Chapter 98

Accepting My Twin Mates Chapter 98 CHAPTER 95 – YOU KNOW ME?

Astennu “I don’t think I can look at him yet,” our mother shook her head, wrapping her arms around her midsection.

“It’s ok, mom,” Badru side-hugged her. “Just hang back here for now. You know where we’ll be.”

He swung open the door to the interrogation room that our mother had ducked into. She panicked at the last minute about facing Isaac and needed a moment to gather herself.

I turned to follow him out, but hung back in the frame, my brows skewed together in regret. I had jumped down my mother’s throat and threw her mistakes in her face when she was at her most vulnerable.

“Mom?” At my call to her, she swivelled to face me, her glaze-over eyes drew back to life with a shred of hope. “I’m sorry about back at home. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“Oh, habibi (darling),” she rushed forward and enveloped me in a hug, resting her head on my shoulder. “I know why… and you were right. What your father did… it was because of me.”

“Don’t give him any get out,” I rubbed her back, having to peel myself away from her. “If you can, come find us. He might say more if you’re there.”

‘And we might be less inclined to butcher the inb al kalb (son of a dog) in front of our mother,’ Aasim rumbled, pacing like a predator awaiting the prey to present itself.

“I’ll follow, just as soon as I work out what I’ll say.”

Badru had waited for me further down the corridor. Tamlyn was at his side and holding on to his forearm for guidance.

“Is our scooby-doo gang ready to investigate?” While her words were light, her tone and features were tight with tension and I hated that my first thought was to be wary of her motives.

“I guess,” it was hard to keep the doubt from my voice.

“Almost sounds like you don’t trust me?”

“We don’t know who to trust.”

“Not anymore,” my brother focused down the hall to our destination.

“Finally, something smart. Suspect the f**k out of everyone.”

“You don’t care that you’re under suspicion?”

“Nope,” she answered confidently, tugging at Badru to get moving. “Because I know I have nothing to hide and I know how much I want Evie back. So, if that means you guys throwing me in one of these things…” she waved her guide cane at the cells in front of us, “…for me to prove I have nothing to do with it, so be it. Just give me an audiobook or something if you do.”

“Your mate still watching Janet?” My brother led the way for her.

“Yeah, that woman didn’t say a thing except sob. We tried good cop, bad cop, tell me or I’ll string you up by your toes cop, nothing. Too bad she hitched her loyalty wagon to a loser,” Tamlyn scoffed. “Kinda like all of us, really.”

Outside our target cell, Kate was waiting. I recognised the two guards she had stationed alongside her, they were warriors that Badru and I trained with regularly. She had been true to her word, stationing individuals that would be more inclined to show loyalty to us.

“You two ready for this?”

“Not really, but let’s do it anyway,” my brother glared at the closed viewing window of the solid cell door.

She dismissed the guards and prepared to open up. They wouldn’t be far, just far enough to give us the feeling of privacy.

“I think it needs to be the two of you to do the questioning,” Kate gave us the most encouraging smile she could muster. “Tam and I are just here to step in if anything gets too heated.”

I sucked in a sharp breath as Kate nodded, opening the door and stepping back with Tamlyn. Even with others present, the air around us felt decidedly thin and isolated.

Isaac sat perched on the edge of the hard bed, hands roving slowly back and forth over the back of his neck. I didn’t know what I would feel, other than rage, but pity wasn’t one of the emotions I thought would flit through my mind. Pity that a man who had been so consumed by reputation had been a fake all along.

Steadily, he raised his head, allowing me to view my handy work. The cuts and welts had healed, but the heavy bruising they left behind was evident, blacks, blues and purples marking his face.

‘He deserved more,’ my wolf stalked, not bothering to try and control himself, not even for my benefit.

“I taught you well how to throw a good punch, son.”

“I save it for traitors,” I snarled. “And don’t you ever call me that.”

Badru extended his arm out, fisting a handful of my shirt to keep me from jumping forward. His limb trembled, holding back the same rage that I couldn’t find the strength to.

‘Remember what I said,’ he caught my eye. ‘We need answers and it isn’t going to happen if he’s knocked out or dead.’

“We haven’t got all day,” my brother kept his place just in front of me. “So, start at the beginning. Why her, why Evie, why now?”

“She was meant to… go… when she shifted, which I thought would have come years ago. I wasn’t exactly banking on her being your mate,” he spoke woodenly, looking through both Badru and me. “I wasn’t too concerned about your mother’s anger because…”

“Because you were selling her,” I filled in his silence. “You were selling our mate and the man you planned to sell her to was laughing away at our party. Say it!”

He wouldn’t. Instead, he breathed a heavy exhale and looked away.

“I started to rethink it, when your mother softened up to her. But when that man turned up and terrified Qamar-”

“I think you can understand his anger!” My own boiled over with another snarl. “You kept his daughter from him. Were you planning on selling Evie as a newborn pup?! Because I wouldn’t put it past you now!”

“No, I was telling the truth when I said I wouldn’t hand a baby over to a homeless rogue!” He stood abruptly and everything in me wanted to surge forward and rip him apart, if only my twin didn’t stand in my way. “It was about ten years ago that I found a way to deal with the rogues who came too close to our borders, permanently. I met Marceau at Moonrise Lake pack in Wisconsin and after talking, we came to an arrangement. He got the fighters he needed for whatever he planned for them, and our pack received investment… that’s why I instructed for the girl to be trained in combat.”

“To increase her price!” Tamlyn suddenly exclaimed, quiet tears streaming down her cheeks. It was the first time I had ever seen her cry. “You let me train a young girl so you could make more money off of her?! You sick f**k!”

‘Tam, it’s ok. It’s pretty clear now you didn’t know,’ Badru tried to calm her down as Kate pulled her back.

‘No, it isn’t ok. I volunteered to train her because I thought I was doing something good!’

And I knew exactly how she felt. I brought a rogue in thinking I was doing my duty, eager to please my father and demonstrate that I could be a good Alpha to defend our pack.

“You didn’t do this alone, did you?” My brother expertly and cooly took control back as best he could.

“Janet and Finley, they assisted you on this occasion, didn’t they?”

“You did not bring my son into all this!” It was now Kate’s turn to wield her outrage.

“He didn’t take much convincing,” Isaac bit back, but I was growing sick of all these details that weren’t telling me where my mate was.

“Where is he? Marceau? Where the f**k is he based?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never known. Finley was the one who took Konstantin and Evie to wherever he’s located.”

That was all the answer I needed. I turned and thundered away without a care that Badru shouted for me to stop.

“Where are you going?!” He hissed, following me out “We’re nowhere near done. I know this is hard to hear but you nee-”

“He doesn’t know where she is. That’s all I need to hear,” I whirled back on my mission to leave the prison compound.

Isaac didn’t know, but that piece of s**t Beta did. Badru could stay here and waste his time on that thing in the cell. I was getting my answers from the source.

“Aste, would you answer me?” He continued to follow and attempted to cut off my path. “Astennu-”

“Divide and conquer, isn’t that what you said once?” I shrugged him off and left him behind.

“What the hell does that mean? Aste!” He switched to mind-link. ‘You can’t leave me to do this alone, laena (dammit)!’

His protests fell on deaf ears because there wasn’t a chance in wolf’s hell that Finley wasn’t about to spill and tell me everything he knew. This was what I wanted the day Evie was taken from me. I should have ignored all my father’s orders, thinking it was out of protective concern, to keep within the pack borders. One way or another, someone was telling me what I wanted to know.

I shifted once I was free of the prison grounds, bounding northwards to my destination; the suburbs of Seattle. If Finley wasn’t hold up in the apartment I was heading to, there wouldn’t be a corner of the world he could hide from my wrath.

*

*

*

Concentrating on my aura, I concealed my approach, giving me the element of surprise. I knew precisely which apartment was his and my wolf and I watched closely from our vantage point, spotting a figure moving beyond the blinds.

As we swiftly approached the gate, we used our wolf speed to build up momentum and shift, mid-jump, to my human form to vault cleanly over the top and shift back to land on four paws. Stalking up the walkway and prowling towards the door, we barrelled with all our strength through the thick wooden door, obliterating it.

A pale sandy brown blur leapt from the couch and shifted to a similarly coloured wolf, adopting an attack stance at the intrusion, his tail rigid and hackles raised when he saw Aasim’s form.

‘Secret’s out, I take it?’ He goaded, circling.

‘That you were involved? I knew it from the moment she was taken.’

‘You know, she was quite pretty as she slept-’

Any control Aasim had on our anger was gone the moment he implied anything remotely to do with touching our mate and we launched, faster than he could react.

My brother had taken his fingers. I would take far more…

Sliding under his snapping jaws, we used our four paws to catapult him across the room, crashing him into a desk and sending some cold, decorative jar of coloured sand sprawling. Just as we leapt to land on him, Finley shifted and grabbed a handful of the sand, throwing it squarely in our face and temporarily blinding us. We rolled and shifted back to my human form so I could rub my eyes clear and regain my vision.

I narrowly dodged the object flying towards me that was attached to Finley’s hand, but not in enough time to avoid the burning slice of a blade glancing my left shoulder which would have otherwise been skewered into it instead.

Silver.

I had never experienced the metal’s touch before, but the fiery burn couldn’t be anything else.

He came at me again with the large serrated silver-coated blade and, this time, I was ready, even through heavily stinging vision. I caught his right wrist, twisting it to hear an audible crack. His hand with the two missing fingers was unable to keep the strength required on the hilt to keep it from my possession and as the knife dropped, I caught the handle in my fist and drove it through his other hand, pinning it to the wall behind him.

“What are you gonna do?” He grimaced, heaving for breath and shaking. “Torture me? You don’t have it in you. I grew up with you, I know you.”

“What you know is where my pup and mate are,” I grasped the knife’s handle and twisted, both Aasim and I taking the satisfaction of his cry of agony. “And there is no line I won’t cross to get them back.”