53. Twins

Altan and Elio Oriana would choose to take their mother’s name in a heartbeat. They were raised in Apollo’s Keep, parentless, until they Presented as Alphas. On their twelfth birthday, Selene visited the Keep with a Sky pack female—Aura Baran, their birthmother. A missing piece fell into place that day once the truth of their conception was revealed. They were children of rape by a Sun pack lesser Alpha—but no one would tell them who he was. It was then that the twin brothers swore their allegiance to the Moon pack. 
It was the most lenient Kiran Cyrus would ever be: he let them live the next four years between both harems. When they turned eighteen, just days before the Magnolia Choosing, they were given the choice: Sun or Moon?
It had been decided years ago that they would choose Sun for the sake of Moon. They pledged their lives to Selene and Aura and would gladly be their spies. It would be stupid to assume Kiran wouldn’t figure it out, but a little under two months in, so far, so good.
Kiran was vague in his opinion of them. Did he resent them because he was secretly housing Moon bastards? They smelled like Sky Alphas, which worked in everyone’s favor, but it was difficult to explain who their parents were. The matter was quickly solved when Kiran’s snarl. 
Either that or pity because of their circumstance, he put them immediately to test—doing his dirty work. Their first task? Bury the dead body of Aiden August. Why? 
“Because the bastard deserves it,” Kiran growled with his face covered in gore, pointing to the tree where his dead body lay, most of his throat missing.
It was horrendous, but a few days later, Seff Bleize arrived. 
She was the most gorgeous female Altan and Elio had ever seen. And the most forbidden.
“Maybe I’m not just gay,” Elio muttered. “I’ll kiss her and we’ll see.”
Altan rolled his eyes. “We’re her *guards*, not affairs, knothead. But she does look very kissable in more places than one.”
True to Alpha characteristics, they tried their damnedest. They ended up being friends with casual skinship, and the twins were truly content with that, with another outsider who didn’t quite fit in. They learned to care for her, and pledged to protect her no matter the costs, and Kiran was a threat to her safety.
So was Selene. But there was a difference in their brutality. Altan and Elio trusted the savageness of the Moon.
Which was why they wanted Seff to fall in love with her and not Kiran.
Which was why they weren’t afraid to laugh at Kiran’s missing ear.
Two days after he was carried through the courtyard covered in blood, the Alpha finally showed his face that wasn’t showing off his usual cocky grin. Everyone still fawned over him, but they were hesitant—he was a fuse waiting to be lit. He usually kept his golden hair tied back in a knot, but now he was forced to keep it down and covering what was left of his ear. 
His scowl was fantastic. *You get what you deserve*, thought the twins from a distance. *You keep our father secret and strip our identity. You don’t get our pity.* 
It was as if Kiran heard their thoughts. He whipped toward them across the courtyard. The twins hid their flinches well, but their thundering heartbeats gave away their fear. The Alpha stormed across the grass through a small swarm of Omegas begging for his attention until he was towering over them.
They braced for a snarl or a physical hit, but all he said was, “Why don’t you ask Allium Ren?”
Elio opened his mouth and Altan closed it with a hand smacked over it. The younger twin could be a little too outspoken. Kiran narrowed his eyes critically before shoving a palm to the back of Elio’s shoulder, turning him in the direction of the consorts’ quarters. Without another word he stalked off.
Elio shook free. “What the hell?”
“I can ask you the same question,” Altan grumbled, starting toward Allium’s room. Scowling, Elio followed. “You were going to give a snarky remark. You know better. Selene and Mom trained us better.”
“Of course they trained us well. But what’s he getting at?” 
He barked a curse when Altan smacked him upside the head, halting. “You’re still drunk from last night. High on sucking that Beta’s—”
“Don’t need to say it.”
“Fine. The point is that he just gave us a clue to *who our father is*.”
Elio’s dirty look dropped. It clicked in his head: It was Allium who shouted, *“What happened to Aiden August?”* The twins, of course, were the only ones who knew. “But…why would he do that? I’m pretty sure he hates us.”
Altan shrugged and picked up his stride, reaching Allium’s door. “Does it matter?”
It was open and they could see her lounging in her couch pit reading a book. Altan rapped on the door frame. She looked up and offered a brief smile. Her hand rested over her belly but she dropped it to move to the other couch facing the door on her knees, arms resting on the back of it. “Oh, you’re Seff’s fri—guards.”
The twins dipped their heads. “Altan.”
“Elio.”
She bit her lip, looking between them. Allium was very pretty, but she looked no different than most Magnolia females, and the twins weren’t impressed when they knew how she treated Seff. “Um, what can I do for you?”
Altan wasted no time. He stepped into her room and locked his gaze on her. “What do *you* know about Aiden August?”
Her green eyes went wide. “What do you know about him?”
“We asked you first,” said Elio unhelpfully.
Altan sighed. “Why did you ask about him?”
“Why was Kiran so angry about it?”
“What is this, an interrogation?” Altan snapped. Allium flinched and he realized he was so wound up by recent events and the possibility of knowing who their sire was that he was acting like a royal knothead. He shook his head. “Sorry. Just…*we* know what happened to him—”
“I knew it,” she gasped under her breath. “I knew something happened! Why would he suddenly be replaced by Sienna so abruptly? So what happened?”
“Why do you care,” began Altan, but Elio interrupted,
“He’s dead. We buried him on Kiran’s order.”
Altan glared at his brother and bared his teeth, but Elio was straight-faced. Allium’s mouth closed slowly and silence filled the large room. Luckily there was no one within earshot out in the hallway. 
The Omega seemed at a loss for words, confused and…hurt? “Did…did Lord Kiran…kill…him?”
She wasn’t used to the Sun lifestyle of blood and jealousy. Flowers weren’t meant for this kind of sun. 
Bluntly, Elio said, “Yes. We don’t know why. We were hoping you—”
Allium’s eyes filled with tears and her chin wobbled. She started to shake her head. “No. I refuse to see Lord Kiran as a killer—and the killer of his own Delta! *Why*?”
“Kiran doesn’t kill without a reason, Allium,” Altan said, trying to sound sympathetic. “Why do you care?”
She shrugged trembling shoulders. “I don’t…really. I just thought it was strange. Where did you bury him?”
“At the edge of the cemetery. Kiran said he doesn’t deserve to actually have a plot.”
Allium looked at her hands as if mentally demanding they stop shaking. Why the hell was she so shaken up? Did she really have a higher opinion about the damned gold god? One hand moved to her belly. Altan’s jaw clenched. There was nothing there to protect yet, and even if there was, no one could protect their offspring from Kiran Cyrus. Altan embraced the bitterness of having their identities forged by him.
“Then,” she began after a few moments, “he must have done something bad enough to…warrant his own death. Right?”
The brothers shared a look of disdain. “August wasn’t exactly a docile male,” growled Elio. “Kiran’s a dick and he enacts judgment how he sees fit.”
“He’s very intelligent,” Allium inputted. 
Altan’s mind was traveling as fast as a werewolf in an empty forest, trying to piece what little evidence they had to connect *something*. Thinking aloud, he said, “The Sun values the ‘like for like’ law. If someone breaks someone’s finger, then their finger is broken too. So if Kiran killed August, then…August killed someone else.”
“I heard dicks, intelligence, and killer. That can only mean me.”
Allium practically yipped, but Altan and Elio spun on their heels and staggered back. Kiran was looming in the doorway with forearms bracing the frame, jaw clenched and eyes like a knife just pulled from a forge, more wolflike than human. There was not a hint of the usual charm in his voice. The air seemed to still.
“Am I not merciful, brothers?” he rumbled. “Does judgment not equal justice? I’d think you’d want justice for Luan? For Ahana?”
Then the whole world stilled. 
Elio remained rooted, but Altan fell to his knees with a boom and crack of knees to marble. They both tried to form words but grief and realization held them back. Because…because—
The night before they buried Kiran’s Delta, news traveled like wildfire that a Moon Omega had been brutally killed. No one had specified if she was true-born Moon.  And Altan and Elio never learned who the Omega was. No one knew who the killer was.
It was clear now: Ahana Baran was murdered by Aiden August. 
They knew they were the product of rape by a Sun lesser Alpha. But they didn’t know that it was *him* who killed not just a Moon Omega…but their Sky pack aunt, the twin sister of their mother, leaving their young cousin Luan orphaned.
August raped their mother and killed Ahana. And Altan and Elio buried him.