Accepting My Twin Mates

Chapter 8 - It's Her?

Badru

Why couldn’t Astennu have just sped off?

I would have. Let the fucker run back to Two Moons.

‘I would’ve waited for the car to be at full speed, first,’ my wolf, Baniti, snarled. ‘Then kicked him out of it.’

Like me, my wolf was rather impulsive. I always thought his appearance would have tamed that streak in me. He hadn’t. And he had even less patience for Finley nowadays. In these last two months of being away at Opal Sun, I was starting to wonder why exactly we were friends. Was it just because of proximity? Maybe it was the lack of a buffer with our pack? Goddess, was he always this obnoxious or was he simply growing worse?

He did take the death of his little brother, Arthur, hard and heavily blamed himself, but most people would grow from such a tragedy. Fin hadn't and it was becoming increasingly difficult to have sympathy for someone who was constantly an asshole. And since the summer of this year, he had turned worse, making me wonder if I had ever actually truly known him.

I realised now I didn't like the person I was when he was around. I didn't see it when Astennu and I were teenagers, how much we gave into peer pressure, but we had matured since then.

I wasn't paying attention to what the asshat, now in the front passenger seat, was spouting on about. I was too engrossed staring down at my now ruined sketch that had a dark and jagged line running straight through the middle of it. There were some marks on the side where my pencil had made contact as I had slipped off to sleep, but it had been salvageable. It wasn't anymore. However, the dark mark didn't detract from how beautiful her eyes were. Eyes that I had memorised.

They were the reason I was so relieved to be heading home. Specifically, to catch a glimpse of the colour I didn't know how to name. They were like a storm, unyielding, forceful and held nothing back. Her eyes occupied my mind constantly, trying to gauge their true colour. In the sun they were a penetrating blue, when she was irate they were deep silver; they always kept me guessing.

In the last two weeks, Evie had virtually lived in my brain. Every time I closed my eyes, she was there and her image only grew with intensity. The things she had done to me were quite literally the stuff of my dreams. Too bad that was entirely where it would remain. And with that thought came a very bitter slap to reality.

There were so many times in the last few months, before my trip, that I wanted to just go up to her and ask 'please be my chosen mate' but I knew the response I'd get. She'd either laugh in my face, flip me off, or slap me across the cheek... actually, the thought of that last one turned me on a little. I shifted in my seat, in heated discomfort, having to readjust myself. Ok, it turned me on a lot.

If my mother knew how much I wanted Evie as a chosen mate, she would throw a fit and I doubted I would hear the end of it. In no way did that deter me from wanting her.

But, no matter how much I wanted her as my chosen mate, it couldn't happen. Astennu wanted our fated mate, although I knew how much he was crushing on Evie along with me. And like him, I found it completely insane that we were so fixated on her without the mate bond. It couldn't be a coincidence. However, where I would be ecstatic to accept Evie without the mate bond, Astennu was more hesitant, wanting to know for certain first. Not that either of us had any chance with her at all.

We had f****d that up royally, especially me.

I never backed down from anyone, well except our mom; she was terrifying when she was angry. I even stared my dad down at times, but the one person I could never meet in the eye was Evie; the worst torture there was as it was her eyes that had me transfixed. Any time I did, the only face I would see was hers of four years ago. How her lip quivered and the single tear that slipped down her cheek, stabbed me to my soul, even my wolf was pissed at me. I had never felt more of an asshole than I did at that moment. It made me realise how much of an asshole I could be, and I was ashamed.

I had made some reckless decisions when I was younger. That night was no different. I was given a chance to show my best side and I had shown my worst instead, only confirming what she probably thought of me.

I envied Astennu's control and self-assurance. I was the one who followed their hormones and was impulsive. My brother was the planner, always so down-to-earth and meticulous while being more expressive of his true emotions. I was the overly dramatic one, able to react at the drop of a hat, but more secretive about my true feelings to the rest of the world. The two of us may have been identical twins, but we were vastly different in our personalities, though we fit together, each of our traits complimenting the other.

“Tell me one of you at least hooked up with Catalina? She tried to follow you around enough,” Finley continued on whatever s**t he had been harping on about that I hadn't paid any notice to.

Not this again! I knew this topic made my brother uncomfortable and a little embarrassed; it made me uneasy too. I hadn’t been intimate with anyone for over four years and, while I was no virgin, Astennu was.

“I can't believe you didn’t tap that,” the asshat in the front seat said when neither of us spoke up. “She'd have given you both a hell of a birthday present.”

Catalina was the youngest daughter of Alpha Matías Rivera, the leader of Opal Sun where we had been staying and we had avoided her constantly. She was not a particularly subtle individual.

“If you found her so attractive, you should have gone after her then!” I snapped, losing my patience.

‘f*****g chelb,’ Baniti growled. Goddess, we really needed to dial it down using that word.

“Trust me, I did. She was only focused on you two.”

“She was only interested because our packs are allies and there are two Alphas with us. She certainly didn't love either of us and she definitely wasn't our mate,” Astennu sighed wearily.

It didn’t escape me how Fin scoffed at the mention of 'love' and 'mate', or my brother’s scowl at hearing the scorn. Astennu prided himself on the mate bond more than anything. Again, my impulsive decisions in my younger years had come back to bite me now. In my defence, it was only a couple of women that I had slept with and they weren't even members of our pack… but I still wished I had waited for my mate as my twin had.

It had taken some effort in avoiding Catalina constantly. As my brother had said, she wasn't interested in us for any other reason than the fact we were Alphas, an ally to her father's pack and could occupy her time now her older sister was busy elsewhere. With any luck, we wouldn't have to deal with her again for a while.

I knew our parents had hoped we would be mated to one of Alpha Matías's children to solidify our packs’ alliance. His eldest and future heir, Thiago, was a definite no. Neither of us was remotely gay, and he was now mated himself; plus he was a good friend of ours too. Elisabeth, Matías's second child, was nice, I guess? But she ran off not long after we had initially arrived, to go claim her own mate or something; it had been quite the dramatic affair at the time. And Catalina, was, well, Catalina. No matter what either of our parents wanted, I was not about to take her as a chosen mate.

Thankfully, Finley fell asleep for the remainder of the ride home, so I didn’t have to actively block him out. The closer we came to the pack, the more my agitation spiked, and the same for my brother too. Because of our twin bond, we were far closer than normal wolf siblings. I felt his emotions, even before we shifted, though they were faint back then. And I felt his bonds as my own, as he felt mine. I thought I had just been unusually homesick, but this felt like something else entirely.

The view of home, our pack house, came into view from its forest surroundings. The white wood exterior gleamed, accentuated by the fresh and early snow on the ground that must have fallen overnight. As we pulled up to the main porch of the pack house, Beta Kate and her mate Lance, Finley’s parents, were already waiting, alongside my mother. Our future Beta had woken up on his own as we had driven down the tree-lined road. Both he and his mother shared the same sandy-brown hair, tanned skin and pale blue eyes with his more masculine features almost identical to his father's.

“Ahibbaa! (Darlings!)” My mother called out, descending the steps and pulling both Astennu and me into a huge hug.

She was a tall woman herself, but with both mine and my twin's 6’9 frames, we almost smothered her.

“I could swear you’ve both grown so,” she stood back and held us at arm's length. She was unusually ecstatic today. She was normally more reserved than this.

‘Do you think this is a little weird too?’ I mind-linked my brother.

‘Yeah…’ he drew out. ‘Oh hell, she’s planned something!’

Just at that moment, our father came through the door, greeting us as our mother had. He was a similar height and build to the both of us, so we didn’t engulf him as much as our mom.

“You two will be putting me out to pasture soon,” he chuckled, looking us over. I didn’t think we had changed much, but evidently, we had.

I spotted Beta Kate sending a wave our way and walking off towards her home with Finley and her mate. Astennu handed the keys to a member of staff who had come to park up our SUV properly, thanking him. Our mom led us all inside, speaking as she went.

“I have some tea and snacks for us all. You must be famished,” she linked her arm around our dad’s. “I want to hear all about your trip.”

But I almost froze as I entered the house. Something was in the air, something delicious and heavenly. There were too many people moving around, disturbing and masking it, to pinpoint who or what this divine scent belonged to.

‘Tell me you’re picking that up too?’ Astennu mind-linked me. I nodded, subtly.

‘My wolf is starting to get a little nutty,’ he added, and I knew what he meant.

Baniti had gotten over his momentary dazed state and had begun pacing, frustrating himself with his own peculiar actions.

‘We need to go to our room, now,’ he begged.

‘Why now specifically?’

‘If I f*****g knew, I’d say… just goooo,’ he whined.

“Say, mom, can we take a few minutes before we eat? We could do with dropping our stuff off in our rooms and unpacking,” my brother said, glancing towards the Alpha wing. Was Aasim telling him the same? “And I really need to see Heru, too.”

“Of course ahibbaa (my darlings). Just don’t be too long, I have a surprise for you,” she chuckled softly. But we had already deduced what the ‘surprise’ was.

‘Is it casual or are Badru and I putting on suits?’ Astennu mind-linked our dad slyly.

‘We missed you and we didn’t get chance to celebrate your birthdays. So what do you think?’ He smiled at us, kissing mom’s temple.

‘It’s definitely suits,’ I linked my twin as we turned to head to our rooms in hopes of chilling our wolves out, since they seemed so desperate for us to go.

“Oh and if you see that girl, Evie, on your way, do tell her to stop ignoring the mind-link. I had something important for the staff tonight and she’ll be lucky to get one in her size now, if at all. Your father said she was dropping some laundry off at home,” our mom frowned, looking a little irritated.

I, on the other hand, had no f*****g clue which part of her statement to question first!

Both my brother and I gave her a tight nod, but neither of our parents were concentrating on us anymore and were too busy canoodling while they walked away from us. The two of us sped-walked, breaking out into a run as we neared the door to our home.

‘She got her f*****g wolf?!’ I yelled through mind-link.

‘And she’s in one of our rooms!’ He replied in equal volume.

‘Our nour el-ain (light of my eyes) is just waiting for us to pounce on her,’ Baniti shivered. If this was real, I could think of a million other things I wanted. Things I had fantasised about for years.

Now that she had her wolf, she would be releasing her pheromones, the muskier edge to a werewolf's scent which drew us to our mate. And she would be picking up ours, too. As soon as we burst through the door, her uninterrupted scent hit us in synchronicity. Vanilla and spice; intoxicating, enticing with a sharp edge… it had Evie written all over it.

We ran up the stairs two at a time, our duffle bags abandoned, thrown down by the front door somewhere. Astennu almost knocked me out of the way to get up the staircase first. My chest heaved, in excitement, nerves, exertion… and some slight fear.

We had caught her bursting out of my bedroom door at the end of the hall, looking wide-eyed with a whirling symphony of unknown emotions. Goddess, her eyes were as perfect as ever, more so. They swirled in every shade of stormy-blue imaginable.

She knew.

“Mate,” Astennu and I growled in unison.