“We do not mean to be deceptive,” Tian replied. He knew that even among other advanced species, the silent communication was something relatively unique to Actana brothers. “Chaya and I have spoken twin-speak since our mother’s womb and we do so without thinking. He told me your previous arrangements were not as large as these.”
“I lived in a closet,” Sharell muttered. She unwrapped the package and smiled. Janella sent her reading tablet. She had handed it to her to bring to their room when she had been called to the shuttlebay. There was a sliding sound, and Sharell looked over to the wall by the computer.
“I ordered a late lunch while you were sleeping. I knew Chaya would be hungry when he returned.” Tian rose and brought plates back, and laid them on the table in front of the sofa. “I could only go by the supplies we sent to your ship to guess what you might like.” He hoped he had gotten at least this right.
Sharell looked at the odd assortment of colorful shapes. It seemed almost foreign to have food that was not blended in packs. She picked up something round and purple, and turned it in her hand. “Should I peel it?”
“No, just bite into it,” Tian instructed. “Be careful though, vistanza is full of juice.”
Sharell sniffed it first, darted her tongue out to lick the outside, and looked up to see both men staring with half-lidded eyes, mesmerized. She bit down quickly and they snapped out of it when she squealed. “Oh… oh, god,” she muffled through the fruit. Purple juice dripped down her chin and Tian swiped it with his finger. “Oh, god this is good.”
The brothers picked at their food, smiling to each other while their mate discovered the wonderful taste of Actana native plants. She seemed to delight in each new flavor. Tian even coaxed her to try a bite of pelach. It had a dull gray appearance and she scowled a bit before trying it. “It is meat from a very ugly animal, with a very good taste,” he assured her.
Sharell’s mind pictured a rat or possum. She tried it anyway, and she began to laugh. “Figures. It tastes like chicken.” With food in her stomach, the sachan began to wear off. Sharell glanced at the door a few times.
“We can feel your agitation rising,” Chaya stated. “The door will not open for you, to keep you protected in our quarters.”
“Would you like more sachan?” Tian asked.
“No.” She rose and looked around. “No, it makes me sleepy.” Sharell remembered the door opened and closed with their palm print. “So I’m a prisoner?”
“You are held in our protection,” Chaya replied. “You do not know our ship, and there are areas and things that are not safe if you do not understand them. We will take you for a tour when things are settled.” Tian, we must cage her. She is already planning to run through our ship, like the Casiquas.
No, Chaya. It is merely the way her mind sifts through confusion and organizes her situation. Even without the sachan and my influence, she is much calmer than when she arrived.
Chaya looked at the clothing the Earthlings chose to transport her in. As if hiding her beauty behind dull gray tunics and faded pants… and those boots? A female with even her feet covered? We will have the cloaking incinerated as answer to this insult.
We were warned not to try to anticipate primitives’ motives, but I do not understand why they chose to cloak them, either. Perhaps, they thought the allure of their females would distract us from our side of the agreement.
“Stop that.” Their silent communication made Sharell nervous. “What things?”
“You have a lot to learn about our ways, Sharell. There is independence in your manner that can lead to trouble.”
Sharell glared at Chaya. And why am I not surprised to discover you’re a chauvinistic brute? “For whom?” she challenged.
“For all of us,” Chaya answered.
Tian felt a buzz on his wrist. “I must report to my shift.”
Sharell looked at him preparing to leave, and schwooped her head back towards Chaya. His dark eyes were scanning her body. “I’m coming with you.” She ran to the opening door. She felt calmness around Tian, and Chaya still intimidated her with his intensity.
Tian turned and pushed her gently back into the room. “We have had our time to be alone.” He stroked tranquility down her chin. “It is Chaya’s turn, and I’ll be back soon. They have shortened our shifts during bonding, and there will always be one of us with you.” The door slid closed and Sharell stood staring at it.
She jumped when a deep voice behind her said, “Come and sit. Show me what interests you in this tablet.”
Sharell turned at the familiar beep of the device turning on. She knew damn well what page she had bookmarked, and she forgot her fear of Chaya to reach for it. He stood and held it out of reach, smiling.
“His hands brushed down her body, causing quivering waves of heat to brush across her nipples and lower… lower… down to the apex of her womanly heat,” he recited. “Training scrolls to prepare you for the trade? Why did you tell us you received no forewarning?”
“Oh, god, give that to me.” Sharell climbed onto the table, her face beet red while she reached for it. Chaya merely stepped back. “It isn’t a training scroll. It’s a book.”
Chaya continued reading. “No. No, Anton, this is wrong. I am engaged to your brother. You must not encourage these feelings.” Darcy sobbed with remorseful guilt. “I must go. We cannot meet alone again.”
Chaya felt Sharell’s hand on his shoulder as her body stretched against his, trying to reach for the tablet. His eyes met hers. “What bullshit. Why can’t Anton’s brother seduce her? Obviously she is aroused by him. Why should Anton be left to suffer without his mate’s comfort?”
“They aren’t twins,” she ground out, still reaching for her tablet. Sharell realized what she said, and at the same time she realized her position. Chaya’s muscular body was crushed against hers and his arm wrapped around her, pinning her against him. A stiff representation of her effect on him pressed into her belly and her pussy dampened, as if awaking after a long exile. “I mean… we don’t… oh crap.” Sharell sagged against him. “I don’t know what I mean. They’re just sappy love stories that Janella and I liked to read.”
Despite his desire to crush her against his body, to dominate her passion until she felt the heavy ache he experienced and eased his needs, Chaya controlled his feelings. Her scroll writings were unsettling, and even though this was more Tian’s territory, Chaya decided to explore her species’ beliefs. “Does Anton get to be with his mate? Does it matter if they are not twins, as long as they are brothers?”
Sharell plopped onto the sofa. “I don’t know, but usually the unrequited love is fulfilled. And generally, though not in all of the books, brothers do not share a woman they love.”
Chaya’s brows knit and the deep warning of anger shot through with chocolate. He was reminded of his struggle with his first twins back home. “Why not? Wouldn’t the brothers want to see each other happy? And if Darcy loves both of them, why is this a problem?”
“It’s just a story, Chaya. The brothers end up hating each other for a while, and then she chooses, and then things flip back and forth, and in the end everyone is happy. The end.”
Chaya’s eyes drew suspiciously to the tablet. “Well, it certainly seems like the end for the poor brother left without the woman he loves, and a brother who despises him for sharing his love for their mate.”
“It’s not real life.” Sharell twisted the tail of her braid and tried to explain. “A woman does not fall in love with two men and have both of them in love with her.”
Chaya remained frowning and he stared at the tablet again. “Of course it’s real life. We have always lived this way.” He looked at her to judge her response.
Sharell wondered if Chaya had deliberately maneuvered the conversation to force her to consider her situation. She had no idea that all they read on Actana were scrolls of true history. Fiction was an unknown concept for them. “It won’t end up happy for all of them.”
Chay
a sat down next to her. “Well, let’s find out.”
She shivered at his nearness, and realized his scent was different than his brother’s. It was spicier, somehow, and suited him. “Don’t dissect the whole damn thing. It will ruin the fantasy.”
“Brother against brother is more of a travesty.”
“Stop it.”
Tian walked in to a heated discussion, and his head swiveled between the two combatants.
“But you felt sorry for Anton,” Sharell argued.
“I didn’t think he would end up screwing Edmond,” Chaya thundered. “For god sakes, the man rode to Paris to buy her the hat she wanted.”
Chaya’s dark eyes were blazing and his hair swung wildly with his anger, yet Tian sensed no fear from his mate. He felt her frustration, and perhaps more than a little anger of her own.
“Renee was there, and Darcy figured Edmond would find her.”
“Renee didn’t want him; she was using him for his title. And then, while he’s gone, Darcy elopes with his brother?” Chaya was incensed.
“She always wanted Anton.”
“What the hell is Edmond supposed to do now?” Chaya scowled. His knuckles were white from the tight grip on the tablet, and he held it up. “Stuck with the stupid hat, and he just hands it to her and wishes them well?”
Tian’s senses brushed out to them. It was his responsibility to keep the family calm, and now he had both his brother and new mate distressed. “Who’s Darcy?” His thoughts scanned through the ship’s log. “We have no brothers named Edmond and Anton. Are they on another searching ship?” Tian began to panic with helplessness. “Oh god, what quadrant is Paris in?”
Chaya felt Tian’s distress with the discussion and his frantic need to search and heal the brothers’ relationship. “It’s a false history, Tian, calm down.”
Tian laughed nervously. “It does not appear I am the one who needs to calm down,” he noted. His mate was standing with her hands on her hips, glaring up at Chaya.
Chaya handed Tian the tablet. “Read this, and you will see why our mate is so confused.” He threaded his fingers through his wild hair in frustration. “Their species writes down impossible alternative situations and lies,” he explained. “Perhaps it is a strategy for adaptation, though it has done our mate no good and only led to her confusion.”
Sharell grabbed the tablet and held it against her chest. “Give that to me. I don’t need both of you ruining my stories.”
“Did a brother really keep their mate to himself?” Tian asked Chaya.
“They weren’t twins,” Sharell sighed, and fell back onto the couch.
“I would never do that to you, Chaya,” Tian vowed.
“Nor I to you, Tian.”
“Yes, it is only my primitive race that thinks this arrangement is odd,” Sharell pouted. “Chaya reminded me like two thousand times while we read.”
Both men looked at their wrists. “I forgot. Father wants us to have dinner with him in his quarters, if our mate is calmed enough.” Tian looked down at her.
“I’m fine.” Leaving the confines of their cabin seemed like a good idea. “Does he have a twin here too?”
“No, our light father is on planet looking after our mother,” Tian replied.
“Of course.” Sharell rolled her eyes.
They walked through the corridor with Chaya gripping her wrist and Tian holding her other hand. Sharell gave up trying to shake herself free of them and studied for a place to hide if she could get away. She really needed some alone time to balance her thoughts. There were confusing long hallways that all looked the same with closed doors on either side. “How long have you been traveling?”
“Almost five years.” Tian answered. He smiled, and his angelic features made her uncomfortably moist again. “We were worried we would be returning without finding a mate.”
“Five years?” After a two year dry-spell from the touch of a man and the endless boredom of space travel, Sharell began to understand their protective anxiety over her.
They entered an even larger compartment than the twins shared, and Sharell saw the man from the platform. “Welcome, Sharell. I apologize for breaking into your bonding time, but I wanted to meet the young woman who rouses such passion in my sons.” Tian kept Danilo on the bridge for an hour discussing his new mate.
Sharell smiled back, instantly liking the man. His eyes were a warm brown and crinkled at the corners with approval. Danilo studied the young woman his sons had chosen. “Your eyes are remarkable. We have only blue and brown, and the green is captivating.”
“Thank you. I didn’t know you were their father.”
“Ah, you remember me from the shuttlebay. I figured you might have been too nervous. We do understand this can take adjustment…”
“Hold on,” Chaya interrupted, pacing slowly towards the console. His hand shot towards the metal surface so fast that Sharell thought he might break his knuckles. They stopped short of the wall and curled. “Gotcha’. Open your eyes, Ayana.”
Sharell’s mouth dropped open when lavender eyes appeared from the brushed silver. A turquoise woman’s body began to appear, naked and minus hair. She was tall and lean, with exceptionally long arms and legs. She had three very long fingers and a short thumb, and her feet matched her hands. There was childlike mischievousness in her expression, and Sharell noticed she was receiving the same scrutiny from the creature.
“You’ve got to stop doing this,” Chaya reprimanded. “Tian, call the twins to collect her. Nisanta has probably had a stroke, by now.”
The woman giggled and tugged at Chaya’s grip. “I wanted to meet her. I wanted to see the new mate. Pretty, pretty.” Ayana smiled with delight at her new sister.
A fact the Casiqua Commander neglected to tell Danilo was that their woman considered themselves mated to the man who caught her. As this had been Chaya, Ayana delved wholeheartedly into the new game of reclaiming him. She thought this was much more fun than hide and seek on her own boring ship, and now she had a sister to compete against in the game.
The men guarding her were disappointingly easy to escape. A brush of their root or sack would distract them, and if Ayana stayed still for a few minutes, they thought she had left their room. They eventually panicked, and when they opened the door to search for her, she slipped through to the corridor.
“You are not supposed to leave your quarters without one of your mates,” Danilo said. He looked at Chaya. “Why isn’t she collared? At least they could find her.”
Tian lowered his communicator. “They’re still searching their quarters. They didn’t even know she had escaped again.”
“Then there might be others running around, with or without their twins’ knowledge. I’m going to have to order all mates collared. We can’t have the Casiquas getting into the systems and turning it into a playground,” Danilo muttered.
The woman stretched out a hand. “Ayana. I’m Ayana.”
Sharell shook hands, and as she told the woman her name she felt the woman tickling her palm with her finger. Sharell laughed and tickled her back. “She’s like a child.”
“A very disobedient child,” Chaya answered. Ayana continued the tickling game, thrilled to find a new playmate.
There was a knock on the door and the woman instantly faded. Chaya was gripping air, and Sharell’s hand was outstretched and she was laughing. “They fade when they’re nervous,” Tian informed her.
“That is so cool. How do they do it?”
“It is not cool, and if we knew, we’d stop it,” Chaya muttered.
Danilo turned to the panicked twins entering his quarters. “Collar and cage her. This is not a request or suggestion, it is an order. As of morning, all mates will be ordered to be collared so they can be located, and they will remain caged unless in training. You two are too upset to even scent her out and know that she’s missing, and in your Commander’s Quarters, no less.”
“We apologize, Commander. She will be collared as soon as we re
turn to quarters. Nisanta understands that it is safest for her.”
“Not to mention the rest of us,” Chaya retorted. He bristled at the way the twins were exploring Sharell with their eyes.
Sharell enjoyed two glasses of fruity wine with dinner. The alcohol made her giddy, and on the way back to the twins’ quarters she joked and flattened herself against corridor walls. “Can you see me?”
“Yes, Sharell. The Casiqua secret is not in the wine, thank god,” Tian laughed.
“How many are on board?”
“Fifty… we think. We monitored closely when we transported them,” Chaya answered.
“Wow. I mean, it’s only a third as many of us, but still.”
“Yeah, wow.” Chaya opened the door to their quarters.
Sharell followed, shuffling her feet and shaking Tian’s hand off her shoulder. Even when she lived in the cavern, she rarely drank because of the shift schedule. The high settled into warm, fuzzy lethargy. The women’s sleeping quarters must be close, and she hoped they would let her lie down and continue their conversation in the morning. “I’m exhausted. Where do I sleep?”
Chaya pulled a curtain back on the far wall, exposing a large sleeping platform. “Over here.”
That sobered her up. “What? I mean, we haven’t even known each other for a day.” Shit, they’ve got to be kidding. Sharell began backing towards the door.
“We have each spent time with you and we made our decision in the shuttlebay,” Chaya replied. “But this is only our bonding period. We cannot join until after the ceremony on planet.”
“Joined or not, I’m not sleeping in the same bed with you.” Sharell stretched out on the couch and closed her eyes.
Chaya strode across the room and grabbed her arm. Sharell’s eyes flew open in surprise, and seeing the darkness in his glare she latched onto the table when he began dragging her. “Let me go, Chaya. This is not the way we do it.”
Chaya stopped and stared down at her. “How do you know how it is done? We were told you have been kept separate from your men.”
Sharell glared back, lifting her chin but still gripping the leg of the table. “Only since we launched.”
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