patterns made no sense,
with people on a mixture of animals and vehicles crowding the vast,
noisy streets in unending lines that seemed to stop and start
according to rules Frankie couldn’t understand at all. There were
no traffic lights that she could see—people just seemed to know
when to go and when to put on the brakes.

Kerov’s friend had
navigated the traffic with ease in the vast vehicle they were
riding in, which was sort of like a silver tank with huge, puffy
wheels that looked like they were made of balloons. Frankie
wondered how they didn’t get popped—maybe they were stronger than
they looked. Between the wheels and the tank vehicle itself, they
were elevated high above most of the other motorists and she was
able to look down at the crazy traffic from a position of relative
comfort.

The huge tank-like
vehicle made Frankie think that Kerov’s friend might be
compensating for something. Were men as worried about the size of
their dicks here as they were back on Earth? She didn’t know but
she guessed if he’d ever seen the monster Kerov was packing between
his thighs, he would have reason to feel insecure. Unless everyone
here was hung like a horse but she doubted it. From stories she’d
heard, she had an idea Kerov’s extra large endowment might have to
do with his Kindred heritage.

On the way to the
base, they had stopped for breakfast in the Tarsian version of a
fast food restaurant.

“
You want your regular, right?” Kerov’s friend had asked while
ordering, raising one eyebrow at her.

“
Oh, um…” Frankie suddenly realized she had no idea what they
used for money here but she was pretty sure she didn’t have any on
her. “I, uh, seem to have forgotten my wallet—I mean, my
credit pouch,”
she said quickly, the
word rising to her from the depths of Kerov’s brain.

“
No worries—I’ll cover you this time. You can buy next time,”
Kerov’s friend said easily. “So—your usual?”

Frankie’s stomach
had growled—Kerov’s body was big and it needed fuel. She nodded
eagerly.

“
Yes, thanks!”

“
No problem.” His friend seemed to be in a better mood now
which was good. As long as he was relaxed enough to be friendly and
happy, it was a sure bet he wasn’t suspicious that she wasn’t
really Kerov.

The drive thru
window was so far below them that Kerov’s friend pulled out a
silver extendable stick with a hook on one end and used it to hand
down the currency and also to pull the food back up to the window.
Luckily, the restaurant staff seemed used to this and they wrapped
everything tightly so nothing was spilled. After paying and pulling
the bag of food and beverages up on the long silver hook, he handed
it to Frankie.

“
Go ahead, hand me mine, will you?”

“
Okay.” Frankie had opened the bag and dug into it. There were
two hot drinks in orange squeeze bulbs with long spouts that made
her think of the orange juice containers she’d gotten at Disney
World as a kid. Well, her cousin had gotten one and given it to her
anyway—her family had always had too many mouths to feed to take an
expensive vacation. But still, the childhood nostalgia made her
smile.

She put the two
orange bulbs carefully in the drink holders clearly meant for that
purpose between the seats. Then she dug into the bag again and came
up with two wrapped packages. They were about the size of fast food
burgers back home but one was steaming hot and the other was ice
cold. Both were wrapped in what looked like large, blue leaves and
tied with coarse twine.

Frankie wasn’t sure
which was supposed to be hers but she took a chance and opened the
hot one. Inside was a gooey, purple pastry looking thing that
smelled divine.

Mmmm…
Frankie
inhaled the sweet steam, smelling exotic spices that reminded her a
little of cinnamon or maybe cardamom. Whatever it was, it
smelled
amazing.
She
was about to sink her teeth into the delicious looking purple thing
when Kerov’s friend looked over and frowned.

“
Hey—that one’s mine!”

“
Oh, uh sorry.” Regretfully, Frankie handed it over. “They
were wrapped just the same so I thought—”

“
Nice try.” Kerov’s friend smirked at her. “But you have to get
up at least an arhn earlier than a
winkle-bum
to fool old Jorn here.”

Jorn—that must be his name,
Frankie thought. Well, at least now she could stop
thinking of him as just “Kerov’s friend.” As for a
winkle-bum,
she had no idea what that
was, but what Jorn had said seemed to be some kind of aphorism or
expression.

“
Um, okay,” she said, hoping that would suffice.

“
I
mean, if you wanted a
kadeky,
you
should have ordered one,” Jorn went on, taking a big bite from the
divine smelling pastry. “But no—you’re always lecturing me about
what an unhealthy breakfast it is. Always going on and on about the
benefits of a pure-protein diet, especially in the
mornings.”

“
I
am? I mean, yes, of course I am. Because it’s, uh, true,” Frankie
said quickly but she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her empty
stomach. Looking down at the ice cold, squishy, leaf-wrapped
package in her lap, she had a bad feeling. An all protein diet
didn’t sound like it would jibe with her own vegetarian ways.
Still, Jorn had bought this thing for her—whatever it was—and he
clearly expected her to eat it.

As
the silver tank vehicle lurched back into traffic, she untied the
coarse twine and unwrapped the leaves. Inside was a piece of meat
as big as her fist—as big as Kerov’s fist, anyway and his hands
were freaking
huge.
It was
a very dark green—pine green—and it seemed to be completely raw. Or
if it
was
cooked, it must have been
only lightly seared because it was still oozing dark green blood.
The nauseating, coppery odor of raw flesh rose from it, reminding
Frankie of an open wound.

Ugh!
Frankie
barely kept herself from uttering the exclamation of disgust aloud
and her stomach lurched, making her glad she hadn’t eaten anything
that day.

“
What’s wrong?” Jorn asked, frowning. “Not hungry? Did they cut
it wrong? I know how you like the center piece, right from the
middle ventricle of the
vashlo
heart.”

“
Oh no, it’s…it’s just how I like it.” Frankie swallowed hard
and started rewrapping the oozing green chunk. She hadn’t eaten
meat in two years and she wasn’t about to start now with the raw,
pine-green alien flesh. However, she didn’t want to be rude. “I
just want to save it for later. I’ll, uh, eat it right before the
parade—the review, I mean. That way I’ll have extra energy,” she
said, hoping Kerov’s friend would buy her lame
explanation.

Jorn shrugged his
narrow shoulders.

“
Suit yourself. I can see why you’d need extra energy to
control that behemoth, Ursa.”

“
Uh-huh,” Frankie mumbled and shoved the squishy packet of
meat in its blue leaf wrapping into the breast pocket of Kerov’s
scarlet shirt. She hoped it wouldn’t leak and leave a stain but if
it did, she was pretty sure his dress jacket, which was hanging in
the back of the tank on a surprisingly Earth-like hanger, would
cover it.

They had ridden the rest of the way to the base in the awful
traffic as Jorn polished off the tasty-looking
kadeky
pastry. He had also drunk his entire squeeze
bulb of hot liquid which was apparently called
guu.

Hoping it would taste like coffee or tea, Frankie had tried a
sip of hers as well. Unfortunately, the
guu
had an extremely bitter, burned flavor and a slimy,
viscous texture that reminded her of mucus. The single sip she took
singed her mouth and coated her throat, making her cough
uncontrollably for several minutes.

Jorn had pounded her on the back sympathetically which didn’t
help at all. In fact, his vigorous pounding
hurt
and Frankie was pretty sure she was going to
have bruises but she couldn’t think of a way to ask him to stop
that wouldn’t sound unmanly. So she had put up with it until Jorn
dropped her in front of the stables, saying he would see her after
the review.

Now, bruised and battered, with an empty stomach and the
bitter, burned taste of
guu
still coating the back of her tongue, she was standing just
inside the long, low building. It was lined with rows of stalls on
either side and Frankie wondered exactly where the fearsome Ursa
was. Several heads were poking out of the stalls, but none of them
seemed to ring a bell. Or at least, no information about them was
forthcoming from Kerov’s memory.

She looked at the
row of stalls uncertainly, trying to gage the temperament of the
strange creatures they housed. They looked like the same mechanical
ostrich-type creatures she’d seen on the strange porn-vid with the
rainbow, lasso-penis teddy bear at Kerov’s house. Only the more she
looked at them, the less ostrich-y they appeared.

She considered the
one closest to her, which was eyeing her with apparent curiosity.
True, it had skinny legs, a long, snaky neck, and a short, plump
body like an ostrich, but it appeared to have fur covering its
metal skin instead of feathers and its head looked strangely
feline. Two large, yellow eyes regarded her, but the creature had a
flattened snout almost like a Persian cat’s instead of a beak. Long
curling whiskers spread from either side of its little pink nose.
They quivered delicately when Frankie held out a hand to it.

“
Hey girl…or, uh, boy,” she said softly. “How are you, huh?
Feeling friendly today?”

“
Excuse me, Commander, but I wouldn’t do that if I were you.
Junie-bee there’s a bitey one, she is.” The soft voice startled
Frankie and she jerked her hand back just as the ostrich-cat thing
took a quick snap at her, barely missing her fingers.

“
Thank you!” Frankie gasped and looked around for the person
who had warned her.

It was a girl with a
pretty, pleasant face wearing a blue denim-looking overall with a
red sash wrapped around her narrow waist. Just like Xirnah, and
indeed, most of the women Frankie had seen here, she had platinum
blonde hair and purplish black eyes. And also like Xirnah, she had
straight hips and almost no ass. However, the warm look on her face
made her seem much prettier to Frankie, though her features weren’t
nearly as fine and aristocratic as Kerov’s ex.

“
Might you be in here looking for Ursa, Commander Volx?” the
girl asked.

Volx, huh? That must be Kerov’s last name.
It was strange to think she was
inhabiting his body but she hadn’t known his last name until just
now.

“
Yes, in fact I am looking for, uh, Ursa. Can you help me find
her? I’d really appreciate it.” Frankie smiled warmly at her and
the girl returned the smile and then blushed a pale
pink.

“
Of…of course, Commander. Anything for you,” she
stuttered.

Frankie couldn’t
figure her reaction out until she remembered she was still in
Kerov’s mouthwateringly muscular male body. Frankie would probably
be stuttering and blushing all over the place too if a hot guy like
the big Kindred started talking to her.

She thinks I’m flirting with her,
she thought, following the girl down the
rows of stalls.
Well, maybe I
should
. She
seems a lot nicer than Xirnah—maybe I could find Kerov a nice
girlfriend to come back to—when he finally comes back to his own
body, that is.

But the thought of setting Kerov up with the stable girl
didn’t sit right with her. Frankie couldn’t put her finger on why
exactly, just that she didn’t like the idea of him with another
girl. Especially not one who was pretty
and
nice. Xirnah might have been beautiful but she was
also a grade-A bitch. The stable girl seemed like the girl next
door type—the kind a guy might really fall in love with.

Shouldn’t I want that for him, though? He seems like a decent
guy—shouldn’t I want him to find true love?
Frankie knew she should but somehow
she just didn’t.
If I set him up with the stable girl and he never comes
back,
I’ll
be the one who has to
date her…
and
have sex
her,
she reminded
herself. And she just wasn’t up for any more girl-in-guy-on-girl
sex right now—she had plenty of it with Xirnah last night, thank
you very much.