Chapter 88

Accepting My Twin Mates Chapter 88 CHAPTER 85 – WILL YOU BEHAVE?

Evgeniya “It’s only polite if I tell you why you’re here,” Marceau took a sip from his wine glass and held it up, paying his full attention to the deep red liquid. “You are here because I now own you. You are bought and paid for in full. After you have had some time to adjust to your new living arrangements, you will have your début in my fighting rings, and what a début it shall be. It’s been a while since I’ve witnessed a lycan fight. I do believe you’ll be quite popular with the audience. None will have ever witnessed one such as you.”

He raised his glass to my father, downing his wine. Whereas I wanted to throw up yet again. This wasn’t a case of ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’. This was…

‘…Into a raging inferno that someone pissed a stream of gasoline into,’ Evva finished off my thought in her typical flare.

“Please, drink. It’s a rather good vintage,” he said amicably.

Saying ‘no’ seemed like a verbal red flag to my pregnancy, which left me with one avenue of refusal in my own brand of defiance.

I slapped my wine glass with the back of my hand, sending it sailing into the wall with a shattering clang.

“That was a Château Lafite you’ve wasted,” Marceau dabbed his mouth on the cream silk of his napkin.

“Like I give a s**t what it is!” I snapped, wanting to upend the table on him.

Next to me, my father continued to remain silent. I chanced a glance to see him rigid and the odd low rumble of a growl shuddering his figure.

“It’s a €1,700 bottle of wine, exquisite.” It unsettled me how Marceau’s eyes lingered on me, and it was the breaking point for my father.

He slammed his fist, gripping the table and releasing a menacing snarl. But before he had even stood fully, a dart was aimed and fired, embedding itself into the ebony wood, right next to his hand.

“Calm down, Konstantin. I would hate to have to order a more accurate hit.”

“Why are you doing this?” I batted the syringe away. “Is it because Isaac paid you to keep us out of the way?!”

“I haven’t the faintest clue why he sold his own sons’ mate. Although, I can see why he’d sell your strapping father, here. Can’t have such a dangerous rogue around his precious Luna. I assume, Evie, you’re here by ‘rogue association’. Isaac has little care about what happens to the rogues he sells to me and asks fewer questions. He and I have been in business for over a decade; one of my more lucrative partnerships. More so than with that cinglé Finnish Alpha,” he muttered about another wolf under his breath. “Not that I have to worry about being in that madman’s pocket any longer. The Moon’s Eye is on its proverbial last legs, as it were.”

Who the ever-living f**k is the Moon’s Eye?

‘I don’t know,’ Evva pondered. ‘But if this guy does business with them and hates them, I doubt they’re a basket of bunnies.’

“Rogues? So, there are others here?” I circled back to the point.

“Why, of course,” Marceau swiped the last bit of food around his plate and popped it into his mouth.

“And vampires also. Magnificent matches between the two for an exclusive clientèle is a rather rewarding enterprise. And nobody cares about a rogue’s disappearance. Drifters and the unwanted, criminals and runaways. You rogues are the discarded wolves not a single person will ever miss. It’s what makes you parfait (perfect). No one will come looking for you and no one knows where my small base is. True, I don’t normally receive the mate of an Alpha’s heir they wish to pawn off, but if it lands me a rather enchanting lycan she-wolf, how can I say no?”

I could see my father about to explode, to shift, as fur began to sprout on the back of his hand. So I cut off his impending rampage before it began to save him, the only way I knew how. By being me. An i***t who didn’t know when to shut up.

“Holy moon! Do they send you villains a script to read from? Or is there some day-boot camp for it?

You’re ridiculously f*****g cliché.”

Marceau laughed loudly, slapping his hand on his thigh. “I had been told of your spirit, but it is a treat to see it in action.”

My father gripped my hand in warning, ‘Be careful solnyshko. Your mother had trouble holding her tongue. It is beautiful it lives in you, but you must be careful.’

“I’m told you play?” An artful and reptilian smile carved Marceau’s lips as he inclined his head to the piano. “So play.”

Swallowing my pride, I pushed away from the table, biting back my wolf’s snarl as I walked past him to sit at the piano. I never wanted to play to my father for the first time under these circumstances.

“I prefer classical. Clair de Lune, if you can play from memory?”

Perfect. One of my favourites that would now forever be sullied.

I hovered my fingers over the shining ivory keys. The grand piano looked like new, without an ounce of use. I squeezed my eyes shut and began to play, the notes falling in sequence from me with practised ease.

“Luna Qamar was gracious to have you schooled,” I heard him fill his glass with more wine and stand from the table to approach the piano.

“Was she in on all this as well?”

He chuckled in an overly dark manner that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. “That woman hasn’t the first clue. Too content that her mate simply relocates you rogues, or whatever lie he tells to clear his conscience. It serves in my best interests that few know what I do. Secrets are easier to keep that way.”

“Yet an i***t like Fin manages to make it onto your cliquey list?”

“He is a means to an end. I know better than to trust someone like him with my location. I haven’t the faintest clue what deal he made with Isaac for his involvement, and neither do I care,” the man stood far too close for comfort, leaning himself on the body of the instrument.

“What a talent. You must be proud, Konstantin, no?” I noticed Marceau raising a taunting brow in his direction.

His frame flexed out of the corner of my eye, wanting to keep me shielded, but the guard ready and aimed with his dart rifle prevented it.

“It’s been 19 years since I last had the pleasure of owning a lycan she-wolf. What a pity that I lost her to Moon’s Eye,” my hands jolted to a screeching halt on the piano keys at his words. A lycan was once here? “But, what could I do? She was on a temporary loan to us to see how she fared in a fight. By coincidence, you have remarkably similar eyes to hers.”

“What?” My piano playing was long forgotten.

“Is it truly so shocking, mon chérie (my dear)?” He chuckled, leaning in close. “I haven’t seen your people fight for quite some time. What a shame we didn’t know about your issues with wolfsbane and silver. Such a pity. What a waste.”

The realisation dawned on me what he meant…

“Not that it was my father’s decision at the time, all those 31 years ago. But, that damned Finnish Alpha, being young and impetuous, insisted. Once you are in that pack’s pocket, you remain there.”

He turned, resting his elbows on the piano to address my father. “I’m hardly surprised she recognises me, but you. You, I am rather hurt you don’t remember. Ours was my first fight as a 19 year old wolf.

How time flies.”

He pushed himself away, swirled his wine and downed it, leaving the glass by the empty music sheet rack.

“I spotted it when you arrived, unconscious. Excellent tattoos, by the way, done by your own hand like the other lycan males?” It was a question asked that he wasn’t waiting to be answered. “I would recognise my teeth marks anywhere. Your father almost killed me for it. Strange how fate would bring us back together.”

A growl so deep, it vibrated the strings housed within the piano case. I had never seen such a murderous look on my father’s face, not even when he stood before Isaac in Two Moons.

“Does the boy in the boat finally recognise me?”

I knew what my father was about to do and nothing was going to deter him. His attacker he thought was dead, his attacker that had taken part in destroying his home, after 31 years, now stood before him.

My claws extended on their own and I turned them loose, aiming a strong swipe at Marceau’s face and shredding the skin. His attention, and that of the guards, had been fixed on my father, not me. He never saw me coming.

“Dad, run!”

He dodged a hit from the closest guard and sliced through the barrel with his claws, shifting in an instant to his huge deep golden wolf and throwing the guard clear across the room into the other. We ran for the door by the fireplace, the one I was sure would lead us to an escape, with my father right behind me. When, all of a sudden, he stopped.

A deafening howl transformed into a human roar of immense pain. He dropped to the ground, shifting back to his bare human form with a syringe sticking out of his side. His body began writhing and convulsing in pain and I panicked, as did Evva, not knowing what to do other than yanking out the dart from him. Blood trickled from the deep and narrow puncture and faint black tendrils began to form, growing outwards from the point of injection. My eyes burned and blurred, fat tears collecting and falling down my cheeks in a river.

“Now,” I heard Marceau gasp in an effort, using the rifle gun in his hand to push himself up. “We can either continue this ridiculous game or you can behave. Which is it?”

“Please! Do something!” I begged.

“I have wolfsbane serum that will reverse the effects,” he waved an injection syringe containing a pale yellow substance. “Without it, his heart will explode. Given the strength he was shot with, you only have a few more seconds to choose. So, will you behave?”

“Yes,” I sobbed, defeated. “Please… save him.”

He nodded to one of the guards, who had collected himself from his heap on the floor, and held up the antidote. The guard staggered over and quickly jabbed the needle into my father’s neck. Almost instantaneously, his convulsing stopped. I gripped his hand as he rolled to his side, semi-conscious and groaning in pain and exhaustion.

“That, mon chérie (my dear),” Marceau towered above my kneeling frame. “Is what a lycan looks like as they die from wolfsbane. The toxin does more than incapacitate them. It causes their hearts to rupture from the stress in a few seconds after it is injected. I no longer have any access to the sedative used on my lycan she-wolf to keep your race under control, so I will have to settle for good old brute force and threats.”

He snatched a fistful of my hair to pull me up and sneer in my face. My claw marks ran deep across his features, blood pouring and dripping from his jaw. “Behave, and he lives. And if you can hear me, lycan, you behave and your precious daughter lives. Rest assured, you can ask your cell mates; I make good on my promises. You try this display again and you will wish for death.”

He released his grip and the butt of his rifle barrelled towards me, sending me into a painful darkness.

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My head throbbed and my world didn’t feel quite real. Whatever I was laid on was plush and soft, and neither did I feel a cold chill of freezing wind. I attempted to open my eyes, hearing blurred sounds mingling together, low in pitch and quiet in volume. I was thankful that the lighting above was dim, though it still sent a sharp pain between my temples.

“Finally awake,” an incredibly deep baritone voice spoke in an accent.

I focused my concentration in the owner’s direction, to be greeted by a pair of glowing liquid gold eyes.