“What were you talking about? Answer me! Does it have to do with the week the two of you were off playing instead of working as you should have been?” GrandSire demanded. His icy blue eyes narrowed. “Were you with some sort of female somewhere—sharing her?” he demanded.
Gaze opened his mouth to answer, but to his surprise, Bound beat him to it.
“Yes, GrandSire, there was a female, but we weren’t playing—we were kidnapped by slavers and sold on fuckin’ Yonnie Six,” he rumbled, glaring at the older male.
“What? You told me you had engine trouble and were delayed getting your ship fixed!” GrandSire exclaimed.
“Yeah, we told you that because we knew you couldn’t handle the truth,” Bound growled. “This female I told you about rescued us—she saved us from being sold to a Diluthian mine, where we would have died from inhaling fuckin’ poisonous fumes. Her name is Alexa and she looks like an angel—she’s an Elite with creamy brown skin and big, dark eyes and she’s brave and gorgeous, and curvy, and everything a male could want in a female. Is it any wonder Gaze and I fell in love with her?”
Gaze’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor. In all their years of living with their GrandSire, he had never heard Bound contradict or confront the older male.
Though he was the Dark Twin, Bound was fairly easy-going where their GrandSire and his strict teachings were concerned. He had never once protested when GrandSire lectured them about never sharing a female and talked about how filthy and disgusting it was.
But maybe that was because we hadn’t found the right female to share yet, Gaze thought as he watched the Dark Twin’s eyes narrow as he faced off against their GrandSire.
“How dare you say such things to me in my own domicile?” GrandSire demanded. “How dare you admit to sharing a female right to my face?”
“I dare because it’s true and it’s not fuckin’ filthy—it’s natural for Twin Kindred, which is what we are!” Bound growled.
“You’re Blood Kindred!” GrandSire declared. “I’ve raised you as such and I expect you to act like it!”
“Guess what, GrandSire—we’re not following your rules any longer,” Bound told him. “Gaze and I have found the woman who’s right for us and we’re gonna share her if we fuckin’ feel like it!”
Gaze wanted to point out that the sharing part was up to Alexa, but he couldn’t get a word in edgewise between his GrandSire and Bound.
“That’s it—get out of my domicile—both of you!” GrandSire pointed at the front door, his face a white mask of fury. “I’ve tried to raise you right—tried to live with the shame of having the two of you turn out to be Pitch-Bloods. You’ve been a burden to me all my life, ever since your mother died and I have tried to bear it. But I will not allow you to live under my roof when you admit to such filthy practices!”
“GrandSire, try to understand,” Gaze began. “We had Twin Kindred fathers, that makes us at least half Twin Kindred, so sharing a female is actually natural for us!”
“I don’t want to hear another word, get out!” their GrandSire bellowed. “Get out and stay out. I never want to see the two of you again!”
“Come on, Gaze—let’s get the fuck outta here,” Bound growled. Grabbing Gaze by the arm, he pulled him through the doorway of the domicile they’d been raised in and out into the main corridor.
Gaze became aware that the children, who had been playing and laughing happily just moments ago, were watching the scene with serious, frightened faces. They probably didn’t see adults fighting much, since Kindred households were usually happy ones.
He felt bad for making the kids upset, but Bound was already dragging him down the corridor towards the main entrance to the grotto.
“Come on, Brother,” he growled at Gaze. “Let’s go—we’ll move someplace else and live as Twin Kindred—somewhere far away from Tranq Prime.”
“What about our business?” Gaze protested.
“We’ll start fresh,” Bound told him. “Or get jobs as pilots somewhere. Whatever we do, it’s better than living here one more fuckin’ minute!”
They left the grotto, braving the freezing temperatures to get to their ship, which was parked not too far from the entrance. Speech was impossible as they tramped over the ice, due to the howling, freezing wind, but the moment they got inside and were warming up the ship, Gaze turned to his brother.
“I never knew you were so angry with GrandSire.”
“You know…I never knew it either.”
Bound sighed as he fired the ship’s engines and took them up, away from Tranq Prime and into the darkness of space. Once the viewcreen showed nothing but stars, he turned to Gaze again.
“I think maybe I was willing to put up with his bullshit as long as there was nothin’ on the line. But now…” He shook his head as he began to feed coordinates into the Nav Com. “Now it feels like everything’s on the line. And if I have to choose between him and Angel, I’ll choose her every time.”