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.

in a sharp suit with a manicured beard and an expensive gold watch ambled over to me as I poured cold water over my head after winning seven

my own fights, in a far more affluent setting than this establishment,” he circled his finger in the 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 own lodging. What

towel over my shoulder and folded my wad of euros into my

“You win.”…

walk away. But to a nineteen year old with 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

outside the car window shifted from a heavily tree-lined road to a flat meadow and drew me 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

I

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

private home and no sooner had the car rolled to a stop, that two wolves were out, front and centre, to open

mosaic tile walls and a grand sweeping staircase to the upper levels. The appearance was not what hit me first, it was the scents. Fresh food permeated every orifice; freshly

rushing towards a large-built man appearing from an adjoining

voice his grumblings, muttering more to himself. ‘I

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 princess. It was funny, my

Thiago’s and then his mate, Leah. “You two

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 increasing swell of irritation,

kitchen. She hurried to take off the vibrant flowery apron from her neck that had protected her immaculate red blouse and skirt.

Luna Julieta’s gaze turned to me and I was obviously not what she was expecting, but she

herself around my arm, clasping her fingers with

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

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 del tigre (the tiger’s

I began, starting

waist in a sweeping bow. “Of Cuna De La Luna,

hairline in surprise and Matías’s mouth parted, neither expecting such decorum

a decade,” the

would be lying if I said that didn’t strike a particularly small yet agonising nerve. Catalina’s eyes cut to mine, knowing the punch to my gut that Matías unwittingly landed. My father had drilled it into me and had been strict in my education of traditional etiquette so as to never ‘shame

stickler for tradition,” I drawled, regaining my cool and calm air. “Not that I ever gave a flying f**k for the old ways. Tradition is just peer

Alpha and Luna spluttered, Thiago grinned ear to ear and my mate’s face sparkled with awe. I hoped beyond anything, that was the first bloom of love

slaughter me in front of his

fingertips playing with the light material that separated me from her luscious skin, the tingles of

have separate rooms,” her father’s eye twitched, his jaw

funny, Matías,” I laid it on thick. “Oh,

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

my eye,’ Dario sniggered, brimming

little button will come to us tonight. I

and,

My wolf repeated,

because we know

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

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 glare so sharp it would slice

his outline with how he shot away so quickly. A boy was never too

out of trouble,” Leah muttered, taking off her coat

mosaic tiles continued on the upper floor, artfully fading to smooth walls painted a rich and earthy orange. The hall from the staircase led in two wide directions and, to my glee, Catalina followed

you are, dear,” Julieta swung open the door, allowing 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,”

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

and walked over to a small walk-in closet. “I didn’t know your size, but I’ve developed a sixth sense raising

“It’s perfect, Luna-”

corrected. “Come on, Catalina.

I should check his stitches. You know, to make sure they’re ok before Diego showers,” my mate batted her most

stitches too,

walked away, shaking her head, her

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

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

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 he still loved. It used to irritate me, serving as a reminder of

mate, who was too busy