Accepting My Twin Mates

Chapter 96

Accepting My Twin Mates Chapter 96

CHAPTER 93 – TOOK CARE? Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

(Follows on from the events of chapter 82)

Astennu

I heard nothing other than the loud and slow rhythmic beats of my heart in my ears. My dilated pupils met a mirror of deep blue. Where his were filled with a cold sweat, mine were filled with an anger no word in any language could adequately express.

My body moved on its own, like the trained predator it was honed to be; trained by the very man it was now aimed at… a man I thought was my father… a man I once looked up to and idolised.

Before I knew it, I was in front of him with my fist raised, ploughing swiftly into his jaw and wishing it came out on the other side. My anger boiled, roiling and seething beyond anything self-control could contain.

I wanted blood, his blood, and Aasim wanted nothing more than to be let loose on him. We were blind, too blind to think of anything except hatred.

In as fast a motion as my fist had landed, I grabbed hold of the only thing to exist in my vision and slammed his head into the doorframe, throwing him to the room and panting heavily for oxygen that wouldn’t come.

My bones began to crack, creaking to shift. Black fur sprouted and my muscles strained against the confines of my clothing to rip free. A thick arm caught me from behind, pulling me out of the sea of feral

snarls deafening me. It clamped around my neck, applying pressure to a pulse point and halting my shift… Badru.

‘Don’t!’ He fought against me physically while his voice effortlessly sliced through my mind. ‘Don’t kill him.’

‘Let me go, Ru. I want his head,’ I shivered as another wave of unbridled rage coursed down my spine, seeing my once-father sprawled on the floor and dazed, not knowing what had hit him.

‘He’s our only link to Evie and our pup. You kill him and anything he knows is dead too.’

“Isaac!” Our mother’s shattering voice screamed.

She rushed to him, gently cradling his shoulders and supporting the side of his head. Her wide eyes flitted up, flickering between Badru and me, hurt.

“Why did you do this?” Tears began to spill down her cheeks.

All it did was reignite my fury, fanning its flames until I wanted to explode all over again.

“Did you know?!” I snarled, pushing against my brother’s tightening hold. “Were you part of it? Is that why you stole Evie away from us that day?”

“Know? Know what?” Her brows pinched in confusion.

“She doesn’t know a thing,” the man wheezed and pushed himself up on his knee with a grunt. “No one knows. I did it myself.”

“You’ve done what?” Our mother stood slowly, backing up, her teary eyes studying us all warily.

“Tell her or we will,” Badru delivered the ultimatum, relaxing his grip on me but not letting go.

The man I once would have called father had the audacity to look pained, a whimpering growl escaping him. “…I took care of the rogues.”

“TOOK CARE?!” I roared, ripping free of all sanity and barreling into him like a freight train.

“You sold my mate! You sold wolves into slavery! You goddess damned son of a b***h!” I punctuated each sentence with punishing and raining blows of my fists.

Something firm took hold of my forearm, but before I could be pulled off, my elbow collided with an equally firm and solid surface. I didn’t stop to turn and look at what I had struck, too focused on the crimson mess beneath me.

“Please, Astennu,” a tiny voice, so quiet it was barely above a whisper, somehow cut through the raging buzz pounding at my temples. I looked up, meeting the pleading eyes of my mother, rivers of tears flowing freely down her cheeks and her hands clutching her chest. “…Stop. Please, stop.”

It was as though a trance had lifted, a sudden drop back to reality by being plunged into icy waters. No matter how hard I heaved for breath, an imaginary noose around my neck prevented it from entering. The walls felt too close, tightening around me. I stood, backing away from the unconscious and bleeding body on the floor, his blood coating my hands, staining them. The edges of my vision constricted and the walls that closed in, spun.

I couldn’t be here. I needed out. I needed air. I needed the cold.

‘Shift,’ Aasim begged, a need to howl and run rising within him.

He had no argument from me. Tearing through my clothes, I shifted and aimed for our nearest escape from this bad dream, the window, and disappeared into the night.

Badru

What was left of the drapes billowed in the cold breeze, my brother’s wolf vanishing into the darkness through the obliterated shards of glass. A tickle at my temple jolted me out of the shock of Astennu’s wild explosion. Touching my palm to where my twin’s elbow made contact, my hand pulled back with a trickle of blood.

My body trembled, vibrating with adrenaline I didn’t know how to diffuse. I always had a reaction for every occurrence and, now, I hadn’t the first clue. My brother was the one for rational thinking and action, but he had lost his proverbial s**t, leaving me to deal with the man I wanted to kill as much as he did.

“W-what has he done?” My mother hiccuped a sniffle, shivering.

I pointed to the discarded ledger through the wreckage we had left behind. Wiping her eyes and licking her dry lips, she picked her way through the splinters to gather up the leather-bound book. Glancing down at the man that I had eaten with not a few hours ago, my father, I mind-linked for Kate and the guards to come immediately, to take a prisoner to the cells. The acknowledgement flared a sick rage within my chest, making me wish I had joined my brother in tearing into our father, not stopping him.

“We found it hidden. He’s been selling rogues for a decade to do goddess knows what,” my eyes scanned the carpet for the glint of a silver-coloured treasure, my nour el-ain’s locket. It had been in Astennu’s hand when he went ballistic.

I found it near the doorway, intact and untarnished. Wrapping it around my fingers, I pressed a kiss to her beautiful name, wishing it were her vanilla-scented lips. I slipped it into my pocket so it would never be lost again.

“No, this can’t be right…” my mother flipped through the pages frantically. “He was relocating them in other packs… he-”

“He was selling them!” I unfairly snapped, having no direction for my anger other than whatever lay around me. “He sold Evie, he sold Konstantin and he was probably the one that drugged you, my mate and Lucy.”

She shook her head, completely breaking and dropping the ledger. “No, he wouldn’t do that to you. H- he wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t, he-”

“We came as soo-… what in the world?” Kate appeared with the four warriors at her back and promptly hushed, gaping at Isaac out cold on the floor, the study destroyed, the window obliterated and my mother having a silent breakdown. “Wh-who attacked the Alpha?”

“Isaac is no longer the Alpha,” my wolf’s growl hung on my words. “Astennu and I are. Isaac is to be taken to the cells and, so goddess help me, if anyone lets him out, I will make sure that wolf wishes they were never born. What he has done isn’t just a betrayal to the pack, it’s a betrayal to all wolfkind.”

…And a betrayal to us, his own sons, his flesh and blood.

“Ru, I-”

“He was selling rogues, Kate! Into slavery.” I was growing sick of being a record stuck on repeat.

Each time I had to say the words, a small piece of me and Baniti died. I hated my father’s stance on rogues, but never in my wildest nightmares could I have thought him capable of this. I looked up to him, he was my role model, I respected him… I loved him as my father.

And now?

I felt disgusted to share the same blood as him, wanting to purge it from my system.

Kate looked dumbfounded, as did the warriors. “You heard our Alpha,” she spoke quietly but with authority, scowling down at Isaac. “Take the criminal to the cells.”

The warriors picked the former Alpha up under his arms, dragging his motionless body out of the room and our sight.

“Qamar, are yo-”

But our mother flinched away from Kate’s outstretched hands. “Don’t, please. I… I’m…”

‘I’ll make sure Isaac is in the cells, and stays there, with guards loyal to you. Then I’ll stay with your mother. Go find Aste,’ Kate mind-linked, her worried eyes sweeping the room and landing on the open ledger. ‘I swear, I didn’t know any of this.’

‘Don’t you argue,’ she pierced me with a look of warning when my mouth opened.

‘You need to go after your brother and get your heads around this… we all do,’ she managed to get my mother to sit in the last chair intact and standing. ‘Where’s Tamlyn? Her mind-link feels messed up.’

‘Cells. She’s guarding Janet. The head housekeeper had something to do with this, but wouldn’t speak.’

‘This just keeps getting better and better,’ she wiped a hand down her face. ‘I’ll tell her while I’m there. Now, go.’

‘Well? What are you waiting for?’ Baniti used words for the first time, nudging me to the open window into the night. ‘Go find our brother.’