The scent hit him like a physical blow. Female. Sharp like citrus, complicated with herbs. Underneath it all, something that felt familiar and essential. His whole body went rigid, from his tail to his cock.
“Who?” he growled.
“What?”
“Who was in my nest?” He strode to the furs and buried his face in them, breathing deep. The scent was old but unmistakable. Female. Lovely.His.
Memory crashed through a mind wall with the force of a catapulted stone. Soft skin under his hands. The give of flesh as his teeth sank deep. The taste of blood and binding. A shoulder, silvered in the moonlight, marked with his claim.
“I have a mate.”
Ghantal stopped breathing. “Brandt—”
“Where is she?” He searched for the bond, that golden thread that should connect them, but found only more walls. Walls within walls within walls. He couldn’t even sense where the bondshouldbe. “Where is my mate?!”
“It’s complicated—”
“Where is she?” His roar scattered the moths. Claws extended, tail lashing, he rose, turning on her. Whatever softening effect the last dose of medicine had on him was gone. He gripped her neck, and she didn’t fight back. “Why isn’t she here? Why isn’t she in my nest where she belongs?”
“Because you’re dangerous!” Ghantal spat in his face, entirely unafraid. “Look at yourself! Ready to tear apart anyone who comes near. Would you do this to her? Would you risk hurting your mate because you can’t control yourself?”
The words stopped him cold. He wouldn’t hurt any female, let alone his own mate. The thought was abhorrent, impossible, but…he looked down at his extended claws, his hand wrapped around his mother’s throat. He remembered the mason he’d injured, clutching her wrist as she trembled with fear on the floor. Violence came too easily now. It was his first language, the word always on the tip of his tongue.
“I wouldn’t—” He dropped his arm, and Ghantal stepped back, massaging where he’d gripped her.
“You don’t know what you’d do. The war changed you, Brandt. It made you a weapon.” She gestured helplessly. “You could kill her without meaning to. One moment of battle bliss, one forgotten face, and she’d be dead.”
He sank down onto the furs, breathing in that faint scent again. His mate. He had a mate, and he couldn’t even remember her face. Her name. He only had the traces of her scent in his nest and the absolute certainty that she should be here.
“Tell me about her.”
“When you’re better.”
“Something. Anything.” Pressure built in his temples. “Her name, at least.”
“Absolutely not.” Ghantal’s voice was gentle but firm. “If I tell you her name, you’ll tear the Tower apart looking for her, and you’d end up right back under the masons’ control.”
She was right. He could feel the impulse to find his mate still coiled in his chest like snake, ready to strike at the slightest provocation. But knowing his mother was right didn’t ease the ache of the bond he couldn’t feel in the broken ruins of his mind.
“I’ll ask your moths, then,” he snapped at her. “I’ll pluck their wings until they tell me.”
She blocked his way. “They don’t remember her. You know they don’t last more than a week or two.”
Gritting his teeth at her irrefutable logic, he resorted to begging. “Is she well? Safe? Can you tell me that, at least?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know I’ve returned?”
Ghantal hesitated. “She knows.”
“And she’s not here.” The rejection stung worse than any battle wound. “She doesn’t want to see me.”
“She wants you healthy. She wants the gargoyle she mated. That’s what you must strive for.” Ghantal settled into the nest beside him, wing tenderly brushing his. “If you want to see her,you need to concentrate your efforts on healing. Take down the mind walls. Learn to control yourself again.”
He nodded slowly. For her—the female whose scent haunted his nest—he would do whatever it took.
The next few weeks blurred together. Dawn medicine, dusk medicine, nightly sessions with the mind masons. He let them chip away at his walls with their special tools and caustic substances. Progress came in pieces, a name remembered here, a face there. The Tower’s layout solidified. His watchmates’ names returned, though remembering they were likely dead nearly broke him again.
