“Well. Tommins can help with that, too.” Hopefully. It certainly wasn’t my problem.
“Mayor Tommins? Is he the ruler of this place?”
“I guess you could say that. Sure. He’s in charge.”
“And where can I find this royal?”
I tilted my head. The phrasing he used was so strange. “His office is down the street. You can’t miss it. Just turn leftwhen you leave here.”
He nodded, staring absently into the wine. “Left. Yes.”
Feeling even more confused, I left him there to serve my other patrons.
What a strange, strange man.
He left without paying for his wine, simply vanishing into the night.
CHAPTER 3
Shade
She kept walking away from me.
Why did she keep walking away from me?
She was my wife. My mate. My beloved.
Mine.
And yet, she acted as though she didn’t know me.
It was infuriating.
Even more infuriating was the fact that I didn’t know her, either.
Worse yet—I did not even know myself.
My mind was a vast chasm of emptiness. Where there should have been memories, there were simply loops and tangles, confusing holes lacking any useful information. No aim. No direction.
Within my mind, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Except for her.
Her.
The wild woman with eyes of the warmest clay, and a crown of antlers adorning her head.
I knew she was mine. Iknew. From the moment I laid eyes on her. But I couldn’t explain how.
She simply was.
Mine.
And I didn’t know how to make her believe me, either. Did she not feel the same irrevocable pull that I did? Was she not drawn to me with every fiber of her being? Did she notknowthat she belonged to me, and I to her?
I didn’t even know where I’d come from.
I didn’t know my ownname.I knew nothing about myself.
