Chapter 121

Chapter 118 – Admissions?

Evgeniya The short time I needed alone was enough for the band about my neck to spiral away with the suds, a tottering calm settling and one far more fragile than I’d like. There was just enough room to change without my elbows colliding on the wall and when I unfurled the clothing handed to me by Catalina, I had a decent idea why she had left with an impish grin.

Fill out the underwear, she had said. I would sooner spill out of them. The panties were a sheer dark blue lace held together in a band that formed the thong. And the ‘bra’ was a matching lace bralette that crossed at the back and would just about cup the front of my breasts. If Astennu and Badru saw me in these, they would be wrecked, along with the small bed…

‘…And us, with any luck,’ my wolf finished my thoughts. ‘I need some rearranging, if you catch my drift.’

‘The window blinds catch your drift, Evva.’

When I swung open the door, after throwing on the pants and sweater, my two mates broke apart, their deep whispering ending the second they saw me. It was like walking in on a conversation where the topic of discussion was obvious, and the silence that escorted it was confirmation. The topic was me and I knew what they wanted to ask.

“Hey, ammar,” Astennu offered out his hand, guiding me to sit between his legs on the bed so he could brush my hair.

Badru wrinkled his nose as he leaned into me. “Are they Catalina’s?” And when I nodded, his frowning pout deepened. “Her scent doesn’t sit right on you, my nour el-ain. You should definitely take them off.”

I shook my head, unable to hide my blurt of laughter, and surged forward. My kiss had meant to be a peck, to adore his lovable crude charm, but as with many things around my mates, control went out the metaphorical window. The heated tension broke the moment the sparks of his lips ignited, his taste and scent of nutmeg and cinnamon claiming me.

I released him, seeking out my other missing scent. Astennu’s lips collided with mine and curled my tongue from my mouth with his sweet tree sap treat. The touch of his fingers around my throat and tangled in my hair were light and barely a whisper, yet my pulse jumped as though he had voraciously worshipped my body.

I leaned back into his chest, catching my breath as his hands snaked around my waist to my stomach.

Badru rested his forehead upon mine, his palm stroking around where our small mound would grow in time.

“Did he… did he touch you?” Astennu whispered in a strained voice, kissing the base of my neck where it met my shoulder.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Badru nuzzled. “You can tell us to shove it, and we’ll shut up.”

My sniffle became a short laugh, the two of them wiping the small tear that burned a trail down my cheek. They would know I wasn’t assaulted; they would have felt it and they wouldn’t have needed to ask. But I was violated and I didn’t know how to tell them the truth yet.

My trembling laugh died in the same breath it formed, tears that I was growing sick of shedding dampening my cheeks further. Badru kissed them away and Astennu softly rubbed my arms, returning to my stomach and our pup.

“How did you find me, us,” I changed the topic, knowing full well my unspoken reply hung between us like a lead curtain, waiting to be drawn back.

“We knew something was off from the moment you went missing,” Astennu’s arms tightened around me, rocking my body with his. “Everything was set up to look as though your father had made off with you. Isaac even waved a draft timetable of patrol routes found in Konstantin’s room in my face as fake ‘proof’. Neither of us believed it for a second, we knew he’d never hurt you or force you into anything.”

“My dad can’t read English. He wouldn’t have known what the timetable was for, let alone how to use it,” I wiped a sniffle with the cuff of my sleeve.

“We didn’t even think about that,” Badru rubbed his chin. “We just knew he didn’t… no matter how much everyone else said otherwise.”

“It was Elan that provided the piece we were missing,” Astennu continued. “And when we searched Isaac’s office, we found this.”

A cool metal brushed my décolletage and was clasped at my nape. My fingers brushed the etched surface, carved with three names that I couldn’t read but knew what they said. My locket that I had left behind the morning I was taken. Part of me feared it would have been disposed of and lost forever.

“We also found a ledger…”

“The rogues your father sold?” I guessed Badru’s words. “I know. Marceau boasted a whole lot. Where is Isaac now?”

“The cells. Aste beat the s**t out of him and strangled what he could out of Finley.”

“Yeah… I’m not proud of what I did with that wolf… but it meant we found you,” Astennu brushed the hair back from my forehead.

“Was it just the two of them that were involved?”

“Sort of,” Badru kneaded the back of his neck. “We kinda focused on it being Finley for so long that we didn’t look elsewhere. When we finally got our act together, we found Janet had played a part. She was blackmailed into it, but she still did it.”

“Wait…” I pushed away from them both. “So, it took you two months to start thinking of suspects, other than Fin? Seriously?!”

“We were a mess without you,” the nugget of a wolf tried to offer up an excuse.

“And I was pregnant in a cell. I still managed to make an escape plan and execute it. I even told you about Janet being shady!” I threw up my hands in exasperation. “I mean, f**k, I could slap you!”

A wide goofy grin plastered itself on Badru’s face, eager, as always, to receive my irritation. Even Astennu growled in excitement, pawing at my hips.

“I’m starting to rethink the cell,” I laughed, despite myself.

The feeling sobered, understanding that while they thought they knew everything, they only knew a fraction.

“Marceau was behind a lot more than some fight rings… his family is why my father’s people were wiped out… and your mother’s.”

Taking a deep breath, I regurgitated every horrid detail that the wolf had gloated, watching as the colour drained from my mates’ faces and a murderous shadow passed over their eyes.

The more I spoke, the more I saw why the goddess had paired me with the twins, to correct the veered track that Isaac had set fate on. It could be no random trick of happenstance that he was mated to Qamar and crossed paths with the very man responsible for her trauma. In another world, maybe he didn’t let his prejudice blind him and maybe he was the one who would have taken Marceau’s head in my father’s place.

Had I never been mated to Astennu and Badru, none of their father’s actions or Marceau’s would have been uncovered. And whilst I wished it had never happened, that I could erase every slimy memory, I could take solace that they weren’t without a greater meaning.

“This is gonna break our mother,” Asetnnu shook his head, burying his face in his hands.

“Aste, how the hell are we gonna tell her this?”

“Maybe I should be the one?” I offered. “Before what happened, happened, we kinda bonded a little and she told me things I don’t think she’s told many others. Plus, I can distract her with baby things, that is, if she’s excited about the pup?”

“She bought you, well, us, pretty much every baby item you could ever want. So yeah, she’s excited alright.”

“The pile of tiny onesies nearly drove Ru insane,” Astennu offered his brother a lopsided sympathetic smile.

“They were so small,” he looked down at his hands. “I kept thinking we’d never see them be used.”

“Because you were a mess without me?”

“I moped so much without you,” Badru pulled me forward to nuzzle into my neck. “Pillows don’t cut it to cuddle with in the night.”

But something felt off. A twinge of discomfort pricked at my temples from my mates and given the dejected air from Astennu, I knew which it stemmed from.

“Aste?” I cupped his smooth jaw, roughened slightly under touch from the scant dusting of stubble.

“Ru held it together so much better than I did. I felt like I was losing myself. I almost beat Isaac to death when I found your locket in his desk drawer,” his eyes flitted down to the pendant hanging on its chain.

“I suppose I feel ashamed that I couldn’t control myself, that I lost it so bad. When I found out that Finley took you that day… my wolf had never wanted to kill anyone so much… and I didn’t hold back when I tortured it out of him. I don’t feel guilty that he’s dead or that I killed him… But I feel uncomfortable that I lost control of myself like that, that I tortured someone.”

“That’s because you’re a good person with a sweet soul,” I stroked his face, drawing him closer for a lingering kiss. “We’ve all had our limits pushed to breaking point…”

My breaking point had boiled over several times, within the first few hours of waking in that horrible place for that matter. And my mistakes could have lost me far more than control.

“You were keeping our son safe,” I grasped both their hands and held them at the point on my stomach under the sweater where I knew they could feel the increased sparks where our pup floated in my womb. “I don’t see you any differently for it… I love you. I love both of you, so much it hurts and I should have told you sooner.”

Their identical eyes, pulsated in sapphire hues, a faint glow pushing its way through to the surface more vigorously than I had witnessed before. I wasn’t even sure who had rushed forward in a blur to kiss me first until the shuddering tingles flipped my insides, leaving me warm and secure, as though I were wrapped in a blanket; Astennu. My very breath was stolen from my lungs as his tongue battled mine for dominance.

‘Bahibbak,’ he nuzzled into my cheek. ‘I love you. And I mean to mind-link it to you this time.’

‘I don’t know, I think I prefer his sleepy admission and then his adorable goober panic the next day,’

Evva huffled.

I was snatched from one twin and trapped within the arms of the other, kissing me so fiercely, my lips would be bruised. Had there been room, I felt Badru would have spun me about in a circle and if I knew my nugget, he might still try.

“f**k, I’ve loved you since the moment you kicked me in the nuts in the snow,” he surged back into me, my tongue automatically seeking out the sweet and excitable burn that he left me with.

I fell back onto the bed, exhaustion sinking into my muscles. A couple of hours of sleep hadn’t been nearly enough.

After two months apart, separate and alone, after every night falling asleep and feeling so empty, dreaming of my mates virtually every time I closed my eyes, all I wanted was to be held, safe in the knowledge I was going home.