Loving a Stranger Read online

  With a tender touch, he disinfected the small scrapes, spraying them with an antibacterial agent. It stung and Nallah drew her breath inward in a sharp little hiss.

  Harryx looked up quickly.

  “Sorry, baby—did that hurt? Here…”

  Leaning forward he pursed his lips and blew a cool stream of air over her hurt knees, easing the stinging. Then he dabbed soothing salve on the small wounds and covered each with a healing wrap.

  Looking up at her he asked, “Better now?”

  Nallah, who had never known such gentle treatment from her husband in her life, had no words. She simply nodded, unable to take her eyes off him.

  “Good.” And then he did something even more surprising. Bending his head, he placed soft kisses on the tops of her knees, just above the healing wraps. Then he straightened up and pulled the sex garment down. “All right, it’s late. How about we go to bed?”

  At once Nallah stiffened—so he had put off taking her because he wanted to do it in the bed. Harryx did that sometimes, when he wanted to savor her submission and draw it out. The results were never pleasant.

  But her husband seemed to read the expression on her un-veiled face because he quickly shook his head.

  “No, I meant I’m tired and I want to sleep. I’m not asking about the bed so I can…can assault you.” He made a face as though the words were bitter, though they made no sense to Nallah. How could a husband assault his wife? Anything he did to her from physical punishment to sexual domination was right and proper, wasn’t it?

  Still, she rose from the edge of the tub and nodded in the direction of the doorway.

  “Let us go, my husband. Should…should I keep on my sex garment? In case you wish to use me in the night?” Sometimes Harryx liked that too—to wake her up by thrusting himself inside her, whether she was ready for him or not.

  He made that face again—the almost pained expression which looked so foreign on his normally stoic features.

  “Gods, no. I’m not going to hurt you in the middle of the night, sweetheart. Just wear whatever you normally do to bed and don’t worry about me. I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to.”

  Nallah could hardly believe him. He wasn’t going to touch her? He would really leave her alone? Did he really mean to allow her to completely forgo her submission tonight? She could scarcely believe it and yet…it seemed to be true.

  “I…thank you, my husband,” she said quietly. “In that case, let us get ready for bed.”

  Harryx stretched and yawned, his broad chest and muscular arms flexing as he did so.

  “Sounds good to me. Lead the way.”

  Wondering if he really couldn’t remember the way to their sleeping chamber, Nallah led him silently down the hallway. The blow to his head really must have changed his personality…but how long until it changed back?

  Chapter Eight

  Reeve waited until he heard Nallah breathing evenly and deeply beside him before risking a return to his own body, light years away aboard the Mother Ship.

  His soul flew through time and space, as swift and silent as an invisible bird until he reached his true self. He sat up with a start, taking a deep breath to fill his lungs and flexed his fingers and toes. Looking down at himself, he saw he was dressed much as his host’s body was dressed back on Hascion Five—in thin black sleep trousers and nothing else.

  “Oh, Commander Reeve!” The startled voice belonged to a blonde nurse with pale gray eyes who had been sitting in the corner of the room reading a book. Before he had left his own body for the host’s, Commander Sylvan had introduced her as Olivia—a nurse who also happened to be the mate of his brother, Baird.

  “Olivia will take good care of your body,” Sylvan had promised him. “I’d trust her with my life and so I trust her with yours as well.”

  Reeve was glad to see the human woman was keeping watch over his sleeping body. The risk of snatching was that you had to leave your own mortal shell in order to inhabit another. And if you weren’t careful, any number of nasty things could happen to your body while you were gone.

  “Are you all right, Commander?” the human woman asked, coming over to check on him.

  “Not a fucking Commander,” Reeve growled and coughed. “Got any water?”

  “Here.” Quickly she held a squeeze bulb to his lips and he drank thirstily. There was only so much the fluid drip could do for him. But speaking of the fluids he’d been getting, they had clearly been adding up.

  “Can you unhook me for a minute so I can use the fresher?” Reeve held out an arm and Olivia hastened to detach the drip’s flexible tubing, allowing him freedom to move around the room.

  “Thanks,” Reeve muttered. He found the fresher—a small room in the corner—and relieved his needs. After a quick cat-bath in the sink, he felt immensely better. He had been out of his own body for hours and hours—much longer than he usually spent during a snatch.

  It was good to see his own face staring back from the 3-D viewer. Bronze skin, scar across the bridge of his nose, black eyes and hair—he looked nothing like his host, that asshole. It was good to remind himself of who he was which was not General Harryx Parokk.

  When he came out, Olivia was just putting down a communicator.

  “Sylvan is in the middle of a Council meeting right now. He says you can either wait an hour or so for him to be done or give me any information you have to share—he’s given me clearance in this matter because I’m the main nurse assigned to you.”

  “Yeah, Commander Sylvan said you had clearance.” Reeve nodded. “I’d better talk to you—I don’t want to risk that bastard coming out of his coma while I’m gone.”

  Olivia arched one eyebrow delicately.

  “That bastard? You mean your host?”

  “Uh-huh. General Harryx Parokk—first class asshole.”

  Olivia’s silver-gray eyes widened.

  “Really? Why do you say that?”

  Reeve sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

  “Just some of the things I’ve been picking up from his memory and his wife.” He looked down at his hands. “I’m pretty sure he hits her. Probably, uh, forces her too. Gods…”

  “Oh no!” Olivia sounded shocked. “That’s awful!”

  “The thing is, that’s their whole fucking culture—they think that’s normal, at least as far as I can tell.” Reeve rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, trying to release some of the tension he felt. “Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. Maybe it’s just Parokk who acts like that. It’s hard to tell because I haven’t interacted with hardly anyone but his wife, Nallah yet.”

  “So you haven’t been able to get a look at the wormhole plans yet?” Olivia sounded disappointed.

  Reeve shook his head. “Afraid not. When I ‘woke up’ inside him I was in a med center bed. I thought it might look pretty fucking strange if Harryx ran off to work first thing after coming out of a coma.”

  “Well, that’s probably true,” Olivia acknowledged.

  “I’m hoping to go to his office bright and early tomorrow morning and see what I can find out,” Reeve said. “I’m fairly acclimated to his body now—it shouldn’t be a problem. Hopefully I’ll have more to report tomorrow night.”

  “I’ll be waiting—or Sylvan will,” Olivia promised. She bit her lip. “So…how are you handling things with his wife? I mean, she must know him better than anyone, right? Do you think she suspects anything?”

  Reeve sighed. “I’ve told her that the bump I took to the head has made my memory a little ‘fuzzy’ and she seems to be buying it. Then again, it’s hard to tell. She’s so fucking scared of my host—of Harryx—she’d probably jump off a cliff if he told her to.”

  “That poor girl.” Olivia’s big grey eyes were melting with sympathy. “We’ve had a little experience with that here. I had a friend called Tessa—another Kindred bride—who was running away from an abusive human husband.”

  “Did she get away?” Reeve asked.