Accepting My Twin Mates by Unwise Owl

Accepting My Twin Mates Chapter 126

Bonus Chapter 5 – Accepting His Fiery Alpha – I of II

Diego

My smouldering goddess’s fire flickered in a dying beat, watching Evie in the black jeep roll away. An upset frown didn’t suit her full pouting lips. A defiant smirk, a naughty smile or a dominant challenge in her onyx eyes, those were the quirks that suited her sinfully angelic face and amplified her creamy cocoa and explosive chilli scent.

I let the back of my hand brush against hers, the sparks of her touch electrified my arm and amassed within my chest. She felt it too, the twitch of the corner of her lips told me as much. Five years I had waited, from the moment of my shift, to feel this torrent of energy that my soul and wolf craved; a gift that I had come so close to losing on so many occasions, starting with my father.

‘That coño is no more our father than a broom handle is,’ my wolf, Dario, chuntered irritably.

He had never liked or felt much for our father from the day he appeared and I shifted. The only thing that had ever tethered us to him was our familial bond and even that wasn’t enough to foster any fondness from Dario.

Growing up, I had made a rod for my own back, I knew it. My disobedient and willful ways had dropped me in trouble from escuela primaria when I was six years old to the day I was issued with my ultimatum from my father…

…“Damn it all, boy. You will not disgrace me anymore with this behaviour in front of our pack,” he had yelled when I came sauntering home with another tattoo, another piercing and having spent another day with the wild horse herds in the lakes of our home in Covadonga, completely shirking my responsibilities. “It’s high time you start taking your Gamma duties seriously and grow up! And that starts with a mate.”

He threw down a photo of a girl my age with caramel hair and honey eyes. All my usual brazen swagger evaporated and, for the first time, I had no smart-mouth response.

“Her name is Esperanza and she arrives in one week. You will take her as your mate on your nineteenth birthday and that will be the end of it. Mark my words, Diego, you are the future Gamma of Cuna De La Luna and you shall behave like it. Or, you can leave.”

No help came from my mother, who stood at his side, a conflicted struggle warring in her eyes and yet, she remained silent, never once defending me. I would have swallowed my resentment and taken up my role to serve an Alpha and take commands that I had no interest in. But I would never take a chosen mate, not when my soul’s perfect match lay in wait to burn me with her fire.

My father meant it as an empty threat, thinking a sentence of a rogue status would keep me in line, that the shame of such a deplorable title would be enough to curtail me into submission. He thought wrong…

…“Diego?” The divine voice of my mate, purer than the moon, tugged at my hand. “Let’s go home.”

Home.

That word felt as foreign as the ground I walked on. When I had one, it never felt like home, just a noose waiting to trap me.

“Ever since my hermanita here…” my mate’s brother, Thiago, interrupted my brooding thoughts by wrapping his arm around the top of her head and poking her side. She squealed and fought her way out of his hold, cursing him out with every colourful insult. “…Told me about you, I’ve been dying for you to meet our old man.”

The broad grin that lay under Thiago’s heavy black stubble told me I was in for an interesting welcome. “He’s the traditional type, I take it? Likes the old-time ways and will love a tattooed rogue as a son-in-law?”

“We’ll see if we can get you sharing a glass of brandy and having a game of backgammon by the end of the night.”

“I’m sure my dazzling wit will have him hitting the roof with approval in no time.”

“Cata, the moon goddess outdid herself this time. I love this guy,” Thiago threw his arm around my shoulder and walked us over to the high-end saloon car. “Our mom’s been cooking up a storm and even tracked down a bottle of Herbero for you. She’s not as hard up as our dad, so you’ll win her over easily…” he went on.

I noticed Leah roll her eyes, as her mate talked about his mother.

Catalina caught my questioning glance, snickering into the back of her hand. ‘Our mom is great, but she’s a little overbearing at times. Leah feels like there’s three in her relationship and Thiago is too much of an oblivious hijo de mami (mama’s boy) to notice otherwise.’

A small smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth at the thought of a huge Alpha like Thiago hanging on to the skirts of his mother, but at least she involved herself with her son… unlike mine that stood back and remained quiet as I left.

“So, have you ever been State-side before, Diego?” Leah asked as she slid into the front passenger seat, pulling her pom-pom beanie off and smoothing her flyaway hair down.

“No, never. Just a few places in Europe, and France, obviously… that’s how I wound up with my ass in a cell.”

‘But you’re not there now and it led us together,’ Catalina squeezed my hand like a stable rock to anchor my storm.

Maybe fate would have given us another path to meet upon. Maybe there was no other way for our paths to cross. There was no way to know what would have happened. Those chain of events had been stolen.

I had lost count of the number of times I had stared at the ceiling of my cell, or the exposed stone of the wall I was chained to when I acted up, and cursed myself for ever biting the offer of that dressed-up motherfucker, Marceau…

…The Paris slums were a far cry away from the glamour of the city’s centre. However, for a rogue like me, they had proved lucrative. Knowing about horses served no use in an urban environment, but I knew how to use my fists and, in the slums, it was all I had to make money because I was not about to crawl back home like a pup with his tail between his legs.

There were a few spots that held bare-knuckle fights between wolves and the odd human that fancied their chances, either in dive bars, back alleys or abandoned buildings.

suit with a manicured beard and an expensive gold watch ambled over to

air and nodded towards my pile of winnings. “What you won there, you could win double in a single match of mine. I would provide you with the best food, your

raised my brow, flipping my moth-eaten towel over my shoulder and folded my wad of euros

“You win.”…

no home, no prospects and an over-inflated ego that told me I knew better, the man and his outstretched offer was the answer to all my prayers. I practically snatched his hand off, thinking I would be making my fortune and never once

out of my head. On the fringe, where the manicured flats of an immaculate pack house garden met the evergreen forests that surrounded it, sat a pristine mansion built in white stone and gilded with Roman columns and high arching windows. To the right, neighboured an equally grand-looking house

I joked, looking

laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, our abuelo went all out when he built the separate home to the main pack house. Our mom, dad and Catalina live in that one to the right. Me and Leah live in the top suite of the big house,” he pointed to

no sooner had the car rolled to a stop, that two wolves were out, front and centre, to open the doors. My home pack had been one to stand on ceremony at every

the upper levels. The appearance was not what hit me first, it was the scents. Fresh food permeated every orifice; freshly fried tortillas, seafood, garlic, roasted

rushing towards a large-built man appearing from

was quick to voice his grumblings, muttering more to

to be Matías. His arms wrapped around his daughter in relief, calling her his princess. It was funny, my mate called her brother

mijo,” the older Alpha embraced his son, briefly touching his forehead with Thiago’s and then his mate, Leah. “You two handled the

that glinted in Matías’s eye and shone so effortlessly pricked an involuntary pang of jealousy. I needed no one’s approval and never had. Yet, I couldn’t shut down the flare of wishing, just once, my own father could have looked at me like that. Not since I was a pup had he shown me

from the same archway Matías had emerged that must have led to a kitchen. She hurried to take off the vibrant flowery apron from her neck that had protected her immaculate red blouse and skirt. The woman possessed the same soft jaw and high cheekbones as Catalina, but with dark green eyes instead of the deep onyx-brown

kissing the cheeks of her two children and daughter-in-law, Luna Julieta’s gaze turned to me and I was obviously not what she

this is Diego,” Catalina wrapped herself around my

you,” Julieta replied and elbowed her mate in the gut when his

respectable wolf male to his little princess and, unfortunately for him, I was never going to be a clean-cut and well-behaved mate or a kiss-ass to the patriarchy. I was the rough and ready bad boy type that ran his mouth and I was itching to poke los huevos

Luna Rivera,” I began, starting

at the waist in a sweeping bow. “Of Cuna De

and Matías’s mouth parted, neither expecting such decorum from one who looked like

wolf packs. I haven’t seen that in at least a decade,” the Alpha admired my display of propriety. “Your

knowing the punch to my gut that Matías unwittingly landed. My father had drilled it into me and had been

I ever gave a flying f**k for

and my mate’s face sparkled with awe. I hoped beyond anything, that was the first bloom of love within her heart for me and that she knew I could handle her family, along with anything else her father could

that Matías wouldn’t slaughter me in front of his daughter, I drove

are we in?” I draped an arm over my mate’s shoulder, my fingertips playing with the light material that separated me from her luscious skin, the tingles of our

father’s eye

laid it on thick.

Alpha would think we wouldn’t be sharing a room, but that was

rooms my eye,’ Dario sniggered, brimming

little button will come to us tonight. I know

defiant as I was and, between her father and me,

My wolf repeated,

because we know exactly

Catalina and, like me, she would never walk away from one. She would dig in her heels and double down. My mate was the biggest challenge I had ever faced, my wilful equal and I knew exactly how to play her to be victorious; issue the challenge and then walk away

her arm with mine and began leading me directly up the ornate tiled staircase. “You’ll have plenty of time to settle in and

back my laughter as the large Alpha practically left a puff of smoke as his outline with how he shot away so quickly. A boy was never too old to receive the

guess I’ll go make sure they stay out of trouble,” Leah muttered, taking off her coat and following after the

artfully fading to smooth walls painted a rich and earthy orange. The hall from the staircase led in two wide

me to enter the huge deep terracotta-red room first. “I thought you’d be most comfortable in the guest room just down from Catalina,” she inclined her

nodded in approval. ‘Daddy-in-law, we can still poke

followed my path and walked over to a small walk-in closet. “I didn’t know your size, but I’ve developed a sixth sense raising all these pack warriors. So I think you’ll find something for you in

“It’s perfect, Luna-”

on, Catalina. Leave

stitches. You know, to make sure they’re ok before Diego showers,” my mate batted her most innocent eyes that wouldn’t fool

checked your father’s stitches too, when I snuck around behind his parents’ back.

head, her heels clicking and fading down

anything I had seen in over four years. The fact it wasn’t a cell that confined me within four hermetically

have had far worse neighbours than Bastiaan in that goddess-forsaken place. Some of the men there were innocent, good wolves forced into a terrible situation. Others deserved worse than the fate handed to them and

women came up, out of his many conquests, he would fixate on the one he called Galina, whom he still loved. It used to irritate me, serving as a reminder of

who was too busy focused on