It was nearly midnight when a red Cadillac Blackwing pulled outside the Alvarez Manor and a girl with beautiful chestnut hair got out of the car.
"Good night, Keith!" Zoey happily said.
"Good night, Zoey." He smiled at her and watched her skip inside the Manor.
As he started driving off, he glanced in the rearview mirror and found the twins nervously gazing out the windows.
They had not been nervous when Zoey was with them, but now that they were alone with him, they could not help it.
It was not just because they had witnessed him killing people in cold blood, but also because they had learned about a few things in the last few days that they were still finding hard to accept.
"You will stay at my place tonight." He lightly said, adding to their nervousness and apprehension, but they both recalled the words of their mother and nodded their heads after a good minute of hesitation.
"Are you going to take us to Sameran with you?" Reina suddenly asked after a twenty-minute silence.
"Your mother requested me to allow you to stay with her until your High-School is finished." He revealed to them. "You can stay with your family for another year."
His words did not make them feel relieved, rather, they added to their unease.
However, the man saved their family and did them favours that they still owed him, and they could not bring themselves to say anything to him to express their unwillingness with how things had been arranged for them.
"You bought us, so we are your slaves now." Amira bitterly said. "We don't get to have a say in any of this, do we?"
"You don't." He shook his head, quashing all the little hopes they held in their hearts to negotiate with him.
"You are not going to marry us?" The younger one asked again, bluntly voicing the question that was at the front of her mind right now.
"Not in the sense that you are thinking." He smiled. "Our bond will be different. I will be a husband to you, but you can not claim to be my wife."
"How does that work?" Amira frowned. "Is it not just a Master-Slave relationship?"
"It is." He shrugged. "But since I am taking you into my household as a lover, you have a lot more freedom than the slaves do."
"We can become whatever we want?" Reina asked.
"In addition to performing your household duties, you can do whatever you want as long as it does not go against your Master's wishes."
"We want to become doctors." The younger one immediately said.
"You can." He nodded his head, which made her feel relieved in her heart.
"Would we be allowed to have children?" Amira narrowed her eyes and asked, which caused her twin to blush slightly.
"Yes."
"They will have your name?"
"Yes." He amusedly smiled.
"And can be your heirs?"
"No." He shook his head. "Not if I have children from my wives," He informed them. "Do you know how things work in Ancient Families?"
"The Families of Aurors?" Amira asked.
"Yes." He nodded.
"No." Reina shook her head.
"If a man takes a slave into his household and beds her, she can be counted as his mistress if he allows it. Masters do not usually give Slaves the status of Mistresses if they are war prizes and their loyalties are questionable." His words made them both feel uncomfortable, but he paid no heed to it and continued.
"Unless the man marries her Mistress officially, which only happens and must happen if he only has children from her, the children can not be counted as his heirs. In case the man is a Clan Head or someone with a high status in the family, the male children end up becoming heads of new branches within the family. And to keep things stable, the half-sisters are usually married to their brothers who belong to the main family as first or second wives. And since they are siblings, the sister can never be counted as a slave and must always be accepted as a wife."
"That's Incest." Amira frowned.
"A taboo to the Ordinary Mortals since it constricts them socially and holds some genetic disadvantages as well. However, to Aurors, there are no genetic disadvantages. I'm fact, there are advantages." He smiled. "And though exercising it does constrict them socially, making it hard for them to forge reliable alliances, a strong enough Family does not need to care about it too." He smiled some more when he caught them both frowning in the mirror. "Additionally, these daughters from the mistresses have more freedom when compared to their sisters from the Main Family, and they can choose to marry out of the family as well. But this is only possible if their chosen is from the right family and an alliance can be formed."
"Does not sound like they have any choice at all." Amira shook her head.
"Is that so?" He chuckled. "You might be in for a surprise then."
"What do you mean?" Reina curiously asked.
"You will understand with time." He told her as he met her eyes in the mirror.
He could not tell them right now how the Bloodlines worked, and how such a custom led to stronger familial bonds and a powerful legacy.
People with Bloodlines naturally felt more attracted to those who possessed the same Bloodline as them. It was actually cruel to force someone to marry outside of the family than to allow them to marry their siblings or cousins.
But these were things that were better understood through witnessing how it all worked.
Nothing he would say would make sense to them as they did not know much about the laws of nature.
The rest of the ride was spent in silence, and after the twins got off the car, they nervously waited for Keith while he parked the car in the garage and walked over to them.
He could not help but chuckle when he caught Reina shying her eyes away, and though Amira was trying to remain calm, she was fidgeting as well.
"Stop thinking silly things. We are not doing those things tonight." He tapped their heads with his knuckles and both the girls winced in pain.
"Ow.."
But soon their cheeks warmed up in a scarlet blush.
"We don't know what you are talking about, Brother!" Reina tried to calmly speak but her voice came out a little high-pitched.
"Right." He chuckled and then shook his head. "Come. I will show you your room."
Keith led them inside the eerily quiet mansion, and then took them upstairs to show them the room that was reserved for them.
"Kitchen is downstairs. And there is ice cream in the fridge." He pointed at a table and the mini-fridge inside it.
The two of them nodded and then curiously checked the dressing room, where they found the closets filled with clothes for them.
There was everything that they might need. Even a pair of their High-School uniforms. And the girls were blushing as they exited the room and walked over to him.
"Thank you." Amira politely said, keeping her voice low and head lowered.
"I picked them myself." He playfully smiled and found their shy expressions quite amusing. "Raise your head."
Amira did as asked and then froze when she felt him plant a light kiss on her forehead.
Keith kissed Reina on her forehead too, and it was only after he spoke that the girls broke out of their trace.
"Good night!"
"Keith..." Amira called out to him right when he was about to exit the room.
"Yes, Amira?"
"Why us?" It was Reina who asked the question that she and her twin both had on their minds.
"Because you are beautiful." He replied straightforwardly, which made both blush some more. "And that you are special and I have plans for the two of you." He mysteriously said and left before they could raise any more questions.
The twins stared at the door, frowning at his words, but then they blushed again when their eyes met.
"Let's get changed."
"Mhm..." Reina nodded her head as she grabbed her twin's hand and followed her into the dressing room.
As they always did, the two of them helped each other change after freshening up, and then they entered the bed together and turned on their sides, facing each other.
"Good night, Sis." The younger lazily said and closed her eyes.
"Good night, Reina." Amira smiled and then closed her eyes as well.
Though they had been alarmed ever since their mother told them about the deal that was reached between Keith and their father, there was still a piece of information that immensely relieved them.
They were twins, born together, and raised together. Their bond had always been special and if one of them was hurt, the other felt their pain too, and if one of them was sick, the other fell sick too. As sisters who would even start feeling scared if they were not together in the same room, their greatest fear was that they would be separated one day.
They had even promised each other that they would marry the same man. And now it was clear to them that they would never have to separate from each other.
It was perhaps the reason why they convinced themselves that whatever was happening was for the best.
Content with their 'little' happiness, which was all that truly mattered to them, the two of them drifted off to their dreamland.
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦