Secret Santa Surprise (Kindred Tales)

The couch, like all the furniture in their suite, including the huge bed in the bed chamber, was built for three. But as yet, there were only the two of them, though they still hoped to find a mate to share and bond with.

“Just a long shift. And I have to go do another one in an hour.” Strong sighed deeply. “They need to hire or train more doctors. I wish you’d trained with me so you could help.”

“Sorry, Brother—you know I don’t like how messy your profession is,” Clear remarked, coming to sit beside him and offering him a cup of coffee. He knew his twin enjoyed the human caffeine brew and it would help him be alert for his next shift.

“Right—you like things tied up neatly. Numbers are better than blood and guts, right?” Strong gave him a rare smile, one corner of his mouth quirking up.

“Infinitely better,” Clear agreed, grinning. He cleared his throat. “I have some news. While you’re working I’m going to help the little Elite I told you about learn to use her wave. Apparently she had problems with it before and nearly burned herself.”

Strong frowned.

“Why do you bother? You know she’ll never be interested in us when she finds out you’re part of a Twin Kindred pair.”

“She already knows.” Clear tried not to sound defensive. “In fact, she’s been working on a vid for the PR department to try and help the humans understand us and our need to share a mate.”

Strong made a rude noise.

“Good luck with that! It seems like every eligible human female I meet runs the opposite direction when she finds out I have a Twin who I’ll need to share her with!” He shook his head. “We had such high hopes of finding a mate here on the Mother Ship, but so far…nothing.”

“Melanie was explaining some of the reasons to me that humans don’t like the idea of their females bonding with us,” Clear remarked. “Do you know that in many places on Earth they approve of a male having more than one wife but they disapprove strongly of a female having more than one husband?”

Strong frowned, his black brows drawing low over his dark blue eyes.

“Why in the Seven Hells would the males want more than one female? How could you properly pleasure more than one and make her feel special if you had several more hanging around?”

“I don’t know.” Clear shrugged. “Humans customs are still confusing to me, too. But Melanie says it’s because the Earth has many misogynistic cultures where the males think they are better than females and deserve better treatment.”

Strong snorted.

“Then they’re idiots who don’t deserve to have even one mate—let alone more than one!”

“She also said that many cultures consider it morally wrong for there to be more than one male and one female in a relationship,” Clear offered.

Strong shook his head. “That may be, but I don’t think it’s the main reason why human females don’t want to bond with us.”

“Why, then?” Clear asked as his brother took a sip of coffee.

“They won’t bond with us because they fear us,” Strong said, frowning. “They fear our size and strength and the fact that in order to bond with them, we both have to enter them at the same time. Do you know what the humans call that? Double penetration.”

“Well, I suppose that describes what we do in a way,” Clear said thoughtfully.

Strong shook his head.

“No, you don’t understand. They use it in their pornography with two human males and one human female. But it’s demeaning the way they do it. It’s like…like the males are simply using the female for their own pleasure—as though she’s a receptacle for their seed and nothing more.”

“But that’s as bad as blasphemy!” Clear was aghast. “To use a female instead of pleasuring her properly…Where did you see this?”

“One of the human doctors who came during our medical exchange program showed me on his communications device,” Strong said grimly. “But it was worse than you can imagine. Often it seemed as though the males in the vid he showed me were forcing the female. They thrust roughly into her when she clearly wasn’t ready for it. And the sounds she made sounded forced and even pained—as though what they were doing to her hurt her.”

“Gods…” Clear felt ill and he could feel through their link that his brother felt ill as well, just remembering the disgusting vid.

“I asked the human who showed me if it was typical of their pornography and he said yes, it was.” Strong’s voice was hoarse with revulsion. “So of course if that’s the kind of male/ female /male sex the human females are seeing, it must be what they expect from us. No wonder they fear us!”

“But we would never hurt a female,” Clear protested.