On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3) Read online

  “He wants you to come spar with us. I think is the point here. A sad day for me, since I'll no doubt have my butt handed to me by two hot girls and a pretty boy at the same time, but you know, you should come and hang with us. After all, being their cousin you may be the only girl on campus I can try to get to go out with me without them stealing you away.” He flashed her a smile, then blushed, realizing how forward he'd just been.

  A feeling of excitement washed over her. Not because of Don. She'd already made up her mind to sleep with him, as long as no one objected. No, the idea of actually getting to practice something other than solo forms, that thrilled her. She'd intended to find the local martial arts club, but had kind of dreaded it, since most of the people involved in that would probably kind of suck. These two would have at least had ten years of regular training though and if Blaine wasn't full of hot air, he might even be pretty good.

  “I'd love to!” She almost cried then, unexpectedly. She locked it down, controlling her tear ducts like she'd learned to over the last few months. The invitation into their lives had been unexpected. The social rules said they needed to try and get along, sure, but to be invited to do something with them that didn't even involve sex, that was huge. Blaine practically glowed at her from across the table, looking interested enough in her that Don reached over, took her hand and actually growled at the other man.

  “Mine. Back off you!” He made little shewing motions with his free hand, getting a laugh from everyone at the table, which he joined in on, letting go of her arm after a few seconds.

  They told her that they'd go right after dinner the next night, since they could meet there and go directly to the gym they used.

  Britney looked a little worried for a second, a line actually forming between her eyebrows.

  "You should wear sweats or something. We don't wear traditional garb to practice in here."

  Kate smiled, getting one in return, that seemed relieved even before she spoke.

  "That makes sense. I do have several pair of sweats for working out in. It was what I wore when working with Master Wu-Li. He's progressive that way." She cleared her throat. "I had some private lessons, after I finished school." Sure that made it sound to Don like she had lessons after class each day, but Blaine got the idea. She was into the topic enough that she hadn't just stopped when most people did.

  Britney was just probably glad that she wasn't going to have to explain about dress codes on the first day.

  Since most of the time Alede learned to fight while nude or wearing street clothes, or even high heels and lingerie. Those being the conditions that they found themselves in most often when they had to fight. Looking like she did, she could potentially be just out of school and really not know any better yet. While she could decide to take it as an insult the idea that she didn't know better than to show up naked in public on a college campus, she didn't. Because Britney really seemed to be trying to make her feel comfortable, and was just giving her a heads up, trying to protect her new friend. It was sweet really, so Kate winked at her again. The big kind that showed she understood, rather than being the flirtatious one.

  When Don and Blaine left, Britney asked if she could walk Kate back to her room. Since this would probably be the way in which the real negotiations were confirmed, she said yes instantly. It would be nice to simply ask questions and get answers, instead of messing around with codes that the twins didn't seem to have a really good handle on yet. They crossed the campus, passed the commons and finally reached her building, one of the three freshman dorms. Monterey.

  It was a giant brick building, sitting in the middle of a grassy expanse, with no bushes under the windows. A safety precaution she'd been told when she first saw it on the tour she'd had a month prior. It was, in its own way, a very ugly building. It looked more than a little worn, having stood for over a hundred years. The bricks actually rounded slightly by time in the walls, and the front columns looking tiny and out of proportion to the building. They took the stairs to her third floor room because the building had never been retrofitted with an elevator. Inside the halls were bare cement walls, painted white, with really damaged wooden runner boards and trim. It had probably looked like a church basement at one time, but now looked a lot more like a flop house from a television show to Kate.

  At her room Britney waited to be asked in, instead of just following her as she'd expected. The girl froze after closing the door with a solid click, looking around the room wide eyed for a bit before speaking.

  “This is a double room? But there's only one bed... And the decorations... I was going to offer you one of my Hartley posters, but this is incredible. A poster wouldn't fit at all in here!” Wide eyed she walked around for a moment checking the place out. She stared at the walls, which had hangings on them, hiding most of the white expanse that would have otherwise been there. Soft tapestries with complex weaving, and along the left side a soft golden silk piece that hung along the entire side of the room. The bed was a single, but had a rich shiny bed spread on it in a combination of red and copper with matching pillows and a few extra throws for good measure. There were chairs in the room. Two of them. Nice wooden ones with seats that had about three inches of padding, done in black so it wouldn't clash with anything else.

  “How rich are you to be able to afford this, and how did you get your own room?” The girl asked finally, the decor giving things away Kate realized.

  "Have a seat. Can I get you something to eat? Real food, I mean? Or drink? Both?"

  They'd both eaten like real college girls at dinner, meaning not nearly enough to keep them going. She accepted a deli style sandwich from the mini-fridge, one of the ones that Merri had sent with Zack the last time he'd come to pass energy to her, the day before. Merri made the bread herself, along with the mayo and mustard, she'd also put a tangy dressing on this one with cabbage instead of lettuce, shredded almost into oblivion to make it work right and keep for a couple of days. The cheese on it was store bought, which the tiny woman had apologized for profusely, although she swore that it was a good handmade cheese that actually met her personal standards. Kate gave the other girl a bottle of fruit juice to go with the sandwich, wrapped in waxed paper, but held in an air tight container that had six of them left. The bottle was unmarked, having also been made at home by the tiny Alfric woman just for her, an apple/pear juice that hit just about the whole surface of her. Not just her tongue, her entire being. It was delicious. So much so she could feel it in her bones when she took a sip.

  As they ate, Kate tried to explain things to Britney without just giving everything away. It took more work than she liked, but had to be done, at least for now. Everything at home seemed to have calmed down, but it was just possible that someone would attack her if they learned she was there and unprotected. Her only real choice at the moment was to hide, which had been the point of sending her here in the first place. Not that the beings that were after them cared about her. She was pretty much just a girl, after all.

  The only thing hurting or killing her might do is disrupt the others. The important ones. Like Zack.

  “Well, the room came courtesy of a friend of mine that has some connections. She actually got me in here, because I didn't have the grades for it, or the paper trail. Bribes, I believe, did most of the work. She's a Vampire, but a really cool one. Not all demanding and bitey like most of them are. The decorations and furniture came from a couple of other people. I know, it looks pretty expensive, but really, I don't own any of this stuff. It's just being lent to me while I'm here.” She shrugged then, as if that explained everything.

  Britney seemed to think it did. After all, people often gave Alede presents and gifts, trying to win their favor. That Kate had better friends than she did right now, well, that could just be happenstance, or even hard work on the other girl's part. Kate could almost see the gears clicking in the other girl's pretty blonde head.

  “Wow! So you like, actually know a real Vampire? I've never even met
one. My older brother has, but he doesn't think much of them. They kind of tied him up and forced him to service a bunch of people for a while I guess. Which is stupid, because, you know, hello, Alede! Since when do we need to be forced to have sex?” The idea troubled the girl, which she showed on her face so clearly that it shocked Kate for a second. Alede usually learned not to show anything that wouldn't lead to sex most of the time.

  Brit left it as a topic and moved back to the topic of Kate's room.

  "This is really nice though. I want one of these. Maybe next year? Not that my roommate is too bad. Thankfully she's a bit slutty for a Human. She not only doesn't mind if I have sex in the room, but does it enough herself without me that I can harvest energy from it on the sly."

  They talked about various things for a while, Hartley posters being one. Which didn't have his picture on them, the blonde told her, because no one knew what Hartley looked like except his clients, because the man kept to himself, almost like a hermit or something. She went on in this vein for a while, painting a fascinating, though mainly incorrect, picture of Zack.

  Then they covered the situation on campus as far as feeding went.

  “Both of us, Blaine and I, we try to spread things out, rather than keeping a full time stable. It takes more work and gives us both a bad rep, but this way we just look slutty, you know? Instead of people getting worked up about us cheating on them. I mean if the campus slut sucks off the football team, no one really cares? But if their girlfriend did it, things could go wrong pretty fast, right? In the real world we could keep things insulated, but here, too many people know each other.” She moved in on Kate and touched her shoulder in a way normal for her kind, but that would have seemed like an invitation to have sex to a regular Human.

  “So, uh, about Don...” Swallowing, Brit waited for a few seconds before continuing. “I... kind of promised Blaine that I wouldn't have sex with him, since he's a friend and his roommate, you know how that is right? I mean, if I had sex with him and then we had to break up for any reason, or I slept with other guys or something and he dumped me, then Blaine would be stuck, still living with him for the rest of the year. It's not a normal situation, I mean how many Alede twins do you know, right? But that's why I haven't been taking care of him like I should.”

  The other girl seemed really sad about the whole thing again, looking down at her shoes for a while before going on. She chewed on her lip, just the top one, which looked cute on her, but probably showed real distress, rather than just game playing to try and work Kate into doing something. She reached to her and touched her back gently, stroking her upper arm, running her fingers on the soft cotton of her short shirt sleeve, then letting them linger on the soft flesh below.

  “So, could you, you know, sleep with him or something? I mean, if you two have a falling out, Blaine won't be stuck nearly as badly... Yeah, you're our cousin, but it's not like we've talked about you or anything, so maybe it's far enough away?”

  This made sense to Kate, "I'll look into it. I'm not promising anything yet though. Still, he is decently cute, and nice seeming on top of that. It looks good, so far."

  Don really did seem cute and funny, but also a little depressed. If a bit of attention and sex would snap him out of that, which she thought it might, she'd be more than willing to provide it. If, on the other hand this turned out to go deeper than that, she didn't want to end up responsible for a suicidal boy, angry at her for not making him totally happy with life.

  Britney hugged her on the way out, then gave her a lingering kiss, squeezing her behind a little before letting go of her. So fairly ordinary as far as traditional greetings and partings with strangers went for their kind. She kissed the girl back and did a little groping of her own, just to let her know that she felt comfortable with her already.

  “Hey, don't forget sparring tomorrow night! Blaine will get all weepy on me if he thinks I scared you off.” She laughed at this, but seemed to mean it at the same time. As she left she looked back at Kate, smiling and looking at her seductively, long blonde hair half hiding her face.

  She went through her classes the next day happily enough. It surprised her that her hardest class wasn't, as she'd thought it would be, math, but art history. The professor, a balding forty something named Eilis gave them a paper on the first day. Five pages on the topic of trade routes into and around the orient. Thankfully she'd done enough of the reading to see the trap in this for her, since the Orient he referred to meant the area around Persia, Mesopotamia, Asia minor and Egypt, not Asia or China at all, which is what her first guess would have been. Since they hadn't had the topic in class yet, she could tell that a lot of people would probably get it wrong. She still would have had it wrong, she knew, if she hadn't read the next several chapters in her textbook, using the dry text as a focusing exercise, to help keep her mind in shape.

  Just to be sure, she checked it out with the professor after class. She approached him boldly, standing nearer to him than most people would with a virtual stranger. Taking in his scent, aftershave, mint from his breath and something rich, like pipe tobacco, though he didn't have stained teeth or anything that would indicate being a smoker.

  “Hi... Um, my education has kind of been lacking in a lot of areas, so, please give me a clue if I'm wrong here...” She started, since it that was the truth. Kate hadn't had any education about art and history had mainly included the history of sex, sexual trends and U.S. history. She'd gone to an exclusive private school were everyone majored in sex and not starving to death, and hadn't even finished that, nearly losing control of her powers and being killed by her government instead.

  The man's eyes lit up as she spoke, nodding finally as she listed off the correct part of the world.

  “You actually opened the text book? Amazing. You're right of course. Put what you just said in your paper and you'll get an automatic A. Of course now I expect you to actually find some information about trade routes too. Focus on the kinds of materials that would have been shipped, since that influenced the art and passage of art from one part of the world to another.” He grinned at her and waved her away then, not winking or showing in any way that he even noticed her looks.

  Almost like he actually cares about the subject or something, Kate thought, throwing him a flirtatious look over her shoulder as she walked away. The man wasn't even looking at her behind. Amazing. Even gay men tended to check her out, she knew that from long experience. Women always did, straight or gay, but that wasn't special, they always checked out other women. Even the less attractive ones.

  Since she had hours before dinner, she worked on her paper, even though it wouldn't be due for a week, Using her laptop to find out what she could about the flow of materials in ancient Mesopotamia. The information turned out to be hard to find. A few mentions that told her information might be books that she should be able to find in the school's research library, but that was all. Instead of knowledge, she ended up with a list of places to look in order to possibly find information later. Handy, she thought, a bit sarcastically. Still, she'd come to learn and if she couldn't do that, she could always try to sleep her way into a decent grade, so at least she had a fallback position in case the work proved too hard.

  At five she packed a bag with her soft soled work out shoes, a pair of blue sweats and a sturdy black and silver sports bra. She wouldn't sag, breast wise, ever, but she was just big enough for her swinging breasts to actually throw off her center of gravity if she wasn't careful. Not quite big enough to actually hit herself in the face, no matter how hard she jumped, at least if she kept her head up, but something to keep that swaying in check when she could get it made sense to her.

  The door locked behind her automatically, reminding her to keep her key on her person at all times, not having a roommate to come and bail her out if she got stuck in the hallway. Of course she could go to the student advisor at the end of the hallway, but that could get embarrassing if it happened too often. Slinging the bag made of heavy
canvas over her shoulder, she headed toward the dining facility, hoping that she was supposed to bring her clothes and not wear them to dinner.

  She found Don sitting with a tray in front of him, eating too few vegetables to be healthy for a Human. Looking relaxed as he munched on fries again, sitting in the secluded little room they'd met in the day before. She walked over and gave him a hug before sitting down. Behind them a girl with short, golden colored hair, not the pure pale blond of Britney or Blaine, but a color that hinted at turning a light brown some day, stared at her longingly. Kate waved to her and said hi before sitting down.

  Don looked at her clothes.

  "Does that bag have your workout clothes in it? Otherwise you're going to look funny doing high kicks. I don't know how that works for girls, but when a guy does that in jeans... Ouch. Right between the thighs, you know?"

  Actually she did, and he was right. It was a real hazard.

  “I didn't know if I was supposed to wear them to dinner or not. I see you did though. Not a problem, I can change anywhere.” She wiggled her eyebrows a bit and looked around the room, indicating that she could even change there, if need be, which turned the boy's mind toward her being naked under her clothes, or at least that had been her intent. He seemed to get it, twitching his own eyebrows in return, and smiling big, seeming almost happy compared to the day before.

  Blaine and Britney got there at about the same time, dressed in matching gray sweats having come from Britney's room where they'd been discussing what they wanted to do with them later, while they practiced. Don snorted at the potential double entendre but the other two managed to keep straight faces for once, having actually been planning out the practice session.

  The food hadn't gotten any better overnight, so Kaitlyn felt no particular need to linger over the meal. The others ate, so she did the same, hoping that her dislike of the food here didn't seem too clear to the others. Over the last year she'd grown used to the idea that food should be really good in the main. Maybe a little lower quality if an emergency came up. At Underwood, the embassy complex she'd worked at that hid itself as a mall, the emergencies had been catered as often as not. Even the snacks she had from Merri, things just thrown together by the small woman's standards, were many times higher in quality than anything the dining hall had. Thinking about this made her feel a little homesick for the woman. And a little hungry. She grinned at the idea and stood to leave with the others.