Chapter 3
Shade
She kept walking away from me.
Why did she keep walking away from me?
She was my wife. My mate. My beloved.
Mine.
And yet, she acted as though she didn’t know me.
It was infuriating.
Even more infuriating was the fact that I didn’t know her, either.
Worse yet—I did not even know myself.
My mind was a vast chasm of emptiness. Where there should have been memories, there were simply loops and tangles, confusing holes lacking any useful information. No aim. No direction.
Within my mind, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Except for her.
Her.
The wild woman with eyes of the warmest clay, and a crown of antlers adorning her head.
I knew she was mine. I knew. From the moment I laid eyes on her. But I couldn’t explain how.
She simply was.
Mine.
And I didn’t know how to make her believe me, either. Did she not feel the same irrevocable pull that I did? Was she not drawn to me with every fiber of her being? Did she not know that she belonged to me, and I to her?
I didn’t even know where I’d come from.
I didn’t know my own name. I knew nothing about myself.
I knew nothing at all, it seemed. Except for her.
Ginger.
I kept seeing this vision, of her adorned in a silken gown, hand in mine, gazing at me with longing in her eyes.
With love—for nothing else could bring that look of adoration to one’s face.
My stomach twisted into deep knots at the thought of letting her slip away, of drifting to another town without the woman in my grasp.
She was mine, and I would do whatever it took to have her.
Whatever it took.
I lifted the goblet to my mouth and let the wine slip over my tongue, down my throat. I fought the urge to cough. It was awful.
But she had brought it to me.
Forcing the rancid liquid down my throat, I watched the woman, examining her every move, studying her every expression, and I began to formulate a plan.
Whatever it took.