Chapter Eight
Wilder
It was dark by the time I got home last night and I collapsed into bed. I’d been walking aimlessly for hours, trying to make sense of everything I’d learnt that day and I had been exhausted. So exhausted in fact, that my mind didn’t even have the energy to conjure up my usual nightmare.
When I woke, I discovered that there was a box wrapped in some tacky red Christmas wrapping paper with a gaudy sparkly gold bow on it.
Someone had gone to a lot of effort to wrap it and make it look pretty. When I bought gifts, you were lucky if it got to wrapping paper. I could never get the folds in the paper right, and doing it with magic seemed like cheating, so I was a gift bag connoisseur.
I blinked at it, trying to get my brain to kick into gear and make sense of what I was seeing, but I couldn’t quite shake off the sleep.
How the hell did it get there?
I looked around my room and couldn’t see any obvious answers. There was no one lingering like a creepy Santa, and all my windows were closed. I rolled over, and the scent of something familiar wafted over to me.
Woodsy, spicy, and something a little dark and edgy.
I followed the scent until my nose hit the pillow next to me.
Byron?
My eyes snapped to the little red box on my bedside table. If that idiot had left me that gift, there could be anything in there.
It was too small to hold a head. Oh, God. Had he left me someone’s dick? Or finger? Was this like a cat showing affection by leaving dead things?
And why hadn’t he woken me if he’d slept in my bed again? Had he just lay there and watched me sleep?
God, the guy was fucking weird.
I was a little annoyed and disappointed that I’d missed him being there. Was he the reason I hadn’t had a nightmare again?
The little red box sat there, taunting me but I tried my best to ignore it. I could feel it, though. Like an itch beneath me skin that I couldn’t scratch.
Fuck it.
I jumped out of bed and picked the box up. It wasn’t heavy and when I shook it, something tumbled around in the bottom of the box.
Thankfully, it didn’t sound like a finger or any other body part. There was more density to whatever was in there. Something metal maybe?
I went to pull the gold bow and stopped myself. I couldn’t do it. This was ridiculous. I didn’t want a gift from Byron.
I dropped it back onto my bedside table and threw on some sweatpants. I needed coffee and something to eat. Not that I had any food in my house. I barely managed to keep the coffee stocked, but that was only because I needed it to function.
As I walked into my kitchen, I stopped dead. On the side was a takeaway bag from Hearth & Honey, my favourite café down the road. There was a sticky note attached to the front of the crumpled brown bag, and I plucked it off to read it.
The lady in the shop said these were your favourite things. Eat them, baby. That’s an order x.
An order? What the fuck?
And was that a little love heart? Was he twelve?
But my annoyance melted as I opened the bag and found an almond croissant, a superfood salad, and a blueberry muffin. They were indeed all my favourite foods.
I grabbed the croissant, ripped the end of it off and shoved it in my mouth. My anger melted away as the buttery, flaky goodness hit my tongue.
Goddammit, Byron.
It was impossible to hate him for breaking into my house when he seemed to be trying to take care of me. I should be outraged, but there I was, thinking that he was sweet again.
My mind turned to the little red box he’d left by my bed. Maybe there was something sweet in there?
I marched back up the stairs and into my room. I’d have to open it otherwise I’d be thinking about it all damn day.
I grabbed my phone on the way past and dialled Byron’s number.
The stalker answered on the first ring. “Good morning, Starshine.”
Urgh. I hated his voice. It was so deep and raspy, and I hated the way my dick was starting to like it. “What the fuck is in the box?”
“You haven’t opened your gift yet? I’m disappointed,” he drawled, his voice dripping with sensuality. I bet the asshole was doing it deliberately just to piss me off even more.
I stared at the stupid gold bow. It really was very neat. Then again, should I really be surprised? He was probably an expert at folding bodies into small boxes for disposal. “Of course I haven’t opened it. It could be a bomb.”
He mock gasped at me down the line. “Wilder, I’m offended. If I wanted to kill you, I’d wrap my hands around your throat and watch the life drain from your pretty eyes. I’d kill you up close and personal, baby.”
My breath hitched. That sounded hot.
It shouldn’t sound hot. “Stop calling me that.”
“What? Baby?” he asked, drawing out the word with a low, sultry moan.
My dick twitched. “Yes. That.”
He laughed, a breathy sound that I could practically feel whispering by my ear. “I’ll call you what I like, baby, and you’ll learn to like it.”
Like fuck I would. Even though the thought of him whispering ‘baby’ in my ear had my dick harder than a goddamn rock. “You’re an asshole.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” he sniggered. “Open the box, Wilder. It won’t kill you, but I need to know if you recognise it.”
Recognise it? What the hell did he mean by that?
Someone shouted Byron’s name in the background. “I’m coming! Look I’ve got to go, Damyr wants some piece of shit ratbag taken care of so Bishop, and I are going to scope him out. I’ll see you later, baby. And wear something nice.”
He hung up, and I stared at the phone for a moment. Wear something nice? Nice for what?
Fuck.
Benji’s Christmas Bash.
I wasn’t the best at parties, preferring my own company to the company of others, but I did kind of like Benji.
He was kind and had saved me that time when Acheron had decided to throw a bolt of energy more powerful than the sun at me.
It was so powerful that it had stopped my heart and I died for about two minutes.
Huh. I wonder if that had something to do with the visions starting.
It was around that time when they started to intensify.
I’d have to speak to Dara about that. Maybe not about the Memory Wraith though.
I couldn’t believe I was even considering this, but maybe I should speak to Byron about him.
See if he’d ever come across him in his day job.
He must have met countless people and supernaturals and I wondered how many of them he’d killed.
It was mad to think that, because as far as I knew, Byron wasn’t that much older than me.
I picked up the little red box again and tugged the end of the bow, unravelling it neatly from the box before ripping off the paper. I pulled my magic to the surface, just in case there was something vicious in there. I wouldn’t put it past Byron to lie to me just for kicks.
I took a deep breath and lifted the lid, peeking under the rim carefully.
Nothing jumped out at me or exploded, so that was a good sign. I waited a few more seconds before lifting the lid completely and finally peering inside.
A gold ring sat in the bottom of the box. I peered closer at it, noting the simple design on the front.
Two letters set beneath a large diamond.
LR
I’d seen this ring before. Up close and personal. I knew exactly who this belonged to, but this ring couldn’t be here.
Images flashed before my eyes, followed by phantom pain that wracked my body.
There were screams, flashes of lightning, the sound of manic laughter, and pain.
So much pain…
Bile rose up my throat, and I ran to my bathroom, making it there just in time before my almond croissant resurfaced.
I couldn’t shake the pain and the fear that reared up inside me, and I threw up again. I was lost inside a memory of a room—no it was more like an underground cavern, and there was a boy suspended in chains, screaming as lightning pulsed from him.
Bright purple lightning.
Oh God. That was me. I remembered it. Remembered the suffering but why? Pain lanced through my mind as I chased the memory, but I couldn’t catch it. Couldn’t clutch the strands as the image faded from my mind.
I collapsed to the tiled floor, my body shaking and my skin clammy and cold.
In my haste to get to the bathroom, I dropped the ring on the floor. The diamond shimmered in the morning sun, and those two letters made my stomach lurch violently again.
LR. Lawler Rowan. My father.
What was my father doing here, and how had Byron gotten the ring?
I wasn’t sure how long I’d spent on my bathroom floor, but I needed to move.
Cramp had set into my lower legs from being curled into an awkward position and my ass was numb.
The ring was still there, nestled against the threads of the carpet, looking small and innocent but I could feel the weight of its secrets.
I needed to know what my father had done to me.
I had all these questions and no answers.
Nothing made sense. It was all just fragments and shards of memories, and I wasn’t even sure I could trust any of them. Were they even real?
Who was I if the memories of my childhood had been rewritten? Was I still me?
A headache settled at the base of my skull, thudding in time with my heart.
I dragged myself up off the floor and managed to make it through a quick shower without any more shit hitting the proverbial fan.
After throwing some comfortable clothes on I grabbed my phone and called my sister.
Perhaps she would be able to help with some of the answers.
I doubted it. She wasn’t the type of person to admit she was ever in the wrong.
“Hello, little brother,” she answered, her tone bright and cheery. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I replied shortly. “Have you got a few minutes?”
“Not really,” she chuckled. “And neither have you if you’re going to go and pick up your suit for this evening.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. For fuck’s sake. I’d forgotten all about that. “I’ve got plenty of suits, Dara.”
I didn’t need another one.
“Not like this one, you don’t.”
I sighed. I wasn’t going to fight her on this. For one, I wasn’t in the mood, and for another, I’d be wasting my breath. We both knew I was going to go and pick the suit up so why bother arguing in the first place? “Look, I just wanted to ask about what we discussed the other day.”
Silence greeted my words.
“Dara?”
“I’m still here. I’m just… thinking,” she said seriously. “Go on.”
“Well, um, how bad was it? And is there any way to get my memories back?”
There was a sharp intake of breath down the line. “Why would you want the memories back, Wilder?”
“Because I have to know. I have to know what he did to me.”
“No, you don’t,” she hissed. “Leave it in the past, Wilder. Don’t go digging things up that were meant to stay buried.”
“So, it’s possible to get the memories back?”
“Don’t go looking for the answers. You won’t like what you find,” she said, her voice threatening and dark.
What the hell? “I get that you were protecting me, and that we left home to save me or whatever, but you can’t stop me from finding out what happened to me.”
“Wilder, please—”
“I don’t know who I am!” I exploded, cutting off her begging. “I have all these fragments and blank spaces, and nothing makes sense to me, Dara. So, you can threaten me all you want, but I am finding out what happened to me, with or without you.”
Then I hung up the phone and threw it against the wall with a scream.
My fists clenched at my side, trembling as I held back the urge to punch something.
How dare she try to stop me? They were my memories.
Mine! And I was going to find them again, whatever my sister might think.
I wasn’t some child she had to protect anymore and maybe I’d regret this at some point, but I grabbed my father’s ring, picked my broken phone up off the floor and fired off a text to Byron.
ME
I need your help.
He replied straight away.
BYRON
Anything for you, baby.
And that had me fired up for a completely different reason.