80. The Amaranth Bloodline

A/N: The College, the Magnolia pack's stronghold, is now called Magnolia Manor! :)
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*Fucking Magnolia females,* Kiran grumbled to himself. *Running me around like a fucking headless chicken*.
First Seff terrifies him into thinking she was dead. The coincidence of her bleeding out by a river was too eerily similar to Zinnia to ignore. He would never be able to banish the memory of him holding her in his arms, their hands pressed one over the other to stanch the bleeding of her gutted abdomen. Neither of them died, but the fear of the possibility had been the same.
Next Wisteria Ren mocks him with these “Amaranth records” as if what *that* meant wouldn’t drive him to inescapable madness. The bitch pulled out a yellowed and bent envelope bulging with something heavy inside in both hands. After insulting him with admirable courage and keeping her glare matching his, she said, “This is the secret to keep Seff safe from you forever.”
Before he could snarl, she finished flatly, “It was all written down.”
Then she slipped back inside Allium’s room and slammed the door in his face.
Kiran could have easily knocked it down and pulled the envelope from Wisteria’s dead hands, but he knew she meant not just a metaphorical key, but an *actual* key. Which meant there was something physical he was supposed to retrieve.
He was so rattled—and positive—that he confessed it to Selene. He didn’t expect anything less than a sarcastic dismissal. *History is doomed to repeat*.
If reincarnations were born in the same bloodline were possible, who was to deny their life events couldn’t repeat as well? Which meant Seff could be destined to die a violent death, just like her past lives.
There was a difference between reincarnations and doppelgängers. Kiran stormed back to Seff’s room and sat at her bedside to stew on bloody, hate-sex-riddled memories.
After Calla’s death sixty-eight years ago, Selene sought him out—he spent quite some time trying to run away from his guilt—to end his immortal existence. In a rare appearance of a conscience, she wasn’t able to rip out his throat. Instead, she posed a vital question:
*“Do you want to figure this out or no?”*
Kiran had snorted and scoffed savagely. *“Figure what out? They’re both dead. End of story.”*
*“Except Calla remembered.”*
Kiran had felt the possibilities like a punch to his ribs.
*“What you said. You were right…the day you killed her. Reincarnation, doppelgängers, whatever. She described things and places she’d never seen or been to.”*
He hadn’t truly believed her, so he asked, only partly joking. *“Did she remember fucking me?”*
*“If she remembered screwing a yellow-furred brute, she omitted it. The point is that there could be another, Kiran.”*
Regrettably, he had started to consider her theory. *“Another reincarnation—doppelgänger?”* He hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up of seeing his lost love again, but had asked the question they were both thinking: *“If there is…who gets her?”*
It went unanswered for decades. Decades of searching for proof that the repeating phenomenon wasn’t a fluke—if it was possible that another *could* exist eventually. They watched each generation of the Amaranth line be born, live, reproduce, and die. And each daughter had green eyes and white hair…but they were not Zinnia or Calla’s exact double.
A tumultuous relationship that sprouted from Kiran killing Selene’s soulmate still confused Kiran as they spent each year, each decade, traveling and searching for answers—until they separated after they couldn’t stand to be in each other’s presence any longer.
But they always met again. The fucked-up on-off “relationship” resulted in plenty of revenge sex.
Until one day, they finally gave up. Fifty years passed; their searching and waiting produced no results. The two Alphas were destined to never see their soulmates again, and their portraits hidden away in drawers would never satisfy.
Now, Kiran buried his face in his hands. He was exhausted. When was the last time he got decent sleep? By the grace and curse of the gods he didn’t believe in, he fell asleep in a wood chair.
By their graces: he dreamt answers.
That envelope held a literal key. If Seff’s mother Linden was a daughter of the Amaranth line and if these “records” were real, that meant they were passed down through the generations without his or Selene’s knowledge, they had to be kept somewhere. That key unlocked some box.
And if that envelope was so old, if Seff had no idea of it or the records themselves—if she didn’t even know her own mother’s maiden name—, then she was never aware of her family’s legacy at all.
The secret died with Linden Amaranth.
Which meant those records had to have been hidden where only she knew.
Wisteria led him to a dead end.
*I need proof*.
Kiran’s luck went to shit when Seff woke. He didn’t mean for all his stress to come crashing down on his shoulders—his truths, his confessions, even his godsdamned insecurities that fully erupted from his dark place.
His original intent was to reach Magnolia territory long before Seff could realize he was ever beside her. He was forced to tell the truth that she only saw as an excuse: “I can’t tell you until I have proof.”
So he left her with a tangled ball of the words of their conversation right then and there. But before he could Shift, Lona Mahsa stopped him at the entrance of the Keep with a glare and a letter.
Kiran barked a laugh. “That’s who has them, then.”
-
Kiran didn’t like to waste time.
Alpha Hyacinth Furze answered his own door. In the split-second before slamming it, Kiran recognized core-rattled fear in his eyes. It made him smile.
In his letter to Selene, the last line he wrote was, *The Amaranth records are hidden somewhere at Magnolia Manor.*
Selene had connected Hyacinth’s involvement before he did, the cunning bitch. At least she had the decency to let him know that before he destroyed Seff’s old home apart.
“Hyacinth,” Kiran crooned loudly, ignoring the swarm of Magnolia wolves gathered outside the grand home the spineless Alpha built. He heard the flattering whispers about how big his magnificence was and how nice his ass was. Trying not to preen, he slammed his fist against the wood. “Fear only makes the hunt more appealing.”
He could hear the male’s racing heart. “I’m busy, Lord Kiran.”
“I have a fuck-ton of matters to attend to,” Kiran growled, smile snapping off, “and you are one of them. Don’t be the thing that delays the rest. Resisting will only—”
The door flung open. “Fine. Come in.”
“Excellent.” Kiran strode into the home as if he owned it—indeed, he and Selene paid Hyacinth a generous sum for his cooperation in their escapades. It was obvious that it went less toward supporting the Magnolia pack’s wellbeing and toward satisfying his perchance for luxury. “Oh, my, what happened in there?”
“This way,” Hyacinth answered, gesturing past the room whose furniture was upside down and sideways. Kiran could only grin as he was led to a dining room with a grand oak table with a vase of magnolias, daisies, and gardenias. Already seeming to resign to his fate, he spun a chair to face Kiran and slumped into it, head bent submissively.
Kiran chuckled. “Selene really broke you, didn’t she? She suggested I threaten you with loss of…limb.” He bent at the waist and cocked his head to the side to try and catch the Alpha’s avoiding gaze. “Should I or is it a given?”
“Just say what you have to say.”
“Hmm, that is a little bit of a disrespectful tone,” Kiran said thoughtfully, straightening. “But it seems you’re willing to cooperate, though does not satisfy my bloodthirst, so I’ll get to the point, Furze: let’s talk about the Amaranth records.”