The Gathering (Planet Double Dick #14)
Mel
“Tammy, I…I am sorry.” My heart squeezes in disappointment for her. As twins all of our lives we’ve done things together. It’s rare we don’t.
“It’s not your fault.” She sits on the bed and runs her hand through her short pink hair. The color is vibrant, freshly done by herself the day before. “You didn’t ask for a night out at the palace.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“But you’re excited. I can tell.”
I suppress a wide grin. I can’t wait to go to the palace in Mimis and meet the handsome, somewhat intimidating King Athos and find out all about his new queen and how she is coping with being his mate.
“I don’t mind if you are. I would be.” She picks at her thumbnail.
“Oh, Tammy. Please try not to be in the doldrums over this.” I sit next to her.
“I’m not.” She sighs.
I kiss her cheek and pull her into a hug. If only I could make things right for her.
While Ar-Hagan and I are becoming more intimate each day and falling for each other, Tammy and El-Frankin have barely moved one step closer to even talking about the breeding program let alone getting started on it.
“Where is El-Frankin today?” I ask.
“Out with the crops, as always.” She gestures to the window.
“Did you see him before he left this morning?”
“No, he always goes before I wake, you know that.”
“I don’t know how he does that, you are such a light sleeper. A fly could land on the outside of the window and his tiny footsteps would wake you up.”
“But he barely seems to need any sleep.”
“Mm, it’s true, Ar-Hagan only gets a few hours and he can work hard all day.”
“And then he comes home, to you, to spend time with you and…fuck I suppose.”
“We haven’t…you know, gone all the way yet.”
“Oh, but you’ve done way more than we have. I know that much.”
“I thought, maybe the other evening, Tammy, when you went to him in the north barn, that something might have happened?”
“We kissed.” She shrugs. “I initiated it.”
I frown. “I don’t understand what is going on with him?”
“Neither do I?”
“Perhaps, at this dinner party, at the palace, I can ask someone.”
She huffs and scoots away from me, flops to her back on the bed. “And how would you go about that? You can’t just blurt out to the king and queen that El-Frankin isn’t into his new Earth female. That he just can’t get his cocks up for her.”
“Well no, I wouldn’t put it like that.” I stand and walk to my vast bedroom window that looks out over our farmland. “I’d be more subtle.”
“He has a best friend you know?”
“What?” I turn to her, hands on hips. “Who?”
“One of the workers, he controls the remote machines.”
“How do you know he’s a best friend? Isn’t he just a laborer?”
She stretches her legs up and rolls her ankles. “He’s mentioned him several times, and when I walked out to see him the other day, at midday, they were together. Both topless, it was hot, both suns in full flow.”
“I don’t understand the significance of him having a work colleague, Tammy.”
“There isn’t any.” She drops her feet to the bed dramatically. “His name is In-Sar, he’s very handsome, and the man is stacked, you know what I mean? Back on Earth he’d be a Hollywood A-lister, or a Gucci model or something, if they could get over the purple skin, horns and tail that is.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You wish you’d been mated with him, In-Sar?”
“No, not at all. El-Frankin is my match for a reason. Our mates are brothers, this situation, all living in one big residence, works.”
“It only works if you’re happy,” I say.
“I’m not unhappy.”
“But…”
“I just wish he’d pay me a bit more attention. I don’t mean fucking attention, just getting to know me attention.”
I reach for a brush and draw it through my hair, also freshly dyed a pale blue. “I don’t understand, he couldn’t take his eyes off you when we first arrived. Never left your side for a moment at that party in the square.”