Chapter Nineteen
“We should wait until Garson can return to do this,” Chaz argued as they parked the rental car in a visitor’s spot. “It will terrify Shoni when she’s facing off against the two of us. I’ve heard it can take hours for the memories to return this way.”
“I’ve heard it can be sped up if you go over the missing memories with the person to help trigger their return. I’m not letting you chicken out by wasting more time. I have a mate to get back to.” Fray climbed out of the passenger seat.
Chaz snarled, getting out, too. “I want to make this easier for Shoni. Not you.”
“She dealt with you for a few days while knowing what you really are. Yet, she still liked you enough to admit to Garson that she loved your grumpy ass. This will be a breeze. Now, which one is her home?”
“You wouldn’t want to risk frightening Lenore.”
“I wouldn’t be stupid enough to have Len’s memories wiped in the first place,” Fray shot back.
“I think this is a mistake.”
“Stop making excuses. A mistake would be for you to walk away from someone who loves you. It’s a damn miracle. Don’t let this human get away.”
Chaz ground his teeth together.
Fray chuckled, obviously entertained by his reaction to the teasing insult. “Where does she live, or do I need to start knocking on doors? Shoni isn’t a common name.” Fray glanced around. “How can humans live so close together? It would drive me crazy hearing every sound my neighbor makes.”
“Their hearing isn’t as good as ours.”
“Right.”
A gray vehicle suddenly drove into the complex from the street. The driver hit the brakes, came to a halt five feet away, and the driver’s door opened. Chaz tensed until he saw Ember’s scowling face as she emerged.
“What are you doing back here?”
Chaz ignored his brother as he stepped closer to Ember. “I made a mistake.”
“Yes, you did. I told you to leave town.” Ember glared at him. “Don’t make me run you down with my car. I will. It might not kill you, but I bet it would hurt like hell. Especially since I’m willing to throw it in reverse and do it a second time.” She paused. “Or ten times. Whatever it takes.”
Fray barked out a laugh. “I like her.”
Ember’s gaze turned to his twin. “Great. There are two of you.”
“I’m Fray, his twin.”
Ember sighed, her attention returning to Chaz. “What do you want now?”
He opened his mouth to respond but wasn’t sure exactly what to say.
“He realized he’s an idiot for letting Shoni go and is here to trigger her memories into coming back,” Fray answered for him. “I’m here to make sure he doesn’t fuck this up too badly. He’s going to claim her as his mate.”
Ember closed her eyes. She just stood there, slowly breathing.
“Are you all right?” Chaz took a step closer.
Ember’s green eyes opened. “It’s cold as fuck in Alaska, isn’t it?”
“Only in the winters,” Fray admitted.
“Fuck. Tell me you have pets.” Ember glanced between them.
“No.” Chaz was confused about why she wanted to know that. “You may bring a pet if you’d like. I’m sure that will be fine.”
Fray spoke a second later. “Our clan keeps livestock. Does that count?”
Ember looked at his twin. “What do you need livestock for?”
“The ones we keep inside the caves at the base of the cliffs are to provide my people with things like fresh milk and eggs, and we breed some to become food. We eat a lot of meat.”
“Fine.” Ember nodded. “That will give me animals to care for. I can deal with that.”
“Why would you want to?” Fray hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets. “It’s not a popular assignment for some of our males to care for them.”
“I love animals way more than people. Livestock will keep me busy.” Ember stared at Chaz. “What’s your plan? How are you going to get Shoni’s memories back? I don’t see a pile of ashes anywhere around you since you came during the day.”
“Ashes?” Fray glanced at him for clarification.
“I believe she’s talking about Vampires.” Chaz waved a hand at the bright sky above them. “As a joke. They’d ash if any had come with us.”
“That was me being sarcastic,” Ember corrected. “How does it work if you can’t have one of them here to reinstate Shoni’s memories?”
“Seeing my brother and being around him will trigger them to return,” Fray informed her. “It will go faster if he jogs her memories by talking about the things she’s forgotten.”
“Fucking great. Let me park in the garage, and I’ll go inside first to make sure she’s even awake. I told Shoni to sleep in this morning. Give me ten minutes before you knock.” Ember climbed back into her car, slammed the door closed, and started to drive forward.
Chaz had to move fast to get out of her way. She nearly clipped his leg with the front of her car.
Fray laughed. “That one doesn’t seem to like you much.”
“I’m glad Ember is accepting of me wanting to speak with Shoni.”
“That’s true. Or maybe she’s going inside to get that gun and hatchet ready to threaten you again,” Fray teased.
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m being half serious. I don’t know her, but she seemed too easily accepting of your intentions to mate with her cousin.”
Chaz mulled that over. He watched as Ember pulled her car into the garage attached to Shoni’s condo. She walked out a moment later, closed the garage, and hurried up the narrow sidewalk toward Shoni’s front door.
“Should we slightly shell our bodies as we go inside just in case that was an act? I don’t want to get shot today. That would upset my mate.”
Chaz glanced at his brother. “Maybe.”
Fray laughed.
“That’s not funny.”
“It kind of is. I’m not worried, though. Maybe the cousin attacking us will return Shoni’s memory faster when she sees us shelled.”
That concept worried Chaz. “I don’t want her traumatized or terrified, damn it. We should wait for Garson to do this the easier way.”
His twin stepped close, gripped his upper arm, and sighed. “You’re looking for more excuses to put this off. Stop. We’re doing this now. Today. It’s a done deal. Let’s go.”
“It hasn’t been ten minutes yet.”
“We’ll take small steps.” Fray started to walk, tightening his hold.
Chaz stumbled a step but then walked next to this brother. He jerked free when they reached the narrow sidewalk that led to Shoni’s home. He walked in front of his brother and only paused when they reached the front door.
“We should wait a few more minutes.”
Fray reached around him and pushed the doorbell. “No. You’re getting your mate.”
“Damn it,” Chaz hissed.
“You’ll thank me later.”
He highly doubted that.
* * * * *
“Wake up. I need you alert right now.”
Shoni jerked awake, staring up at her cousin’s face inches above her own. Ember’s features showed definite stress. “What’s wrong?”
“Um…” Ember sighed, straightening.
Shoni shoved at the covers, sitting up. “Just tell me. Is it my dad? Your mom? What’s wrong?” She slid her legs off the side of the bed and stared up at her cousin.
“That’s not it.”
Shoni watched as her cousin crossed her arms over her chest and took a defensive stance. That was her ‘brace for bad news’ body language. “Shit. Is it Marco? Is he demanding to be given the wedding gifts again?”
The doorbell downstairs rang.
“Damn it.” Shoni went to walk around her cousin. “Get ready to post bail money. I’m probably going to lose my temper and try to strangle him.”
Ember grabbed her arm and blocked her path to the bedroom door. “It’s not him.”
Fear hit next. “Did he go to the cops to say I stole all the wedding gifts? Are they here to arrest me? This is such bull―”
“It’s not the police,” Ember cut her off. “I told you that I handled that. Sit.” Her cousin let her go.
Shoni knew whatever Ember had to tell her was going to be epically bad. She backed up a step and sat hard on the edge of her bed. “Who died?”
Ember inched closer and then crouched in front of her, putting her hands on each side of her thighs to pin her in. “No one. Yet. I told those assholes to give me ten minutes. They didn’t listen.”
“What assholes?”
“I’ll get to that. I want you to hear this from me. We grew up together. You know I don’t do drugs or have a mental illness. Spoiler alert. What I’m about to tell you is going to make you think one of those two things is going on with me.” She took a deep breath. “I need you to trust me. I’d never lie to you.”
Shoni gently placed her hands over her cousin’s when she saw a flicker of fear in Ember’s eyes. “I do trust you. What’s wrong?”
The doorbell rang again.
“Ignore that,” Ember ordered. “Those assholes can wait.”
Shoni opened her mouth to ask who was at her front door, but Ember spoke before she could.
“Remember when I came back from Arizona, and you accused me of keeping secrets? You have always known me too well. More was bothering me than a bad breakup. I told you some shit went down that I wasn’t allowed to talk about. I asked you to please let it go. You did.”
“You said you were okay, though,” Shoni reminded her. “I assumed you’d done some illegal things. You’d do anything to save animals. Is that coming back on you now? We’ll hire a good lawyer. I’ll sell my condo if that’s what it takes to keep you out of prison.”
Ember’s eyebrows shot up, but then she smirked. “I’m guilty of breaking a few laws, but I was too smart to ever get caught.” She turned serious again. “I’m going to give you the short version. It’s going to shock you. I promise that I’m sane and not on drugs. Ready?”
Shoni inhaled deeply. “Hit me with it.”
“Werewolves are real. We had an injured animal brought to us at the rescue one night. His name was Belner, and yes, he shifted from being an oversized, shaggy wolf into a naked, hot man after we treated his injuries. His pack was friends with a nest of Vampires and went to them for help when they saw Belner being taken away in the back of a truck after he got hit in the road. We were still trying to stabilize him in wolf form when those Vampires came for him. They are real, too.”
Shoni gaped at her, her mind utterly confused from hearing what her cousin was saying. She didn’t know what to think.
“I know it sounds crazy. It turns out I’m immune to mind control. Their eyes glowed, and the Vampires turned the rest of my medical team in the clinic into human puppets. They have the ability to make us do whatever the hell they want. That was to work on Belner to get all his broken bones back where they should be and not freak out when he turned back into a man. Nobody knows they are real because Vampires can make us forget if we ever come across them. They do that for Werewolf packs, too, because humans are dangerous as hell when they are terrified. We watch horror flicks about them all the damn time. It’s like if a real zombie walked up to you. Your first instinct would be to shoot it in the head, right? You’d think it was going to eat you.”
Shoni blinked a few times, swallowed, and opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She was too shocked still.
“Spoiler alert. Zombies aren’t real if that’s any consolation. I asked. Vampires aren’t really dead, either. I mean, they drink blood, and the sun burns them into ashes, but they aren’t, well… horror movie nightmares, either. The ones I dealt with were normal-looking, and I’m still alive. They didn’t bite me or turn me into one of them. I just had to swear to never tell anyone else that they exist. Belner helped convince them I could be trusted since I was willing to help him with some of the elderly members of his pack. That’s a longer story, though, and not relevant. Besides that, I got to know some of them pretty well. They were good people.”
“Ember…”
“I’m not nuts.”
The doorbell rang again. It startled Shoni enough that she jumped.
Ember grimaced. “Impatient assholes. Okay. Here’s the relevant condensed version. You don’t remember this, but you got pulled into a bad situation, kind of like I did. A Werewolf pack exposed themselves to you, and you needed to be saved. All those things that happened were erased from your memory. You’re not immune to mind control.”
Shoni felt the blood drain from her face. “What are you saying?”
“You heard me. I didn’t know about any of it until after the fact, or I wouldn’t have allowed some asshole to fuck with your memories. I’d have convinced them you are great at keeping secrets like I am. Now that I’ve told you this, well… the things you were supposed to forget should start coming back. That’s the good news.”
Shoni was glad to be sitting down. Ember sounded insane, but they’d grown up together. Her cousin would never tell her something that crazy unless it was the truth. She did trust her. “What’s the bad news?”
“The guy who saved your ass is the one downstairs at the door. From what he told me, you spent a few days with him. You should remember meeting him because they would have left a few memories intact that couldn’t be explained away since there were witnesses.” Ember paused. “Specifically, him kissing you in front of our family.”
Her mouth dropped open, the memory of that instantly flashing through her mind. “Chaz?”
“That’s him.”
A hundred thoughts rushed through Shoni’s head. A few of them popped out of her mouth. “He was way too hot to be a normal guy. He’s a Vampire?”
“It’s daylight, hon. He’d be a pile of ashes if he were one of those since the sun came up hours ago. He―”
“—Is a Werewolf? Oh shit. That makes sense if they are real. Did you see the muscles on him? How big he is? I’ve read a lot of romance books about―”
“Stop,” Ember cut her off as the doorbell rang again. “He’s something else and annoyingly impatient. The point is, he said you two got close. Like…” Ember wiggled her eyebrows. “You were doing the dirty deed with him.”
“I would never,” Shoni denied, once again shocked. “You know I don’t jump into bed with guys.”
“You did with him. He was staying here with you for days, apparently.”
Shoni turned her head, gaping at the spare pillow. The good smell… Oh shit. The guest room bed was made wrong. All that food inside the fridge.
“Hey!”
Shoni looked back at her cousin.
“You’re paling. Don’t faint on me. Are your memories returning?”
She shook her head. “I remember going to his hotel room when I met him in the elevator but then fleeing after I embarrassed myself by saying stuff while drunk. Then he showed up at the breakfast from hell with our family, kissed me, and asked for my number in the hotel lobby before leaving for a business meeting. Chaz called a few hours later to say he was going back to Alaska. That’s it.”
“That wasn’t it. It’s just what you were allowed to remember.” Ember got up and sat beside her, taking her hand to hold. “There’s only one way you would have slept with the guy if he was telling the truth. We both know why.”
“I wouldn’t,” Shoni denied. “You know why I’m so serious about sex.”
“I do. I also know you wouldn’t have broken that rule unless you fell for the idiot. I can see why. He’s a massive hottie who saved your ass from a pack of Werewolves after they saw you with him and tried to use you as leverage against him. His business seems to be scaring the fuck out of jerks. I’d say only jerks would kidnap you, right?”
Shoni gripped her cousin’s hand. “I was kidnapped? I’d remember that.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Not yet. That’s why I’m telling you. It seems Chaz regrets letting you go and has feelings for you, too. The memories will return once you see him, or hell, maybe even if you don’t now that I’ve told you the truth. I wanted to be the one to tell you instead of him. I’m not real trusting of men, as you know.”
The doorbell rang again.
Shoni startled at the sound.
“He’s obviously determined to see you.” Ember sighed. “Most guys would have gone away by now since we haven’t answered the door. I’m just glad he hasn’t busted in. I guess that means he’s at least got manners. That’s something.”
Shoni searched her cousin’s face.
“It’s all the truth. I’d never fuck with you like this. Your hottie is mostly a Gargoyle if you can believe that shit. He said his mom was a Werewolf. He’s supposedly got wings, too. I watched his skin harden and turn a shade of gray. His eyes are…” Ember shook her head. “I can’t even describe them. I didn’t know Gargoyles existed until I went after him.”
“You… went after him?”
“You came to my place programmed not to go home for a couple of days. It was obvious to me that your mind had been fucked with. I thought Chaz was a Vampire, so I tracked him down to make him sorry for screwing with you. I thought he was trying to steal your condo or using it for nefarious purposes. It turns out he wanted you at my place until he could have Marco dealt with.”
Shoni knew her eyes widened.
“Marco’s head was screwed with, too. He won’t be contacting you again and has probably already left town. It’s why you haven’t heard from him and it suddenly stopped. A Vampire got to him and fucked with his head.”
“Chaz did that?”
“Yes. The guy isn’t a total asshole. He did that for you, at least.”
Shoni struggled to take everything in. She remembered that Chaz had kept his sunglasses on every time she’d spent time with him. “What’s wrong with his eyes?”
“They aren’t human.” Ember wrinkled her nose. “You’ll see. They aren’t bad-looking but definitely not normal.”
A memory suddenly surfaced in her mind. She was staring into a pair of eyes that looked like melted silver with streaks of blue and black surfacing in them. “They change color,” she whispered.
Ember tightened her hold on her hand. “You’re starting to remember.”
Shoni closed her eyes, trying hard to concentrate on that memory. More of it came to her. It was Chaz. He was staring at her, their faces very close together. He had long black eyelashes. His eyes were beautiful and unlike anything she’d ever seen before.
“Hand me my spare pillow next to you,” she ordered her cousin.
“Why?”
Shoni opened her eyes. “Just do it.”
Ember released her hand and stretched sideways, grabbing the pillow at the top of the bed and passing it to her.
Accepting it, Shoni put it against her nose. She smelled laundry detergent and flipped it over, inhaling the other side. The good scent filled her nose, and she closed her eyes again.
“What in the fuck are you doing? Did I break your mind? Don’t suffocate yourself.”
“I’m not. Give me a minute.” She knew that scent now. It belonged to Chaz. He’d slept in her bed and used that pillow.
Shoni kept inhaling, struggling to remember. Faint images surfaced. Chaz standing in front of her without his shirt on. He had a ton of muscles and an amazing body. Then she remembered seeing blood on his back with two tears in his skin. From his wings.
She gasped, the memory of him with them filling her head. Flashbacks from the warehouse and him fighting the Werewolves suddenly returned. There was a lot of blood as his wings tore through bodies. Some of those people had turned into Werewolves. She’d seen them sprout fur and fangs and turn into four-legged terrifying beasts. Chaz’s skin had been gray, and he had his own claws. They’d grown out of his fingertips.
“Shoni?” Ember touched her arm.
She released the pillow, letting it drop to the floor. “I remember.”
“All of it?”
She opened her eyes and twisted her body to stare at the bed. More memories flooded back. She had done the dirty deed with Chaz. It had been the best sex of her life. They’d had lots of it in the guest room and her bedroom.
Shoni faced forward, staring at her closet door. That’s where she’d hidden and taken out her shotgun when the power had been turned off. Chaz had woken her and had her hide in there. Tiono and Nama had been sent to her home to kill her.
“Oh shit.”
“I’m here. You’re safe. Slow your breathing down,” Ember ordered. “You’re about to hyperventilate.”
Shoni took deep breaths as more memories returned. She’d spent time with Nama in a diner, waiting for Chaz to save the kids. He did that . Then he sent the mated couple away with their kids so they’d be safe. Garson had come. He’d been the one to buy all the food in her fridge. Not me. More memories returned, coming so fast that she gasped out in near pain.
“Talk to me,” Ember urged.
The doorbell rang again, and there was a loud pounding that time. Shoni stood when her head felt like it wasn’t about to explode anymore, pulling away from Ember’s hold on her arm. “I think I remember everything now. Why is he back? Chaz doesn’t want a mate. Am I pregnant?” She reached down, putting her hand protectively over her belly.
Her cousin stood. “Your hottie might be a Gargoyle or whatever the hell he calls himself, but he’s still a man. They are all morons who don’t seem to realize what they have until they lose it.” Ember scowled. “Do you love him? He wants to take us to Alaska with him.”
Shoni’s knees nearly buckled from hearing that. Then she replayed what her cousin had just said. “Us?”
“Us. I go where you do. I told him that. That’s not negotiable.”
“Your life is here.”
“You’re like my sister and are my best friend. There’s no way in hell I’m letting you disappear forever from my life. They have livestock there. I asked. I’ll have something to do so I’m not bored out of my skull.”
The pounding came again from downstairs. Shoni blinked back tears, feeling grateful to her cousin. “I love you.” Then she spun, running out of her bedroom. Chaz had come back for her.
“At least brush your teeth,” Ember called out.
Shoni halted in front of the stairs, turned, and rushed into her bathroom. She had to backtrack to flip on the light in the dark room. One glance in the mirror had her feeling grateful for her cousin. Her hair was a mess. The two-piece pajama set was cute, but she didn’t want to see Chaz looking like she’d just rolled out of bed.
Ember stopped at the open bathroom door. “I’ll let them in and turn down the TV.”
Shoni turned, meeting her gaze.
“I turned it up loud before I came up here to wake you. Werewolves and Vampires have super-hearing. I figured your hottie and his look-alike probably have that trait, too. I didn’t want them overhearing what we were talking about.”
“Chaz has a twin.”
“No shit.” Ember smirked. “I already figured that when I saw them together. Hurry up. I don’t want to unpack my gun to keep your hottie downstairs if he decides to come up here. I’ll let them in.”
Shoni nodded, facing the sink, and grabbed her toothbrush.