Chapter 8 #2
“This isn’t true. My mom ran off when I was a baby. You raised me. You’re my family.”
Fergus’s lips tremble, and my heart cracks.
“Aren’t you?” I whisper.
“That was the story my employers decided on. Those memories you have of your past, they were planted there.”
I gasp as my chest tightens. When I try to suck in air, it won’t come. “No. No, that’s not true. You’re lying.”
“Think, Soren,” Lyall says softly. “Really think. What’s your earliest memory of Fergus?”
“That’s easy. It was… it was…”
I can’t. I’m trying, but there’s nothing there.
There’s a fucking hole in my head where something should be.
A part of me is missing, and I don’t know how to get it back.
A gaping void opens up in my head the deeper I probe, searching for memories of childhood friends I would have met in school, a first boyfriend, high school, college… But there’s nothing.
It’s a lie. My entire life has been one big lie.
The room tilts, there’s a whooshing in my ears, and the tiled floor gets closer. Big arms wrap around me, holding me tight.
“I’ve got you. Breathe, Soren. I have you.”
I’m safe, a voice inside whispers. Lyall’s here, and I’m safe.
It makes no sense. I don’t know this man at all—do I?
Gasping, I clutch onto him. His clothes are soft.
The scent of coconut blankets me. A shampoo or body wash, I don’t know.
Warmth spreads through every part of me when he strokes my back.
At some point, my frantic gasps shift to deep, slow breaths.
I’ve never felt so safe. Not with Fergus. Not with any of the guys I’ve dated.
For all my life, I’ve always felt like something was missing.
Here in Lyall’s arms, I realize that it was never something I was searching for, but someone. Lyall is who I was missing. The piece of my heart that I thought I’d lost has finally come home.
“Why are you so familiar?” I whisper into his chest.
His fingers sweep through my hair. “Because deep down inside, your soul recognizes mine.”
My breath catches. I look up into his eyes. “You’re saying we… knew each other?”
Lyall dips his head, never looking away as he runs his knuckles along my jaw.
“We may be from different times now, but that matters not. In every life, in every time, we would find each other. I’m sorry it took me so long to find you but I am here now.
I’ll do whatever it takes to help you remember. ”
I swallow with some difficulty. “Remember what?”
Lyall takes my hand and brushes a kiss over my skin. “You are mine. From the beginning you were my first love, and you will be my last until the day I take my final breath.”
We knew each other. Loved each other. Lost each other.
I can’t remember any of it, but God, I wish I could remember being loved by this man. I’d take it all, the good parts, the painful parts. I found the kind of love I’ve searched for all my life, and it was stolen from me, from us.
Tears sting my eyes, and I wriggle out of his arms before he can see them. On the cool tile, I take in a breath, then another. The lump in my throat slowly fades, and I wipe my eyes.
“Give them back.” I don’t recognize my own voice, hoarse like I’ve been screaming in agony for hours.
Lyall doesn’t speak. Fergus does, though, like somehow he knew I was talking to him.
“I can’t.”
A fresh wave of tears floods my eyes. “Please, Fergus. I won’t be mad. I’ll forgive everything else, just—”
“Your memories are gone, my boy.” Fergus’s voice shakes.
I choke on a sob, wrapping my arms around myself so I don’t fall apart.
“I’m so sorry. If I’d known we would grow so close, that this would hurt you so deeply—”
My anguish grows claws, morphing into a beast full of wrath. “How could you do this to me?” My roar fills the room.
Fergus flinches, his face wet with tears. “It was for the best, Soren.”
“You don’t get to decide that!”
I barely recognize him. This man who cared for me, who loved me, who lied to me, who stole something so precious from me. Just looking at him fills me with so much anger and hurt and still, beneath it all, I want to wrap him in my arms and tell him I love him, that I forgive him. It’s too much.
There’s a knock at the door. I unlock it and duck my head just as the doctor walks in, hoping he won’t notice what a mess we are.
“Visiting hours are over. I’ll need you to stay the night so we can monitor you, Fergus, but depending on how you’re feeling, I think you’ll be able to go home tomorrow. ”
Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I squeeze past him. “Lyall, can you come with me?”
“Oh. Certainly!” His enthusiasm makes my lips twitch in an attempted smile.
“Soren—”
I can’t even look at Fergus. I let the door slam shut on the man who raised me and follow Lyall into a new, uncertain reality.
Werewolves. Time travel. Witches. Lyall.
Those are the four things that cycle through my mind, keeping me so entrenched in thought that I don’t even notice when our taxi driver stops outside my apartment.
“Soren? We’re here.”
I jump even though Lyall’s voice is low and soft.
“Right. Thanks,” I say to the driver, swiping my card to pay for the ride.
Once we’re upstairs, I open the door. Lyall hesitates outside, shoulders hunched and chin to his chest. I flash back to the big white wolf with green eyes. Seeing him shift had shocked me, but never for a second had I worried he’d bite or attack me.
Some part of me had known I could trust him. Maybe the part of me that Fergus said was taken from me. I need to know everything about this history he claims we have together.
“Coming in?” I ask.
He perks up like a freshly watered flower. “Aye. Thank you.” He follows me inside.
“Sorry about the mess. Fergus and I aren’t the neatest guys.” Wait, what am I talking about? He’s been in my apartment before as Buddy and then again in human form.
I have a time-traveling Viking werewolf in my apartment.
What the fuck do I even do with that? With him?
“Want something to drink? Tea, coffee?” Booze, I want to suggest. I feel like I need it after all the craziness of tonight.
“Coffee,” he says immediately.
A curious smile tugs at my mouth. “Do you even have coffee where you’re from?”
“Not before my twin’s mate Jamie started coming to visit us. He brings us coffee from his cafe. It’s delicious.”
I trip over my own feet. “Jamie? As in your brother’s boyfriend?”
Holy shit. Of course! Anders and Jamie planned all of this. They were setting me up with Lyall from the moment I met him!
Lyall has the look of a dog who crapped on the carpet. “Me and my mouth.” He sighs. “Yes, Anders is from the past. He moved to the present when he met Jamie.”
So, people can travel to and from different timelines as easily as getting on a bus, apparently. “I’m going to have a word with those two… Why did they set us up? Why make me believe you were a wolf-dog of all things?”
“Anders and Jamie have graciously helped me adjust to this timeline. They’ve driven me places and Anders loaned me his phone, just to name a few things they’ve done. Anders knows how long I’ve been searching for you. He only wanted to help introduce us properly.”
“But we’d already met.”
He nods. “Aye, but it didn’t go at all to plan. The night we met, I realized you had no recollection of me. I knew then if I wanted to be with you, I would have to do things differently.”
“So Anders and Jamie asked me to show you around the city.” I have to say, it’s not a bad plan. “But that still doesn’t explain why Jamie asked me to pet sit you.” I choke back a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
Lyall’s cheeks redden. “That was Jamie’s idea, not mine!
” He hangs his head sheepishly. “After you… rejected me, I lost hope that we could reconnect. I knew you felt the same pull, but you were holding back. I hoped if I knew why, I’d be able to prove that all your fears and doubts were misplaced.
That I’d never hurt you the way those other men had. ”
My cheeks warm, and I want to hide under the counter. I can’t believe I told him all that. “But wait a second. Even after I told you, you still stuck around as Buddy. Why?”
Lyall looks confused. “To be with you. Why else?”
My mouth slips open. “But… you had to eat kibble, you couldn’t talk, I made you go on walks! And you never even went to the bathroom on those walks!”
Lyall laughs. “I held it in and went to my brother’s place to take care of business. Didn’t want you cleaning up after me.”
I can’t stop myself from laughing with him. “Well, thanks for that. That would have been a bit too intimate for me. Still, how can any of that have been enjoyable for you?”
“It had its difficulties compared to being in my human form.” He smiles. “But it was worth it.”
My heart does a flip in my chest. This guy’s tenderness and sincerity keep catching me off guard.
Despite everything, I trust Lyall, I’m attracted to him, and it’s dangerous.
Just when I’ve decided I’m giving up on love and relationships, this man from the past—my past?
—bursts into my life and throws everything on its head.
The kettle beeps, telling me it’s done heating the water. Once the coffee has been filtered, I hand him a mug. “Milk, sugar?”
Lyall shakes his head and takes a sip, humming his approval. “You wished to talk?”
I squeeze the mug in my hands, fingers shaking as I take a cautious sip from the steaming cup. One thing at a time.
There’s so much I want to know about him, about us.
“Why are you here?”
He frowns. “Because you invited me.”
Somehow I manage a huff of laughter. Lyall grins, dimples popping in his cheeks. It’s the cutest thing. “I guess I did, didn’t I? I meant why are you here, in the present day.”
“I thought that was obvious. To find you.”
My grandfather had said that I arrived in this time alone. Lyall claims I was from the past with him, and we knew each other. “If I’m from the past, then why am I here?”
The grin falls off Lyall’s face and without it, his face darkens. “When we were young men, hunters attacked our village.”
“Hunters? Why?”
“Because of what my people are. Ulfhednar. What your people call werewolves or wolf shifters, mine call ulfhednar.”
“But why?”
Lyall’s lips twist into a scowl. “They came to our village to rescue you. Their leader believed we had taken you as a captive. They attacked us.”
The coffee in my stomach churns unpleasantly. I can’t believe I have no recollection of this. He might as well be talking about someone else’s life, not mine.
Lyall’s knuckles whiten around the mug’s handle. “They killed my father. Tortured my twin. Slaughtered my brother’s son and his mate.” Lyall’s voice is low and calm, but every word shakes with an undercurrent of rage and pain.
“Oh God…” I may not be able to remember this, but it doesn’t matter. Lyall has never forgotten, and there’s no questioning the effect this tragedy still has on him. “What happened then?”
Lyall shakes his head, lip curling to reveal the tip of a fang. A shiver runs down my spine. “The man who led the attack on our village… was your father, Soren.”
His words don’t hit like they should. I shake my head. “No, that’s not—I never knew my father. He ran off on my mother when I was a baby.”
Lyall says softly, “That’s what you were made to believe.”
I don’t know what to think anymore. Everything Lyall’s telling me goes against what I was told by Fergus. Shaking my head, I exhale slowly. “Right. Sorry. I keep forgetting.”
“It’s fine. I know this is a lot to take in. After the fight, the survivors believed that you had been conspiring with your father to attack the village.”
My heart drops into my stomach. Even if I don’t remember the past, if Lyall and I really were in love, I never would have betrayed him. “I wouldn’t have done that,” I say, interrupting him.
Lyall’s eyes widen. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because that’s not who I am. If what we have meant so much to you that you’ve been searching for me all these years—since I was eighteen—I would never have taken that for granted. I’d never have hurt you that way.”
Smiling, Lyall slides his hand across the counter.
His fingers bump against mine. There’s a spark there, like an electric current, that makes my heart jolt.
“I know,” he whispers. “No one else believed you, but I did, Soren. Never once did I doubt you.” When I don’t pull away, he slowly drapes his hand over mine.
My breath catches, my chest tightening with too many feelings to name.
There’s something about Lyall’s touch that makes me think of northern lights dancing in a moonlit sky. Meadows full of small blue flowers. Of laughter in my chest and love in my heart, burning bright and fierce.
God. Whatever we shared, it was powerful. I know it because after all these years, all that’s left is a void nothing and no one could ever fill because there was no getting over Lyall. Once, I knew this man like I knew myself, loved him like I loved no one before him and no one after.
He was it for me, and if there’s a chance for me to remember why I felt that way… I’ve got to take it, or I will never know true happiness again.