Parasite

By Sara King

Love was the worst experience a parasite could endure.

It was a bitter taste best left for hosts to enjoy, best reserved for those who could afford the trust that came with it.

Yet Stuart was falling in love.

He’d tried to avoid it, tried to ignore it, tried desperately to fight it once he recognized it, but Allie had stubbornly pushed her way into his soul. That fact left Stuart paralyzed with the thought of what would come next. Eventually, he’d need to switch bodies. Eventually, he’d have to tell her the truth.

Was it better to get it over with now, while their love was still fresh and malleable, or was it better to wait until she was too set into the rhythm of love to be afraid?

And, if he did tell her, would she accept his new host? Would she be able to adapt to the new body, the new rhythms, the new face? Stuart thought not. She would probably react like the rest of her species--with fear, repulsion, disgust.

And yet, as she whispered into his host’s ear and giggled, Stuart knew he couldn’t lie to her much longer. He could feel his host straining for freedom, straining to take advantage of the naked woman in his bed.

Jareb Peverall, Stuart’s host, couldn’t see Allie, since Stuart had severed his access to his optical nerves, but Jareb could hear her. He could feel the bed they were lying in. He knew what they were doing together. For the last three hours, Stuart had felt Jareb’s overwhelming desire to rape his lover hovering at the edge of his consciousness.

His host was not a good person.

If Allie knew this, would she still rub the instep of her foot along his muscled leg? Would she still trace her fingertip through the thick blonde hair on Stuart’s host’s chest?

It felt wrong. Wrong, and dangerous. More than anything, Stuart wanted to change hosts, find someone more forgiving, less violent, for Allie’s sake. If Stuart ever lost control, Allie would suffer more than any woman before her, simply for loving Stuart, for what Stuart had done.

But does she love me, or does she love my host?

Stuart debated this, staring into her dark blue eyes.

She liked his host’s body, he was sure of that. She giggled and made delighted sounds when he swung her around and wrestled with her in bed. She was constantly admiring his host’s callused hands, his hard jaw, his tousled flaxen hair. She liked his height, his bulk, the hair on his chest.

But did she like Stuart?

If she knew, if he told her right now, would her loving face contort in a scream or would she blink off a moment of shock and smile and tell him she loved him anyway? Stuart suspected it would be the latter. As beautiful as Allie was, her soul outshone her looks a thousand times.

Stuart opened his mouth to tell her the truth, but, like a thousand times before, he hesitated.

You’re such a coward, he thought, looking into her kind blue eyes. They were like the deep ocean, almost black. Mysterious. Exquisite. A suzait could get lost in those eyes, forget what he was. Forget he was hunted, feared...

Hated.

“You’re thinking something,” Allie said, her delicate brown brows contorting in a tiny frown.

Stuart brought his host’s thumb up and gently rubbed the lines away. “It’s nothing.” Liar, his conscience screamed. Coward!

Allie caught his hand, her troubled look deepening. “What is it, Robert?”

“I...” I even lied to you about my name. You’re going to hate me.

Her face fell. “You have to go, don’t you?”

Stuart hesitated. He’d met her in a spacer’s bar, on his way to Helius. He’d never planned on staying on Odan, had only stopped to change hosts to throw any pursuing Species Operations officers off his trail, but the truth was, he had nowhere better to go. Due to his nature, Stuart didn’t have family. He had no one to miss him. No one to love him.

Until now.

“I thought this was too good to be true,” Allie said. It came out as a whimper.

Allie flung herself from the bed and began throwing her clothes back on.

In his shock, Stuart accidentally gave his host visual access for a brief second. Upon seeing the naked woman, Stuart’s host made another vicious, animal lunge at freedom, his carnal instincts overriding even his fear of Stuart. Stuart lashed out at the disgusting creature and locked him back into the darkness he reserved only for the most repulsive of hosts, but the moments it took to subdue Jareb allowed Allie to dress and rush into the street.

Stuart rolled out of bed and rushed to the door. “Allie, wait!”

She didn’t turn. He could hear her crying echoing upon the hard red Odanian shopfronts, her footsteps slapping against the rain-slickened cobbles.

Stuart, who had no sense of modesty save for the wariness of the extra attention that unnecessary exposure brought him, rushed after her. Immediately, he felt the hot drizzle of rain against his skin. Several street vendors stared under their dripping canopies. An umbrella-less old woman stopped in the street and grinned toothlessly at him in the muggy heat, gray hair slicked against her brow. Someone--maybe the butcher--yelled at him to put some clothes on.

That made Allie turn.

Immediately, confusion and teary delight mingled on her elegant face.

“Allie,” Stuart said, taking one of her tiny hands in his. “Please. I’m not leaving. I have something else to tell you. Something you might not want to hear. For the past three weeks, I’ve just been trying to figure out how to say it so you won’t...”

So she won’t what? Run away screaming? Turn you into the S.O.? Pull out a gun and blow you away?

Allie waited for him to finish.

“...so you won’t overreact,” Stuart said lamely.

His lover’s hot Odanian temper flared, as steamy as the rain running between his host’s shoulder-blades. “Why do men always think we’ll overreact? What’d you do? Steal something? Kill someone?”

I’ve killed lots of people, Stuart thought, but he didn’t say it. They were mostly bad men--whenever Stuart had a choice, he made sure he took someone who used his body for evil--but it made him no less of a murderer. No less of an abomination.

When he didn’t respond, Allie whirled and stalked away.

Stuart caught up with her, cursing his thick tongue. “Allie, I need to tell you somewhere safe. I can’t do it here.” His skin was beginning to prickle under the stares he was receiving. Suzait, by their very nature, desired as little attention as possible.

“I’m having lunch,” Allie said, flashing him a mischievous smile. “If you want to tell me, tell me inside.” She pushed a restaurant door open and stepped through it.