The name tumbled from my lips, trembling, carrying six months of pain and guilt. I stared wide-eyed, as if split in two. Half of me—the rational half—kept insisting Liv was dead. I'd watched her sink into the sea. We had searched and never found her. She couldn't possibly be alive. But the other half screamed:It's her! It's her!
Look at that face—it was identical.
Her features, her build, even the faint freckles on her cheeks—everything matched perfectly.
It was Liv.
"Liv, is that you?" I patted her face. "Wake up, please wake up!"
She wasn't badly hurt, but she lay there unresponsive.
Hospital. She needs a hospital.Panic overtook me. I gathered her into my arms and put her in the passenger seat. The white roses I'd placed there scattered to the floor, petals everywhere.
I kept glancing at her face as I drove. I was terrified this was a dream. I was terrified she'd vanish if I blinked.
I felt like I was forgetting something, but I couldn't spare the thought for it now.
At the hospital, doctors wheeled her away on a stretcher into the emergency room. I was forced to wait outside and paced the corridor. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Serenity calling.
I was about to answer when my finger hesitated.
Did I really want to take this call?
I didn't want Serenity to know about this. I didn't want to give her another chance to hurt Liv or deceive me. Liv's return felt like a warning—a sign that I needed to stop getting entangled with a woman who had betrayed me. Even if she was my fated mate, it was time to draw a clear line.
It's time to end this.
Time to get back on track.
So I steeled myself and hitdecline.
The phone went quiet. Thirty minutes later, she called again.
I declined again.
A third time.
A fourth.
By the sixth call, she stopped trying.
Through the hospital corridor window, I watched the Moon Goddess retreat from her throne, the sky growing pale with dawn.
Finally, the doctors emerged from the emergency room.
"She's fine," they said. "Just a mild concussion and some scrapes. But there's a small complication."
"What complication?"
"She appears to have amnesia. Once she wakes up, we'll run more tests."
I paid for the best private room and sat by her bed and watched her sleep. Under the harsh white lights, her resemblance to Liv was still uncanny. No—it wasn't a resemblance.
It wasidentical.
I was certain of it now.
"Who are you…" I whispered and reached toward her face. Before I could touch her, her eyelashes fluttered. Her eyes slowly opened—the same color as Liv's.
