“Sounds fair to me. I’m just glad we’re doing this outside. I don’t want to have to scrub the tiles in this kitchen.” Arvyn winced as he tried to pull his top up. “Er… might need a bit of help here.”

  Kirill’s hiss was a steady rhythm in the back of his throat as he helped Arvyn strip off his pants and top, revealing a mass of big black bruises especially across his side and back. He helped Arvyn down onto his hands and knees, making sure his bulk protected Arvyn’s nakedness from the vampires still tied up. There was a shimmer, and then a gorgeous big gray wolf appeared, far larger than he’d been the first time Kirill had seen his beloved shift.

  “Claiming a god seems to have agreed with you, babe.” Kirill rested his hand on the wolf’s shoulder which was at the same height as his. “You’ve grown a bit since I saw you last.”

  All the better to take out the trash. Kirill’s eyes widened as he heard Arvyn’s voice in his head. As if to prove his point, Arvyn stalked over, every inch the wolf after his prey. But this prey couldn’t run, it couldn’t speak – Yakov and Sven were helpless to do anything as Arvyn batted the two bound forms together with a giant paw and then snagged their bindings with his teeth, lifting them both off the floor.

  Open the door please, babe.

  “Now, you’re just showing off.” Kirill smirked as the wolf trotted by with his captives. There was a bit of trouble at the door, Arvyn determined to go straight through it, but the bodies and the way he was holding them meant heads and knees got knocked about. Kirill wasn’t going to care.

  At first glance, Kirill couldn’t see anything different about the landscape surrounding the house, and definitely no sign of Seth or Ra. But then he heard a faint thump, and a ripple ran up towards the sky, a shimmer like water running across a clear windowpane. Wards. Of course. Please be all right, beloved. Kirill wasn’t getting anything from his bond with Ra and could only assume the wards Ra constructed blocked that too. A picture flashed through Kirill’s head – Ra left bleeding and broken on the Irish landscape, but Kirill pushed that away as fast as it came. He has to be all right. He just has to be.

  Arvyn, meanwhile had trotted around to what looked like a disused woodshed. It was a reasonable size, like a single car garage, and had a wooden floor. The wolf tilted his head. Will this do?

  “Perfect, beloved, just take them in and drop them on the floor.”

  Kirill stood outside for a moment, taking the time to get into the right frame of mind for what he had to do. His worries about Ra, Kirill stuffed into a box in his mind and slammed it firmly shut. Yakov’s killing wouldn’t bring the lives back of the people he’d killed through his own cruelty and greed, and it wouldn’t help those who would spend the rest of their lives living with the trauma they’d been through. But Yakov’s death would mean he could never hurt another soul, and that would have to be enough.

  Allowing his cold fury to settle over his shoulders like the coat he was still wearing, Kirill stepped into the woodshed.

  /~/~/~/~/

  Arvyn’s brain was full of jumbled thoughts. On the one hand, his wolf could appreciate that Ra needed to fight for his mates, the way any alpha would fight for his pack. He could feel a sense of pride in the way Ra was defending their mating. But as an alpha, Arvyn wasn’t used to feeling useless and unable to even offer verbal encouragement to one of the men who held his heart and soul. His wolf side was only mildly anxious, which helped. Arvyn trusted his animal spirit to know if anything went wrong in the fight he couldn’t see, although what he could do about it was a whole different story.

  Then there was the mess with Kirill. Arvyn snarled at the vampires he’d dropped onto the ground, showing all his teeth. Yakov deserved to die. In Arvyn’s head, so did Sven. It was simple. Those victims in the barn didn’t hurt themselves. The only reason Arvyn could see for talking to Sven was to find out if any of the other vampires at the coven were also involved, so their names could be given to the vampire council. But with his worry about Ra, Arvyn wasn’t in the mood to listen to a bad-guy monologue.

  The temperature in the barn dropped a full ten degrees when Kirill finally walked through the door. Arvyn could immediately see the difference, and from the way Yakov’s eyes were bugging out of his head, so could he. Cold. Stern. Kirill’s face was an emotionless mask. If Arvyn hadn’t have been able to feel his mate’s love for him through their bond, he’d have been heading for the hills. Kirill was every inch a vampire of old. Even his voice sounded deeper as he spoke.

  “I’ve never been so disgusted in one of my kind before in my life.” One handed, Kirill scooped up Yakov’s bound body, holding it up in front of him, using the other hand to rip the gag from Yakov’s mouth. Yakov gasped and it seemed like he was going to start speaking, but a frosty glare from Kirill froze the words in his throat.

  “Your crimes against me and one of my beloveds was bad enough. Drugging me, chaining me up, sending killers after the one the Fates decreed was mine. But then to find all those victims in the barn, to hear a list of similar crimes at three other covens – you’re a disgrace to vampires everywhere.”

  Arvyn glanced at Sven who was still prone on the floor. The man had a look of disbelief around his gag, and he was shaking his head madly. Maybe there is a need to talk to him after all. But Kirill was speaking again.

  “Your fate is already sealed. I told you I would rip your head from your shoulders the first time I saw you after I got free. Today’s the day. Any last words before I carry out your sentence?”

  A trickling sound bounced onto the floor. Yakov had pissed himself. “I couldn’t help it,” Yakov cried. “I’m allergic to bagged blood... Er, my father abused me... I was never loved as a child. I didn’t hurt you when I chained you up and your beloved is right here... Please, believe me… I need help, not punishments. It’s not as though any of those other people meant anything to you… Why do you even care?”

  Kirill’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing you’ve said justifies what you did to me, those poor victims, or my precious beloved. If the Fates hadn’t intervened my beloved and those captives would be dead by now.”

  “I didn’t mean…”

  “You’re not allergic to bagged blood, I’ve seen you drink it. If your father abused you it might have justified you killing him and your mother as the council strongly suggests you did, but that’s got nothing to do with what you did after that when you targeted innocents. The only reason why you didn’t want me to claim my beloved is because you knew he’d scent out your victims the first time he went for a run around the coven.”

  “There wasn’t… I mean…

  “And as for caring, I’ve always cared about others. That’s why I stayed in my position so long, even when there were days you all sickened me with your petty concerns and stupid pretentious lifestyle. I care, because in the words of the great Prince Vadim, a vampire who acts without honor disgraces us all. If you weren’t about to be dead, you could’ve looked it up. It’s on his website.”

  “Kirill, Master, please. I’m sorry.” Yakov had tears running down his cheeks. “I can change. You can help me change. I can be a better vampire. I’ll do anything… I’ll get on my knees…”

  Arvyn snarled. The stench of lies was thick around the bound vampire.

  Five lethal looking claws sprung from Kirill’s fingertips and with one slicing moment, Yakov’s head bounced onto the floor, his mouth still open, his eyes wide and unmoving. Kirill dropped the remains of his body on the floor and said to Arvyn, “Sometimes I hate my kind. I take it he was lying about everything?”

  Arvyn nodded and wrinkled his long nose. The ghost of a grin flitted across Kirill’s face, before it disappeared. “Now, Sven, what are we going to do about you?” Kirill made to reach down for Sven’s gag, when a loud popping noise and then a groan was heard from outside. “You can wait,” Kirill said to Sven, but Arvyn was already outside. He saw Ra, still in his godly form, curled up on battered ground, and he howled long and loud, sprinting for his mate.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I’m all right.” Ra coughed and took the cup of hot chocolate Arvyn had made for him. It even had little marshmallows on top and Ra appreciated the thoughtfulness. Now back in his human form, he was feeling a lot better, although embarrassed his mates had to carry his unconscious larger form into the house. Waking up curled up on their bed, covered in blankets and with a hot mate on either side of him, was a boost Ra enjoyed, even if he wished it hadn’t been necessary.

  “Honestly, I just physically overdid it a bit and what with holding onto my power for so long… I seriously need to get in better shape.” He smiled up at the worried face of his mates. “I’m sorry for the whole falling over bit, but I did win the fight. Seth knows if he ever disrespects you again in word or deed, he’ll spend the rest of eternity in the world of the dead. I know how these things are important to you both.”

  “You are important to us,” Arvyn said staunchly, climbing back on the bed, his arm draped around Ra’s shoulders. “That Seth friend of yours was an ass, yes, and I’m sure the slap-down he got was a long time coming, but we couldn’t see you, hear you…”

  “I couldn’t take the risk of us being seen by anyone,” Ra jumped in quickly. “I would’ve taken the fight back to my realm, but I didn’t want you two thinking I’d abandoned you.”

  “Will we ever get a chance to see this realm of yours? Or is it a place only gods can go?” Kirill had been quiet, but his concern shone through their bond.

  “I’m planning to take you both. You have as much right to be there as I do. I ordered Seth to start organizing a celebration with my people so you can be welcomed properly. Most of the Egyptian gods have created lives for themselves in all parts of the world, so it’ll take a while to get organized, but…”

  “You got Seth to organize it?” Arvyn laughed. “Isn’t that like rubbing shit in his face or something? You beat him, and now you’re forcing him to arrange a celebration for the two beings he hates the most?”

  “You can’t take his hate personally.” Although Ra definitely had done. “Seth doesn’t like anyone. He’s always worried that someone will take his position or influence me in a way that goes against his beliefs. After he killed Osiris and went after Horus…”

  “Hang on a minute,” Kirill interrupted quietly. “Are you telling us gods can be killed? You could’ve died during your fight with that asshole?”

  “Not permanently, no. Sorry, I said that more as a figure of speech than anything else.” Ra thought about how to explain. “Way, way, back in history – millennia ago, gods were a lot more active and interactive with human populations. The younger gods like Seth, Osiris, and Horus were still working out their place with each other and how they fit on the world stage.”

  “A sort of sibling rivalry type situation?” Arvyn asked.

  “Something like that.” Ra nodded, but only briefly. His body still felt as though he’d been backed over by a truck. “Seth and Horus were so competitive with each other, and it didn’t help that Horus usually won any competition they had. Seth was carrying around a whole heap of rage, and one day he took it out on his older brother Osiris, who was the ruler of Egypt at the time. I don’t know why Osiris was the target, but he was. Legend will tell you that Seth dismembered Osiris, spreading his body parts all over the world, later to be collected and put back together by Isis, but then in other stories Seth apparently had a casket built to fit Osiris and locked him in it, sending it floating down the Nile out to sea. But most stories about our pantheon are only one percent true, ninety-nine percent imagination. Seth and Osiris did fight, but Osiris clearly isn’t dead although he now rules the world of the dead because he chose to do so. Seth rules the deserts known as the red soil, and Horus rules the black earth, the fertile lands around the Nile. None of them explained what happened that day. If they wish me to know, they would’ve told me. But things have… They… It’s always been different after that.”

  “But you just said yourself, Seth killed Osiris.” Kirill snuggled in closer, draping his arm over Ra’s waist.

  “He did, but he didn’t, if that makes sense. The thing is, with these stories, that are purely a mortal construct, Seth became feared by some and adored by others. To me he’s a protector, to others he’s a murderer even though Osiris is still as much alive as Seth is. The stigma of that fighting, which all stemmed from I don’t know what, because they chose not to tell me, has tainted Seth, making him very distrustful of others.”

  “You don’t seem to see him in the same negative light.” Arvyn was very observant and Ra wasn’t quite sure what to say, given how rude Seth had been to his precious wolf.

  “I believe in the importance of balance and Seth is necessary to that, even if he does annoy me sometimes,” Ra said slowly. “Osiris always struggled in his slot as the older brother and Seth’s anger at him… I don’t know. Seth still holds a grudge against him. Osiris had intimacy issues and is a lot happier being among the dead than the living. Seth, because he was angry and paranoid, that made him unfit to rule over Egypt. Horus was the better choice in that respect although I took a long time to see that, which didn’t help the situation either. But in his heart, Seth is loyal, and he’s protected me for eons. He’s been associated with so many negative things and that can impact a man’s soul.”

  “I’m not inclined to have any pity for a man who threw Arvyn up against the wall,” Kirill said firmly.

  “Which is why I fought him.” Ra yawned. He was struggling to keep his eyes open. “He has no rights to touch my mates or be disrespectful of either of you. Seth’s ideals are outdated, and they will have to change, but like all other beings, he has to embrace those changes in his own time. I’m not making light of what he did today. I know it won’t happen again… it’s just…” He could not stop yawning.

  “Oh, babe, you’re really tired.” Arvyn took the still full cup of chocolate off him and encouraged Ra to lie down. “Get some rest and later…”

  “Later, I’ll run you a bath, and Arvyn will finish cooking for you.” Kirill leaned over and brushed a kiss on Ra’s temple. “We’ll talk, and play…”

  “I needed to talk to you.” Ra clutched at Kirill’s hand. “The bit about us getting pregnant. It really upset you…”

  “We can talk all about that when you wake up, little precious. Sleep.”

  That fight must have drained me more than I thought. Ra closed his eyes, barely noticing when Arvyn and Kirill got off the bed.

  /~/~/~/~/

  “I want you to check him,” Kirill whispered to Arvyn. He knew he should leave his beloved to rest, but there was something about how quickly Ra tired and then fell asleep that didn’t sit right with him.

  “Check him… what? How? I’m not a doctor.” Arvyn hissed back. “I thought gods couldn’t get sick and you heard what he said, he’s just not used to fighting someone physically.”

  “I think he could be… you know.” Kirill mimed a bulging stomach.

  Arvyn’s eyes widened. “This soon? Should I be checking you as well?”

  Kirill refused to blush. “We’ve all done a lot of stuff, so I imagine pregnancy is possible for all three of us but think about it. Ra’s ass is the one who’s taken the most pounding.”

  “He’s got an ass worth worshipping, that’s for sure. I can’t get enough of it.” Arvyn sighed. “Do you think he’ll be all right? I mean, you heard what he said. He doesn’t fight as a rule, so today was unusual for him. He’s probably just tired from being so physically active.”

  Kirill arched his eyebrow at his wolfen beloved. “And the last three days haven’t been a glorious test of endurance and physical stamina?”

  Arvyn showed his emotions a lot more openly than Kirill, and his blush suited his face. “That could be why Ra’s tired now.” He shrugged. “We pretty much didn’t leave him alone while he was awake, and you can’t tell me you weren’t tempted to plow that sweet ass even when he was asleep.”

  “You were the one who tired me out,” Kirill’s voice was husky as he cupped his hand around Arvyn’s nape, pulling him close enough their foreheads rested together. “The two of you are a dream come true for me and you turn me on just as much as our precious Ra. But call it vampire intuition, call it a hunch if you like, but I just feel there’s something more behind Ra’s tiredness than that bastard Seth knocking the hell out of him.”

  Arvyn caught his bottom lip in his top teeth. “It did seem weird, Ra said he won the fight, and he didn’t lie, but he was the one we found unconscious. There was no sign of Seth.”

  “If Seth had won, he’d have been gloating and probably looking for us so he could attempt killing us.” Kirill had no illusions about the arrogant god, even if Ra had a soft spot for him. “I’m not sure how this immortality shit works, but… Ra’s not doing that kind of shit on his own again.”

  “Maybe let’s talk to Paulie or someone about what this immortality shit as you call it does cover before we go fighting gods, okay?” Arvyn’s hands rested on Kirill’s hips. “You’re truly worried about Ra, aren’t you? Or is this more to do with the fact we did just find out we could get pregnant today?”

  “Again, thanks to fucking Seth.” Kirill closed his eyes and sighed. “You have no idea how much I love you both, and…”

  “No. No.” Arvyn interrupted quickly, his hand over Kirill’s mouth causing him to open his eyes. “This is a moment-moment. You just said you loved us both.”

  Kirill ducked his head away from Arvyn’s hand. “Yes, but…”

  “No. There’s no but when you say something that important.” Arvyn’s hand was over his mouth again, and Kirill just had to grin.

 

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