Her Brother, Her Mate

Mark POV

“Which one of you little fuckers was it?” Mom sneers, glaring at us from behind her desk. She has both of us on the ground, kneeling with our arms above our heads like four-year-olds. She won’t beat us, but she says she will make us hurt physically every time we f**k up, and we f**k up a lot.

Kneeling with our arms above our heads is actually one of the more mild punishments. Mitch and I have both done walk-squats repeatedly for hours in the past. Then there are punch-ups, planks, burpees, suicides; our mother is a sadist at heart, I just know it. She doesn’t physically punish us with her own hands, but she makes us punish ourselves.

And we always do.

If we don’t, she gets dad. We sure as hell don’t want her to get dad. It happened once, and we never want that to happen again.

“Which one of us did what this time, mother?” Mitch asks in a whimpering voice. He’s the baby and he can usually sway her in his favor if he tries hard enough. He’s laying it on her thick right now. I couldn’t help the smirk spreading on my face, knowing this wouldn’t last long. I can already see her resolve cracking as she looks at him. His baby face and mused hair; big puppy dog eyes. She’s going to crack.

“One of you had s*x with my new yoga instructor. The yoga instructor who was just hired last week and I ordered both of you to stay away from. Which one of you did it?”

I bit my lips, knowing that it wasn’t one but both of us. She came onto both of us and we were only being polite and going along with what she wanted. Downward dogging with for hours as we took turns twisting her up every way she wanted to go. I thought it was a warm way to welcome her.

“Who?” Mitch fakes innocence.

“The yoga instructor!” Mom screams. “She quit this morning because whichever one of you did it, gave her the number of a postmate’s driver instead of your f*****g number! She has been texting a delivery driver named Bart pictures of her t**s all weekend.”

“Lucky Bart,” I couldn’t help but murmur.

“Not so lucky if his name is Bart,” Mitch retorts.

“Can you imagine the nicknames in school? Bart-the-fart.”

“Barty McFarty.”

“Tarty Barty.”

“I wonder if his last name is Simpson?” Mitch muses.

“That would be epic,” I high fived his hands in the air.

“Idiots. I raised two idiots. Why can’t you be more like your brother?” Mom throws the ever present statement at us. Matt, the freaking saint, never had to kneel in front of mom like this. He was the golden boy, always doing the right thing from the second he was born. Now he’s the gamma, with the perfect mate, and the perfect life. Lilly gave him 2 sons and we don’t even have our mates yet. Mitch and I are the screw-ups of the family, and we know it. We own it.

“Mom, do you really want to have some loose yoga instructor that sends nude pics to random strangers? What if she did that to a hotel guest? I bet Bart will never come stay with us now that his heart has been broken by Melissa.”

“Mallory,” I corrected him.

“Michelle?” he rubs his chin thinking, drawing his eyebrows down to shade his contemplating face.

“Her name was Amanda,” my mom sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“We don’t even know the lady’s name, Mom. It wasn’t us,” Mitch pouts.

“I’ve been at the pack house all week. You know that,” I told her in a hurt voice.

“How can you accuse your sons of doing something without any proof it was us?” Mitch scolds her, puffing out his cheeks to add to the effect.

“Get out,” she huffs, sinking back into her chair behind her desk. Mitch and I grin at each other, knowing we won with minimal damage to our muscles. We will just have a good swole for the club later tonight.

Carli and Parker are celebrating their 10-year anniversary at Bloodlust and all our old group is invited. Everyone except Casey, who couldn’t make it down since his wife was pregnant with their fourth and was nearing her due date. To think he would have 4 babies, Carli and Parker have 2, Simone and Vince have a little girl, even Hillary and Daryl popped out a brat last year. Laura and her vampire mate are expecting now that she’s quit work as a warrior.

We are the only ones left who are unmated and childless. At least as far as we know.

I wrap my s**t up, but I’m not so sure about Mitch. He has been more loose with his morals and standards lately, and I know he is just desperate not to feel so alone anymore. It’s the same for me. Flying through tail was fun, but we’re not young anymore. 28 and unmated isn’t great when the rest of our pack are living happy lives with their soul mates.This belongs © NôvelDra/ma.Org.

“Oh, before you leave,” mom stops us as we make our retreat, “I have a new event coordinator coming. She will be arriving tomorrow. DO. NOT. Try sleeping with her,” her eyes tighten in on us. “If I even see you coming onto her, talking to her, or breathing the same air as her, I will call your father.”

“What if she comes on to us?” Mitch challenges like a fool. I slapped him on the back of the head for saying that question out loud. Mom is going to make us kneel again.

To my surprise, mom is smirking, a twinkle in her eye. “That will not happen. She is….different. She will not be impressed with either one of you, I’m sure.”

“How do you know that?” I can’t help but ask.

She doesn’t even look up from the papers she is studying on her desk, “She is not interested in playboys like you. That’s all you need to know.”

“I bet I could-” Mitch starts before mom chucks a stapler at him, cutting him off.

“If she quits because you won’t leave her alone, I will disinherit both of you. I’m tired of searching for new female employees because you two can’t keep your peckers in your too short shorts. I hired this woman because I know she wouldn’t fall for your charms, but she will likely leave if you harass her too much,” Mom sighed and shook her head, “When she asked why the last person quit, I had to use Lilly’s story to tide her over because I was too scared she wouldn’t take the offer if I told her the truth. That one of my sons screwed her and left her asleep and naked in the men’s locker room.”

“It wasn’t my fault she passed out. I wasn’t going to carry her sloppy, fish smelling-”

“DON’T!” Mom yells, plugging her ears to cut off Mitch’s speech, “I don’t want to hear it. Leave Hadley alone, understand?”

“Hadley?” I tried out the name, “It’s pretty. Hadley.”

“Don’t” Her eyes narrowed on me.

“Yes, ma’am,” we both say mockingly, then high-tail it before she throws something else at us.

“I’d say, mom doesn’t want us to welcome our new friend Hadley,” Mitch snorts.

I sighed, shaking my head, “I love making new friends.”

“It’s the friendly thing to do.”

“I wonder what she means when she says she’s different?”

Mitch shrugs, “Maybe she’s a lesbian?”

“Me too!” I gushed, “I played softball once.”

“And you like girls. It’s a sign.”

“I think I found my ice breaker,” I laughed with him. Our laughter soon dies into nervous chuckles. “Think mom will really get dad this time, or another empty threat?”

“She hasn’t made that threat in a long time,” Mitch shrugs.

“I don’t think I want to test her to see,” I admitted.

Mitch sighs, winking at the receptionist as we pass by the front desk. She turns bright red and goes into a fit full of giggles with her friend when she thinks we’re too far away to hear her.

“I guess Hadley is really off limits,” he shrugs.

“Too bad for Hadley,” I shrugged with him.