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Min saw the terror in Kirby’s eyes as she stumbled from the bed.
“Kirby. Talk to me.” Gwydion was by her side in an instant. He pressed a hand to her chest. “I need you to breathe for me, and tell me what's wrong.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Min did. His heart shattered for her. She was remembering more than just the sex. It was all coming back to her, and she was unraveling in the process.
He didn’t know how to lessen the pain. If she remembered more of the good, admitted it was real, before the intensity of the bad came back, it might help.
He rose from the bed, and approached Kirby and Gwydion. He held out his hand. “Come here.”
Kirby rested her palm in his, and he wrapped her in his arms. Her bare skin against his was always tempting, but now it also amplified his desire to protect her. If he could hold her like this forever, maybe she wouldn’t die again.
Gwydion stood close, hand on her back. The concern on his face matched Min’s.
“Are you able to talk about it?” Min would let her do whatever she wanted, as long as it made her happy and kept her safe.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what it was. But...” She shuddered. “I don’t want to find out. And I definitely don’t want to sleep again.”
“I have a solution to help distract you.” He wanted to help calm her. He crouched enough to sweep his arm under her legs, and lift her up.
Her chuckle was strained. She hugged his neck, and leaned into him. “Are you going to carry me away from reality?”
“Something very much like that.” His desire was still there. A constant vibration that wanted more from her. To make up for all the nights they’d been apart. But his concern was stronger. Kirby needed to be looked after.
He carried her into the bathroom and set her on her feet by the shower. Gwydion joined them.
She hugged herself, and a tremor ran through her. Lingering traces of the dream, or an onset of modesty? The second one wasn’t like Kirby.
Min turned on the water, and gave it enough of a magical nudge that it was the perfect temperature for Kirby—a hair below scalding.
He took her hand and they stepped over the lip of tile. When all three of them were in the shower, he slid the glass door shut.
She turned her gaze to her feet. “I’m not up for sex.” Her voice was quiet.
“This is about comfort, not arousal,” Min said. “But you don’t have to stay. And if you don’t like it, you can leave any time.”
She looked up. Shadows of whatever haunted her marred her face. “You’ve told me that before.” She was starting to remember.
“I always tell you that. And I always mean it. What do you need?”
“I need...” She let out a shaky sigh. “I need to not be alone with my thoughts.”
“We’ll help with that.” Min grabbed the bar of soap from its dish, and a worked up a lather. He handed the bar to Gwydion, who stood behind Kirby, then glided his hands down her chest.
As he worked his fingers along her skin, he applied light pressure. Enough to gently massage. To keep her grounded. He washed her stomach and her legs. Caressed her arms and her shoulders. Gwydion performed a similar ritual.
Kirby’s skin was soft under his touch. The flutter of her eyelids as she began to relax was a stunning tie to the past. He grew half-hard when he slipped a hand between her legs, to clean her.
But he didn’t linger.
They stayed under the water until the knots faded from her muscles, and the fear vanished from her eyes.
When they stepped out, he and Gwydion gently patted her, and themselves, dry with towels, then wrapped up on white, fluffy hotel robes.
Min lifted her again, and carried her back to the bed. Feeling her cradled in his arms clenched like a vise around his heart. The familiarity of it all, and the lingering fear of what may come next, disquieted him.
But her calmness and soft body pushed that away.
Min sat with his back to the headboard, and Kirby lay with her head on his outstretched leg. He trailed his fingers through her hair. The blond strands were silken against his fingertips.
Gwydion sat next to Min, legs crossed. He stroked Kirby’s hip with his thumb.
“The dream wasn’t all bad.” She spoke more calmly now. “Until the end it was... Wow.”
Wow. Min appreciated the sound of that. “Would you like to offer more detail?”
She laughed, and sat up. “You were there.” She pointed to Min. “And you were there.” She looked at Gwydion. “Just call me Dorothy. Dreaming about guys in my life.”
“Pretty sure the Scarecrow never seduced Dorothy,” Gwydion said.
“I’d ask how you knew what I was dreaming about, but you lived it with me, didn’t you?” She studied her hands. “It was so real. All of it. They’re memories. Everything you said earlier was true. You’re really a god?”
Min nodded. “I’ve been many things to you, as you have to me. However, I’ve never lied.”
“Who are you?” she asked Gwydion.
“I’m a god of art.”
“And a trickster god.” Kirby furrowed her brow. “You... used to tell people you were King Arthur.”
Gwydion nodded. “And no one believed that I wielded supreme power just because some watery tart threw a sword at me.”
Kirby laughed. It was good to see her relaxing, despite what must be spilling through her mind. “It’s all in there. Some of it’s clear, and some of it’s not there, but the more threads I tug, the more the knots unravel.”
“Do you know who you are?” Min rested his palm on her cheek and pulled her gaze back to him.
She studied him, so many questions reflected in her blue eyes. “No. I remember you. Both of you. And someone else. I remember loving you all intensely. I feel that passion, bright and vibrant.”
“You lived all of that,” Gwydion said. “Several lives. Since meeting you, we’ve looked for you in each life. That love is real.”
“What if I don’t want to love you?” Her question cut Min to the core. But he heard it each time they found her. She wanted to choose and love for herself, not for some past life iteration.
Gwydion’s expression remained neutral. “Then you don’t have to. You’re not a separate person. It’s a new body, but every life is you. That doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind, or grow in a different direction.”
She pulled from Min’s touch, turning her gaze back to the blanket. “What if I don’t want you to hurt me?”
“I would never...” Min stalled on her question. “Why do you believe that’s a possibility?”
“There’s something else in my past, the thing that scared me in my dream, it’s tied to knowing the two of you. It always happens after I meet you.” Her voice had gone quiet, and she clenched her hand in tight fists.
***
KIRBY WAS CONFLICTED. Her memories said both of these men were good and wonderful. She felt their love for her, and her adoration for them in return. It was so potent it threatened to stop her heart. Lifetimes of love and affection.
But there was also pain. Terror. A shape she couldn’t define, but that cut through her soul like razors.
“Do you trust me? Us?” Gwydion asked. He didn’t look upset by her revelations. Min tried to hide his reaction, but she saw his hurt. “Nothing we say will matter unless you do.”
“Yes.” Kirby didn’t know why, but she did. Her mind insisted she was an idiot, and her heart sang a beautifully persuasive song that she was right to give them her faith.
“I can’t say for certain what’s there, but I can guess.”
I was a starting point. “Tell me.”
Min frowned and worked his jaw. “In order for you to have lived so many lives, you’ve had to die that many times. We always look for you. To help you remember. To save you.”
“We always find you before you die, but we’ve never been able to save you,” Gwydion said sadly.
“Oh.” It made sense, but it was still difficult to process. Hearing that she’d died... How many times had it been?
“Twice now we’ve seen you remember everything.” Min’s voice was thick with regret. “It's never easy on you to go through that. Considering the past is coming back to you again, the death is probably what’s threatening your dreams.”
Kirby thought she understood, but didn’t want to put it to words. Because it was one thing to accept she’d lived before and was remembering loving two gods, but it was a whole new universe to relive what killed her. “But you try? To save me?”
“Of course we do. Always.” The way Gwydion watched her, concern in his eyes, reinforced the words.
And she saw the reality of what he said. The memories were there. Fifteen hundred years and they’d never given up on her.
“We fall in love with you again and again,” Min said. “You’re the same person, but each life teaches you more. Enhances how distinctly you you are.”
Kirby focused on him. “But some things about me, and you, are always the same.” She could almost grasp this sensation. It was that second fear that only came from knowing Min. It wasn’t the same kind of suffocating terror. This was a gnawing sensation that made her question who she was.
“It’s true.” Min let out a long sigh. “The person you are at your core never changes. And that means each time we meet, some things keep us apart at first. What else did you dream?”
She wouldn’t be distracted by his question, but she needed to better put her thoughts together. “Passion. Love. Desire. Decades of it. Over centuries.”
“What else?” The way Min watched her, he was waiting for her to pick at and delve into whatever scared her when it came to him.