Page 46 of Double Her Pleasure

Brydis glanced over at him and stiffened, recognizing the male who had gone after Jill. “You!” he hissed. “This is all your fault.”

The male regarded him with surprise and then his features darkened with frustration. “My fault? I just wanted to speak to her. I needed to find out how she had the taliazon. It was you and your twin who overreacted and caused all this.”

“You charged our mate even after we warned you off,” Brydis snapped. “It was because of you that we lost her. We have no idea what’s happening with her or where she is now.”

The male’s wings dropped. “That wasn’t my intention. My twin and I have been trying for cycles to find a mate. We’ve done the registry on Geminos and the matching programs.” He grimaced. “You probably wouldn’t be surprised to know that most females have no desire relocating across space for a potential taliazon match. I just needed to know… and lost my head.” He glanced around at the other males stretched out through the room though a number of them were sitting up and miserably hunkered in on themselves. “It looks like I’m not the only one.”

“No,” Brydis agreed with a sigh. “It seems that you are not. Which is why we are all here. Our division was doing fine among the humans until all of you lost your minds.” He shook his head. “I still don’t understand why you charged her.”

“I did?” Confusion filled the male’s face. “I did not think I had. I just felt a sudden desperation when I noticed that you and your twin were intervening. I was afraid that you were going to take her away before I could speak to her.”

“I see. In that case, I won’t kill you where you stand, but you may not be so fortunate if you try that with any other males. In fact, be lucky that Agor isn’t awake. If he were, he would be tearing your wings off,” Brydis informed him bluntly.

The male shrank back and Brydis was suddenly aware that the male he was speaking to was a number of years younger than himself and likely a rookery keeper at that. Unless he’d been a rogue, it was unlikely that the male had a violent bone in his entire body. Brydis sighed again and sought out his twin. It seemed that he was going to have to curb Agor’s murderous wrath when he came to in order to keep him from going after the male.

It didn’t take much searching to find Agor, thankfully. The other Geminidae had given him a large berth even as unconscious as he currently was. Brydis crouched at his twin’s side, his gaze running over him, noting the blackened marks seared across his chest. He traced one of the marks with his claw, his brow furrowing.

“They shot him with something,” a soft voice whispered, and he glanced up sharply to find a pink female with a rounded face staring back at him. Normally, she had a ready smile, but now her features were tightened.

“Mariia, you are well? And the others?” he whispered.

She nodded her head and gestured to a corner of the room where the rest of the division appeared to be holding their own, the males circling entirely around the females gathered closer to the walls. Her mates Masix and Meriv watched warily from where they stood just a short distance away. Their caution was understandable. With his twin unconscious and his mate gone, the males could not be certain of his frame of mind any more than he would be if their situations were reversed.

“Good. Stay with them.” He glanced down at his twin. “I will remain here with Agor until he rouses.”

Mariia’s wings twitched uncertainly. “Some are saying he might not be in his right mind when he comes to. He was half-mad when they dropped him.”

“He’ll be fine,” he assured quietly. “I’ll be here to help steady him.”

She nodded again but hesitated. “Do you think Jill is okay? They wouldn’t have hurt her, right? Since she’s a human.”

“I don’t think so,” he rasped, his heart clenching painfully. “I’m sure she’s safe out there, somewhere.” She had to be.

He didn’t look up as she hurried back to her mates. He couldn’t look at them nestled together, even if engaged in a protection stance. All it did was remind him of his own absent mate and the pain that filled his taliazon. So he sat vigil at Agor’s side, talking to him off and on, never moving from place even as his eyes followed the movement of the males as they wandered dejectedly through the large storage room. He had probably sat there for hours when Agor’s right wing twitched beside him, and the male let out a pained groan.

“Here. I’m right here, Agor,” he whispered, lending his support as his twin grabbed his arm and used to pull himself upright. “Take it slow. You’ve been out a while.”

“What hit me?” he snarled.

“My guess, a human weapon,” Brydis replied, startling a painful laugh from his twin.

“Never would have guessed,” he wheezed. “Jill?”

Brydis regarded his twin, knowing that Agor already knew but needed the words. “Gone. The human who stole her got away.” He drew in a breath. “And you should know that we are currently imprisoned with our division and all the males from the port market.”

Agor nodded his head as he pushed himself up and looked around groggily. “Who do I get to kill first?”

“None of them.” He sighed as his twin shot him a venomous look. “Don’t look at me like that. One, you are in no condition to fight anything at the moment. Two, I spoke to one of them, and I don’t think they were trying to harm or steal her. It seems that they were taken by surprise and wished to speak to her because taliazon matches are refusing to come to Ganymede.”

Giving the room a suspicious look, Agor grunted. “Not surprised. So the idiots charged, hoping to get answers before we hid her away from them. I guess Zherist has been keeping this a big secret. I should have known. Whatever he has planned, he won’t do anything quicker than what he absolutely plans to do, even if this is knowledge our people need.”

“They won’t believe it without seeing it, and you know that. You’ve heard the rumors around the mountains among our own people that males are just taking females at whim. Our own division didn’t even fully believe it until they saw it.”

Agor hissed in pain as he moved but gave Brydis a hard look. “So what are we to do then?”

“For now?” Brydis shrugged his wings. “We are locked in a heavily guarded storage room. All we can do it is wait.”

“Fuck,” Agor snarled, utilizing Jill’s favorite human expletive.

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