I should move away, but I don’t want to.
He studies me, frowning. “You shifted and I didn’t know why.”
“I had a memory.” I swallow. “It was bad.”
“That makes sense.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “It’s what pups will do when they feel threatened. Immediately shift.” He kisses my forehead. “And your wolf was trying to protect you.”
I close my eyes and let his scent ground me in the present.
I don’t realize I’m shaking until he draws the sheet up higher over me and tucks me more firmly against him. “Can I get you something? Food water? You’ve been out for a while.”
I shake my head. “My parents?”
He releases an odd chuckle. “They checked in on you and said it looked like I was managing okay.”
“My dad hates you.”
“Yup,” he concedes. “Which is why I found it so strange he didn’t kick me out of my own room.”
“I was trapped in the worst nightmare ever.” My eyes burn. “But it wasn’t a nightmare. It was real. All the things I could never remember.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I thought I would want to be alone. To mull over everything I learned about myself. To be with the family I now remember.And Idowant those things. But right now, I think I want to be held.
“I remember everything,” I say quietly. “I was running down the porch steps with Sophia…”
It takes a while to tell him everything. I can’t believe I remembered so much. Then I remind myself it isn’t a dream or a nightmare that will fade away the longer I’m awake.
This is real.
Memory.
Several minutes later, I wipe tears from my eyes. “They took me. They knew I wasn’t theirs, that I belonged with someone else, and they took me away from my family and my home because what they wanted was more important than me.”
They could have gone to the cops if they thought someone had abandoned me in the middle of nowhere. Instead, they gave me a new name, new clothes, and made me into their child. Rylie Cooper. And they lied. They lied to me about everything.
A few weeks ago, I was certain that I would work a stable job in the city and have a fancy apartment. I thought it was everything I always wanted, but it wasn’t.
Family. A home.
I’ve put together all the pieces of my past that never seemed to fit.
“I have my family back,” I whisper.
16
AREN
Kat’s memory is back.
It’s the best thing that could have happened to her. I’m happy for her, but with the return of those memories, she has every reason in the world to want to go back to Nebraska with her parents and the pack she now remembers.
For the last three days, I’ve barely seen her.
She isn’t sleeping in our room anymore. She’s been staying with her parents and little sister in the small guesthouse cabin.
When I’m in my office, I sometimes see them going for a walk. They’re always talking and sometimes laughing. And she’s smiling.
