Chapter 75: Inseparable

Nash

I pulled the Jeep up in front of my garage. I lived in the most unsuspecting neighborhood of older houses. Most of my neighbors were retired seniors, and the street itself dead-ended in the old Catholic cemetery. It was the kind of place where everyone minded their own business, and no one asked too many questions. Just the way I liked it. I knew my neighbors' names only because I had done a background check on each and every one of them. Otherwise, we only smiled and waved when we passed on the street.

No one wondered why I disappeared, sometimes for weeks or months at a time. No one asked where I worked or how I paid my mortgage. If they had dug deeply, they would have figured out I didn’t have a mortgage. I paid cash for the house, for the Jeep, and for everything I owned. I didn’t leave a paper trail behind.

The house was small with a postage stamp of a yard and a 2-story garage. The inside had only the bare necessities of furningshings and appliances, most of which went unused. I had someone clean it once a month to keep up appearances, clear away all the dust and cobwebs, put fresh sheets on the bed and fresh towels in the bathroom, so that at least when I did need the house, it was liveable.

I tossed my bag on the table, and, out of shear habit, did a quick sweep of the three-bedroom domicile. It was empty and silent except for one unlucky housefly that was still buzzing and bumping against the window glass in the upstairs bedroom. The whole place had a sort of stale smell from being empty for too long. The refridgerator was empy, except for a few condiments which were probably expired. There was some canned food in the cupboards, and some frozen dinners in the freezer of dubious quality.

I wasn’t hungry anyway. There was still a raw, gnawing ache in my gut, like an ulcer chewing at my insides. The ache grew worse whenever I thought of Daphne, and since I couldn’t seem to stop thinking of her, it was pretty much non-stop. I filled a glass with water from the tap, and then went to the downstairs bedroom. I sat down on the edge, pulled off my boots, and then flopped down across the mattress.

And my first thought was, finally, a bed big enough to share with Daphne, one where we could sleep comfortably side-by-side.

F.uck.

I closed my eyes, but I could still see her face, even after I threw my arm over my head. Finally, I pulled out my phone and contemplated my contacts. As a precaution, there were no numbers saved on the phone, but I had them memorized in my head.

Daphne had twin alpha brothers.

I knew another set of twins. They were clients of mine. I ran the security at their multi-million dollar business, JP Wellness, as well as being the personal bodyguard to their wife for months during some difficult days in their family. They weren’t werewolves, but they had some knowledge of the shifter community. I quickly shot off a text to inquire if they knew of a pack with twin-alphas.

Predictably, there was no answer. No one was awake at that hour.

The next step was to go online. I pulled out my laptop and balanced it on my lap as I leaned back against the headboard. The werewolf community generally tried to stay out of the spotlight and avoided social media, as general knowledge of their existance was still spotty and full of contention. Josiah Salvadore was one of the only Alphas I knew who wasn’t afraid to be out of the supernatural closet. But he was one of the few. Most of them preferred to stay in the shadows, protected by the ingorance of the general public. But every now and then, something big would happen, and it would leak out into the mainstream.

It took almost two hours of searching before I stumbled on to something useful, an obscure article a little more than a year old.

Lost Canadian Princess Found Alive and Well

The article went on to elaborate that the girl, who had been presumed dead in a fiery car crash, had been recently mated and married to the twin Redhawk alphas of the Valiant Mountain Pack.

“Gotcha,” I said, as I stared at the wedding photo that was attached to the article. The identical men were easy to identify, standing tall and proud and in dark formal suits. Between them stood a rather tiny, delicate woman, especially by werewolf standards. She looked almost like a child standing between them. I could tell by the possessive way they were both leaning toward her that she was the lost princess mate mentioned in the article. To one side of the throuple stood a very tall, thin man with his hands clasped behind his back. He had the look of someone who had been very ill, with sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes, and that sort of haunted look reminiscent of photos of Holocaust survivors. To the other side of the twins stood Daphne, smiling broadly, glowing with absolute joy and happiness as she rested a hand on her brother’s shoulder.

For some reason, my eyes were drawn away from Daphne, back to the older man. His countanece was giving me a strange, inexplicable feeling in my gut. It made me feel sort of anxious and uneasy, so I pulled attention back to the twin brothers.

What was it with these brothers who were content to share one woman between them? Jack and Phoenix Williams, the twin founders of JP Wellness, had both married one woman, but I thought that was an anomoly. They’d been into sharing for years before their now-wife Robyn stumbled into their lives as an almost-stepsister.

I looked again at the identical faces of Daphne’s brothers. Maybe it was a twin thing.

My eyes went back to Daphne, and I reached out to touch her face on the screen, almost imagining I could feel the soft warmth of her skin.

I could never share what was mine.