Accepting My Twin Mates
Chapter 87

Evgeniya

“My full name is Diego Ortiz Guerra and I was meant to be the next Gamma of my pack; Cuna De La Luna, the Moon's Cradle, in the lakes of Covadonga” he slid down the glass, leaving his back to me and displaying the huge tattoo of a skull in black with red rose petals. “I never really wanted to be Gamma. I wanted to work with the horses we herded in the lowlands of our pack. I shifted a few months before I turned I9 years old and mi padre (my father) announced he and mi madre (my mother) had a chosen mate lined up for me”

His head rolled to the side to meet my eye. “I would have accepted a position I didn't want, but no way in hell was I taking a chosen mate. I said that to mi padre and he gave me a choice; do as he says or leave the pack”

“Ym guessing you politely told him goodbye?” I shifted my weight and straightened out a leg in front of me.

“That I did and we ended up in a brawl,” Diego humourlessly chuckled. “I did what I needed to survive and left Spain, heading north to France. I got into some bare-knuckle fights in the Paris slums for money. And that's where I met ese hijo de puta (that son of a b***h), Marceau. He approached me asking if I wanted to make some good money with more upscale fights to rich clientele. And to a I9 year old with nothing, seeing a fancy guy in a suit... it all sounded appealing. He didn’t exactly lie. I've made good money in the four years I've been here, and the women do love to watch me fight,” he winked at me again. “Too bad I don't see any of the cash and, you know, there's the slavery thing”

“We're the same age. I'm 23, too," I smiled at him weakly.

I would have commiserated with him, asking how a father could do such a thing to his own child. But considering my mates’ father had sold me into slavery, what some parents would do no longer surprised me.

I turned back to the vampire. “What about you?”

“I not only lived in a coven, but also within a pack, in the North of England. The Alpha and Luna were an unusual pairing, that was for certain," he breathed a laugh through his nose, shouldering the wall. “Their daughter, though. She was truly remarkable, and a rather sweet little child. But it was her gifts that led greedy wolves to her door. Her poor father trusted the wrong man, a Finnish Alpha."

Marceau had mentioned a Finnish Alpha, the one he had been in the pocket of and had taken the she-wolf lycan that had been here. Were they one and the same?

“I have no idea if any of them survived, escaped, or whether that man succeeded,” Bastiaan rolled from his shoulder and slid down the wall helplessly. “I don't even know if my brother survived."

“Cant you sense him?"

“We vampires don't have the benefit of your wolves’ bonds. We experience something akin to it with our soulmate, if we're ever lucky enough to find them" a painful grimace twisted his flawless features. “We have a particular intuition with our own kind, like your mind-linking. We can sense what another vampire may do, if they're lying, or read their intentions. But sadly, we are not blessed with the ability to sense our family across a distance. Although, strangely, there are times I do feel like someone is out there who would be dear to me. Perhaps it's wishful thinking on my part

I glanced over to my father, who still lay motionless. His back continued to rise and fall, so I took it as my only solace that he was ok. Sleeping would help him recover; the words kept playing on repeat.

The guards could've covered him over, for goddess's sake; Evva grimaced. I really don't wanna be looking at our dad's bare a*s!

They could've placed him the other way, too, so be thankful’

“How were you separated from... Christopher? You said his name was?” I splayed my hands behind me.

“Yes. When the attack came, it came rapid and sudden. Even when hunters lit our coven ablaze in the Netherlands, at least we had some warning. We had barely gotten word to our people. All I remember is being jumped by a wolf, and thrown,” he propped his arm out on his knee, gazing up at his ceiling. “drifted in and out of consciousness so much, I'm not entirely sure what was real and what wasn't. I do remember a man speaking of vampires, that we weren't wanted and the crosses weren't shifting, whatever that means. I recall seeing a tattoo on the wrist of one of my captives, an ellipse. I haven't seen it on any of the guards here, so it's quite possible my imagination conjured it"

There was an air of detachment in how he spoke, like he had recanted the story several times over, yet it hurt him as much in every repetition. And all I had done thus far was play an endless game of twenty questions.

“Ym sorry for asking you guys so many questions-"

“Don't be ridiculous,” he interjected with a sad smile. “It isn't as though we have anything else. Our memories of the outside world are all we have, painful or not. So, you may ask about the hunters. I can see you want to"

“Well, when you say hunters," I gave him a sheepish glance and twiddled the hem of my sleeve behind me. “Creature hunters?”

it was a practice that had died out decades ago. A tense peace had formed with humans in and around 600 years ago, but wiccans and vampires weren't as lucky. Back in more superstitious days, wiccans were thought to be devil-worshipping witches by humans and vampires were bloodsucking demons.

“Yes, those kinds of hunters. They came in the night with their official pitchforks and torches. That was how my brother and I came to be in England with our surviving coven. If you were to ever meet my brother, it is wise to stay away from the subject lest you be dragged into his rant on that infernal vampire that started the hunters on their renewed g*****e and the ridiculous professor with his theories on vampiric weaknesses. Why garlic of all things is most laughable,” the wry chuckle he let loose was none too warm, but the way his face softened when he spoke of his brother... two decades apart hadn't dulled his fondness for his sibling.

“Alife without garlic bread isn't much of a life at all”

His laugh this time at my feeble attempt at a joke was genuine and he even played along, shuddering.

“Precisely. And I can't tell you the number of times I've burst into flames under sunlight”

“How old does that make you? It's been at least fifty years since the last group of hunters was forcibly disbanded.”

“I can't be too certain as time has a strange way of passing here when you stare at the same four walls continuously,” he rubbed his clean jaw. “Around 907"

I almost choked, spluttering on the itching bubble I had inhaled. “90? you barely look 20I"

“You flatter me. You can thank my plants” his arm swept over the array of flora, potted in his cell.

“I only met a full-blood vampire once and I was too embarrassed to ask her I sat up, sweeping my legs under me to kneel. “How do you feed from a plant?”

“I bite into it and drink the sap, once or twice a week. It's nothing elaborate. Without my live source to feed from, I would wither into a husk. Put bluntly, my good looks that you admired so when you awoke would cease,” he teased.

“somehow, I doubt your modesty would take a hit" I chuckled, feeling a strange sense of relief that a shitty situation came with fairly decent company. “I recognise the olive tree, what are the others?”

“Citrus, and the other is jasmine. That particular one has become a favourite in recent weeks for some reason,” he gazed fondly at the delicate yellow petals and, I could swear, the shaded areas of his skin that swirled in colour, pulsated slightly. “It's the scent I find rather appealing.”

“You should ask him about blood feeding next” Diego laughed, doubling over sideways when Bastiaan choked and spluttered.

“He survived nearly twenty years and that's the thing that takes him down?’ Evva raised her brows in time with mine.

“What am I missing? I thought vampires didn't drink blood. Isn't that why you're all either vegetarian or vegan?”

“We certainly do not. Not in any casual way,” he grimaced. “Life is a precious thing to we vampires. It's what we guard most, what we value. And you're correct, it is the very reason why many of us abstain from eating meat. I could never feed to sustain myself and kill another” sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ (ꜰind)ɴʘvel.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Diego sniggered, catching his breath, “and what hes not telling you is that blood-feeding between vampire soulmates is like the equivalent of anal f*+g"

There was the vulgarity I was warned of.

“Itis, in no way, a parallel to that, Diego!” Bastiaan blushed profusely, turning back to me to clarify. “A few drops are sometimes shared between soulmates and it is one of the most intimate acts to join two of my people together. It's performed in our wedding ceremonies to seal our unions, but only taken from the wrist, as it would be in the view of guests" “There was only ever one person I wanted to join with in such a way and I'll never know whether she was my soulmate,” I almost missed what he said, as quiet as a whisper were it not for the echo. “The more I think of her, though, the more I'm sure...”

“Oh diosa arriba (oh goddess above), here we go again,” Diego sighed loudly.

Bastiaan's head rolled against the wall, lost in some inviting memory. A huge dopey grin plastered his face that reminded me far too much of my mates. They looked at me all the time with an identical expression and the memory twisted my chest, pulling on the tiny bond emanating from my stomach.

“That woman... she was magnificent. When I woke here all those years ago, she was the first I saw. Much like our roles reversed, she sat in the same cell you occupy,” a long wistful sigh blew past his lips. “She scowled my way and declared if I dared look upon her again she would disembowel me in my sleep. There wasn't a day that went by where she wouldn't threaten to butcher me.”

“..And you took that to mean she liked you?" I arched a brow.

You threatened our nugget on a daily basis, and he bent over and asked for one more mistress, Ewa sniggered as the memories flashed in my mind. Badru certainly had a penchant for being dominated.

“I will never forget her; glossy black hair that shone as a mirror, deep smoke-tinted midnight eyes and a tongue so sharp she could slice me to ribbons... her skin against mine-"

“Ok, I don't need to know those details,” I held up my hands hoping he wouldn't go further. “Wait, how did you know what her skin felt like? They let you in her cell?”

“Not quite,” a dirty crooked smirk worked its way across his features. “She happened to go through her heat and she was taken to those concrete cells. Something deep within told me she needed me, so I bribed one of the guards and said I'd throw my next match and he could make money. She was worth every injury I sustained.”

“And they were fine with that?”

“At the time, yes. Security has increased from all those years ago. But as long as you discuss no plans of escape, they don't care what we speak of”

“How come you didn't know for sure that she was your soulmate?”

The way he spoke of her told of a profound connection between them. It seemed bizarre that there was nothing comparable to a mate bond between them.

“An odd sedative these people forced on her. Its effects did something to her wolf, suppressed it in a strange way and dulled her senses and her perception of touch. She could barely taste anything or smell. She did tell me that my skin was the closest she came to feeling something for a very long time”

The sedative Marceau spoke of. The one he said he no longer had access to for ycans. Was the woman Bastiaan spoke of the lycan that Marceau lost?

“There isn't a day goes by that I don't miss my Galina.”

Galina? I knew that name.

“What was name you say?" A deep voice rumbled lowly, thick with sleep.

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