Every hand went up.
“Ten million?” Crueltongue demanded. “You can’t do that, you old hag!”
“All in favor of fining Twenty million.” There was a steely glint in Mistress Primtoes’ gray eyes as she spoke. Again, every hand went up.
“You’ll put me out of business!” Mistress Crueltongue protested. “And then how will you get your Dream Gas? I’d bet my net worth the lot of you are addicted. Sad old hags like you always need Dream Gas to try and pretend they’re young again.”
“Fifty million!” Mistress Primtoes snapped. “Also, all in favor of seizing control of the Diluthian mines and turning them over to a more qualified owner to manage, please raise your hands.”
Again, every hand shot up.
“Motion carried,” Mistress Primtoes declared. “Mistress Crueltongue, please be prepared to hand over the deeds to all of your Diluthian mines to an officer of the court who will come to your residence as soon as this meeting is over.”
“You…you can’t do this to me!” Mistress Crueltongue gasped. “Those mines have been in my family for generations! I’ll appeal—I’ll take it to a higher court!”
“The Sacred Seven is the ruling body of this planet and as such, there is no higher court,” Mistress Primtoes told her. “You can rant and rave and whine all you want, Crueltongue, but the fact is your days of owning the Diluthian mines are over. I think it’s time we passed the ownership on to a more compassionate—and wiser—individual.”
There was applause from the purple and white couch and several of the Sacred Seven even called out,
“Hear-hear!” and “Good point!”
Mistress Crueltongue’s formerly red face had now turned as white as salt. She said nothing more to the Sacred Seven but she turned to Lexi and pointed at her.
“I won’t forget,” she said in a low, angry voice. “You can be sure of that, you little bitch. I won’t forget!”
Then she spun on her heel and left with her bodyslave in tow.
THIRTY-ONE
The rest of the Council meeting was about rules and regulations and zoning laws, so Lexi excused herself and left with Bound and Gaze right behind her. The minute the three of them got back to Lexi’s interstellar cruiser—which she was using today instead of the hovercoach—they whooped and hugged each other in excitement.
“You did it!” Gaze exclaimed, giving Lexi a kiss on the cheek. “You drove her right out of business—good job, Alexa!”
“And good fuckin’ riddance to that heartless female,” Bound growled. He frowned. “But I don’t like the way she threatened you, Angel. She’s got nothin’ to lose now—she might really come after you.”
“She’ll never find me on Zetta Prime,” Lexi assured him. “I live in a little obscure, out of the way village. Joannesville is about as different from Opulex as it can be.”
“Just the same, maybe you better come stay with us for a while,” Bound urged her. “Or we could come stay with you—to protect you.”
Lexi disentangled herself gently from the three-way embrace.
“I’m afraid that just wouldn’t work, Bound. We talked about this last night—you know why the three of us can’t be together.”
“Was just hopin’ you’d reconsider,” the Dark Twin said gruffly. “Now that we’ve finally found you, we fuckin’ hate to lose you, Angel.”
“I hate to lose the two of you, too.” Lexi found that tears were rising in her eyes and she brushed them away quickly with the back of her hand. “But we just can’t be together—our cultures are too different. And I have a life on Zetta Prime to get back to—a life and a bakery I miss a lot.”
“We have our shipping business to get back to, as well,” Gaze said quietly. “So if you’ll just drop us off at the Yangstrom Space Port, hopefully our ship will still be there.”
“Oh, of course. Here—I’ll put the coordinates into the autopilot right now,” Lexi told him. “This is a very top of the line ship,” she added, as she went to the instrument panel and input the coordinates Gaze told her. “You don’t even need a pilot to run it—it takes off and lands all on its own. I think Great Aunt Granipants got it just for show, but it really works well.”
She realized she was just talking about inconsequential matters to fill the silence and distract herself from the fact that they were about to be parted. But she had to do something or she would start crying again!
Still, she had a last fragile thread of hope—maybe the twins’ ship wouldn’t be where they had left it. Maybe it had been stolen, which would give her an excuse to keep them with her for a while longer…
But when they got to Yangstrom Space Port, Gaze pointed at the viewscreen and said,
“There she is—just where we left her, Brother.”
“Looks like nobody put a hand on her,” Bound agreed, sounding relieved.
They were pointing at a sleek silver vessel with clean, smooth lines that Lexi admired very much. It was no luxury space yacht, but it was obvious they took care of their ship and kept it running well.
“Well…I guess this is goodbye,” Gaze said softly, as Lexi’s ship docked automatically right beside the Kindred vessel.
“I…I guess so.” Lexi’s voice came out sounding low and choked. She held out her arms and the Light Twin enfolded her in a gentle embrace.
“Be well,” he murmured in her ear. “And if you ever want to find us, we live in the Overton Grotto.”
When he released her, Bound pulled her close to his broad chest, crushing her to him in a desperate hug.
“Please change your mind, Angel,” he murmured hoarsely in her ear. “Please don’t let this be good-bye—we fuckin’ love you!”
Lexi wanted to say that she loved them too—that everything she’d said under the influence of the Love Dream Gas had been true. But the guilty voice in her head was too strong. What did she intend to do, it demanded, set up house somewhere with the two males and have their babies? Which would certainly be sons, considering the fact that the Kindred were 95% male as a species! No, she couldn’t do that—no way in the Seven Hells, as the two of them might say.
“I’m sorry, Bound,” she whispered in his ear as she kissed his cheek. “But I can’t change my mind—I have my life to live and you and Gaze have yours. You know it’s true.”
“It might be true but that doesn’t make it right.” He let her go at last from the fierce bear hug and Lexi could breathe again. “We’ll miss you, Angel,” he told her and Lexi thought his eyes were suspiciously bright. So were Gaze’s, for that matter. “Never thought I would ever find a female I wanted to share and bond with, but you’re the one,” the Dark Twin told her.
“I’m sorry—so sorry.” Lexi felt hot wetness rolling down her cheeks and realized that she was crying now—she couldn’t help it. “I wish things were different—I wish either my world or yours would accept us but they won’t—you know they won’t.”