Cursed (The Brookehaven Vampires #4) (47 page)

Pausing, terror ripped through me.

I hesitantly raised my fingers to my face and felt the skin above my left eye. My fear was realized when my fingers touched the raised, pink scar over Carter’s eye.

Without a second thought, I busted down my bedroom door.

I thought I was going to pass out. The room actually started spinning.

I held onto the doorframe as if it was my only means of survival. It very well may have been, because I wanted to kill myself.

I was on top of her. I could see myself in bed with her, but I was also standing in the doorway shouting every last curse word I had ever heard and threatening my own body’s life. But not with my own voice.

But how could it be me if I was standing in the doorway seeing myself with her?

I knew of only one way…
Magic.

Laney was screaming
—shouting for Carter to get out of the room, but she was looking right at me.

I lost it then, and I launched myself across the room, jerking my own body off of her. It felt like the world was suddenly going in slow motion as I watched a naked version of myself hit the floor.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Laney screamed as she pulled the sheet around herself. She was looking right at me. At the
me
that was standing over
my
body that was staring up at me, naked, and clearly confused.

Naked.
This meant only one thing…

A
sound escaped me that very much resembled a roar. I wanted to kill that naked version of myself. It took everything in me to control myself.

Laney had the sheet wrapped tightly around herself. She was horrified. I could not feel her though
—not her emotions and not even the constant pull I felt toward her.

Shaking, I looked back down at the naked version of myself, the naked version that was staring up at me. Again, I considered killing that me on the floor.

For a moment, I wondered if killing that version of me would return my consciousness to where it belonged. Then I quickly realized that if I killed that me, I would have nowhere to go. I would actually be dead. My head was beginning to ache.

This isn’t happening.

“Get dressed,” I growled as I walked away, back to the doorway of
my
bedroom.

This was no dream. This was a nightmare
! A nightmare which must be remedied as soon as possible, so that the
real
me could take the
real
Carter’s life for what he’d just done…with my mate.

I felt sick.

To make matters even more complicated, Kiera had returned. She was standing in the open door of the apartment. She was yelling, at Carter. Of course she thought
I
was Carter, therefore she was yelling at me.

“What are you doing?” she shouted. She had both hands on her hips this time. She meant big business.

I really didn’t care. I had one objective: Call Felix. Fix nightmare. Kill the real Carter. Okay, maybe I had more than one objective…

“I really don’t know,” I responded to her. “What are you doing?”

For a moment, she looked even more put out by my question. Then she rolled her eyes and pulled a notebook from her backpack. She held it out for me. I didn’t move. I was still holding the doorframe for support, and I was afraid if I looked back into my bedroom, I might actually attack my own body and try to strangle myself.

Kiera shook the notebook at me as if that would make me take it.

I narrowed my eyes at her, and when she didn’t flinch, I remembered Carter wasn’t all that scary, even when he was angry.

Still visibly shaking, I crossed the room and grabbed the notebook, jerking it out of her hand. “What is this?” Even as distressed as I was, I figured it would be better to play Carter’s roll rather than have Kiera realize her fiancé had just had sex with…
Oh god!

My stomach turned. The room was spinning again.

It wasn’t actually Carter,
I tried to reassure myself. But he had seen her body…been
in
her body.
He knows what she feels like…
My mind was reeling. I rolled the notebook up in one hand and crushed it as I held myself upright against the back of the sofa. My vision was actually starting to blur.

The door slammed behind me
, and I spun in time to see it bounce back. The hinges were busted. Laney hurried to hold it closed. She was only wearing the sheet from our bed.

Room. Spinning.

“It’s a list of ideas that I wrote down,” Kiera said, interrupting the horrid thoughts rushing through my mind. I returned my focus to her. “Go over them. Let me know what you think.” She smiled, totally oblivious to my nightmare.

“Ideas for what?” I asked as I choked back bile.

“The wedding, of course! Geez, Carter,” she said as she turned and left.

I was beginning not to like her.

I rushed back to my room. Shoving the door open from where it had been propped against the frame, I found that my actual body and Laney were now dressed. She looked at me. At me in Carter’s body. She still looked scared.

“What’s going on?” her voice was unsteady.

I took a step toward her. She held out her hand to stop me.

“No. Tell me what’s going on,” she said, looking to both of us.

“Laney, I don’t know. I’ll call Felix,” I told her, but it was Carter’s voice, not mine trying to reassure her.

“Somehow he’s in me and I’m in him,” my voice said, rather bluntly, but it was Carter speaking, using my voice and my mouth.

Laney’s eyes widened. I wanted to rush to her and hold her and make everything right, but I wasn’t me. Instead I threw the rolled up notebook at, well, myself.

I watched my own self shout at me when the notebook hit my body in the chest. “Dude, that was uncalled for,” my voice said.

That was when it was clear to Laney that the words my mouth and voice had just spoken had come from Carter. Not me.

She stared at me,
and I felt just as helpless and terrified as she looked.

I had to be a dreaming.

I was in Laney’s room, in her bed, under the covers with her. She was smiling at me, telling me good morning. Then she kissed me the same way she’d kissed me back when we were drunk. Back before I’d gotten engaged, and before she’d bonded with Oliver.

I knew it was only my subconscious remembering that night, replaying it in a different way.

I went with it.

I could feel how much she wanted me—how much she loved me. Those feelings were so overpowering and so intense that the kiss led to more, and I jumped at the chance to be with her. Because it was a dream after all, so I wasn’t technically doing anything wrong.

I wasted no time getting her naked and pushing my way inside her. The touch of her lips, the way her skin felt against mine, the way I could feel how much she wanted and loved me
, was just amazing.

I knew I wouldn’t last long, especially when she moaned and bit her lip the way she did. I thought for sure the dream would be over soon and I’d be waking up with wet sheets. That, or she’d turn into some giant bug creature from last night’s movie and eat
me. But she didn’t.

Instead, something even more bizarre happened.

I heard my own voice shouting Laney’s name from the other side of the door. There was the hammering of a fist on the door that accompanied her name being shouted once again, and then the door busted in and I saw myself standing in the doorway.

Laney screamed my name, and not because I’d just taken her to some sexual happy place. She was screaming at me to get out of her room. But she wasn’t looking at me, she was looking at the me in the doorway—the version of me that looked like
he might kill me.

She kept screaming for me to get out. She was struggling to cover us with the blanket, but she was screaming at the
other me, not the me still on top of her.

Then the doorway-me leaped across the room and jerked me
off of Laney and tossed me to the floor.

I was seriously confused as I lay there on the floor. Where the hell was this dream going? What was my subconscious trying to tell me? Was it trying to tell me I had unresolved feelings for Laney? No, that’s just crazy.

I stared up at myself. I was very curious why the hell the other me looked like he wanted to kill me. I had no desire to take my own life. Why would my subconscious suggest such a thing? Did all of this have something to do with the fact I was far from ready to be a father?

Then a wave of pure anger washed over me. I didn’t know what to do, how to deal with it, or where the fuck it
came from. It was a horrible feeling, especially mixed with the confusion Laney and I were both…feeling…

Uh, wait a minute…

The Carter standing over me growled for the two of us to get dressed. His fists were balled as he stepped over me and walked back to the door. That’s when I heard Kiera’s voice.

Things didn’t seem much like a dream anymore, but rather a really fucked up nightmare.

Bare-ass naked, I scrambled to my feet.

I glanced down at unrecognizable parts of my body. My legs were too long, my abs were…too tight, to say the least, and my…uh, well, we’re not even gonna go there. I just know
it
wasn’t mine.

Upon further examination, I discovered a really large dragon tattoo on my left side.

HOLY FUCK!
I’m not me! I’m Oliver! I’m
in
Oliver!

Oh god…It was real…
This was really happening…

Oh, shit… I just had sex with Laney… Granted, I hadn’t finished… Pretty sure that wasn't going to matter when Oliver killed me…

Wrapped in nothing but a sheet, Laney shot out of the bed, ran to the door, and slammed it. The door bounced back from the splintered doorframe and mangled hinges that were hardly holding it upright. She slammed it again and held it closed with her back to it.

“Get dressed, Oliver,” she hissed.

It took me a minute to realize she was talking to me.

“What the hell was that about?”
she said as she rushed to her side of the bed.

She was standing in front of the window, the blinds closed, when she dropped the sheet. She hurried to pull her pajamas back on.

I stared. I couldn’t help it.

I shook my head and considered slapping myself. The other me, the
actual
me minus my brain, had left the room to talk to my fiancée.

I grabbed Oliver’s pajama bottoms and threw them on.

When the me that wasn’t really me returned, he had a rolled up notebook in his hand. At first I thought it might be his weapon of choice, ‘cause I knew he wanted to kill me. I could feel it. It was nauseating. Then I recognized the notebook. It was Kiera’s notebook, the one that had her name with my last name written all over the cover.

Laney stared at the Carter standing in the busted doorway. She was really frightened of that me. The feeling was unsettling. I was pretty sure I was going to hurl, and soon.

“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice far from steady.

The other me took a step toward her, but she held up her hand to stop
him. “No,” she said, “tell me what’s going on.” She looked from the Carter standing in the doorway to the me that was in her boyfriend’s body.

“Laney, I don’t know,” the other me said. “I’ll call Felix.”

“Somehow he’s in me and I’m in him,” I said, but it wasn’t my voice, and it freaked me out to hear Oliver’s voice saying the words I just thought.

Laney’s eyes grew super wide, we’re talking huge.
The fear that coursed through her hit me and about had me doubling over. Then the other me threw the notebook at me. It hit me in the chest, hard.

“Ow!” I shouted. “Dude, that was uncalled for,” I said. My words sounded
so
weird in Oliver’s voice.

I think that’s when Laney believed me. She looked from the Oliver-me to the Carter-me in the doorway. She was scared, I could feel how scared and unsure she was. I could actually
feel
her emotions. And I could feel his, the other me. He was just as terrified, if not more. It was then I realized I should be freaking out too. And I did. I totally flipped out.

Switched

I needed to sit. And maybe vomit.

I dropped into the chair near the couch. I hugged my knees to my chest and stared at the floor.

“Tell me exactly what the two of you have done in the last twenty-four hours,” Felix said, his voice booming around the apartment.

Felix had arrived shortly after Carter, who was actually Oliver, called him and told him that we had a situation. A Situation? Sure, or maybe it was more like a freakin’ EMERGENCY!