Chapter 7
epting My Twin Mates Chapter 7
Chapter 7 – This Is Our Beta?
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 11 hour drive from Opal Sun pack in Idaho to
our home in Washington and I was growing increasingly flustered as we neared our borders. Thesest
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 asid 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 ss 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 was 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 thendscape 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
sh of dark gold hair, any sense of logic andmon 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 worse after I
shifted alongside Badru, a few months before we turned 17. 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 16 year old and it had been an ident, 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 re for the dramatic, his impulsive streak meant he could react to situations instantly. I
struggled with such tasks. I needed foresight and nning to know the best course of action. Where
one of uscked, 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 150 years old.
“He looks way toofortable 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, waking him with a startle.
“Al’ama (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 pathetic and sad now the three of us were 25.
‘Ohe on, it’s just some fun. He gets it,’ Finley sniggered to himself.
I nced 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 thosest 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 cards 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.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDra/ma.O(r)g!
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’d 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 outst night,” Fin began, again, on histest conquest. “You should’vee
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 couldpete 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 I 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 would 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 wan. It was rare that werewolves
were mated outside their species, but it happened on the odd asion. I didn’t know any vampires
except for this one vampire-wolf hybrid in the pack to our south, and the only wans 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 ratherrge part of me prayed I
would find it in Evie.