Chapter 8
Blaze
Blinking rapidly, I stumbled but managed to stay on my feet. We were in the middle of the clan hall. In Grove Holler.
“What the hell?” Gage jumped to his feet and stalked to us in the center of the room. “What’s happening?”
Sammy backed away as I fought the nausea and dizziness that accompanied one of her teleportations. It wasn’t quite as bad this time, just like they’d told me. The more I did it, the better it would get.
“I’m just doing what Blaze requested,” Sammy said, but the tone of her voice made me look her in the eye.
Her face was full of pain. Seeing raw agony in her eyes shocked me to my core. She was so stoic all the time. I’d never seen any other emotion come from her, except the occasional irritation.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
I shook my head, confused. I’d just wanted to go home. “Ready for what?”
“To forget.” She stepped forward, but I backed away from her.
“What are you talking about?” My mind reeled. With all the information I’d learned in the last hour, I felt like I was stuck in a whirlwind. “Just stop!”
“I’m trying to give you what you asked for,” she said softly. She turned to Gage. “Blaze made the decision to leave me, to come back here. That broke our bond. Now I just have to wipe me from his memories.”
Gage held up both hands. “Now, hold on. Let’s all calm down and have a rational talk together.” He moved to the pews and sat, then got back up and yanked me over to sit beside him. “Someone explain what’s going on.”
I didn’t sit. I had too much pain and energy running through me. Gage shrugged and planted his butt on the pew, looking from me to Sammy for an explanation.
Sammy sighed. “Blaze is simply having an identity crisis. Instead of facing it like a man, he’s lashing out like a little boy.”
I pulled back and gave her a shocked look. Her words weren’t wrong, exactly, but hell. This had been a lot to take in. “Cut me some slack, damn!”
“I tried,” she spat. “But you called me deceitful and accused me of using spells on you to make you attracted to me. You accused me of faking the mating bond.” She sniffed and crossed her arms. “I’m happy to prove you wrong and wipe out what few memories of me you have.”
“Enough!” Gage yelled.
Sammy snapped her mouth shut with a click and glared from me to Gage and back again. Gage turned his attention to me. “Your turn. Explain.”
“Uh.” I wanted to bury my head in the ground and stop thinking about it.
“There were these photos, of a little boy. Back in Bluewater. He looked like me and the other two were the boys from my dreams, for sure. I think maybe, possibly, somehow, I grew up in Bluewater. But I don’t remember ever being there at all. ”
Gage’s jaw worked up and down as he stared at me in shock. He looked from me to Sammy. “Can you confirm this?”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t with the pack long when Anthony was a kid.
I stuck to myself back then.” She sighed and seemed to give in.
“But I do remember a kid with bushy hair and bright green eyes. And freckles.” Her gaze strayed to me, but quickly snapped back to Gage.
“The kid used to hang around Anthony. I knew Anthony would be alpha one day, so I kept an eye on the kid.” She sucked in a deep breath.
“If Blaze is the same child, and I think he is, then he has a birthmark on his back.” She rolled her eyes.
“I snuck into his room one night to try to confirm it, but he’d never rolled over. I couldn’t be sure.”
Gage and I exchanged a long glance. He and I both knew I had a large mark on my back that looked like burning fire.
I had to sit down. Staggering forward, I lowered myself beside Gage. The whole world spun around me.
“Why doesn’t he remember?” Gage asked, but I barely heard him over the pounding of my heart.
Sammy didn’t answer. I looked up at her. “Well?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “Sometimes trauma causes children to repress memories. We’d been told Knox was dead.”
My heart froze in my chest. “What?” I whispered.
Sammy walked to the pew beside me and sat. “Word got back to the clan that Knox’s father killed his mother… and him. But, if you’re him, it’s possible you witnessed it and blocked it all out. Trauma.”
My head began to pound. My parents’ faces flashed through my mind. And then, yelling. A lot of yelling. My father’s voice roared in my ears.
The next thing I knew, my cheek stung, and Sammy was yelling at me. “Fucking breathe,” she said in a stern, loud voice. “I’m not giving you mouth-to-mouth, you asshole!”
I cracked my eyes, just in time, by the look of her hand. She had it raised, ready to slap my face.
I imagined that was where the initial cheek stinging came from, anyway. “Hey, I passed out. I’m not choking on something.”
She put her hand down and pursed her lips.
Staring into her eyes, I did feel a bit of calm come over me.
Something occurred to me. “Did you know?” I asked.
“Did you know then what we were to each other?” It was easier to ask that question than to dig into the memories that were threatening to come to the surface.
She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. The mating bond doesn’t show up until a dragon has his first shift. You were seven. I was…” She trailed off. “Older than you.”
“Just how old are you?” I asked as I sat up. They’d gotten me onto the floor of the hall.
“Hey,” Sammy said sharply. “You don’t ask a lady how old she is. It’s rude.”
I laughed but cut it off when it threatened to turn to tears. The last thing I wanted to do right now was dissolve into tears in front of Sammy. My emotions were way too insane right now.
Her face softened… a little. “We can help you fill in the gaps if you want. And my other offer still stands. I’ll help you forget if that’s what you really want.”
I sat up and scooted back, resting my arms on my knees. “I just need some time to process all this information.” My father had killed my mother. I pushed that horrifying thought away.
Sammy reached out and squeezed my hand before pushing herself to her feet. She fixed Gage with one of her stern glares. “Take care of him.”
Gage smirked at her. “It sounds like you care.”
She backed away and flipped him off, then looked down at me again. “I’ll be back for your final decision.” Then she disappeared again.
My tattoo and heart thumped with pain as my dragon shifted uncomfortably.
She’d gone back to Bluewater, and I felt that loss intently.
As soon as I’d calmed down and realized I didn’t want to cut off the bond completely, my tattoo had stopped shooting me with searing pain.
This burning in my arm was nothing comparatively, but I still didn’t like her being so far away.
“I’ll get you some water,” Gage said.
I pulled myself to my feet and staggered across the room to the conference table. Those chairs were a lot more comfortable than the pews we sat in when we had clan meetings.
Gage returned a few minutes later with a bottle of water. “Talk.”
I gulped down the cold liquid, then sucked in a deep breath. “Uh, shit, man, I don’t know what to say. I might be from Bluewater. My father might’ve killed my mother, possibly right in front of me. I don’t remember why or how or… anything. Part of me wishes I’d never found out.”
“That’s understandable.” He squeezed my shoulder, and that calming influence he had helped me take a deeper breath. “Now, why did Sammy offer to wipe your memories?”
I groaned. “I may have overreacted a bit when I found all this out. Those things I said about accusing her of being behind this…” I winced. “I did do that.”
Gage chuckled. “Good job.”
“I know.” I dropped my head onto my arms on the table.
“You’re a dumbass,” he said. “None of this is Sammy’s fault. Saying it was, well, man, you’re a dumbass.”
“I know,” I mumbled. “I know.” I just hoped I hadn’t ruined any and all chances of us figuring this out eventually.
Gage and I sat in silence for a while, then I groaned. “I’m going home.”
“Can I walk with you?” He moved behind me toward the door.
“No. I want to think.”
The walk home through the forest was fitting. It was drizzling rain, just like my mood.
After a shower as hot as I could get it, I fell into bed, exhausted.
But I couldn’t fall asleep. All I could think about was Sammy, her face. And her face after I spoke to her the way I did. My dragon was pissed, and I was pretty sure he was doing something to make my tattoo burn more than it already was. It’d been hurting since she left.
With a roar of frustration, I jumped out of bed and opened my balcony door. Taking a running start, I leapt off the second story and shifted in midair, then flew over the trees as fast as I could.
My dragon’s instincts were to fly straight for Maine, but even he knew we couldn’t do that, so we settled for flying from the pack border as fast as I could go, then turning and going back to the far side of the border. Then, I altered course and began flying the perimeter.
A couple of hours later, I shifted back and landed on my balcony on my feet, exhausted.
My mind was still reeling, but at least now I knew what I was going to do.
I needed the truth.
And I needed Sammy.