Sought...Book 3 in the Brides of the Kindred series (9 page)

“Oh dear.” Kat frowned. “Uh, I don’t suppose
you speak any English like Deep and Lock, do you?”

“Deep vun Lock crabash le taber.” The woman
made a walking gesture with two fingers and pointed at the door
which appeared to lead out to a garden.

Kat assumed that she meant the brothers were
out doing…whatever it was they did while they were home. She
wondered if the tall, slender woman was in any way related to Deep
and Lock. She looked a little too young to be their mother but not
quite old enough to be an older sister. Maybe she was just a
maid?

“Um, okay,” she said hesitantly, wishing
she’d gotten an injection of translation bacteria the way Sophie
had before she visited Tranq Prime. “I guess I’ll just—” To her
mortification, her stomach growled loudly, interrupting her
hesitant speech. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” Thoroughly embarrassed,
she put a hand over her tummy, only to have it growl again.

The woman threw back her head and laughed.
“Cheela! Noosh.
Noosh
,” she said, taking Kat by the arm. She
pointed at the sink where Kat could now see there were several
fruits or vegetables—she couldn’t tell which—laid out. The woman
pointed at them and then looked at Kat and raised her eyebrows. It
was clear she was asking which one Kat wanted.

“Uh…” Kat looked over the variety
uncertainly. Aside from the twin fruit there was a twisted purple
root and a greenish-yellow object with orange dots, about the size
of a lemon.

Neither of the other choices looked really
appealing. Kat was about to go for the twin fruit by reflex, when a
warm, rich, ripe scent tickled her nose. She lifted her face and
sniffed—what
was
that smell?
Whatever it is, it smells
amazing! Like a cross between pineapple and raspberry with
something salty thrown in. Maybe buttered popcorn?
The
delicious aroma seemed to be coming from a bowl of triangular fruit
about the size of her palm.

Looking closer, she saw the individual
fruits were shaped a little like a strawberry, though they were
considerably larger. Each was a tempting golden peach color with
just a blush of pink on its smooth skin. They had purple stems at
the top that were so pretty they could almost double as flowers.
But Kat had never seen flowers that she wanted to eat, and suddenly
her mouth was watering to try one of the three-sided fruits.

“Could I…would you mind if I tried one of
those?” she asked, pointing to the bowl which was sitting to one
side of the sink.

The woman looked surprised. “Kala?”

“Yes.” Kat nodded eagerly. “Kala—I’d like to
try some of that. If it tastes half as good as it smells I’ll think
I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

The woman looked doubtful at first but then
she shrugged and handed Kat one of the fruits.

Kat took it by the stem carefully. She had a
fleeting thought that she might be about to eat something that was
perfectly fine for Twin Moons inhabitants but poison to an
Earthling like herself. But when she brought the peachy-pink
triangular fruit to her nose and took a deep sniff, all her fears
disappeared. Nothing that smelled so good could be bad for you,
could it?
Still, I’ll go slow, just in case.

Experimentally she took a tiny nibble from
the pointed end of the fruit. A flavor unlike anything else she’d
ever had exploded in her mouth. It tasted like it smelled—fresh
pineapple, juicy raspberry, and hot buttered popcorn—but there were
other, more subtle flavors as well. A hint of hot chocolate, a
taste of honeydew melon, and the tiniest bit of smoked cheddar
cheese. Really, the fruit had too much going on—the strange and
different flavors should have fought with each other. Instead, they
blended harmoniously in her mouth in a way that made Kat’s eyes
roll back in her head with pleasure.

In no time she had finished the first
fruit—right down to the purple stem—and the woman handed her
another.

“Oh my God, this is
amazing,”
Kat
said around mouthfuls of the juicy, tender flesh. The triangle
fruit, as she was beginning to think of it, had a texture like a
peach but with little crunchy lumps in it that were chewy and
crispy at the same time. She finished the second as well and looked
hopefully at the bowl. “Um, I don’t want to make a pig of myself or
anything but…”

Laughing, the woman pushed the entire bowl
into her hands. Then she surprised Kat by giving her a hug and a
kiss on the forehead.

“Oh. Uh, okay. Thanks.” Kat was caught off
guard by her sudden affection. But the triangle fruit was so good
she probably would have put up with much weirder things than a hug
and a kiss in order to get a whole bowl of it.

Still smiling at her, the woman led Kat to a
small, sunny alcove in the corner of the kitchen where large, flat
pillows were arranged on the floor. She seated Kat on a blue and
purple one and then made motions at the bowl of fruit. “Noosh.
Noosh.”

That must mean ‘eat.’
Kat nodded
politely. “Yes, noosh. Don’t worry, I will absolutely noosh. Thank
you.” She picked up another triangular fruit and took a bite. “Mmm,
good!”

This seemed to satisfy the woman. She smiled
at Kat, said a few other things in the Twin Moons language, and
went back to washing fruit at the sink.

Left alone with the bowl of succulent fruit,
Kat got busy. She told herself sternly she ought to take it
easy—after all, who knew what effects the alien fruit might have on
her system? But it had been days since she’d done more than pick at
her food and she was ravenous. Before she knew it, she was down to
the last two fruit in the bowl and wishing she’d gone slower. She
was about to take a bite of the next-to-last-fruit when Deep and
Lock came through the door.

Immediately Kat was flooded with emotions
that weren’t hers, and none of them were good.

“What in the seven hells were you doing this
morning?” Deep demanded, striding over to her.

Kat was immediately on the defensive. “I
don’t know what you’re upset about but you can just back off. You
two went out and left me here in a strange house, in a strange
town,
on a strange planet
where I don’t even know the
language. I had to muddle through on my own.”

“We’re very sorry, my lady.” Lock, who had
been speaking rapidly in Twin Moons dialect with the tall woman,
came over to where Kat was still sitting with the mostly empty
bowl. “We had to run some errands and we didn’t think you’d be up
before we got back.”

“Oh, she was up, all right. Up and giving
the vendors at the market a show,” Deep snarled.

“What are you talking about?” Tired of
craning her neck to look up at him, Kat stood and put a hand on her
hip. Of course she still had to look up, just not quite as far.

“I’m talking about the way you were showing
yourself out the window this morning—the entire township is talking
about it.” Deep glared at her.

Kat frowned. “I couldn’t find any clothes
when I first got up but I wrapped a sheet around myself. I looked
out the window and some people waved at me so I waved back. What’s
the big deal?”

“The ‘big deal’ is that you shouldn’t be
showing your body to strangers.” Deep eyed her possessively, making
her feel suddenly naked.

“I
wasn’t,”
Kat protested, wishing
the weird, feathered shirt she’d put on was longer. “I was very
careful to keep the sheet wrapped around me the entire time, I
swear.”

Lock cleared his throat. “Apparently, the
light shining in the window rendered your sheet, ah,
transparent.”

“What?” Kat felt a heated blush sweep over
her. “Are you serious? So all those guys who were waving and
smiling at me weren’t just being friendly?”

“They’d like to be a whole lot more than
friendly,”
Deep growled. “Do you know how often the average
male here on Twin Moons gets to see an elite? Almost never. And to
see an elite without her clothing, her lush curves revealed, her—”
He stopped abruptly and frowned at the triangle fruit Kat was still
clutching in one hand.
“What
are you eating?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “She gave it
to me.” She pointed at the tall woman who had been standing at the
sink and watching their conversation with a worried look on her
face.

Lock turned to her. “Mumzell? Chara vena Kat
Kala ala noosh?”

She nodded her head rapidly. “Ja, ja! Shiba
ava Kala ala noosh.” Then she hugged Lock and stood on tiptoes to
kiss his forehead.

“What? What is she saying?” Kat
demanded.

Deep frowned. “She’s saying you asked for
it. She thinks you wanted it because…” He broke off, shaking his
head.

“Because what? What does it do?” Kat asked,
worried. Had she poisoned herself with the strange fruit? Or had
she somehow eaten something she wasn’t supposed to eat for
religious reasons? Damn it, she didn’t know
anything
about
this stupid planet. She
had
to get herself some translation
bacteria!

Lock finally finished speaking to the older
woman. He turned back to Kat and spoke in a low voice. “What you
ate are Kala fruit—what we call bonding fruit. They have uh…a
special significance to our people.”

Deep snorted. “That’s an
understatement.”

“Deep, please.” Lock gave him a warning
look. “Will you just let me explain?”

“They’re not poisonous or anything, right?”
Kat asked. “I mean, I’m sure the nice lady wouldn’t have let me eat
them if they were but—”

“That ‘nice lady’ is our mother,” Deep said
harshly. “And she now believes that you intend to mate with Lock
and myself.
Immediately
. Because why else would anyone eat
an entire bowl of bonding fruit in one sitting?”

“What?” Kat felt a sudden rush of panic.
“No, no,” she said to the woman, shaking her head rapidly. “It’s
not like that with us. Really, it’s not.” She turned back to Lock.
“What exactly are ‘bonding fruit’? Do they have some kind of
religious importance to your people?”

“Not religious exactly…” He hesitated for a
moment as though trying to think how to explain. “Bonding fruit is
usually eaten by unmated women right before they bond with the twin
males they have chosen to be their mates.”

“Oh.” Kat was relieved. “So it’s just a
misunderstanding. She thinks because I ate the fruit, you and I and
Deep were going to…but we’re not, of course.” She laughed
nervously. “So just explain it to her and tell her I’m sorry I gave
her the wrong idea and we can forget about it, right?”

“I’m afraid not.” Deep shook his head. “I
don’t think any of us is going to be able to just ‘forget about it’
for quite a while.”

Kat frowned at him. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?
I didn’t mean to profane your weird eat-fruit-before-you-get-busy
custom but it was an honest mistake. If you can’t get over it then
that’s your problem, not mine.”

“That’s not what Deep means, my lady.” Lock
shook his head apologetically. “You see, there is a reason that
females eat bonding fruit before they get mated. It has special
properties.”

That sounded ominous to Kat. “What
kind
of special properties?” she demanded.

Lock looked uncomfortable. “Well, it
increases your elasticity in certain, uh, areas.”

“What?” Kat demanded. “What are you trying
to say?”

“It makes you able to take two shafts in
your pussy at the same time,” Deep said bluntly. “Is that clear
enough for you?”

Kat was horrified. Her eyes went immediately
to the sink where the twins’ mother had been standing, but luckily,
she had left the room.

“Don’t worry. Mumzelle can’t hear us. And
even if she could, she can’t understand English, remember?” Deep
laughed but it wasn’t a happy sound. “I can feel how upset you are.
Why don’t you say something?”

“I just…I can’t…why the hell would anyone
want to…to do
that
?” She looked at Lock appealingly,
ignoring Deep though she couldn’t help remembering the images he’d
sent her the night before. Of both of them inside her, thrusting,
filling her…
But I never thought it was really possible. Never
thought they would really want to—

“It’s how we perform bonding sex, my lady,”
Lock said gently, breaking into her frantic thoughts. “Deep and I
thought you knew that.”

“Especially after our exchange last night,”
Deep growled, giving her a piercing look.

“I didn’t think you were for real.” Kat
shook her head, her mind filled with painful, scary images. “Never
thought you’d really want to…”

“Of course we want to,” Deep said harshly.
“It’s the way of our people.”

“But I thought…I guess I thought you did it,
uh, one at a time. Or at the very worst, one in front and one in,
uh, the back.” She could feel herself blushing but she couldn’t
seem to stop. God, she
really
didn’t need to be thinking
about this right now. Especially considering what the three of them
had been doing the night before and the images Deep had sent
her.

“We do share a female in many different
ways.” Lock nodded. “And we can form a
limited
kind of
physical bond if one of us fills your, um,
front
and the
other one fills your
back
, as you put it. But for true
bonding sex to occur…”

“Both our cocks have to be buried to the
hilt in your pussy at the same time,” Deep finished for him in a
low voice.

“Oh my God.” Kat shook her head. “But you
guys are
huge.
I, uh, felt you against me last night.
There’s no way anyone could—”

“Certainly you could. Especially after
eating an entire bowl of bonding fruit.” Deep smirked at her.

Kat rounded on him, suddenly furious. “Why
do you keep making such a big deal about how much of it I ate? I
was
hungry
, damn it!”

“Brides-to-be usually start slowly, eating
just a few bites of the fruit each day to increase their
flexibility. They only eat a whole fruit on the day of their
bonding ceremony,” Lock explained. “Just
one
whole fruit.
I’m afraid since you ate considerably more than one, the effects
will be multiplied.” He shook his head. “I really wish Mumzelle
hadn’t planned the party for tonight.”