Sharing a Mate Read online

  “Okay,” she said, still confused. “But these web-spinners…you milk them to make butter? How do you milk an insect?”

  “Oh no—we catch them and pull off the legs—after we kill them of course,” Sorin answered. “The legs are tough but their bodies are surprisingly soft and full of fat and flavor.”

  “So they mash them up into a paste and thin it out some with some kind of juice—I forget what,” Bron said, frowning.

  “Tazzen berry juice,” Sorin told him. “That’s why the web-spinner butter is such a perfect compliment to the Tazzen berry tarts.”

  He held out the plate of pastries, now drizzled with the gray butter—Spider butter, Kayla thought with a shiver—and offered some to her.

  Kayla took a deep breath. Way back when she’d first made the decision to move to the Mother Ship, she had sworn to herself she would be open to new experiences. She had vowed to take risks and try everything that didn’t seem likely to kill her, even if she didn’t think she would like it. There was no point in moving to an alien spaceship, she told herself, if she didn’t embrace the culture of her new people completely.

  “All right,” she said, smiling at both of them. “I want to try some of both your meals and then I’m going to pick something for myself.”

  “Here—try the marrow stew first.” Bron held out a spoonful of the purple broth with some orange and yellow chunks in it. It smelled spicy and a little strange, but Kayla liked spicy food. Gamely, she opened her mouth and let Bron pop the bite in.

  Immediately a variety of rich and complex flavors and textures exploded across her tongue.

  “Mmm…mmm.” Kayla nodded as she chewed. “Tastes a little like a Thai green curry had a baby with some eggplant parmesan,” she decided at last. “I like the soft chunks in there but the squishy ones are kind of odd.”

  “That’s the marrow,” Bron said happily. “My tribe back on Rageron goes on a Krukle hunt at least once a cycle. It’s a big beast—bigger than your Earth elephant—but dark blue all over. We kill it and roast the bones in a pit for forty days and nights before we scrape out the marrow.”

  “So, not one of those easy-to-make thirty minutes or less meals I like to cook,” Kayla said, grinning a little. “Anything that takes forty days and nights to make better be damn amazing when you’re through.”

  “It is,” Bron assured her. “Here, try a bite of the blood-bread. It comes from the Krukle too—we use every part of the animal.”

  Kayla nibbled a bit of the black bread and found it surprisingly good. Like really sour sourdough, she thought and nodded at Bron.

  “I like it!”

  “Try a tart now,” Sorin urged.

  This was a little more difficult for Kayla. She could more easily deal with eating blood and marrow than the idea of eating mashed up spiders. Still, she reminded herself of her vow and took a bite.

  The pastry itself was delicate and flaky with a sweet-tart filling not unlike cherry pie if someone had added lots of cinnamon and a dash of salt to it. The web-spinner butter was surprising because it wasn’t sweet at all. Instead it had a rich, silky texture that seemed to melt on her tongue and leave a delicate, lingering aftertaste of something she couldn’t quite name but which was strangely delicious.

  “Wow,” she said, taking another bite. “That’s…just…wow.”

  “My mother used to make them,” Sorin told her. “Only on special occasions though—she said it was too much trouble to make them all the time. I still remember her sending me out to kill a web-spinner for the butter when I was only seven or eight cycles old.”

  “She sent you out to kill fist-sized spiders when you were seven?” Kayla shivered. “That’s awful!”

  “You forget, small one, that both Tranq Prime and Rageron are more savage worlds than your own home planet is,” Bron told her. “In my tribe, we have our manhood hunt at twelve cycles.”

  “We do as well on Tranq Prime,” Sorin said. “Though we are hunting vranna in the frozen cold and Bron’s people hunt the xenox in their tropical jungles.”

  “I’ve heard of vrannas,” Kayla said. “Aren’t they these big turquoise and purple polar-bear looking things?”

  “Considerably bigger than a polar bear, but yes.” Sorin nodded.

  “But what is a xenox?” Kayla asked.

  “It’s kind of like a cross between a grizzly bear and a bobcat,” Bron put in. “If you kill it, you’re a man in the tribe from then on.”

  “What if you don’t?” she said, frowning.

  “Well, then, you’re dead.” Bron shrugged. “It happens from time to time but not as often as you’d think.”

  “That’s awful!” Kayla exclaimed. “I wouldn’t want any son of mine to hunt either one of those animals.”

  “Well it’s not exactly a tradition we can keep up aboard the Mother Ship,” Sorin said dryly. “Where would we keep all the xenoxes and vrannas?”

  “And where would we hunt them even if we kept them?” Bron remarked. “In the common area by the Sacred Grove? I don’t think the priestesses would like that much.” He barked a laugh.

  “All right, well thanks for letting me try your food, guys—now I’m going to get something from my home world to eat.”

  Kayla searched through the cabinet until she found a little pile of Earth food cubes that were clearly labeled in the Kindred script. Luckily, the translation bacteria which she’d gotten when first coming aboard the Mother Ship allowed her to both speak and read alien languages she wouldn’t otherwise understand. Though there were always a few words that didn’t quite translate, the bacteria still made traveling to new worlds a hell of a lot easier than it would have been otherwise.

  At last she found what she’d been hoping for and popped the cube into the rehydrator.

  A minute later the little machine dinged and Kayla pulled out a plate piled high with bacon, scrambled eggs, and a fluffy stack of buttermilk pancakes. There was even fresh fruit, orange juice, and a little jug of syrup on the side.

  “Potcakes!” Bron exclaimed enthusiastically. “I didn’t know we had those in there.”

  “It’s pancakes and you can have a bite if you want,” Kayla said, smiling. When they were visiting on Earth, IHOP was pretty much Bron’s favorite place to eat other than her Auntie Feenie’s home cooking.

  They all sat at the table eating and talking and it almost felt like any other weekend trip the three of them might take together to collect new samples on an alien world. But Kayla felt a new closeness to both of them as she sat between them—a new bond, however tenuous—seemed to have formed. The three of them finished each other’s sentences and laughed at each other’s jokes and everything felt perfect—as though they were three parts of the same person.

  “I wonder if this is how Twin Kindred and their mates feel?” Kayla said thoughtfully after Bron had started a sentence, Sorin had continued it, and she had finished it—all without any effort on their part.

  “What do you mean?” Bron’s dark face suddenly wore a guarded expression.

  “Yes, what are you talking about?” Sorin asked, frowning. “The three of us are not bonded.”

  “I know that. But I’ve never felt this….this attuned to each other.” Kayla waved a hand, trying to explain. “I know it’s crazy but I almost feel like…like we did bond in some way last night. Not like a traditional Kindred bond,” she hastened to say. “But there’s something there. I feel so close to both of you right now.”

  “Maybe because we held you between us last night,” Sorin murmured.

  “And filled your sweet pussy and ass with our shafts and our seed,” Bron rumbled.

  Kayla could feel herself blushing.

  “I know bonding is different for different kinds of Kindred,” she said. “But one main component of it is filling your mate and, uh, shooting your seed inside her. Correct?”

  “Always.” Sorin nodded thoughtfully. “With some kinds of Kindred, that’s all it takes to form a bond, though with others, it ta