It was certainly not the first kiss in Kiril's life but it felt like the only one that mattered in that instant.
She kissed him, not the other way around. It was out of her own free will and Kiril was angry with himself for how giddy it made him feel.
All the giddiness though, couldn't distract him from the other things he noticed those days when they were close together. Life was slowly draining out of Mila's body. Her body was still human and the supernatural baby was too strong. If it weren't for Selene's power she would already be dead, but since Mila couldn't use or wield that other power, it was chafing at her too even if it was keeping her alive.
He was angry with Erik. How could he impregnate her without thinking about the consequences? He knew she was human and that human girls couldn't carry hybrid babies. Had he been so blinded by lust that he acted like a teenager that didn't know how babies are made? Was he so desperate for an heir or to tie her to him because he knew he was competing with almost every other male of his kind? Had it been an accident? But how the hell can you still have this type of accident at the tender age of one hundred and twenty? He had slept with lots of girls but never left any baby in his wake.
Erik was making him angry from beyond death and that embryo was terrifying him in more ways than one. It was holding his power too, and that power was harder to control than any of the regular wolf magic. DNA worked very strangely. It was amazing and frightening how it gathered the information from his blood too that was at the point of the conception in Mila's body. Even if he clearly didn't father the child it had a least one thing of him, that damn power that made it very, very dangerous.
If he had to be honest with himself and with Mila, aborting the child would be the best option for her. Even that kid doctor noticed that something was off, even if the embryo didn't manifest magic in his presence. He said that it was making the mother terribly weak and he couldn't find a scientific reason for that.
However, that was clearly not an option Mila made that abundantly clear all the time she insisted on the doctor saving the baby. It was not like Kiril wasn't used to pushing his will on people when it was for their own good, as he did with Angel not long ago, but that was different. He was not Sanjay. But he had to do something because else she would die.
"Are you sober now?" asked Kiril when Angel exited the bathroom.
"I guess so..." mumbled Angel. "Auu! What was that for?" He then cried up when Kiril's palm collided with the back of his head.
"For getting drunk and for getting Ju drunk too."
"It was Dasha's idea," answered Angel.
"But you are much older than Dasha and should have known better. Besides, you are an Alpha and have responsibilities, you cannot just get shit-faced when you feel like it."
"Sorry..." whispered Angel, looking at the floor. He sounded so sad it almost made Kiril feel bad. "You sound like my sister. Angel, you are Alpha you have to do this nasty thing, Angel you are Alpha you cannot do that... Why the fuck do people even want this burden?"
"Frodo, we need to leave the shire now."
The corners of Angel's mouth twitched up involuntary and he looked at Kiril with at least some light in his eyes.
"You are weird. That was sort of a good joke. I just thought you are a murderous maniac but turned out you are also funny sometimes. What do you want from me again?"
"We have to go to the airport."
"Why?"
"To obviously fly somewhere."
"Ha-ha. Where? And why do you need me?"
"To America. That's why. Since it's your pack now, your presence will mean I will encounter less or no opposition. We can skip the airport part if you fly us there."
"Hell no. Do you know how big the ocean is. And it's full of water. No freaking way."
"Thought so..."
"Who is going to guard them, and most of all Mila, while we are gone?"
"The whole female population of my pack is surrounding the area and is commanded to protect Mila with their life."
"Why are they not here then?"
"It's better not to get too close..."
The plane ride was long. Too long for Kiril that just couldn't be patient in that situation.
"You didn't tell me what we do here?" asked Angel just before landing. "The idiot that I am even stopped questioning your very questionable actions."
He didn't answer. Kiril always preferred silence after the years of his childhood when he couldn't control the voices he was hearing all the time, but that particular time, Angel's silence felt heavy.
"You are so nice to Mila it does not even look like you are the same person."
Kiril just gave him a cranky look, hoping that would shut him up.
"It makes me think that despite everything, it feels wonderful, being loved by you..." Angel sighed and looked out the plane window. "It must hurt knowing that she loves Erik and that it will always be him..."
"You talk too much. Shut up. Your voice irritates me," answered Kiril gruffly.
"And there is this side of you, that is reserved for... Everyone else..." Angel rolled his eyes. "By the way, what did you talk to Samira about before everything happened, I mean. She looked fuming."
Angel hoped she didn't tell him about the fact that Samira joined his pack and was now his Beta.
"Nothing special. Just the usual 'I want to kill' you and so on."
"Okay."
So she didn't. Kiril will be fuming when he will find out.
Kiril kept ignoring him.
"Kiril, why are we walking outside this damn city, to the middle of fucking nowhere?"
"We are going to Nodin's pack house. He used The Book of Souls and Worlds for your necromancy shenanigans and that is what I need."
"No! I am not going to do that again. If you plan to raise the dead, any dead, you can kill me first, because I am not doing that again. "
"I don't. I just need the book."
"For fucking what? That thing is cursed and so is anybody that touches it."
"No. It's not. It's not the first time I use it and I am fine. It's all about what you do with it."
"And what do you want to do?"
"Keep Mila alive. I know you noticed that too. She is too weak to carry that baby to term."
Kiril didn't want to continue the conversation but what they found was, besides a distraction at the right point in time, also something frightening none of them had expected.
Nodin't pack-house was ashes and rubble.
"What happened here?" whispered Angel frightened.
"Well, you tell us, almighty Alpha of ours. You finally showed yourself. The guy that killed Nodin, finally showed up," said a tall dark man, with long dreads, that emerged from the forest surrounding the ruins. His face was somehow familiar but Kiril couldn't quite place it in memory. He never paid a lot of attention to people he didn't find interesting.
"And when he did, one notices that he is only a boy. So very disappointing. You are Michael Wittfeld's lover, aren't you?" said another. This one was shorter and leaner, with lighter skin, almond-shaped eyes and waist-long dark hair. Again he had no idea who that was, but the two of them must have gone rogue after Nodin's death, or else they couldn't have resisted Michael's summoning and would have been present at the fight with the brotherhood.
"Ah, go away," said Kiril unimpressed.
"Kiril. The great Alpha of the North. So you were working for him, little boy? You became a traitor so you can enter his good graces? Did he at least also fuck you as a reward?"
"Angel, kill them. I am bored."
"Are you kidding me? I can't. It's two to one," whispered Angel.
"And you have two alpha powers. Go. I need to find that book," said Kiril and walked away, totally ignoring them and started moving away the rubble and the ash.
He was hearing muffled battle sounds but didn't look back. A good fight would do Angel good. The boy lacked confidence but wasn't dumb at all and neither unskilled. He just needed to step out of Michael's shadow, so that the world wouldn't call him Michael's lover anymore rather than remembering his name, but he had to earn that with blood.
He knew how it felt. Grigori Rasputin had also cast a very long shadow, but meanwhile, he had surpassed his father in fame among the lycans while remaining anonymous to the humans.
He heard Angel huff and scream and was almost tempted to turn around and kill the two himself. When he moved away most of the ruined material, he found Nodin's half-rotten body, clutching a totally rotten skeleton of a smaller person, that couldn't be anybody else but Mei.
Mei had been a sweet girl, part of the Asian pack, and daughter of the warden of China. Mei had taken a liking to Kiril many years ago before having met Nodin. Their relationship never went very far, because the one time Kiril looked into her mind when they first met, he found her so terribly candid that he just didn't want to ruin that. After finding Noding and understanding true love she appreciated that but the bond with him still stayed strong even if it changed nature.
At that point, anger was bubbling up in him. Mei came out of her own free will to fight in the battle on the volcano. It was sad but she knew the risks. At that point, Kiril felt conflicted. He was angry at Noding for not being able to let her rest yet at the same time he understood him very well.
Mila is not dead yet. And neither will she be, while I can do something about it. Whatever it takes.
Kiril closed his eyes. The Book of Souls and Worlds was a powerful relic that had been for most only an urban legend. However, it was not unfamiliar to him. His father had traded half of his known life to a demon to help him find it. After that, Rasputin used it during the resurrection of Lucius, but after his death, it came into the possession of the Brotherhood. Seemingly Nodin managed to retrieve it somehow.
He wandered many years in the past in his memories trying to recall the ominous aura of the relic. At first, everything was dark and it seemed hopeless, but then, like a light whisper, he heard it calling to him. Boulders were flying, together with steel and concrete until the metal box that was holding the book came to light. Nodin had buried it under the foundations of his house.
Together with it were also, a golden spinner and, as big as a pinky finger, a shard of Anima Mundis. The sword splintered after Lucius was sent to hell, but apparently, Nodin had managed to find one surviving piece.
When he touched them, a shiver went through Kiril's spine.
Angel's heavy breathing brought him back to reality. He was all bloody and tired.
"I didn't kill them, but they are hurt really badly," he said with tears in his eyes.
"They will heal and they will respect you. Well done, baby alpha."
"I don't like hurting people, but this time it made me feel good and now I feel guilty for that."
"They are not dead. Boys fight all the time. They were twice your size and mocking you. They were calling for it."
"Michael lied," said Angel looking at the two bodies. "He killed Nodin, for his stupid greater good."
Michael likely lied about more things than Angel could stomach but that wasn't his place to tell him. It would just sound like talking bad of the dead and it would just hurt without healing anything.
The atmosphere was somber but the whole endeavor was at least not in vain.
"Now you are thinking that he never loved me and I was just an idiot and a plaything, right?" said Angel, looking Kiril deep in the eyes. His big, dark doe eyes were glistening with tears. He was a cute boy and likely right, probably also a delicious plaything for Michael.
"It doesn't matter. However it may be, it will not make the relationship you had just vanish, nor the love you felt. Just leave it at that. Splattering mud on it will not make you feel better," said Kiril in the end, but before Angel could answer in any way, a shudder went through both of them.
When they looked up at the sky, the moon was visible, shining brightly even if on the west coast of the continent it was five in the afternoon. And besides everything, it was... purple.
"Something happened," muttered Angel, mouth wide open.
"We have to get to Mila," said Kiril, and all the fear he felt was sinking into his body.
"Yes. We have to fly, my alpha and master, before the world ends."
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Next on the list are ambiguous stuff and maybe some smut, stay tuned, and thank you for reading.