Accepting My Twin Mates
Chapter 86

Evgeniya

I had never seen eyes in the same shade as the molten honey irises that studied me. The man, behind what looked like plates of glass, leaned against a wall with his arms folded over his torso. For a moment, I found myself stunned, hypnotised by his eyes’ intensity. My gaze swept over his strangely pale alabaster skin and, all of a sudden, his eyes made sense.

He was a vampire.

The tell-tale opalescent colours swirled on his skin's surface in their hues of muted blues, yellows, pinks, greens and purples; more colours than my eyes could pick out. They moved and blended with one another, giving the appearance of an imperceptible glow everywhere the shadows touched. Where the dimmed sunlight graced his skin, the colours vanished, leaving behind a pearl-like sheen. His hair fell in smooth jet-black waves with a reddish hue, reaching his chest. He looked younger than me, far younger than his baritone voice suggested, but vampires aged much differently than any other creature that inhabited our world. They could live up to 250 years and never seemed to age, looking perpetually in their twenties. I had only ever once seen another vampire, a woman, who lived in Ashen Star pack to our south in Oregon. She was supposed to be I50 years old and looked I8. Her own son, a vampire-wolf hybrid, and their pack's Gamma, appeared older than her. “Are you quite finished staring?” He chuckled, in an amused but warm tone and in an accent I didn't quite recognise other than being European.

“Oh” I felt my face flush. “Sorry”

As my new world began to fully swirl into full focus, I took in my new surroundings. What I thought was a soft floor, I found, was a large submerged mattress into a polished wooden floor. The walls of my new prison were vastly different from the concrete cell I had woken up in the first time. These gleamed in a deep navy blue and embedded within them, seamlessly, were the odd black panel. In the comer sat a small wetroom-like area where the only privacy afforded was a short screen of frosted glass.

Sealing me within this rather comfy and modern prison was a wall of solid glass edged in holes cut out along the top. The only joint in the clear surface was what appeared to be a doorway with a hatchwork of silver in a narrow grid in the middle. There was no handle, but the metallic hinges looked heavy-duty; most likely the only mechanism that opened and shut the door.

I moved my head steadily to avoid aggravating the sharp pain in my temples, feeling as though I had been knocked about the head with a sledgehammer.

You're not too wrong. That bastard hit us with the b**t of that rifle; Eva groaned, her voice adding to the pound in my forehead.

Oh goddess, my father! He had almost died!

“Dad? I tried to push up from the plush surface, my stomach lurching at the movement

This sensation was growing old and I hadn't even started on morning sickness yet.

“slowly,” the man's deep voice, opposite, encouraged. “Judging by the dried blood from your temple, you sustained quite the blow”

My hand trailed up to my hairline, pulling back with specks of crusted blood dusting my fingertips. The wound had closed, but the pain remained.

Using the wall to steady myself, I made my way slowly towards the glass. The cells opposite were staggered, allowing me to see into two of them. The man I had no name for yet, his cell was identical to mine, except for the mass of small trees growing in pots. From what I remembered in school, vampires needed to feed from the life force of living things, usually plants. Next door to his cell, in the dark corner on a similar-looking submerged bed, lay a stumped and bare figure, my father, his dark blond hair covering his face.

I tried to mind-link him but it bounced back at me, ringing like an ear-splitting echo. When I looked closer at the glass encasing me, I spotted the fine threads of silver incorporated. Merely pressing my hand to the surface, my skin heated at the proximity to the metal.

“..Dad?" I whimpered, hoping he'd move, just a little to signal he was ok.

“He seemed in a rather bad way when they dragged you in. Well, he, they dragged. You, they carried in quite delicately” the vampire narrowed his eyes in an appraising look. “You must be valuable. Exactly what sort of wolf are you?"

“Like I'm telling you!” I bit in return.

“she’s as spicy as she is pretty. I knew it!" a second voice joined in, another man, and distinctly Spanish.

I leaned in further to the glass, as much as I could stand, to see the source. A tall, young and well-built bearded man smirked back at me, with his arms raised above his tousled black hair and pressed against the glass of his cell. A multitude of tattoos littered his deep golden skin along with a few scars on his bare chest. Unusually for a werewolf, he had a few piercings in his ear. When a wolf shifted, jewellery didn't. A reason why few ever wore it, especially items like rings.

“Hola, bebé (hey, baby)," he winked.

“Diego, that's most inappropriate,” the vampire playfully scolded.

“Can you blame me, mi tio (my dude)? I haven't seen a woman this close in over four years. My memory was starting to get hazy about what one looked like."

“You look at me again like that and you'll lose an eye," I snarled at what had to be a wolf, Diego. “I have mates, twin Alphas, and I'm not looking for anyone else”

My attention turned back to the vampire, who stared at me curiously. “..What?”

“Nothing... your murderous threats remind me of someone; a strangely dopey smile spread on his face before he shook himself free. “Apologies. My name is Bastiaan, Bastiaan Dijkstra. And, believe me, Diego may sound vulgar and he acts it more so, but he isn't quite the scoundrel he projects”

“And Batsiaan isn't the bien amanerado cofio he pretends to be,” Diego snickered, without a trace of malice

“As I said, vulgar. You'll get used to him.”

“50, what's your name rubia (blondie)? How'd you end up here?” Diego's tone softened.

I growled, turning away, and moved further down my prison in hopes my father would move. His back rose and fell in shallow breaths that gave me some morsel of comfort.

“Hey," the wolf called again. “Hey, look at me. We all ended up here for the same reasons. We all know what it's like to wake up here for the first time.”

“He's right, miss," Bastiaan folded his arms, his simple black long-sleeved t-shirt flexing with the motion. “Either taken, tricked or sold, your story is not an isolated one. We come and, for some, we go"

“Go?” I repeated, not liking his meaning. “Go where?”

Bastiaan shrugged his shoulders, “whether they are killed in their match or are sold, I don't know. The last to leave us occupied your fathers cell but a few months ago. Vee, he called himself. A pseudonym, most assuredly. He was a rather pleasant wolf”

“..Evie. My name's Evie," I mumbled, deciding I could possibly trust these two individuals. “Do you know where we are?”

I turned my face to the small but sealed window behind me. At first, I thought the dim light may have been due to being early in the morning. Now I concentrated, I could see it was because snow was blowing in.

Diego snorted at my question. “Not even Bastiaan knows and he's been here two decades.”

“Aside from a country in Europe with mountains.” Bastian shook his head. “That's as far as any here have narrowed it down to.”

“Don't you recognise the landscape at all?" I asked somewhat redundantly. Of course they didn't. They would have worked it by now.

Fortunately, the vampire didn’t poke too much fun at me and settled for a teasing grin that showed off his elongated vampiric canines, slightly more pointed than a werewolf's. “I'm Dutch. Exactly what do you think I know of mountains?”

“You guys not have many in the Netherlands?" The only things I knew of the country were tulips, clogs and stroopwafels. “It's as flat as my abs, chica," to push his point, Diego made a show to flex his bare stomach and undulate his muscles.

I looked away, rolling my eyes, uninterested in the testosterone rolling off of the wolf

It's a shame Catalina isn't here; Eva shook her head. “She'd be all over that guy!

“And I think he'd let her!

“Do you at least know what time it is?" I looked around for anything that resembled a clock.

“That panel on the wall’ Bastiaan dipped his chin in the direction. “To your right”

The dark panel lay sealed in the deep blue wall, over a strange black section of floor that gave a little underfoot.

“That thing is a treadmill under you” Bastiaan must have guessed my confusion, flashing me a sympathetic smile. “They need a way to keep us fit. I recommend using it to keep you from losing your senses and going mad. The pipe above is also handy for pull-ups. But be warned, it is there to rain wolfsbane down upon you. Some of the other wolves here avoid it “You're not worried you won't set it off?"

“No, it's on a remote. Only the guards can activate it. And I don't have to worry about it burning me like hellfire as it does you wolves"

The toxin's effect on werewolves was unique. Vampires and wiccans reacted to it in a similar way as humans did, slipping into a paralysis.

“So, where's everyone else in here?” I pressed my face to the glass again to see as far as possible.

There were several further cells and more beyond that. Yet, no sound had come from any of them.

“Out,” Diego said flatly. I couldn't see him anymore at the glass of his cell, but he was clearly still listening.

“What he means is,” Bastian answered for him. “They're either out in the training yard or they've been taken to their matches.”

“That Marceau guy really is going to make us fight?"

Diego appeared at the glass once more. Both he and the vampire nodded solemnly.

“You'll have to fight too or your father will pay the price. And the same goes for him. Bastiaan knows better than anyone.” “Out of my coven of twenty vampires that came here with me, nine are left” Bastiaan closed his eyes, falling back against his wall with fatigue. “I can't afford to lose any more. So, I do as I'm told”

“Were you their leader?”

A vampire's coven was their home, their own version of a wolf's pack, held together by a single individual who guided them. “No, that was my older brother, Christopher, but I helped with running things. It's why 'm in here,” he held his arms out, stepping into the centre of his cell. "And my few remaining coven peers are out there getting their fresh air, albeit in the snow. I'm limited to my contact with them.”

“What about you?" I asked Diego.

“Ym in detention,” a dark smirk formed under his beard. “For causing trouble with these gilipollas (stupid d***s). I don't have anything for them to hang over me, so I tend to misbehave."

The first guard I had seen since waking again walked by, sporting a faint bruise on the left side of his jaw. He was different from the two I had that had taken me to Marceau.

As the guard walked past Diego's cell, he smacked the b**t of his rifle against the glass and wandered back along the walkway to wherever he was stationed.

The wolf snarled, baring his teeth without a flinch. “Yeah, you walk away, cabrdn (a*****e). Or I can give you another beating" “You can see why he is in trouble frequently," Bastiaan shook his head in dismay. “And may I remind you, Diego, that it was these gilipollas that tricked you into this life” Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the (ꜰind)ɴʘvel.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“How exactly were you tricked?” I settled on the floor, crossing my legs.

“You may not believe me, but... 'm a Gamma."

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