When Three Points Collide: Ra's Story, page 5
Paulie picked up Egan who was getting restless, holding him close. The way a bottle appeared in his hand was proof the demigod was coming into his powers nicely. “Besides, you’d have gone if I’d asked anyway. Zeus said you’re always bored. You have to admit, this has shaken you up a bit and that’s not a bad thing.”
You’re not wrong about that either. The only problem was Ra wasn’t quite sure what his next move should be.
Chapter Six
The initial suggestions from Cass and Wesley involved shifting (Arvyn), a quick trip to an all-night store for clean clothes (Kirill) and then to a diner for food, which all four men needed. It was late – Arvyn guessed at least three in the morning and while he felt a lot healthier thanks to his shift, now his wolf had scented Kirill with his own nose, all Arvyn could think about was finding out who their third was, so they could get down to the serious business of claiming each other. He didn’t feel right about claiming Kirill until their third was found and the vibe he was getting from Kirill suggested he felt the same way.
“We’re cleanish, healed, and fed. Who’s our other mate?” Arvyn asked bluntly as soon as their plates were cleared, and the four men were supping coffee. “Why did he leave the way he did?”
“I think he left you initially to save me,” Kirill said quietly. “But yes, I want to know why the being didn’t come back. Didn’t he recognize who we were to him? Is that because of what he is? Does he always go around randomly saving vampires locked in cells, and if it is something he does all the time, then why the hell did he say he would come back and why the hell did he leave me a drop of blood that doesn’t belong to Arvyn?”
“Ah.” Cass looked at Wesley, who shook his head.
“You know more about that lot than I do. You might as well tell them.”
“It’s not like I know much more than you,” Cass protested. “I mean, I’ve worked under Hades pretty much all my life, and I’ve seen Zeus a few times, but…”
“Hang on a minute.” Arvyn held up his hand. “I recognize those names at least. Are you trying to tell us our third is an ancient Greek god?”
Wesley shook his head again. “Not an ancient Greek god, no. An ancient Egyptian one.”
Arvyn struggled to fit who he’d seen briefly, with his image of what a god might look like. “That little guy? The one in jeans? The one who was walking when you came running to save me? He’s an ancient Egyptian god?”
“You’ve seen him,” Kirill asked urgently.
“Briefly mate, briefly, and I have to admit, I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t scent him until I checked the alley where he’d been after he’d gone.” Arvyn cursed himself for that now. “I was in pain, I’d heard about you and all my instincts were honed towards finding somewhere to shift, and then finding a way to get you free.”
“It’s okay, beloved.” Kirill nodded and Arvyn appreciated the hand he suddenly felt on his thigh. “So, who are we talking about here?” He asked Cass and Wes. “I don’t know gods, obviously, but I’ve heard of Osiris… Seth… there’s Horus… Anubis... and er… Thoth. That’s about all I can think of and surely our third is not one of them. Is he a lesser god perhaps?”
“You didn’t mention Ra on your list,” Cass noted.
“Amun Ra?” Arvyn tried to remember what he’d ever learned about him.
“It’s just Ra,” Wes said, shaking his head. “Amun Ra was a human construct. A merging of different deities in the minds of mortals, who were renamed according to what a pharaoh believed at different times.”
“Ra, as in the Father of all Gods, the sun god, the Egyptian god of creation who birthed the human race through his tears? That Ra?” Kirill sounded incredulous.
“He did that?” Arvyn hadn’t known, but he was just as shocked. “But that means… And I mean… Fuck, I don’t know what I mean. The Fates – what were the Fates thinking? I’m a drifter. I don’t even have a job, let alone much of any formal education. I’m just a freaking wolf shifter.”
“The Fates don’t make mistakes,” Kirill said, increasing the pressure of his hand on Arvyn’s thigh, although he still sounded shocked too. “The Fates obviously see more in you than you believe in yourself, and if they say Ra is meant to be ours, they’d have a reason for it.”
“Ra is a good guy,” Cass said quickly. “Sure, he’s a god, and yes he’s ruled his realm since time began, but he still puts his pants on the same way as everyone else.”
“A lot of the ancient gods have found their mates recently.” Wes cast a quick glance at the kitchen door of the diner, but they were the only ones in the room. “From what one of those mates told me, ancient gods, all gods’ life threads form the permanent framework that support the weave of the tapestry of life. They’re immortal so those threads are never cut. But some of these gods haven’t been worshipped or believed in for thousands of years. Can you imagine living an existence like that? You can’t die, you can’t ask to cease to exist like one god tried to do. As a god, your presence is necessary to support the threads of millions of mortals, yet you’re a forgotten part of history. Can you imagine how lonely that must be for any of them?”
“If Ra was that lonely, then why did he leave when he’d found us?” Arvyn’s head was swimming, it was all so much to take in. He thought he’d hit the lottery, having Kirill as a mate. Now a god had been thrown into the mix and Arvyn wasn’t sure if he should be running or showing his belly.
“I can’t answer that,” Wes said softly. “It may be because he knew you two, or at least Kirill knew about your bond, and he wanted to give you two time together first. I don’t know. But he won’t have gone far.”
“So, how does this work?” Kirill asked. “Have we been given to Ra by the Fates to worship him – to keep his life force going through us being good little servants and worshipping the ground he walks because no one else does anymore? I’m a Prince among my kind, a coven master in my own right. I’ve worked damn hard to reach my position and I have responsibilities I can’t just leave because a god told me to.”
“Surely it can’t be like that.” Arvyn hadn’t even considered that aspect. He didn’t have a coven or a pack, but Arvyn didn’t consider himself any less worthy than other people either.
“It’s not,” Cass snapped. “Geeze guys get with the program. Ra being able to command the sun to stop in the skies, or, I don’t know… cause the earth to rise up and create a whole new island, has got nothing to do with any of this. It’s just his ‘thing’ the same as fangs and flashy red eyes are your thing, and Arvyn changing into a wolf is his. Ra is a guy first and foremost. He likes dressing in jeans and boots. He’s just learned to ride a motorbike and has finally gotten the hang of sending text messages. He has an endless curiosity about people and he always wants to help, even when he’s hampered by the non-interference law. He’s not going to pull you away from your precious coven, or take it away from you, the same as he’s not going to disrespect Arvyn’s alpha status. And if you’re worried about who’s going to be the top in your relationship, given how you are all powerful men in your own right, you do what most of us do with our mates and learn to be versatile and love it. Sex with a mate is better than anything you’ve experienced before no matter what position you’re in.”
“Beautifully said, babe,” Wes said to Cass warmly while Arvyn cast a sideways glance at Kirill. He’d always assumed he would be the one topping in any permanent relationship he had, and from the slight flush on Kirill’s cheeks, it seemed his mate had the same idea. Looks like Ra isn’t the only one who’ll be learning new experiences. Arvyn subtly adjusted his cock.
“Now that we’ve worked out your mate problem, Kirill, I do need to talk to you about your coven, and Yakov in particular,” Wes said.
“Just one more question about Ra?” Arvyn said quickly. “How do we get in touch with him if he doesn’t live around here?” And that’s an understatement. Arvyn had no idea where gods went when they weren’t on earth.
Wes didn’t seem to mind the question. “I can get his phone number for you, or I can get Thor’s mate to summon him for you. Either way, he’s easy to reach. But there’re other things we need to handle here, first. Kirill, how much do you know about Yakov?”
/~/~/~/~/
Kirill had to stop and think, his mind still processing all he’d learned about Ra. The process wasn’t helped by the fact he hadn’t taken blood in at least a month – the two individual drops taken from Arvyn and Ra not counting – and every cell in his body wanted him to sink his fangs into the warm veins he could sense in his beloved.
But Wes and Cass were on a mission. They were trying to help him, and he respected that. Although Yakov was going to be dead in the next twelve hours, so Kirill didn’t see why any information about him was important. “He’s been my second for about a year. My last second, someone who’d been with me for the previous fifty years, moved on to start a coven of his own when he met his beloved, and it was him who recommended Yakov for the job. I saw no reason to refuse the recommendation at the time.”
“Getting tranquilized and being chained in your coven’s basement might be a good reason to change your mind about him,” Arvyn remarked quietly.
“Oh, I have beloved, I already have.” Kirill leaned a little closer to his wolf. “He’s a threat to you – Yakov doesn’t like shifters,” he added to Wes who was watching them intently. “I don’t know why, and it’s not normally a problem, but it is now.”
“That’s not the only problems he’s causing.” Wes opened a file on his phone, checking his notes. “My friends, back in Cloverleah, that’s a pack south of here, they ran a search of the vampire council records for any mentions of Yakov.”
“Vampire records are completely sealed against non-vampire investigations.” Kirill bristled at the thought of his privacy being invaded. Vampires were intensely secretive for good reason. It was vampires that humans were more likely to charge at with pitchforks and wooden stakes if their presence among a population was found out. While a vampire could heal from most wounds, losing his head, or his heart made breathing impossible.
“Not when the call to the council is made from Prince Vadim D’Arcy,” Wes said smugly. “He’s mated to one of the enforcers at Cloverleah.”
Kirill’s eyes widened. He’d heard the news about Vadim of course – any vampire of any note had. How the vampire had given up his regency due to the death of his bond mate some four hundred years earlier, and then taken it back in spectacular fashion just last year, after it was learned his brother had abused his position as regent in his place. A picture of Vadim dropping his brother’s head on the stage in front of his coven was still showcased on the vampire council website. Now Kirill thought about it, there had been wolves in that photo too.
“What did he find out?” Kirill would listen. Prince Vadim was a vampire no one wanted to mess with. Older than almost all vampires across Europe and America, Prince Vadim held a strong position of respect among his kind.
Wes consulted his notes. “Yakov Drake, born…”
Kirill frowned. “Yakov is old enough not to have a last name. Are you sure you’ve got the right person?”
Holding up a finger, Wes continued, “Yakov Drake, born nineteen forty-three…”
“No, that can’t be right.” Kirill shook his head. “Yakov’s identification, issued by the council shows him being over three hundred years old. He’s been a Duke for years. You must have notes on the wrong person.”
“If you’d let me finish.” Wes’s eyes flashed, and Kirill knew he was seeing wolf. Cass leaned his elbows on the table heavily, his hands lightly fisted, but the threat was clear. “Yakov Drake, born nineteen forty-three. Parents were Yakov Senior and Maria no last name, who disappeared in nineteen sixty-two and are believed to be dead. In nineteen sixty-seven Yakov Drake, the surname he chose for himself when he went to school, filed with the human courts, to declare his parent’s legally dead, thereby accessing their entire estate.”
Kirill’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
“Yakov Drake came to the council’s notice again in nineteen eighty-four when the master of the Los Angeles coven sent word to the council he was subverting the recently implemented laws regarding donor rights. The coven master found evidence of human slaves being kept as donors, no sign of consent, with many of the slaves recovered found to be under twenty years of age.” Wes’s eyes flashed as they met Kirill’s. “All of the humans recovered had been sexually, emotionally, and physically abused, not to mention left malnourished and many of them sporting permanent injuries. They all identified Yakov as the man who’d kidnapped them and who was the leader of the group of vampires who abused them.”
Kirill’s coffee threatened to make a comeback, and he covered his mouth with his hand for a moment, to ensure he didn’t throw up. Forcing back the lump in his throat, he asked, “Did the council catch him?”
“No, he disappeared, reappearing in nineteen ninety-two in New York, and nineteen ninety-nine in Seattle after incurring similar charges. The vampire council sent guards to the Dublin coven, yours, in two thousand and six after hearing that a Yakov had been admitted as a new coven member here. The notes said while there was a slight family resemblance to the Yakov Drake they were looking for, the man they interviewed showed his ID proving he was in effect his father’s second cousin. The vampire claimed that Yakov was a common family name among his kin. Enquiries made by the council to the coven second and the coven master proved that the Yakov in their coven was a loyal and devoted member, and a passionate supporter of donor rights.”
“I don’t have donors at the coven,” Kirill said faintly, his stomach still churning over the idea he’d been harboring a fugitive all this time. “We have a connection with the local hospital to buy blood bags for research purposes which meet our needs. The only non-vampires who live in the coven are bonded consorts or beloveds of my coven members.”
“Are any of them shifters?” Arvyn pressed their shoulders together, lending him support.
Kirill shook his head. “Human, all of them. Do you think that’s significant?”
“Shifters have a knack of being able to scent strong emotions, lies, and intruders simply by walking around. A shifter living in your coven would know if Yakov was lying, and also be able to tell if there were non bonded humans being kept on the property.” A strong warm hand turned Kirill’s head until he was looking directly into his beloved’s dark eyes. “I would be able to tell if something like that was going on in your coven which would be a damn good reason for your Yakov trying to drive me out of town, don’t you think?”
“It also explains why we weren’t granted access to the coven house. They stopped us at the gate,” Wes said. “It also explains why this guy,” he turned his phone so Kirill could see the picture there, “was notably absent when we called, and yet we were told that you were unavailable by someone claiming to be your second. Jax sent me this picture when I asked him for information on the Dearne’s and mentioned Yakov’s name.”
“That’s Yakov.” Kirill nodded to the photo. “Do you have a picture of the man claiming to be my second?”
Wes flicked the screen on his phone and held up a second picture. “This guy.”
Kirill groaned. “Sven, my head enforcer. Fuck.” He ran his hand through his hair. “How deep is the fucking rot in my coven?”
“Only you can answer that,” Wes said, “but you can see now, why we didn’t want you two just running back to the coven and tearing Yakov’s head off, no matter how rightly deserved. Your whole coven could be in huge trouble if Yakov’s continued with his pattern of behavior. We need to see who else is involved in all this and find out if there’re any victims that do need saving.”
“Why didn’t your god, or whoever it was that sent you here, know anything about this?” Arvyn asked. “Surely they could’ve done something?”
“If there are any victims in this, they’ll be human,” Cass said as though it explained everything, but it didn’t, at least not to Kirill.
“So? A human life is no less important than a paranormal one.”
Cass sighed and leaned over the table. “After the Great War, something you two would know nothing about but Ra would know about intimately, all gods, every single one, from every pantheon was forbidden from ever interfering in mortal affairs. It means my Lord Hades can’t do anything to stop the plague of black souls that haunt the underworld, Zeus can do nothing about the wars, famine and global warming that infect this land. Poseidon weeps every time there’s an oil spill in his precious seas, or one of his beloved creatures become extinct, and the Mother of us all dies a little every day as her forests are ravaged and her animals are culled out of existence. But they are all forbidden to interfere. Mortals have free will. Gods don’t have the right to take that away. Zeus and Hades are crossing the line as it is, sending me and my mate to help in individual cases.”
“I’m sorry.” Arvyn bowed his head and Kirill wondered if he was thinking about their third. “I guess we all grow up believing gods are omnipotent and can do anything they want.”
“That belief is instilled in us from societal groups that want someone to blame when things go wrong.” Kirill reached for his beloved’s hand and held it firmly. “Free will means accepting consequences for individual actions and there’re not many people who accept that side of the coin either.”
“Exactly, but this philosophical discussion isn’t helping us solve our immediate problems,” Wes said. “We need a plan on how to approach this so Yakov doesn’t get spooked and destroys any evidence he might have before he runs off into the night. Have you two given any thought as to whether you’ll claim each other as a couple, or if you’d prefer to wait until Ra’s with you?”
“I think we’d prefer for the claiming to be between the three of us,” Kirill said slowly.
“I agree - but wait.” Arvyn’s head shot up. “Does that mean if Ra gets attacked by someone mortal, that there’s nothing he can do about it? Is that why he has us as mates do you think? Because if he can be attacked and he can’t defend himself, then we need to deal with this problem in the coven first, then get in touch with Ra. It won’t be safe for him otherwise.”
