by Mary Martel
“She is strong enough to bear it,” the future King grits out, this time different, this time there’s a hint of pride in his voice.
All of the Council members smile in grim satisfaction.
“Congratulations, my King, you’ve both done well. A true King cannot lead without his Queen. Luckily for you your mate is strong enough to handle the burden of being your Queen. Let us hope she passes the true test and comes back to you. The mind is a powerful thing, even after it’s been wiped clean.”
Chapter 27
Shayne
Gasping for breath I open my eyes and frantically clutch at the sheet covering the lower half of my body. As fast as humanly possible I drag it up the rest of my body until it’s tucked securely under my chin.
Only then do I take in my surroundings. And I immediately wish I hadn’t because I am not in the room I originally fell asleep in. Everything is different right down to the color of the paint on the walls.
Pulling the sheet away from my body I breathe a little easier when I realize I’m still wearing the same clothes I went to bed in. At least not everything has changed. Thank goodness for that.
But how did I get here? Where exactly is here?
After the funeral Daisy, Traine, and Lars the Dwarf walked me back to the sterile, white room I woke up in after sleeping for days.
The three of them had stayed with me long enough to share a meal and when it seemed they had no intentions of leaving any time soon I faked being exhausted to get rid of them. Well, I didn’t really have to try too hard to fake it because emotionally I was exhausted.
I didn’t think it would happen so soon, not after sleeping for so many days consecutively, but after lying in bed going over everything in my head I passed out, dead to the world.
And now I’m here, wherever here is. Which is not where I fell asleep. Unfortunately.
Could I possibly still be dreaming? Did I wake up to not really being awake at all, but to find myself in a dream instead? I really hope not because my dreams mostly end up being nightmares that last far too long and I usually know I’m not awake but can never seem to force myself to wake up. Which is kind of a nightmare all by itself, if you ask me.
Please, please, don’t let that be what’s happening right now. Lately it seems like my reality is a nightmare, I don’t need my dreams filled with terrors as well. That’d just be cruel.
“Ugh. Why me?” I say out loud as I fall back onto the bed.
“Why you, what?” A deep, tired voice says scaring the ever lovin’ shit out of me.
His scent hits my nostrils before I see him. Earthy, musky, male.
Ian.
In a far corner of the room I find him sitting in a chair. Elbows to his knees, head resting in his hands. His long blonde hair hangs loose around his bare shoulders. His mouth is turned down in a frown. Lines of worry and exhaustion are etched into his face.
“Are you real, or is this a dream?” I ask.
His frown deepens. “I assure you I am very real and this is not a dream.”
If what he says is true and this is reality, then why, after being separated for what seems like forever, is he so far away from me? Shouldn’t he be over here in bed with me? Why is he all the way over there? Why the distance when before coming here he seemed to never want to be more than a foot away from my side at all times?
Being the person I am with him, open and honest, the person he brings out in me, I don’t hold my words or thoughts back from him.
“What are you doing all the way over there, in the dark, by yourself? Why aren’t you over here, with me?”
“I’m afraid I made a terrible mistake with you, Shayne.”
What?
Not what I am expecting him to say. Not in the least.
“What are you talking about? Ian, what’s going on?”
Maybe this is a nightmare after all because he’s not making any sense. A mistake? What mistake?
Sighing, he scrubs his hands over his face before sitting upright in his chair.
He looks up at me and finally I see his eyes and what they hold in hem scares me. Emotions pass through them as he stares at me. Love. Longing. Agony. Despair. Bleakness. Resignation. Then finally cold, hard, determination.
“What’s going on?” I choke out.
Whatever he’s thinking about I know I’m not going to like hearing, but I just know that I need to hear it.
Whatever it is we will get through it. Together. Like we are meant to be.
“Ian, what’s going on?”
“Fuck,” he hisses. “I can’t do this. I cannot fucking do this.”
His words confuse me. “Do what?” I ask.
I have to know what in the hell is going on. The longer he remains silent the higher my panic escalates.
His eyes bleed into mine and for a second I catch a glimpse of something unexpected. Panic, similar to my own. It’s fleeting and gone before I can really make note of it. Once again, cold, hard, determination takes its place.
“You, Shayne. You’re what’s wrong. Or, maybe it’s me. I don’t know. Either way it doesn’t matter. Bottom line is I made a big mistake in thinking I could bring you here. You don’t belong here. I belong here, but you do not.”
“I don’t understand.”
And I don’t. He’d been telling me I was his mate long before I even understood the meaning of the word. He acted like he was in love with me. He made me fall in love with him. I gave him my past, my love, my freaking virginity, and my future. I gave him all of me, and now he tells me he was wrong, that bringing me here was a mistake, that I don’t belong here? How could that be when I feel like this is the only place I ever truly felt as if I did belong, that being with him feels so right to me?
“I don’t understand,” I repeat.
“You can’t stay here, and I can’t be with you.”
Cold. Why is he being so cold and heartless towards me?
I can’t be with him? What the hell does he mean by that? Does he not want me?
Something disgusting and vile slithers through me.
Stupid, I’m so stupid. Of course he doesn’t want me. It never made sense that he would in the first place. Someone as beautiful and strong as him would never pick someone as plain as me to be with if they could help it. And he didn’t really choose to be with me. Not really. You didn’t get to pick your mate, fate picked for you.
Riley had told him to knock me up, get himself an heir, and then scrape me off.
“Shayne, no. Whatever it is you’ve got going on in that head of yours you need to get out right now.”
My face must have given me away.
I don’t believe his words. If he doesn’t want me then why would he not want me to be here with him?
“You’re my mate and I love you. I don’t love you because you’re my mate but because you’re you. You’re the most beautiful fucking person I’ve ever met in my life. In fact, you’re perfect for me. Absolutely perfect for me. I couldn’t have picked a person more suited for me if I’d been given the chance to do it myself.”
His words chase away some of the disgusting, vile thing that’s taken hold of me since he first started speaking. But, still he doesn’t make any sense.
I sit up and crawl to the foot of the bed, intent on going to him. I want, no need, to be near him. I need to feel his strong arms around me. I need the heat that radiates off his body to chase away the bitter coldness I’ve felt ever since waking up naked and chained to a brick wall.
His hand comes up and out, palm towards me.
“Stop,” he commands. “Stay where you are. I don’t need you to make this any harder on me than it already is.”
His words gut me. The only reason I can see him not wanting me near him is if he lied. Lied when he said he loved me. Lied about me being perfect for him.
“Are you… are you breaking up with me?”
The words sound so stupid, so high school, because we’re so much more than that. Or, I thought we were.
“In a sense, yes.”
Words devoid of any emotions. Empty.
“Why?” I demand to know.
“Fuck, Shayne, can you not get it. I can’t keep you safe here. He took you, you. And that’s on me because it’s my job to keep you safe. My job and at the first pass I dropped the fucking ball. That’s on me. All of it. What happened to you is because of me, because of who I am. It made me realize that I can’t have you here with me. As much as it kills me to do I have to send you back to your old life. Alone. Without me.”
“None of that happened because of you. Your Uncle did that to me because he’s messed up in the head. I’m not the first person he’s done horrible things to. He’s a sick man, and there’s no one to blame for the things he’s done other than him. Why would you even think that’s your fault?”
A small, tiny, sliver of hope shines down on me. Ian’s always talking about protecting the people he cares about most. Protecting Riley and I. Could this be why he wants to send me away? Not because he doesn’t want me, but because he fears he can’t protect me if I stay here? That would mean he really does love me.
“Ian, I-”
He cuts me off. “No. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. The decision has already been made and there’s no going back now. Someone will be here in the morning to take you home.”
With that he stands to leave the room. To leave me. For good.
What the hell does he mean by the decision has already been made?
I don’t ask. Instead, I cry, “What? No.”
I scramble off the bed and chase after him, but I’m too late. He’s gone and the door softly clicks shut behind him.
Twisting the knob I try to open the door so I can go after him, but it won’t budge. It’s locked. He’s locked me in here. He left me and locked me in this room.
Desperate, I bang on the door and scream, “Ian!”
I scream his name over and over again. I scream until my voice grows hoarse and my throat turns scratchy. I scream until my legs buckle and I crumple to floor in a heap.
Then I cry.
In the dark, locked in a room, curled into a tight ball on the floor, I cry myself to sleep as what’s become my entire world collapses in on itself around me.
*****
Wake up.
Slowly, I peel open my swollen eyelids. Through blurry vision I take in the empty room.
Empty, just like me now.
Empty, when I swear I heard a familiar female voice whispering for me to wake up seconds before.
Shayne, you need to wake up. We’re running out of time and there are things I must tell you.
“Collette?” I whisper. It’s her voice I hear in my head.
Shh. Do not speak. They will be listening.
They? Who in the heck is she talking about? I don’t know and at the moment I can’t bring myself to care. Doesn’t she know I’m hollow and bitter? I assume everyone knows what’s happened by now. How long have I been sleeping?
It’s a test. It’s all a test. The Council is testing both you and my King. You have to remember and you have to come back to him. It’s important that you listen to what I have to say and that you remember, because if you do not come back to him he will spend the rest of his alone and his life will be miserable. Without you he will be living in Hell. Don’t forget and come back to him.
She doesn’t make any sense either. No one can make me forget anything, unless, of course, they are working for some super-secret advanced government agency no one is supposed to know about.
Wait a minute… Anna May.
Riley claimed to have wiped her of some of her memories.
Wipe her of her memories.
Oh, oh my God.
Are they planning on stealing my memories from me? My memories of Ian – of the supernatural world as a whole?
Why would they do that?
Can they even do that?
After everything I’ve seen, and everything I’m sure I’ve yet to see, I imagine they can very easily steal my memories from me.
“I have to get out of here.”
You can’t leave. They’re coming for you, and they’re almost there. You’ve no time to leave even if it were possible for you to escape them. And it’s not possible. The only hope you have is to remember on your own. If you remember him on you own, if your mind is strong enough to do that, and you come back for him, then you’ll pass the test. You will be our true Queen.
That’s entirely fucked up, and…
“Why would I want to come back when he doesn’t even want me here to begin with?”
Be quiet, stupid girl. You’re his mate, of course he wants you by his side. Have you been listening to nothing I’ve said? Ian has been officially announced as our King. This is the Councils way of testing both him and you. They’re taking you way from him. If he leaves to go after you it will show them weakness and they will find someone to replace him, someone of a different bloodline. They are also, very much, testing you.
“That’s stupid and insane.” I whisper.
And, to me, it is. After everything Ian’s been through why would anyone want to take something else from him? And, more importantly, why would he allow it?
His people. Of course.
He would do it for his people because they need him. That, and I think he genuinely believes what he said earlier about not being able to protect me and what happened with Roland being his fault.
No matter how much time passes, if you remember, you must return to him – to us. It could be days, weeks, years – if you remember you return. He’ll be waiting for you and we’ll all be praying for your return. Without you he will spend the rest of his life alone and mateless. Please, you must –
What she says next is lost on me because the door I’m leaning against quickly opens.
Gasping in shock I glance up into the glowing eyes of a stranger wrapped in a crimson robe.
“It is time for you to go home now.”
*****
Ian
“She’s gone,” Collette murmurs quietly from behind me.
I don’t respond. I don’t need her to tell me what I already know. I felt it the moment Shayne left, like someone had taken a needle, poked holes into my lungs with it, and second by second, they were slowly filling with liquid making it hard for me to breathe properly.
“She’ll be back, I know it.”
I’m glad one of us does because right now I don’t know a goddamn thing. My entire world is upside down and I’ve no one to blame but myself.
Her face, fuck, if I live to be a hundred I will never forget the look on her face when I told her she had to go. I didn’t just hurt her feelings. I absolutely destroyed her, then I kicked her in the face when she was down.
Me. I fucking did it to her. Everything my father taught me about how a man was supposed to take care of his beloved mate, fucking everything, I threw out the window because the fucking Council told me it was the only way for me to claim the throne. Something that’s already mine by birthright.
Because Shayne’s an outsider they want to test her. Some bullshit I’ve never heard before. Trials of the old or whatever the fuck. The whole thing is bullshit and I went right along with it as if I was their damn puppet dancing to their tune as they pulled my strings.
A small part of me, the part that’s clearly an asshole, wanted to test her, too. I allowed someone to steal her memories from her and insert new ones of her being attacked by an animal to explain the scars on her body. I let that be done to her and I’d barely protested.
All because I’m an asshole. Straight up, I’m an asshole. But I wanted to know if she’d find her way back to me. If she’d be able to do it. I feel like if I mean to her what she means to me then she will be able to remember me and she will come back to me. That’s the only reason I let them go through with this.
“Ian?”
Collette’s hand lands on my shoulder and she squeezes.
I stand, shaking
off her touch. “You grow too familiar, Vampire.”
“I am sorry, Ian.”
She and I both, but being sorry would bring my mate back to me any sooner and it wouldn’t solve any of my problems.
“What the fuck are you even doing here?” I snap.
“I thought that perhaps you might like some company.”
I know she’s trying to help. I fully understand this. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to lash out at her for being intrusive and in my space when I want to be left alone to wallow in my misery.
“I don’t want your company get out.”
Restless, I pace back and forth across the carpet.
Why the hell is she still here?
“I want you to know that I’m here for-”
Cutting her off mid-sentence I stop pacing, turn to face her, and roar, “Get the fuck out!”
Chapter 28
Shayne
One month later
“That’s it. I’ve had enough of this mopey bullshit. Either you’re coming out with me because you want to, or, I’m dragging you out. Those are your options. Pick one.”
Anna May stands in the doorway to my bedroom, bands on both hips, spitting attitude at me.
“Neither. Both options suck.” I tell her.
And they do suck. Terribly. I mean, what the hell kind of options are those? Not ones I’d ever pick on my own that’s for damn sure.
If it were up to me I would probably never leave the safety of my own apartment ever again.
“Ever since the attack you’ve been different. The only time you leave the apartment voluntarily is to go to work, and even then I can tell you’re not into it. Summer’s almost over. Before you know it you’ll be back in school. Then you’ll literally have no time to do anything even if you wanted to.”
She’s right. About all of it. Too bad I don’t care. Another thing I don’t care for is how she just glosses over the attack like it’s nothing. To me it’s a whole lot more than nothing. A whole blank slate full of nothing.
The whole thing is so utterly bizarre.
I woke up in a hospital bed not knowing how I’d gotten there. The last thing I remembered was getting out of my car after work and walking up to my apartment building. Everything after is an empty, gaping hole in my memory.
