82. Souls United

Reminder: this is an Omegaverse novel. Female Alphas have a retractable member that allows them to impregnate males and females. For more information, see the Story Q&A/Omegaverse Explained chapter or The Unofficial Guide to the Omegaverse by Velvelyami on Wattpad. Thank you!
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When Selene returned to her room without notice and sitting at that godsdamned desk, she opened the bottom left drawer that gave a drawn-out groan. Her hand hovered over the stack of old stationery but hesitated, just like she had the other day, warring with herself to either choose to reminisce or suffer, in pulling out the wooden-framed portrait. She knew that when she saw Calla’s serene smile looking back at her, immortalized in oil paint…she would unravel. Every memory would come rushing back—and she didn’t have the emotional capacity for that anymore.
*Oh, fuck it*, she thought savagely, throwing the stack of papers out and pulling the framed painting free from its years-long prison of dust. The paper was age-worn but not enough for the paint to crack. It was no larger than a book in length and width, the perfect size to hold in both hands.
White hair, green eyes, flawless skin interrupted only by the sleeves of her pale green dress clinging to her slim shoulders just above the edge of the frame.
It was apparently Zinnia’s face.
It was *Seff’s* face.
She didn’t just *look* like Calla.
She *was* her.
Selene stared at her soulmate, waiting for the rush of emotion she expected to feel, waiting for her mind to torture her heart…but nothing came. She didn’t feel pain or anger, not even nostalgia. Just…emptiness.
*What the fuck is wrong with me?*
For almost seventy years Selene thought this portrait painted by one of her now-dead daughters was the only remember she had left of Calla—besides the necklace she gave Seff, which she now knew was lost somewhere in Kiran’s damned apple orchard. Seff had been attacked *again* by Kiran’s disobedient wolves.
This time she didn’t come to Seff’s “rescue.” Not only did she have that Magnolia male—Kiran mentioned that in his letter—to aid her, but Selene had truly decided to let Seff go. *If it takes this much effort and heartbreak to coax even one hint of her past life, what if it simply wasn’t possible*? Nearly two months passed of her and Kiran trying to finally get what they’d been searching for, for decades. They couldn’t just keep going.
But Calla *had* remembered.
-
Calla lay on her stomach on her own mussed bed, panting into the sheets and clenching them in her fists as Selene jerked her body up and down. The Omega whimpered at the growl from her Luna, whose hands gripped her hips, fingers pressed into her supple flesh.
“Selene,” she gasped.
Selene saw a tear slide down the bridge of her mate’s nose. She immediately slowed her pace even though her body ached to keep going. I*t felt so good, slamming herself inside*. “Are you alright?” she gasped back.
“I’m—I’m *great*. I—love you.”
Her bare back was so smooth and white. The shadowed slopes of her spine, of her shoulder blades, the dips above her shoulders as her arms stretched up. Selene brushed Calla’s white hair aside to lean down and brush her lips to the bonding Mark she’d left almost two years ago—almost tasting Calla’s scent glands as she sank her teeth into skin and muscle to leave a permanent scar to remind them every day of their soulbound lives together. In return, Selene felt Calla’s Mark on her feel a phantom touch.
She moaned again and ground her ass against Selene even as she planted gentle kisses to the back of Calla’s neck. “I love you, Calla. My love, my mate.”
It had taken less than a month for Selene to finally convince Calla to leave her provincial life as an obedient little Omega female in her little town. Although the Amaranth family founded the Magnolia pack that was known for their poised dispositions—quite odd for werewolves to be civil—they were wolves nonetheless, and wolves liked to play rough.
The bars and rings were off-limits to Omegas and Betas. Selene bared her teeth at the oppression and Calla’s passivity toward the injustice. “We have teeth and claws for a reason: to draw blood,” Selene had told her after she refused to at least accompany Selene to a fighting ring. After Selene’s promise—*follow or stay or leave*—, she decided to let Calla show her world first; it had been only two weeks into it.
They had been skirting around the feelings strong enough to make them sway on their feet, but they had yet to be intimate. At that moment, however, Calla’s eyes went heavy-lidded and she wrapped her arms around one of Selene’s to lean on her and whisper, “Why try on strangers when we can try on each other?”
Now, Selene’s core throbbed just as hot as it had all that time ago. They moaned and screamed each other’s names as they moved together hard and fast. It was the middle of the day and the rest of the small harem surely heard it all, but who gave a fuck when you were making love—albeit less romantic-sounding—to your mate?
Selene was grinning and tipping her face to the ceiling. Beyond the overpowering scent of Calla’s slick now smeared over her lower belly and thighs, the garland of pink phlox flowers tinged the air sweet on the summer breeze through the open doors of the balcony. Her head felt heavy with overstimulation but godsdamnit, it was absolutely fucking *bliss*.
On their shared climax, Selene roared wordlessly while Calla keened Selene’s name. Then she collapsed beside her and their pants were all they could hear. When their breathing evened out, Selene turned her head to meet Calla’s. “How was that?”
Her smile was radiant and breathless. “Still better than oceans and mountains.”
“And clothes and jewelry?”
She nodded. “Far better.” Just looking at her made Selene happy, and what a rare word that was to define her. But when Calla frowned, so did Selene. “My moon,” murmured the Magnolia, slipping her hand into hers, “Can we please try?”
Selene’s jaw clenched. But she could not retain anger toward Calla. “Moonflower…” she sighed.
Calla sat up on the bed, retracting her hand to start braiding her hair. She wouldn’t look at Selene when she said, “Remember the day we met and I was too unsure to call you my soulbound mate?”
“Yes.” Though the tone had shifted to seriousness, Selene was admiring Calla’s back once more, only then realizing they hadn’t left a single scratchmark on either.
“And you remember the day I finally did?”
“It was the greatest day of my immortal life,” Selene said, and Calla twisted that beautiful spine of hers to look back with the world in her eyes. Selene Hilal was a female Alpha, the daughter of conquerers, the queen of blood and night and sex, but she was brought to her knees by a tiny little Omega female whose twenty-three years of flower petal-strewn life could never compare to the twenty-five blood-splattered ones of Selene’s. “And will remain until I die.”
“It’s mine too,” Calla said softly. Letting her hair fall free, her fingers grazed the scar of her Mark. “So I thought…we would start a family.”
Selene made to slide off the bed, but Calla stopped her by throwing her small body over Selene’s. She locked her arms around Selene’s shoulders and her legs around her waist, clinging to her like a pup to their mother. “Please? This time could be the right one!”
Selene exhaled in exasperation smoothing Calla’s hair back, coming undone simply by her pouting lower lip. “It has been two years, my flower. We’ve tried dozens of times and you still haven’t gotten pregnant.”
“This time could be the right one,” she repeated, deepening her pout.
It made Selene snort and roll her eyes. “Let me guess, your next words will be ‘it won’t hurt to try.’”
“It won’t hurt to try,” the Omega confirmed.
In a sudden but smooth motion, Selene rolled them back onto the bed, kissing her mate deeply before sliding off the foot of the bed. Calla started to ask, “What—” and Selene’s answer was grabbing Calla’s ankles and yanking her forward with a surprised yip. She opened her mouth again, but when she felt Selene’s retractable length against the inside of her thigh, she gasped, “Oh!”
“*Oh* is right,” growled Selene, hands gripping the backs of Calla’s knees to set them on her hipbones. “Let’s make a litter, little Omega.”
Calla giggled in excitement and adjusted. “Let’s, my Alpha!”
-
Selene set the portrait face-down. Her Calla had been bright and sweet and kind. She had been the sun to break her storm. And she was the last flower in her garden.
The memory of her death amongst the flowers started to creep up on her, but she shoved it away in favor of feeling a spark of anger.
“The Amaranth records,” she scoffed to herself. “I find it hard to believe something like that escaped my notice.”
She wouldn’t discredit anyone if they could hide a secret right under her nose, especially when that secret was about *her*. Calla writing about her two years with Selene—and apparently, reading her predecessors’ journals about her own past life. Not just that: the Amaranth daughters doing their own research about the doppelgänger and reincarnation phenomenon at the same time Selene and Kiran were scouring.
When did she have time to write when they spent almost every day together for two years? It had to have been the periodic times she visited her childhood home. It was the only theory Selene could come up with, so she decided it was the truth.
Selene left Magnolia Manor enlightened with the existence of the records and who had the key to them.
Hyacinth was scared shitless after a simple threat to tear off his prick and he sang like a songbird. But she knew how to bide her time and make others do the hard work for her.
He didn’t tell her where the records were hidden…but if Kiran showed up, Hyacinth would be so desperate to get the Alphas off his back that he would give up the last bit of the secret. And then Kiran would retrieve the records for her without her lifting a finger.
Until, at least, they pried it from someone’s unwilling fingers.
Whether that *someone* was Wisteria Ren or Seff Amaranth, was to be determined.
After a time period she didn’t track, Sienna arrived not with a letter but spoken word: “Kiran returned. But neither Magnolia has the key.”