“Take me harder…more!” she begged. And the part of her mind that wasn’t drowning in pleasure wondered how he always knew exactly what she needed. All the troubling thoughts that had been bothering her were swept away on the tide of pleasure as he made her his once again.
But though Sophie knew she would sleep well after their loving, she was also certain she would return to her worries eventually. Lauren was still out there, somewhere and as for Deep’s dark past…well, she would have to compare notes with Liv and see if she’d gotten anything out of Baird.
Later…
Chapter Twenty-two
“We’re here! And we brought the fi-fi flowers.” Kat presented the bouquet of blossoms triumphantly to Mother L’rin.
“Have them, you do,” the old wise woman acknowledged, nodding. She was sitting quietly in the middle of the Healing Garden, doing something with a fluffy bunch of pink and purple herbs. “And still you wish to use them?”
“Of…course we do.” Kat looked uncertainly at Deep and Lock who were standing on either side of her. Well, standing might be too strong a word—Deep was actually slouched against a nearby tree studying his fingernails. “That is…I think so.”
“My lady…” Lock gave her a pained look. “Kat…I wish to say that the time Deep and I have spent bonded to you—even partially—has been an experience I shall never forget. Neither of us will,” he added, looking at Deep.
“How could we forget it? It’s been one disaster after another from the start.” Deep spoke in a bored tone. “But I suppose there’s no use rehashing it now that we’re almost free.”
“Almost free?” Kat couldn’t help the sharp pang of hurt and rejection that raced through her, though she told herself it was ridiculous. “Is that how you feel?”
“Isn’t it how you feel?” he countered, looking up to give her a smoldering glare.
“I…I don’t know.” Kat’s voice sank to a whisper. “I just don’t know.”
She’d been overjoyed to find the Moons blossom—ecstatic almost. But now she realized the reason for her joy wasn’t that she was going to be parted from Deep and Lock—it was because the lovely black and white flowers represented her ticket home. In her mind, they had come to symbolize everything she missed—Earth and Sophie and Liv and a culture where she spoke the language and didn’t have to rely on a partially defective fuzzy caterpillar to translate for her. Somehow that was all she’d been thinking of when she gathered the fi-fi flowers—she’d conveniently managed to forget that the sacred blossoms also meant the end of her partial bond with the brothers.
“Strange that you don’t know how you feel when it’s abundantly clear to me,” Deep snapped, breaking her train of thought. “I felt your relief when we found the blossoms. I’m sure Lock did too. Mother L’rin,” he said, turning to the old woman. “We would be most grateful if you’d use these blossoms to brew the potion that will separate Kat from my brother and me.”
Mother L’rin shook her head. “Separate you it will not. No potion such a thing can do.”
“What?” Kat said flatly. “I really hope my convo-pillar is acting up again. It sounded like you just said the fi-fi flowers won’t break the soul bond.”
“That they cannot do.”
“But you told me,” Kat cried. “You said if I brought you the flowers—” She stopped abruptly. What had the wise woman said? Had she ever really promised that the flowers would break the soul bond? Or had Kat just inferred it because she had been so eager to get away from Deep and Lock?
“Break the bond the flowers cannot,” Mother L’rin said. “But ease your pain they will, as nothing else.”
“Ease her pain? What do you mean?” Lock demanded. “Why should the lady Kat need special blossoms to ease her pain?”
“Because come back, it will” the old woman said calmly. “Half-bonded a female cannot be forever. But the fifilalachuchu blossoms her torment will ease—for a while, at least.”
“What?” Kat’s heart was suddenly in her throat. Surely she must have misunderstood the old woman? But from the grim look on Deep’s face and the concerned look on Lock’s, they had heard the same thing she had. “But…but I don’t want to live in pain the rest of my life,” she whispered through trembling lips. “And I don’t want to be dependant on some magical flower in order to function.”
Mother L’rin rose and poked her hard in the sternum. “Then bonded you must be. No way to break the soul bond there is and so—”
“Yes, there is.” Deep stepped forward, frowning. “There is a way to break the bond between us—one that has nothing to do with flowers and foolishness.”
“What are you talking about?” Lock said, frowning. “There’s clearly no way around this—Kat will have to be fully bonded to us.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Deep’s bottomless black eyes narrowed to slits. “Yes, you’d love it, dear brother. The problem is, that little Kat here, would not.” He turned to Kat. “Would you?”
Kat’s heart clenched in her chest. “Up until recently I would have said I absolutely didn’t want to be with the two of you,” she said quietly. “But—”
“But now you’ve had a change of heart and you’ve decided you want to be with us forever?” Deep said sarcastically.
“I didn’t say that,” Kat protested.
“Of course you didn’t. “Because that’s not what you want. We’re not what you want.”
“Deep,” Lock said warningly, stepping toward his brother.
Kat waved him back. “No, let’s try and talk this out. Deep,” she said softly, taking a step toward the dark twin. “Why are you acting this way? After how we talked in the cave, I thought…”
“I thought a few things myself.” Deep’s hot glare turned suddenly cool and distant. “All of them wrong. But as I was saying, there is a way to break the soul bond and let the three of us go back to living our normal lives.”
“Of what do you speak?” Mother L’rin demanded.
Deep frowned down at her. “The Scourge. They developed a way to break bonds between warriors and their mates. The psychic knife, they called it—a machine they developed on their home world.”
Lock stared at him, obviously appalled. “You can’t be serious. That machine, as you call it, was a torture device.”
“Why shouldn’t I be serious?” Deep demanded. “The breaking of an incomplete bond wouldn’t hurt any of us. I’ll admit the machine was invented for diabolical purposes, but why shouldn’t we use it to our advantage?”
“Maybe because it’s on the Scourge home world?” Lock raised an eyebrow at his brother but Deep was not so easily deterred.
“Please, Brother, their planet is a deadworld now. Since the last battle of Berrni nothing lives there and no one goes there—the entire place is abandoned. We could walk in, break the bond, and fly off-planet and no one would ever be the wiser.”
“The Goddess would know.” Mother L’rin rounded on Deep, waving a crooked finger in his face. “Sacrilege you speak of.”
Deep frowned. “No, what’s sacrilege is bonding an unwilling female to you.” He looked at Kat. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Kat’s chest was tight but she lifted her chin and looked him in the eyes. “Yes,” she said, nodding stiffly. “I would.”
“Good, then it’s settled.” Deep clapped his hands together once, in a motion of finality. “We’ll go at once.”
“Not without permission from the Kindred High Council, we won’t.” Lock glared at his brother. “Or have you forgotten that it’s a forbidden zone?”
“We’ll find a way around that,” Deep said casually. “You know Baird has friends on the Council.”
“But what about lady Kat’s pain?” Lock demanded. “Or don’t you care about that, anymore?”
“Of course I care.” Deep’s voice was suddenly gruff. He turned to Mother L’rin. “How long will it take you to brew that potion?”
“No potion will I make for you!” Mother L’ri
n threw the bouquet of black and white blossoms on the ground and trampled them into the dirt with her tiny feet.
“Hey, wait!” Kat protested. “We went to a lot of trouble to get those! And anyway, I thought they were sacred!”
“Sacred they are. But better they should be crushed than used by such as you. Blasphemers!” She spat at Deep’s booted feet. “If pain your lady has, ease her yourself.” Then she stalked off into the tall pink and gold grass muttering angrily.
Kat felt her heart sink. “Wait! Please, Mother L’rin,” she called and started to go after her.
“She’s just going to tell you that the only solution is to let Lock and I bond you to us forever,” Deep said. “Is that really what you want to hear?”
Kat stopped. “No,” she said, giving him a cool look. “No, most definitely not.”
“I didn’t think so.” He smiled but it wasn’t a happy expression. “So it’s settled. We’ll head straight back to the Mother ship and get permission to go to the Scourge home world where we can break our annoying little bond. We’ll be free of each other before you know it.”
“Wonderful,” Kat said flatly. “As easy as one, two, three.”
“Exactly.” Deep nodded. “And if your pain comes back, just tell Lock or I. We’ll take care of you.”
“You’re too kind,” Kat said, glaring at him. “But I feel fine—better than fine, actually. Great. Especially now that I know I’ll be getting away from you.”
Turning, she stalked away. Tears were rising in her eyes again and she didn’t want to cry in front of either of the brothers. Especially not Deep—the heartless bastard.
* * * * *
“Why did you do that?” Lock’s voice was soft and desolate. When he looked at Deep, the hurt in his brown eyes was almost too much to bear. Deep wanted to shield himself against his brother’s suffering, but he didn’t deserve not to feel it. Instead of closing himself off, he opened himself to the painful emotion.
“I did what was best for her,” he said evenly. “You know that’s true, Lock.”
“No, you did what was best for you.” Lock’s pain turned suddenly to rage. He rounded on Deep, his hands clenched into fists, his eyes blazing. “Because you always do what’s best for you. And because you think if you push her away first, she won’t have a chance to hurt you.”
“She’s had her chance,” Deep said in a low voice. “Don’t worry about that, Brother.”
“Well, I haven’t had mine!” Lunging forward, Lock punched him on the jaw.
Deep saw it coming but he didn’t back away or try to defend himself. He took the punch full on. And the next and the next, until his face was as bloody and numb as his heart.
Finally Lock stopped and stood there panting. His hands hung limply by his sides, the knuckles blood-spattered and raw. The blows had hurt him as much as Deep—the echoes of their shared pain, both emotional and physical—flooded the closed loop between them.
Deep wiped blood from his lower lip and winced. “Are you finished? Or do you want to hit me some more?” It was the first time since they were children that Lock had struck him. He was hurt but not surprised—not really. I had it coming.
Lock looked down at his hands, examining his bloody knuckles with dead eyes. “No…I’m done.”
“Good.” Deep straightened his shoulders and sighed. “Let me get some gel packs on my face before it swells while you go find Kat. If we hike fast and the tide is right, we can be folding space before the sun sets.”
“If we hurry,” Lock repeated dully. “Because the faster we get back, the faster you can get us separated from the only woman I’ve ever really loved. The only woman either one of us has ever really loved.”
Deep raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you forgetting Miranda?”
“We shared a few dreams with her,” Lock said wearily. “Not our lives—not like Kat.”
“So she doesn’t count because we never actually got to meet her in person?” Deep demanded.
Lock looked up at him wearily. “What happened to Miranda was terrible, Brother. It was a grief deeper than anything I have ever felt—until now.” He sighed. “But Miranda is gone and Kat…she’s right here. She’s lovely and intelligent and perfect in every way. So of course you have to drive her away.”
Deep looked his brother in the eyes. “If you truly love her, then you’ll help me in this. I’m no good for her, Lock—for any female. I’ll poison her life if we get too close.”
“Just the way you’ve poisoned mine.” Lock ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “I wish I could cut the tie between us. Not just between the two of us and Kat—between you and me. I wish…I wish we weren’t brothers.” He glared at Deep. “I’d rather be dead than spend one more day as your twin.”
Despite his outward composure, Deep’s breath caught in his throat. He knew his brother—Lock never spoke unkindly and he never lied. If he said a thing, it was true from the bottom of his heart. “Brother…” he said uncertainly.
“Don’t call me that.” Lock threw him one last glance over his shoulder before he walked away. “Not anymore.”
Deep watched him go, his heart aching in his chest. He was only doing what he had to do, but it still hurt. It’s for the best though, he told himself. For Kat. For all of us.
But seeing misery in the set of his brother’s hunched shoulders, and feeling the echo of both his pain and Kat’s, it was hard to believe.
Chapter Twenty-three
“So you’re going to the Scourge home world?” Sophie’s green eyes were as wide as saucers.
“Apparently.” Kat took a scoop of the ultra-premium vanilla bean ice cream and plopped it unceremoniously onto the homemade chocolate chip cookie. Then she jammed another cookie on top and sighed. “If Baird can get us permission from the council.”
“He got it.” Olivia came into the food prep area and lifted her nose. “Mmm, you can smell those cookies all the way down the corridor.”
“Liv! These were supposed to be a surprise,” Sophie protested. “We’re making you homemade chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches but we’re not nearly done yet. These have to go into the freezer for at least an hour before…”
“Before what?” Olivia said, around a mouthful of cookie and ice cream. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she moaned, “Soooo good!”
Despite her inner turmoil, Kat couldn’t help laughing. “I swear, she’s getting worse all the time! Liv, honey, I don’t want to hurt your feelings but you need to ease up on the sweets or you and I will be able to swap clothes after the baby is born.”
“Uh-uh.” Liv shook her head and grabbed a napkin to wipe her chin. “That’s one of the nice things about carrying a Kindred baby—you don’t have to worry about weight gain.”
“You don’t?” Kat frowned. “Who told you that?”
“Sylvan,” Sophie said promptly. “He says when an Earth woman is carrying a Kindred fetus, she requires so many extra calories that she could live on Krispy Kreme donuts and Godiva truffles and not gain an ounce—the real problem is to keep yourself from losing too much weight.”
“Seriously?” Kat could scarcely believe it. But it was true that though she ate from morning until night, Liv didn’t appear to have gained a single pound. Which was really kind of unfair when you thought about it.
“Uh-huh.” Liv nodded and took another bite of the drippy ice cream sandwich. “Of course I try to get plenty of fruits and veggies too. But I’m not holding back on the stuff I like, either.” She turned to Sophie. “And these are heavenly. Thank you so much!”
“Well, you did say you were craving something sweet.” Sophie gave her a one armed hug since she was holding a dripping ice cream scoop in the other hand.
“When am I not?” Olivia laughed and nodded at the plate. “Well, go on you two—might as well dig in. I can’t eat them all but I might be tempted to try if you don’t help out.”
“Oh, all right.” With a sigh, Sophie put down her scoop and picked u
p a sandwich. “But you’re supposed to freeze them first.” She looked at Kat. “Have one. You better get them quick before Baird and Sylvan get home—Baird has a sweet tooth almost as bad as Liv’s.”
Kat shook her head. “You two go ahead. I’m not hungry.”
“Oh no.” Sophie put down her cookie at once and gave Kat a worried look. “Are you sick again? Did the pain come back?”
“And how did it go away in the first place?” Olivia demanded. “Was it that wise woman they took you to see or what? Now that you’re home and we’re finally all together again you have to spill.”
“I’m fine,” Kat told them, more or less truthfully. “I’m a little weak but there’s no pain.” Not yet, anyway. But she didn’t say that aloud—no point in worrying her friends when there was nothing they could do about it. “As for how the pain went away in the first place…well, remember that I told you Deep did something you’d never guess?”
Liv and Sophie gave each other a look she couldn’t interpret. “We remember, all right,” Liv said. “But neither Sophie or I could get anything about it out of Baird of Sylvan.”
Kat frowned. “Baird and Sylvan? How would they know?”
“I don’t know but they do—only they won’t tell us,” Sophie said. “Sylvan said he couldn’t reveal the past of another warrior or something like that.”
“Baird said the same thing,” Olivia chimed in.
Kat shook her head. “Well, it’s nice that they’re so trustworthy, but I really don’t see how either one of then could know that Deep took my pain.”
“What?” Liv asked just as Sophie said,
“He took your what?”
“He took my pain,” Kat repeated. She went on to tell her two best friends about the dream she’d had of Deep being whipped in the cave and how Mother L’rin had showed her that it was real. “So you see,” she ended in a low voice. “He’s the reason my head doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“I don’t think it’s your head we have to be concerned with right now. It’s your heart.” Liv put down her sandwich and wiped her fingers on a napkin before putting an arm around Kat. “Am I right, Kat-woman?”