Chapter 56

Accepting My Twin Mates Chapter 56 Chapter 56 – Little Wolves?

Astennu Evie’s father?!

Both Badru and I stared at each other, in a complete loss for words.

‘This could be a trap,’ Aasim stood rigid and alert. ‘How the hell did he find her? If he even is her father.’

‘I don’t know, but until we figure this out, we deal with this ourselves.’

The last thing we needed was our own father overreacting to a rogue at our borders and attacking him.

‘The guy, how’s he acting? Do you need backup?’ Badru reached out to Damian.

‘He’s huge, but he’s been very peaceful so far,’ he seemed to hesitate a moment longer, second-

guessing whether to air his opinion or not. ‘I don’t think he’s lying about being Evie’s father. There are way too many similarities, and not just physical… you’ll see when you get here.’

‘Just keep him there and if you need backup, say the word,’ and with that, I dropped the link.

“This feels all kinds of suspicious,” my brother huffed the obvious as we broke out into a full-on sprint.

“Tell me about it. Even if this guy is telling the truth, where the f**k has he been?” I panted, swallowing hard. “What if he’s the one Evie’s mother was running from?”

“If he is, he’s about to meet our fists,” Badru snarled, holding back a branch for me.

We closed in on the southeastern border within 20 minutes, our blood thick with adrenaline at the prospect of the imminent confrontation. The Yakama reservation borders weren’t too far from our location; had he wandered through their territory? We really needed to press Elan’s wiccan Family Elder to allow our pack to patrol their borders more in the future.

Badru caught the scent on the air at the same time as I did, the smell of mountainous air and not from the landscape of our pack. It was laced with a strong musky edge, stronger than what I had ever smelt on a wolf. Evie, too, had a slightly stronger edge to her scent now that she had fully shifted. Her spiced vanilla aroma caused a huge struggle within me and my wolf to contain ourselves. This musky mountain scent had to be the rogue claiming to be her father.

The three figures became apparent against the snow-splattered clearing, dotted by evergreens and firs.

Damian, I recognised instantly and it was a struggle to repress the low growl, rumbling at the back of my throat. If Evie could move on from her issues with him, then so could I and Badru… with some concentrated effort. The second figure must have been his patrol partner.

The final figure couldn’t be missed from a mile away.

He was huge.

He stood with his back to us where we approached downwards from a rocky incline, vaulting over a craggy edge to land on the lower forest level. Long dark blond hair trailed down his back and when he turned, I was floored. His eyes were like looking into those of Evie’s, an identical swirl of stormy grey and dark blue. The features were uncanny, even hidden under a thick dark blond beard. He was a much more masculine version of Evie.

‘There is no way, on this planet, is that guy not her father,’ my wolf uttered, stunned.

My eyes wandered to the jagged deep-red scar that ran from just under his left cheek, cutting through his beard where no hair grew and down his neck, disappearing under the collar of a threadbare sweater and scruffy coat.

The cause of the scar was clear, silver. Nothing else could leave such a mark. Only, this was worse than any silver scar I had seen. It was as though the skin had melted on contact, leaving a heavily puckered and irregular line, somewhat hidden by his beard.

The man caught my trailing eyes and turned his head to hide it, a brief look of embarrassment seeping into his expression. For some reason, that look triggered a wave of guilt rippling through me and, I could sense, through Badru too.

“Alphas,” Damian dipped his head in respect and his patrol companion bared his neck.

‘Head off on your route as normal, but keep this to yourself for now,’ my twin instructed.

‘We’re only on a volunteer shift, so we can hang back if you need us to, just in case,’ Damian offered.

‘No, keep on your patrol. I don’t want anything looking out of place yet till we question the guy ourselves. We both know what will happen if our father catches a whiff of this,’ I nodded to Damian and his partner. ‘If we need you, you won’t be too far.’

The two ambled away, glancing back over their shoulders, leaving Badru and alone with who I could confidently say was Evie’s father.

I sensed no Alpha aura from him and this only added to the list that stumped me. He stood roughly an inch taller than my brother and me, making him around 6’10. I doubted his huge build was due to his layered clothing either.

“My daughter, she is here. You will take me to her,” he stated in a deep, heavily thick, Russian accent.

He wasn’t demanding, his tone wasn’t aggressive. However, it was clear from his stance, he would not accept ‘no’ as an answer.

“For starters, who the hell are you?” Badru drew straight to the point, unwilling to give up anything yet.

“Konstantin,” he revealed his name without a second of hesitation and I could feel from the steady, but elevated, vibrations of his pulse, he was telling the truth. “Evgeniya, she is here, I sense her. She shifted, yes?”

Evgeniya? I mouthed silently to my twin beside me.

The name sent a ripple of longing over me. I could taste the name on my tongue and it drove me insane.

Evie’s real name… Evgeniya. Like her, perfection.

The name had the same effect on Badru. I felt the identical shudder down his spine.

“I have searched 23 years for her,” his breathing laboured, his throat bobbing with emotion. “You come.

We go to her now.”

He strode past us without a single care or invitation, heading with quick steps into our pack territory in what I knew to be our mate’s direction. He must have been following his bond, a bond now strengthened due to Evie, or Evgeniya’s, shift.

“Hey! Now, just wait!” I barked, pressing my aura and making it clear my words were a command.

I expected him to bare his neck at my aura flaring, to heed my command and stop. He didn’t. Instead, he simply laughed gently, as a parent would to a pup being ridiculous.

“Your Alpha auras do not work on lycans, little wolves.”

“Did he just call us little wolves?!” My brother didn’t know whether to be pissed or impressed.

“I did,” this Konstantin called over his shoulder. “Now, come. You waste time.”

He was blunt.

He held nothing back.

And he couldn’t give less of a s**t that we were Alphas…

‘…Evie suddenly makes total sense,’ Aasim finished my thoughts.

“You can’t just waltz into our pack,” Badru rushed to catch up, standing in front of his path to halt his advancement. “How do we know you’re not a risk?!”

Konstantin squared his shoulders without a hint of intimidation, gesturing to the surrounding forest. “Do you see an army? Do you see weapons? If I am risk, you arrest. If not, we go,” and he punctuated his near-order with a slicing motion of his hand towards the direction of his intended course.

‘I swear, our mate is his clone,’ my wolf was still as stunned as I felt. ‘He isn’t dangerous. I can feel it.

He’s telling the truth.’

My wolf may have been convinced, and I was inclined to trust his instincts, but I needed more from this man first before I fully believed him.

“How exactly do you know your daughter is here?” I came to stand by Badru, intentionally leaving Evie’s name out and guarding her identity fiercely.

“I felt our blood bond pull two days ago. She has shifted, you cannot tell me no,” his face suddenly fell with a sadness I could almost feel. “I have always sensed her… but I never knew where to look. I came here 23 years ago… looking for her, hoping someone good had found her, but I was turned away.”

Badru and I glanced at each other instantly, “was it an Alpha that turned you away?” My brother asked the question bubbling on my tongue too.

“Yes, your father? Since you are Alpha also?”

“Alpha Isaac… yeah,” I answered.

‘That thing we figured dad was hiding?’ Badru side-glanced at me. ‘I’m willing to bet my newly recovered desserts, Konstantin is what he was hiding.’

‘But why? Why would he hide that Evie’s father came looking?’

“Who are you to my daughter?” The man eyed us up and down. “You know Evgeniya, I see. You defend her.”

“Evie? Yeah, we know her,” Badru admitted, giving Konstantin at least something.

“Evie?… That is what my Heather whispered to her always.”

“Heather?” I repeated the name.

“Her mother… my mate,” a far-off longing filled his eyes, cut with incredible pain and loss. He mumbled a word, but it must have been in Russian and beyond my understanding. “You are my daughter’s mates, yes? I see the look in your eyes when you say her name.”

“Yes,” there was no use in hiding it. This man was not about to accept any lies.

“Two Alpha wolves… hmph. I suppose that is similar to a single lycan male,” he gave us both an appraising look and stepped around us in his mission to find his daughter.

“Hey!” Badru attempted and failed to stand in his path again. “Level with us, at least. How, under the moon, did any of this happen?”

“What does ‘level’ mean?” Konstantin turned and raised a brow.

“It means to be honest, tell us what happened. Who attacked your mate? How were you separated?” I fell in step beside the man. It was obviously a pointless endeavour in trying to stop him.

“This is something for my solnyshko to hear first. Not her mates.”

‘s**t, one of us needs to give Evie a heads up!’ Badru grabbed my arm to gain my attention.

‘Yeah, this is gonna be a gut shot for her.’

‘Let’s be honest, you make the best first impression,’ Badru’s shoulders slumped a little. ‘You walk with Konstantin, I guess, and I’ll go ahead and try to prepare Evie.’

My brother ran off, choosing to stay in his human form. It was good thinking on his part. We had no spare clothing with us and this bizarre run-in with our apparent father-in-law was awkward enough without either of us being naked to add the cherry on top.

I hadn’t a clue what I expected of Evie’s father, or even that we would ever meet. I had expected the worst. A man demanding we hand her over or we would face the same consequences as her mother.

What I hadn’t expected was this. A man who looked as though he had spent his entire life in the wilds and had suffered more loss than anyone ever should in a single lifetime.

“So…” I awkwardly tried to start a conversation, remembering the Russian term he used for Evie.

“What does sul-niss-ker mean?”

I cringed internally, completely butchering the pronunciation. And Badru said I would make the best first impression, why? Although, if he had been here in my place, he would have badgered the man about Evie, where she came from, who attacked them and what happened to the lycan pack, undeterred that Konstantin had just said he wanted to tell everything to Evie first. Badru would have probably pissed him off thoroughly before they made it a mile and I would have likely found my twin stuffed in a tree hollow.

Konstantin’s deep chuckle reverberated through his chest, so I took it as a sign he wasn’t offended by my clumsy articulation.

“SOL-nysh-kuh,” he repeated, slower, for my benefit. “It means sunshine… Evgeniya was always my light… she was so tiny last time I held her,” he glanced down at his hands as if reliving a memory he played over and over. “Tell me, she is grown well?”

‘She’s grown into the sexiest she-wolf alive,’ Aasim licked his lips, leaving me to deal with the physical side of his excitement. ‘But maybe don’t put it into those words exactly to her father.’

“She’s a real strong woman, I think you’d be proud,” a genuine smile crept onto my face. “I can see a lot of similarities between you and her.”

“And, she is happy here?”

An unintentionally loaded question. How to begin answering that without incurring his wrath?

“Evie… she’s not unhappy. I won’t lie to you, this pack hasn’t been good to her. Rogues generally aren’t welcomed here and it’s because of my parents’ influence. Me and my brother weren’t the best to her growing up, either. It’s taken a while for her to accept us. But we’re doing our best to make amends and we’re trying to better our pack, to break it out of its old ways.”

Konstantin abruptly stopped his quick pace, slapping a heavy hand on my shoulder. My instincts kicked in instantly, bracing myself for a fight. However, he held that long appraising look in his eye again, one that searched much deeper than anything superficial.

“A good Alpha knows their mistakes and admits them. They see what is best for pack, even when pack does not. This is you. You and your brother are good Alpha, despite you have not told me your names.

That is being bad Alpha, little wolf,” he smirked beneath his beard, like he was playfully scolding a pup.

“Oh,” a heat flushed through my face in embarrassment. “I’m Astennu Rolfe, and my brother is Badru.”

“Konstantin Baladin, of staya Ognennoy Gory,” he grasped my forearm in a tight grip which I copied, assuming it was a custom of his people. “Fire Mountain pack.”

“Fire Mountain?”

“Yes, we had many, uh, vulkan,” he seemed to struggle to find the right English word.

“Volcanoes?”

“Yes, volcano. I remember them well as young boy,” I was sure I could see a hint of a fond smile under his bushy dark blond beard.

Under the mass of hair and dirt that aged him on the surface, underneath, he didn’t look any older than 50 for a wolf. Whether lycans aged differently, I had no clue; this would be another question to add to my ever-growing list. If the lycan pack vanished over 30 years ago, he would’ve been in his teens. He may have not even shifted at the time.

“How is it that lycans don’t react to an Alpha aura?” I questioned. “Is ours not strong enough?”

“Lycans have no Alpha by blood. Our pack selected our strongest and most honourable wolf to lead as Alpha. Over the years, our race lost submission to auras,” he exhaled a short humourless and bitter laugh. “It came as quite a shock to Heather’s Alpha.”

“Evie’s mother wasn’t a lycan?” I almost missed a step and caught the tip of my boot on a fallen branch. Thank goddess, I managed to recover smoothly.

“No,” was all he answered, keeping to his word that Evie, and only Evie, would hear his story first.

So Evie, was in fact, half lycan?

‘If this guy doesn’t want us around when he speaks to Evie, I’m gonna explode,’ my wolf was fit for bursting with mounting questions, as was I.

For the rest of our walk, I managed to keep up a conversation with only the odd moment of heavy silence. I had tried to apologise on my father’s behalf for turning him away all those years ago. He had been told no she-wolf or pup had been to their borders and to ask some other pack. Konstantin held no animosity towards either my brother or me for our father’s actions, though he did seem highly untrusting of being within a pack again. My parents had no trust in rogues and Evie’s father had little trust for a pack. When they met, and they would, especially my dad, tensions were going to become explosive.

My bond with my twin pulled, as it did with my mate. The pulsating tremors rumbling down my spine and through my chest whenever Evie grew nearer, or began to wake, were my personal drug. Much like her vanilla scent that the breeze carried over to me. I salivated on the muted notes, alone; if I was ever without it, I would be a man without oxygen.

On the other side of the sparse rocky clearing, Evie burst through from the treeline with Badru. She looked to be heaving for breath with a sheen of sweat across her brow from running here. Konstantin had stopped dead in his tracks, staring unblinkingly at the young woman who would have been a swaddled newborn pup the last time he saw her.

“Solnyshko…” he whispered, his voice breaking.