It bothers me.
I come back to it.
Something about this rock is wrong, but the memory won’t come.
“Help me move this.”
“Kaida?” Jarek says with exasperation.
“Please?”
They shift the rock easily. Jarek goes in first, then Mordecai.
“What is that?” Jarek hisses. “It feels weird in here.”
“What?” I ask, but I’m distracted as I follow them into the cave.
“I can feel something…like, I don’t know. It's weird,” Jarek moves away from me.
When he does, I see him, but it’s clear my pack can’t.
He’s staring right at me with dark red eyes. A huge black wolf that looks so familiar it starts my heart racing. Chains hold him to the ground.
I suck in air, wheezing. My hands start to shake.
As I watch, he shifts to a man, and it’s a face I know, but I don’t know how I know it.
“Are you real?” His words are rusty, like he hasn’t spoken in years. “Oh, gods, Kaida, are you real this time?”
I step closer to him, taking in his black shirt and long black hair. He’s beautiful, so very, very beautiful.
Without thinking and ignoring the murmurs of my alphas, I reach out and grab hold of a link, and then I yank.
They slither off him at once. He screams, and I feel a deep, dark magic grip me, but I lunge for him, slamming my mouth over his.
Jarek and Mordecai grab his wrists.
The magic goes around and around, flowing from him to me, to Mordecai, to Jarek. Binding us tighter than any bond ever could.
I start to cry, my eyes closed, weeping against his mouth.
“Cadel,” I whisper his name. “My Cadel.”
The magic stops.
“I know you!” Jarek says. He grabs Cadel and drags him down, kissing him hard. When he’s done, Mordecai grips his neck and puts their foreheads together.
“We have missed you,” he whispers.
Four words that break my heart.
And then remake me again.
Cadel turns to me.
“Come with me,” he whispers, holding out his hand.
He leads me out of the cave and into the sunlight. I stare at him, my mouth frozen because there is so much I want to say. But I remember it all now. It feels distant, but not the feelings I had with him. Not this feeling of rightness between us.
