Chapter 131

Accepting My Twin Mates Chapter 131 Epilogue III Badru ‘Someone had better jump out and shout punk’d or something because this s**t isn’t funny,’ Baniti fumed.

Astennu and I were back all of three days and the devil spawn had stepped out of her portal of hell to curse me with her presence. Of all the she-wolves my Evie could form a tight friendship with, she chose Catalina.

Said she-wolf palmed her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes. “You can glare holes in my forehead all you want, cabrón. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Badru!” Evie attempted to pull away from my chest, but I tightened my arm around her waist and wouldn’t budge. “I invited her to come here. I need help.”

“Then I’ll help you.”

My mate gave me a pointed look that told me whatever dispute I was about to form, I would lose. Not that it would stop my mouth from running and starting one.

And what assistance did Evie need from Catalina anyway?

In our absence, my mate had stepped above and beyond, proving past any doubt that she was every bit the Luna she was born to be. She had organised housing for every new pack member we had gained, all seventy-one of them, focusing on the parents with pups to receive the first spare individual housing; particularly the two women who had lost their mates and were now to raise their children alone.

Evie had even thought to contact Elan, our Delta, to ask if his wiccan Family would accept any of the groups, should they feel uncomfortable living in a pack. Both the wiccans and the Yakama Nation Tribal Council said they would gladly welcome them. So far, the offer hadn’t been needed, but it was reassuring to know that if one or more of the rogue families decided pack life wasn’t for them, they had a safe alternative to go to.

Catalina snapped her fingers rapidly in front of my face. “Evie needs help from someone who knows what they’re doing with helping she-wolves, specifically, so they feel adjusted.”

“But why you, ‘specifically’?” I recognised that I was beginning to whine.

‘Like a b***h, I might add.’ Baniti rolled his eyes so hard that his body threatened to roll with him.

“Shouldn’t you be spending time with your mate” – I waved a hand between her and Diego, the rogue male I remembered her saving, the two clearly displaying their mate marks on their necks – “at home?”

“I don’t know, this is a lot more entertaining than annoying her papi.” A crooked smirk teased his upper lip. “And I was promised horses if I came to live—”

Catalina struck him square across the chest with the back of her hand, her dagger stare shifting to her mate instead of me.

“What do you mean ‘live’?” My eyes narrowed in red-alert suspicion. “Live where exactly?”

“Yeah, I said it was fine for a short visit.” My brother finally decided to speak up.

‘You knew she was coming to begin with?!’

‘Yes?’ He let out an audible sigh. ‘I didn’t say anything because I knew you’d be dramatic about it.’

‘You f*****g traitor! Our next sparring session, you’re getting no mercy.’

I had half a mind to tackle him here and now. To hell with decorum in front of visitors.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I did a double take when Catalina decided to whirl herself out of mine and my twin’s office.

“To choose the room Diego and I will be moving into?” She arched a brow, only pausing in her step to pin me with a look of challenge.

“No. You’re not living in this pack!”

She poked her head back around the doorframe. “Oh you’re so cute when you go all demanding, but I’m totally staying.”

“Evie! Do something!” I pleaded with my mate.

“You think I’d tell my friend, who risked her life to save me, that she can’t live here? Welcome to the pack,” she called after Catalina.

“Aste.” I turned to my brother. Surely he would be on my side in this.

“If Evie wants it, who am I to say no?”

“Easy,” I said flatly. “Like this: No, it isn’t happening.”

“Hey, don’t worry, mi tío (my friend).” Diego slapped an arm over my shoulder. “We’ll be amigos and I’ll even help you with the stallion I’ve heard so much about.”

“Heru? I’d rather eat lead spikes; they’d do less damage,” I grumbled, hating everything this situation was descending into. “And if we’re ‘amigos’, you can start by informing your mate she ain’t living here.”

“Ha! I’d sooner fight wild horses out for blood than take on my mate. Come on, let’s go deal with Heru, is it?”

Little did he know, Heru was a wild horse out for blood; mine.

“You’re just doing this as a distraction so your mate can do as she likes.”

“Of course. Cata isn’t about to go anywhere. Come on, tío.” Diego motioned for me to go with him. Did I really trust the mate of my arch-nemesis?

“You might as well. Can’t stand in the way of the miracle of you and Heru getting along.” Astennu jerked his chin in Diego’s direction. ‘I can take care of Janet’s transfer on my own.’

The predicament of Janet’s continued imprisonment was one we had all agreed on: transfer her to her daughter’s pack.

She was ultimately blackmailed into doing Isaac’s bidding, but she could have come to us at any time.

Plus, she had been a raving b***h to my queen, and that wouldn’t stand with me. Janet didn’t deserve to rot in a cell, indefinitely. Nevertheless, she could never be trusted with free rein of the pack again. So the best decision we had concocted was to contact the Alpha of her daughter’s pack and, with his consent, ship her off there, out of our hair permanently. If only our father was so easily dealt with…

“It’s Heru or showing a bunch of 100 year-old-plus vampires what a WiFi router is and taking a horde of pups to a toy store,” Evie suggested, as though either of those were a disagreeable option.

I adored kids, despite being scared witless that I was about to become a father with no handle on my personal s**t. Letting a bunch of little pups loose on a temporary distraction to help them acclimatise to their new home would only serve as good practice for my own possible future horde.

The vampires faced a massive challenge in adapting to not only a new continent and home, but also to a new time. Their ages spanned over a century in age ranges and the last time any of them had touched freedom, nineteen years ago, the new millennium had barely rung in.

I would take technologically inept vampires and a mass of screaming children over dealing with the golden beast any day.

And I now had the devil’s spawn to contend with. My life was complete.

‘If ever there was a time to climb into your pit of despair, this is it.’ Baniti commiserated with me.

‘We don’t have time for the despair pit,’ I grumbled away to my wolf. ‘We’ve been strong-armed into a play date with Satan’s biggest asshole.’

I caved, seeing as everyone was practically snatching every excuse I had to refuse. At the very least, I could use this opportunity to get to know Diego and decide if he, like his mate, was going on my shitlist to avoid and where he would fit best in our pack, since all my dreams had come true with Catalina moving here.

“So, what kinda treats does Heru like?” Diego inquired as we walked down the hall, following the smells of food.

“Horse-type things, I guess.” I held open the back door of the pack kitchen pantry. “I’m not really into horses, so I never paid attention. I’m pretty sure he’d sell a testicle for apples, though.”

He chuckled to himself, plucking a couple of the red fruits from the chiller and swiping a knife, twirling it around his fingers like it was an extension of his arm.

“How do you know about things like this?”

“What, this?” He flicked the knife from handle to blade. “Comes naturally when you have to learn to fight for—”

“No, not that. Horses.”

“Oh.” He quit showing off his knife skills, but we would circle back to those at some point. “From home.

I grew up around the wild ones of our pack.”

“Wild horses?” I laughed humourlessly, opening the front door of the pack house to step into the cold air cut with a fragile warmth from the sun. “There’s wild horses, and then there’s that ahbil of a stallion.”

“I can assure you, I’ve dealt with whole curro de garañóns, uh, corrals of stallions.” Diego corrected himself, taking in the landscape of my pack as we strolled to the stables. “Every year, my pack, Cuna De La Luna, would herd the wild horses to check their health and release them after. To be an aloitador, a handler, was a rite of passage for newly shifted wolves, going from pup to wolf. The horses had to trust us enough to allow us to approach, brush them free of knots and check their hooves. It requires courage and patience.”

Two things Diego must have had in spades if he was blessed with a she-wolf such as Catalina for a mate.

At the stables and out in his paddock, Heru stood, leisurely grazing in his blanket-type rug. My twin had already seen to his needs first thing this morning, making up for all the time missed.

Before Heru, Astennu had owned a couple of horses, but none had bonded with him like the stallion.

And the bond wasn’t one-sided, either. That animal knew when my brother was approaching without even needing to see him. There was a spark, an instant connection between those two from the moment they laid eyes on one another.

‘You almost sound jealous.’ Baniti chimed in.

‘I’m not jealous of that thing.’

Heru’s tail swished and what was visible of his coat gleamed with its metallic brilliance.

When I first saw the horse at the Wisconsin ranch where Astennu had found him, I was taken in by the stallion’s majestic beauty. And therein lay the trap with him. Angelic on the outside. The temper of a demon on the inside.

“Hostia puta (holy f**k),” Diego muttered to himself as he leaned on the slats of the paddock fence, his boot resting on its edge. “A cremello Akhal-Teke. I’ve seen pictures of them. Never thought I’d get to see one.”

The horse lifted his head, snorting in my direction, a white swirling cloud of his breath spiralling into the chilly air. I knew all too well what that sound meant and moved out of his range.

“There, mi amigo, you’ve already lost.” Diego slapped his arm across my shoulder and dragged me closer. “That horse is looking for a rise outta you and you gave it to him by stepping back.”

“Yeah, that’s what Astennu is always saying, but he ain’t the one the damn thing will bite.”

When Diego produced the ripe fruit from his coat pocket, polishing it on his lapel, Heru’s ears perked up with interest. Any attention he paid me was long lost as his stomach took over. He trotted over, nose twitching at the apple scent as he closed in.

Instead of giving him the treat he obviously wanted, Diego ignored him, only holding out a slice when the horse quit pawing at the ground out of impatience. I had seen plenty of people wind up on the wrong end of his teeth, or, if they weren’t paying attention, his hind legs. But what I hadn’t seen was Heru taking a treat from anyone other than Astennu or Evie.

“How do you still have your hand?” I watched, rooted to my spot and reluctant to come any nearer to the fence, not while the ahbil with a set of teeth remained in snatching distance.

“Because I’m not playing his games.” Diego wiped the horse slobber off of his hands on the leg of his jeans. “He wants the treat? He has to show me the right behaviour. With you, sadly, you’ve trained him that if he’s an ahbil to you, he’ll get a fun reaction as his reward.”

“Well, how am I supposed to not react when he’s about to bite me or thunder-kick me in the nuts?”

“You gotta start small and build your way up, tío.” Diego rubbed the horse’s nose, which nudged him for more of the apple he smelled. “He’s bonded with you. You’ll get there.”

“Bonded?” I repeated, incredulously.

“In a way, yeah. He’s only interested in me because I have food for him. There’s no way he’d let me ride him, and I doubt he’d even let me in his paddock. That’s a privilege only for your brother and, I guess, Evie too. But you?” Diego looked up from pushing the stallion’s head away, who was becoming demanding of the treat already devoured. “You’re his fun. You challenge and bite back. This breed…

they’re intelligent, intuitive, hot-headed, excitable and hard to handle. Put simply, he’s you as a horse.”

He gave Heru’s curious nose a gentle scratch. “No wonder he’s so bonded with your twin. Heru needs that kind of energy to balance him out. It’s probably why he knocks heads with you.”

“I have no idea whether to take any of that as a compliment or an insult.”

“I call it as I see it, mi tío. And I included ‘intelligent’ and ‘intuitive’ on that list, so you can’t say I was being rude. Here” – he handed over his final apple quarter – “give it a shot.”

As I held out the very last slice of apple, I did my best to remain still and prepared to kiss the tips of my fingers goodbye. If I lost a digit, it would ultimately be my nour el-ain’s loss.

Heru snorted at my open palm, as sceptical as I was about our exchange and judging whether the sliver of apple was worth being nice over. He quickly snatched it up and took off, elegantly trotting away in long, graceful strides as if butter wouldn’t melt around him.

‘Look at that,’ Baniti exclaimed. ‘We still have all our fingers!’

‘Does that mean you wanna try it again?’

The silence my wolf gave me spoke volumes. We had no intention of pushing our luck.

“I know Cata is dead set on living here, but, if I came with her, would you expect me to be one of your warriors… to fight?” Diego eventually spoke after a quiet stretch, staring out at the distant mountain scenery and lost in a multitude of questions that virtually wrote themselves on his face.

“Not if you don’t want to. Our pack is a little topped out with warriors and trackers anyway. You’d be doing us a huge solid by not joining the roster.” I tried to sound light and breezy, so he knew there were no expectations placed on him. However, the way he exhaled a shaky breath in relief told me there was something deeper behind his request.

“After that place… I don’t think I want to fight ever again. Think you have any room on the stable roster for me, instead?” He inclined his head back to the barn, a genuine smile spreading as he counted the horses.

“Heru didn’t kick you clear to the Pacific, so you’re already the most skilled wolf for the job.”

“I was always good with pups.” He scratched through his beard in thought. “Maybe I could teach riding?

It boosts self-confidence.”

He wasn’t the only one with a few ideas churning.

We had taken in a grand total of twenty-three pups with the rogue families, some barely with their legs under them, others stuck in the awkward age between child and teen, all in need of some outlet to adjust to pack life.

“That’s not a bad idea. There’s a wolf male I know, Damian. I should put you in touch with him. He works with some of the pack teens on consent and inclusion, especially in regards to rogues. Maybe you could build something for the pack together?”