91. All That's Left

Kiran thought, *That was the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do.*
Letting go of a soulmate not once but twice? The gods couldn’t even imagine the pain.
Watching Seff with her packmates, both before and after taking the white birch box from his hands, she transformed within minutes. First she looked ready to tear out his and Selene’s throats…but when she returned to the safety between her best friend’s mother and the male who professed his love to her, her relief made her look almost happy.
That, he concluded with great begrudgement, was all he could really hope for. If his mate—or the echo of her—was safe and happy, then he would be, too.
*Dear gods, what the fuck is wrong with me?*
Not too long ago, he was hellbent on making Seff remember her past life’s memories—and that included fucking her how he used to pleasure Zinnia. After that, the existence of the Amaranth records made the possibility all that much easier.
Would a few soft words from godsdamned Selene and Seff herself make him change his mind so easily?
*Give in, not give up*. Whatever the fuck that meant.
*Let her go*? Was it possible?
That dark place within him was purring. *Isn’t it a relief? Holding on is just a weight in your chest. Zinnia’s dead and gone, get over her. Once you do, you can have Selene—*
Kiran silenced the voice savagely and watched Seff clutch the box. He still wasn’t sure what she wanted with the records.
*“Only a part of me wants to read whatever’s in that box, but the rest of me wants it to be gone. Just so you keep trying to bring back the dead in my body.”*
Her truth was harsh because of its truth.
The words he’d threatened Hyacinth with were moot now; he’d wanted to read them and then burn them to hide the existence of love stories disguised as horror tales. He wanted to keep the memories of Zinnia to himself—keep them until he could share them with her reincarnation to bring his lost mate’s subconscious forward.
*Guess that’s too much to fucking ask for*, he thought, sucking on his teeth.
At the very least, he wanted to see Zinnia’s handwriting just once.
He couldn’t care less for the supposed memoirs and research her descendants wrote down. He just wanted to see his name in her messy script.
Selene’s voice jolted Kiran out of his thoughts, damn her. “Now what?”
When Seff looked at him, there was a change in him—rather, *lack* of change. His heart didn’t leap at her attention. His possessiveness at that Magnolia male didn’t react to their touching shoulders. Perhaps just a trace of bitterness that all his motivation from mere hours ago was burnt to ash.
*“I don’t know what it’s like to lose a mate, but I can see just how much it can destroy someone.”*
*Yes, I’m destroyed by you, little Omega*, he thought just before she spoke,
“I want to make peace with you two.”
Beside him, Selene quirked her head. “After all we’ve done?”
Seff nodded. Kiran looked her up and down. She was entirely different than two months ago; meek no longer, but confident—or at least driven to take what really belonged to her: her own life that he and Selene were trying to steal.
“Your mates meant the world. This…” She smoothed her hand over the top of the box. “The letters in this are the last things you have left of them. I don’t know how long you’ve gone without—”
“Sixty-eight years,” Selene said at the same Kiran said, “One hundred and five.”
All three Magnolias’ eyes went wide with shock, their pretty mouths parting.
The words were out before he could hold them back: “Pretty fucking long, huh?” Selene’s opened her damn mouth for some smart remark; he whirled on her. “Shut the hell up.”
The Luna sealed her lips with a smirk. She was taking all of this too casually. And she’d sent him far too many nonverbal warnings for his liking. Especially because they were directed at his own Delta.
“I—I’m so sorry.” Seff now radiated regret. Now she was realizing why he and Selene were so desperate—to go that long without their soulmate was unimaginable to an eighteen-year-old. “That’s why I can give you Zinnia and Calla’s things. I won’t read the diaries or let you show them to me, but you can keep whatever belonged to them. I don’t want to destroy anything…at least not yet.”
Wisteria Ren and that male angled their bodies in front of her as she knelt down, setting the box on the grass. Kiran didn’t mean to hold his breath as she rattled the key inside its rusted lock—and turned it.
The lid creaked open. Looseleaf paper, leather-bound books, fat envelopes, and pens fanned out and overflowed, released from being compressed after however long. The stale scent of stationary and in hit Kiran’s nose like a slap.
Selene grabbed his arm, lengthened claws digging into his skin. He whipped around with a snarl ready to rip from his throat, but when he saw the look on her face, Kiran felt his own go slack.
She was stricken, her blue eyes wide and bright with despair, as if scared to even look at the last remaining evidence of her soulmate even existing. She was equally terrified of what *he* would do.
He gave her the smallest of nods. *I promise*, it conveyed. It was validation—trust—enough for her to release him. But the tension in her body didn’t leave.
Seff was sorting through the records. Wisteria knelt and started separating supposedly by name. Certain piles were larger than others, and Kiran didn’t look closely enough to see what could belong to who. He could name most of Zinnia’s female descendants, but obviously not their handwriting.
Just went Kiran thought his spine would break from the strain of waiting, Wisteria gathered one of the smaller piles and looked not at him but at Selene first. “Calla Amaranth.”
Selene jerked forward as if yanked by a string. She took the records—one mere leather-bound diary, despite being rather thick, and a full-to-bursting yellowed envelope—and retreated to sit and lean against one of the courtyard’s supporting pillars. Her hair fell forward and hid most of her face, but Kiran knew she was already silently weeping.
He took one step toward her when Wisteria said, “Zinnia Amaranth.”
Two seconds later, Kiran held three slim diaries, the paper edges crinkled with age and splattered with ink, four tri-folded letters, and a scrap of musty silk wrapped around a canvas only eight inches tall and five inches wide.
Kiran sank onto the grass. He felt at a sudden loss. *Do I even deserve this*? He glanced up, but all the other wolves were preoccupied. He glimpsed Sienna and Hyacinth now behind a further-away pillar, busy with hiding.
He swallowed hard. Balancing the diaries and letters on his knee, he unwound the silk. The canvas was a portrait of himself. His throat thickened. Somehow she’d kept and hidden the gift from the painter they’d met passing through a human village. It was their third anniversary of Marking each other. He was rendered quite handsomely if he allowed the compliment.
He wrapped it and set it on his other knee to pick up the first letter. It was unaddressed on the outside, but when he unfolded it, the first line said in her imperfect scrawl, *To Mom and Dad*.
Immediately he refolded it. That was for a later time.
The second letter was addressed to her twin daughters. For later, he decided quickly.
The third ignited unbound rage—it was for Larkspur, the male who both filled her womb and *removed* it with his teeth. His fingers pinched the top of the paper with the intention to rip it into pieces, but…couldn’t. He flung it aside.
The fourth letter…the words, line after line, were crammed edge to edge as if it was the last piece of paper Zinnia would ever have. And it was addressed to him, her mate.
*To Kiran, my greatest love*,
Seff’s voice was strikingly similar to the tone of Zinnia’s, but it was still easy for him to tell the difference. Now especially, because it was raw with hatred. “Hyacinth,” she snarled.
Kiran bolted to his feet, loathing himself for letting Zinnia’s remnants flutter onto the grass, to find that Sienna had shoved the Magnolia Alpha into the courtyard straight into a shaft of moonlight.
Seff pushed past her packmates who tried to hold her back and stormed toward Hyacinth, her features warping as she fought the urge to Shift into her wolf form. The bastard cowered and tried to flee, but he ran straight into Sienna. She grabbed his shoulders and spun him back, holding fast, as if she had infinite more strength than a male Alpha.
“You *bastard*!” she roared, but before she could mount any attack, Selene put herself between the two Magnolias, and Seff was forced to stop. “Get out of the way, Selene!”
But the night goddess was smiling. She spoke to Hyacinth loudly. “Do you want to tell Kiran what you did, dear Magnolia Alpha, or are you too much of a pussy to admit your guilt?”
Ice froze Kiran’s blood in his veins. *Yes…the thief*, she had said with vague emphasis. It was another unspoken warning that he’d picked up on but couldn’t piece together.
When he turned, he met Selene’s gaze first—now sharp with *mirth*, excitement at what she promised: violence. Kiran was well-versed in shoving aside all other emotion but bloodlust. Retaliation was always fun. And he’d wanted to truly give Hyacinth’s cowardly ass what he deserved.
Kiran Cyrus was the Alpha of the Sun pack, and he was known for his cruelty. Hyacinth kissed his and Selene’s ass for years and lounged on the piles of money they offered in exchange for Magnolia Omegas. He betrayed his own pack by stealing.
But there was something more, wasn’t there?
Kiran didn’t smile yet. He slid his gaze to Hyacinth, who looked ready to piss himself. He asked slowly, “Tell me what?”