83. A White Birch Box

Kiran gave Hyacinth two seconds to answer. When the third second passed, he grabbed the Magnolia Alpha’s throat and shook him once, hard. “I don’t have time for this,” he snarled. “Out with it.” Hyacinth’s eyes were huge; his mouth gaped for air. “Oh. Right. I suppose you need to breathe.”
Kiran released him and he missed the chair, falling disgracefully onto the carpeted floor. Kiran curled his lip. “You call yourself an Alpha? Pathetic. Your *physique* is pathetic. Here, this might inspire you to talk.”
He lunged downward to yank Hyacinth back into the chair by his shirt collar. Bracing one hand on the back of the chair, his other grabbed Hyacinth’s crotch.
“I look great for my age,” Kiran grinned at Hyacinth’s yelp, “you, on the other hand…” The pack leader was only in his forties, but the gods were not kind—rather, his gluttony fed him too well—to his gut. “Do you just lounge around and let your wives feed you bacon strips while you fuck?”
“I’ll tell you!” Hyacinth shouted. “Just let me go!”
It was good to give the victim of punishment some control. Kiran retracted and crossed his arms. “Hurry it up. I need to wash my hand.”
“At least I didn’t piss my pants,” Hyacinth grumbled with the return of his ballsy attitude. Straightening in his chair and adjusting his collar, doing his best to ignore the roll of Kiran’s eyes. “Listen. I already told Selene that the Amaranth records are here at the Manor.”
“I assumed that.”
“And the key—”
“She already told me.”
Hyacinth squirmed. He tried to get the upper hand and failed already. “I wasn’t aware you two were on good terms.”
“We’re not. But we have mutual interests. I know you have the records, Furze.”
The Magnolia swallowed hard. “Did…did you bring the key?”
Kiran’s jaw clenched.* Fucking Magnolia females. Running me around like a fucking headless chicken*. “No. Wisteria Ren still has it.” *If I’d just pried it from her dead hands, he thought with a snap of rage, I could have just unlocked them here and now.*
“I plan to have you join me on my journey back so you could carry these damned records. Selene also mentioned you had your own business with Seff.”
Hyacinth paled whiter than his pack’s namesake. Kiran narrowed his eyes. He added slowly, “But she did not tell me what,” and inadvertently the Magnolia relaxed.
*What are you hiding, coward?*
When Hyacinth didn’t keep talking, Kiran growled, “Now spit out your secrets before I—”
“It’s a decorative box!” he yelled. His gaze met Kiran’s and somehow his terror kept the eye contact linked. “Before Linden died, she told me where they were—hidden in plain sight, just a wood box on a bookshelf. I—I took it before Wisteria could. I knew she knew about the records as well. She said she didn’t know where the key was either. But I knew she was lying and the only thing left was for it to end up in Seff’s hands.”
Kiran’s mind was connecting the dots, but before the full picture could be finished, Hyacinth blurted, “I’ll make you a deal.”
He grinned. “Oh? I like deals.”
Hyacinth leaned forward as if his life depended on what he was about to say—and, really, it did. “I’ll give you the records.”
“If?”
“If you give up taking my Omegas as concubines. If you and Selene never come back here so my pack can live without your shadows hovering above us.”
Kiran raised an eyebrow. “What if Seff returns?”
“My word still stands: never set foot on Magnolia territory. Do not pursue her back here. This is still her home, not yours. I read some of those damned records, and the pain you two immortals caused is its own legacy.”
His devilish mood dampened. *My love for Zinnia caused her family decades of pain*? “Is that what the records are?” he barked at Hyacinth. “Memoirs about what a beast I am?”
Hyacinth raised his hands in surrender. “No!”
*Keep focused, gold god*, Kiran reminded himself, mentally shaking his head. “If I agree to your bargain, I can’t say the same for Selene—”
“She already swore.”
Kiran sucked on his teeth, fighting a smirk tugged on by begrudging amusement. “Secrets are your currency, huh?”
Hyacinth appeared to ignore him. “Deal?”
He scrubbed at his jaw, trending to think hard. In truth, it wasn’t a hard decision. He had no use of new consorts anymore. There was still a year left of the Contest, but that was just a game to appease their boredom in the monotony of immortality, a “fun” competition he’d presented to Selene two years ago.
*“Let’s see who can have the most kids in…three years? Just for fucking kicks.”*
Selene had given him a condescendingly dubious glare. *“Breed as quick and often as we can?”* It didn’t take her long to agree, so strong was their shared boredom. *“Sure. Fine. No strings attached is a little cruel, don’t you think? No?”* she’d added quickly upon seeing his expression. *“All right, me neither. First to…fifty?”*
Kiran had grinned at the challenge. *“Challenge accepted. I’ll get my Delta to draw up some rules.”*
*“What does the winner get?”* she had asked.
He’d shrugged.* “Bragging rights? Why, what are you thinking in that wicked mind of yours?”*
*“Whoever wins…”* Selene had said with a slow smile, *“...gets the next reincarnation.”*
The suggestion had stunned even Kiran into silence. What an evil bitch, he’d thought. It was akin to his own question decades ago: *“Another doppelgänger? If there is…who gets her?”*
That would solve the impossible decision. An easy solution. He’d gripped her hand and shook on it. *“Deal.”*
When he returned to the Keep to reconvene with Selene, he would end the competition. Whoever had the most pups would be the winner. Easy.
There was some shuffling. Kiran blinked and realized Hyacinth had gotten up and returned to stand in front of him with a white birch tree box. It was large; at least five inches in height, twelve in length, and eight in width. By the way Hyacinth was holding it, it seemed to be heavy—though how was an Alpha to judge what was heavy?
The scent drifted to Kiran’s nose: wood, old paper, ink, and—
Zinnia. *Calla*.
Kiran’s hands lunged for the box, but Hyacinth held it out of reach. “Deal?” he repeated.
“Deal!” roared Kiran. “Give that to me. *Now*.”
Two Alphas faced each other with enough burden on their bodies to snap in half. There was a gravity to the moment, as if handing over decades of knowledge might be a grave mistake.
But Hyacinth was a selfish bastard and he would rather save his own ass.
He let Kiran take the box.
It weighed in his hands like a brick on his chest. It punched the air from his lungs. *I’m holding my mate’s handwritten letters*. The next thought was, *And Selene’s*.
“What will you do with them?”
Kiran almost didn’t hear Hyacinth. He cleared the fog in his head and his throat, assuming his charming composition. “I will get the key,” he said, straightening to his full height, gripping the wood so tight it hurt, “open and read every word, and then…”
He stared at the unlabeled box of white. Knicks and splatters of ink marred the surface and a metal lock kept it sealed for generations. What was really in the Amaranth records? It could possibly break him, break Selene, break Seff—they were *her* predecessors, after all. What if reading these brought her past lives’ memories back?
“Then I will decide if it’s worth burning them or not.”
Hyacinth suddenly seemed protective of the box and its secrets. “Wisteria will never give you the key.”
“Either I take it from her dead claws or I force Seff to hand it over.”
“The records are for her—only her. You are never meant to see them.”
Kiran’s teeth ground together. He shoved his palm into Hyacinth’s back, shoving him forward. “Get ready to leave. Small change in plan: *I* am going to carry these.”