Now, standing in the cold outside her window, my body reacted to the memory with predictable stupidity. Heat pooled low in my gut. My cock stirred, half-hard from nothing but remembering.
Except that the woman in those memories didn’t remember any of it.
She didn’t remember the taste of my mouth on hers. Didn’t remember arching into me, begging for more. Or any of the moments from that week that I would carry branded into my fucking soul until the day I died.
“We don’t know why she lost her memories,” Solomon said, reading my silence. “The drug could have caused temporary retrograde amnesia. Or it could be related to the bond itself. A human mind rejecting supernatural imprinting.”
“Or it could be permanent,” Percy said. He’d stopped pacing. Just stood there staring at her window with his hands shoved in his pockets. “She might never remember.”
The thought made my chest burn.
“Then we start over.” I kept my voice even. The way a king’s voice should sound. “We tell her the truth. Slowly. When she’s ready.”
“Which truth?” Percy looked at me. “The‘we’re supernatural wolves from another dimension’truth, or the‘you’re our fated mate and we’ve been obsessed with you since we saw you’truth?”
“Both. In time.”
“She’s going to think we’re insane.”
“She already thinks we’re strange.”
“Strange and insane are different categories, Lucian.”
A flutter of wings broke the silence.
The raven landed on the fire escape above us, dark feathers glossy in the moonlight. It carried a small scroll tied to its leg, sealed with the Valdris crest. A message from Veyndral, sent through the portal.
I climbed up to retrieve it, unrolling the parchment with a growing sense of dread. My mother’s handwriting, elegant and demanding.
“When are you coming home? The council grows restless in your absence. Also, I want grandchildren. Is that too much to ask? You’ve had five hundred years to find a mate. Surely you can spare a few months to return and produce an heir.”
My parents.Again.
I stared at the words and thought about telling her I’d found my mate. That she was human, which the council would hate.
The raven cocked its head, waiting for a response.
I sent it back empty-handed.
“You ever going to reply to that?” Percy asked.
“No.”
“That’s the third one this week.”
“I’m aware.”
“They’re going to send someone through the portal if you keep ignoring them.”
“Then I’ll send them back.”
Percy raised both hands in surrender. Solomon said nothing, which was his way of saying everything.
Our kingdom had remained isolated for eight hundred years while others reconnected with the human world. When a new portal opened within our borders, the Council wanted to send expendable wolves through first.
I volunteered myself instead. A king doesn’t send others into danger he won’t face himself. The Council nearly had collective heart failure.
Solomon came because he was my right-hand man. But also because I knew he was still not over the mystery of his father disappearing through a portal to this world twenty-four years ago.
