Accepting My Twin Mates

I week later

BAdru

Evie screamed her way through another contraction, her canines baring and extending as she was preparing to push. The euphoria of the gas and air had lost its potency now that she was nearing the final stages.
Like Astennu and me, she was running on pure adrenaline, and it was wearing thin. Despite her utter exhaustion, she gripped mine and my brother's hand like a vice. She was over thirty hours in labour and counting. I couldn't be sure of the exact time, or even the day. AllI knew was that it was the middle of the night outside the pack hospital window.

“We can't get the pup to turn, so you're gonna have to push extra hard, Luna,” the doctor warned, and she called instructions to the nurses in the room with us, something about “frank breech’.

My nour el-ain was dripping in sweat; her dark golden hair clung to her forehead in wavy strips, and her skin had
broken out in rosy-red blotches. Yet, she had never been more beautiful.

“Big push, Luna. He's almost out” the she wolf doctor encouraged.

Evie gave it everything she had left, taking a deep breath and shuddering with it. I was desperate to see my pup, and, on instinct, I stupidly made the decision to look because I acted first and thought second.

“Don't f***+*¢ look!” Evie grabbed me by the collar and yanked me down to her eye level to snarl in my face, her voice intermixed with the growls of her wolf. “Don't you dare f*****g look. Just hold my damned hand!"

“Are you breathing? I don't think we're breathing” My wolf began copying the same rhythm, prompting me to do the same. “Evie, look at Ru. Follow his breathing? Astennu kissed her temple.

. Yes... I was doing this on purpose...

“No one needs to know, human. Now breathe, dammit”

A shrill cry filled the room, and Evie let out a relieved gasp, falling back against her pillow, which had kept her upright. “He's certainly got a set of lungs on him.” The doctor handed my little pup to one of the nurses, who wiped him down quickly, “But he's perfect, and a very good size”

astennu pulled down the collar of Evies hospital gown, and she opened her tired arms for our son to lay against her bare skin. It was the first thing to happen to any newly born pup: to be placed on the uncovered skin of their parents to wipe as much of our scent onto them as possible and claim them as ours.

While our son babbled away, my brother's fingers played with the velvety, dark patch on the pup's head. Quiet tears slipped down Evie's face, as though the past.goddess knows however many hours hadn't happened. The only thing that existed in our world was the sweetest little pup wrapped in honey skin and a tuft of black hair.

- And all I could do was stand at the side like a frozen statue, staring down at my son. Not a word fell from my wolf, as mesmerised into silence as I was.

I was a father.

The moment he took his first tiny lungful of air, the slender bond weaved deeper. Tendrils as small and delicate as his little fingers surrounded my heart, and I knew there and then that I would give anything to protect the bond and its owner.

“Ru?” Astennu’s voice rang through my haze.

My eyes focused on him, where he held our boy, his shirt removed and displaying the band tattoos on his left arm, cradling the pup to his chest. I hadn't even realised.

I leant him backwards, letting him grip my thick index finger in a fierce hold, and peered down into a pair of large, round eyes. They scanned over me, trying to make out all the shapes he could. A sniffle escaped, and a salty trickle trailed into my beard

“My soggy nugget” Evie gripped my hand clasped around our pup.
“. He's got your eyes”

They were still squishy and a little off-colour like the rest of him, but I could tell. They were every bit Evie's stormy sky irises. The grey-blue hues would come through more prominent as our son grew. And faintly, beneath the colour, the family quirk of ours shimmered ~ an almost indiscernible luminance.

Evie delivered the placenta, and I held our pup while Astennu cut the cord.

“We'll clean him properly, weigh him, and get our little Alpha wrapped up.” The doctor peeled off her gloves and nodded to one of the two nurses. “Are we putting both Alphas as the fathers on the certificate?”

The three of us shared a single glance. Both my brother and I had shared the same bond with our pup from the moment the pull emerged, and there was no way to date which of us “got there first.

“Uh. yeah,” Evie answered, her tired body sinking into her mattress. “There was a lot of overlap... so I don't thinksbr /> there's any way to know”

“Actually, you can if you want" The doctor sat back on her stool. “I know with twin wolf fathers they both feel the bond, but you can do a specific genetic test”

“I didn't think that was possible with us being identical.” My brows scrunched in confusion.

“It's not a standard paternity test; your genetic markers are too close for that” she explained. “You have to do a full genomic sequence of mother, child and both fathers,

Environment influences our genetics too, so it's an option for you."

An option I wasn't entirely sure about. I felt the bond with my pup, and my wolf wanted him as much as my brother's did. That was enough for me. And judging by the looks on Astennu and Evie’s faces, they felt the same.

The older human nurse in red scrubs finished wrapping our pup in his dark blue blanket and gently placed him in his mother's arms. Nearly twenty-six years ago, she had handed Astennu and me to our mother.

“He's a good weight - ten pounds eleven ounces. Almost two pounds more than either of you” she chuckled, wiggling the pup’s little hand.

“Just one last question: have we got a name for him?

There's no rush if you haven't” The doctor shuffled the paperwork and was about to follow the two nurses out.

Evie stroked his head, his little arms fidgeting and squirming where they hung out of the blanket.
“Luka Odion Rolfe"
“Baladin,” Astennu corrected. “Luka Odion Baladin”

The doctor's eyebrows nearly met with her hairline.

I make sure it's recorded”

“Baladin? Not Rolfe?” Evie asked as soon as the door clicked shut.

“Yep,” my brother replied, curt and short.

“You really don't want to continue your family name?” Her tired eyes widened, a bead of drying sweat toppling down her temple.

Call it petty, but neither of us cared. We couldn't kill Isaac, but we could kill his name.

“If you're sure.” The heaviness returned to her eyes.

She was exhausted, beyond exhausted, and our son was following suit. Luka gave a tiny yawn, fisting his tiny hands and cooing as he settled.

“My dad was right” Evie nuzzled our pup, slowly dragging her nose over his crown. “He said all my worries about our pup would vanish when I held him. How can you love someone so much that you've only just met?”

“A pair of pretty blue-grey eyes helps” I kissed her temple, sliding my arm around the back of her neck.

My brother settled on the other side, leaning his forehead against hers. “You made him perfect”

“You two should go show him off"

“What about you?" I stroked the side of her neck, grazing where my mark lay.
“'m not about to run off”

We dressed ourselves first, and Astennu slipped his hands under Luka's bundled body, the little pup stirring and agitating his arms.

“Tell everyone I'll see them tomorrow when I'm feeling a little more alive? Evie mumbled as we exited through the door, drifting off for a much deserved sleep.

“Oh, I was just delivering refreshments. Any word on-"

Konstantin shook Lucy's side as she slept on a makeshift bed made of a row of low-padded chairs. She propped herself up on her side, wiping her eyes and blinking rapidly to clear her sleep away, and nearly rolled herself onto the

floor to get up and rush to our pup

“He's so pretty..” She ducked under Konstantin's elbow, rising on her tiptoes to get a better looksbr /> “We timed it just right!” a voice, no less irritating now than it was a year ago, gushed from behind us and threw open the door.

“Mi vida,” a second, deeper voice laced with a Spanish accent, admonished.

“Save your shouting for later tonight”

She elbowed his stomach, flushing a vivid pink under her tan skin. I never thought I would see the day Catalina would blush for anyone, but she found more than a match in Diego. They set aside two large tupperware containers filled with snacks and gathered at my brother's side to take their first glimpse.

astennu handed Luka over to our mother, who fawned all over him, whispering pet names in Arabic.

“Habibi (darling) . Look at his little serious face, just like you, Astennu;” she chuckled, rocking Luka slowly from side to side. He began to fuss, wiggling his arms and scrunching his face. “And there's Badru

Catalina burst out laughing, stroking his head. “You better take after mommy's sarcasm. We can have some fun with your daddy Badru?"

“Like hell you are” I glared, hissing the words through my

One of her was more than enough. I didn't need her corrupting my pup. She could corrupt her own pups.

“What if one of her pups is mates with our pup? We'll be related” Baniti shuddered

I shook the horror away before it could be noticed. The goddess wasn't that cruel, was she?

“No worries, mi tio.” Diego slapped an arm over my shoulder. “He can learn all the mischief from me instead.”

“Evie might have a word or two about that” My brother raised a brow.

“He has her eyes.” Konstantin hushed the waiting room, his eyes misting as he took the baby my mother held out for him. “Moy luchik (little sunbeam)”

My pup was tinier in his enormous hands, if it were possible, and could have been supported by a single palm of his.

As everyone else had, Konstantin couldn't resist caressing the baby's warm, chubby cheeks, which were dusted a sweet and subtle pink. I didn't know exactly what a pup so young could visually discern, but from how he held his grandfather's gaze, he was as captivated as the grown lycan.

“What's his name?” Lucy asked, playing with the pup’s hand.

“Luka Odion Baladin” my brother and I said in unison.

We usually scowled when we did it by accident because everyone found it “cute’ when we were pups and made remarks. But in the moment, neither of us cared, smiling down on our boy

Our father-in-law’s eyes doubled, a mirror of Evies.

“We thought “Alpha Baladin’ had a better ring to it” Astennu dangled a finger in front of Luka, our pup gurgling at the motion and his pupils constricting and dilating.

Our mother slid her arms around our backs. “An Alpha lycan... he'll be quite the formidable wolf”

There was only one other present who hadn't crowded around or who hadn't fussed in excitement. He had remained near the doorway, quietly watching and wearing a small, contented smile. Bastian may have been the only non-wolf in the room, but he was no less welcome.

“You wanna hold him?" I gestured for him to come over.”

You are kinda his uncle.”

“His great uncle... goddess above, I feel ancient,” he chuckled, embracing Luka's bundled body from Konstantin and cradling him like a precious treasure.

Barely an hour old and so strong already.