Luna's Sokjan (Book one) (28 page)

“Tigress,” a faint whisper
came from the bed
.

I shot to the bed and
crawled across it to Gabriel.

“I am here my Dark Angel.
I am here.” I whispered smiling down at him. “I am so sorry that
this happened to you.” I murmured stroking his cheek as tears swam
in my eyes.

He cupped the back of my
head in his mighty hand, “My love, I will hold you to every word of
your promise.” He told me and I laughed softly.

His voice held just a hint
of Scotland, but in my relief to see him alive
.
I didn’t hear it. His kiss melted
my heart. Gabriel was alive, and everything would be
fine.

“And Branwen you will do
everything I say.” He whispered against my lips.

“Celt?” I gasped and tried
to jerk away from him. “What the fuck did Angus and you do?” I
demanded.

He held me roughly to
him.

“What we had to do.” He
told me thickly. “And I would do it again, if it would bring us
back together.”

His kiss was long and
possessive. With one hand, he anchored me to him, and the other
explored my body. I was done. My soul had finally found its other
half, and I wanted more, so much more. As I pressed closer to him,
I accidentally hit his wounds. With a gasp of pain he let me
go.

“Go talk to Angus love,
before I forget myself again.” He said closing his eyes to hide his
pain.

I scrambled off the bed
and just stared down it him in disbelief. Could it actually be him?
The Celt and I wanted him and everything he had to
offer
.
Luna, help
me.

“Branwen, don’t go too
far. These wounds won’t keep me from hunting you down again.” He
warned me.

I stared into those amber
eyes and knew he would do it. If, I left the house without him or
his permission, he would hunt me until the end of time. For the
first time in my life, I had been issued a challenge that I
wouldn’t accept.

It’s final. I am calling
Adam and we were going to hunt down that bitch Fate. Then I was
going to strangle her tremendously slowly with my bare
hands.

“I will be here when you
wake up Celt
,
and
we will talk, but for now sleep.” I commanded pushing power at
him.

When I was sure he was
asleep, I left the room. Angus sat on the couch watching TV. I
stalked towards him.

“What the fuck did the two
of you do?” I demanded. “That’s the fucking Celt in there, not
Gabriel. What the fuck happened to him?”

“Ah lassie, don’t be mad
with your old Da. You told me to save him at any cost, and we did.
He’ll be a little different, but he’s alive. The pack will think
nothing of the differences, they know he almost died. Any changes
they see, in him, they’ll just rack up to his near death
experience.” He told me.

He was babbling. Angus
didn’t babble. What the fuck had happened to the man I once
knew?

“Tell me how this works
Angus. Was he really that close to death? So close that the only
way to save him was to give him to the Celt?” I questioned him as I
paced around the room.

This wasn’t actually
happening. They hadn’t actually switched the spirits of Gabriel and
the Celt. Just to save Gabriel's body. Where was his spirit anyway?
I threw myself down into a chair and rubbed my face. What to do
now? Could it be reversed? Did I even want that? Now that I had
touched the one creature I so totally craved?

“Yes, he was that close to
death. The blood lost was just too great and it took me too long to
get the last bullet out.” He said softly rubbing his face. “We
saved the body, but Gabriel’s spirit was gone. Gabriel was a direct
descendant of the Celt’s bloodline. If the Celt hadn't already been
a part of him, I don't think this would have worked. Hell, I didn't
believe it would work this time. McKenna this was the only way to
save him. You did say that too many people depended on him and to
save him at any price. A price, I might add that you did say. You
were willing to pay.” He told me in a tired voice.

We looked at each other. I
hated having my own words thrown back in my face.

That will teach me to say
something stupid when I’m worried, won’t it?

“Is there any coffee
made?” I asked.

I jumped up and walked to
the little kitchen on the side of the sitting area. It was just
large enough to hold a sink, half fridge, microwave, and a coffee
pot. Who needed anything else?

“Do you know who the Celt
is
,
Angus? What
does that mean ‘already apart of him’?” I called out my questions
as I poured us coffee
.

I handed Angus a cup
before sitting down across from him.

“Yes, I know who the Celt
really is.” He sighed and drank deeply. “When
,
I was summoned out of that damn
pit of hell ten years ago. I went crazy trying to get back to you.
Test or no test, taking on a wounded hydra is no easy task for
anyone. I called out to the spirits and to my surprise one
answered.” He said to me. When he looked at me, it was with
pain-filled eyes. “I would have made a deal with a hundred spirits,
if it would have brought me back to you. What did I know about
verbal contracts with spirits? That’s what you always did. It
seemed easy enough and to be completely honest
.
I didn’t care what the deal was.
All I wanted was to get back to you.”

He looked away from me and
drank more coffee. I waited for him to continue.

“I made a deal with the
devil himself lassie. He didn’t ask for anything when we made the
deal. He didn’t request anything for his final payment. I didn’t
care at the time. It was until we found you a year later. That the
spirit final asked for his payment and I knew I would have to give
him what he asked for. That’s how you always did it. You always
told me, if we didn’t pay them for their services. They would kill
us or at least try.” He told me and put his cup down. “The Celt
took one look at you and declared that you would be his payment for
his services. I went nuts. I had just found you and that bastard of
a spirit, wanted to take you away from me,” he shook his
head.

“I didn’t know what to do,
but I did know that I had to keep you away from him. So we followed
you at a distance, while I tried to come up with a
plan
.
During our
travels, the Celt started telling me stories about you and him. I
checked the old legends McKenna, and he was right. You were his
mate at one time. When we met Gabriel, the Celt recognized him.
They made some kind of deal, and then they merged together. It was
the wildest thing I had ever seen. He’s been a part of him for some
time waiting for his chance to take control." He sounded so
remorseful.

“You could have come to me
and just told me what was going on. I could have helped you work
out a solution to get rid of the bastard.” I said
softly.

He shook his head at
me.

“I don’t think so. I have
seen how you react to him. You recognized him as your mate the very
first time you gazed at his spirit form.” He said.

I couldn’t deny that. I
had recognized him as my mate from our first glimpse, and I still
wanted the controlling bastard, but that didn’t mean I had to like
it.

“That’s why you evoked the
Sōkjan bond, because the mate bond wouldn’t have been strong enough
to bind me. Gabriel wasn’t my true mate, the Celt is.” I said.
Finally understanding what had happened and why. I studied the door
to the bedroom. “They merged together? That’s why I would see a
shadow behind his eyes and in yours at times."

“Yes. We didn’t know how
long the mate bond would hold you, but with the Sōkjan bond active.
It wouldn’t matter. He had all the time he needed to figure out how
to get you. ” He said and picked up his cup again.

Someone knocked on the
door. I opened the door and stared into Jennifer’s worried tear
filled brown eyes. I pulled her to me and held her while she cried.
I murmured softly to her that it would be alright.

“I was so scared. It was
just like when my parents had the accident.” She hiccupped.
“Everyone was so scared that he would die. It was awful, McKenna,
just awful.”

“He’s fine darling. He
will be just fine.” I told her as I pulled her into the room and
sat her down with her on the couch next to Angus. “Jennifer he may
act a little different at first, but things will smooth out.” I
told her.

“What do you mean by
different?” she asked and looked at Angus. Then back at
me.

“He may say or do
something that the old Gabriel might never have said or done
before. We’ll just have to be patient and help him, but he’ll come
around.” I told her, and Angus nodded in agreement.

I looked at Angus and
hoped I was right.

The next time the Celt
woke up. Angus and I performed the healing chants and gave him some
broth to drink.

“Where did Gabriel’s
spirit go when ya’ll swapped spirits?” I asked him, after Angus
left us alone.

“He is at peace, little
Raven. He is no longer in pain.” He told me and handed me the empty
bowl.

“What if I want him back?”
I asked and placed the bowl on the tray beside me. “Want
another?”

“Please.” He took the
offered bowl. “Do you want him back? You know that you would have
never truly been happy with him. The power struggles had already
begun between the two of you. You already knew that you were the
stronger of the two.” He said to me before he drank the broth.
“Would you really want a lifetime of fighting with your
mate?”

I don’t know what I
genuinely wanted, but I did feel terribly guilty over what had
happened.

“How long do I have to
decide?” I asked him, watching him drink the rest of his
broth.

Memories just keep
flirting with me, but I couldn't grasp them. I sighed in
frustration.

“You don’t. I already made
the decision for all of us, and I’m not leaving you again.” He told
me and then handed the empty bowl back to me. “We were first mated
over nine hundred years ago. We would go into battle together, side
by side, Branwen. At the end of one of our bloodiest battles, you
happened on an old witch woman, she called herself Faith. Her
family had turned against us and had become our most deadly
enemies. She had watched us kill almost every member of her family.
We took in all the survivors and blended them back into the pack.
We gave them protection and a purpose again. She called us to her
on her death bed and with her last breath, she cursed us. We would
never be together again, after that life. One of us would spend the
rest of our existence searching for the other, and the other would
never remember the other.” He told me.

He picked up my left hand
and examined the ring.

“You laughed at her. You
told her that it would never work. True mates could never be
separated, but it did happen, Branwen. You don’t remember our first
life together, and I have hunted for you for centuries.” He said
and rubbed my ring with his thumb. “We always wore matching
armbands, not rings, do you like these better?”

I looked down at the ring
and shrugged. “I don’t know. What is the difference? It’s just a
piece of metal
.
Anyone with eyes knows we are mated.” I replied. We had
pissed off an old witch named Faith. “Do you remember if the old
witch chanted or dusted us in something?”

I could play along with
him. Well just until I could get back to my books and do some
research
.

“I don’t remember if she
chanted something or dusted us in anything. Whatever she did it
worked.” He answered me.

He moved my hand to his
cheek and pressed a kiss in the palm.

“When Angus and I found
you. I thought I was seeing things. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It
was you, but you were so different, white hair and blue eyes.” He
told me and touched my hair with his other hand. “We happened to
find you the night you were fighting one of the biggest Alphas I
had ever seen. The man was huge, and you looked so small standing
in front of him. He was yelling something at you and you just stood
there laughing in his face. I wanted so badly to protect you, but
Angus wouldn’t allow it. Nothing I said would change his mind. The
old bastard just sat there and watched you kill the big Alpha. You
could have been killed.” He told me in a heavily accented
voice.

I knew the night he was
referring to. I had been summoned to Canada nine years ago. To hunt
for ten women that had gone missing from one of the local packs.
The big Alpha was creating a harem out of the young unmated pack
women. It wasn’t until, he when outside the pack that anyone
noticed what he was doing.

The Celt was right he had
been massive. I found the captive women in a cave near the pack’s
land. After we had the women safe, in front of his pack and a
neighboring pack, I challenged him. At first I didn’t know if I
could take him, but he was crazy as hell. I used that to my
advantage and kept making smart-ass comments until he lost control.
It had been a tough fight, and I took a lot of damage, but in the
end, I beat that giant bastard
.