“You don’t need to whisper,” he tells me, and there’s sadness in his eyes though I’m not sure why. “They can’t hear us. And it’s not a dream. Not exactly. This is a memory.”
“Your memory?” I ask, crinkling my forehead.
“No,” he replies. “Yours. I was able to access and pull us into your memory, because I could feel it simmering on the edges of your mind.”
“Mine?” My brows lift as I let this process. “Wait, so our physical bodies are simply standing in the forest? Okay, well that’s not creepy at all.”It sounds a little bit like a violation of my privacy, too, but I’m too curious to worry about that now.Hold on, but if this is my memory then who is the girl?I think of the gravestone I’d seen in my dreams weeks ago. The one that read: Alina Moore.Is this her?
“Rest assured, my shadows are protecting our bodies while our minds are occupied,” Knox replies matter-of-factly.
Unable to stay away, I move closer to the bed, examining the girl. “Gosh, she’s so pretty,” I breathe, not sure why that makes my heart ache. “I’d die to have that color hair.” I gently brush my fingers down her rosy cheek, and though I can’t actually touch her, sparks of electricity run along my fingertips. I gasp as I realize who I’m looking at. I remember changing my dream form to be a girl with pink hair and not a care in the world. “This is…this is me,” I choke out, stumbling back a step as I stare at the girl I used to be. “At least, this is one of the many dream versions I’d created with my mind. But…” I trail off as more of the memory comes back, and a cloaked figure strides into the room, gliding from a pool of darkness like he was always there. Even before he removes his cloak, I know who it is. I turn to Knox, and the moment our gazes lock, he falls to his knees.
“Finally,”the girl’s words,my words,spoken long ago sound in my ears.
“Finally?”the cloaked figure, past Knox, the version of him who visited my dreams years before, says.
“Yeah,”she replies.“Finally, I’m going to have a good night. I can already tell.”
The conversation continues, but I’m not staring at the girl or the hooded figure. I’ve seen it all before. I’ve lived it. No, I’m staring at Knox’s face, and he looks…shattered. He’s staring at me like I’m holding his broken heart in my hands, and I struggle to breathe.
“Knox,” I say, my voice trembling as his name sounds above the conversation of the dream versions of us. The past us.Us.“I-I remember,” I rasp. My throat feels so tight I have to work hard to squeeze the words out, even though I know this is a dream. A memory. “I don’t remember everything, but I remember this,” I say. “I remember you and Raith. The three of us together…” Tears well in my eyes, because it’s too overwhelming, and even though I can’t remember everything, my heart hurts so freaking much. A mixture of love and hurt and pain rushes through me, and I’m frozen, unable to move.
“You found me,” I say softly, still talking because Knox isn’t saying a thing. He’s still on his knees staring at me like he’s not sure if I’m real. Like he can’t quite handle the revelation of who I am. “In the human realm you found me in my dreams and you…” I trail off as I remember Knox entering my dreams. I remember sending out a call as I battled my nightmares. I remember wishing for someone, anyone to help me, and there he was. Like a dark angel in my dreams. I remember him holding me. Remember him keeping my nightmares at bay, and protecting me from the monsters that threatened to torment me at night. Monsters I’d fought off by myself for so damn long that I had forgotten what it was like to sleep without struggling against them. All until he’d walked into my mind. The one who had called me…mate. The one who’d cared…
Too many emotions flood through me, my new life and the experiences I’ve lived at Shadowbone Academy colliding with these few memories I remember of Raith and Knox. Of the pair of them treasuring me. Of them taking care of me while I’d slept. Of them…loving me.
My mind feels like it’s about to explode, and instead of the tears I think may break free, it’s laughter that spills out of me instead. Laughter that sounds in time to the girl giggling on the bed.
I turn back to the girl with pink hair. “Just…stay with me for a while. Please?”she asks past Knox, batting her long lashes as she smiles coyly.
The old version of Knox takes a step back, and while I don’t think the past version of me sees his reluctance, I do. But he gives in to her. He goes to her bed, even as she starts admiring his face. Prodding at him because, at first, she believes he’s a figment of her imagination.“God, you look so real,”she tells herself.“And damn, you’re hot. You know, I really was starting to think my brain was broken, but then you come along.”
Dream Knox moves closer.“What are you afraid of?”he asks her, referring to the nightmares from an earlier part of the conversation.
Her smile becomes strained.
“Why do the nightmares torture you, mate?”past Knox prompts her when she doesn’t respond.
Her weak smile turns into a grin again.“Mate? Are you an Aussie? I’ve never dreamt about an Aussie before. Is it true you ride kangaroos to work, and they carry you in their pouches?”She peers around like she’s fully expecting to see a kangaroo as his dream steed, and I laugh harder because I remember this moment like color is returning to the blank place in my mind where this memory used to be.
“No,”Dream Knox tells her.“You’re my fated mate, little one. As in?—”
And that’s when my laughter stops. Because Knox, the present Knox, is staring at me so intensely I swear my heart stops beating. After weeks of ignoring me and pretending I didn’t exist, his entire focus is on me like he never intends to look away. Like his dark eyes are piercing to my soul, and he can’t believe what he’s found there.
“I felt you die,” he rasps, and his voice cracks, so full of emotion that my heart aches, feeling like it could tear into a thousand pieces.
I shake my head, somehow knowing I never died, even though I can’t remember exactly what happened to me yet. So far all I know is that I’m the mate Knox thought he’d lost, and despite how horribly he has treated me, I think I understand him now. His mate’s death had broken him.Mydeath had broken him.
“I searched the shadow realm,” he adds. “I…” he trails off, regret sinking into every line on his face as he stares at me. “I’m so…sorry.”
I’m not prepared for it. For the apology that somehow cuts deeper than any cruel word he’s said to me, and my heart crumbles. Somehow without him saying it, I know he’s not just apologizing for how he has treated me for the past few weeks. He’s apologizing for everything, even the things I can’t remember. For all that has happened from the moment he’d found me in that dream.
The emotion in his eyes and the overwhelming sensations rushing through me have my tears spilling over. Knox is on his feet and across the room before my first tear falls to the ground. Icy shadows coil around us as he grabs me so firmly, like he’s terrified I’ll slip away from him again, and then his lips are on mine, and this time our kiss isn’t just desperate as we give in tothe fated mates attraction pulling us together. Fire and ice races through me, burning through my veins, and Knox kisses me like he’s been drowning, and I’m the air he needs to breathe.
My chest aches as I remember my love for this man. As I remember how he healed me all those years ago, stepping into my dreams when I’d thought I could never love again. When I’d thought I might not be able to go on.My mate.I’d known he was mine, and I tremble as he holds me in his arms.
Chapter Thirty-Three
~ Knox ~
