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