Chapter 54

Accepting My Twin Mates Chapter 54 Chapter 54 – A Rogue?

Badru I cut off the call to Catalina without waiting for a reply. My tolerance for polite conversation with that woman had maxed out the moment she opened her mouth. The only person fueling any will to remain courteous towards her was Evie, and I suppose the fact that her pack was an ally played into it.

Just thinking of my mate had my eyes trailing over her figure, wrapped soundly in her blankets on her side… and I missed her warmth already. Finley had cut into my mate time, which only served to piss me off further. Looking at Evie, I was tempted to burrito her up in those blankets and take her with us.

She’d be fine laid across our laps.

Astennu’s throat clearing shook my fixated stare.

“Don’t you dare!” He knew where my mind was wandering. “You’re not taking our unconscious mate into a room with a werewolf that may be about to start a brawl.”

“I wasn’t… it was just a thought.”

“As long as it stays there,” his eyes narrowed in mock threat.

When a knock rapped on the door, he strode past me to answer, revealing Lucy. She looked rested, but the doleful and cheerless expression etched onto her face told me she knew what was about to happen.

“Thanks for watching Evie,” my brother smiled down at her. “I doubt anything would’ve happened, but it’ll give us peace of mind.”

She nodded, her eyes cast downward while trying to fake a smile.

“You ok?” He asked.

“…I really wanted to believe in him…” she lifted her shoulder in a half shrug, shaking her head in denial that it had all come to this.

“You want us to tell him to go eat a d**k, or roll in s**t?” I offered a sympathetic glance.

She released a humourless chuckle, “…just make sure he leaves.”

I understood her sadness. I had wanted to see him change too; we had grown up as best friends. I hadn’t known any better growing up and looking back now, I regretted how I behaved, thinking I was above everything else. And I knew Astennu did too. But seeing more of the world, seeing interactions free of the hierarchy and stuffy atmosphere that were present in our pack, it changed us and we grew from it. Finley didn’t and sneered down on it. His cynicism only grew after his brother, Arthur, was killed by the escaping rogue. But how can you help someone that doesn’t want to be helped?

“A she-wolf warrior will be here any minute, so you feel safe,” Astennu reassured, reaching for the door handle.

I raised a brow, clicking the door locked behind me. “How did you arrange all this in one go?”

“It’s amazing how much s**t you can plan when you stay out of a fantasy land,” he flicked my forehead and I swatted his hand away with a glare.

When we arrived at our dad’s office, he still hadn’t returned. He had been speaking with his Beta, Kate, about the proceedings of today. This meant we had a few minutes, and our dad’s file cabinet was standing right there…

‘f**k it, go snoop,’ Baniti nodded his head in wise approval.

That was enough of an argument for me. I opened the drawer marked ‘M-N’, looking for the surname ‘Meadows’.

“What part of ‘wait till she’s awake’, did you not understand?”

“The part where you said all the things and I decided to do it anyway,” I shrugged at my twin with little care. “And I wanna see if the paper files match the digital copies.”

Everything had been digitised several years ago for ease of access and amendments. All our documents were stored on-site in our own servers to prevent any hackers from gaining access. I had admittedly read Evie’s files before, wanting to know more about her but without the luxury of being on her good side to ask her directly.

Ignoring the tuts and sighs from my brother, I continued scanning the file, not finding a single difference.

“What are you doing?” Our father’s voice made my head snap up. He gave me a curious look as he entered and sat at his desk.

“Looking through Evie’s files,” I scanned the last few sentences. “Her shift last night… she’s a lycan, dad.”

His brows shot up, almost meeting his hairline, his eyes flickering between Astennu and me. “You’re serious?”

My twin sighed and flashed me a withering look. “Yeah, we were gonna leave it till she woke up, but Ru went all Ru.”

‘Hey!… ayreh feek! (f**k you!)’ I mind-linked for lack of a better insult.

Our dad sank deeper into his chair, “…a lycan… how?” His voice was at a complete loss.

He truly didn’t know.

“Dad, I know this is probably not the right time. But what happened that night, when she was found?”

Astennu pulled me to sit in the chairs in front of the desk.

“Exactly as it states in the file. There’s no cover-up here,” he leant his elbows on the wooden surface, threading his fingers together in front of his chin. “I responded to an alert that a heavily injured she-wolf had been found. She mumbled something about ‘no pack’, but she was growing weaker and the patrol were struggling to make out any more of what she was saying. She had a newborn pup, wrapped up in her arms, barely a week old and she sounded as though she mumbled ‘Evie’ for the child’s name. She had died before I arrived at the scene in the lowland meadows of our northern border. All any of us were certain of, was that she was attacked well beyond our borders. There were no scents of others around.”

“That’s really it?” I leant forward in my chair.

Our father nodded a second too late to be a definitive answer. I side-eyed Astennu, he saw it as well.

“The she-wolf was bare and looked to have only just shifted back. She was incredibly weak and looked as though she hadn’t been eating enough. Coupled with a recent birth, she simply couldn’t heal her injuries.”

Aside from our dad’s split-second pause, everything else he had said was precisely what we knew. The she-wolf, believed to be the mother, was covered in claw marks and had traces of wolfsbane. It was assumed the attack was done by another rogue or rogues. That was before Evie was known to be a lycan. There was one detail missing, one unwritten in the file and one Astennu beat me to.

“Wait, what was done with the mother’s body?” There was a slight accusatory edge to his tone.

“Burned, of course, on a pyre,” our father replied with a raised brow, in slight disbelief that he would have done anything else.

I exhaled a sigh of relief. We werewolves always burned our dead on pyres, built of mountain ash, the goddess’s tree, where it was possible. It was a long-held belief that burning our dead released their spirits to be returned to the moon goddess. To leave a werewolf’s body where it lay was considered an insult. To bury a wolf was considered a curse on their soul, that they would never find peace; a final insult in death.

“The pyre… it was by Reflection Lakes, wasn’t it?” I put two and two together.

“Yes.”

What Evie had said… could she sense it on some level? Neither I nor Astennu had ever taken much stock in superstitions or the old myths, even though our ancient family history swam in them. Perhaps there were some grains of truth.

“Why doesn’t Evie know that?” My brother chided, folding his arms.

“She never asked.”

“Maybe if you had been more approachable,” I muttered under my breath.

A knock on the door interrupted whatever annoyed reply our father wanted to hurl back. A pair of warriors flanked Finley’s slumped and hunched body. He made no attempt to hide his shame. All his bluster, pride and smugness were long gone. Only his father, Lance, accompanied him, visibly upset and barely able to look at his son.

Finley tried to hide it, but I caught sight of his right hand, the puckered and uneven healed skin where his last two fingers would have been.

“You know why you’re here?” My father stood, with Astennu and I following suit.

He nodded, remaining quiet.

“Words,” my brother’s mouth peeled back in a snarl.

“Yes,” he hissed, staring daggers.

‘I don’t care what our brother says about our language, he’ll always be a chelb! (Dog!)’ Baniti snarled, along with our twin.

“You’ve shamed this pack with your behaviour,” our dad cut through our pointless stand-off. “You betrayed your mate bond and your mate on numerous occasions. Defied a direct order from your Alphas. Attacked their mate and your own… with a heavy heart, you are expelled from this pack under pain of death should you return without your Alphas’ express permission.”

For once, Finley had the good sense to keep quiet. Whatever words he wanted to bark, fell silent in his throat. Both my twin and I would have preferred a more permanent solution. But with how rogues were viewed in this pack, it would seem to others as quite the drastic punishment. That’s what he would be now, a rogue.

“Your parents have told you they’ve arranged accommodation?”

“Yes,” he replied in a small voice.

“You’re to leave immediately,” our father’s eyes flashed at the two warriors.

They took hold of Finley’s arms and began to march him out.

“I know where I’m f*****g going!” He shook them off as he passed the threshold of the doorway with his father following behind.

“We’ll see him off,” Astennu strode away without another word.

“I really hadn’t a clue about Evie,” my dad stopped me as I was about to follow after. “The injuries on that woman, the perpetrator may still be out there.”

I understood his meaning. Whoever the perpetrator was, were they after the mother or were they after Evie? Were they still looking?

By the time I had caught up to Astennu, Finley was climbing into his car’s driver’s seat, his parents in the car in front. Tamlyn had joined us and stood by my brother. As she had said, she wanted to be there when he found out exactly where his fingers were. And I couldn’t resist one final dig.

“Hey, Fin?” I shouted out to him, halting his climb into his car. “I’ll have those fingers back for you nice and warm.”

“They in your small intestine yet?” Tamlyn patted my stomach.

“More like large intestine by now,” I smirked over at him, taking great pleasure in the horror that morphed on his face, no matter how he tried to hide it.

‘If you ever do come back here,’ I mind-linked him in private. ‘It’ll end with me shitting the rest of you out.’

Astennu “He’s finally not our problem anymore,” Tamlyn clutched onto her guide cane, taking a deep breath.

“I wouldn’t be too certain,” I stared after the car through the small billow of dust. “He’ll still be out there.”

“Yeah, but he’ll be the humans’ problem now,” which wasn’t untrue of her to say.

“Yeah,” Badru drew out, in what almost resembled sarcasm. “And who do you think they’ll contact?

We’re the closest pack.”

Human authorities rarely dealt with rogues or werewolves. If they happened to have an issue or had arrested one, they contacted the nearest pack for assistance. The same was said if we had an issue with a human non-pack member. Human authorities were called out to take custody of the individual.

We weren’t subject to their laws, each pack had its own.

“You know what I just realised?” Tamlyn suddenly burst out laughing, slapping the side of Badru’s arm.

“You could have bent over and given him the finger… his!”

“This is never going away is it?” My twin groaned, wiping his hand down his face.

‘I’d have mentioned something about fava beans and a nice Chianti, but that would’ve gone way over his head,’ Aasim sniggered.

I managed to hold my snort of laughter as I began stripping off my sweater, while my target remained in sight.

“Aste, are you getting naked?” Tamlyn said when she heard the metallic rattle of the belt buckle of my jeans.

“I’m following his car,” I hopped on one foot to remove my boot. “I wanna know where he’s living for myself.”

She sighed loudly in exasperation, “don’t terrify the locals while you’re stalking. The human towns aren’t used to giant Alphas skulking around.”

“What happened to having a f**k ton to get done?” Badru repeated back my words from earlier.

I shoved my clothes in his arms, “you’re a big boy. You don’t need me to get started.”

With that, I broke out into a run, shifting to my wolf in a couple of strides.

I kept off of the main road, using whatever scrub and cover lined it so as to remain as concealed as possible. They were heading north and inland to one of the Seattle suburbs and by the size of some of the houses, a wealthy suburb.

Watching from my vantage point uphill, they pulled up to a small but affluent-looking apartment building. Despite being a rogue from now on, Finley was hardly going to be living a destitute life.

I kept watch, too far away to hear anything, as Kate and Lance led their son with a small suitcase up the outer stairway. The building only looked to have three floors and they stopped on the balcony walkway of the second, at the first door nearest the stairway. They disappeared inside and I could just about make out their movements through the tall windows.

I had what I wanted and didn’t need to stay any longer, heading back to my mate and pack.

If I had it my way, I would have stationed a guard to keep an eye on him. But I knew my father would call it a waste of time and resources.

Had I really had my way, Finley wouldn’t have left the pack at all.