Parallel Seduction (21 page)

"You'll see when we arrive there, won't you?"

"Hours? Days? Months?" His mind reeled with the possibility that they might even deport him back to Refaria, thereby separating him from his commander right when Jared needed his counsel the most.

Kryn's lips turned upward into a cautious smile. "You will see." Her voice was heavily accented, like that of so many Antousians raised back on Refaria. Many of them no longer even spoke their native language, but relied entirely on the verbal currency that was still the mainstay back home. Refaria … home. That was ultimately what this war was all about: which one of their warring species had the right to call that planet home.

And he knew all too well the kind of very explicit torture Veckus Densalt was capable of whenever he took rebel forces prisoner. Scott cringed, remembering the punishments that Veckus had personally meted out against Jared during his brief captivity several years earlier. His king had been bruised, bloodied, his entire body shattered from top to bottom. More than that, something in Jared's spirit had been broken during those three days, something Scott hadn't seen fully restored until his best friend had bonded with Kelsey. Years it had taken the man to recover. So what might Veckus do now that he and Hope had fallen into his vile clutches? Especially to a fellow Antousian like himself?

Scott kept his expression placid, even though inside, his mind whirled with anxiety and the terrible possibilities. Why, by the gods, had Hope managed to wander into this mess?

He tried a new tack. "What are you doing to Ms. Harper? Where did you escort her?"

Kryn folded both arms over her chest, glancing upward at the ceiling; Scott's gaze tracked with hers, only to discover a small electronic eye above them. They were being watched—hell, Veckus himself was undoubtedly observing these proceedings. Still, it was curious that Kryn had made such a point of revealing that fact.

Slowly, she resumed studying him. "Ms. Harper will not be harmed, Lieutenant. All right?"

"She needs to eat soon or she'll be in serious trouble."

Kryn gave a brisk nod, waved her hand, and from behind a closed door a soldier appeared. They spoke quietly in Refarian, and then the man disappeared once again. "Done."

That she was being so agreeable and helpful did nothing to dispel his fears. It only meant that the games had yet to truly begin. "Thank you." He gave a courteous bow of his head.

"You are welcome. And if you cooperate, Ms. Harper will continue to be fed, allowed her medication, and treated well. If you do not?" She gave an indifferent shrug. "Things will grow far more complicated for your little human friend."

"I want to see Veckus." He kept his voice commanding, cool, but his heart slammed hard within his chest. His mouth was dry with fear—and he was plenty tough after a near-lifetime of fighting. "He and I have a lot to discuss. We might as well start that process right now."

"On his timetable, not yours." She rose to her feet again, stepping closer into his physical space. Then, in a very low voice, she said, "Be wise, Lieutenant. Play the game." She narrowed her eyes meaningfully. "Play the game … with me." Her last words were whispered under her breath.

He frowned, not sure what her cryptic warning meant, and then just as quickly she spun on her heel, marching up the aisle away from him.

J
ake wanted to whoop in
victory; the data codes had uploaded freely, allowing them to step through inter-dimensional space and to the exterior of the mitres chamber. Anna rubbed at her head, giving it a light shake. "That's one heck of a mental vacuum cleaner." She looked up into his eyes. "Was that my imagination, or did I just see some of your life in the future? Some of my own past?"

Jake nodded, walking out to the edge of the trailhead. The truth was that the mitres served as an overlapping filmstrip of memories and possible futures; as he and Anna had journeyed through the portal, he'd glimpsed and felt memories that had almost been more than he could bear.

"Jake? Did you see stuff, too?" She wasn't going to let it go. She had never been one to let much of anything go.

"Just bits of my life, that's all. Look, we've got to get busting down this trail, see if we can get a lead on where they've taken Scott and Hope."

Anna grabbed him by the arm. "You know they're long gone, or waiting in ambush for us. The best thing we can do is let me signal the transport and put all of our firepower behind that search."

A stab of anxiety shot through Jake's heart. "And who's going to believe my identity … beyond you?"

Anna squinted at the bright sunlight reflecting off the snow. "Jared's your best friend; the very best friend you've ever had. If I believed you, don't you think he will?"

Jake holstered his weapon. "There's no time to wait. I've gotta go check out what's down at the end of that trail." He began hustling over the slippery incline, and Anna called after him.

"If you get yourself captured, too, there won't be a damn thing you can do to help her. Or him."

Jake slid to a halt. Of course she was right, but letting Hope go—letting go of the possibility that he might still stop her
vlksai
captors—went against every instinct inside of him. As a husband, as a soldier … and as Scott Dillon's dark twin.

Behind him he heard Anna radioing the transport. Stubborn as could be, that woman was … and for once he was thankful for that fact.

Almost immediately the transport swooped low, sidling up to the cliffs. The running boards extended, allowing for a platform and, ducking low against the churning wind created by the craft, both Jake and Anna scrambled into the opened hatch.

Anna was shouting something over the noise, but he couldn't understand what. So he focused instead on just getting inside the transport without getting himself shot. No sooner had he placed his boots inside than several pairs of strong hands took hold of him, throwing him to the ground.

"Hold off! Hold!" Anna yelled as he felt the barrel of a K-12 burrow into the base of his spine.

"I'm holding." He recognized the husky voice of Marco McKinley. "But I want to make sure that this man"—he jabbed him with his weapon—"and our commander have a proper chance to talk first."

After running in circles, and losing Hope in the process, Jake had effectively landed right back where he'd begun: at the end of Marco's weapon, with Jared Bennett's boots walking slowly toward him.

Rotating his head slightly, he got a fix on Anna, who had dropped down low beside him. "What were you saying when we boarded this thing?" He grunted, feeling the pressure of Marco's knee drive into his back.

She smiled. "That this wasn't the craft we'd arrived in. Sir."

"No, indeed not," Jared interrupted, coming to a stop right beside Jake's prone body. "This I had to come and see for myself. A skirmish in Yellowstone—in the wide-open public? This has to be the sloppiest, most ill-thought-out plan I've ever observed."

"Please, Commander, just let me up," Jake argued. "I'll explain everything."

Jared laughed low in his throat. "I believe I've already heard that once from you. Twice, and I'll have to require that you be held in this transport's brig until we return to base. There, we will talk. But not before."

"T
ell me just one thing
—anything—that will make me believe you're who you claim to be."

Jake sat across the table from Jared and Kelsey in the main meeting room at the bottom of Base Ten. Everything depended upon this moment, upon gaining their faith and confidence. Without Jared's support, he would never be able to help free Hope and Scott; more than that, there were critical warnings Jake could issue about the future now that he had Jared's ear. Maybe, just maybe, this whole seemingly pointless venture would be worth more than
medshki
after all. But only if he could get Jared to really listen.

Jake wrestled within his mind, struggling to find the appropriate proof, something that would make Jareshk realize that he'd known him all their lives—that this ludicrous moment, this wrong-body encounter, hardly mattered anyway when you tossed the dice of friendship.

"Anna believes me, sir."

Jared nodded regally. "And Anna is the reason that you are here now, before me. She said you gave her undeniable proof as to your identity. Surely, with as many years as you claim we have known each other, you can do the same for me."

Jake leaned back in the chair, glancing around the meeting room. He sat in the deepest recesses of a base that had been destroyed for him four years earlier. All that Jared and the resistance had created as a mainstay for operations had been obliterated with a few easy missiles.

"There are so many things I need to warn you about." Jake pressed his eyes shut. "All you have to do is believe me."

Jared glanced sideways at his wife, smiling. "Perhaps I've already been mated with a scientist for too long, but I do require some firm proof."

Kelsey took the lead, spreading her freckled hands atop the table between them. "Jake, nothing about what you're suggesting is impossible. We know that—I know it perhaps even more than Jared. Can you tell me why that might be?"

Ah, smart queen.
"The mitres technology fused within your mind is what enabled me to power the mitres to make my journey," he answered evenly. "You are the one who set it, who uploaded the codes and even allowed me temporary storage of them"—he gestured at his data collector—"in here."

Kelsey cocked her head with a winning look of approval. "Not bad. But … what if we believe you're a time traveler, but not that you're our ally?" Damn. And he'd thought he had her convinced.

Jake looked to his king for some sort of seal of approval, for a glimmer of faith in his dark eyes. Instead, Jared lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing as he waited for Jake to prove that he was, in fact, Scott Dillon.

Jake sighed. "Once, when we were boys," he began, "I had a
glunshai."
It was a small, slimy creature akin to a lizard. "You were what, seven? I was just about the same … and I brought that creature into your father's great hall during a formal speech before the elders. All of us—and I do mean all—were meant to be respectful, but I stashed that little guy in my pocket."

He dared a glance at Jared, but his king's face remained stoic, unmoved. Even so, Jake continued. "We sat there on that stone floor, listening to your father's address, but he kept going on and on." Jake couldn't help but smile, remembering. "I worked that little
glunshai
out of my pocket. And there he was, on the floor … and next thing we knew, he took off running across the hall. Man, you looked at me—and I looked at you—and all at once the elders swooped down on us. We were in some serious, deep
medshki,
and all because of a lizard." Jake began to laugh in earnest, just remembering their last moments of innocent childhood.

"They yanked me right out of that hall, pointing the finger at me, Jareshk, but you wouldn't let me take the blame. You stood, and your father hesitated during his speech, seeing you rise up that way, but you just smiled and followed me out of the great hall as regally as any prince should …  and insisted that it was
your
little pet that had caused the whole damned thing. You wouldn't let the blame ride on me. It was always that way with the two of us: We never would let the other take the fall."

Jake shut his eyes, feeling his face contort, his memories taking him too far back into an innocence that had vanished long ago. "That's what I remember, Jareshk. That you always stood up for me, even when I didn't deserve it. Even though I was
vlksai
and … not royal-blooded like you, by the gods, you always claimed me as brother anyway."

He was met with a long, enduring silence. "That proves nothing," his king and best friend said at last. "I want to believe you. Compel me to do so." Jake heard rough emotion in the man's voice, and it was enough to finally break him.

"You know me, Jareshk. You always have." Jake buried his face within his hands. "He killed her, and I had no choice. I had to take his life, too."

"Who killed 'her'?" Jared rose and took several determined steps closer.
"How
did he kill her? Tell me what you mean."

Everything about that fateful day overpowered Jake in the space of a moment. That Jared didn't know those events—that
this
version of the only brother he'd ever known had no knowledge of what he'd endured—tore at his heart.

He ground his teeth together. "Don't make me say it."

"I want to trust you, Jakob. I really do."

He cried out as if physically wounded, unable to meet his king's keen stare. "Then trust me! But don't make me live it all over again."

"You're going to have to, if I'm to figure any of this out."

Jake leaped to his feet and spun on his lifelong friend. "For just one moment I let my guard down. I went for help because Hope needed it, and Jake Tierny killed her. That's how it went down." Jake clutched at his head, the memories utterly unstoppable—and unendurable as well. Pulling at his hair, he tried to wrestle through the heartbreaking emotions that he'd already had to live once today.

"I went for a doctor, and when I returned Hope was dead. I never knew why, but Jake had killed her, was standing over her, blood still on his hands. I took his life because I had to. He'd taken everything from me, and so"—Jake drew in an unsteady, furious breath, just remembering—"I took the only thing I could. I took
him.
I took Jake Tierny's life because he killed her. Because he killed my wife, and he killed our baby in the process. And that, my king and friend, is why I am
him
today." Only once he'd finished did Jake realize that tears had filled his eyes, but he refused to cry; he didn't have that right, not here with his king and queen.

Jared rose from the table and strolled toward Kelsey, his face a troubled mask. She had been sitting to the side, simply listening. Already, as in the future, Jared obviously relied on her counsel a great deal. Time itself hung in the balance, Jared and Kelsey trading some kind of knowing look, then speaking in muted tones. He wished he were a deep intuitive, that he could enter their thoughts and discern whether they trusted him, and he didn't dare soul-gaze them at such an intense moment. But finally, at long last, Jared turned to face him.