Divided: Brides of the Kindred 10 (5 page)

Chapter
Seven

Becca watched the silent exchange between
the brothers and bit her lip at the hostility in Truth’s pale gray eyes as well
as the hurt it engendered in his brother’s black ones. It made her feel
terrible, especially when she considered that she was at least partially to
blame.

It seemed strange but it had never even
occurred to her that by agreeing to pick one of them she was breaking up a
matched set. They seemed so opposed to being together that she hadn’t felt even
a moment’s guilt about separating them permanently.

I only thought of myself. I didn’t even
think that I might be hurting them—both of them.

But Nadiah’s words of the night before had
brought everything home.
“Do you realize, Rebecca, that in attempting to choose
between the two of these brothers you are subverting the will of the Mother of
All Life?”
she had said
. “Do you understand the harm you are causing to
her children?”

Becca felt a dull shame growing in her at the
thought. How could she have been so selfish and self-centered?
I should have
left them both alone. Refused to see either of them again. I could have gone
back to Earth and done confession. Mother Superior is wise and understanding,
I’m certain she could have worked with me, helped me to get over this,
especially since my interaction with them was almost purely mental and barely
physical at all.

Except that would have meant leaving Truth
and Far behind, never seeing either of them again. And somehow, Becca just
couldn’t imagine doing that. Any more than she’d been able to pick either one
of them over the other so far.

All this time I lingered on the Mother
Ship, telling myself I was just waiting for Maggie to be found and that as soon
as she was I would be able to choose which brother I wanted,
she thought.
And yet she’s been back for ages and I’m
still no closer to knowing which one I want to spend my life with. Have I been
fooling myself all along?

She looked at the two brothers, standing
across the room from each other, and couldn’t help comparing them.

Truth stood tall, his chin lifted and his
shoulders out. His black hair was short, cut with military precision and his
face was clean shaven. The look in his pale gray eyes was skeptical and when he
spoke his words were clipped and precise and always to the point. Every emotion
he felt was communicated at once—his need and desire for her at the constant
forefront anytime he so much as glanced at her. The fire Becca saw burning in
those winter gray eyes made her shiver—it was a flame she both feared and
longed to be consumed by.

Far, on the other hand, had his head down,
clearly withdrawn into himself. His blond hair was long, brushing his broad
shoulders in a soft waterfall Becca longed to run her hands through. When she
looked at him, one word came to mind—
broken.

The dejection in his big frame wrung her
heart but when he looked up, the hunger in his pitch black eyes nearly
overwhelmed her. His square jaw was covered in dark blond stubble Becca knew
would be scratchy against her fingertips if she dared to go to him and cup his
cheek as she longed to do. Far was definitely the more approachable of the two
and yet Truth drew her as well with his air of inherent danger.

But for all the longing she felt for both
of them, she rarely touched them. Keeping her hands to herself and demanding
that they do the same seemed simpler somehow—safer. Aside from the two strange
dream-like joinings she’d had with them, holding hands was as far as she had
been willing to go with either man. Becca wondered uneasily if she would be
able to continue to keep herself aloof…or if things were going to have to
change between the three of them.

Her uneasy musing was interrupted when
Lock and Deep, Kat’s mates, entered the room.

Becca knew they were twin brothers,
sharing equally in her friend’s affection as well as both being the fathers of
the twin babies she was carrying. From almost everything she had heard, a
single Twin Kindred male was unable to bond with a female or get her pregnant
without the intimate participation of his brother.

Exactly
how
they went about the
business of impregnating a female, she didn’t know. Kat, in her frank, open
way, had offered to tell her but Becca had declined, believing that such
details were better left in the dark. She had the uneasy feeling that she was
about to have her comforting ignorance stripped from her. Was she about to get
a crash course on Twin Kindred sexual anatomy?

“Hello, brothers,” Commander Deep said
nodding at both Truth and Far. “My brother Lock and I welcome you to our home.”

“We understand from our lady Kat that the
two of you are having problems,” Commander Lock continued, looking at the
twins.

“We have no problems,” Truth said,
frowning. “We are compelled to be here by Commander Sylvan and a promise given
to the Goddess in a moment of weakness.”

“Of course,” Far muttered. “Because it’s
weak
to want a relationship with your only living kin.”

“I don’t need you or any ‘relationship,’”
Truth growled. “My only interest is in Rebecca.”

“Then why did you come at all?” Far
demanded. “If you didn’t intend to honor your promise and try to form a bond?”

Truth’s eyes flashed dangerously and
suddenly he was across the room grabbing Far by the lapels of his dark green
uniform shirt.

“Are you calling me an oath breaker,
Brother?”
he growled into the other man’s face.

Far made no move to defend himself. “Why
should I say something like that?” he said bitterly. “Why bother when you prove
it yourself without me having to say a word?”

“Enough!” Commander Deep shouldered his
way between the two of them. “I see the ‘problems’ Kat spoke of are more
serious than we thought.”

“Why don’t we all go into the living area
and talk?” Lock suggested diplomatically. “We can work this out with words more
easily than blows.”

From the way Truth cracked his knuckles,
blows would have been his preference. But to Becca’s relief, the brothers
allowed themselves to be separated and led into the large living area in the
inner part of Kat’s suite.

Kat herself was sitting on a large,
three-person couch on one end of the room, sipping a cup of something that
smelled sweet and hot. There was another couch arranged directly across from
the first one and Deep motioned the three of them to sit on it.

Becca sat, being careful to place herself
in the middle between the two feuding brothers. She hunched her shoulders
miserably and kept her hands in her lap, feeling like she was sitting in the
middle of a lightning storm. God, she wished they got along better! It was
awful
being between them when they were at each other’s throats all the time.

Truth sat down on her right hand side. His
posture was still rigidly upright, his bearing inflexible. The look on his face
was angry and closed.

Far slouched beside her on the left. His
posture was deceptively relaxed and his face was blank but Becca could
practically feel the hurt and anger radiating off his huge frame. Both brothers
were so big and their emotions were so strong she felt like a small, helpless
kitten trapped between two fierce German shepherds —it wasn’t a good feeling at
all.

“Here, doll.” Kat got up and handed Becca
a steaming mug that smelled like cinnamon and vanilla. “Tea to calm your
nerves,” she said, smiling at Becca sympathetically. “You look like you could
use it.”

“Thank you.” Becca took a sip of the
sweet, hot tea gratefully. As the warmth rushed through her, she felt a little
bit better. Maybe they could work this out somehow. If only Kat’s mates could
talk sense into Truth and Far, that was…

“All right now.” Deep was pacing back and
forth between the two couches as Lock retired to sit beside Kat with one
muscular arm around her shoulders. “Let’s start at the beginning—you claim to
have no bond at all?”

“We were separated at birth. So no, none
that I have ever felt,” Truth said shortly.

“How?” Kat spoke up. “Exactly what
happened that separated you?” Deep frowned at her and she shrugged. “What? I’m
sure I’m not the only one who wants to know.”

“I don’t mind answering though I cannot
speak for my brother.” Far threw Truth a sidelong glance which was returned
with a look of hostility.

“Fair enough. Maybe it will shed some
light on your problems.” Deep shrugged and sat on the other side of Kat.

“Our parents, the Lady Leenah and our
fathers, Feels Much and Speaks Wisely, were aboard a Kindred transport from
Twin Moons to the Mother Ship,” Far said. “Because there were several pregnant
females aboard, it was a long range ship which did not intend to fold space.
Unfortunately, such ships are much more vulnerable to attack.”

“They were set on by space pirates,” Truth
said, unexpectedly taking up the story. “The Skin Takers—so called because they
are known to skin their victims and make clothing and trophies from their
hides.”

“Oh,” Becca murmured, looking from one to the
other of them. “That’s
awful.”

“Many such space faring tribes exist,”
Truth said shortly. “The Kindred and their brides are mostly sheltered from
such unpleasantness by their ability to fold space and move quickly and safely
from one destination to the next.”

“But our parents were not so lucky.” Far
looked down at his hands. “From what I have heard, our mother was already in
labor when the attack began.”

“I came first, or so my father told me,”
Truth said. “It was a fast, clean delivery. And had Far come out the same way,
we might all have been saved. Instead he lingered.”

Far cast an incredulous look at his
brother. “Do you really blame me for that too? I was an infant—what could I
do?”

“I only know what my father told me,”
Truth said stonily. “I know that he had an escape pod all prepared but he
couldn’t bring my mother into it while she was still in labor. The change in
pressure would have killed her—but as it turned out, she died anyway.”

“What happened? Did the…the Skin Takers…?”
But Becca couldn’t finish the awful question.

“She died in labor,” Truth said shortly.
“With Far still within her. Speaks Wisely, who had been my father’s brother,
died defending her from the pirates who broke through the wall of defense the
other Kindred had formed.”

“Oh, no.” Becca put a hand to her mouth.

“My father, Feels Pain—”

“Wait,” Kat interrupted. “I thought you
said your father’s name was Feels Deeply.”

“He changed it to Feels Pain,” Truth
explained, still staring straight ahead. “I’m sure you can understand why.”

“Of course.” Kat nodded soberly.

“As I was saying, my father saw his
brother and wife die before his eyes. He had me in his arms and the escape pod
was primed. Believing that Far had died as well, he took me and fled to the
nearest habitable planet—Pax.”

“Wait—Pax? You mean Pax in the Silverbeam
System? The home of the Rai’ku?” Lock asked, looking interested.

“The same.” Truth nodded briefly. “There
was I raised among the Rai’ku and there also my father took a new mate—a Rai’ku
female named Lixa. She bore him three more sons—my half brothers. I was raised
among them as part of the pack.”

“The pack?” Becca asked, raising an
eyebrow.

Truth simply nodded without explaining. “I
never had a twin, believing him to be dead,” he said. “And I never felt the
lack of one. Nor do I feel it now.”

“Thank you, you couldn’t
possibly
make that any clearer,” Far snapped.

“But what happened to you? Why didn’t you
die like your father thought?” Becca asked him.

“I was delivered only moments after my
mother breathed her last,” Far explained. “One of the other Twin Kindred
warriors saw her abdomen still moving as I fought for release. He cut me out
and gave me to his mate to hold while he continued to fight the pirates who
they eventually overcame. He and his brother and female had one other pair of
twins—five years older than me. They wanted more children but were unable to
have them so they kept me and raised me as their own.”

“That was kind of them,” Kat said gently.

“They are fine people,” Far said in a low
voice. “But I never stopped wondering about my birth parents. And…about my
twin.” He cast a quick glance at Truth who was still staring straight ahead.
“Everyone told me he was dead—that all my people were. My adopted parents
thought they had been lost in space. But I couldn’t help feeling that he was
out there, somewhere, just waiting for me to find him.” He gave a bitter laugh.
“Turns out I was only half right.”

“As usual,” Truth remarked acidly.

“As usual,” Far agreed and sighed wearily.
“Anyway, when I came of age, I was able to access the restricted records of
what had happened during the attack. I found that a single escape pod had been
launched. I did some calculations and deduced that it must have landed on Pax.
When I followed up, I found that my remaining father was dead, but Truth was
living among the Rai’ku. I contacted him, asking if he would be willing to meet
me aboard the Mother Ship.”