If only I could keep them both.
But that was the worst, most shameful idea of all. It shouldn’t even have entered his head.
Though once it was there, Sorin found it very…very hard to get rid of it.
Don’t want to fucking lose him—either of them, Bron thought as he watched Sorin pace in front of the couch while the two of them waited for Kayla.
Sorin was the best friend he’d ever had—the kind of brother he’d wished for as a child growing up in the Hursk Tribe on Rageron.
The Hursk were a violent tribe with a long tradition of infighting and feuding. Bron had grown up in a house full of anger and shouting—of punches and blows. He had been ridiculed by his father and older brothers for his love of learning, and most of all for his interest in science.
Only his mother had encouraged him in his interests. It was she who had sent him off-world to attend secondary schools that emphasized academics instead of blood sports—she who taught him a man was defined by his interests and his intellect—not by how hard he could punch or how many enemies he could kill in battle.
Bron had cried like a baby the night she died. And then he had taken himself to the Mother Ship to start a new life…and that was where he’d found Sorin—a friend of his heart sent by the Goddess herself.
He loved the Blood Kindred for his quiet grace and dry wit and above all, his devotion to logic. As he watched him pace, Bron reflected that Sorin reminded him of a falcon with his hawk-like profile and sleek, silver-blond hair. He walked with his arms clasped behind his back, his broad shoulders tense. He wasn’t quite as muscular as Bron but then, not many were.
The Blood Kindred was more lean and lanky than broad and bulky but he carried himself well in a fight and Bron couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather have at his back in battle. Sorin never wasted a move—he was as fast as lightning and just as deadly when he struck. The enemy didn’t even see him coming before he killed them—Sorin was just that quick.
He was also the opposite of everything Bron had been raised with. Instead of blustering and loud, he was quiet and soft-spoken. Instead of always spoiling for a fight, Sorin was cool under pressure. His logic was impeccable and his sarcasm could flay a male to the bone—Bron admired him immensely.
But he also wanted Kayla intensely, just as he knew Sorin did. He ached for her when he remembered her soft lips around the head of his cock and the way her warm, brown breasts had filled his hands while she sucked Sorin. And it had been fucking hot to watch his best friend stroke and fondle those same breasts while Kayla had sucked his own shaft.
Too bad we can’t share her, whispered a voice in his head but Bron pushed it away. Sharing a female made a male look weak—made him willing to act like one of those hapless males caught by the Yonnie Six Mistresses who did whatever they were told.
A true male never shares a female with another, growled a voice in his head that sounded very like his father, Broud. It was a universally acknowledged truth in their tribe. Which meant that no matter how much he wanted Kayla, he must never think of sharing her with his friend.
Put away the wanting, Bron told himself, as he had from the beginning. Hopefully she won’t have to choose one of us. If the Goddess is good, she’ll be one of the rare females who only had the one single reaction to that fucking lust chemical. Maybe we can just put what happened in the lab behind us and go back to the way things were before.
But he had an uneasy feeling in his gut that wasn’t going to happen…
Three
Kayla blotted her box braids dry and wrapped herself in a pink silk robe Auntie Feenie had given her for Christmas last year.
It’s almost Christmas again, she thought dully. Last year this time I was just getting to know Bron and Sorin and thinking what great guys they were.
Well, she still thought they were great guys but she could imagine what they thought of her now. After what she’d done…the way she’d put their hands on her breasts and begged to suck them and swallowed all they gave her…
Just the thought made her feel sick. She’d acted like some kind of porn actress begging for their seed.
“Forget my PhD in xenobiology, just cast me in Cum Sluts Two, a Double Mouthful and I can have a whole new career,” she muttered bitterly as she belted the robe. The pink silky material clung to her damp skin but Kayla didn’t care. After the way she’d acted, dressing provocatively around her two best friends was kind of an afterthought. If she wanted them to think she was a good, respectable girl who didn’t double-team her coworkers, well…that ship had sailed.
Besides, she wasn’t going to talk to them for very long. Obviously after what had happened, the three of them couldn’t work together any longer so this was going to be a good-bye-have-a-nice-life speech. After that, she would start searching for a job on Earth and leave the Mother Ship behind forever.
Outside in her small living area she heard the deep rumble of male voices. Once it had been a sound that delighted her. She loved spending time with her guys and hearing them laugh and talk together was a pleasure. She had never met any two Kindred more in sync than Bron and Sorin except maybe Twin Kindred. But they were born to be together and share a mate—Beast and Blood Kindred most definitely were not.
They’re not my guys any longer, Kayla reminded herself sadly. Time to go and say goodbye.
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She’d been avoiding them for days and now it was time to face the music.
I just hope I can do this without crying. Be strong, Kayla—you’ve got this.
Lifting her chin, she opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the living area. Bron and Sorin had been arguing about something—probably about whether they should break down the bathroom door and see what was taking her so long. But the moment she came out in a puff of fragrant steam, they both stopped in mid-sentence and stared at her.
Sorin spoke first.
“Hello, Kayla,” he said quietly. “We’ve been worried about you. How are you doing?”
“You mean after the way I acted the last time we saw each other? The way I begged the two of you to touch me and let me…let me suck you?” Kayla demanded. She wasn’t going to avoid the issue, she told herself. Wasn’t going to dance around it. She was a grown-ass woman and she took responsibility for her actions.
“Surely you know that wasn’t your fault,” Bron rumbled softly.
“I did it, didn’t I?” She lifted her chin. “If you’re here to slut-shame me, don’t bother. I’ve been shaming myself ever since it happened. I don’t know why I did what I did but—”
“Kayla, no one’s here to shame you! Why would you think that?” Sorin interrupted. He gave her an intense look. “And surely you know why it happened? You’ve been reading the communications Bron and I have been sending, haven’t you?”
Kayla bit her lip. Actually, she had been actively avoiding any contact with the outside world—especially the electronic communications and face-vids from her guys. She’d deleted every one without opening any of them.
“Well…no,” she admitted at last. “I was too upset. I just haven’t been myself since…since the lab.”
Bron and Sorin exchanged an incredulous look and Sorin sat down on the couch beside his friend. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees.
“You mean you don’t know about any of it?” he demanded. “The terrorist? The Xi-46? The Great Needing? None of it?”
“What? What are you talking about?” Kayla demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. “What needing? What terrorist? And what’s Xi-46?”
“There’s a half-Kindred named Zar’ren—apparently the High Council’s been tracking him for a while because he holds a grudge against the Mother Ship and his own kind,” Bron rumbled. “He’s the terrorist.”
“He somehow managed to get an aphrodisiac-type compound placed in the cleaning fluid that the service droids use to clean the vents,” Sorin continued his friend’s thought. “At a pre-set tim
e it activated all over the ship and Xi-46 was released into the air.”
“That was the sweet scent we all smelled in the lab,” Bron said. “And believe me, small one, you were not the only female affected. Females of mating age all over the ship went fucking crazy with lust and need.”
“They…they did?” Kayla could scarcely believe it.
She’d had some idea that the strange, sweet smell had had something to do with the way she’d behaved but she hadn’t let herself use it as an excuse. She’d felt she had to take responsibility for her actions but now, to hear that she’d been drugged…that it really hadn’t been her fault and other women had acted in the same way she had…it was almost too good to be true.
“Really?” she asked again, needing reassurance.
Both Bron and Sorin were nodding.
“They’re calling it The Great Needing and it’s still going on,” Sorin told her.
“It’s been a fucking mess,” Bron growled. “Nobody can get anything done because it’s not limited to one attack. All over the Mother Ship females are having attacks of needing which forces them to stop what they’re doing…”
“And then their males have to stop whatever they’re doing in order to go service them,” Sorin finished for him.
“I…I can’t believe it.” Kayla put a hand to her forehead in shock.
“Believe it,” Bron said bluntly. “The whole damn ship has been sucking and fucking non-stop for the past two days. There’s probably going to be a damn baby-boom a year from now.”
“Then the way I acted…the things I did…they really weren’t my fault?” Kayla had promised herself she wouldn’t cry—had promised herself to stay strong. But it was such a relief to know that her outrageous actions could be blamed on an outside force rather than some depraved craving in her own soul that had been hidden, even from her, she couldn’t help it. Tears rose to her eyes and started to roll down her cheeks. “It wasn’t my fault,” she whispered. “It really wasn’t.”
“Of course it wasn’t!” Bron rumbled. “Come here, small one. I can’t see you in pain this way.”
Kayla wanted to go to them but she held back, still feeling awkward.
“Come on,” Sorin urged her quietly. “Let us comfort you, leelah.”
The way both sets of eyes were looking at her—molten gold and ice-blue—seemed to break something inside Kayla. She went to them and allowed herself to be drawn down to sit between her guys. It was a tight fit since she didn’t have a three-person couch like the kind allotted to Twin Kindred, but they made it work. Before she knew it, Bron’s burly arm was around both her shoulders and Sorin’s and Sorin’s arm was around her waist. Their muscular biceps made a surprisingly comfortable support and Kayla felt cradled in warmth and affection.
Then she really couldn’t help herself and the sobs overwhelmed her.
“I thought…I didn’t know why I acted like that,” she cried. “And I thought you’d both think I was…was some kind of awful—”
“We could never think you were awful, Kayla,” Sorin said earnestly.
“You’re perfect to us,” Bron assured her. “Strong, intelligent, beautiful…”
Kayla made an effort to quiet her tears.
“I thought…was afraid you wouldn’t respect me anymore,” she whispered, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Of course we respect you!” Sorin sounded indignant. “Why wouldn’t we? After all, we were all involved. Why would Bron and I think any less of you for what happened between us?”
Kayla sniffed and looked up at them.
“If I had done something like…like what I did with the two of you back on Earth, the guys I did it with would never have looked at me the same way,” she explained. “I would have lost all credibility—all respect. It wouldn’t matter how many degrees I have behind my name—to them I would just be ‘that slut who sucked us both off that time,’ forever afterwards.”
She made her voice low and rough, imitating the frat-boy language she’d heard so often in college. The problem was, on the inside, most human guys never really got past that frat-boy mentality. But from the looks Bron and Sorin were giving her, she could tell they felt differently.
“First of all, if anyone ever dares to call you a ‘slut,’ I’ll shove my fucking fist down his throat,” Bron growled.
“And second, nothing we did together could ever alter the high regard we have for your intelligence and knowledge,” Sorin told her. He squeezed Kayla’s hand tightly. “Is this why you’ve been avoiding us these past two days? Because you were afraid we would…what did you call it? Slut-shame you?”
Kayla nodded. “I…I’ve never done anything like that before. The way I acted—”
“Was the way every other female of mating age has been acting on the ship for the past two days,” Bron said firmly. “Some more than others, depending on how the Xi-46 affected them.”
“You said that it can cause multiple attacks of, uh…needing?” Kayla asked, frowning.
Sorin nodded. “That’s one reason we’ve been so worried about you. We didn’t want you to be holed up in here by yourself in pain with no one to help you. You haven’t had another, uh, attack, have you?”
Kayla shook her head. “No, thank God. Just…” She cleared her throat. “Just the one.”
A strange look came into both their faces—relief mingled with regret.
“That’s good then,” Bron rumbled. “Maybe we can put this all behind us and work on solving the problem and finding an antidote.”
“How are we going to find an antidote?” Kayla asked. “Have you done a chemical analysis of this Xi-46?”
“We scraped some of the residue off the vent in the lab and did some rudimentary tests,” Sorin said. “Xi-46 has both chemical and biological components. The vector that carries the compound is a microbe.”
“But once inside its host, it acts like a virus,” Bron rumbled. “It invades the host’s cells and hijacks some of them to make more viruses—replicates itself over and over, but not all at once.”
“The ‘lust virus’—as Bron and I have been calling it—can lie dormant for hours or days at a time,” Sorin said. “Just waiting inside the host’s cells. Then it will suddenly replicate itself and spread throughout the body again, causing another attack.”
“The fact that it can go dormant is going to make finding an antidote fucking difficult,” Bron added, frowning. “But we think we can do it if we get a fresh sample of the plant it’s derived from.”
“And what plant is that?” Kayla asked.
“It comes from the Lust Blossom that grows only on Carnal Four,” Sorin told her. “Commander Sylvan, head of the High Council, has authorized a mission for the three of us to go and collect it.”
“And find out how the native culture deals with it,” Bron added. “Which should be interesting.”
“All three of us?” Kayla looked at them doubtfully. “You want me to come too?”
“Of course we do—you’re part of the team, Kayla,” Sorin exclaimed.
“We fucking need you,” Bron growled. “Who’s the xenobiologist here, anyway? You are.”
“Besides…” Sorin cleared his throat. “We hope it won’t happen but if, Goddess forbid, you have another attack…”
“You have to be by at least one of us so we can help you,” Bron finished. An unreadable look passed between him and Sorin—some unspoken thought or threat. A feeling neither of them wanted to voice aloud.
God, if it happens again, I’ll have to choose between them! It will spoil our friendship forever and ruin their relationship too. Please don’t let it happen again—please! Kayla thought fervently.
“I’m not going to have another attack,” she said firmly, hoping that she was speaking truth into reality. “It was a one-off so I think we need to put it all behind us and just…just work on the problem. It’s time to get down to business, boys.”
A broad white grin broke over Bron’s dark face.
“She’s back!” he rumbled. He leaned down to give Kayla a smacking kiss on the cheek.
“Good to have you back on the team, leelah,” Sorin murmured, smiling as he leaned down to kiss the other cheek at the exact same time.
They were, as always, in perfect sync. Kayla grinned and gave a sigh of relief. The past two days had been so full of stress and shame and self-doubt. Having that emotional burden lifted made her feel light as a feather. She was almost dizzy with happiness.
“So tell me more about this Xi-46,” she said. “What did you find when you analyzed it?”
They spent several minutes in intense discussion about the chemical makeup of the drug and Kayla frowned, absorbing everything Sorin and Bron said. She really had been out of the loop these last two days. Now she felt ashamed for being selfish and hiding herself away when she ought to have been helping them work on this problem.
“So what other…” She cleared her throat. “What other symptoms does this cause? Is it just…just the one I had or—”
“The two most common effects of Xi-46 are the thirst for male seed and breast inflation,” Sorin said seriously.
“What?” Kayla looked at him in disbelief. “Breast inflation?”
Sorin’s pale blue eyes flicked lightly over the points of her nipples pressing against the thin pink silk of her robe but came back to her face almost at once.
“The viruses released into the bloodstream cause the milk ducts in a female’s breasts to start working overtime, almost as though she was lactating,” he explained.
“But instead of milk, the breasts fill with a sweet, sticky amber-colored nectar,” Bron explained. “It’s supposed to taste a little like honey, from what I’ve heard some males say.”
“And how would they know how it tastes?” Kayla demanded.
Sorin shifted beside her and Bron cleared his throat.
“Well, the nectar is extremely thick and viscous, unlike regular breast milk,” Sorin said. “So the only way to get it out—”
Sharing a Mate Page 3