“Liam?”
A woman leaned over him.She had brown eyes and a faint splash of freckles across her nose.Something about her tugged at his memory, but everything inside him felt out of sync and disconnected.
“Water?”She helped him sit and guided a glass to his lips.
“What happened to me?”he asked, his words a hoarse whisper.
“You tripped.Outside, on the gravel.Four days ago.”Her words came too quickly.Almost rehearsed.
Four days?How long had he been out?His throat burned, his muscles protested, and his sense of time had vanished completely.Had she looked after him?He remembered nothing but brief flashes.The pressure against his lips, the feel of motion.Maybe a car?Everything else was a black hole.
He blinked at her, his head throbbing a furious retort.“Tripped?”
Her words scraped across his mind, gritty and jarring.The story felt thin, like a hastily constructed lie.
“Who are you?”
She hesitated a beat too long.“Sienna.We’re…mates.”
This answer rang hollow to his ears.
He scanned the plain room with its wooden walls and the tiny single window, felt the lumps in the thin mattress beneath him.Not familiar.He reached for his feline, the deep, powerful hum of his inner animal that always anchored him.Nothing.A whisper of presence, dulled and barely accessible beneath the pain.The absence was terrifying.He’d never felt so disconnected, so profoundly human in his weakness.
His voice cracked.“Where am I?”
“Cornwall.My parents’ cottage in Stoneford.”
Cornwall?Adrenaline zapped through his veins, immediately quashed by an icy wave.“You said I tripped.Where exactly?”
“Outside, near the water barrel.”She pressed her lips together.“You were out cold.I panicked and brought you here to recover.”
But something in her tone didn’t match her words.Too careful.Too rehearsed.
“You live here?”
“Yes, I told you.It’s my family’s cottage in Stoneford.You needed quiet.”
The silence stretched between them.She fidgeted, brushing invisible lint from her jeans, then tried to smile.It didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“I should check your bandage,” she said, moving closer.
He jerked away.“Don’t.”
She stilled.Hurt flashed in her expression.Or was it guilt?Maybe both.
“I’ll give you space,” she murmured, stepping back.“But you need to eat.”
He didn’t answer, and she left the room.
Liam lay there, mind spinning.Cornwall.He had many questions.And no forthcoming answers.
Sienna leaned against the closed door, breathing hard.Damn it.Things hadn’t unfolded as planned.
Liam instead of Scott.
Her stomach churned.He didn’t remember the gathering.The head trauma or the drugs—something had wiped his memory clean.What had she been thinking?That he’d wake and agree to her plan?
“Sienna?”her mother called from the kitchen.“Is he awake?”
