found and the vibe he was getting from Kirill suggested he felt the same way.
“We’re cleanish, healed, and fed. Who’s our other mate?” Arvyn asked bluntly as soon as their plates were cleared, and the four men were supping coffee. “Why did he leave the way he did?”
“I think he left you initially to save me,” Kirill said quietly. “But yes, I want to know why the being didn’t come back. Didn’t he recognize who we were to him? Is that because of what he is? Does he always go around randomly saving vampires locked in cells, and if it is something he does all the time, then why the hell did he say he would come back and why the hell did he leave me a drop of blood that doesn’t belong to Arvyn?”
“Ah.” Cass looked at Wesley, who shook his head.
“You know more about that lot than I do. You might as well tell them.”
“It’s not like I know much more than you,” Cass protested. “I mean, I’ve worked under Hades pretty much all my life, and I’ve seen Zeus a few times, but…”
“Hang on a minute.” Arvyn held up his hand. “I recognize those names at least. Are you trying to tell us our third is an ancient Greek god?”
Wesley shook his head again. “Not an ancient Greek god, no. An ancient Egyptian one.”
Arvyn struggled to fit who he’d seen briefly, with his image of what a god might look like. “That little guy? The one in jeans? The one who was walking when you came running to save me? He’s an ancient Egyptian god?”
“You’ve seen him,” Kirill asked urgently.
“Briefly mate, briefly, and I have to admit, I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t scent him until I checked the alley where he’d been after he’d gone.” Arvyn cursed himself for that now. “I was in pain, I’d heard about you and all my instincts were honed towards finding somewhere to shift, and then finding a way to get you free.”
“It’s okay, beloved.” Kirill nodded and Arvyn appreciated the hand he suddenly felt on his thigh. “So, who are we talking about here?” He asked Cass and Wes. “I don’t know gods, obviously, but I’ve heard of Osiris… Seth… there’s Horus… Anubis... and er… Thoth. That’s about all I can think of and surely our third is not one of them. Is he a lesser god perhaps?”
“You didn’t mention Ra on your list,” Cass noted.
“Amun Ra?” Arvyn tried to remember what he’d ever learned about him.
“It’s just Ra,” Wes said, shaking his head. “Amun Ra was a human construct. A merging of different deities in the minds of mortals, who were renamed according to what a pharaoh believed at different times.”
“Ra, as in the Father of all Gods, the sun god, the Egyptian god of creation who birthed the human race through his tears? That Ra?” Kirill sounded incredulous.
“He did that?” Arvyn hadn’t known, but he was just as shocked. “But that means… And I mean… Fuck, I don’t know what I mean. The Fates – what were the Fates thinking? I’m a drifter. I don’t even have a job, let alone much of any formal education. I’m just a freaking wolf shifter.”
“The Fates don’t make mistakes,” Kirill said, increasing the pressure of his hand on Arvyn’s thigh, although he still sounded shocked too. “The Fates obviously see more in you than you believe in yourself, and if they say Ra is meant to be ours, they’d have a reason for it.”
“Ra is a good guy,” Cass said quickly. “Sure, he’s a god, and yes he’s ruled his realm since time began, but he still puts his pants on the same way as everyone else.”
“A lot of the ancient gods have found their mates recently.” Wes cast a quick glance at the kitchen door of the diner, but they were the only ones in the room. “From what one of those mates told me, ancient gods, all gods’ life threads form the permanent framework that support the weave of the tapestry of life. They’re immortal so those threads are never cut. But some of these gods haven’t been worshipped or believed in for thousands of years. Can you imagine living an existence like that? You can’t die, you can’t ask to cease to exist like one god tried to do. As a god, your presence is necessary to support the threads of millions of mortals, yet you’re a forgotten part of history. Can you imagine how lonely that