Page 11 of Taken By the Twins

“Fine. Then you also know that I’m easy, but I’m notthateasy. So thanks for the trip, but I’m going to have to pass.”

“Pass?” Lucian frowns. “But you cannot do that, Tandy.”

Like hell, I can’t. “Look. Lucian, right?”

“Yes. And my twin is Damien.”

His twin is staring at me so intently, I shiver anytime I glance over at him. “Okay. Anyway, I don’t know about this place… this Sombra… but where I come from, no means no. So I’m flattered that you decided I’m the human woman you two want to tag team, but I’m gonna have to say no again and ask you to send me on my way back to New York. ‘Kay?”

For a second, Lucian watches me with a slightly dazed expression. I guess I understand it. If his only grasp of English as a language is throughme, it’s probably taking a second for him to make sense of what I said.

And when he does? He shows off his fangs in a smile that should terrify me instead of make me curious about how he wields those suckers when he kisses—and when he does other things with his mouth.

“You are a most interesting female, dear one,” says Lucian. “The gods have blessed us with the perfect mate.”

Mate again. “I’m not your mate?—”

“You are.”

For the first time since we arrived in this room, Damien speaks up.

I have no choice but to look at him—and, yup, there goes the shivers running up and down my spine again. “No,” I say firmly. They know English now. They know what I’m saying. “I’m not.”

Unlike his twin, Damien’s eyes don’t go bright. They dim, and for some reason, my stomach goes tight. And then he says, “But you are. You made the mate’s promise. After you manifested us in your world, calling us to you, you vowed to be your mate. You gave us your essence. You are ours.”

I am?

No. There has to be a mistake. I didn’t promise anything?—

Oh.

Oh.

The first part of the spell I read… it said ‘manifest’ in the column, didn’t it? And the second paragraph… didn’t it say ‘promise’?

Welp, I obviously manifested two hulking, surprisingly attractive demons into Sierra’s apartment before they brought me to their world.

Who’s to say I didn’t do exactly what Damien said and promise to be their mate?

Happy fucking New Year, Tandy.

Pity I didn’t put find a pair of demon twins to accidentally summon and thenmarryonto my New Year’s resolution list.

CHAPTER 5

HOPE

LUCIAN

In Sombra, if you are born with the tell-tale purple eyes, you know that you are fated to be a mage. It is the mark of magic, telling our fellow demons that we have mystical powers that extend far past what they can do with their shadows.

I had them. Damien didn’t.

But I corrected that. Even as a newborn spawn, I saw that our twin bond was something to treasure. I love my brother. As a mature male, I’d do the same thing I did when I was young: sending half of my essence down our bond so that he would be a demon instead of demonic. That meant he had half of my powers as well, including sight and the ability to conjure.

Of course, with each of us having only half of our essence, our abilities manifested in different ways. It’s most obvious in how we serve as seers. I actually have the sight while Damien? He reads others in a way I’ve always been in awe of.

The same is true of our mage talent. Like with my visions, I canseewhat I want and make it reality. Damien’s powers rely on items reacting to his emotions. Like how, when he can’t containhis frustration at our long wait, he would roar and the villages surrounding our home would tremble. Or how the loneliness he attempts to hide—not from me, though, because I feel it, too—would summon the essence-less creatures that lurk in the depths of the shadows.

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