On the Line (Alternate Places Book 3) (6 page)

Britney and Don both paused slightly between each move,
punch, kick or block. Blaine hadn't done that, except when he'd gotten really
frustrated. She realized that he probably wasn't really too far off of his goal
of being an academy level practitioner. Meaning good enough to teach others
higher level skills. She wondered how he'd do with weapons. If he could teach
weapons
too
, he'd be about ninety-five percent of the way to his goal.
The rest would pretty much be continuing to practice and marking time, because
no one trusted an academy level instructor that wasn't at
least
fifty.

They switched partners, Blaine asking everyone to work at
super slow speed, which made things a lot harder for everyone except Kate,
who'd practiced that way for years. Britney came closer to holding her own at
these speeds than Blaine had at full speed, but that was to be expected. It
seemed clear to Kate that Brit had held back a lot when working with Don, since
she obviously didn't bother doing that now with her. She probably wasn't as
good as Blaine, but their constant practice together meant that he'd pushed her
along for years, keeping her sharp and growing along with him.

The whole group moved over to some padded floor mats to
practice throws and joint locks, an area in which she clearly dominated the
others, knowing about a hundred more effective throws than the rest of them did,
combined. That and joint locks had been something Master Dan had insisted upon.
Of course he
also
insisted they practice on a concrete floor, not a soft
cushy mat like this. She had to admit that she liked this better, if only to
herself.

When they finished Blaine tackled her, picking her up in the
air and spinning her around. At first she thought he planned to slam her into
the mat, also a fair move in her mind, even though he'd called a halt to
things. One of the lessons she'd had drummed into her was that rules had
nothing to do with fighting. She let her body go limp, which carried them both
to the mat, truncating the throw, it being almost impossible to throw a person
that didn't resist. As he lay under her on the ground, he laughed and kissed
her on the cheek.

“You're so good! Please, please promise you'll practice with
us all the time? Pleeaasse?” He begged, looking at her entreatingly. “You're
about twice as good as Britney or I am, and while I can't promise you'll get
much out of practicing with us, we'll try hard... Please?”

Laughing she answered.

"Yes... We can do that. You don't
actually
have
to beg." She needed to stay in practice, she knew and told them she
doubted she was that much better than they were.

Don shook his head at that though.

“I don't know, you're
really
good. I don't know enough
to
stop
you, but I
can
tell how hard someone would be kicking my
ass, and working with you... Well, let's just say if you ever try to beat me
up,
I
plan on running away, even if I do look like a chicken doing it!”

This got a chuckle out of the rest of them, though she
pointed out that anyone scary enough to make
him
leery should be run
away from.

“You're good enough that if that kind of feeling ever gets
triggered in you, it's probably a
real
warning from your subconscious
mind. And if I ever see you running, that brown blob beside you trying to pass?
That'll be
me
.”

Most of the people she knew would have ripped up
all
of
them in a fight, at the same time. Possibly without even noticing they'd done
it. Hilda for instance could throw a backhand so fast and hard that you could
block it and
still
end with you laying on the floor unconscious, and
that was her
weakest
move. She'd done it to Kate more than once in
practice, and
that
had happened while they worked slowly and carefully
to protect the girl from harm. The Vampires couldn't even be fought
functionally by people like them. You just had to pray you could either talk
your way out of things or hope someone else would come around that could save
you. They just moved too fast.

 Zack could have beaten them all in a fight, too. Even if the
Alede had turned on their full charm all at once. Well, he couldn't take them
in a
fair
fight, but in a fight to the death? She'd seen him take out
Vampires
without even blinking. Literally just making their heads fall off with a look.
Once she'd seen him do that to three Vampires at once and he
hadn't
even
been looking.

Of course she couldn't share this with Don at the moment, so
she gave him a mildly sweaty hug instead, which caused him to pull away as he
got aroused. A natural reaction on his part, after all she
had
to be
pouring pheromones out of her system at the moment. Given who he hung around
with, he probably would have been all right, having learned that the others and
by extension her, wouldn't mind at all, but in a public place, wearing sweat
pants, he started showing a lot more than he would have in jeans. A slightly
panicked look came into his eyes.

No one had noticed yet, except for the Alede, of course and
the girl finishing up her Yoga routine. She winked at him, smiled alluringly
and looked away. Kate tossed him her gym bag and asked him to carry it for her.
He nodded and walked her back to her dorm room with the others, even though
none of them were in the same building she was.

Blaine marveled at her room nearly as much as Britney had,
and did it again when she gave them all some of the juice that Merri had sent
along for her.

“That's it Britney... I'm leaving the family and getting
myself adopted by the Swanson's instead. Or at least, well prostituting myself
out to them wouldn't work, being family and all. I know, I'll trade you guys
Donald
here for an unlimited supply of that juice!” He pushed Don closer to her
playfully, making everyone chuckle a bit.

“I'll see what I can arrange... still, I don't think Don is
yours
to trade, even if you
are
his roommate. Besides, my mom would flip if I
started trafficking in people and the
others
would have my head,
possibly literally. I'll check with Merri about the juice though. She's
really
nice. I think you'll all like her when you get a chance to meet.”

Britney turned then to her favorite topic, which turned out
to be Hartley. She'd told Don all about the character it seemed, Blaine nodding
along, since he'd obviously heard it all before himself, but knew enough not to
try and stop her, since even getting a word in edgewise suddenly became
difficult.

“And everyone loves Hartley, except for the people that keep
trying to kill him, you know? Lots of people even try to send him new wives and
stuff, but he always says no, because he loves his current ones so much. Can
you believe that? They say he's just a regular Human, but that he's really old,
like hundreds of years maybe, but he looks young, like one of us, not all wrinkled
and stuff.” Blaine just smiled when Kaitlyn stiffened. Don nodding along with
the story, not noticing that age reference as meaning anything other than
looking like a college student. It was true as far as that went. Zack could
have walked the campus grounds without anyone even noticing he was there. She
made herself relax, realizing that the worst that could happen here would be
Don thinking his friend had an over active imagination. She didn't. That was
really a Human trait. They could create magical worlds in their heads, she'd
heard. Sometimes even outside of them.

“He has a lot of women, some of them really hot, Alede, you
know? Succubi? Some of them are more normal looking, like Claire the Vampire,
though she used to do porn, so she might be kind of cute...”

Kate held her tongue, knowing that Claire hadn't ever been in
porn, even though she
had
been used in sex shows by the Vampire Forest.
Not gentle things either, but things bad enough that when Troy had found out,
he'd wanted to go and find the Vampire that had done it to her and kill him.
Zack already had though, luckily. Not that Troy couldn't have killed him, but
six hundred year old Vampires didn't generally fall to twenty-four year old
Humans. Claire
had
been in the movies back in the day, about the time
talkies had first come into being. She kept silent as Britney went on.

“And Libby who's a Were bat, she's kind of ugly, but has a
good heart, even though, she like, poisoned Hartley and turned him over to
Vampires that wanted to rape him and other bad things. He forgave her, because
her whole family had made a deal with demons and she had to do it or they would
have all been killed or tortured or something.” She shook her head looking at
Don dramatically, since he seemed to be the only person paying close attention
to her. Not that he had a big choice in the matter, Kate knew, since Britney
had started leaking a lot of energy while talking, which made her seem a lot
more interesting to any Human than she would have been otherwise.

“Then there's Meriposa the Elf and Helga the Troll, and
really who knows what
they
look like right? I mean, Elves are all like
two feet tall, though some of them are really pretty and the Trolls are all
covered with hair and never bathe and don't wear clothes, so I don't see how
that works. But
Hartley's
a really nice guy, so maybe he can see past
that kind of thing? I think it would be kind of disgusting, you know? A big
hairy troll in bed with you?”

Kate knew she had to correct this somehow, since she liked
Britney, who conceivably could one day meet some of the kinds of people she was
discussing, and didn't want her to be back handed through a wall, or end up
with four foot of Alfric steel through her middle, for merely saying things
that pretty much anyone with her background would have said. Heck, two years
ago
she'd
have said the same kind of things, not knowing any better
herself and now some of her best friends were like the people the other Alede
girl had been talking about. For that matter, everyone she'd been talking about
was
one of her best friends.

“Um... not to be too big of a geek, but I think you got some
things wrong there... Libby does have a good heart, but she didn't poison Hartley,
she just led him into a trap. Claire never did porn, at least not that
I
know about. Meriposa of the Dawn is an Alfric, which
is
an elf to you
and me, but they don't like being called that,” She directed this at Don so it
wouldn't seem like she was lecturing Britney, even though it felt to her like
it at the moment. “
Hilda
is a Trolleinkein. Calling them Trolls is a bit
like calling a black person the N-word, so... yeah, don't do that!” She smiled
big and winked at everyone. Britney's eyes went huge.

“Wow. You really know this stuff... What's Helga, I mean
Hilda
look like? Is she covered in hair like big-foot or something?”

Kate explained how, since most people were like humans, even
if covered in hair or scales or what not, they tended to be people underneath
it all. At least the ones that hung around with Hartley. That meant that Hilda,
when she shaved her body hair off, looked like an attractive blonde woman, even
if she was really tall, being about six-six.

“Anyway, even though she's technically married to Hartley,
she's actually dating Troy...”

This opened a discussion about sex with non-humans and if it
could be considered morally acceptable. Don brought it up as a topic, and found
that all of his friends thought that it would be fine to have sex with whomever,
as long as they could consent.

“So, you know, Troy counts...” She smiled then, but no one
else did. Finally Blaine asked who exactly Troy might be.

“Hartley's best friend? The really nice Human guy that kept
him alive for years when he couldn't hold a job? Am I the only one that knows
that part of the story?” Also a person that she'd slept with for a while. It had
gotten kind of serious, but Troy had backed off, getting that she just wasn't
like he was. Not that he wouldn't have sex with her now, but he'd stopped
trying to make her into his Human girlfriend. No, now he was trying that with
Hilda. Still, he really was trying to understand her ways, which were a lot
different than where he'd come from.

Britney looked like she wanted to take notes or something but
Blaine didn't and used the lull to try and turn the topic toward martial arts,
which Britney turned back toward the fights Hartley had won over the last year.
Kate kept her mouth shut this time, even though most of the information turned
out to be wrong.

At about midnight, she kicked everyone out, since she had
someone coming in a few minutes. Britney asked her who, casually, not really
expecting an answer, she got one though.

“Oh...Hartley. He comes to visit every couple of days.”

The room went silent for a bit, until she winked at everyone
a slow smile on her face.

Don nodded, standing up, used to being kicked out of rooms so
that other people could have sex by now. “Is that a euphemism for masturbation?
Because if it is, I'd be more than happy to stay and watch. Or help, you know,
whatever you need... I'm always here for you.” He spread his hands as if saying
it would only be natural for him to be helpful.

She laughed and walked them all to the door.

“Nothing like that. If it were just
that
, I'd let all
of you stay. Now go, before my appointment gets here... you'll scare him off.”

Don looked a little troubled, but left. Probably because
calling it an appointment sounded a little like she was either tutoring
someone, or turning tricks. No one tutored that late, so...

The other two actually had some things they needed to take care
of themselves, they realized and left pretty quickly. The door hadn't been
closed for five minutes when Zack stepped through the rift that hung in the
middle of the room. He said "hi" as he walked over to give her a hug
before lifting up her shirt so that he could pass a huge amount of energy to her.
His hand laid on the flat of her stomach, near the umbilical core of her body,
which was how Alede passed energy to
their
children, too. It felt a
little odd at times to her, Kate not being a child, but the amount of energy
was just too much to turn down.