Mated by Twilight (True Match)

Chapter 28

Tillos

Going through fan messages was part of the job Tillos usually enjoyed. It was like a chance to meet his fans without having to be among them. It was quieter and easier to bear. Sollit, who sat beside him, reading their messages – because they were very rarely addressed to only one of them – was not having quite as good a time. Though he did enjoy the fan letters, he much preferred to actually meet them in real life. He thrived on their energy.

Today, however, both of them were distracted.

They were getting reports from Skara on Leah’s first day of acting lessons and vocal training and, apparently, neither were going… well.

Corvidair ordered them to stay in their room and wait for her. He wanted a chance to get Leah to sing in front of him alone. If she couldn’t sing for an audience of one, she couldn’t sing for a large audience, and he felt having her mates there would soften the blow.

And according to Skara – who was lingering outside listening in by their request – she wasn’t able to do it. She had started a few times, then choked. Corvidair, in direct opposition to his usual personality, was being kind and encouraging, but Skara said that Leah was getting more and more frustrated by her inability to just sing .

They knew she could do it. She’d sang for them. But they were her mates, and even if they had not bonded to her, she’d bonded to them in her human way. It was natural for her to be as comfortable around them as she was by herself.

Corvidair had been right, but it was hard to sit back and do nothing.

So, they were going through fan messages. Hoping to distract themselves as they waited.

Most of them were pretty normal. Admiration of their skill, appreciation of them as people, excitement over future performances, love confessions. A lot of love confessions. They were mostly harmless. A few messages were rude, mean, or outright offensive, but they’d been doing this far too long to do anything more than skim and delete them. Not that they weren’t open to criticism, and there were some messages that were genuinely helpful if they had messed up a performance, but most of the time such comments were said more to be hurtful than helpful.

Biella had sent another message. Though it was nothing but loving, it fell into the category of ones they’d skim and delete. Even before they’d met Leah and seen her discomfort of Biella, they’d never held onto her messages. There were a few messages they kept because they were special, but none of Biella’s were among them.

Tillos almost deleted it outright before even skimming it, but Sollit’s curiosity, then ire, was piqued, prompting him to take a second look. It didn’t take long to find what had caught his attention.

Near the bottom of the message, Biella brought up Leah. She asked who she was. Why she was so close to them. Leah was the queen in their play, sure, but she wasn’t close enough to their characters that they should walk the room together like that. She said that the fan forums were already ablaze with rumors that they had mated her, and though Biella was doing her best to tell people that it wasn’t true, no one was listening to her.

‘ We all know that I’m your mate. It’s so sad that we have to keep it secret from everyone for the sake of your careers. Especially if ugly whores are going to take my place in rumors. I know you both love me, but it still hurts. Can you make it clear that there’s nothing between you next time? And stop being around her. You can consider that a demand from your mate. In fact, if you can get her dismissed from the troupe, that would be best, right? I don’t like her. I’ll wait to see what you do. I love you both so much! I can’t wait until our relationship doesn’t have to be secret anymore. ’

“When did our relationship become a salacious secret?” Sollit asked, confused.

“The delusion in her head gets more convoluted every day,” Tillos sighed sadly. At this point, he was considering tracking down her family to tell them to help her seek aid for it. She was harmless, so he wasn’t afraid, but it was best for her.

Before he could suggest as much to Sollit however, the door slid open. He deleted Biella’s crazed demands before standing with Sollit to face their mate.

“Oh, Leah…” Sollit rushed for her immediately, Tillos just a step behind him.

Leah looked so beaten down and discouraged. Her eyes were puffy and red while she was aggressively wiping at tears that stained her cheeks. She looked so sad and frustrated.

Sollit pulled her into his arms and Tillos took them both and led them to the bed where he could lay her down and they could cuddle her from either side. She latched onto them immediately, burying her face in their arms as she tried to hide.

“What happened?” Tillos asked, rubbing her back, like he hadn’t been getting reports from Skara.

“I can’t sing anymore!” She wailed, squeezing their arms like they were pillows. “I’ve lost my voice and I’m a failure.”

“You are not a failure,” Sollit kissed her head. “You had a very bad experience, and that fear has lingered in you. Fighting against it is not a failure.”

“And you can sing, aevea ,” Tillos assured her as Sollit nuzzled her hair. “You’ve not lost your voice. We heard it ourselves. And it was beautiful.”

She sniffled, turning to face him. “It wasn’t the same as singing for you. I thought… I thought because I had sung for you, I could sing for others. But it was like my throat closed up and I just started panicking. Corvidair was so nice , but I just couldn’t do it!”

Tillos could have ripped her father’s throat out for instilling this fear in her. But that worthless male was far from him, and he could only try to fix the damage he’d left behind.

“We can’t end the day like this,” Sollit whispered in her ear. “Let’s leave today with a good memory. What do you want to do, aevea ?”

“Huh?” She turned her head to face him instead.

Sollit smiled at her as Tillos kissed her head. “What do you want to do? We’ll do whatever you wish.”

“I, er…” She frowned, a strange look coming over her face.

Tillos continued kissing his way down her head, to her shoulder, to her upper back. Paying attention to her cues as he pressed further than she’d allowed them the last few days. She didn’t tense like she had before, but that might have been because she was too focused on today’s poor lessons.

Sollit only let her think until it became obvious that she was getting distressed about choosing. Then, he stepped in, giving her an option instead. “How about a date? Nothing fancy. We don’t have to go out. Let’s stay in and we can bring third meal here.”

“Erm… okay,” she mumbled, seeming like she wanted to say something else. But they gave her a moment to speak, and she said nothing else, just hid her head back against Tillos’ arm, allowing Sollit to pull his away.

“I’ll go get it then,” he said, standing, giving Tillos a look.

He nodded at his brother even as he was putting his arm around Leah. She turned into him, hiding her face against his chest instead. She was actively seeking comfort from them. That was good.

“What song were you trying to sing?” Tillos asked, stroking her back gently.

“They let me pick. It was a song for children on Earth. Just this silly little thing, and I couldn’t even do that . How am I supposed to sing on stage? Oh, gosh!” She gasped, head jerking back to stare at him in horror. “What if I can’t sing to my own kids one day!? Tillos-”

“Easy,” he shushed her gently, stroking back her hair. Trying to turn his pelvis away so she didn’t feel how his cock had jumped at the mention of her having their young. “What song was it?”

“It was just this stupid song about a tree in a hole in the ground. It’s silly, but I always liked it growing up. And I couldn’t sing it!”

“A tree in the hole in the ground? Was it a buried tree? Why would someone bury a tree?”

She snickered, the sound tinged with her near hysterical sadness. “No. It was growing in the hole.”

“I don’t get it. How’s it go?”

“You know… just… There was a tree…” She started singing. Her voice shaky and uncertain, a bit questioning. Like she was prompting him to remember the song that he had never heard. But as she fell into her rhythm, her voice evened out and she sang to him about a bird that was in a nest in the tree in the hole in the ground. She was right, it was a silly song, and it lost some of its rhythm in the translation into Standard.

But her voice was lovely as it gained strength. He wouldn’t call it confidence, but comfort. And when she finished, he smiled.

“See? You can sing.”

She blinked, like it hadn’t occurred to her that she was singing, before burying her head back into his chest in an effort to hide. It was adorable, and he let her do it. Enjoying just being able to hold her in his arms.

They hadn’t moved from that position when Sollit returned bearing a tray positively overloaded with food of every type. A few delicacies from Yeluka Akuley were there, but Sollit had mostly grabbed sweets and comfort foods she’d shown preference for from other planets. Though insects, especially those from home, were good for her, their little female did seem to have some kind of hang up about eating them.

But they were good for her health, for her skin, her hair, her vision. They were going to keep feeding them to her until she no longer balked or hesitated at the offering. But now wasn’t the time to be pressing her gastric boundaries.

Tillos sat up, bringing her with him, as he reached for the tray. Sollit gave it to him, allowing him to sit unencumbered. He leaned back against the raised edge of their bed, against a thick pillow, and took Leah from Tillos’ arms so she could lean back against him like a chair. Tillos began picking through the offerings, deciding what to give her as Sollit immediately launched into a story of the drama ongoing in the cafeteria when he went to fetch the food. Something about a fight between the ship crew and the stage crew about room ownership or something silly like that.

Tillos wasn’t really listening. He was focused on Leah who giggled along with Sollit in between bites from Tillos’ fingers.

Though she was listening and engaging with him, there was still something distant in her eyes that made him curious.

What was she thinking about so hard?