101. Get Out

Selene got out of the pool the second the knotting finished and Kiran pulled out.
“Selene,” Kiran groused irritably, quite a different tone than twenty minutes ago. He heaved himself onto the flagstone, grunting with the pleasured soreness, but caught her around the waist easily and spun her so her chest flattened against his. “Come on…”
“Fuck you, Kiran.” She shoved him away, and surprisingly he let her.
He knew she was well past anger. Yet he was still the same. He called, “We just did. Wanna do it again?”
She rolled her eyes and stormed out of the bathhouse naked, sopping wet, body feeling battered and bruised. There was a pile of discarded silks on one of the couches in the harem living space; she wore it incorrectly, but it covered everything that need to be. She no longer felt like being shameless.
Calla’s journals were exactly as she left them. She ripped Kiran’s sheets and wrapped them enough that water wouldn’t soak through. For good measure, she yanked open all the desk drawers, knocked over the chair, and threw his pillows on the floor.
When she turned to leave the office, he was blocking the doorframe, arms crossed and jaw set. “Very mature.”
“Get out of my way,” Selene snarled.
“Not until you accept—”
“I accepted letting go of my past,” she interrupted, “not your delusion.”
Kiran’s eyebrows shot up. “*Delusion*?”
“Yes. Now move, before I rip Zinnia’s letters.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Selene simpered. “I would. Kiran, *move*.”
He opened his mouth, but it wasn’t his voice that shouted, “Lord Kiran! The common area—the Magnolias—”
There were few things that she and Kiran bonded over—things they would never admit a common liking for—and one of them was the need to protect Magnolias werewolves.
Leaving the journals back on the desk, not waiting for Kiran, Selene Shifted and bolted. She heard him swear before following suit. Their strides took them to the open lawn barely lit enough to see more than the faint glow of white fur in the shape of Magnolia wolves.
Selene saw Hyacinth and Hawthorn in the center first, both of them collapsed on their sides, but Seff’s whimper turned her attention; she was in her wolf form and dragged herself halfway up the steps—because her throat was pouring blood.
It was a tragic sight. Selene had seen it dozens of times over the decades: the desperate crawl to invisible salvation. A dying wolf, wounds deep or disfiguring enough that even their self-healing ability couldn’t save them.
“Seff,” she and Kiran breathed together, Shifting into their human forms.
She struggled to open her eyes, but it seemed she was able to make out who they were, because she attempted a wolfish smile. “Kiran.”
Kiran stiffened. His skin drained of color by the horrified amazement dawning on his face. His lips formed the name before they could make the sound, but that was all it took for Selene to understand what happened.
What *impossibly* happened.
He threw himself on the steps, carefully lifting her head into his lap to stroke her fur, trying to part it to see her injury. “It’s alright, Zin, I’m right here. You’re safe. I’m with you…”
“Kiran,” Seff—*Zinnia godsdamned Amaranth*—rasped with a bubbled whisper. “I’m scared. I don’t—”
“Shh. Just focus your energy on healing.”
Selene thought she had been angry before. The ugly, swelling, toxic cloud growing and warping in her stomach and chest was unadulterated *wrath*. Her body was ready to erupt with it. She wanted to shred her mortal form and become some godly entity capable of creating a devastating storm. Every decade of anger and pain and regret and guilt…it all funneled and pooled into the core of her being.
But all she could really do was roar, “She’s *back*?! *She’s* back?! She’s back—but Calla…” Her voice sobbed. “But Calla *isn’t*?”
It was as if they didn’t hear her. She didn’t know what to do with herself. But she knew she couldn’t handle the sight of what he’d wanted and what she *didn’t* want. Or what she hoped would happen to her.
Selene whirled and stalked toward the center. Hawthorn had Shifted, naked but curled in a fetal position. There was barely a strip of his skin beneath the blood he was bathed in. When her eyes flicked to Hyacinth’s wolf body…she faltered to a stop, and all at once her rage was gone.
She breathed, “What the *fuck* did you do?”
The Magnolia Alpha was dead. And his face—his *skull*—was bashed in.
And in spite of everything, Selene’s mouth curved toward a smile of appreciation at Hawthorn. “You have a very strong bite force, Henbane.”
His eyes were huge. “I…I had to protect Seff. Anger…it just took over.” He looked from her to his pack leader’s mangled body and back, as if seeking her guidance. “Oh gods, what’ve I done?”
*You got rid of a selfish sycophant*, Selene thought bleakly. *You should be congratulated*.
She didn’t say it aloud, because doors and windows were beginning to open. Members of the Sun pack peered out and around, some brave enough to try and slink closer. Like curious pups buried in their nests, they nosed the air.
Selene tensed. The last thing she needed was for them to assume whatever picture was painted here was her doing. Never would she be thankful for Sienna Haru when the Delta burst from one of the residential buildings in her human form.
“All of you,” she roared, “get back to bed and mind your own damn business! Get inside or I will personally—”
Someone shouted, “Is that Hyacinth?”
“Who’s next to him?”
“He’s a Magnolia, I think…”
Sienna couldn’t control the curious wolves. They were ignoring her completely to get closer. Selene watched a ballsy young Magnolia male trot up and peer over. His already pale skin blanched. “He’s…dead.”
The word *dead* traveled faster than wildfire, and soon the lawn area was alit with commotion, Magnolia wolves pouring out from every building.
Selene met Hawthorn’s terrified expression. “Get the hell out of here. *Now*.”
The reality could have only just begun to sink in, because he was looking around in a stupor as if he didn’t realize he would be labeled as a murderer of his own pack Alpha. Selene had to hiss at him to jerk him back to his senses, gaze sharpening, and he nodded.
As Magnolia members flooded out to despair over Hyacinth’s body, Hawthorn Shifted into his wolf form and fled back through the harem. Selene almost shook her head as she watched him go. *Gods be with you, lovestruck killer*.
They fell to their knees, whimpering, holding one another and weeping—yelling at Sienna and Kiran to *do something*!
When they took notice of Selene, some turned hostile, automatically assuming she had killed him. She bared her teeth and whirled on Kiran, ready to snarl, but she stopped cold.
Selene had never seen Kiran joyful. He was glib and cheerful, but his charm was all but a mask to hide the miserable immortal beneath. But, holding his reincarnated mate in his arms, she thought he looked *happy*.
This wasn’t a time for happiness. And Selene certainly didn’t want *him* to be happy. *She* wanted to have joy in her equally miserable immortal life.
She stalked toward Kiran and Seff’s body with hell’s flames at her heels.
If Zinnia was somehow “alive,” that meant Seff had done something with the records to trigger the dead Omega’s consciousness. How the fuck that happened, only the nonexistent gods knew. But it made Selene halfheartedly wish she’d brought her mate’s letters. Would that have brought Calla back instead?
“Kiran,” she barked.
He didn’t look up, but Seff—Zinnia—whatever—managed to turn her head. Whoever she was, her eyes went wide with recognition. “Selene?”
Selene froze. She and Zinnia had never met. Kiran broke from his daze. “No!” he snapped desperately.
She didn’t want to be hopeful. She hated being hopeful. Yet she still ventured quietly, “Calla?”
The Amaranth Omega gasped raggedly. “My moon...”
Kiran was staring at her in disbelief. “No! Zinnia—”
She blinked at him. “Zinnia? My grandmother?” She sucked in a sharp breath. “Kiran—”
“Calla,” Selene breathed, falling to her knees beside them. Kiran bared his teeth at her and tried to pull the Amaranth wolf away, but before Selene could truly begin to impossibly hope—
Sienna’s bark was short and harsh. *“Seff!”*
Her body twinged and she gasped again. “Seff!” she shouted through her wolf jaws. “I’m Seff! This is my body! My mind! *Get out*!”
Selene heard her and Kiran’s broken hearts break further. “Calla…”
“Zinnia…”
Seff, abruptly herself, weakly lifted her head to meet both of their gazes. “Don’t do this,” she begged. “Don’t do this to me—to them.”
Selene selfishly didn’t care for the plea. This is what she had been hoping, waiting, for. Almost two months clinging to the possibility that this very moment would come. She urged, “*Calla*.”
Seff opened her mouth to cry out—