by Dana Archer
Part 1 of 2
Zach
Tonight’s alpha-crowning ceremony resembles the gatherings my father used to take his children to centuries ago. I’d attended those celebrations alongside Kade and my other brothers. We’d gloried in the attention, from the other alpha’s compliments on our strength to the females who’d sneak away with us. Those occasions had been pleasurable. Too bad I can’t say the same about this one.
With purposeful strides, I cross the open yard, ignoring the heated glances of the females in attendance. Some of whom accompanied their fathers and brothers to this momentous event. Some I’ve known for centuries. Some I’ve used to get off. Some I’ve dismissed. Only one I’ve hurt, and Ella is the only female I want undressing me with her eyes. For her sake—for my sanity—I keep my focus on the reason I’m here and take my place in line to offer my life to my brother, my alpha, and my king.
The ground in front of where Kade stands is soaked in the blood of those who’ve offered their allegiance before me. I’m the last to participate in this ceremony, and the only male partaking who doesn’t need to be here. I’m already an Alexander, and my loyalty to my brother is indisputable.
The same can’t be said for the Royal standing face-to-face with Kade. Minutes pass while Daegan and Kade stare at each other before Kade’s mouth moves ever so slightly. A shirtless Daegan closes his eyes, and Kade pushes the deadly assassin to his knees. Daegan doesn’t resist. He spreads his arms and tips his head back, offering his life to Kade.
With a swipe of his hand, Kade rips open Daegan’s chest, and the ancient’s blood runs in rivulets over his defined stomach and soaks his jeans. Still, Daegan doesn’t move even as Kade pries down Daegan’s jaw and holds his wrist over Daegan’s mouth. Blood wells from Kade’s uncut skin, then drips onto Daegan’s tongue. The open wounds on his chest seal, and Daegan stands, then walks away, the blood allegiance between Daegan and Kade sealed.
Kade raises his head and looks at me with a question in his eyes. Without letting my reason for being here show on my expression, I jerk my shirt over my head and step in front of Kade. Then hold his gaze as his equal when I am anything but. I’m a brother. I’m a pride mate. I’m a friend. I’m also a man who needs answers. Kade can give them to me.
The barrier around my mind crashes, and my alpha’s presence surrounds me.
“What game do you play, little brother?”
“No game.”
“Then why are you here? Do you think to challenge me? Or reject your place as a member of my pride?”
“You know why I’m here.” I glare at Kade from inches away. Me being here is no surprise. My true mate was a Yuran. Kade knows this. I told him everything that happened to her, including how I failed her. “You hold the Yuran spirit.”
“I can’t bring Mildred back to you.”
“But you can cast her soul out, and she can be reborn as a human. You have until the full moon rises to disown any Yuran, living or dead. That’s tonight. You have time to cast her out and give me a second chance with my true mate.”
“I can, but I won’t.”
“What? You—”
Kade’s sharpened nails dig into my shoulders and lock me in place. Had I wanted to fight him, I could. I’m physically as strong as my brother. I don’t move a muscle, however. I don’t want to fight him.
“You want answers.” Kade responds to my internal debate.
“Yes.” I rest my forehead against Kade’s. “You can give me another chance with my true mate, but you won’t. Why?”
“Mildred’s already sacrificed to give you another chance at love, and it’s not with her.”
“With Ella.”
Kade doesn’t respond, not to agree or tell me I’m wrong. He waits and stares and demands I speak. I take deep breaths laced with the faint scent of lavender mixed into the air and swallow my pride. I need answers. If I must beg for them, I will. “Please, Kade. You don’t understand what it’s like to live on without any hope of finding your true mate again. You don’t know how often I’ve contemplated death just to be with Mildred.”
“And why haven’t you taken your life?”
“There was no guarantee I’d be able to find her. We never soul bonded. She was a Yuran. I’m an Alexander. Our families never mingled. We might’ve spent eternity apart anyway. It’s not as if the heavens have GPS. They’re a reflection of our lives, and Mildred and I spent a scant few days together while we fought our shared enemy. Those aren’t the type of moments that guarantee two souls will seek each other out in the afterlife.”
“For nearly two weeks I’ve held the spirit of the Yuran pride. For nearly two weeks, our dead have intermingled—Alexander and Yuran. For nearly two weeks, they’ve shared the same heaven. For nearly two weeks, Mildred’s soul has been accessible to you. Why haven’t you taken your life?”
No answer comes to me.
“Don’t lie to me, little brother. Why haven’t you taken your life?”
I shake my head.
Kade reels back and whacks me, the thud of his skull hitting mine radiating through me. “Answer me!”
“Ella.”
“What about her?”
“She’s my beloved human. I have an obligation to protect her.”
“And you’ve protected her by ignoring her…for years?”
“I was trained as a spy. I know how to hide in the shadows, and I’ve used that training with Ella. Trust me, I’ve been close. I’ve been watching her. Guarding her.”
“And falling in love with her.”
I stare into Kade’s eyes but don’t answer. Doing so would be a betrayal to my true mate.
“I can help you, little brother. I can end your life right now. I can reunite you with your true mate. All you have to do is ask for it. Do it, Zach. Do it and piss on the sacrifice Mildred’s made for you. Do it and taint the memory of her love for you.” Kade presses his clawed hand to my chest, right over my heart, and curls his fingers, digging thickened nails into my muscle. “Decide. Now.”
“What sacrifice did she make? She’s dead. She can’t come back to me on her own. Only you can bring us together and give us a chance at life, a chance at loving each other, a chance at forever just like you and Zoe have.”
Kade’s mocking laugh reverberates in my mind. “You’re right. She knew she couldn’t come back to you. Dead means dead, but she could beg her goddess to sever her tie to you. And she did do exactly that. She begged. She pleaded. And she cried, beseeching all who’d listen, until the Yuran goddess took pity on her and severed your bond. You don’t have a true mate anymore, little brother. You haven’t had one for years, and you’ll never have another true mate. Doesn’t matter if you die tonight, tomorrow, a decade from now. Your true mate won’t be waiting in the heavens to welcome you. In her place will be a woman you spent a scant few days with while the woman you love now is here. Alone.”
“Why would Mildred do that?”
Kade pushes against my chest, pressing hard enough to splinter my ribs, then stills his clawed fist inches from my heart. “I can make it so you can ask her. I can bring the two of you together again. Then you can beg her to love you. Maybe she’ll have pity on you a second time and give you another chance. Or maybe she’ll curse you out for throwing her gift back in her face. Honestly, that’s what I’d do. I’d call you pathetic for holding on to a future you lost while the one you could have is slipping through your fingers.”
“Screw you, Kade.”
“Decide. Yes or no. I have another party to attend after this one, and I’m dying to know what Josh decided to name his babies.”
With my gaze locked to Kade’s, I take the only choice open to me. I can’t leave Ella unprotected.
I drop to my knees, Kade’s sharpened nails ripping my chest open, and spread my arms and tip my head back.
Kade draws his fingertips over my eyes, closing them, and tugs my chin, jerking my mouth open. A moment later, hot, chocolate-flavored blood spills over my tongue
and down my throat. Bolts of red-hot pain shoot into my soul. For a moment, the heavens open to me. The innocent female I’d loved and lost meets my gaze.
Then Mildred turns away. Dismissing me.
On a gasping inhale, I open my eyes. Kade’s face fills my vision, then he steps aside and the woman standing behind him becomes my world. Ella stares at me, but there isn’t concern in her gaze. There’s no hatred either. No lust. No curiosity. Indifference looks back at me.
Then Ella turns away. Dismissing me as Mildred had.
Cursing, I go after my beloved human, weaving around the shifters blocking me from her, and catch up to Ella as she reaches her expensive sports car, one of the few she owns. “Ella! Wait.”
She stops with her hand on the door handle and glances over her shoulder but doesn’t speak. She cocks a brow, and her expression says more than any words she could utter. She’s given up on me. She’s done with my lies. She’s moved on.
I haven’t. I don’t even know what I’m looking for or what I want from this woman, but I don’t want to leave her any more than I did when Kade offered to reunite me with Mildred.
Ella leans against the car and crosses her arms, her shiny dress sleeves hiding her battle scars as effectively as the long skirt brushing over her heeled shoes does. “Do you need something?”
“Yes.”
She raises a brow. “And that would be?”
“The truth.”
“About?”
Softer questions tease my mind. Whether she feels this thing between us. If she’s realized I’ve lied to her. How she’d feel knowing she’s my second chance. What it’ll take to put my guilt behind me and accept the sacrifice Mildred made for me. If Ella can get past how I’ve treated her to understand why. None of those questions come out of my mouth.
I skim the back of my hand over Ella’s cheek, her softness a lure I’ve fought too long, and step closer, crowding her with my legs on either side of hers. “What are you planning?”
“Tonight? Well, I was going to change and pick up someone, then head out to Josh’s place for the name-binding ceremony.”
“You know what I’m talking about.” I trace Ella’s lower lip, and the memory of having her mouth on my body slams into me and stirs all the guilt I’ve choked under since I first touched this woman, but there’s no longer a reason for it. Kade’s given me the answer as to why I’ve craved Ella. My true mate arranged it so I’d get another chance. I made it the night I laid eyes on Ella.
She flicks my hand off but makes no move to push me away or duck under my arm and escape. “No, Zach. I really don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re essentially a stranger to me. I don’t know what you’re thinking, and I don’t know why you’d care what I’m planning, if indeed I’m planning anything. This is the most you’ve spoken to me in years.”
She’s right. I’ve messed up my role with her. Instead of treating her as my beloved human, I’ve avoided her. I had to. Truth is, I sickened myself thinking about what I wanted to do with a woman who wasn’t my true mate. “You were planning on leaving without telling your staff.”
Ella studies me with a calculating expression, possibly wondering how I’d learned of her trip. “Sabbaticals don’t require a formal announcement. I’m merely taking some well-deserved time off.”
“Without informing me.”
“I haven’t informed you of anything I’ve done. I didn’t tell you when I started at the Virginia Shifter Affairs office, and I didn’t let you know when I made the move to West Virginia. You didn’t have a problem not knowing about either of those moves. This is a sabbatical—a vacation—nothing more.”
“Sabbaticals don’t require alternate arrangements made if you don’t come back from them.” I lean closer, and the subtle scent of lavender wafts around me, tempting me with things I’ve felt shameful about. If I’m honest with myself, I still do, but I also need to figure out why I watch this woman sleep for hours on end and ache to hold her. “You’ve made permanent arrangements, including sending a sealed letter of recommendation for the person you’d want to replace you as head agent.”
“How do you know this?”
“I have my resources.” And those friends have been invaluable when it came to watching over Ella when pride matters pulled me away.
“Okay, so you have an inside source. Goodie for you. Now answer this: why are you keeping tabs on me?”
“You’re my beloved human.”
“Because I’m your beloved human? Really? Not because I’m your true mate?” Her tone smacks the truth back at me. She knows I lied.
No good response comes to me. What I did and how I treated Ella was wrong. The relief over knowing I wasn’t some sick bastard for desiring another woman is wrong too. Darn if I can stop the wave of relief, however. I settle my palm on Ella’s hip and brush my nose along her cheek to her ear and greedily take in her fresh lavender scent. “You don’t know everything.”
“You’re right, because you didn’t tell me. Other men did. Other men held me when I cried over you. Other men raised me up when I was at my lowest. Not you. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” She pushes against my chest. “I have places to be. Other men are waiting for me there too.”
“Where are you going?”
“Josh’s place. I told you that.”
“Tomorrow. Where are you going once you start your sabbatical?”
She makes an amused sound, and her shaky breath heats my skin. “Anywhere I darn well please.”
An argument sits on my tongue, but I step back and motion to her car. “Then get out of here. You’ve got places to go. People to see. That sort of thing, right?”
Ella nods, then gets into the car. She scrutinizes me, even as she starts the vehicle and pulls away. Her gaze in the rearview mirror pierces me and urges me to follow her. I hold my ground. I haven’t lived this long without learning from my mistakes, and I majorly screwed up this thing with Ella. Honestly, I don’t even know what this thing between us is called, but I’m not stupid enough to piss away the sacrifice Mildred made for me.
Love’s like that. You roll with the punches, and sometimes you end up in a new direction.
Part 2 of 2
Aron
Nobody talks about the role I played in Mira’s destiny. Nobody so much as remembers my name unless it’s brought up. Nobody cares that the goddesses’ prophecy for Mira’s babies royally messed with my sanity. And I couldn’t be more pleased with the anonymity. Actually, I would’ve been happy if nobody ever spoke to me again.
One freaking phone call sank that hope, however. My quiet plans for the weekend turned into babysitting duty for a child assassin who knows as much about shamanism as I do.
“Which one is my mother?”
I give Mira and the three swaddled infants she’s laying out in the middle of the barn one last glance and turn my attention to the human child I brought back with me from upstate Pennsylvania. “Can’t you guess? She’s a shaman like you. I thought you told me you could recognize your kindred.”
Zion looks at me with dark blue eyes that carry a touch of innocence despite having taken the lives of several of Asa’s enemies. “There are a lot of powerful women here.”
I don’t know what to make of that statement, and I don’t want to ask either. The less time I have to spend here, the better. Someone might remember I was supposed to be the male to father Mira’s babies, and that would make this visit beyond awkward.
Dropping to a crouch, I loop my arm around the boy’s shoulders and turn him so we’re facing the table along the side wall where my cousins and their mates are sitting. “Over there.”
“Which one? Can you just point?” A touch of excitement blends into his voice.
“Pointing is rude.”
“Aron’s right.” Officer Rodrick, the blonde human cop who was pointed out to me last summer but I never spoke to, squats in front of Zion. “Your mom would give you the evil eye if she saw you doing that, and if my cousin didn’t, I
would.”
Zion bunches his forehead. “Who are you?”
“Your cousin Bree.” She smiles at the young boy with such an expression of pure joy, Zion grins too. “And I’m so happy you’re here with us. Your Uncle Josh is happy too. And your mom…she’s had her prayers answered.”
“Which one is she?”
Bree glances over her shoulder. “Do you see the woman with the silver-and-purple hair who’s…” She props herself with a hand on the ground and leans to the side to get a better view. “Who’s drinking from the top of a…of a skull.”
“It’s a skull cup, actually. They were quite common among the ancients of our world.”
Bree stares at me with an intensity that leaves me studying this human I’d never really took notice of before. Pretty, petite, pleasant—the descriptions come to mind easily. I’d thought the same last summer in an absentminded acknowledgment of her features, but tonight, my felines focus on her strength, her grit, her will. I hadn’t noticed this side of Bree. Of course, wrestling with a prophecy I wanted no part of left me focused on other things besides meeting yet another human who is simply waiting for the day to die.
“Hi, Zion.”
At Zoe’s greeting, I break from Bree’s scrutiny and stand, then step back, giving mother and son a chance to meet for the first time.
Zoe catches my gaze, a thank-you in her expression. I nod, and Zoe kneels, tucking her legs beneath her, and rests her laced fingers on her lap as if needing to restrain her hands so she doesn’t grab ahold of her son. Her white knuckles and the way she leans slightly toward him hints at her precarious restraint, but her smile is patient and her tone is comforting. “I can’t believe I’m actually looking at you. You’re more handsome than I ever imagined.”
Zion stares wide-eyed at his mother. “I see Hell in your eyes.”
Zoe exhales and wets her lips, the deliberate move giving her a chance to visibly steel her spine. “That’s because I conquered Hell so we could be together again.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
