Divided: Brides of the Kindred 10 by Evangeline Anderson Page B

tasting where
no one had ever touched her before…
    No, it’s wrong! She shook herself reluctantly out of the fantasy and felt
the old guilt flooding her. Just because she wasn’t going to become a nun
didn’t mean she should entirely throw all her morals out the window! Being with
a man she wasn’t married to—let alone two of them at once—would break her
family’s hearts. And it would eventually break her heart as well—just like it had
been broken when Kenneth—
    Becca pushed the memory away. It was far
in the past and she’d reformed herself since then. Repented. Entered a convent.
Made plans to become a nun. Plans which she had now broken…
    But what about your desires, Rebecca? that treacherous little voice whispered. What about
your needs? Would it really be so wrong to give in to them? Just once?
    Becca didn’t know but she was afraid she
was soon to find out.

 
    * * * * *

 
    Far left the suite of Commanders Deep and
Lock with a heavy heart. It was just as he had feared—the bonding was never
going to happen.
    The cruel thing was that they had come so close.
    When he had held Truth in his arms and the
other male had stayed, even when Becca left, Far had almost begun to hope. He
could feel the emptiness in his twin’s soul—could feel it because it mirrored
the aching need within his own. They were two halves—neither one whole. Neither
one complete without the other.
    Far had stood there, his arms clasped
lightly—so lightly—around his twin’s waist and had felt a cautious kind of joy.
A hope that maybe they might mend the rift between them. He had felt certain if
he could get Truth to open up—just a little—he could show him what both of them
had been missing their entire lives.
    For to a Twin Kindred his brother was more
than sibling—he was a constant friend, a close advisor, the one person he could
always count on to tell the truth, comfort, and understand. A source of
unconditional love and caring. And once they added the right female to that mix—one
they both could love and pleasure together—it became one of the most perfect
symbiotic relationships in the universe.
    It was something that Far had longed for
as long as he could remember. Something everyone growing up on Twin Moons
seemed to have but him. Far remembered walking to school by himself every day,
seeing all the other twins talking and laughing. Feeling so lonely because he
had no one to play with after classes were over, no one to study with, to talk
to.
    His adopted family was kind and the older
twin brothers that were his adopted siblings had tried to make him feel welcome
but Far had always had the sense of being an outsider. Being only half of what
he could be. Being alone.
    Far let himself into the suite. He didn’t
bother with the lights—he simply went to his bedroom and lay down on the
sleeping platform in the dark. He stared up into the blackness, wishing for
Truth, wishing for Becca. But what good did it do to wish? Neither of them
truly wanted this bonding. Neither one of them felt the empty need like Far
did.
    It was never going to happen.

 
    * * * * *
    Truth walked swiftly down the corridor
that led to his suite. He was situated right beside the Unmated Males area—the
place the Kindred warriors who lived on the Mother Ship stayed until they
called a mate.
    There were no females there at all—well,
unless you counted the Pairing Puppets, which Truth didn’t. They were mindless,
pretty automans. Oh, their flesh was soft enough, their bodies curved and their
hair silky and lush. But their brains were robotic and they had no
souls—nothing a male could really bond with. The vacant look on their pretty
faces was enough to tell you that.
    Still, they were a good outlet for the
sex-starved males who had yet to start dream sharing with a female on Earth.
They were available night and day to any unmated male and their presence kept
the fierce Kindred warriors mostly peaceful.
    Truth had thought of