by Jenn Burke
Nassim needed to talk to someone. It obviously wasn’t going to be Aidan.
“I will,” Nassim said.
“Dr. Kira?” Rudel said. “She’s a good one… for a gryphon,” he added with a wink at Luca. “If I’m taking you back to Ottawa, does that mean I get to drive your car?”
“No,” Nassim stated flatly.
“Yes,” Luca said with a smirk. “I don’t want you driving in that state.”
“Luca, he drives like a turtle.”
The whine in Nassim’s voice almost made Aidan smile until he remembered he was angry and hurt, and no matter how cute his mate sounded—
Shit. Mate. He was going to hyperventilate again.
“Just go,” Luca said, an undeniable order in his voice. It softened when he added, “Call me when you get home, please.”
“Will do,” Rudel assured him. When he put his arm around Nassim to lead him from the room, the gesture was full of caring and softness.
At least Nassim was in good hands.
Eirian turned to Aidan with a gentle smile. “Let’s get you settled in, shall we?”
What other choice did he have?
Chapter Eleven
THE back garden of the estate was shrouded in darkness punctuated here and there by soft fairy lights. They barely provided enough illumination to see the cobblestone path that wound between the flowerbeds and ornate bushes, but Aidan’s eyes adjusted quickly. It wasn’t like he was out there for the view anyway. His mind was caught up in everything he and Nassim had said. And all the things they shouldn’t have said.
He found a bench facing the water of the lake—whatever lake it was. If it even was a lake. He had no knowledge of this area beyond a vague sense of the type of city Montreal was. He didn’t know if that meant he’d never been there, or what.
So many, many things he didn’t know.
He slammed his knuckles against his temples and pushed, wincing at the pain but needing it. Why couldn’t he remember, goddammit? Was he going to be in this limbo forever, where he remembered stupid shit that meant nothing to no one, and all the important things remained lost and unknown?
“Why?” He pressed his fingers hard into the soft spot at his temple. “You fucker, why can’t you remember?”
A rustle behind him made him jerk his head up, and his eyes widened at the sight of a white lion emerging from the underbrush. His brain barely had a moment to gibber something about running when the lion melted away, leaving Prince Eirian there. Naked.
Aidan felt his cheeks heat as he turned away.
Eirian chuckled. “Sorry. I forget nonshifters aren’t as easy with nudity. We’ve got robes—ah, there we go.” Aidan heard a container open and close, and then the soft susurrus of fabric brushing against itself. “I’m decent, I promise.”
Aidan turned his head slowly, just in case he and Eirian had different versions of decent. But no, Eirian now wore a thin robe and had settled on the other end of the bench.
“Good,” Aidan breathed. “I didn’t want to discover if the king is the jealous type.”
Eirian laughed. “No. Well, yes, he is a little possessive, but he’s well aware he doesn’t own me. We established that early on.”
“How long have you been married?”
“A little over a year.” Eirian’s gaze turned soft. “We started out rocky, but things evened out.”
“You followed me, didn’t you?”
Eirian raised his hands in surrender. “I just thought you might need to talk. A lot got thrown at you tonight, didn’t it?”
“Did you know…?” Aidan swallowed. “That Nassim and I…?”
“No. Not before tonight. Mother save us from males who can’t communicate.” The quirk of Eirian’s lips suggested he had more than a little experience with such creatures. “That doesn’t really explain why you’re out here, hurting yourself.”
Aidan ducked his head. Shame heated his cheeks as he recalled his childish impulse to try to jar the memories loose. Even as he’d dug his fingertips into his temples, he knew it wouldn’t work. “No one was supposed to see that.”
“I can’t even imagine how frustrating this all must be,” Eirian said, his voice soft. He was looking out at the water now, which somehow made his presence easier to take. “Having no memory, discovering you’re mythos, and then finding out you have—had—a mate who chose to keep that from you.”
“I don’t know what to think,” Aidan admitted. “Intellectually I can appreciate the idea of giving me space, but….”
“But you feel misled.”
“Exactly.” Aidan heaved a sigh of relief. Someone got it. “If, as Nassim said, I’m the same man he knew, with the same morals, the same reactions to things, why didn’t I tell him I was mythos? And why didn’t he trust that I would want to continue to be his mate?”
“I can’t answer the first question—no one can but past-you. But for the second, do you?”
Aidan grimaced. “At this moment, right now? I’d be happy never to see him again.”
“Except not really,” Eirian said, understanding in his tone.
“Except not really,” Aidan echoed with a nod.
They sat in silence for a time, watching the dark waves. With every brush of the breeze against his skin, every soft whisper of the water greeting the land, Aidan’s anger diminished and some clarity returned to his thoughts. He was never going to be 100 percent okay with the fact Nassim had hidden such important information from him, but he could understand it. Knowing Nassim’s history with Riladi, he could even empathize. Fear made people do stupid things, and apparently mythos were not immune. Aidan could only imagine the fear in Nassim’s heart when he discovered Aidan’s disappearance, or the fear when Aidan reappeared and couldn’t remember anything. Then there was the fear of rejection, plus the fear of doing the wrong thing, because that would be front and center in Nassim’s brain.
Aidan’s heart twanged at the thought of Nassim facing all of that alone. It made the longing for answers to all of those unanswerable questions swell again. But why he disappeared, where he went, why he hadn’t told Nassim he was mythos…. While those questions reverberated into the present, knowing the answers to them wouldn’t solve anything in the here and now.
He’d hurt Nassim—intentionally or not, it didn’t matter. Blame didn’t matter. What did matter was how they moved forward, or even that they moved forward at all.
“If you were me,” Aidan said into the quiet night, his voice loud in comparison. He adjusted his volume and started again. “If you were me, what would you do?”
“Oh Mother.” Eirian shook his head. “I don’t know if I can answer that.”
Aidan gripped the bench seat and leaned forward. “The worst part about my lack of memories is the loss of context. I honestly don’t know what I should do. I need to move forward. I know that. And I grasp that both Nassim and I probably made the best decisions we could at the time, because I can’t see either of us intentionally hurting the other. That’s not me. I refuse to believe it’s me.”
“Fair enough. I’m beginning to see what Nassim meant by your morals and beliefs remaining intact. It’s clear that your loss of memory hasn’t resulted in a loss of self.” Eirian shifted on the bench so he was facing Aidan, one leg bent and one arm draped along the back of the seat. “You’re mythos. You’re not human. You have instincts humans don’t, and you need to learn to listen to them. They’ll guide you—not infallibly, but you need to trust in them. In yourself.”
“Trust in myself,” Aidan echoed.
“What is your gut telling you right now?”
Aidan was tempted to make a glib comment about being hungry, but he understood what Eirian was asking. He closed his eyes and focused, trying to weave through the churn of emotions to identify what he was actually feeling.
“That not actively trying to fix this is wrong,” he said quietly.
“There you go. Your instinct is to get back into harmony with your mate—absolutel
y valid,” Eirian said. “But what is your priority?”
“Uh….”
“Patching things up with Nassim is a good plan, but you’ve got a lot of competing priorities. Fitting back into your life, rediscovering who you are, getting comfortable as Aidan Bishop—those are all things you need to do too.”
“But wouldn’t my instinct cut through the chatter and focus on the most important thing?”
Eirian tilted his head from side to side. “Sometimes. But sometimes the beast wants what it wants without caring about our more human needs.”
“But I’m not a beast. Or I don’t have one. Or… at least I don’t think I do.”
“No, spirits are more ethereal. No pun intended. You have a dual nature, the same as all mythos, but your spirit side might be less understandable than my beast. Honestly my beast is pretty simple. He wants our mate, to protect our mate, a safe and comfortable den, and food. My instinct is always going to guide me in those directions. For instance, if you were to try to give Luca a friendly hug, my human side would have to tamp down my instinct to challenge you,” Eirian said with a grin. “As a spirit, though, your motivations might be less clear. Spirits are tied to the elements or to places or to the Earth itself, but we don’t know much beyond that. It’s rare for a spirit to spend a lot of time in human form.”
“What would my other form be?”
“As an anemoi?” Eirian shrugged. “The wind? A storm? A creature who embodies the characteristics of a storm? It’s impossible to say for sure.”
And it wasn’t a question Aidan needed answered right then, because the idea of leaving behind his human shape for that of a storm cloud was more than a little scary. “So what you’re saying is that instinct gives me guidance, but it’s the human side that has to make the decision if the guidance is something I can or should follow.”
“Exactly.”
“No offense, but that’s clear as mud.”
Eirian chuckled. “Ironing things out with Nassim is probably a good place to start. Your instinct is pointing you in that direction already.”
“So yes to repairing my relationship with Nassim.”
“What form that repair takes is up to you… and to him. But I think, in this, you’ll be the lead.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you have something he doesn’t—a soul that isn’t weighed down by past actions and decisions. Nassim spends too much time in the past.” Eirian’s smile was more than a little sad. “I think it’s going to be up to you to pull him fully into the present so you both can have a future.”
Chapter Twelve
AFTER spending all day Friday and Saturday with Eirian, learning how to control his magic and prevent it from randomly summoning storms like it had when he’d argued with Nassim, the last thing Aidan wanted to do was meet with Dr. Kira. But apparently, when the king himself booked you an appointment with the gryphons’ preeminent therapist, and arranged for a house call, you didn’t get to say no.
Dr. Kira sat in the armchair in King Luca’s study, wearing leggings and a tunic, with her notepad balanced on one knee. She had brown eyes, like all gryphons, medium brown skin, and curly, dark brown hair liberally streaked with gray, a good indicator that she was, as Nassim had said, older. Though how old a gryphon had to be to get gray hair, Aidan had no idea. They could live significantly longer than a thousand years. Aidan sat across from her on the sofa and wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the doctor seemed to be at taking over the freaking king’s private space.
“You’ve had an exciting few weeks,” she said with a smile. She seemed genuinely happy to be speaking to Aidan. Not that Dr. Beausoleil hadn’t been—she’d been warm, friendly, and calm—but Dr. Kira just seemed more… welcoming. “A disappearance, a return, but with amnesia, and now the discovery that you’re mythos. And a short vacation at the royal estate. How are you feeling?”
Aidan sank deeper into his seat. “Physically or mentally?”
“Both. Either. This is your time. We can talk about whatever you need to talk about.”
“Are you going to try to get my memories back?”
“Through hypnotism, you mean?”
“That’s what Dr. Beausoleil did.”
“Ah, but she was treating you on the assumption you were human and that your human psyche had… well, misplaced those memories due to some sort of trauma.” Dr. Kira leaned forward. “But you’re not human, Aidan, which makes things that much more complicated.”
And just that quickly, Aidan put it all together. “Because if it were physical trauma, I would have healed it already. So… it wasn’t a bang to the head that caused the memory loss.”
“Bingo.”
“So it was… psychological? Emotional?”
“Or magical.” She arched a brow. “See what I mean by complicated? So let’s just talk for a bit today. You can tell me how things have changed or how they’ve stayed the same, and we can make a plan for what you want to work on.”
“All right.” Aidan sucked in a deep breath. “So I guess the biggest thing is that I found out—other than being mythos—that Nassim and I were mates. Or almost mates.”
The king had probably informed Dr. Kira of Aidan’s connection to Nassim, since she hadn’t given any indication that she didn’t know who Aidan was talking about. “You don’t seem very happy about this news.”
“I’m not unhappy. I guess I’m just… confused.”
“Okay. Let’s talk about that. Why are you confused?”
“Because we completed two out of the three stages of dragon mating, but I never told him I was mythos. Then I disappear and reappear with amnesia, and he doesn’t tell me that we’re mates.”
“Ah.”
“So how do I dig through the lies to get back to something true?”
“Good question.” She reclined in her seat. “Do you want to be mates? Wait—before you answer, consider the question. However you feel is valid, so there’s no right or wrong.”
Aidan had thought about it a lot over the past two days. How did he really feel about being mates with Nassim? His instincts insisted that repairing his relationship with Nassim was important and necessary, and he didn’t disagree. Now that he knew there was a reason he felt connected to Nassim, attracted to him, he wanted to explore it fully. He wanted to reclaim it.
Aidan met her gaze square on. “I do want to be Nassim’s mate. He’s a good man—dragon—and he tries hard at everything he does. I’m not sure anyone understands just how deeply he cares about everything that’s his—his company, his employees, his family.”
“You?”
Aidan tilted his head in acquiescence. “I hurt him by not telling him I’m mythos. Before I lost my memory, I mean. And I want to make that up to him.”
“So you want to continue with the mating ritual.”
“Yes.” Aidan grimaced. “Eventually. I think it’s too early to go forward with it just yet.”
“Does Nassim?”
Aidan shook his head. “He’s scared. Because of… an event in his past.”
“Ah.” Her expression grew serious again. “Yes. I know what you’re talking about.”
Good. Aidan didn’t have to share details that weren’t his to share. “I’ve already disappeared once. He doesn’t want to take the risk that it’ll happen again and I’ll be gone forever.”
“Self-preservation instincts.”
“I guess.” Aidan sighed. “And I get it. I do. But I don’t know how to convince him that taking a risk isn’t a bad thing.”
“Life is all about risk. But when someone has been injured as deeply as that, it’s understandable that they don’t want to open themselves up to that sort of pain again.”
“So what do I do?”
Dr. Kira’s face broke into a giant grin. “You win him back.”
WHEN the king’s limo dropped Aidan off at Nassim’s apartment building on Sunday afternoon, Aidan no longer feared himself, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to see
Nassim again. He considered asking the limo to take him to his run-down apartment instead, but that would just be putting off the inevitable. With a sigh, he thanked the driver, picked up his duffel bag, and exited the car.
He was just about to step through the doors into the lobby when Detective Morgan appeared from around the corner. He wore his usual tailored suit, this one in brown, and a wide smile. “Mr. Bishop, do you have a minute?”
Aidan looked at the glass doors of Nassim’s building. He was jonesing for the comfort of the penthouse apartment, but he decided that denying Morgan was trouble he didn’t need. “Yeah, sure.”
He fell into step with Morgan as he headed down the street. There were a few restaurants and tourist stops in that area of the downtown core, but it was mostly office buildings. On a Sunday the streets were all but empty.
They walked for a couple of blocks in silence, and Morgan showed no sign of breaking it. So Aidan did. “HR at Tuninas told me that they’d confirmed my work history with my last employer. It was a simple typo.”
“Good. Glad to hear it.” Morgan didn’t say anything else, but Aidan got the sense that the news wasn’t a surprise. “I heard there was some excitement last week.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“So you’re mythos? That’s quite the shock, isn’t it?” Morgan stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and turned to face Aidan.
“I—it wasn’t something I purposely kept from you. Or anyone.”
“Oh, I understand. I understand completely.” Morgan’s smile remained in place, but something flared in his eyes, some sharpness that made Aidan suck in a breath. He leaned forward to whisper in Aidan’s ear. “I don’t know what sort of game you’re pulling, but I’m going to find out. And you and your buddy are going to be sorry.”
His buddy? Did he mean Nassim?
Morgan turned to walk away. Without thinking, Aidan grabbed his arm. “Wait. What buddy? Do you—”
In an instant the friendly, affable cop was gone, and in his place was a hard-edged man. He did something—a twist of his body, a jerk of his arm—and Aidan found himself pressed to the nearest wall, Morgan’s hand around his throat. He squeezed just enough for Aidan to struggle for breath.
