Sarah lay curled in my arms, her blonde silky hair soft against my chest. I pressed my nose to her hair and inhaled.
I should be content, but an odd feeling I couldn’t shake itched under my skin.
Everyone in the Keep was acting weird. Kinsley and Henrietta could barely look at me. Jace refused to speak to me unless I forced him.
And why the fuck was I thinking about Evie’s friend so much? Moira. That was her name.
Why had she been here? I wouldn’t have invited her. The thought was laughable.
Waking up to see her inside the clinic room was odd because at first, her presence felt right. Confusion had rapidly set in until I was questioning everything. Her face when I called for Kinsley…
I’d never forget that look in her eyes. Devastation, hurt, regret, and grief all rolled into one.
She should not have looked at me like that. We didn’t have that sort of relationship.
There was a new house I don’t remember building that Kinsley assured me was a recent decision. I walked in, and Moira’s scent was all over the house. A new scent, mostly saturated inside the master bed and bath area.
Something was off. I felt like I was going insane.
Even stranger was discovering I’d listed Moira as an emergency contact in my cell phone.
Sarah wasn’t there at all. I dialed her number by heart only for an out of service message to come over the line.
My wedding ring wasn’t on my finger. I found it in an old jewelry box, tucked in the very back. I’d never once taken it off and religiously polished it. But the ring was tarnished, and when I slid it back onto my finger, it was loose enough for me to be concerned about losing it.
When I asked Sarah about it, she got an odd little furrow in her brow, and some emotion I couldn’t identify skittered across her eyes. For a moment, I thought she might be as confused as I was. But then she smiled and all the thoughts fell right out of my head, just like they always did.
We’d never officially married or mated, but we started wearing the rings to signify our commitment to each other. Before she?—
My mind went blank. I stared at the ceiling for a long moment trying to catch that fleeting thought, but I could no longer find it.
Huh. That was weird. What had I been thinking about?
I glanced down at Sarah. Her scent teased my nose as I shifted, the soft scent of flowers rising in the air. A golden hand rested on my chest, Sarah’s fingernails painted a soft pink.
My vision flashed. A pale hand with unpainted fingernails lay superimposed over Sarah’s, dark silken hair sliding over my collarbone. Another scent, deeper, more mysterious touched by a hint of magic rose above Sarah’s.
I froze. What the fuck? I blinked several times, the odd vision fading away. The scent was the last to disappear.
Gently easing Sarah onto her side of the bed, I carefully pulled away before sliding out of the bed. She’d always been a heavy sleeper, an oddity inside a Keep of shifters. I pulled on my shirt and a pair of socks before slipping out of the bedroom.
Kinsley was in the kitchen making himself a cup of coffee when I walked in. He froze when he spotted me.
“Everything okay?” he asked after an awkward moment.
I stared at him. “Mind making me one?”
Kinsley blinked. “Uh. Sure.” He grabbed another mug and poured me a cup.
My Second set it down and started walking out.
“Kinsley. Stay.”
The movement was slight, but I saw the slight slump to his shoulders and the soft exhale. Kinsley turned and sat opposite me.
“What the fuck is going on?” I said mildly.
Kinsley, one of my most loyal shifters, smiled and lied.
