“I…I guess so.” Lexi’s voice came out sounding low and choked. She held out her arms and the Light Twin enfolded her in a gentle embrace.
“Be well,” he murmured in her ear. “And if you ever want to find us, we live in the Overton Grotto.”
When he released her, Bound pulled her close to his broad chest, crushing her to him in a desperate hug.
“Please change your mind, Angel,” he murmured hoarsely in her ear. “Please don’t let this be good-bye—we fuckin’ love you!”
Lexi wanted to say that she loved them too—that everything she’d said under the influence of the Love Dream Gas had been true. But the guilty voice in her head was too strong. What did she intend to do, it demanded, set up house somewhere with the two males and have their babies? Which would certainly be sons, considering the fact that the Kindred were 95% male as a species! No, she couldn’t do that—no way in the Seven Hells, as the two of them might say.
“I’m sorry, Bound,” she whispered in his ear as she kissed his cheek. “But I can’t change my mind—I have my life to live and you and Gaze have yours. You know it’s true.”
“It might be true but that doesn’t make it right.” He let her go at last from the fierce bear hug and Lexi could breathe again. “We’ll miss you, Angel,” he told her and Lexi thought his eyes were suspiciously bright. So were Gaze’s, for that matter. “Never thought I would ever find a female I wanted to share and bond with, but you’re the one,” the Dark Twin told her.
“I’m sorry—so sorry.” Lexi felt hot wetness rolling down her cheeks and realized that she was crying now—she couldn’t help it. “I wish things were different—I wish either my world or yours would accept us but they won’t—you know they won’t.”
“We know it,” Gaze said quietly. He swiped at his own eyes as well. “Come, Brother,” he told Bound. “We must not detain our Lady any further. She needs to go home and so do we—GrandSire will be wondering where we’ve been and why we never delivered our latest shipment.”
Bound didn’t answer, but he did follow his brother as Gaze left the ship. As the two of them disembarked, he threw a look over his shoulder that made Lexi’s tears start up all over again. There was so much hurt in that look—so much love and longing that it pierced her heart and for a moment she almost shouted, “Wait—come back!”
But then the moment passed. The ramp of her own ship lifted, sealing the hull again and she watched as the two big Kindred walked over to their own vessel. After inspecting it thoroughly, they went inside and the engines roared to life. The sleek silver ship rose smoothly into the air, hovered for a moment, and then shot out into space.
Lexi swiped at her eyes again as she watched it go. Gaze and Bound were gone and now she had to get back to her old life.
THIRTY-TWO
“We never shoulda let her go,” Bound growled, glaring at the viewscreen, at the spot where Alexa’s ship had been moments before. “When in the Seven Hells are we ever gonna find a female like her again? We shoulda’ took the chance while we had it.”
“What chance?” Gaze demanded in exasperation. “You heard her, Bound—she didn’t want us. We couldn’t make her bond with us.”
“Well, we shoulda’ tried harder to persuade her,” the Dark Twin said stubbornly. “We three belong together—I know it! We shouldn’ta let her go so easy.”
Gaze shook his head.
“In the end, it had to be her choice,” he said sadly. “You said yourself that if the Goddess willed for the three of us to be together, nothing could stand in our way.” He shrugged. “I guess it just…wasn’t her will.”
“I don’t believe that—I’ll never believe that,” Bound insisted. “Angel was the one female she had for us and we just flew away from her. We’re damn fools, Gaze, and that’s all there is to it.”
Gaze didn’t answer. He didn’t feel foolish, but he was heartbroken. He had been hoping, right up until the end, that Alexa would change her mind and decide that the three of them should stay together. But the fact that she had been willing to watch them walk out of her life proved it wasn’t so.
Alexa was gone and she wasn’t coming back.
THIRTY-THREE
“Grettah, I’m here! I’m back!”
Lexi was so excited to be back in her bakery that she didn’t even change clothes first. She ran right into the little low building filled with the scent of baking bread and rising yeast wearing the elaborate Yonnie Six outfit she’d worn to meet the Sacred Seven.
She inhaled the familiar, comforting smells and looked at the familiar surroundings—the long table where they mixed the dough and the proofing racks and the ovens where everything was baked—and waited to feel the warm, subtle joy she always felt when she came into the bakery each morning.