Showcasing just a small glimpse of his abilities, Raith used his magic to force the alpha to his knees in the dirt right there in front of his own home. With another surge of energy, he wrapped an invisible hand around the were’s throat, choking off his air supply.
“I don’t know what you have October doing, but you will release him. He’s not your pet. I promise you have no clue what I’m capable of, but you will find out if you hurt my mate. Have I made myself understood?”
The man’s eyes narrowed, but he bobbed his head, shaking his dark hair into his face. Confident that he’d gotten his point across, Raith released the magical hold on his adversary and took a step back. “I don’t want to see you again, Bale.” Yes, that was the man’s name. “Leave us alone.”
Then he turned to walk away, thankful that he’d been able to secure October’s freedom. He felt the disturbance in the air before he heard the low rumble of Bale’s growl, but by the time he turned to investigate, it was too late. The wolf was already on him, half transformed as he tackled Raith to the ground and bit into his neck.
“Raith!” Hands grabbed his shoulders, digging into his flesh as he was shaken roughly. “Raith, answer me!”
Blinking several times as the dimly lit stone room came back into focus, Raith turned his head to stare into the wide, worried gaze of his lover. “Who’s Rastas?”
“What?” The look in October’s eyes was too knowing, though, and if anything, he looked even more upset than he had seconds before. “I don’t know—”
“Don’t lie to me,” Raith interrupted him. The trance or whatever that had taken him under was disconcerting, but he wasn’t stupid. If he had to guess, he’d say it was a memory. He just hadn’t yet grasped how it pertained to him.
Glancing over his shoulder toward the other men in the room, October sighed warily and dipped his head once. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Fine.” He could be an adult and take their private matters behind closed doors, but they were damn sure going to talk about it the minute they were back home.
Returning his focus to Phillip, Raith grunted as he jerked the man to his feet. The episode had him feeling out of sorts, and he was tired of playing games. The quicker he got what he wanted from Phillip, the faster he could find out what the fuck had just happened to him.
Peering into the hybrid’s eyes, he channeled his energy while he mumbled incantations under his breath. Phillip wasn’t strong enough to block him indefinitely, but it didn’t matter. Raith had no intentions of trolling through Phillip’s thoughts. This had gone on for too long, and he wanted it over with.
“No!” October shouted at him, clearly having realized what he’d planned. “Raith, stop. You can’t do this.”
Ignoring the plea, Raith continued to chant quietly, forcing Phillip to meet his gaze while he syphoned every ounce of magical energy from the bastard. After several long minutes, Phillip’s eyes glazed over, his mouth went slack, and he slumped forward into Raith’s arms.
Curling his nose in disgust, Raith shoved him toward Jonas with a sharp nod. “Compel him. He’ll tell you anything we want to know.”
“He’s still a vampire,” Nicholas responded as his brow furrowed. “He can still block it.”
“Man, he’s only half awake. He’ll be weak for a few days, but that’s about it. Trust me. It’ll work.”
Jonas shrugged, pinned his brother-in-law to the rock wall and leaned closer until their noses almost touched. “Where is Mikko Braddock?”
“Louisiana.”
They all shared looks, and a frowntugged at the corners of Raith’s lips. “What the hell is he doing there?”
“Our family owns a house outside ofNew Orleans,” Nicholas informed him.
“He’s sleeping,” Phillip added in a low monotone. “He won’t wake up.”
“Why do you have him?” Raith demanded.
“He’s valuable, but he won’t wake up.”
Nicholas, Jonas, and Raith all rolled their eyes and spoke at the same time. “The Book of the Banished.”
“Yes,” Phillip answered, though it hadn’t actually been a question. “If he wakes up, he’ll give me the book.”
“I’ll call Torren in the morning. We need to keep him here until we’re sure we have Mikko.”
October jerked his head in what Raith assumed was agreement. “Good idea.”
“We can take him back to Washington,” Nicholas offered. “He is technically my responsibility, and without his magic, I can manage him.”
“Thanks, and no offense, but I’d feel more comfortable if he remains close in case we need more information.”
“No offense taken. I do need to return to my coven, though.”
“I appreciate you being here.” The leader hadn’t been a tremendous amount of help, but Raith was thankful all the same. “Will you leave tonight?”
“Yes, I don’t think there’s any reason to stay.”
“I’ll have someone drive you to the airstrip.” October sounded distracted, and he was already exiting the cell while he spoke. Instead of climbing into the SUV like Raith expected, he kept walking right past it, waving Gideon off when the man asked if he was okay.
Clearly, he was spooked by what Raith had seen. The name Rastas was familiar to October, and he was hiding something. Raith just had to figure out what it was. Judging by his mate’s reaction, however, he had a feeling that he might regret knowing once he had all the facts.
* * * * “Okay, so what are you not telling me? You obviously know who Rastas is. What about Bale? Does that name bring up any memories I should know about?”
It wasn’t as though he’d been planning to keep his past a secret from Raith forever. He hadn’t actually lied about anything, either. He’d simply chosen not to volunteer certain information just yet. “Bale was the alpha of a werewolf pack in Connecticut, or what was the Colony of Connecticut in 1641.”
Raith refused to sit, and he paced around their bedroom in short, quick strides. October understood the feeling, but he wished the man would sit. The agitated movement was making him nervous, and he was already anxious enough as it was about sharing the story of how he’d lost his last mate.
“I knew he was a werewolf.” Raith laughed a little hysterically as he waved his arms around in uncoordinated motions. “Well, in my hallucination, I knew he was a werewolf.” He stopped abruptly and turned to point a finger in October’s face. “What did you do to piss him off?”
“Breathed.” Funny enough, he wasn’t being sarcastic. That was all it had taken back then to upset Bale Anderson, and October wasn’t the only one to feel his wrath. “It wasn’t until the late twentieth century that views on hybrids began to change. In the mid-1600s, it was shameful and embarrassing. We were one step below a mangy, stray dog, and I’m not exaggerating.”
Raith’s hands dangled limply at his sides, and there was a look of pity on his face that October had hoped to avoid. Thankfully, he wiped it away quickly, adopting a carefully neutral expression. “I remember. Not your situation, but in general, I remember how hybrids were treated.”
“How many lives haveyou led, Raith?” He’d been nearly four hundred years old when the original circle had attempted to destroy the Relegatis—the Book of the Banished. He’d heard the tale a thousand times, but until recently, he’d never had an opportunity to encounter one of the witches from that circle.
The story was legendary amongst the paranormals, but it had been retold so many times that some parts had become lost or distorted over the centuries. How much of it was true? And what pieces were missing?
“I’ve lived and died in six lifetimes,” Raith answered. “I’m working on lucky number seven.”
“That seems like an extreme number of lives to lead.”
Raith shrugged. “Let’s just say that I wasn’t particularly careful in any of them.”
“Do you remember them?” He knew from Torren that some of the witches remembered immediately with each reincarnation,
while others didn’t recall their previous lives until after a significant event, such as claiming a mate.
“We’re not talking about me. I want to know what happened back in Hell’s Alley.”
October was curious about that as well, but he figured they both needed to start back at the beginning if they were to understand Raith’s odd memory. Could he even call it a memory? It was all very strange, and he’d never heard of anything like it before.
“Let’s take it from the top. Something important is obviously happening, and I think we need to go back to the start. I’ll tell you my story. You tell me yours. Maybe somewhere along the way, the two will cross, and we can figure out what happened.”
With a heavy sigh, Raith settled down on the foot of the bed beside himand bumped their shoulders together. “Why do you always have to make sense? I’m kind of freaking out here, and you’re just sitting there all cool and logical. How the hell do you do that?”
A soft smile curved the corners of his lips up, and October leaned forward to whisper a tender kiss over the side of Raith’s neck. “Years and years of practice, draga.”
“Did I ever mention that I like when you call me that?”
“I’m glad, but you’re stalling. Tell me about these lives you’ve led so recklessly.”
A very attractive blush tinted Raith’s cheeks and crept up to his ears. “Is it that obvious?”
“I have a hard time believing that you were reincarnated six times in only five hundred years unless you weren’t taking care of yourself. Tell me what happened, Raith.”
“It’s not really much of a story. Like you said, each time I died was because of something reckless and ridiculous, usually because I was too stupid, stubborn, and cocky to keep myself out of trouble. I died shortly after we bound the book to that faerie, Camdin, back in the 1500s. I was drunk and vengeful, not a good combination.”
“And after that?” He hated that he was forcing Raith to relive each traumatic event, because he had an inkling that each of his lover’s deaths were brutal. October wasn’t exactly looking forward to delving into his past, either, but they needed to get everything out on the table if they wanted to move forward.
“I managed to stay alive the next time around until the winter of 1766. The next few years were a bit of a mess, though, and I found ways to get myself killed four different times between 1766 and 1865.”
“Good gods, Raith.” The guy couldn’t have lived past his early twenties duringany of those times. “What in the hell were you doing?”
“Nothing really,” Raith answered with a shrug. “They were usually bar fights, or something else stupid.” He hung his head and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I was only persecuted once because of the Book of the Banished, and that was back in the 1950s.” He held his palms up and spread his fingers. “And here I am now with witch hunters breathing down my neck again.”
There were dark shadows under his eyes, his skin appeared a bit paler than usual, and he was trembling from the tips of his hair to the soles of his boots. The heel of his foot bounced against the floor, shaking the entire mattress, and his fingers flexed and relaxed over and over. Raith also appeared to be blinking more than usual, and his breathing came in fast, shallow puffs through his slightly parted lips.
Resting a hand on his mate’s shoulder, October squeezed in comfort. “Is everything okay?”
Jumping up from the bed, Raith resumed his earlier pacing, but his fingers continued to curl and uncurl at his sides. “Yeah, I’m good. I guess I just didn’t realize what afuckup I’d been.”
October didn’t buy it for a second. “It’s the magic, isn’t it?”
“I’m fine,” Raith snapped, jerking his head in October’s direction. He calmed almost immediately, as though the outburst hadn’t happened, and lengthened his strides as he marched from the door to the bed. He kept his head down, staring at his feet as he walked, and his lips moved as he mumbledto himself. “I told you my story. It’s your turn.”
“I was born in 1014 in Constantinople. My father was a vampire and one of the Varangian Guards. My mother, however, was a werewolf. I don’t know if something happened to her or if she just couldn’t take the humiliation of having a half-breed son, but I’ve never known her. My father was very outspoken about the shame I’d caused him, and not a day went by that he didn’t remind me of it.”
“Is that why you’re such a champion for Kaito?”
He didn’t think he was anyone’s “champion,” but he did empathize with Kaito’s situation. “If our theory is correct, and his father locked him the basement out of embarrassment, I can definitely relate to that.”
Raith’s upper lip curled, and a very impressive growl rumbled through his chest. “Your dad locked youin a basement?” His head tilted to the side, and a wicked gleam flashed in his eyes. “Is he still alive?”
A small part of him warmed that Raith cared enough for him to be upset over something that happened so long ago. Mostly, he was concerned at his mate’s odd behavior. It was true that the witch had a stubborn streak, but he wasn’t mean or cruel. The look on his face right then said he would be anything but merciful if he could actually get his hands on October’s father.
“He died a long time ago. The day he died was the day I gained my freedom. It was October. It was a Tuesday, and I was nearly three hundred years old.” He knew the name he’d chosen for himself was peculiar, but it was meaningful to him. “Of course, at the time, it was Octobris Dies Martis, but I adopted the English translation in the seventeenth century.”
“Well, shit,” Raith groused. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about your name so I can tell Wren, but that story is just depressing.” He finally halted in his pacing and faced October with his hands resting on his hips. “What was your name before you changed it?”
October winced and looked away. “Dedecus, meaning shame and dishonor.”
“Your dad is a bastard. Fuck him.” Raith seemed to have lost some of his nervous energy as he settled back down on the bed. “Okay, fast forward to Bale and Rastas, because I don’t see how our paths could have crossed during any of that time.”
“Rastas was my mate. Bale was my alpha, though I was also a partial member of a coven at the time. It was the law that I had to belong to both, and it was just common knowledge that I was the bitch for both.”
As he retold his accounts, his mind drifted back to that former time in his life, a time he’d hoped to never revisit. “I was the pack punching bag, a training tool for the Enforcers.”
“Run, run ,little pet,” one of the Enforcers taunted him as they crashed through the forest in pursuit. “You’re fast, but you’re not fast enough. Do you know what I’m going to do to you when I catch you?”
October didn’t know what punishment would be in store for him during this particular exercise, but he had a very vivid imagination. It wasn’t often that the Enforcers actually caught him, but when they did, it never ended well.
The bruising and lacerations healed before he had to go home to his mate, but that didn’t stop the beatings from hurting like ten shades of hell. Alpha Anderson called them “training exercises,” but October knew these games were simply excuses for the pack to beat the living shit out of him.
His goal was to make it through the forest and to a small clearing where the rest of the pack waited before the Enforcers could catch him. If he lost, he ended up in the fetal position while several large men kicked, stomped, punched, bit, and clawed at him. If he won, his reward was simply that his punishment wasn’t quite as brutal.
Flying across the forest floor, he dodged the closely packed tree trunks and ducked under the lower branches. The sounds of stomping feet thundered behind him, accompanied by the vicious snarling of six, massive werewolves. He was close, though, almost to the clearing.
Firelight glowed ahead of him where the trees began to thin, and he could hear the laughter and conversation from the rest of the pack members. The Enforcers wer
e gaining on him, but they wouldn’t catch him before he broke through the tree line and into the clearing.
As predicted, he barreled into the camp, sweating, exhausted, and gasping for air. Sixteen miles was a hell of a sprint, even for a hybrid.
“Congratulations,” the alpha drawled as he clapped October on the back hard enough to send him to his knees. “You win again. Maybe we need to find a different use for you.”
“I don’t understand, Alpha.”
“Of course you don’t. You will be meeting with another alpha and two of his betas tomorrow evening on the full moon. You are to do anything they ask of you. Do you understand?”
Oh, October understood all too well, but it wasn’t going to happen. “No.”
“What did you say to me?”
“I said no.” Climbing to his feet, October squared his shoulders and stared right into the alpha’s eyes. “Kill me if you must, but I won’t do it.”
“Kill you?” A nasty smile stretched Bale’s lips. “Why would I do that when I’d much rather play with your mate?”
It wasn’t the first time he’d used Rastas against him, and October had no doubt that he would carry through with those threats.
“I wouldn’t kill him right away. He’s a pretty little thing, isn’t he?”
Meetings between men weren’t at all unusual in the paranormal world, not like they were with the humans. Bale would most likely invite the pack to watch as he violated what belonged to October. Rastas might be powerful magically, but there were still ways to subdue him and make him more agreeable.
“Fine,” he said quietly. “I’ll do it.”
Bale’s grin stretched wider, showing off his elongated canines. “I knew you would.” Looking over his shoulder, he whistled for the Enforcers. “He’s all yours, boys. Just make sure you don’t mess up his pretty face. Our pet has a meeting tomorrow night.”
Chapter Eleven
Raith didn’t speak, didn’t know what he would say even if he could force the words through the lump in his throat. He sat there on the mattress beside his lover, seeing him in a completely different light as he painted a dramatic picture of what his life had been like.
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