Arvyn grinned as he nodded. “He’s never made pancakes before. He was so excited to try his hand at flipping them. Apparently, he’d seen someone doing it on television. It’s so cute the way he wants to learn new things and share them with us.”
Kirill agreed but a noise made him look across the room where Yakov and Sven were still bound and propped up against the wall. Yakov, because he always was the troublemaker, was trying to wriggle his way out of the binding he was in. “Why don’t you shift, beloved. I’m a bit concerned you might have a head injury. Once you’re dressed again, we’ll drag those two outside.”
“Aren’t you just going to kill them?” Arvyn didn’t seem upset about the idea and Kirill was reminded again just how lucky he was with his beloveds.
“Yakov, definitely. He drugged me, chained me up, sent mercenaries after you and tried to get you killed, and that’s without what he did to those poor victims at the coven. He lost the right to breathe decades ago. Sven, on the other hand…” Kirill eyed his ex-head enforcer who hadn’t moved, his head down and his shoulders hunched over. “I need to talk to him, but not before we know Ra’s all right. It’s not going to kill him being out in the cold, and it’s not like he can go anywhere even if he gets free. We’re miles from anywhere.”
“Sounds fair to me. I’m just glad we’re doing this outside. I don’t want to have to scrub the tiles in this kitchen.” Arvyn winced as he tried to pull his top up. “Er… might need a bit of help here.”
Kirill’s hiss was a steady rhythm in the back of his throat as he helped Arvyn strip off his pants and top, revealing a mass of big black bruises especially across his side and back. He helped Arvyn down onto his hands and knees, making sure his bulk protected Arvyn’s nakedness from the vampires still tied up. There was a shimmer, and then a gorgeous big gray wolf appeared, far larger than he’d been the first time Kirill had seen his beloved shift.
“Claiming a god seems to have agreed with you, babe.” Kirill rested his hand on the wolf’s shoulder which was at the same height as his. “You’ve grown a bit since I saw you last.”
All the better to take out the trash. Kirill’s eyes widened as he heard Arvyn’s voice in his head. As if to prove his point, Arvyn stalked over, every inch the wolf after his prey. But this prey couldn’t run, it couldn’t speak – Yakov and Sven were helpless to do anything as Arvyn batted the two bound forms together with a giant paw and then snagged their bindings with his teeth, lifting them both off the floor.
Open the door please, babe.
“Now, you’re just showing off.” Kirill smirked as the wolf trotted by with his captives. There was a bit of trouble at the door, Arvyn determined to go straight through it, but the bodies and the way he was holding them meant heads and knees got knocked about. Kirill wasn’t going to care.
At first glance, Kirill couldn’t see anything different about the landscape surrounding the house, and definitely no sign of Seth or Ra. But then he heard a faint thump, and a ripple ran up towards the sky, a shimmer like water running across a clear windowpane. Wards. Of course. Please be all right, beloved. Kirill wasn’t getting anything from his bond with Ra and could only assume the wards Ra constructed blocked that too. A picture flashed through Kirill’s head – Ra left bleeding and broken on the Irish landscape, but Kirill pushed that away as fast as it came. He has to be all right. He just has to be.
Arvyn, meanwhile had trotted around to what looked like a disused woodshed. It was a reasonable size, like a single car garage, and had a wooden floor. The wolf tilted his head. Will this do?
“Perfect, beloved, just take them in and drop them on the floor.”
Kirill stood outside for a moment, taking the time to get into the right frame of mind for what he had to do. His worries about Ra, Kirill stuffed into a box in his mind and slammed it firmly shut. Yakov’s killing wouldn’t bring the lives back of the people he’d killed through his own cruelty and greed, and it wouldn’t help those who would spend the rest of their lives living with the trauma they’d been through. But Yakov’s death would mean he could never hurt another soul, and that would have to be enough.
Allowing his cold fury to settle over his shoulders like the coat he was still wearing, Kirill stepped into the woodshed.
/~/~/~/~/
Arvyn’s brain was full of jumbled thoughts. On the one hand, his wolf could appreciate that Ra needed to fight for his mates, the way any alpha would fight for his pack. He could feel a sense of pride in the way Ra was defending their mating. But as an alpha, Arvyn wasn’t used to feeling useless and unable to even offer verbal encouragement to one of the men who held his heart and soul. His wolf side was only mildly anxious, which helped. Arvyn trusted his animal spirit to know if anything went wrong in the fight he couldn’t see, although what he could do about it was a whole different story.
Then there was the mess with Kirill. Arvyn snarled at the vampires he’d dropped onto the ground, showing all his teeth. Yakov deserved to die. In Arvyn’s head, so did Sven. It was simple. Those victims in the barn didn’t hurt themselves. The only reason Arvyn could see for talking to Sven was to find out if any of the other vampires at the coven were also involved, so their names could be given to the vampire council. But with his worry about Ra, Arvyn wasn’t in the mood to listen to a bad-guy monologue.
The temperature in the barn dropped a full ten degrees when Kirill finally walked through the door. Arvyn could immediately see the difference, and from the way Yakov’s eyes were bugging out of his head, so could he. Cold. Stern. Kirill’s face was an emotionless mask. If Arvyn hadn’t have been able to feel his mate’s love for him through their bond, he’d have been heading for the hills. Kirill was every inch a vampire of old. Even his voice sounded deeper as he spoke.
“I’ve never been so disgusted in one of my kind before in my life.” One handed, Kirill scooped up Yakov’s bound body, holding it up in front of him, using the other hand to rip the gag from Yakov’s mouth. Yakov gasped and it seemed like he was going to start speaking, but a frosty glare from Kirill froze the words in his throat.
“Your crimes against me and one of my beloveds was bad enough. Drugging me, chaining me up, sending killers after the one the Fates decreed was mine. But then to find all those victims in the barn, to hear a list of similar crimes at three other covens – you’re a disgrace to vampires everywhere.”
Arvyn glanced at Sven who was still prone on the floor. The man had a look of disbelief around his gag, and he was shaking his head madly. Maybe there is a need to talk to him after all. But Kirill was speaking again.
“Your fate is already sealed. I told you I would rip your head from your shoulders the first time I saw you after I got free. Today’s the day. Any last words before I carry out your sentence?”
A trickling sound bounced onto the floor. Yakov had pissed himself. “I couldn’t help it,” Yakov cried. “I’m allergic to bagged blood... Er, my father abused me... I was never loved as a child. I didn’t hurt you when I chained you up and your beloved is right here... Please, believe me… I need help, not punishments. It’s not as though any of those other people meant anything to you… Why do you even care?”