Page 2 of Love Galaxy

But Roan… For the last year I have been expecting to arrive at one of our report meetings to find Killan alone and Roan gone, escaped to the civilization he has never experienced.

“How else are you expecting to find yourself a Mate?” Roan demands of our older brother. “Or are you happy being alone?”

“I—” Killan snaps his mouth shut on whatever he had been about to say.

“We are not guaranteed a Mate,” I tell Roan. “Even if our applications are selected.”

“Applications we arenotmaking,” Killan adds fiercely.

We both ignore him.

“No,” Roan agrees with me. “The Females can choose to leave at the end of the twenty days, or we can ask them to leave. But that almost never happens. The show has a 95 percent success rate. See.” He reaches for his datapad, but Killan sweeps it off the table.

“I said no.”

I make a grab for Roan, catching him around the waist, intercepting his lunge for Killan.

“Not everything is about you and this scudding farm,” Roan yells, struggling against my hold.

“Sorin,” Killan demands. “Do you want this too? Do you want cameras in your home, spying on you while you make a fool of yourself over a Female?”

“Sorin?” Roan turns in my arms to look at me, his eyes wide and desperate. “Please.”

I let him go so fast that Roan stumbles before catching himself on the table’s edge.

“Come on,” Roan begs.

“The cameras… ” I begin.

“You will barely even notice them.” Roan waves away my half attempt at an objection.

“Think about it, Sorin. A Mate. A proper family.”

“They will not be Ril’os,” Killan says.

“No.” Roan takes a deep breath, as if trying to keep control of his suppressed temper. “But what Ril’os Female would want to live out here with us? None. That is the entire problem.” He steps toward me. “I already told you that they will find compatible Females. Willing Females. They need not be of our own species.”

“Willing?” Killan scoffs, requesting another shot of hooch, his hands shaking. “To live here? They will take one look at the empty horizon and want to leave.”

“They might not. They might enjoy farming.”

“They might enjoy long days of manual labor? They might enjoy the constant wind that never stops blowing, not even when you think it will drive you insane to listen to it for another moment? They might enjoy?—"

“Yes! Yes! Maybe. How will we know for sure if we do not at least try? Sorin, please. Come on.”

“I do not think it is the worst idea you have ever had,” I concede.

Roan punches the air with all four fists. “That is two against one.”

“Not quite.” Killan spins around to turn his glare on me. “Think carefully about what you are agreeing to, Sorin. You more than anyone crave privacy.”

“I do not— That is, I think— Akh… ” I clear my throat, struggling to find the words needed to express the battle of emotions raging war inside me. Instead, I choose logic. “They will film the farm. The broadcast will be long advertisement for our Nufaral,” I say, naming our primary crop. “You do not have to find a mate, Killan. So long as you pretend to be interested enough that the cameras have time to follow you around the lakes. All advertisements are good advertisements.The three brothers, searching for love. Buy their Nufaral today.Full price.”

“You are still thinking about the farm?” Roan slumps into his chair, his head in two hands. “It is always the scudding farm with you two.”

“The farm has protected our family—” Killan begins the most well-practiced of all his lectures, the one Roan and I can recite back to him we have heard it so many times.

“A chance for a Mate would not be unwelcome, for Roan,” I hasten to add, cutting through Killan’s tirade. Once he gets started, he is apt to keep talking half the night. “I am sure Roan would be more settled with a Female to care for. Yes?” I direct that last question to Roan himself.

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