Page 66 of Detonation
Zedd scratches under her chin, telling her how beautiful she is, and I swear the cat smirks at Serenity.
Serenity huffs. "Oh hush, you get told how pretty you are all the time."
Hale pipes up. "Uh ... were you having a conversation with a cat?"
Mittens and Serenity both whip their gaze towards him, scowling, as Serenity answers, "She's my familiar, not a cat."
Hale holds his hands up defensively.
I frown, curious. "Where has she been this whole time?"
Serenity scoops Mittens away from Zedd, much to his despair, petting her head and giving her a kiss before the cat poofs away. "She's free to come and go as she pleases. I think she's having a tryst with the tomcat down the street, the little minx." She claps her hands together. "Enough about my pussy cat. Let's get going."
She begins to chant as a portal forms while I suppress my gag at her saying, ‘pussy.’ There’s no way she didn’t do that on purpose.
A pink and purple portal forms, bright sparks flying off the edges, and she motions us towards it. "Your chariot awaits."
My stomach is already churning at the memory of going through the portal the last time. Hale leads the way, with me dragging my feet to avoid the unpleasant experience when Serenity trips me at the last minute, sending me flying into the portal.
Witch Bitch.
* * *
Leo
I heave my coffee from minutes earlier onto the grass in front of me from the nausea of traveling through the portal. My head aches and I collapse onto the ground, barely missing the puddle of puke, as pictures and snippets of moments flash through my head like a projector playing on fast forward.
I see each of my brothers warring with their own memories as they come through the portal and drop to their knees, Luke coming out last and falling face first onto the ground.
My memories.
Some wonderful, some agonizingly painful. When our deaths play in my mind, it’s like I’m relieving the pain. The way Oslana cried out for us as we fell, one by one.
The blur of memories slows down enough for me to come to a realization.Where is Ash? It was just Anshar in our previous life.
We had been happy, loved—I can see that with the little I process with how fast it all plays in my mind. But now, having experienced life with Ash, we would never be able to feel complete again without him.
I plop onto my ass, staring up at the sky, as I let it fully sink in that Ash isn't Lana’s mate.
Does it matter? He's still our brother from this life.
"Wow," Hale breathes out. "That's … a lot to take in."
Zedd nods solemnly from where he sits with his head between his knees as he wards off his nausea. "That means Lana remembers that he wasn’t there in our first life and he isn’t her mate. How do you think that affected her plans here?"
Serenity furrows her brow. "Excuse me, what? Who isn't a mate?"
Luke falls over onto his back. "Ash."
She whistles in response. "Well. Ain't that some shit. I only knew her as a child in her previous life before she’d found her mates. I had no idea."
Zedd takes a deep breath and climbs to his feet. "This changes nothing. We know Lana and we know Ash. They clearly share the same connection we do, even if it hasn't been cemented by a mate bond."
I smirk. "My exact thoughts. He was meant to be our brother."
Hale groans, rubbing his temples. "We stay the course because Lana will have done the same. She's not giving up on him and neither are we. He's family."
I take a moment to take in the white bark and dark blue leaves of the forest around us and smile as a memory of climbing a similar tree with Oslana pops into my mind. The leaves were pink before though.
