Leading the huge Dark Twin from the Fren and Chulk all the way back to where they had parked the shuttle was a little like having a tiger on a leash, Lorelei thought as she kept his big hand clasped firmly in her much smaller one. Torn was more deadly weapon than man but he followed her tamely and obeyed every order she gave him.
They got some blank stares and Lorelei was aware of what a strange picture the three of them must make. She was still wearing the Steampunk-looking Gentlewoman outfit with the blue remains of the exploded desert drying stiffly in her hair. It was also stuck in the corners of her eyes and the insides of her ears and basically everywhere she hadn’t been able to really scrub with the ineffective napkins she’d had to use. To her right, the huge, dark twin, walked tamely beside her, and Bound, dressed in the traditional Femalian slave-mate outfit trailed behind them with a worried look on his face.
She felt bad for the Light Twin. Torn had yet to acknowledge his brother in any way except to growl or snarl when Bound got too close. Lorelei could see the hurt in Bound’s blue eyes when that happened and her heart ached for the big Kindred who only wanted to reconnect with his twin. But there seemed to be nothing they could do at the moment except go back to the Kindred Mother Ship.
Another reason people were probably staring was that Torn still had his metallic right arm strapped to his side. Though she had given Lorelei the key to this final restraint, the Countess du’Montrive had absolutely refused to let it be removed while he was still anywhere near her club.
“No, no, my dear Gentlewoman Daniels,” she had exclaimed when Lorelei asked about it. “On this point, the V’radors were being very firm—they were telling me that this arm of his is a deadly weapon. On no account must it be freed unless you are very, very certain that the Kindred is completely under your control. Why, that arm is being able to punch through solid plasti-steel! No, no—you are not to be unlocking it here, no matter how much you are agreeing to pay.”
Secretly, Lorelei agreed with the Countess’s assessment of the arm situation. Torn was huge even by Kindred standards and obviously immensely strong and dangerous. She just hoped he had imprinted on her securely so he wouldn’t give them trouble on their way back to the Kindred Mother Ship.
Then hopefully, once they made it back, the surgeon Bound had told her about could remove the nanites and the AI interface which was giving the big Kindred so much trouble.
But what if he can’t? whispered a little voice in her head. What if the nanites are permanent? Isn’t that one of the reasons they were outlawed on Earth, along with sentient AIs? Because once they make camp inside you, there’s no getting the little buggers out again? What if that happens and you have a huge Kindred imprinted on you for the rest of your life? What will you do?
And not just one huge Kindred either. She remembered Kat’s words about how Twin Kindred came in pairs and absolutely could not be separated.
To be honest, she was beginning to think she wouldn’t mind being bonded to Bound. The Light Twin was warm and sweet and considerate and sexy and despite the way the two of them kept protesting that they needed to keep things professional, there was definitely chemistry between them. Lorelei still felt a shiver of pleasure when she remembered how hot it had been to let the big Kindred suck her nipples and how sexy she had felt jerking him off.
But what about the Dark Twin? There was no denying that Torn was hot—even with his cheeks dark with stubble and his hair long and wild around his face, the pure, masculine beauty of his square jaw and gorgeous green eyes couldn’t be hidden. But he was frightening too—and the thought of getting naked with him was downright terrifying.
Lorelei knew that despite his immense strength and size, Bound could be trusted to be gentle with her—the big Kindred would never hurt her in any way. But as for Torn, well…she could be sure of nothing with the Dark Twin. He seemed devoted to her but she wasn’t sure about the alien technology that had been implanted in him. Nanites had been a new thing on Earth when she was studying them but they had been completely unpredictable—uncontrollable. How much did the V’rader nanites differ from what she had studied? How much control did they really give her over the killing machine walking calmly by her side?
Lorelei had no idea—which scared her to death.
Besides, she told herself uneasily. I’m a one guy at a time kind of girl! And these Kindred are huge. I don’t care what Kat said about “bonding fruit,” there’s no way two of them could fit inside me at once. I doubt even one of them could!
Better not to find out, she told herself. The best they could hope for was a safe, quick trip back to the Mother Ship where everything could be fixed.
She hoped.
* * * * *
“Brother? Torn? Are you in there? Can you hear me?” Bound leaned over the figure seated on the vast, Twin Kindred-sized bed and snapped his fingers lightly. Lorelei was in the fresher, taking a shower to get the last of the dried blue exploding dessert off herself and she had left the apparently quiescent Torn to wait for her in the bed chamber.
Bound had gone to get changed back into his regular uniform and had removed the thick black eye makeup before he called the Mother Ship and asked for immediate transport back. His role for now was simply to pilot the shuttle back home so that Yipper, the Tolleg surgeon, could examine Torn and hopefully fix him. But there had been a snag—Commander Sylvan had told him conditions weren’t favorable for folding space at the moment.
“I’m sorry, Commander Bound,” he had said formally. “But the Earth’s sun is shooting out some far-reaching solar flares which interfere with folding. We should be able to get to you within a solar hour or two. In the meantime, can you stay put where you are?”
“We’re outside the Femalian orbit in mostly empty space,” Bound had told him. “There have been reports of pirates in this area in the past but all seems clear now. I think we’ll be all right.”
“Keep a sharp look out,” Sylvan commanded. “We’ll contact you as soon as the fold is ready to go. Mother Ship out.”
With a sigh, Bound had put the autopilot back on and wandered to the back of the ship. Lorelei was still in the shower and Torn was sitting motionless on the bed, where she had left him, staring into space.
Bound knew he ought to leave his twin alone—at least until they got back to the Mother Ship—but he simply felt drawn to Torn, unable to stay away. Their bond felt like a rotten, ragged piece of fabric—a bit of silk that was frayed almost to the breaking point but it was still there. He could feel it inside him and if he could feel it, didn’t that mean that Torn could too?
“Torn,” he tried again. “You know me—we’ve been together all our lives. We’re brothers—twins.”
At last Torn’s eyes turned up towards his, brilliant green and completely hostile.
“I don’t have a brother. I don’t have anyone but the Mistress. Fuck off,” he growled.
Bound felt like his heart would burst.
“You know that’s not true,” he said quietly. “Your name is Torn-Deep and I am Bound-Tight—we were born and raised on Twin Moons together. We have never even been apart a day in our lives until the V’radors took you.”
For a moment, he almost thought that he might be getting through to his twin. Torn’s green eyes widened…then narrowed.
“No,” he said again, more forcefully this time. “No, I don’t know you! Leave me the fuck alone!”
Bound knew he ought to back off but he had seen—or thought he’d seen—a tiny spark of recognition in his brother’s eyes before the last denial.
“I love you, Brother,” he said. Kneeling beside the bed, he reached for his brother thinking if only he could touch him…if only they could make some kind of contact it might make a difference, might restore their bond…
But even as he enfolded his twin in a hug, Torn’s free hand shot out and punched him in the face.
“Leave me the fuck alone!” Torn roared, rising to his full height to tower menacingly over Bound, who still knelt, stunned, on the floor. “I don’t know you! I don’t know you!”
And then he punched again…and again.