"That is cheating. I put you down first, motherfucker!" The twin on the floor gritted out, glaring up at the other with darkened silver eyes.

"There is no such thing as cheating in war, bro. You use any trick available to win. What do you think?" He grinned down at his twin, who didn’t look amused, and patted the hand around his neck to signal a release.

Sebastian let him go and stepped back, offering Alex a hand to pull him to his feet. If Alex saw the hand extended in front of him he ignored it entirely, getting up without taking it.

Sebastian didn’t let it show that it stung. He brought his hand back to his side and tucked it into his pocket as he took in the mirror image of himself standing shirtless before him. They were identical in every way except for the tattoos, where Sebastian had the snake scales across his chest, Alex had a face inked into his skin instead. The face of the woman he loved.

"I thought you wouldn’t make it here on time," Alex remarked, his cold eyes not softening even slightly at the sight of his twin. "You’re always known for taking your precious time whenever it’s my turn to step out."

"I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, bro. Believe it or not, you’re still my family, and I can’t watch you die slowly by deliberately delaying my arrival," Sebastian said, holding his brother’s grudging gaze, the same eyes that had once looked at him like he was the only person in the world worth trusting.

Alex let out a laugh with no warmth in it. "Since when has my selfish brother started putting anyone above himself? Admit it or not, Seb, you are keeping me alive because you know that if I die from any cause that didn’t come from your own hand, you will die along with me. What a life the Kade twins live, fate binding us in the cruelest way possible. We come into the world together and we leave it together."

Sebastian’s fingers curled into a fist inside his trouser pocket. He said nothing. He just looked at his brother, knowing that whatever he offered in response, Alex wouldn’t believe it anymore.

It was the truth that the twins born with Alpha strength were bound together in a way that if one died the other would follow not long after. The only way to break that bond was if one twin killed the other with his own hands.

"You will never forgive me for it, will you?" Sebastian asked quietly, and rather than an answer, Alex’s fist connected with his face and his hand grabbed his collar.

"Never." He gritted. "Not until you experience what I went through after what you did to her. You promised me, you fucking promised me, and in the end you still killed her. You killed her for me!"

Alex hit him again and Sebastian did nothing to stop it. It was a cycle he had learned to move through, because if taking the hits helped his brother’s rage dissolve enough for them to reach something that resembled the closeness they had once had, he would stand there and take every one of them.

As he took the blows, Sebastian recalled how all of this had started, back when they were still young and still cared about each other without the weight of everything that came after.

Years ago...

A young Sebastian had just left the meeting with the elders, his expression dark and cold as he walked down the halls with one of the elders hurrying behind him, struggling to keep up with his pace.

"I told you to stop following me. There is no way that will happen." Young Sebastian gritted, his fists clenched at his sides.

"But you know two people with the same strength cannot rule the pack. One of you will have to take over and the other has...has to die."

Sebastian’s footsteps stopped in the hallway and he turned his eyes on the elder, who quickly bowed his head because the aura rolling off the young boy was so intense it was suffocating. "My father didn’t kill his twin brother." He gritted through clenched teeth. "His brother stepped down and gave him the chance to take the Alpha position. Why can’t that happen for us?"

Though Sebastian asked the question, he already knew the answer. Because his father and his twin hadn’t shared the same strength or aura. They had been identical in face but the late Alpha had been far more powerful.

"We have never had a pack ruled by two Alphas, one has to go. And I believe it should be Alex. He is too soft for the Alpha seat. You are the one suited to rule us. You have to think about this pack and its people. We need someone emotionally strong and that is you."

The young Sebastian stared at the elder, who was none other than Elder Halvrek, his lips pressed together and his fist clenched tight at his side. He said nothing. He turned and walked away from the elder who wanted him to kill his brother, his best friend, his family.

He was so conflicted he didn’t know what to do. If he chose to step aside and let Alex take the seat, enemies would attack his brother emotionally and tear him apart. Alex was strong in ways people didn’t see but he wore his heart openly and that would be used against him. That was when the idea came to him and he went to find his twin.

"Alex!" Sebastian called as he stepped into his twin’s room to find him sitting on the floor with photographs of their parents scattered around him, tears running silently down his face. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"Seb..." Alex muttered, wiping his face quickly with the back of his hand. "How many times do I have to tell you to knock before you walk into someone’s room?" He chided, his voice unsteady.

Sebastian’s lips pressed into a line. "I don’t see the need to knock at your door." His eyes dropped to his mother’s smiling face in one of the photographs and his jaw tightened. He looked away quickly. "I have something to tell you."

"I know." The young Alex said, gathering the photographs and placing them carefully back in their box. "They want you to kill me so you can become Alpha."

"But I won’t do that." Sebastian said flatly. "Mama and Papa would never forgive me if I did."

Alex looked up at his twin with a small smile that carried too much in it. "I don’t mind, you know. You can kill me. At least that way I would go to them. They died a gory death I can never forget, Seb...I want to be where they are. I don’t want to be Alpha."

"I will not fucking kill you." Sebastian said, and his voice left no room for argument. "You might not want the position but the blood running in your veins says otherwise. I will handle it. You and I will both be Alphas of Silver and no one will know about it."

It was then that Sebastian conceived the plan to make everyone believed he had killed his brother. Being twins with the same aura, presence and strength, nobody ever caught on to the fact that during the years that followed they had switched between each other to rule the pack.

They switched positions every six months and met up on the last day of every month to fight the curse of their fate. That was how it had all started, until everything changed.