"Where are you going?" Tukare swiftly blocks my path.
I give her a look—'Where else?!'. I evade her but she blocks me anew.
"Don't be a hasty. I've already beat Laris up when I found out."
"...He dared to confess to you?"
With a solemn look, Tukare said, "He did."
Seeing red, I dash away, Tukare unable to block me as she reached a stalemate with my shadows. Unfortunately for me, it only takes her a few seconds to disperse them.
Mother used to be unable to block Tukare and I's mental advances. It seems that it's the same when it comes to each other; people of the same blood negate each other, like two waves destroying each other or two fires cancelling the other. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the same concept with the Healer-kind and their corruption. If I can't block or control her, then I assume that she can't do the same to me either with her telekinesis. As for our sensuality duplication, perhaps it's not affected solely because it's not a 'controlling' skill, but rather a 'duplication' skill? Though I have no proof to base my theory—there is no other pair of siblings like us in this world to compare it to.
I run out of the few trees and pause for a fraction of a second, taking a sniff at the surroundings, listening closely. My senses have remained sharp ever since I've learned to see not with my eyes. I catch a whiff of Laris' scent from the doctor's tent along with a few others. He must not have left there yet.
"Videre!"
I ignore Tukare's calls behind me.
I don't dally, heading straight through the tent flap and casting my glare at the person in question.
"Videre, what happened?" Laris jerks up at my bloodlust. He was sitting beside Letitia's bed, with a wet towel in his hand.
I lunge at him, onsetting pandemonium inside the doctor's tent.
"What are doing?!" The few people inside stand up in attentiveness, albeit a step too late.
"Alpha, get back!"
"Call Serena!"
"Stop him!"
I grab whatever object I get my hands on and accurately throw it at the heads of people to knock them cold.
"Stop right there!" A female Lycan-kind yells and tries to grab my waist, but I side-step her, hitting her nape on the process and making her fall to the ground unconscious.
"Videre, have you gone insane?!" Theo accuses me, all the while raising a chair in the air as a shield.
"What's happening?!" Girtro, as if led by his heart of gossip, barges into the doctor's tent.
"I refuse to accept you! I will not acknowledge your relationship with Tukare!" I chop the nape of another Lycan man that pounced at me.
"Relationship with Tukare? What—just her? What about you?" He shoots me a genuinely confused expression, but I was too angry to have noticed.
"You even dare to have a relationship with me?! You want me to accept being your brother-in-law?! Or do you want a fucking harem?!"
I incapacitated the last two-legged obstacle. Now, there was only Laris, Girtro and I standing—Theo was too busy crouching behind the chair.
" Ha—Harem?! I don't know what you're talking about!" Laris desperately tries to evade me, going around Letitia's bed as I chase after him. "Videre, Videre, listen to me—Can't we just talk this over?"
"Unforgivable!" I yell at him as I jump over Letitia's bed, finally tackling Laris to the ground, too angry and mentally disorganized to even call a wisp. Sitting on top of Laris and grabbing his collar, I shout, "You seduced her, you slag! How dare you—!"
Before I can even land a hit on his face, I got tackled to the ground by Tukare and now we wrestle on the ground, rolling around until Tukare grabs my arm and pins it at my back.
"Let go, Tukare! I will not acknowledge him as my brother-in-law!"
"Thank goodness. That was close." Laris breathes a sigh of relief, holding his chest and then picking himself up; dusting off the dirt from his clothes.
"I'm happy you're all lively and everything, but can you all keep it down a little?"
"Letitia! How are you feeling?" Laris gestures at the doctor to come immediately as he hops over to her bedside.
"Like people have been yelling while running around my bed", she laughs hoarsely. "Though I am glad you guys still try to include me in whatever excitement's happening. So, anybody care to tell me who's harem we're building?" She takes a sip of warm water from the cup Laris hands over. Theo finally let go of the chair to help in supporting her to sit up.
"That", Laris trails off with a weird look, unsure.
While Letitia is being checked by the doctor, Laris turns to Tukare for an answer, much to my discontent. With Tukare holding me, every wisp I make disappears the second it's made.
"What did you tell him?"
With the same solemn expression, Tukare replies, "I told him about our family."
There's a change of expression in Laris' face, from befuddlement to doubt to pensive.
"I see." Laris kneels down in front of me and I gaze at him coldly. "Although I know you're furious, and find it hard to accept, I still hope that one day, you'll be able to forgive us and acknowledge as your family. Videre, won't you try to see me as your older brother, and Letitia as your older sister?"
"No", I coldly retort. "I will not give Tukare to you."
"Give?" Theo interrupts from the side with an innocent expression, "Then, you're fine with giving yourself?"
"..."
Girtro raising his hand also interrupts, "Well~ This has indeed been very amusing, but why can't I help but think that you're all misunderstanding each other." He crosses his arms, grinning.
Everybody, "..."
Laris seems to have understood what Girtro meant because he asks me, "Videre, what do you mean by 'brother-in-law'? Isn't it supposed to be 'cousin'?"
"...Cou...sin?"
Letitia scolds, "Oh, you traumatized the poor thing." The twins began their own banter.
After a while, all I managed to say was one name with a dark face, "...Tukare."
Tukare abruptly jumps up and away from me. I stand up slowly, while everyone noticeably backs a few steps, except Letitia who is calmly holding her cup of steaming water, and Girtro who is watching everything unfold with fervor.
"I'm not wrong. You just decided to run away before I can explain", Tukare confidently utters.
"Tukare—"
"It's not my fault", she stubbornly cuts me off as she looks away steadily.
"Tukare", I say, much softer this time as I touch her cheek.
The soft tone makes turn her hesitantly, imitating a rusted lever that naturally doesn't want to be pulled. With a blank face, I grip her cheeks with both hands, pull my head back and smack her forehead with mine.
"Angh—!"
When I remove my head from hers, both our foreheads are tomato red. She doesn't move or wipe the small trail of blood flowing down her nose. This mule obviously doesn't want to admit her wrong so she stays quiet.
Laris flinches when I look at him.
"Explain."
Awkwardly, Laris starts to elaborate as much as possible to prevent further misunderstandings.
As it turns out, their mother, Lucille Ashraf is the younger half-sibling of the current Alpha King, Vaughn Ashraf. Their father, the previous Alpha King, from the Blackshade Pack created an arranged marriage to tie together their pack with the second largest one, the Clearwater Pack. Vaughn was born out of this marriage. Unfortunately, when the previous Alpha King visited the third largest and powerful pack, the Evergreen Pack, in the hopes of uniting all three, he met his destined mate, Lucille's mother who was the daughter of the pack alpha, and now the Evergreen City's lord.
On the other hand, their father is our mother's older brother who had given up the seat of elders to pursue his research. Our mother was forced to take that seat out of peer pressure because her brother did not want it. Maybe Mother was even influenced by this Uncle we haven't met yet into venturing outside to research for herself.
If Uncle and Mother are siblings, then I wouldn't be surprised if they initially wanted to experiment similar to how Mother did with Father. But I don't voice this out.
Later on, Uncle met the twin's mother, Lucille Ashraf, at one of his travels, and ended up falling in love with her.
Lucille lied about her husband, hiding the fact that he was alive and was from the Satori-kind. Vaughn, upon finding out, had branded her as a traitor and left a kill-at-sight order for all Lycans. Lucille had run away with the twins. With no lead about their whereabouts, Vaughn widened his search and ended up finding about us, and probably with the hopes of smoking out our Uncle, he took our parents lives and hid us in that exclusive dungeon for Alpha traitors under the main palace at Blackshade City.
"Our father didn't know that your mother had made a family of her own outside of the other elders' knowledge. By the time we found out that about you and Tukare, it was already too late."
Letitia also adds, "We weren't able to get any leads on where Vaughn had hidden you. So Father proposed to have us infiltrate. But Vaughn's security is tighter than you think." Letitia coughs a little to ease her throat.
"Can the patient please be good for once and be quiet?" Laris sarcastically says. This is my first time hearing him sardonically answering. Most of the time, he's very courteous.
"That's about it", Laris can't help but say when I remain silent.
By the end of his explanation, I had a clear comprehension of everything. But understanding and accepting have always been two different things. It's just that, between two demons, I choose the lesser one.
"You're not angry?" Laris observes me.
"I am." I say coolly.
Laris, "..."
Theo, who was silently inching the chair in front of him, "..."
Everyone else, "..."
I can almost hear them asking why I'm not chasing after anyone; gaining the opposite reaction of what they expected.
"Videre, you have to make sure you call me older sister, okay?" Letitia grins, dispersing the bizarre atmosphere.
Feeling threatened of her position, Tukare stiffens and throws a pointed look at Letitia and then at me, and then back at Letitia.
"Don't look at me like that, Tukare. I gave you the chance to call me older sister before but you refused." She pouts and pretends to be disappointed, looks away with her chin slightly raised.
"Just call her 'pig' or Letitia", Tukare tells me, ignoring Letitia completely. "Whichever is fine. She eats a lot anyway, so the name is synonymous."
Girtro snorts, covering his mouth to lessen the noise, but bending over and shaking makes it so obvious.
Letitia scowls and shoots her anger elsewhere, "Girtro, you traitor! Our food transactions are over!"
Girtro, who got shot in passing, "Ah~! No way!"
"Mm", I nod at Tukare.
"Oi—How rude! I swear, you both aren't the cutest younger cousins at all!"
Laris claps his hands and instructs people to tend to the trail of 'wounded' people I left at my wake. He walks over and questions, "You're really not against it? Us being cousins, I mean. Don't you want to...hit someone?", he cautiously utters.
I look at Tukare. She smiles brightly when she sees me looking.
"...At this point, I feel like anything other than brother-in-law is fine", I tell Laris.
I left Laris dumbfounded as I walk out of the doctor's tent. Choosing a place with scarce people, I skillfully jump to grab a branch and hoist myself up; planning to sleep on one of the sturdier branches. I don't plan on staying inside the same tent with other people.
"...!"
I look down behind me when I feel eyes on me. There wasn't any noise, and the feeling of their stare was gone just as fast as it came. I try to get some sleep after minutes of nothing happening.
Sadly, sleep eludes me.