Mated by Twilight (True Match)

Chapter 15

Leah

It was kind of weird, revisiting these memories. She had been so determined to put them away, to refuse to think of them, for so long, it almost felt like they weren’t even hers anymore.

But they were.

She could still remember the heat of the summer day, even more oppressive in the stuffy, modest wedding dress she’d been forced into. The itchiness of the bouquet shoved into her hands. The way the shoes pinched her feet. The spear of light hitting her in the eyes from the high windows. The nausea in her belly. The sense of impending doom.

And that one thoughtless moment where she turned and just ran. To this day, Leah had no idea what made her run. All she could remember was the panic. The despair. The helpless sense of being crushed between two solid brick walls.

And the sky. The bright blue sky…

She’d never disobeyed her family before. She’d never thought about escaping the life she’d been born into. She was probably just as surprised as her family would have been that she’d taken flight, running out the front door and onto the street.

Leah didn’t know how long it took them to realize she was gone. However long it took them, it was enough for her to make it to a woman’s shelter that she’d volunteered at once as part of church. A young, eighteen-year-old girl, panting, in a wedding dress, makeup covering some old bruises had shown up on their doorstep, and they’d quickly taken her in.

“The next few months are a blur,” she finished telling the guys. “They helped me make a bank account and learn how to be an adult. I was still there when I signed up for True Match. They had, like, this program for the women in the shelter. We got the scan super discounted if we were willing to actually go through with it. And a lot of us did. I think we all just wanted the chance to get out, you know? I was out of the shelter and living in an apartment with a couple roommates when I got the phone call that I’d been matched.”

“And your family?” Sollit asked, looking like he was just as willing to fight her father as he would some unknown male that thought she might be his.

“They looked for me initially. At least, some of the other ladies at the shelter told me that they did. I never saw them myself. The other ladies, they, er, looked after me. We all looked after each other. I think my parents eventually just gave up and banished me from the family. Not really that uncommon in our church, actually. I was an adult when I ran, so they had no legal way to drag me back, so all they could do was cut off all my support and friends and make sure I was alone.”

It still hurt.

Some of the ladies at the shelter had been vehemently anti-religious. Some had never been religious in their life but had felt the sting of religious persecution. They hated her church on principle. And while she could certainly understand where they were coming from, she felt that they were the ones that didn’t understand her.

As much as she knew, intellectually, how bad her family was for her now with hindsight, that didn’t actually lessen the love she had for them. All the times her mother held her. The times her father played with her. All the memories with her brothers and sisters.

It hadn’t all been bad. It hadn’t all been fearful. And that’s what people had so much trouble understanding. She may have left the church and her family, but she did it for survival, not because she didn’t love them anymore.

“Leah.”

Sollit’s voice was soft, but it was Tillos that reached for her. He picked her up and set her in his lap while Sollit took hold of her feet, holding them in his hands so they both had her. She was surprised by the motion, but only in that she didn’t expect it. She wasn’t at all surprised to find them both comforting her. That’s just what they did. It was very much who they had shown her they were.

And how nice it was to be between them.

That realization made her laugh. Something that earned confused looks from both of them.

She smiled. “I’m sorry for freaking out like I did. I think Corvidair just yelling kind of reminded me of what it was like at the end there, when dad would get mad whenever I would sing. It kind of freaked me out. I know he didn’t mean anything bad by it, but…”

“You’ve no reason to apologize,” Tillos assured her, running his fingers through her hair. Massaging her scalp. “Corvidair is just very… loud. He doesn’t really have a filter. Or an idea of subtlety. He was excited because he heard a beautiful voice.”

“And you do have a beautiful voice,” Sollit added.

“Thanks,” she licked her lips nervously. “Erm, if I’m just confessing stuff, I should probably also mention… I’m a virgin.”

Sollit and Tillos both cocked their heads – she saw the former and felt the latter. It made her laugh, though it was probably mostly nerves that brought forth the sound.

“In our religion, you didn’t even really spend time with the opposite sex. Girls were expected to maintain their purity and be untouched by anyone but their husbands. I wasn’t even allowed to have a boyfriend.”

The twins shared a look. Judging by their faces, they were sharing more than a look. They told her that their ability to feel each other was just that – feelings, no thoughts. But they seemed to have developed a whole language around it.

“I think that’s why I freaked out so hard,” she continued. “When I first met you two, I mean. Even at the women’s shelter, I was never alone with a guy. And my roommates were all girls too. Part of me kind of felt it was normal to have a guy chosen for me. I bet if it wasn’t for being forbidden to sing, I might have just gone ahead with the wedding. But to go from never being around men alone to being told I have two mates. It was a lot. And I think I’m still coming to terms with it.”

“Were we your first kiss?” Tillos asked, his voice neutral, but wonderfully rumbly behind her.

She shook her head. “The guy my dad picked for me, we had some dates before our wedding. They were all chaperoned, but it was by my mom or dad. They didn’t care if he kissed me.” Her face heated up as she smiled. “It was nothing like kissing you two though.”

“Will you sing for us, aevea ?” Tillos asked, whispering in her ear.

“Erm… I haven’t really sung for anyone since my last show…”

A moment she could still feel burned into her memories. So crisp and clear, it almost seemed unfair. Of course, her brain would commit that to crystal clear perfection, but never anything useful. Instead, she could always remember how it felt to open her mouth, to start her solo, and to be immediately drowned out by people she’d known and loved and looked up to all her life. They’d been in the front row, all looking directly at her. Some threw balled up pieces of paper, others threw little holy books, one guy actually brought a tomato that hit her right in the belly. She remembered how confused the rest of the choir had been, the incredulous, baffled look on the director’s face, the gaping mouths of the rest of the audience. All of them too flabbergasted to try to intervene.

And Leah herself. Standing at the front of the choir. Bathed in their derision. Tears burning in her eyes as she struggled to sing around the knot in her throat, unable to even hear herself, as she stared at her parents. Her mother looking away as though ashamed of her. But her father never breaking eye contact, his gaze fierce and confident as though to say – look here at what you have done! You bring this upon yourself. Now suffer and realize your mistakes.

She’d run from the stage then too. Straight out of the school, into the parking lot. It had already been dark. The night sky seemed like the blind eye of the heavens, refusing to even look at her as she sobbed there until her family came out to join her. They hadn’t even pretended to comfort her as they forced her to the car and took her back home. To her prison for the next year.

The few times she was caught humming or singing while locked in the house, even if it was just to bring comfort to herself, came with immediate retribution. Something her family had allowed before was now sinful because the man chosen to be her husband declared it to be so. The humiliation followed by the pain stole her voice for a long time.

She never sang at the shelter. Never hummed along to a song. Didn’t even really seek out music. It wasn’t until she moved in with her roommates that she confessed about being in the choir. But when her roommates asked her to sing, she had immediately become nauseated.

It was like opening her mouth, taking that breath, transported back to that moment on stage. Her father glaring her down in disapproval, the wetness of a splattered tomato on her dress, tears in her eyes. Leah hadn’t even been able to breathe, much less sing.

And now, her guys were asking her for the same…

“I don’t know,” she confessed, looking down at her hands. “I didn’t even realize I had been singing earlier. Not until you guys came. I think that was the first time I really sang anything since I left my parents’ house.”

“Who better to be your audience then?” Sollit smiled, his hands starting to move. He was giving her feet a massage. Something she’d never had before and therefore surprised her. But not as much as when Tillos parted her hair.

“Leah, what is this scar from?” He asked suddenly, gently touching the back of her head.

“A cup,” she said softly.

“A cup?” Sollit cocked his head.

“My dad… he threw a cup at my head.” She licked her lips nervously. “He was mad at me. He threw this big glass cup at me. It cut me when it broke on my head.”

Sollit and Tillos stilled. She saw them share a look over her shoulder. They didn’t say anything, but they quickly redoubled their efforts. Massaging her. Tending to her. Caring for her. They didn’t make threats or get angry, though she definitely saw and felt a new tension to their bodies.

But they weren’t going to focus on being mad at her father for the abuse. They were instead going to put all their effort into her. Like she was more important. Like her comfort meant more than their own reaction to her bad memories.

The two males, her two males, treating her so sweetly. So tenderly. She didn’t understand. Her father had never done anything like this for her mother, not even when she was pregnant. The other men in church certainly wouldn’t have done something like this.

But Tillos and Sollit did it so easily, so naturally. Like it was just something they were supposed to do – like they’d planned to do it beforehand.

And they were good. Sollit’s grip was firm, rubbing long, deep lines up the soles of her feet, while Tillos worked in circles, focused on her palms.

“Sing for us,” Tillos whispered in her ear. Changing the subject back. Sounding like he was pleading for a treat instead of demanding a performance.

“I’m probably not that good anymore,” she mumbled. “I haven’t practiced in a while. I-I’m not even properly warmed up.”

“We don’t care.” Tillos ran his lips along the lobe of her ear.

“We like the sound of your voice regardless,” Sollit laughed. “This isn’t a performance, aevea . We just want you to be happy again.”

“That’s right. You were singing because you were happy. Are you still happy, aevea ?”

Leah bit uneasily on her bottom lip. She’d only been singing because she was so content as she worked, the sound escaped her without even noticing. She’d ran because Corvidair’s sudden appearance and loud, booming voice reminded her too much of her last performance. But it had been so long since then. Surely, she should have healed from that by now, right? Even just a little…

She’d calmed down now. Enough to even feel foolish about her reaction.

So, if they were asking if she was still happy…

Leah took a deep breath and, slowly, haltingly, started singing again. It was an older love song, something bright and bouncy that she’d always loved since she was a kid. Her parents didn’t really approve of secular music, but it didn’t have any bad or salacious words, so it was allowed in the car, one of the few she was allowed to have on that old mp3 player that was all her parents allowed her.

But it came even easier now. Cradled by the warmth of her males, their massaging hands a gentle caress over her feet and hands, she felt safe and comfortable. More than that, somehow, it didn’t feel like a whole bunch of eyes were watching her.

Leah had never had stage fright before. Not until that last performance stole her voice. She used to love singing and did it loud and proud regardless of who heard her.

But now, she could hear the uncertainty in the warble of her voice. In the breathy way she sang, the notes weak and untrained. It had been too long since she’d done this, and she was paying for it now in the loss of control and range.

But the song was pretty midrange, and as she got comfortable in it, she felt some of the strength beginning to return.

She finished that song and moved onto a second. Another love song. Slower this time, giving her more of a chance to settle into each note and feel her voice moving again. It was nice. A familiar and happy thing that made her think of simpler times.

She didn’t know if she’d say happier times though. This thing with Tillos and Sollit was too new for her to say she was happier now than she’d ever been, but she didn’t think she’d ever felt so supported before. So safe. So secure.

As she sang, she smiled at Sollit who had moved his massage up, now stroking her calves. Then, she turned back, smiling at Tillos in turn.

When he closed the distance, kissing her and cutting off her song, it felt exactly right. She reached one hand up and back, stroking his cheek as Sollit parted her legs, climbing closer to her so that, when Tillos finished, he could take her chin and turn her to him, taking over the kiss. The break so quick and natural, it felt like the kiss hadn’t actually ended, she’d just paused for a quick breath.

They passed the rest of the night trading kisses and happier stories from her past– how she’d fallen in love with singing, what it was like being with the women in the shelter, her trip here. Their hands never strayed to inappropriate places, and if she tensed up, feeling like she was being pushed too far, they stopped before she even had a chance to say anything.

When Leah fell asleep between them, it was with a smile on her face, snuggled back against Sollit, her arms around Tillos. She’d never felt so warm or supported or comfortable.

And maybe this two mates thing was going to work out after all.