66. Hearts and Voices Part II

Kiran knew for decades how selfish Selene was. She cared only for her own interests, fuck anyone who stood in her way. She could play to another’s tune for a short amount of time before circling right back to her key.
He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to grab Selene’s ass and haul her into his lap and kiss her deeply enough to swallow her own words. And for a good minute of feeling each other up, it worked.
“Kiran,” she murmured, pulling away, “we need to talk about Seff.”
His fingers dug into the flesh of her thighs. Zinnia used to press herself as close as she could to him, purring to holder her closer, harder. She was the same body type as Seff Bleize, but there had been something different about Zinnia that made Kiran think he was holding the world in his hands.
“What about her?”
Selene’s arms were once more locked loosely around his shoulders, her fingers at the nape of his neck, tickling the hairs there. Kiran repressed the shiver and kept his legs together. “You must be furious with her, choosing me over you again and again.”
He Shifted his nails into claws, pricking Selene’s skin so the pinpricks beaded blood. She gasped and hissed a curse. “I was blind with rage when she snuck out,” he said flatly. This he didn’t need to lie or hold back on. “When I stole her back to *my* harem, where she chose and agreed to remain, she told me off. It only made me angrier. That’s not how it was supposed to be with her, with who she is supposed to be.”
Before she could berate him, he added, “Don’t tell me she’s supposed to be herself and no one else.”
“No.” Kiran was facing forward, staring into space as if there was some answer hidden among the furniture, but Selene drew his head to the side. It was difficult to read her expression. “I was going to say I expected her to be who she wasn’t, too.”
He let her keep her hold on him, but he averted his eyes. “She shows no loyalty to us—”
“And we’ve shown no loyalty to her.” Selene sighed and released his face in exchange for placing her hand over his. The touch alone made his claws retract and he hated just how much he was soothed. “She’s right. We’re so obsessed with her that we let her bounce around between our homes like the plaything she accuses us of doing.”
“‘How cruel to use us like we’re just things, not wolves, as if we have no meaning to you immortals, like we’re nothing.’”
He felt Selene’s confusion, but he didn’t want to look at her yet. “That’s what she told me the morning after you fucked her. She said that the generations of Omegas we Choose feel indebted to us as if expecting us to ‘actually care about them.’”
“She really said that?”
Kiran nodded once. “She hated us long before meeting us. It wasn’t hard to assume; she made it perfectly clear. I told her I only wanted her love, but she only shunned me again and again, shoving my own ego in my face. The only conversations we shared were her demanding me tell her why we’re so infatuated with her. And like some knothead I made excuse after excuse.”
“You *are* a knothead, you egocentric bastard.”
“I hope you say that with affection.”
“None at all. Kiran, we both agreed not to tell her. I only confused her with questions I knew she didn’t have the answers to. But,” she continued, pinching a lock of his hair and tugging sharply, “you shouldn’t have told her you were* soulmates after death*. Because she asked me the same thing.”
Kiran yanked her hair in return. She snarled and cracked her hand across his cheek. “It’s a fucking lost cause, Selene,” he snapped. “Let’s just—”
Selene spoke quiet and slow. “*It’s* a lost cause…or *she’s* a lost cause?”
“Both,” he scowled. “Does it matter?”
She aimed to slap him again, but Kiran snatched her wrist, both of them baring their teeth in the other’s face. “If we lose her, we lose hope. We lose Calla. We lose Zinnia. Forever. Truly, this time.”
Yanking her arm away, she tried to remove herself from his lap, but Kiran held fast. It was reflex. He wanted to shove her off with a clawed hand so she bled more. Then he’d storm back to the Keep and take Seff against her will to finally, officially, sign her body to the Sun pack’s harem for the rest of her life. Then he would never let her set eyes on the bitch of the Moon pack.
“You said it yourself,” he said, one arm looped around her torso. A flash of a thought:* it’d be hard to hold her like this when she’s swollen with my litter of pups*. “We felt nothing when we saw her. It was supposed to be instantaneous. We ruined our chances last night when she said she’s leaving both of us. Whether we tell her the truth or not, she’s scorned us. Sworn us off for the rest of her life.”
Selene narrowed her eyes to slits. “You hypocrite. You said you’re still going to conquest her last night. So *confident* you’ll get her back.”
Gods, no matter how eloquent his words, she could see past them as clear as glass. 
Her eyes then widened and she reared back. “You foul bastard. You’re just going  to fuck her and keep her prisoner in that damn gold cage!” Selene started writhing in his grip, for some reason not choosing to Shift, but Kiran pinned her arms down with his own, keeping her entrapped so his lips hovered above her throat. “You keep them so sugared and blind and pretty, making yourself handsome and perfect, but you’re just the warden of a prisoner. A selfish, carnal rapist—”
Kiran sent her flying across the pit to crash on the opposite couch with a roar. They bolted to their feet in record time, kicking pillows aside to stand inches from each other, stances prepared to bite and scratch. 
“Don’t you *ever* call me that.”
She stabbed a claw at his chest. “You’re so godsdamn transparent, Kiran. You were thinking of stealing Seff and signing her fate without her consent.”
“I can’t steal what’s already mine!” he thundered. “I’m just sealing the deal that was already made.”
“So you’re cutting me out of the loop to have her all to yourself so you can tell her the truth. Keep her locked away, make her believe *I’m* the villain? Gods forbid I tell her what you did to her past life.”
Kiran was so full of wrath that he couldn’t think. Her voice was so obnoxious and her *reasoning* was obnoxious.
“Are you mad because I’m right?” Selene demanded. “Rendered speechless by how fucking twisted this situation is?”
His hand shot out and grabbed her throat. She choked a gasp and her eyes went wide, hands flying to his wrists. He didn’t lift her off the floor, but the possibility was there. The dark-space voice was flooding between the cracks of the barricade.
*She is right. She’s right about everything.*
*You’re a hypocrite. You considered rape, after abhorring anything to do with that. Look what happened to the Baran sisters and the twins. 
Would you really go through that with Seff? If you make her hate you even more, she’ll do whatever she can to escape you. Fucking her or not won’t solve anything.* 
*Should we just let her go? Everything is a lost cause at this point.* 
*There’s no trace of Zinnia left.* 
*There’s no proof that Seff could remember her ancestors.* 
While Kiran battled with his own subliminal self, Selene curved in on herself—before slamming her feet right into his gut. He grunted and released her, sprawling on the couch with the wind knocked out of him. She fell on her back but was kneeling on his chest a moment later. 
“We let her *choose*, Kiran Cyrus. If she wants to come back to either of us, it’ll be on her terms. Do you hear me?” Selene closed her hand around his throat. “New deal: we wait until she comes to us. If we love her—if we love Zinnia and Calla—then we let her go. We let her have her own will.”
“I don’t have to listen to you, bitch,” he rasped. 
“You will if you ever want to fuck me again. If you don’t do this, Kiran,” she warned, bringing her lips to his intact ear, “I will rip out my own womb.”