The technician nodded quickly and typed a few commands into his terminal. Several 3D models of clothes appeared in front of Ksar.
“We don’t have much,” the technician stammered. “Just a few models appropriate for a human of your age. Please pick something and the synthesizer will create the clothes to your measurements.”
Ksar glanced over the meager selection and chose a simple gray shirt and what looked like a two-piece suit. He stripped, retrieved the Terran clothes from the synthesizer, and put them on. He really should have thought of this without being reminded. Although Terran fashion wasn’t drastically different from theirs, he didn’t want to stand out. The last thing he needed was to give himself away to a pre-TNIT race that didn’t even believe in extraterrestrial life.
Clad in the Terran clothes, Ksar stepped back onto the transporter pad and nodded to the technician.
When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the Ministry. He stood on a busy street of a typical Terran city. London, if he remembered correctly. Due to his job, he was familiar enough with cultures and customs of pre-TNIT civilizations, and he had been to Earth before, so his surroundings didn’t surprise him. Nor was it surprising that he could once again feel his familial link to Harht at the back of his mind; Harht and Seyn were really on Earth.
What was surprising was Seyn’s bond to him. It was weak, so weak Ksar could barely feel it no matter how hard he focused on the brat’s emotions.
A twinge of unease settled low in his gut. Coupled with what Harht’s bondmate had just told him, a suspicion started forming in his mind.
Deciding to ignore for the time being the unsettling state of Seyn’s bond, Ksar forced himself to focus on his familial link to his brother. Normally, familial links weren’t strong enough to use them as a means to locate someone, but Ksar…wasn’t a normal person. He opened his senses and searched through the millions of minds in the city until his senses zeroed in on the mind of his brother.
Harht wasn’t very far from him.
After no more than one Terran hour of walking, Ksar stopped in front of a building. He could sense that his brother was inside it.
It was some establishment called…Star Coffee. It took Ksar several moments to decipher the writing—the translating chip wasn’t as good at deciphering written language as it was at helping one learn to speak it—but when he did, he smiled in reluctant amusement.
Half an hour later, as Ksar left the coffee shop, all but dragging his younger brother toward a Terran vehicle for hire, he was no longer amused.
“What did you do to him?” Harht yelled, trying to free himself from his grip. “What did you do?”
Ksar ignored him, pushing Harht inside the cab, and told the driver the address.
“How do you know Adam’s address?” Harht said, looking back at the coffee shop. “Let me go back! Please, Ksar!”
The driver looked uncertainly between them. “Drive,” Ksar said curtly, and there must have been something ugly in his voice because the driver flinched and obeyed him.
Harht folded his hands on his lap and turned away, anger and resentment rolling off him in waves. And pain, so much pain that Ksar was forced to raise his mental shields in order not to let it affect him.
He had much to think about without the distraction of Harht’s emotions. He still had trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that his brother—his innocent little brother—had been spreading his legs for some low-class barbarian. It seemed unthinkable, but there had been no mistake. He’d seen Harht kiss that Terran, shameless and needy, as if Ksar wasn’t there, as if Harht’s reputation wouldn’t be absolutely destroyed if anyone back home found out about it.
What was Harht thinking?
As soon as they arrived, Ksar made the driver think he’d been paid and then got out of the car after his brother. “I hope you don’t expect me to drag you like a child again. Walk.”
Harht glared at him but obeyed, leading him to his human’s apartment, fury still rolling off him.
Seyn opened the door with a smile that disappeared as soon as he saw Ksar. He paled before flushing.
“I’m not going,” Seyn said, a mulish expression appearing on his annoyingly pretty face.
“I’ll deal with you later.” Ksar shouldered past him into the apartment with a terse, “Close the door, Harht.”
Harht shut the door and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not going, either.”
Ksar turned around and pinned the two little idiots with a hard look.
Swallowing, Harht took a step closer to Seyn.
“You know what?” Seyn said, flipping his silver locks over his shoulder and lifting his chin. “I refuse to be treated like a guilty child. If you have something to say, quit trying to intimidate us and just say it.”