94. Damaged

*For fuck’s sake*, Kiran wanted to swear at Selene, *you’re impossible, you hotheaded, miserable she-wolf*, as she lay beside him bleeding out.
Her wounds—most of them superficial beyond the deep gash in her neck caused by Altan tearing a small chunk of her with his teeth—were healing fine, but she had passed out from blood loss. As long as she retained her wolf form, she would wake without a single scar. A bite from a disgruntled adolescent werewolf wasn’t even close enough to kill Luna Selene Hilal.
Elio and Seff were able to subdue Altan; they were huddled together like scolded pups. Who the hell knew what they were talking about, because Kiran didn’t feel like listening in.
He glanced over when Sienna knelt on his opposite side. She held a pile of records—Zinnia’s journals as well as Calla’s—in one arm, the other procuring two robes for him and Selene.
He took everything with a muttered, “Good work, Delta.”
“You still suspect me,” she noted blandly, standing.
“You were hiding something from me.”
“I was going to steal the key from you.”
Kiran’s surprise was half admiration. “Those Magnolias must have offered you a very appealing deal, then.”
Sienna Haru was not one to skirt around the truth. “Yes. As long as Seff got what she wanted in her best-case scenario, the deal was that she would leave Apollo’s Keep—leave you and Selene—forever so I never have to see her placid face again.”
“She can hear you,” he pointed out just as neutrally without looking up.
“She already knows where I stand. Everything did not go according to plan, but the end result was successful.” Sienna assumed her Delta-voice then—into her glorified secretary persona who thrived on dictating his daily schedule. “Kiran, before that bitch wakes up, you need to—”
He silenced her with a glare and silent snarl that made even her flinch. “I decide what needs to be done in the order I see fit. Leave Selene to me.” Turning his focus on the records and Selene’s bloody paws in his peripheral, he commanded, “Make sure Seff and the Magnolias are protected in her room. Have an Alpha there to sedate Hyacinth when he wakes. And give the twins whatever they need for their journey.”
It wasn’t Sienna who responded, but Seff. “Thank you, Kiran.” He twinged at the softness in her voice. “For everything.”
Kiran merely grunted. Seff Bleize—Amaranth, whatever she wanted to be called now that she knew her heritage—was now not his first priority.
He remained still as his orders were carried out. Sienna even scolded the lingering eavesdropping Omegas back into their rooms.
When it was only him and Selene left in the courtyard, Kiran collapsed onto his back and stared at the stars until Selene stirred.
“Do you want to take a bite, too?” she asked in a rasp.
He gave a short bark of laughter but didn’t get up. “Depends where you let me.”
Selene snorted. He listened to her struggle to get to her feet, but when he say up, she had Shifted into her human form and was standing over him with her arms crossed.
“You look like shit,” was all he could come up with when her fully exposed body was only inches away from his face.
Selene snatched the gold robe—ironically near-sheer—he offered. “Fitting, since I feel like shit.”
She looked like she’d bathed in blood, every inch of her skin and hair on her head smeared with it. It was hard to check the state of her throat. Not that he cared if it healed. She took his whole godsdamned ear.
Kiran stood, showing her that Calla’s records were safe. A fraction of tension left her shoulders. “I’ll hold onto them,” he said gruffly when she retracted her bloody hands after trying to take them.
She scowled and muttered thanks. Looking around, she asked, “What did I miss?”
“Just the fulfillment of your threats.”
Her head cocked. “I’ve made plenty of threats.”
Kiran rolled his eyes. “Is the offer to kill you still standing?”
“No.”
“They are going to the Sky pack. Seff and the Magnolias are leaving tomorrow.”
Silence filled the space between and around them. For once not even he could think of what to say next. It was as if he’d come to the edge of a cliff with no way to the next over the canyon of nothingness.
But Selene was rarely short for words. “Well?”
“‘Well’ what?”
“Are you going to invite me to stay the night?”
Kiran glared at her. “Why the fuck would I?”
“Because I have things to do here,” she said simply.
His voice was irritated. “And not at your own harem?”
“The twins are going there to retrieve Aura and Luan,” she reiterated. “I will not interfere with that adjustment. Other than that, I have nothing waiting for me there besides horny Omegas pestering me. Lona will take care of any pressing issues. Here… I have parting words to share with Seff before she leaves. And,” she stated firmly, looking straight ahead, “I want to read our records together. After you offer a bath and clean clothes.”
Kiran hated that intrigue made him finally look at her—eyeing him sidelong to hum coyly, “Will you lead me there?”
That sheer white-gold robe made his eyes flick to her half-exposed body. He could believe what came out of his mouth next: “What about the journals?”
Selene’s jaw tightened. “Are you turning down shower sex?”
*Godsdamnit*, Kiran cursed. But her rare and blatant advances—especially after being mauled nearly to death, as if that was a mere passing event—strangely made him focus on the bigger situation. “You have been waiting for over half a century, Selene. I have been waiting—”
Apparently him seeing sense was not what she wanted to hear.
“I don’t care what you do, Kiran,” she interrupted with sudden rage. “I just don’t have the emotional energy for reliving all of the pain I’ve tried to bury. We fuck and we fight to stave off our true feelings and our shitty pasts—our shitty present and future, too. The last two months were draining enough for me. *Please* excuse my wanting to escape just for a while.” She paused, the breath in her lungs suddenly spent. She spun and started to storm off. “Where the fuck is a bath?”
*Godsdamnit, Selene*.
Kiran caught her arm before she could be out of reach. She whirled and he was struck by the endless blue depths of her eyes.
Selene Hilal was a jumbled disaster of anger, passion, and hurt, as usual. She’d been that way ever since he killed Calla. But something was different now.
“Would you like to stay the night, Selene?” he asked before he could talk himself out of it. “Offering escapism by way of lovemaking is a perfected specialty of mine.”
Kiran had seen her cry before—before the single tear she’d shed seeing Calla’s writing. Most of her tears were shed out of rage because of him, but this time she stopped a drop before it could form. She hid her emotions by smirking and rolling her eyes. “Took you long enough.”
“My hatred for you blinds my sanity.”
“Just start walking,” she sighed.
She kept pace with him as they left that damn courtyard—*I need to rip it apart*, he thought—and transversed to the harem. The living space was empty of course. He led her around the perimeter to pull aside one of the curtains beside the window, revealing the hidden door to the bathhouse.
He took the knob when Selene sighed in exasperation, “Your rut-ridden brain already forgot that paper and water do not belong together?”
The rustling in his own arms alerted him that he was still clinging to many irreplaceable papers. Kiran cleared his throat. “No, they don’t.”
Padding into his office-bedroom, he set the stack of records onto his desk. “What’s in the envelope?”
Selene’s libidinous attitude had sobered. Her bloody fingertips hovered over the fat wrapper. “I don’t know, I didn’t open it.” She jerked her chin at the wrapped canvas. “What’s that?”
“Nothing.” He took the portrait canvas and shoved it into a drawer. When he straightened, Kiran found her hip cocked and her arms crossed. “What?”
“You’re worrying me,” she noted, half annoyed, half faked droll.
He knew it was faked because in times like these she was a terrible actor. After decades of being, as she called herself, the daughter of conquerers, raised in blood and fear and hate, trained and lived by those things, the female Alpha who built a kingdom for herself, she was able to become a living nightmare. But when the veil was dropped…she was just a damaged wolf with trust issues.
Her hate for him would be sealed forever if he pointed that out. He huffed. “My rut-ridden brain is just as emotionally drained.” Trapped by her gaze, he offered his hand for her to take. “Care to fuck each other into oblivion?”