Chapter 4
Kaden woke with a start and glanced at his clock.
Just after four in the morning. One inhalation and he groaned at the pain in his ribs.
Not just his ribs. Everywhere. Fucking Harris.
Thank God Kaden had never given him a key.
Even if one of the other tenants in the house let him through the front door, Kaden would never again allow him into his bedsit.
He turned his head and yelped. A blue hand lay beside him. Human-looking, the right size but it wasn’t attached to anything.
“Joe!” Kaden croaked. “Are you okay?”
The hand moved. A finger brushed over Kaden’s cheek, down the bridge of his nose and traced the line of his mouth.
Kaden pressed his lips together. The hand softened, dissolving into a thin, warm liquid that flowed down his neck onto the duvet.
There it gathered itself again, reforming into a hand that tugged the covers down to his waist.
Kaden lay very still. Joe shifted shape, sliding up and down his chest, pooling into a small mass before spreading out once more. A strange calm settled over Kaden, but it was unnatural and heavy, as though his muscles had forgotten how they worked.
Had Harris damaged something important last night?
Can I move?
He wriggled his fingers and toes. Relief loosened his chest.
Joe rested over his heart now, pulsing in time with the beat. It looked…weird.
“My heart has to keep beating or I’ll die.” Just in case Joe had any ideas.
Joe drifted upward, gliding along Kaden’s collarbone, then down again, tracing each rib in turn.
“Are you…mapping me?”
A touch against his middle finger—yes. Joe coiled around his arm and tugged.
“Want me to stand up?”
Another single touch.
“Not sure I can.”
Everything ached, but he forced himself upright, gripping the headboard for balance.
Joe flowed along his arm and across his back, covering small areas at a time.
Wherever he touched, the pain dulled and soothed as if stroked away by something warm and impossibly soft. Kaden felt as if he was half-dreaming.
Joe slid over his face, his chest, his back again, even his hair. No dampness remained behind. Just warmth. He traced Kaden’s jaw, skimmed his eyelashes, curled briefly around his ears, ticklish enough to make Kaden squirm, before drifting lower.
To the waistband of his sleep pants.
Kaden stiffened. “Er… no. That’s not happening.”
A tendril slipped beneath the fabric, brushing his hip. Kaden bit back a sound. Joe twisted, almost as if looking up at him, and tugged. Kaden yanked his trousers back into place. Joe tugged again.
“No.”
Another tug.
Kaden exhaled heavily. “In the interests of science, right?” He muttered under his breath. “This is so strange. Fine. Just get it over with.”
His single item of clothing dropped to his ankles. Kaden shivered slightly as Joe slid down one leg, curling around his toes before gliding back up his calf to his thigh. The pain had faded even more now, still there, but distant. That had to be down to Joe.
Then pressure brushed the seam of his backside and Kaden flinched. “No. Not there. Please.”
Joe withdrew immediately, curling instead around his hip. He paused, then cautiously extended a tendril toward Kaden’s groin.
Kaden’s breath caught. Could he? He forced himself to stay still, to watch. Joe had stopped when asked. He wasn’t hurting him. Just…exploring. Kaden focused on that as Joe moved over him. The sensation was undeniably intimate, though not quite enough to stir anything more.
Thank God.
When Joe finally moved away, Kaden sagged with relief. Joe slipped down his leg, tracing each toe again, then flowed back up onto the bed. Kaden sat down heavily.
I definitely don’t hurt as much. “Thank you,” Kaden whispered.
And then the impossible happened.
A figure sat beside him. Human-shaped, faint and insubstantial, little more than a pale grey outline and smaller than Kaden, but with his face.
“Oh—” Kaden forgot how to breathe. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t look away. Was that Joe’s plan? To become him? But no one would mistake this ghostly imitation for the real thing.
The figure smiled, then collapsed in on itself, shrinking back into a football-sized shape.
“Wow.” Bloody hell. Terrifying. Fascinating. As long as Joe didn’t decide to replace him. He half-wished he had as little imagination as Harris.
He pulled his sleep pants up and lay down. “Happy now? You know women are different, right? They can reproduce. Guys can’t. They have different…sex organs. They put… Oh God, I’ll explain tomorrow.” He might not ache but he was exhausted.
Joe slid closer and brushed a tendril over Kaden’s lips. A kiss? No, not a kiss. Pressure…
“Go to sleep, okay? Tomorrow we— What are—?”
Not in my mouth! But it was too late. Kaden clenched his teeth and tried to pull Joe back, but there was nothing to get hold of.
Joe squirmed and slid through his fingers, pressing so hard into Kaden’s part-open lips that he couldn’t close his mouth.
His teeth were being forced open and there was nothing he could do.
He kept trying to drag Joe back, but more and more of the silky substance was forcing a way inside.
Kaden panicked, completely freaked out. His heart was going crazy.
He was trying to tell Joe to stop but Joe continued to force his way inside him, filling his mouth, sliding down his throat.
Kaden choked and gagged, drumming his heels on the bed.
He dragged at his mouth, thrashing around but he couldn’t stop what was happening.
Crying out was impossible. His mouth and throat were full and he couldn’t breathe, not even through his nose.
I’m choking…drowning…dying. Darkness clawed at him, stealing his vision. He wasn’t making any noise now that his throat was completely blocked. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t do anything. After all he’d done and Joe was killing him.
As the last slug of Joe slid down his throat and air finally entered his lungs, Kaden rolled off the bed onto the carpet and heaved, his throat contracting, his stomach churning as his body tried to eject what he’d swallowed.
But he couldn’t throw up.
He put his fingers down his throat. He gagged but nothing came out of his mouth.
He might be breathing but the awareness of what had happened almost made him wish he wasn’t.
A cold, tingling sensation swept over him.
Maybe he was still going to die, just not of suffocation.
He felt wrong. Heavy. Incredibly tired. Sick.
Very cold. Then hot. Was Joe exploring inside his body as he had outside?
That wasn’t good. Human bodies couldn’t cope with that sort of invasion.
“Joe…” he rasped. “Get out.”
All Kaden had done was be kind. He didn’t deserve this. Tears sprang into his eyes. He twisted onto his back. Except he hadn’t made his body move like that. Joe had. Kaden trembled in shock, his pulse racing, his heart hurting because it was beating so hard.
Then his heart suddenly calmed. Not the pacemaker’s work, so it had to be Joe. Kaden had to lie there and let whatever this was happen. His entire body prickled as if his veins were carrying an electric current, then pain slammed into his skull and everything went black.
Wake up! Wake up!
Kaden’s eyes snapped open. Harris? His heart thundered in his chest. But there was no sign of anyone in his room.
He was in bed. His room was a mess. What…
? Then he remembered and wished he hadn’t.
He felt strange, somehow disconnected. Had last night really happened?
Harris assaulting him, then Joe making the pain go away?
Joe had… Kaden stopped himself going down that path.
He pushed himself to a sitting position expecting it to hurt and it didn’t. Kaden pushed down the duvet. There wasn’t a mark on his chest. Where were his bruises and scrapes? He started to breathe more rapidly. What the fuck? What the actual fuck!
Are you okay?
Kaden dragged the duvet back over himself, hiding beneath it. He sucked in a ragged breath then froze. That voice was inside his head. In my fucking head. Oh God. What the hell is happening to me?
Breathe, Kaden. Please.
He came out from under the duvet and breathed in. “Joe?”
Are you okay?
“No, I’m not okay.” I am so not fucking okay. He had a voice in his… Not just a voice. Joe. Oh God. Oh God!
But your heart rate is fine. So is your breathing. Now at least. Please remember to keep breathing. No organs are struggling. What’s wrong?
What’s wrong? Fucking hell! “Why did you force your way inside me?” Kaden was freaked out that he was even having to ask. “How are you talking in my head? You know English? Oh God, of course you do. You understood when I was talking to you. But how? What are you doing? What do you want?”
Too many questions.
“Answer them!”
I have an inbuilt translator. I listened to everyone in the lab and built up a basic vocabulary. Now I know all the words that you know. I’m inside you because I’m learning what it’s like to be human.
For a long moment, Kaden was so stunned, he couldn’t speak.
You helped me. You’re a good person. You saved me. You wanted me to live.
Not always a good person. Not for what he was thinking now. Wishing he hadn’t… Wondering if he should kill… But he snapped off the thoughts as memories rushed back. Harris. Then Joe.
Much as he wanted it all to have been a dream, it hadn’t been.
Much as he wished he’d had a mental breakdown, that wasn’t the case.
“You didn’t need to be inside me to learn what it’s like to be human.”
Yes, I did. I had to know everything. I healed you.
Bruises and cuts couldn’t just vanish. It was impossible to heal that fast. But Joe had healed his finger. Kaden had seen him do it.
“I need you to get out of my body.”
I can’t. Not yet. I can’t survive in the form I was in. I need you. You need me. I made your injuries better. I helped you. Harris had damaged your kidneys and your liver, broken your ribs…