Page 7 of Mates in Memory

The knife blade was small and attached to an ornate handle made of antler. These such athames were made just for the true-mate ceremonies. The rituals had a million names and a lot of mingling between groups had happened so the names were sometimes used interchangeably.

It was a tiny cut. I’d had paper cuts that hurt worse. A tiny cut across my palm was all it took for my seed to poke out. Then one more little squeeze then a seed no larger than that of the sunflowers that grew around Uriel’s family home lay in my palm tinged in the small smear of blood. I shut my fingers around it as he passed me the knife and held out his own palm.

I bit the tip of my tongue as I made a small incision into my mate’s palm. He winced as the feathered end of a tree pod seed broke through the skin. Not wanting to do further damage, I grasped its end gently and slid it out until it was free. Back then I wouldn’t have recognized its similarity to the sugar maple tree pods that littered the air of the Raven Hollow Wolf Pack Territory seasonally, but I did now. It was as if our eventual destination was part of our original makeup.

Uriel’s fingers closed around the pod. Our eyes met and then we kissed. I lost myself to him. My memory of the actual act was fuzzy. This wasn’t the first time I’d been with him but this was the time that we’d plant our seeds in each other. I rode him, reveling in how big and warm he felt inside me as we pressed our blood-tinged seeds between our palm and each other’s shoulders.

My head reeled. That’s why the placement of claiming vows weren’t exact. Well, at least for my soul family.

Pleasure shuddered through me and I thought about the one night I had with Uriel in this life. Everything inside me missed him even as I felt his seed taking root in my shoulder and spreading throughout my soul.

“I’ll find you over and over. We’ll never really be apart,” Uriel whispered to me, kissing my hand.

“I love you.”

Those were the only words I had for him.

“I love you,” he said and kissed my hand again.

We didn’t know what the future had in store for us. Barry was gone. I knew somehow that Xenos would leave in a few days. We’d have to wait longer. Nearly a full year before my door showed up and then… Well, at some point Uriel’s door arrived. It had to or he wouldn’t have been in every life with me.

“RAZIEL!” I gasped the name as I came to in the little magical house with Xenos lying next to me. The bear clamped his hand over my mouth, but it was too late. All three of us had heard it and all three of us knew exactly who he was.

Xenos and Barry shared a look as I tried to make sense of being back in the present. How far back into my soul memories had I traveled? So far back that I wasn’t sure the time period had numbered years.

Raziel. How had I picked up that name? Uriel/Raziel couldn’t possibly have known back then who he’d end up as. My fingers went to my shoulder. Lingering bits of his seed were probably attached to me still. I pressed my hand there as Xenos swore us both to secrecy.

Raziel. The guy who showed up at Alpha Talk meetings from time to time. He’d offer to castrate a few guys for not treating their mates well. He always wore pheromone blocker spray and fled when I walked into the room. I figured the guy hated me. He was Zeke’s kid after all. Oh. Wow. Yeah. Uriel had jumped back into his own family line either by plan or punishment.

“It’s like I said before,” Barry said, leaning against the door as if someone would attempt to smash through it any second now. “I’m not going to bother him. As far as I’m concerned Uriel is dead. I was there when he died. I know bigger minds and souls than mine have argued this question about whether or not crimes carry over. For my own sanity, I’ve decided I don’t think they do. What’s done is done. It was horrible but it was done. None of us here can know for certain that there aren’t crimes we should be punished for from our past lives.”

“If I—” I tried to speak but my head ached. “If I ever meet him and we respond everyone will know who he is.”

“If you ever plan to do that, give me a head’s up,” Barry said. “I’ll be damned if I let anyone make you miserable over this.”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure what to do. Nothing. Nothing was probably the correct answer. At least until I spoke with my mates and figured out what I really wanted to do. Most people would want time on their own to figure things out after a discovery like this but I wanted my guys. I wanted to curl up between them. To be safe in their warmth. Just to be home again between them. My palms itched as if magic lingered there. Once one of them grew a seed that was now inside Uriel’s soul. Raziel’s soul. I corrected myself. Raziel was a dragon. Uriel had come back as a dragon. I really hoped whatever brought his violent streak in his last life didn’t show itself this time.

I slept alone in the magic house that night, but I didn’t wake up alone. I woke up right where I wanted to be. For a second, I thought the house had fallen in on me, though. A heavy arm and leg trapped me in place, squeezing me against Silas. It took me a few seconds to orientate enough to recognize what I thought were pieces of the ceiling as the position Kodiak took to squeeze both Silas and I against him when he was stressed out.

Silas faced me, his arm around me too. His fingers behind me, entwined in Kodiak’s grey t-shirt. I breathed in their scents, sucking them down deep into my lungs. This was home.

“Wait,” I grunted. “Where are the kids?”

“With Cody and Micah. Xander and his lot are visiting. So they’ll have plenty of hands around,” Kodiak yawned.

“Did Xenos tell you?” I asked, catching his yawn.

“That you were here? Yeah,” he nodded, scratching his beard, but keeping his leg over both of us.

“No, that…” I stopped myself and glanced at Silas, who was still asleep. “That we know who he is and that you know him already.” I didn’t want to tell one without the other. I didn’t want to tell the story twice.

“How have you not responded to him if we know him?” Kodiak squinted, looking at me and then around the room like Uriel might be hiding out in the shadows. He rolled onto his back and Silas yipped in his sleep, demanding that Kodiak’s bear-fueled warmth come back to him. Then Kodiak’s eyes shifted to that of his bear and I knew he knew. I knew he recognized what had happened. He put the pieces together slowly, working backwards from what he knew until he arrived at the who. A growl echoed from deep inside of him and Silas sprung up, ready to fight and mumbling about taking someone’s balls and shoving them down their throat while they were still attached. He made lots of threats when he was woken suddenly or had nightmares about the days before he was with Kodiak and me, but I hadn’t heard him make that particular threat before.

Quietly, I told them what I’d witnessed the night before in my memories. I told them about my realization. Once Kodiak calmed down I could tell he was imagining what our lives might be like if Raziel were part of them. Raziel was a dragon. A son of Star and Zeke. He seemed to have little patience for cave-alphas this time around. Unless he tried to pry me away from my guys maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. At least if Raziel stopped fleeing every time he saw me.

“That must hurt so much,” Silas said, pulling a bottled coffee out of his bag and handing it off to Kodiak. He handed me one and then pulled out another for himself before continuing. “Like, they said he remembers and he probably does from how he reacts. Sure, he’s wearing pheromone blocker spray, but you’re not. He smells you. He’s smelled you over and over and never acted upon it.”

“He owes him that much,” Kodiak said, opening his coffee. “After what happened last time. I think we wait for him to be ready, mates. I think if we act too soon we mess things up. Obviously, he doesn’t think he’s ready yet.”