"I know." I press my lips to his jaw, feeling him smile. "I love you too."
And then, one of the more recent ones.
Him explaining what mating means for demons. The permanence of it. The magical bond. Asking me if I want that, if I'm sure, giving me every opportunity to refuse.
"I want forever with you," I tell him, absolutely certain. "Whatever that looks like."
The joy on his face. The way he kisses me like he's trying to pour everything he feels into that connection. "Tomorrow then. I'll arrange everything tomorrow."
Falling asleep in his arms that night, safe and loved and certain about my future. About us.
And then?—
Nothing.
Waking up in an unfamiliar servant quarter with no memory of how I got there. No memory of him. No memory of anything except fragments of my childhood and an ache in my chest.
I come back to reality with a violent jerk, breath tearing out of my chest in a sob I can't contain. My hands are fisted in Malrec's shirt, clutching him like he's the only solid thing in a world that just reformed itself around me.
"Lenna?" His voice is urgent, worried. "What?—"
"I remember." The words are barely intelligible through the tears suddenly streaming down my face. "I remember everything. The auction. You negotiating for me. Teaching me.Us falling in love. We were going to—" My voice breaks completely. "We were supposed to be mated. The next day. You were going to arrange it and then?—"
I watch his face change. Watch understanding crash through him like the same flood just hit his chest. His eyes go wide, pupils dilating with shock, and then something devastating settles into his expression. Grief. Loss. Recognition.
"You remember?" My voice is shaking so hard I barely recognize it. "Tell me you remember. Please."
For a long moment, he doesn't speak. Just stares at me like he's seeing me for the first time, or maybe like he's finally seeing me clearly after weeks of looking through fractured glass. His hand is still cupping my face, and I feel his fingers tremble against my skin.
"Do you remember?" I ask again, more desperately this time. I need him to say it. Need confirmation that I'm not losing my mind, that what just flooded back into my skull is real and shared and not just wishful reconstruction of dreams.
He nods. Just barely, the movement almost imperceptible. When he speaks, his voice is wrecked, every word dragged up from somewhere deep and broken inside him.
"Everything." He closes his eyes like it hurts to look at me. "I remember everything."
A sound escapes me—half sob, half laugh, completely beyond my control. "How? How did this happen? One night we were together and then?—"
"I don't know." His eyes open again, and the pain in them is unbearable. "I just…" His voice cracks. "I've been having memories. Dreams. And now it all makes sense."
"The dreams," I whisper. "They weren't dreams."
"No." His thumb brushes across my cheekbone, the gesture achingly familiar now that context has returned. "They were memories. Trying to surface. I've been dreaming about us everynight since you came back, seeing pieces of what we had, what we were supposed to be, and having to wake up and pretend you were just another laborer. Just some human I barely knew."
"Malrec." I say his name like I'm testing it, like I'm relearning the shape of it on my tongue with context restored. "I missed you. I didn't know I was missing you but I was. Every day. Every moment. There was this emptiness and I didn't know why."
He makes a sound—broken and raw and full of grief finally finding release. His arms come around me, pulling me fully against his chest, holding me like he's afraid I'll disappear again if he loosens his grip even slightly.
"I missed you so fucking much." The words are muffled against my hair. "Every day. I didn't understand it, but I was an unbearably grumpy bastard. Because I felt it."
That makes me laugh.
"But then you came back and every instinct I have kept screaming that you were mine. That we belonged to each other. And I couldn't understand why."
"I did feel it." I clutch him tighter, trying to get closer even though there's no space left between us. "I felt it the moment I saw you. I just didn't have the context to understand what it meant."
His hand slides into my hair, cradling my head against him. I can feel his heart hammering against my cheek, can feel the way his entire body is trembling with emotion he's no longer trying to contain.
"We were supposed to be mated," he says quietly, and the grief in his voice makes my chest crack open. "I was going to bond with you. Make it permanent. Make you mine in every way that mattered."
