Accepting My Twin Mates

Chapter 111

Accepting My Twin Mates Chapter 111

CHAPTER 108 – SPLIT UP?

Astennu

“Ok, we’ve waited long enough,” I shook off the lightheadedness twinging my temples and manoeuvred through the sparse crowd at the top of the fighting pit.

At the base of one of the two staircases, I felt something dribble down my lip, a tang of metallic taste playing on my lips. I wiped under my nose and it came back covered in blood.

‘I don’t feel great,’ Aasim slurred, slumping in my mind.

I caught myself on the polished wood bannister, sensing the control on my aura fluctuating and a strange pressure headache forming. This was the feeling I got when I was beginning to push my aura beyond its limits, which was weird because I knew I could hold it longer than this.

“You ok?” Adrian spoke lowly, catching me under my arm. “Come on, Aste. I don’t wanna have to carry you like a princess, but I will if I have to.”

I rumbled a groan. “Would you quit talking, already?”

“That I would, but you’d miss my dulcet tones,” he fished out the gold pocket square from his jacket and handed it to me. “Try and stem the flow as best you can and I’ll try and lead us out of here.”

“Aste!” Badru’s crackled voice came through in my ear.

f**k, of course he would sense it.

‘If you tell him the truth, he’ll try to come back for us and probably do something dumb and impulsive to do it,’ my wolf whimpered as another wave of pain lanced my forehead.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Keep going.”

He wouldn’t buy it for a second. He only needed to buy it enough so that he didn’t come rushing back.

I managed to keep upright, somewhat normally, sniffing the blood away long enough to get through the main exit. As we passed the bouncers, Adrian slung my arm over his neck, adopting a fake smile for the audience.

“My lil’ butterbean here had a few too many of those complimentary champagnes,” he laughed over his shoulder. “Let’s get you home, sweetie, so you sleep it off.”

‘I swear, one more stupid pet name and I will bury you once we’re back on American soil,’ I pinched the bridge of my nose, catching the itch of fresh blood beginning to pour.

‘b***h all you want, cupcake, it got us past the doors without questions.’

The tension in my head began to ease and, away from the club, I released my aura, sighing in relief as the build-up of power flowed through my pores.

“s**t, give me warning next time before you explode all over me,” Adrian’s neck bared at an unnatural angle, his entire posture almost bowing.

“Would you stop! For the love of goddess,” I growled, pressing the handkerchief to my nose just as it began to gush.

“No way, I’m milking all these innuendos for as long as possible.”

I strode past him, a slight huff leaving me. No wonder I had lost control having to deal with him for the past two hours.

We came up to the SUV parked outside the hotel and I took the fob from my pocket to pop the locks.

“Here, I’ll take those,” Adrian made a grab for the keys. “Get in the back and get yourself right. You can direct me.”

I wasn’t in any state to refuse and my body grew limp on the backseat, not realising how much I needed to take the weight off. I directed Adrian’s steering based on how my bond with Badru tugged as we turned down roads. The old-style cast iron street lamps whizzed by in a short burst before the colourful lights of the bridge came to a standstill. Adrian got out and I heard him speak, his voice echoing along the man-made structure, followed by the grunt of effort… and I was fully aware of what would come next.

“I f*****g knew you were lying!” Badru wrenched open the car door opposite me, fixing me with a worried glare.

“I’m fine. I just overstretched it, holding back my aura.”

“That right there is why all you men need to carry a pocket square so you can offer it to the damsel in distress,” Catalina pointed to the handkerchief in my hand and jumped into the driver’s seat, rubbing her hands together over the heater.

“Since I caused it – move over, you – I couldn’t leave him bleeding all over the place,” Adrian shoved her out of the driver’s seat and over the centre console. “I teased him a little too hard. I didn’t realise I was pushing the control on his aura.”

‘Pushed our control? We damn near exploded,’ Aasim grumbled a small whine in lingering discomfort.

“Ru, make yourself useful already and hand me some clothes. My chest is about to pop out in this thing,” Catalina snipped, her form almost shaking. “We got mates to rescue and I’m not doing it with my chichis (t**s) out.”

‘I had the chance to shove her in the river,’ Badru shook his head, his mouth pulled in a tight line as he rifled through the trunk for her bag. ‘But nooo, I just had to take the moral high road.’

“Why don’t we all get changed and put our chichis away while we wait for these fuckers to show themselves?” I cut to the chase, needing a distraction from the retreating pulsation in my forehead. “It isn’t as though any of us can fight in these suits.”

I changed with some effort in the back seat to a simple black long-sleeve shirt, black pants and boots, something that blended in effortlessly into the night, and looked anywhere bar the front as Catalina stripped down without a care. With his boots thrown over his shoulder, Badru jumped into the back seat with me in a hurry.

“There’s sounds coming from beneath. I think they’re on the move.”

Sure enough, up the access ramp came a series of three vans, dark in colour and slightly different from the one that preceded it. Were they all going to the same destination?

“Al’ama (damn), we’re gonna have to split up to find that rogue and Konstantin,” Badru wiped a hand down his face, casting me another worried glance.

“I don’t think we do,” Adrain spoke quickly. “Evie being your mate brought all of this together. It’s too much of a coincidence for it not to be fate. Those two men are going to the same place.”

“Cata, do you feel anything from the bond to your mate?” I tried to look over the back of my brother’s head as he leaned forward to pull his boots on.

“No,” her eyes scrunched shut and she took deep breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. “…Not since they knocked him ou-”

Her eyes flew open, landing on the last van that swayed and rocked violently and, just as suddenly, stopped. “I felt him! Whatever they gave him, he was fighting it. Follow that last van.”

Once the target vehicle had enough of a lead, Adrian set off, keeping us at as far a distance as possible without us losing sight. The other vans quickly split off, heading in other directions. Our van was following a course southwards, directly towards the central Pyrenees; a mountainous landscape just like the one Finley had described. With each mile we followed, my bond to my ammar and my pup tugged that bit stronger and I had to concede that Adrian was right… Catalina’s rogue mate and Konstantin were heading to the same place, to Evie.

But another problem began to present itself as the city of Toulouse faded from urban to residential and the small number of passing cars diminished to virtually none.

“We’re not going to be able to keep following like this,” Badru voiced the same concerns as they formed in my mind, glancing at the clock displayed on the dashboard. “It’s 2am, there’s no cars on the road other than us. If we keep following, they’ll know what we’re up to.”

“Cata, strip,” I wasted no time ripping off the shirt I had just changed into.

“Excuse me-”

“We need to get out and follow in our wolf form. It’s the only way we can do this and not be seen,” I cut off her protests. “And we need what’s in our SUV, so we can’t all go. Badru has to stay so he can direct Adrian through our shared twin bond.”

‘You were almost passed out a second ago,’ my brother grabbed my wrist before I could remove my boots.

‘I’m the fastest and you know it,’ I met his eye.

He reluctantly let go and let me strip off, ready to shift as soon as the car stopped.

“You know, there’s less extreme methods you can take if you didn’t want me anywhere near the wheel,” Catalina muttered.

“This isn’t The Fast and The Furious: France Edition, Cata.” I had vivid memories of how she had made a nine-hour car journey in seven and a half.

As soon as Adrian pulled over, I kicked the backdoor open and shifted as I exited, running after the van in the far distance.

“Move over. I need to drive for this,” was the last I heard of my brother over my paws kicking up frozen dirt and snow. Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

Catalina’s equally black wolf to mine was only a few paces behind Aasim and me, catching up little by little on each of her bounds. Her Alpha wolf wasn’t too dissimilar in size to Aasim, only smaller in her muscle build. We kept off the road, keeping to the vegetation and trees where we could, our midnight fur blending in well with the night, even against the white snow that began to dominate the landscape. The higher in altitude we ran, the more remote and isolated the terrain became.

Turning off of the small, winding road, the van veered to the left on an unmarked track. In light, the tracks in the snow would give it away, but in the pitch black, Badru might miss it.

‘Keep chase,’ I instructed to Catalina. ‘I’ll catch up.’

Finding the best tree that would face the direction my twin and Adrian would be approaching from, my wolf rubbed the scent gland at the outer top of our tail against the bark. Badru would never miss our scent, no matter how small or where.

Letting him know to keep the SUV’s windows down to find the turn-off, I rushed to catch up to Catalina, finding her prowling a ridge that overlooked a strange-looking chalet, a mix between a home and an industrial compound.

‘The van drove around the back,’ her dark eyes narrowed, glistening. ‘I didn’t see where they took them.’

We nudged her with our muzzle, knowing the struggle gripping her… so close and so far, all at once. These past two months had felt like two centuries.

‘We’ve come this far and we’re leaving with them, today,’ my heartbeat began to soar.

Somewhere inside those walls, Evie was waiting…