Dante’s Circle Reborn: A Dante’s Circle Collection

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  It was still there. Waiting.

  Levi looked between her and Ashen. “It seems we have lots to talk about. Now, one of my homes is close to here. It would be a safe place for you to think, to gather yourselves before I take you to see Dante.”

  She looked at Ashen and nodded. “He’s a friend.”

  Ashen ran his hands through his long, blond hair and swallowed hard. “I guess we could use a few of those now.”

  They followed Levi and the two spoke in hushed tones, and she was glad for that. It was all a little bit too much, considering that it had been almost a full day since she had met this reaper, this man who had been sent to kill her but had protected her instead. What would it mean for his soul that he had killed a fellow reaper and had gone against the rules of his new life?

  He had protected her, just like she had tried to protect him. And now she was afraid that he was going to lose everything because of it.

  There was a reason they were fated mates, and yet the idea that they were still so new at this was ever-present in her mind.

  “Here we are,” Levi said after a near-silent journey. She looked up at the two-story house in the woods and could feel the wards pulsating off of it. Protection. Home. Sanctuary.

  She didn’t have magic of her own, that’s not what kind of paranormal she was. However, she could usually sense it. Ashen’s shoulders tensed.

  “Will this magic harm my mate?” Ashen asked, and she froze, blinking up at him.

  Okay, so they were just going to declare it like that, were they? Good to know.

  Levi shook his head. “No, it won’t.” A pause. “Your mate?”

  “Yes,” she said, hoping that Levi understood. She knew he wouldn’t be able to sense the bond, but there was no going back now. Not with that declaration and the fact that they had killed to protect one another.

  Her life was tied up in fate, why should she run from it?

  They made their way inside Levi’s home, but she didn’t relax. The other reapers could show up at any moment, and she had a feeling that once Ashen figured out exactly who he was before, everything would change once again.

  It didn’t matter that had been, what, only twenty hours of her knowing him. She didn’t want him to be hurt any more than he already had been.

  He had died before and was already risking everything for a life of his own—and for her.

  She protected her family, her nieces and nephews and her sister and brother-in-law. She did her best to keep them safe, even if all she could do was be the watcher amongst the others of her realm. She wasn’t a warrior, and she couldn’t even flash from one side of the realm to the other.

  But she had always been there for her family. And now, she would be here for Ashen. Even if she didn’t know what to do next.

  “You are Levi?” Ashen asked, his voice hoarse.

  “I am.” Levi looked at his face, trying to see someone there that wasn’t.

  “Do you know of reapers?” Eva asked, and Ashen stiffened.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “No, he will need to know who the reapers are, especially since one died in his realm.”

  “Reapers. They’re real? They aren’t just the bogeymen?” Levi asked.

  “They’re real,” Ashen growled. “So real that I’m one of them. Apparently, when someone dies, another can decide, or rather fate can make the decision for that soul to be reborn into a reaper. I don’t remember who I was before. I don’t remember anything other than the fact that I was a bear and I died in flames.”

  Levi let out a rough laugh, one that was strange and full of pain. Eva wanted to reach out and hold him, the same with Ashen, but she didn’t. She stood still, knowing that this was important.

  “So you take souls?” Levi asked, ignoring the giant elephant in the room. Namely, how Levi knew Ashen. She was grateful that they were taking this slow. She didn’t know if Ashen could take too much all at once.

  “I’m supposed to. I didn’t. The man we killed wanted me to take Eva’s, and I wouldn’t.”

  “So he came after you. And you killed him?”

  “I didn’t know a reaper could die again, but he threatened my soul and Eva’s. So I used my scythe, and I took his instead.” Ashen growled a bit, and she wanted to move his hair from his face just to make sure he was okay. It was such an odd reaction, but she felt as if she had done it countless times before.

  “Are you going to get in trouble for that reaper?” Levi asked.

  “He already wanted our souls, so I’m going to go with yes,” Ashen answered dryly, and she smiled, surprised he could laugh at a time like this. Or at least joke.

  Her stomach hurt. She knew she was pale, her body shiny with sweat. They had been going through so much recently already, and her body just hurt. She wasn’t going into shock, but she was close.

  “If you are the reincarnation of someone who died, and you look just like him, are you supposed to know who you were once?” Levi asked, his voice soft.

  Eva reached out and put her hands on the small of Ashen’s back. He leaned towards her, and she was grateful.

  “I don’t know if I should know too much. Because if I do, when I start to remember things, it hurts. I feel like there’re hot pokers in my mind. I passed out the first time I looked at this one,” Ashen said, gesturing to her, and she blushed.

  “Oh,” Levi said softly.

  “My name is Ashen. That’s the name that they gave me anyway.” He paused. “Do you know what my name was before this?”

  Levi looked as if he were considering holding back, but he blurted it out anyway. “Torrent. You were Torrent. A bear shifter, and a friend.”

  Eva reached out as Ashen leaned sharply to the side, sucking in a deep breath.

  “I don’t think I’m supposed to have these memories. But they’re slowly coming. Damn it.”

  “What do we do?” Eva asked.

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to do anything. I don’t think I’m normal.”

  Levi moved closer. “I won’t say anything else. There’s going to be some people who want to see you, though, Torrent.”

  Ashen let out a groan. She didn’t think of him as Torrent. He was Ashen to her. And he would be until he decided otherwise.

  Levi seemed to understand that because he winced as soon as he said it.

  “I’m sorry. Take your time. I’ll just…I guess I should handle that dead body back there.”

  “No need,” a voice said from behind them. They all turned, the ward’s pulsating all at once.

  Ten shrouded figures stood behind them in the small house. She shrank back, looking for a weapon.

  Ashen’s claws were out again, something that had startled her at first, but now she liked it. It was handy to have a bear shifter when she didn’t have a weapon.

  Levi was on her other side, his palms outstretched as burning flames spun. He was a wizard and would use his magic to protect his home. She was just grateful that his mate and children weren’t here to get caught in the crossfire. If anyone came to attack them, he would burn the place to the ground.

  “How did you get past my wards?” Levi asked.

  “We are reapers.” An answer in itself, apparently. “I have no quarrel with you, wizard. Thank you for protecting our secret from the others. I’m sure you’ll ensure that none of the others in this realm speak of this.”

  “I’m not sure of anything,” Levi growled out.

  “I see.”

  “I am Reaper,” the main man spoke.

  “We figured you were a reaper,” Eva said dryly, her hand on Ashen’s elbow. She needed to touch him, needed to make sure he knew he wasn’t alone.

  “No, Reaper. My title and my name. It’s not very original, I know, but I am millennia-old. It’s what happens when you are one of the first.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re special,” Reaper said to Ashen.

  “Really?” Ashen asked, his voice a growl.

  “Alrea
dy able to partially shift. And I know your memories are coming back. That makes me think the man who sent me out for you was wrong.”

  Eva’s eyes widened.

  “Torrent died protecting his brother’s mate. Protecting my mate. It was during the first war of the dragons, the one of the lightning-struck. He wasn’t destined to die then?”

  Reaper looked between them, and Eva sucked in a breath, unable to do anything.

  “I do not know. And as one who has held fate in his hands, who has been to the loom itself, that worries me. There has been a shift, not merely that of the lightning-struck, but of something more. I will have to figure out exactly what that means.”

  “So, I died for no reason?” Ashen growled out.

  “Perhaps. Or maybe the reason was to protect those you loved, to come back to safeguard another.”

  Ashen looked at Eva, and her hand squeezed his arm even harder.

  “She was not meant to die,” Reaper began, and she started, looking at him.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The other reaper, the one you so easily killed—something you’re not supposed to do by the way—was the one who found your name in fate. He was the one who gave me your name at first, Ashen, when you were Torrent. He lied. For reasons unknown. Perhaps he wanted to be fate itself, wanted that power. We may never know, but I will find out.”

  Ashen began to laugh, but there was no humor in it.

  “I died for that man’s amusement? And I almost killed my mate, an innocent, for nothing. I won’t kill her. I won’t kill for you at all. I want no part of this.”

  Reaper nodded. “Understandable. However, you will always be a reaper. You will always have those powers.”

  “I refuse to reap.”

  There was a finality in his tone that Eva agreed with. After everything that had just occurred, she didn’t blame him.

  “We can discuss that in a hundred years or so,” Reaper said calmly as if he hadn’t just passed a century between them in terms of what Ashen needed to do.

  “What does that mean?” Eva asked.

  “It means, I apologize for the inconvenience.”

  “Death, an inconvenience?” she asked incredulously.

  “When you’ve been touched by as much death as I have, sometimes, it’s nearly just. I am sorry for what happened, but I am glad that you found your mate. We will give you a century, Ashen, for you to find your path. If you choose to come back to us, we would be grateful. After all, there is a spot open in our Collective, and with the fate of the worlds resting on our shoulders, the loom needs to be read.”

  And with that, the ten shrouded figures disappeared, leaving the three of them standing there slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

  “Well, that doesn’t happen every day,” Levi said, tapping his fingers on the wood next to him. “Or maybe it does in my case. Being mated to a lightning-struck seems to change everything.”

  Eva looked over at Levi, blinked, then turned back to Ashen. “What now?”

  Ashen shook his head and then leaned down and brushed his lips over hers. “Now, I suppose, we figure out exactly who I am.”

  She looked up at him and knew that this was the beginning. The start of everything that she had ever hoped for. She wanted to find out what would happen with him, what would happen with them.

  And without the reapers on her tail, she would finally have time to do that.

  Chapter 5

  Ashen looked up at the sign for the old bar that reminded him of an Irish pub and frowned.

  “Dante’s Circle?”

  “It’s his bar. Dante. And his circle of friends. Plus, I think he enjoyed the Divine Comedy.”

  Ashen looked down at Eva. “Are you my Virgil?”

  “Through Hell and Purgatory, though I could be your Beatrice through Paradiso.”

  “I will have to reread those books. It’s been a few decades since I read it,” Ashen said with a frown. “Why can I remember things like that, but can’t remember the faces of my family?”

  “Maybe because those things aren’t as important?”

  “Maybe.” He swallowed hard, his chest constricting. “Will you still call me Ashen? Until I remember?”

  Eva reached up and slid her arms around him. “I’ll call you whatever you need me to. And then we can find that path where we find each other.”

  “Thank you,” he whispered and then leaned down, taking her lips with his.

  The bear and the reaper inside him wanted to take her right then, to claim her as his mate and then figure out the rest later. But he held himself back. Because Eva needed it, and he wanted to figure out who they were before he put them on another trail of fate.

  “Are you ready?” Levi asked, his voice low beside them.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Ashen said as he pulled away from Eva, but kept his hand clasped with hers.

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I told my mate who I was bringing with me. Because I don’t keep secrets from her. And I told Dante because you can’t keep secrets from a dragon.” He sighed. “He wasn’t happy because he’s mated to someone close to you, at least the old you. And he wanted to tell him right away. I’m not sure what Dante decided. If we were any later, I know for sure he would have already told him, but I don’t know about now.”

  Ashen sighed, unsure of anything at the moment.

  “I also told the others that I had someone they needed to meet, but I didn’t warn them. I didn’t feel I had the right. They’re probably going to hurt me for that choice, but I felt like you deserved that moment.”

  Ashen swallowed hard. “I’m not the man I once was,” he whispered.

  “None of us are,” Levi said sagely, and Eva squeezed Ashen’s hand.

  “You don’t need to be that man.” He looked down at his mate and nodded.

  Let’s go,” Ashen said softly, wondering if he was strong enough for this.

  He felt like he had just woken up from a dream, one that brought death and destruction.

  He had a hundred years to find out who he was before he had to go back to his duties as a reaper. If he wanted to be a reaper at all.

  In the interim, he would figure out exactly what he was with Eva. But he already knew that. The loom of fate had already been woven long ago where that was concerned. She was his mate, and she had sung her song for him. There was no going back. He could already feel the bond beginning to take form between them, her song the catalyst. That was why he had passed out initially.

  They would need to cement the bonds, but that would come. When they were ready. First, though, he had to face this task. One he couldn’t remember.

  They walked inside, and there were groups of paranormals all around, each talking to one another and laughing. There was a gorgon behind the bar, secretly making out with who he assumed was her mate, a jaguar with a scar on his face.

  Ashen didn’t recognize anyone, but there were a few scents in his nostrils that reminded him of something. Like from a dream.

  But more likely, from Torrent’s past.

  Others gave him strange looks but didn’t really pay attention to him. Then there was a gasp, a cry, and someone fell to their knees.

  “Torrent?” a deep voice asked, and a large man with blond hair and bright green eyes ran to him “Torrent.”

  Ashen looked into those eyes and wondered if he should know who the man was. He looked so familiar. And yet, not.

  If Torrent looked into the mirror, though, he might recognize those cheekbones and that hair. The wide eyes. Though his eyes were no longer green. Or maybe they had never been.

  He didn’t know.

  He couldn’t remember.

  “Torrent, how is this possible?” The man looked over his shoulder and growled at his mate. “You knew this, didn’t you?”

  The dragon, it must be Dante, walked forward and nodded, his hands outstretched, palms up. “Levi found him today. And I told him to bring him here. I didn’t know if he was actually going to c
ome, however. That’s why I didn’t mention it right away. Although, if they hadn’t shown up within the next five minutes, I was going to tell you, and we would have hunted him down.”

  The dragon looked at Ashen then, his black-and-blue hair over his shoulders, a fang peeking out of his smile.

  Ashen was really lucky that he’d shown up because he did not want to be on the bad side of a dragon.

  “You…you came. It’s you,” Jace gasped as he turned back to Ashen.

  Jace. His name was Jace. Ashen’s brother, well…Torrent’s brother, was Jace.

  Flashes of bear cubs and honey, a family and warmth, all filled him. He staggered, and Eva put her hands on his chest.

  “Breathe, Ashen. You can do this. It’s okay.”

  “Why are you calling him Ashen?” Jace asked, his voice deadly. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s my name,” Ashen said honestly. He looked up at Jace, his brother, and let out a long breath. “I’m not the man you knew. I don’t remember much. Don’t blame the dragon for holding back. I think he wanted you to see me first. For I am a ghost. A memory. A wisp of being.”

  “You are not, damn it,” Eva said from beside him, and he looked over.

  “I’m not?”

  “No, you are Ashen. You are whoever you need to be. Whoever you want. And if they have a problem with that, they can go through me.”

  His banshee raised her chin and looked at the rest of the people in the bar, an angelic warrior, a demon, a brownie, a pixie, a leprechaun, a lion, and even a phoenix. So many of their kind all in one room, working together as one. They were friends.

  Were they Torrent’s friends?

  Perhaps.

  Were they Ashen’s friends?

  No, not yet. He didn’t even know himself yet, but he couldn’t wait to figure out exactly who the rest were.

  “Okay…okay,” Jace whispered, holding onto Dante’s arms. “How is this possible?”

  Ashen let out a breath. “I died. Because of the fates or the reapers, I don’t know. Maybe it was an accident. I might not ever know, but I died. And then I woke up again, in this new body.” He looked down at himself and frowned. “Or, a body similar to this.”