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.

manicured beard and an expensive gold watch ambled over to me as I poured cold water over my

this establishment,” he circled his finger in the air and nodded towards my pile of

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

“You win.”…

no money, 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 imagined I

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 on a smaller scale and dotted around

which is the pack house,” I joked, looking

that one to the right. Me and Leah live in the top suite of the big house,” he

a stop, that two wolves were out, front and centre, to open the doors. My home pack had been one to stand on

levels. The appearance was not what hit me first, it was the scents. Fresh food permeated every orifice; freshly fried tortillas, seafood, garlic, roasted herbs, chilli and the sweet tang of

Catalina exclaimed, rushing towards a large-built man appearing from an adjoining

quick to voice his grumblings, muttering more to himself. ‘I

aura rolling off of him and his heavy similarities to Thiago, only with a pinch of salt and pepper dusting his temples, he had to be Matías. His arms wrapped around his daughter in relief, calling her his

the older Alpha embraced his son, briefly touching his forehead with Thiago’s and then his mate,

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 any affection and the only emotion that flitted through his features was an

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

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

wrapped herself around my arm, clasping her fingers with

you,” Julieta replied and elbowed her mate in the

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 del tigre (the tiger’s balls),

Luna Rivera,” I began, starting with the

at the waist

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

haven’t seen that in at least a

knowing the punch to my gut that Matías unwittingly landed. My father

air. “Not that I ever gave a flying f**k for the old ways. Tradition is just peer pressure from the grave

hoped beyond anything, that was the first bloom of love within her heart for me and that

in front of his daughter,

draped an arm over my mate’s shoulder, my fingertips playing with the light material that separated me from her

separate rooms,” her father’s eye

Matías,” I laid it on thick. “Oh, you’re

think we wouldn’t be sharing

Dario

button will come to us tonight. I

I was and,

repeated,

know exactly where to

my challenges, as did 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

spun her mate around and shoved him towards the kitchen, looping her bright flowery apron over his neck. “I’ll show our new family where he’ll be staying. Come along dear,” she hooked her arm with mine and began leading me directly up the ornate tiled staircase. “You’ll have plenty of time to settle in and get clean. I made all the meals tapas style, so there’s plenty to go around. I won’t have you going to bed hungry here… And Thiago!” She bellowed, cutting a

Alpha practically left a puff of smoke as his outline with how he shot away

I’ll go make sure they stay out of trouble,” Leah muttered, taking off her

rich and earthy orange. The hall from the staircase led in two wide directions and,

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

cool,’ Dario nodded in approval. ‘Daddy-in-law, we can still

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 here.

“It’s perfect, Luna-”

she corrected. “Come on, Catalina.

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

his stitches?” Her mother raised a calculated brow. “Yes, I checked your father’s stitches too, when I snuck around

walked away, shaking her head, her heels clicking and fading down

over four years. The fact it wasn’t a cell that confined me within four hermetically sealed walls was the greatest

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 were the lowest of the low. Some rogues earned their

downside of living next to an utterly hopeless romantic such as Bastiaan was, whenever the topic of women came up, out of his many conquests, he would fixate on the one he called Galina, whom

mate, who was too busy