Vincent looked hopefully at his brother who was already shaking his head.
“We’re still in the service of both Queens and we have little choice but to obey. Let’s just get on with this and get back as soon as possible. Leaving a warm, wet woman waiting for the two of us to return is not my idea of a good start to a mission.”
Vincent grunted his agreement and climbed into the ship, his boots ringing against the metalloid floor of the cargo transpo. Shan Lin climbed in after him, unhooking the ramp as he looked out the doorway.
“Winters is finished and has secured the hold’s door. If we’ve got everything, let’s get this fiasco finished and get back to our wife.”
* * * * *
Shari stirred in bed, shivering at the loss of remembered warmth that had recently surrounded her. Stretching, she reached out absently waiting to contact with a warm body and coming up empty handed.
Lifting her head to look around, Shari found she was alone in the cavernous bed.
“Shan Lin? Vincent?” she called out softly at first and receiving no response, called more loudly.
Shari?
A gentle voice came into her mind.
Looking around wildly for the source, it took Shari’s sleep clogged mind a few moments before she realized the voice was coming from inside her head.
“Well, hell. A couple of glorious nights of uninhibited sex and I’m hearing voices.” Shari shook her head at her schizophrenic thoughts and mumbled aloud about losing it.
It
, being her mind.
“I’m in la-la land, trapped in a sexual haze of orgasms, and losing my sanity in the process.” Shari started to get off the bed, untangling the coverings as she scooted across the behemoth her husbands called a bed.
Shari?
“What?” she asked querulously.
Are you all right? You seem distressed.
Shari growled at the voice, still not quite able to realize where it came from.
“Look. I’m not even awake. So if this is your idea of a joke…”
Great! Now she was talking to herself.
A sleepy snarl sounded as she began to taunt the voice.
“Little voices in my head, makes me think I am dead. Why do you not go away, come again…” No, it wouldn’t work.
Shari!
Two voices spoke her name in unison, command inherent in their voices.
Shari jolted, tumbling from the bed directly into the pile of coverings she had just extracted herself from. Coming up fighting through her trappings, Shari looked around the room expecting her husbands to be looking on the scene of her fall and laughing uproariously at her.
“What? Shan Lin? Vincent? Just where the hell are you?”
Not finding the men in the room, though she had gotten up and began to prowl through the enormous room, Shari made her way toward the door to see if perhaps they were on the other side.
I’m sorry,
Kasha
. We’re pathing to you in your mind.
The words brought Shari up short on her journey to the room’s door. Suddenly she remembered the two men’s particular ability.
“Thank God! I thought I had lost my mind.” Relief relaxed the muscles that had tightened at the thought of the loss of her faculties.
“I thought I was losing… Wait, does this mean you can listen in on my thoughts anytime you want?” Shari asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
A chuckle sounded in her mind and she felt a soft caress run through her body.
Shivering at the intimate contact, Shari shuddered.
“Hey, knock it off.” She meant to speak forcefully but the words came out on a moan.
Vincent. Leave it be. It’s not as if we can finish what you’re starting in person…
Shari listened to the words, barely hearing them over the sensations beginning to course through her body. Massive heat began to pool in her pussy and her hand began to make its way down her torso toward her naked curls.
Do you want me to stop?
Vincent’s voice asked, a caress stroking her mentally.
“Are you going to come ease the ache?” Shari asked, her body betraying her need to give in to the stimulation causing her body to undulate.
A sense of disappointment pathed into her mind and the stimulation eased into a feeling of comfort. A snarl sounded briefly and was quickly cut off.
My apologies,
Kasha
. I will make it up to you when we return.
Shari’s breath escaped through trembling lips as her body’s control was once again returned to her.
“You had better.” A snarl of her own sounded and Shari winced as she made her way to the bathroom.
Entering the spacious bathroom, Shari felt something about the room put her off. As gorgeous as it was, it didn’t quite give her a feeling of…ownership?
Perhaps all the room needed was her touch. Things in it, that belonged to her.
It was gorgeous in and of itself, but it wasn’t quite
theirs
yet. Thinking absently of just how she might be able to accomplish this as she took care of business, her mind wandered to just where the men had gone.
We’re headed to Hurok. The Queen has ordered us to…
Shari nearly came off the toilet as she yelped in surprise.
“Hey! Can I have a little privacy here? I’m trying to pee for cripes sakes!”
Mortified at having the two men in her head as she used the bathroom, Shari finished in record time and nearly dove into the shower stall. Waves of contrition pathed into her head as she tried to hide under the waterfall which seemed to be the ‘spigot’ for the brothers’ shower.
Kasha. Please…
Shari listened to Vincent’s voice, the humor threaded through it and she let out a stifled scream.
“Just tell me when you’ll be back and let me clean up.” Frustrated by the aborted seduction, not very happy about waking to find the two brothers gone after she had practically become another limb to the two last night, Shari used the soap she had found and began to scrub viciously at her hair.
“And tell me how to block the two of you out of my head for a while!” Shari sputtered soap out of her mouth as she spoke.
There was silence for a moment before Shan Lin’s voice came through.
That is something you must find on your own.
Vincent cut in.
You must find a way in your own mind. But you will also need to find a way to turn it back on. Listen, Shari, it was not my intention…
Shari ignored what the brothers were saying and conjured up a switch in her mind. Mentally turning it off as she would a light switch on a wall, she rinsed her hair and waited.
No voices spoke in her mind.
“Shan Lin?” She spoke tentatively.
No answer from his smooth voice.
“Vincent?” She waited.
Nothing. No growlly snarl replied.
A relieved breath left her as Shari suddenly smiled.
“Fixed those two good, didn’t I. Smarter than the average bear, eh Boo-Boo?” Shari snickered feeling much better. Now she could finish wallowing in the luxurious shower, the wonderfully steamy waterfall she had been waiting to try since she had first seen it.
A tiny bubble of joy sounded as she hummed a tune from Gypsy Rose Lee in her mind. It sounded suspiciously like, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”
Now that should drown out those two and allow me to find a real body to speak to.
Thinking she would just round up Winters after her shower and grill him on the brothers’ whereabouts, Shari lathered up the floral soap she had found and finished washing her body.
* * * * *
“What the hell did you do that for? We needed her to be in contact with us when she went to see Auntie. You know she hasn’t claimed us yet and we have no idea if she’ll be able to turn it back on.”
Shan Lin snapped at his brother, as Vincent prepared to dock by guiding the ship into the port of Hurok.
“She wanted to know and I would deny her nothing.” Vincent spoke calmly ignoring Shan Lin who grumbled in his seat.
“You are not her only husband. I too am entitled to give her what she needs. If you hadn’t let her know how to shut off the pathing, I could have…”
Shan Lin never finished the sentence. Vincent watched his brother out of the corner of his eye and was doing his best to keep the ship level as he docked using the latch that would keep the ship attached to the docking bay.
He had no sooner managed the difficult task when a metal case came flying at his head from the opposite side, where his brother had been. Ducking quickly as he had been taught during Warrior training, Vincent easily avoided having his head caved in.
“Tantrum, brother mine?” Vincent asked as an adult speaking to a rebellious child.
An inhuman sound came from Shan Lin as Vincent saw his brother prepare to launch himself at Vincent.
Vincent, never one to pass up the opportunity for a good fight, knew he should put a stop to this. Knowing
Try Nas Ayn
had its talons sunk into Shan Lin, Vincent did his best to talk his brother out of the fight they both knew could kill them.
“Think about it brother mine. Shari is not even…”
“Do not speak the name of my bride!
She is mine!
Do you hear me? It is my right to give her what she needs. You have no rights where she is concerned.”
Panting heavily, Shan Lin picked up the closest object in the ship to himself. A
pryt
lance.
Vincent raised his eyebrow questioningly at his brother, willing him to see the absurdity in the situation.
“Shan Lin.” Vincent spoke calmly, a sense of unreality seeping into his body. “Shari is my wife also. She is the other half of us. She cannot have one without the other.”
Vincent watched Shan Lin fiddle with the switch on the
pryt
lance, flicking it on and off. Vincent began to send waves of love toward his brother wanting to kick his own ass for allowing his feelings for Shari to overwhelm good judgment.
“Brother mine.” The words came softly. “You are right. I should not have allowed our wife to learn how to block us out before we have been accepted.
Our
wife will be without our aid. We must have faith in her ability…”
Vincent felt Shan Lin’s mind shift into rage. Resigned, Vincent knew the coming fight might just take the edge off the building
Try Nas Ayn
spreading through both the brothers’ rational reasoning. Praying silently to
Riad
not to let the two kill each other, Vincent advanced at the sound of his brother’s blood curdling war cry.
* * * * *
Vincent limped slightly as he led Talana down the ramp of the ship’s docking bay. Glancing back at his brother, Vincent smiled as he watched Shan Lin flinch when Demond bumped into his head playfully asking for affection.
“Knock it off, Demmie. I don’t think my head can take much more pounding. My loving brother has only recently knocked some sense into it.”
Fight?
The horse pathed reproachfully into Vincent’s mind.
He was claiming the filly as his own. You know we share.
Vincent’s child like speech had the horse snorting and throwing its head up jerking the lead line out of Shan Lin’s hold.
“Hey! Come back here.” Shan Lin mumbled as his horse flicked its tail in Shan Lin’s face and walked down the ramp on its own.
Vincent laughed good-naturedly at the scene.
“Serves you right. Even your own horse knows the laws of twins.”
The misery suddenly coming off Shan Lin as he gathered up some of the brothers’ gear to take off the ship brought a quick halt to the humor Vincent was trying to impart.
Directing his own horse to join Demond, Vincent went to help his brother.
“Shan Lin. It’s not your fault.”
Shan Lin ignored the comfort Vincent tried to give and continued to gather their things.
“
Try Nas Ayn
kills. We both knew it was a possibility. Granted we didn’t really think we would take her to wife for real, but we both knew it could happen. There is no shame…”
Shan Lin straightened quickly throwing the gear he had just gathered from him violently before turning to look Vincent in the eye.
“I tried to kill you! Don’t you understand?” Shan Lin ground out.
Vincent shook his head.
“No, you did not. If you had wanted me dead, I would be. You pulled your…”
Vincent wanted his brother to know the truth.
“No! I didn’t pull anything. I wanted to kill you and would have. There was one thought in my mind and one thing only. You—dead. I would then have Shari to myself and…”
Shan Lin’s voice trailed away as he turned once again to gather the gear he had roughly thrown down.
“Shan Lin. Brother of my heart. Look at me.”
Shan Lin stopped, shoulders heaving from the feelings of guilt running through him.
“Don’t. There is nothing to feel guilty over. Only know when it is myself in
Try Nas Ayn
I wish you to prevent me from killing you. It is all I ask and all I did for you.”