Three Of A Kind

by Susan Hayes

  Anne nodded, and he caught another glimmer of a smile. “I’ll let her know. If you would follow me, I’ll take you to your room, and you can get settled. Do you know which of you is going first?”

  “That would be me,” Blade said. Blade was always the one charging in first. He volunteered for the most dangerous assignments, took the toughest jobs, and stood between the world and his brothers, protecting them as best he could. This should be a simple procedure, but none of them had been to see a lab-tech since the day they were freed. This was unknown territory for all of them.

  Anne left them in one of the nondescript rooms of the med-center. The second the door slid shut, Dirk turned to Blade. “Don’t screw this up for us. No flirting. No innuendoes, and try to be a gentleman.”

  Blade snorted with laughter. “None of us know how to behave that way.”

  Lance chimed in. “It’s easy, Blade. Just do the exact opposite of your first instincts, and you should be fine.”

  “Asshole,” Blade shot back.

  “I rest my case. Next time, drop the locker room insults and try to be charming, instead.”

  Dirk slapped his open hand against an open stretch of countertop, making everything sitting on it rattle and jump. “This is what I’m talking about. It’s time we stepped up our game. I don’t want to be drifting around the galaxy alone for the rest of my life, and I know you don’t, either.”

  His brothers quieted and then nodded in unison. Dirk nodded with them. Despite being genetically identical, they didn’t always agree on everything. When they did, though, there wasn’t a force in the universe that could stop them.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alyson exited the surgical suite feeling hopeful. Nya’s injuries weren’t as bad as she had feared, and the wounded cyborg had accepted Lieksa’s help with only minimal resistance.

  “Everything going well in there?” Anne was waiting for her in the corridor with a fresh mug of coffee in her hand. Since Anne only drank tea, that could only mean one thing: there were other patients waiting. The coffee was a peace offering and a sure sign that she wasn’t going to get back to her office anytime soon.

  She took the offered mug and downed a scalding mouthful before answering. “Better than I hoped, to be honest. Nya should be at one-hundred percent in a matter of days. At least, that’s what Lieksa told me. I’m just glad she’s working here, now. I still have a lot to learn before I’m half as good as she is with cybernetic implants.”

  “Fate puts us all where we need to be when we need to be there.”

  “Mmhmm. And where does Fate think I need to be right at the moment?” She jiggled the mug in her hand. “You wouldn’t be bringing me coffee if I didn’t have someplace I needed to be.”

  Anne chuckled. “Very true. You’re needed in exam room three. Cyborg patient. A routine comm-channel activation. Lieksa was supposed to do it, but since she’s busy, you’re up.”

  “There was a time when I never imagined that anything to do with the cyborgs would be considered routine. Do we have the specs on what needs to be done?”

  Anne looked faintly insulted. “Of course we do. Everything you need to know is in the file I just sent you.”

  “Thank you.” She offered Anne a tired smile. “I mean it. You’re the glue that holds this place together.”

  “It’s my pleasure, Dr. Jefferies. You take care of everyone else, and I’ll do my best to take care of you and the other doctors.” She patted Alyson on the cheek. “At least until you find someone better-looking to take over the job.”

  “There isn’t a man in existence foolish enough to take me on, so I think you’re going to have a job for life.”

  Anne clucked and shook her gray head. “The only fools are the ones who can’t see what a catch you are. If I had a son your age…”

  “They’d be married already, just like the rest of your brood. Aren’t seven grandchildren enough for you?” Alyson took one last sip of coffee, took her leave of Anne, and set off for exam room three.

  She paused at the door to check the file and frowned when she noticed Anne hadn’t included the patient’s name. Odd. That wasn’t the kind of detail Anne normally missed. Her eyes were still on the file as she entered the room, but she didn’t need to look up to know who was waiting for her. No one else in the whole in the galaxy affected her the way the Trello triplets did.

  The tablet slipped a little in her hand, and she uttered a soft gasp of surprise before she managed to regain her composure. They had to think she was a complete idiot, because every time she met them her normally sharp mind turned to mush and started leaking out her ears. It was embarrassing, but nothing she had tried made it stop.

  When she was around the brothers, her carefully crafted armor always seemed to melt away, leaving her feeling vulnerable and slightly off-balance. She hated feeling like that, so invariably she would find some reason to be anywhere the three of them weren’t. They made her think of things she was better off without. Dating and love were wonderful concepts in theory, but in her experience, they only led to disappointment and hurt.

  “Hello, you three. You startled me.” She lifted the tablet, managing to tighten her grip on it at the same time. “Your names weren’t on the file I was given. Which of you is here for the comm channel link?”

  “Hello, Dr. Jefferies.” Dirk spoke first.

  She knew it was Dirk, because he was the only one of the three who wore his hair short. She could tell Lance and Blade apart, too. They were physically identical, but they each had their own unique personality and mannerisms.

  “Hi,” Lance chimed in with an easy, welcoming grin that gave away his identity.

  “Hey, Doc. I’m going first, but all three of us are here for the same thing.” Blade stepped forward and smiled down at her, eyes twinkling. “We’re putting ourselves in your talented hands.”

  She dove behind the walls of her professional reserve and tried to ignore the pulse-pounding effects of his smile. They were all incredibly attractive, but there was something about Blade’s flirtatious smile that made her toes curl. “You have nothing to worry about. I’ve done several of these procedures, and it’s quick and painless.”

  “You don’t have to rush on our account, Doc.”

  Dirk cleared his throat. “What Blade meant to say was that we appreciate you doing this for us. I know Lieksa was called away to an emergency. Is everything alright with her and her patient?”

  Dirk’s phrasing seemed stilted, and Alyson wondered if he had misgivings about her stepping in for Lieksa. “She’s still finishing up with her patient, but everything looks good. If you’d rather, I could reschedule you for another time when Lieksa is free? I know she’s the certified tech, so if you’d prefer—

  “Oh, hell, no. We want you,” Blade declared.

  A jolt of pure need slammed into her, knocking every sane thought out of her head. “You’ve got me.”

  “Not yet, we don’t,” Lance muttered.

  “What do you need us to do, Alyson?” Dirk interjected, steering the conversation away from…she wasn’t sure what.

  What did she need them to do? That was a loaded question. She needed them to stop being so damned attractive, for starters. She didn’t have time for distractions, and the Trello brothers had been a source of constant distraction since they’d walked into her life and tried to take over.

  “I need Blade to take a seat in that chair over there while I get the equipment. Oh, and you might want to take off your shirt, too. I have to put some contact gel on your skin, and I don’t want to ruin your clothing.”

  Blade grinned. “Strip. Sit. Stay. I can do that.”

  She turned her back to Blade to give him a bit of privacy, only to find herself face to face with Dirk. “I need to put this down on the counter,” she said, holding up her half-drunk cup of coffee and nodding to the countertop behind him.

  Instead of moving out of her way, he held out his hand. “I’ll take it.”

  “Thank you.” She
handed him the mug and tried not to notice the way his fingers brushed against hers as he took it from her. Why was it that the slightest touch or word from any of the brothers did more for her than a night of dinner and dancing with any other man she’d ever met? And why had the universe sent the brothers into her orbit now, of all times? Too many people were counting on her. The cyborgs, her patients, and the other doctors employed at the center. She couldn’t take the chance right now.

  “Anytime. Anything you need,” Dirk said, his vivid green eyes locking with hers.

  For a split second, she considered telling him about the note and it’s cryptic warning, but she knew it was a bad idea. They were already protective of her. More so than they had any right to be. They had been assigned to guard her clinic and one of her patients last month, and then watched over her for days afterward because they were worried about her visits from corporate lawyers rattling sabers. If they knew she was in real danger, they wouldn’t let her out of their sight. They’d turn her life and her med-center upside down and make it impossible for her to accomplish everything she needed to.

  “That’s sweet of you, but I’m fine. Everything is progressing, if a little slower than I’d like.”

  Dirk nodded. He and his siblings were all part of the group working to counter corporate interference in the cyborgs’ lives. “It’s hard to find the answers to questions you can’t come out and ask directly, but we’re getting there.” He grinned. “Slowly.”

  “I’m not a fan of slow. I understand it’s necessary sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Blade said.

  Once again, Alyson wondered if they were talking about the same thing. Everything the brothers did and said seemed to carry a double meaning. She couldn’t decide if it was actually happening, or if her attraction to them affected her thinking. Given the kind of men they were, it was probably both.

  “Well, I can promise this will be over quickly. You’ll all be out of here in fifteen minutes or so.” She turned to face Blade once more. He was seated in the chair as directed, his shirt laid across one thick thigh. It was the first time she’d seen any of them shirtless, and two things struck her right away. The first was that Blade was huge– heavily muscled, with broad shoulders and a build as powerful as it was beautiful. The second thing that hit her was his lack of scars. Every cyborg she had ever treated had them--remnants of injuries not even their nanotech-enhanced bodies could heal perfectly.

  “So, how does this work?” Blade asked, watching her intently as she organized the equipment on her tray and carried it over to his side.

  “I’ll put a little of this gel on your neck and then move this device over your neck until it makes contact with the receiver implanted under your skin. Once they’re connected, all I have to do is input the new codes, and you should be linked. I’ll have you test it and make sure it’s working, and you’ll be done.” She paused, then added. “Haven’t any of you done this before? I thought it was a pretty common procedure.”

  Blade shook his head. “This is a first for us. We’ve only ever been able to communicate with each other.”

  “What about the rest of your batch siblings? Command channels? Surely you had those?”

  Lance’s answer surprised her. “We were never in combat, Doc. We weren’t brought online until after the war was over. It’s only ever been the three of us.”

  “That explains the lack of scars. I was wondering.” There were dozens of questions she wanted to ask, but she didn’t. None of the cyborgs she’d met liked to talk about their past. There was too much darkness there, and more pain than any doctor could ever hope to heal.

  *

  Blade tugged at the shirt in his lap, pulling it over the steel rod that had replaced his dick the instant Alyson had told him to take his shirt off. Any second now, she was going to be touching him, and he hoped like hell his cock didn’t break the clasp on his pants when she did.

  “If you’re curious about anything, just ask. My life’s an open book, and a short one at that,” he told her.

  She hesitated for a second and then nodded. “Alright. What’s it like, being connected all the time? And are you sure you want to do this, adding more people to your comms? Isn’t it going to be a bit invasive to have someone new in your head?”

  “We’re triplets, which means we’re genetically identical. Not to mention we had the same basic behavioral programming installed. We’re connected by more than our internal comm channels. It’s hard to explain, but most of the time we don’t need to talk to each other to know what we’re thinking.”

  She squeezed some of the gel onto her slender fingers, and moved behind him, out of his sight.

  “I’m going to apply the gel now. It’s going to feel cold.”

  “You do what you need to, Doc.” He could use a little cold right now. Like maybe an entire bucket of ice water dumped over his head. His brothers were both aware of his current problem, and the only reason the bastards weren’t laughing out loud was because they knew their turns were coming.

  Her gel coated fingers glided over his neck, and his next breath came out in a strangled hiss. Blade had dreamed about having her hands on him since the day they’d met, and now that it was happening, it wasn’t enough. He didn’t want a gentle, clinical touch. He wanted her stroking him, caressing and exploring. He wanted to span her slender waist in his hands and feel those long legs of hers wrapped around his hips.

  “Sorry, the cold sensation will pass in a second,” she murmured.

  “No problem.” Nope, the tiny chill from the gel wasn’t his problem. It was the fire in his blood that was going to kill him. Spontaneous combustion due to sexual frustration was not the way he planned to die, but right now, it was a serious possibility.

  “I’m going to search for the receiver now. You might feel a slight buzz or itch when it connects. Try not to move if that happens. You ready?”

  He started to nod but stopped as he remembered he was supposed to stay still. “Ready.”

  It only took a few seconds for her to find the receiver and make the connection. There was a momentary tingle, just like she had warned him.

  “I’m adding the new codes now. You should be able to talk to Mack and Dash once I’m done. This is their shared comms code, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s Mack and Dash we’re linking with. We report to them on the job, so it made sense. We’ll probably link with the others later, but we’re taking it slowly.” Dirk shrugged. “Like Lance said, this is the first time we’ve been linked to anyone but ourselves. It’s going to take some getting used to.”

  “This isn’t really a Corp-Sec thing though, is it?” she asked.

  “Not really. It’s another safety measure. We can call each other faster this way, and stay in contact without anyone listening in. With what’s going on right now, we need all the protection we can get.”

  “All of us,” Lance agreed. “Most especially the only doctor on the Drift who cares about our kind. You're careful, aren’t you, Doc?”

  Blade felt the tiny tremors pass from her hand into the receiver pressed to his neck and knew the truth before she even opened her mouth to answer.

  “I’ve got a new security system protecting this place and everyone in it. I’ll be fine.”

  Alyson was lying. Blade was certain of it. Something had their lovely doctor worried, but she was too stubborn to admit it.

  “If it wasn’t fine, would you tell us?” he asked.

  There was a brief pause before she answered, and he swore her fingers trembled again. “If there was anything wrong and I thought you could help, then yes, I’d tell you. But there isn’t.”

  She was lying again. Blade bit his tongue to stop from calling her on it. He didn’t know her well enough to know why she was lying, but he did know that if he pushed her, she’d push back hard. If that happened, they’d lose whatever progress they had made with her. The woman was as stubborn as she was beautiful.

  “There. You’re all set.
Try communicating with Mack and Dash, and we’ll find out if it worked.”

  “I’ve got faith in you, Doc.” It took him a second or two to focus enough to activate the link for the first time.

  “Hey, guys. Did it work?” he sent the message and got an immediate response.

  “It did. Which one are you?” Mack sent back.

  “It’s Blade. I guess we better learn to introduce ourselves at the beginning of any conversation and save you two the confusion.”

  “You don’t do that for each other?” Dash asked.

  “Nope. We can tell each other apart most of the time.”

  “Did it work?” Alyson asked.

  “Perfectly.”

  “Signing off for now. Time for the doc to link my brothers in.”

  “Tell her we say hi, and to send Lieksa home once she’s done with her patient. We want our girl home.” Mack said.

  “You got it.”

  “Mack and Dash say hi, and wanted me to remind you that they want their girlfriend back as soon as possible.”

  “Of course they do. They get twitchy if she’s out of their sight for too long. Are all cyborgs programmed to be overprotective, or is it just the ones I know?”

  Lance answered first, and his response was better than anything Blade would have come up with.

  “We’re all hardwired to defend the things we care about. The corporations programmed us to protect our creators. Once that coding was removed, the drive to defend and protect was still there, but we can choose what, or who, we care about.”

  Alyson’s only response was a noncommittal hum as she wiped the gel from the back of Blade’s neck, then touched a hand to his shoulder. “You’re all done. Lance, Dirk, which one of you is next?”

  Blade stood, keeping his back to her as he pulled his shirt back on and tugged it down so it hid his erection. He wanted to know what Alyson wasn’t telling them, but she already refused to take them seriously, and there was no point in giving her another reason to push them away.