Accepting My Twin Mates

Astennu

I couldn't wait to get home.

We had been stuck in this small space of our SUV for hours. I needed to stretch my legs, and for longer than just switching from the driver's seat. It was almost an II hour drive from Opal Sun pack in Idaho to our home in Washington and I was growing increasingly flustered as we neared our borders. These last few weeks I had been growing incredibly homesick, something I never got when I was away from home, but neither I nor Badru had been gone this long before. Even my wolf, Aasim, was growing agitated and he was normally as laid back as could be. He hated travelling long distance, like we were currently, and would usually curl up in the back of my mind till we were home. Currently, he was tossing and turning, unable to settle.

I was also missing my horse, Heru, like crazy. I always low-key worried about how he was being taken care of while I was. away. I knew how much of a handful he could be. Most of the people who covered at the stables had trouble handling him, but all they needed was patience with him. That, and the odd apple here and there, too many though and he became demanding of them. All of my worries were usually for nothing, he always looked in excellent health when I returned. Hearing the soft snore behind me, I peered over to the backseat to see my younger brother fast asleep and his head resting against the window with his mouth hanging open. What a class act. He was six minutes younger, but still the little brother despite us being identical twins.

The graphite pencil was still in his hand, barely, and pressing against the small open sketchbook on his lap. Whatever he wa working on during the drive was probably ruined. He would normally doodle, absentmindedly, in virtually any situation. It always drove our dad nuts when we were dealing with pack business, thinking he wasn't fully concentrating. But he heard every word without fail.

There was only ever one distraction. One who captured every ounce of our joint attention anytime we caught sight of her features. No doubt, she was the subject of Badru's focus on the backseat, either that or the landscape outside.

I didn't care that Evie was rogue-born. I knew my parents’ opinions on rogues; they were never permitted to stay in our pack not even my father's former Gamma when his mate turned out to be one. I understood because of my mother's horrific experience and losing everything to them, though it didn’t mean I agreed. The only reason Evie had been permitted to stay was because she had been found as a newborn and had no wolf to protect herself out in the wilds. And because she had all the markings for a top she-wolf warrior, if only her wolf would emerge. I may have shared my prejudices when I was younger as did Badru, but as we saw the world, our views changed. Evie changed our perspectives in many things.

I always prided myself on being pragmatic and having control over myself. But whenever I saw that flash of dark gold hair, any sense of logic and common sense blew out of the window. The right woman could make a man go stupid real quick, and Evie was the most right woman in existence to me. She was always effortless and beautiful without trying. She never fought for our attention, quite the opposite. And without her knowing, it drew my attention to her more. Everything I felt grew wors after I shifted alongside Badru, a few months before we turned I7. I found it insane that there was no mate pull, yet I found her so mesmerising. I was desperate to see if I could feel the mate bond when she shifted, but her wolf still refused to show herself.

However, along with the amazement she stunned me with, came the crippling guilt and shame. How I had just left her there, how I had let my father brush the incident under the rug to “preserve my reputation’. I had been a stupid I6 year old and it had been an accident, but that was little excuse for my actions that day. No one made me feel nervous, or scared for that matter... but Evie did. Any time I saw her face, the expression she had worn as she looked down at her hands, lying in her hospital bed those nine years ago, came back to haunt me. How ironic that my wolf's name, Aasim, meant protector.

I wasn't used to feeling out of control of myself, and that's exactly how I felt around her. If only I had had my wolf at the time... would I have had better control of myself?

While “control’ may have just been a meaningless word to Badru at times, and I wouldn't even begin to describe his flare for the dramatic, his impulsive streak meant he could react to situations instantly. I struggled with such tasks. I needed foresigf and planning to know the best course of action. Where one of us lacked, the other gained and that was why we would work well together as reigning Alphas when the time came. We would most likely take over our pack in the next five years or so. Many Alphas would take over from their predecessor around the age of 30, allowing us plenty of time to fully grasp every aspect of running our packs. While my brother and I may have shirked our responsibilities when we were younger and cockier, thinking we knew everything, as our responsibilities mounted, we soon discovered how much we needed to knuckle down. The two of us still had plenty of time; we wolves were long-lived creatures, reaching up to I50 years old.

“He looks way too comfortable back there,” Finley smirked from behind the steering wheel, drawing me out of my thoughts. “Watch this.”

He steered the car directly at a pothole, causing the car to jolt and making Badru smack his head against the window, wakin him with a startle.

“Alama (damn) my brother cursed, rubbing his head and looking down at what I could only assume was his ruined sketch. “Was that really necessary, Fin?" I snapped.

Goddess, I wished he would just grow up. He was meant to be our future Beta, for heaven's sake! We used to be good friends as kids, but now he grated on my nerves constantly. Antics that were funny when we moronic teenagers were kind of patheti and sad now the three of us were 25.

“Oh come on, it's just some fun. He gets it, Finley sniggered to himself.

I glanced back at Badru to see a scowl painted on his face, staring daggers at the back of Fin's head.

“Yeah, he looks like he's having a f*g ball; my wolf uttered.

“I need to take a leak,” Finley pulled over. “And it's your turn to drive, Aste.”

He got out and headed over to the tree line to relieve himself I half expected him to just piss by the side of the road, without a care if any humans passed us.

“Lock the bloody doors and just leave him here!” My brother demanded as I climbed over the centre console to get into the driver's seat. “f*g chelb,” he muttered those last words, thinking I wouldn't hear.

“I dare you to say that in front of mom,” I chuckled. Our mother always threw a fit when Badru cursed in Arabic, mainly because he would usually use the more “colourful’ phrases.

“What?! Are you crazy? She'd kill me,” he cried out.

“Yeah I know... it was meant to be a joke, Ru" I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“oh”

“Maybe get one of those placards that Wile E. Coyote uses, with sarcasm printed on it; Aasim gruffled to himself. Goddess help Badru if our mate was sarcastic in any way.

As our future Beta returned to the SUV, I was half-tempted to just floor it and leave him as my brother suggested. But then I' have his mother, Beta Kate, to answer to and probably my own parents, so it wouldn't be worth the hassle. We set off again, with only two or three hours left ahead of us.

“You guys really missed out last night,” Fin began, again, on his latest conquest. “You should've come with, she had a friend” I could already feel Badru behind me, rolling his eyes and growing irritated. This was one topic I truly wished Finley would drop. The only one I wanted was my mate and I had saved myself for her and her alone. I had kissed a girl once, in high school, but it never felt right... she wasn't who I wanted. Who I wanted, had dark golden hair that shone in every hue imaginable that I could stare at all day... and I had screwed up any chance of being with her.

The only other woman that could compete with Evie would be my mate and I could only hope whoever she may be wouldn't mind that I had little experience. Ok, I never thought I would have had to wait this long, but it would be worth it. Why would waste my time on a she-wolf that would never mean the same to me as my mate? And it meant I would never have to deal with a heartbreak and jealous she-wolves in the pack; no way was I bringing my Luna into any of that. Sure, I would have to share her with Badru, but she would be ours, we would be hers.

Identical multiples nearly always shared a mate bond. Our wolf spirits were one, split between two bodies. Our human sides may be different, but the wolf side were like two puzzle pieces that fit to create a whole wolf spirit. The only other that woul fit would be our fated mate's spirit from one of the moon goddess's children, whether they were a wolf, a vampire or a wiccan. It was rare that werewolves were mated outside their species, but it happened on the odd occasion. I didn't know any vampires except for this one vampire-wolf hybrid in the pack to our south, and the only wiccans I knew lived within the Yakama Indian Reservation to our pack’s eastern border.

My mate was out there, somewhere. I just needed to find her and a rather large part of me prayed I would find it in Evie.