Chapter 101

Accepting My Twin Mates Chapter 101 CHAPTER 98 – THE FOUR OF US?

Astennu Something cool pressing against my forehead registered and my eyes snapped open, snatching the offender’s hand, my body ready for a fight all over again. A yelp buzzed in my ears as my eyes cleared and adjusted to the dim lighting… of my room?

A tanned hand came into focus, a washcloth grasped within it; my mother.

“Mom?” My voice croaked, thick with sleep.

“Marhaba habibi (hi darling),” she slowly unfurled my fingers around her wrist and cupped my cheek.

“Your brother carried you up a few moments ago. Are you feeling any better, my beautiful boy?”

My face heated immediately, hearing the feminine snigger at the foot of my bed belonging to Catalina, stifling a snide laugh behind her hand.

‘Thiago is our mom’s chico hermoso (beautiful boy) too. She’d still be tucking him into bed at night if she could. Drives his mate, Leah, crazy.’

‘We’re filing that away to torment him with later,’ Aasim snuffed a flicker of laughter that died down into silence just as quickly.

I sat up slowly, seeing a small sea of faces surrounding me. My mother perched, half-turned to me, on my bed. My brother sat at my desk flipping through a tablet, his eyes focused solely on what he was searching for with Lucy lingering over his shoulder. And Tamlyn looked to be quietly speaking to someone on her phone, hanging up once she heard I had woken.

The last thing I remembered was Lucy arguing about driving back home and not backing down from Catalina. That was after I had finished arguing with Seattle PD that we were in charge of the site and we had everything in hand. Catalina had almost made it worse by telling them to go eat a doughnut.

Thank goddess for Lucy, the little she-wolf knew how to put a grown man in his place, including armed police officers; the female officers present had looked on, impressed. The cops had stayed out of the way long enough to ensure it was safe for the human residents to return, once our backup from the pack had arrived to finish the cleanup of the apartment… and removal of the body.

I didn’t feel guilty for killing Finley as I thought I might. However, I did feel uncomfortable that I had lost myself, stripped of my self-control and left with only the wrath of a feral beast. I remembered what I did.

Except, it was as though I hovered over myself, watching as I tortured every measure of information out of him which, unfortunately, wasn’t as much as I would have liked.

But we had a starting point of where to find our next lead.

“We need to go,” I swung my legs over the empty side of my bed, planting my bare feet on the floor.

“We need the first flight to France. I don’t care where, we’ll run the rest of the way if we have to.”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been doing,” Badru strode over and sat next to me, showing me the tablet screen. “But the next werewolf flight isn’t for two days, which only leaves us with a human flight. And I can’t tell you how much I don’t want to be on one of theirs if we can help it.”

“Why?” Lucy inclined her head.

“Because we’re wolves and Arabic,” my brother deadpanned, a tone that rarely graced him. “We don’t need some TSA agent pulling us aside for some bullshit random screening with a rubber glove.”

“My dad has a private jet,” Catalina casually dropped.

“You could have mentioned that earlier,” Badru threw the tablet on the mattress in a mood.

“I didn’t know what you were looking for. You and Lucy were huddled in the corner, mind-linking like besties.”

“Because I was trying not to wake my brother!”

“Back on topic guys,” Tamlyn refereed. “Duke it out later.”

“It’ll take us roughly nine hours to get to Opal Sun, seven if I drive,” Catalina winked at Lucy, who paled a shade of green once more. “The jet would be ready to fly by the time we get there.”

“Don’t you want to make an announcement to the pack or something, first?” Tamlyn guided herself over. “You kinda took control of the pack but there’s been no address.”

“We don’t have time. If we can leave now, then we’re going,” I pushed myself to my feet, feeling my temples pulsate with guilt and worry.

It was an atrocious mess we were leaving behind, more than my mother or Tamlyn should have to face on their own, but we had little choice.

‘The s**t will be there when we get back,’ Aasim affirmed. ‘We need to get mate. It’s been two months because we were slow on the uptake and we both know she’s gonna be pissed that we took so long.’

‘If I know Evie, she won’t be taking any of this lying down,’ my chest panged with longing to hear her endless stream of berating, her dark gold hair shimmering as she moved and her eyes blazing in a storm of grey when she was angry.

‘Maybe try to make time for a shower first before we leave. Even I’m feeling queasy from our stink and I’m trapped in your mind.’

“Astennu’s right,” my mother glided around, grasping mine and Badru’s hands. “Go. Leave the pack to me. When you come back with your Luna, the three of you can take your places properly and address the pack.”

‘And don’t worry about Kate,’ she tightened her grip around my fingers. ‘I was with her when she felt it.

She wasn’t a fool, she knew where you went. But it may be best that you not approach or speak to her, or her mate Lance, for a while.’

“Ok,” I closed my eyes, clenching and unclenching my jaw. “Badru, you and me will go. Tam, stay here with our mother and take care of the pack.”

Lucy was about to jump forward as a volunteer, a determined look on her face.

“You can’t,” I stopped her before she could ask. “I know you want them both back, but this is gonna get dangerous…”

There was a very real chance one of us could die. I would do everything in my capabilities to make sure we returned, but fate may have other ideas.

“I’m coming,” Catalina stated, making it clear there wouldn’t be a debate. Not that it stopped my brother from starting one anyway.

“Absolutely f*****g not!”

“This is my plan to use my family’s jet. Try and stop me, cabrón.”

“We may need another set of hands that can fight, Ru,” I admitted, much to my brother’s chagrin. “We could do with one more, though. A wolf without an aura, to slip under the radar, but they’d need to be a strong warrior.”

“I have an idea,” Catalina tapped her lip, an evil glint twinkling away in her eye. “But you won’t like it.”

*

*

*

“No. Nope. Absolutely not. You aren’t coming with us!” I roared in the wolf’s smug face.

He didn’t so much as flinch an inch or show an ounce of intimidation, and it pissed me off further.

‘I knew that she-wolf was up to mischief when she wouldn’t say who!’’ My wolf barked.

After the quickest shower of my life, we had made it to Opal Sun in just over seven hours and I now knew to never let Catalina get behind the wheel of a vehicle. No wonder poor Lucy had thrown up. I had nearly vaulted for the nearest bushes as we pulled up to her family’s private airstrip.

Alpha Matías and Thiago, had been ready and waiting, ushering us to the plane and going over the equipment they had supplied us with at short notice; a few firearms, in-ear radios should our mind-

linking be compromised and a few items that would come in handy for surveillance.

The one tool I didn’t need was smugly grinning at my annoyance with personal delight.

Adrian f*****g Draper.

And if he thought he was coming along, he had another thing coming.

“Why not?” He pouted, making me want to punch it off of him. “Anyone would think you had a problem with me.”

Thiago caught his snicker in the back of his hand, trying not to roll on the floor and die laughing.

“You said you wanted a strong warrior with no aura of leadership,” Catalina smirked, slapping Adrian on the shoulder. “Warriors don’t get much better than this guy. And he’s an amazing shot with a sniper scope.”

‘If you’re making me put up with that she-wolf, I’m making you put up with that wolf male,’ Badru twisted my arm with his ‘fairness’.

Dammit!

‘The four of us together, dysfunctioning across France? What could go wrong,’ Aasim buried his head.

I was doing this for you, Evie.