Ollie
No matter how muchI slept yesterday and last night, my body is still exhausted. Not surprising given the circumstances, but also a little frustrating since we’ve been driving less than ten minutes and I’m already struggling to keep my eyes open.
As the world outside shifts from rolling hills to flatter expanses of farmland, my eyes grow even heavier and my mind drifts into a light doze, my senses coasting along the surface of sleep while still semi-aware of the real world around me.
Instead of dreams, a sideshow of disconnected images flashes behind my eyes, each one too fleeting for me to fully grasp. More memories? Probably, but nothing that sticks out enough for me to hold on to and nothing that makes any sense to me.
Swimming in a cold river.
An imposing female figure.
A teenage alpha with his arm around my shoulders.
There’s no dialogue, no greater narrative to the images, and none of the people or places are clear enough for me to connect them with anything else floating around in my head. These piecemeal bits of memory are almost more frustrating that not having any at all.
But I’ll take what I can get. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering who I am.
Or, rather, who Iwas.
The images dissolve into a flash ofteeth and claws and bloodthat has me jolting awake with a soft gasp, my heart racing in my chest as a phantom pain rakes across my side. I press my hand to the area, but the pain is gone almost as quickly as it appeared.
Whatever that memory was, it wasn’t something pleasant.
I straighten away from the window my head was resting on, my neck giving a painful twinge from the awkward angle. Luke glances toward me at the movement, offering up a small smile before returning his attention to the road.
“Have a nice nap?” he asks.
I rub at the back of my neck and roll my shoulders a couple times. “Not really. The dreams… memories?” I shake my head. “It’s like my brain still hasn’t really gotten a chance to rest.”
He slides his hand across the center console and curls his fingers around mine. “Hopefully that will resolve as more time passes.”
“Yeah,” I say, staring out the window and watching as the landscape speeds by.
Luke squeezes my hand, then returns both hands to the steering wheel, and I take the time to study him. His jaw is tense and there’s a furrow between his brows that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. There’s also an underlying sadness to him,something that plucks at my heart strings and makes me want to reach out to him.
To comfort him. To soothe him.
I’m still wrapping my head around the whole fated mates thing, and I can’t explain the connection I feel to him, but that doesn’t make it any less important, and doesn’t change the fact that I feel nothing but safety and comfort in his presence.
And I hate how stressed he looks.
I never imagined there was someone just for me out there. Hell, I was barely able to imagine there was anything but the lab and the cage.
But I’m so happy to have found him even if I had to go through that hell to do it.
The memory of what Luke and I did this morning—or, rather, what Luke did to me—flashes through my mind, bringing heat to my cheeks and a flare of desire in my stomach. The back of my neck is tingling again, the sensation bordering on uncomfortable.
I lean into Luke’s shoulder, nuzzling at his shirt, and take a deep inhale of his scent, and the tingling stops. The mating bond will have to be completed, but this closeness is enough to appease it for now.
Wait… how do I know that?
I reach for the thought, but whatever pulled that knowledge from my brain is gone again. This amnesia crap is the most frustrating experience of my life.
That I remember anyway.
I snort under my breath.
Luke brings his hand up, cradling the side of my head as his fingers stroke my hair almost absentmindedly. I relax into the touch and let my mind drift again, the scent and safety of my mate wrapping around me and grounding me in place.
