Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Anne
He slammed the door. Right in my face.
It sounded final. Definitive, as if a judge’s gavel has just sealed a verdict on me that I don’t understand.
The hallway feels vast and hollow as I stand there, hearing the sound of my own breathing.
The air comes in and leaves me raggedly.
Each inhale feels like it’s scraping against my ribs; each exhale shudders out of me in uneven bursts.
I feel as if I’ve been dropped into a dark, bottomless hole with no walls.
My head spins. My fingertips tingle. My chest…
There’s this pain there, like something has wrapped itself around me and is squeezing so hard that I can barely draw breath.
My insides churn, my very stomach acid turning against me.
All I can do physically is press my hand against the wall to steady myself because I swear my legs may give out on me.
That man, the one who just shut his door in my face…He’s Kain.
The boy from my photograph. The one I’ve spent ten years thinking about. Ten years mourning. Ten years unable to forget.
I close my eyes as I cling to the wall, trying to calm my quivering breaths.
When Alpha Darius said his name in the conference room, it was like a bomb detonating in my skull. And then, Kain walked in. He actually walked in, with those very same amber eyes that I’ve gazed at every day for a decade. Alive. Walking and breathing.
I stopped having conscious thoughts right there and then.
He gave a speech, but I heard nothing; the ringing in my ears drowned everything out.
Sienna turned to me at some point. I saw her mouth move, I saw the concern on her face, but I couldn’t respond.
I wasn’t able to form any words. My feet carried me here as soon as he left the room, pulled by invisible strings.
I look down at those feet where I stand now.
I touched him. I needed to know that he was real, made of flesh and bone and blood. And when my fingers made contact with his forearm, it sent a thunderbolt through me that left no room for doubt. I was looking at my fated mate.
But he—he ripped his arm away. He said he’s never met me before. Me.
What is going on? Am I losing my mind?
I look down the hallway, and it starts to spin. My vision is a mess of dizziness, and the floor feels wobbly beneath my feet. I force my eyes shut and take several deep breaths, but it doesn’t help.
I leave his door behind, but each step I take is unsteady, like I’m learning to walk on a ship in rough seas. The walls are too close and too far away at the same time.
I just need to get back to my cubicle. I have to sit down before my legs give out completely.
The elevator ride is spent in a haze. The distance to my desk looks impossibly long when I reach my floor. I feel like I’m actually going to throw up as I try to start walking in that direction.
“Anne?”
Sienna’s voice reaches me from the other side of the elevator bank. She steps closer with a look of apprehension on her face.
“What’s going on? You’ve been acting strangely since the meeting. And you left the conference room in such a hurry,” she says when she reaches me.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Where do I even begin? How do I explain that someone I thought I would never see again has just casually strolled into the building as our new head of security? How do I explain that the boy I fell in love with just told me he has never met me?
All that escapes my lips is air. It starts to come and go too fast, my chest heaving with the breaths. A sob threatens to break free.
“My goodness, Anne.” Sienna’s hand touches my arm. “You’re shaking.”
I look down at my hands; they’re vibrating with intense tremors that I can’t stop. A fragmented sound erupts from my throat.
Sienna moves fast, wrapping her arm around my shoulders to keep me steady. “Hey, hey…It’s okay. Come on.” Her voice lowers. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“I—” I try to talk, but words can’t form with the sobs lodged in my throat.
“Don’t worry about work,” she says gently, already guiding me away. “I’ll handle it. You need some air.”
I nod. It’s all I can manage. I don’t have the strength or capacity to do anything else. Sienna brings me down to the lobby and leads me out of the building, all of which I barely register. I just try to breathe. The world feels distant, like I’m moving through it underwater.
Sienna steers me across the street to a small café. She eases me into a chair and sits beside me, close enough that I can feel her presence anchoring me. Her hand comes up to my shoulder and begins to rub it in slow, steady circles.
Little by little, the shaking subsides. The tight band around my chest loosens just enough that my breaths stop hitching.
She waits for a while. Just stays there with me. Then, softly, carefully, she says, “Anne? What’s the matter? You can tell me.”
My entire body twitches at the mere thought of trying to explain. I take a moment to steady myself.
“You remember—” I manage to begin, but my voice cracks. I swallow hard. “You remember I told you that I’d had someone in my life once…that I’d found my fated mate…back when I was a teenager…and that I’d lost him?”
Sienna nods. Her hand continues its soothing motion on my shoulder. Her eyes are patient yet still urging me to continue.
The words stick in my throat. I have to force them out, and each one feels like it’s scraping past the constriction in my chest.
“Ten years ago, when the war started…After the Crimson Fang Pack attacked, he enlisted. He said he wanted to protect Moonvale.”
Sienna’s expression morphs slightly as she nods. It’s the same expression most people from Moonvale have whenever we remember the war. Trauma that hasn’t healed.
“After the war was over,” I continue, the words coming a bit more easily now, “he didn’t come back.
They never found his body. The pack sent search parties, looking for anyone who was lost, anyone deceased whose bodies hadn’t been recovered.
But he was never found. Nothing about him was. He was just…gone.”
My hands twist together in my lap.
“That man. The new head of security.” I force myself to look at Sienna now. “It’s him. It’s Kain.”
Sienna’s jaw drops. Her hand freezes on my shoulder. “What? Are you sure?”
“Of course I am, Sienna! I saw his face. I felt it the moment he walked in. My wolf is going crazy.”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment, seemingly flabbergasted. “Well? Have you talked to him? Where has he been? Why, after all this time—”
A sob escapes me, cutting Sienna off. “He said he doesn’t know who I am!”
Sienna blinks.
The words start tumbling out of me now. “I went to him. To his office after he left the conference room. And he looked at me like I was a stranger. He said he has no idea who I am.”
My friend stares at me. “What? Are you sure it’s him, Anne? I mean, it’s been ten years—”
“It’s him! How can I not recognize my own fated mate, Sienna!
” I explode. “I felt it. And my wolf recognized him immediately!” Tears begin to flow.
My vision blurs completely, and wetness tracks down my cheeks.
“I just…I don’t understand.” The words break apart as sobs threaten to choke me again. “I don’t know what’s going on. I—”
Sienna pulls me close and holds me there. My chest feels tight again as I cry on her shoulder.
“It’s okay, Anne. We’ll figure this out,” she says.
But nothing about this is okay. It feels like the universe is playing a cruel prank on me.
“You’ll be sleeping at my place tonight,” Sienna announces. “I can’t let you go home and be by yourself like this.”
I simply nod, trying to breathe as I wipe my face with my sleeve. When I meet her eyes again, she motions with her head toward the street. We walk to her car and drive to her place.
Night eventually comes, but sleep is impossible.
I lie in Sienna’s guest bed and stare at the ceiling while my mind races.
The memory of that moment plays over and over again in an endless loop.
The cold and distant look in those amber eyes that were only ever warm and kind when they used to look at me.
His words—“Have we met?...I don’t believe we know each other.
” The way his arm jerked away from my touch like I was dirty.
Poor Sienna stays up and checks on me periodically. She offers gentle sympathy. But nothing penetrates the spiral in my head.
How can he not know me? How could he forget his mate? Why would he say those things to me?
My brain can’t come up with any answers. No theory I could possibly conceive would make any sense.
Morning arrives with me still in a haze of thought. I haven’t had any sleep, but I drag myself out of bed. I find Sienna brewing coffee in the kitchen.
“How are you feeling?” she asks, though the answer is probably written across my face.
“I don’t know.”
She hands me a steaming cup. “Do you think you should go to work today?”
The thought of facing that place, of potentially seeing him again, makes my stomach turn. But I can’t just stop going to work. Plus, my car is still there.
“I at least have to pick up my car,” I tell her.
Sienna drives us first to my apartment, where I manage a shower and a change of clothes, then to headquarters. An ache digs into my chest the closer we get to the building.
Once Sienna kills the engine in the parking lot, I take a deep breath. She looks at me with a question in her eyes—like she’ll turn the car right around if I say I don’t want to go in today—but I give her a nod.
We make our way into the lobby and up to our floor. I walk toward my cubicle as Sienna heads to her own workspace. My body moves on autopilot, pure muscle memory carrying me to my desk.
I sink into my chair, and like clockwork, my eyes fall on the photograph. Just like they always do.
He’s still there. Smiling at me. As relaxed and warm as always.
Hesitantly, my hand stretches out. I pull the photograph from the tape and bring it close to my face.
My eyes roam over every single detail of him.
Like maybe I’ve missed something, some detail that I never saw.
Maybe the picture will grow a mouth and explain to me why the boy with his arm around my shoulder looked me in the eye yesterday and said he’d never seen me before.
The worst part of all this is that I have no idea what to do. It’s such a cold, painful, helpless feeling.
A voice cuts through the silence. “Ms. Donaldson.”
I freeze. My entire body shudders at the sound of my name on his lips. My wolf yelps within me, aching for him. I draw in a slow breath before turning my head to look at him.
Kain stands at the entrance to my cubicle. His frame appears rigid in his suit, his shoulders unnaturally square. There’s no expression on his face as he looks at me, his hands in his pockets.
“May I have a word?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
He nods but says nothing more, already turning around and walking away slowly. My eyelids flutter for a brief moment before I force myself to stand, the photograph still clutched in my hand as I follow him.
He leads me toward a quiet area near the stairwell, past where any of the cubicles extend. It’s secluded here. When he stops and faces me, I swear his expression may as well be carved from stone.
I hold my breath. My heart hammers in my chest.
He clears his throat. “I’ve had some time to think about yesterday’s debacle. After much reflection, I think there’s something I should tell you.”
Debacle? That’s what he calls it? That’s his reaction to seeing me again?
“It is possible that we have met before,” he begins. “I don’t exactly remember everyone I’ve met in my life. Some years ago, I was in an accident.” He pauses, and his eyes study me, maybe because I twitch at that word.
Accident?
He continues, his voice curt, professional, like he’s reading a script with no hint of any emotion.
“At least, that’s what I was told in the hospital when I woke up.
I was diagnosed with amnesia. Whatever I know of my past begins with that day in that hospital bed. I remember nothing from before then.”
“Wh–what?”
He’s just standing there, telling me this with all the casualness in the world. But each word leaving his lips is upending my life.
He was in an accident? He doesn’t remember me? He doesn’t remember us? He doesn’t remember the life we were supposed to build together?
My head spins. My breathing becomes rapid, just like yesterday. My body moves on instinct, almost unconsciously. Trying to reach him, to bridge the distance.
His hand comes up in front of me. “Don’t.”
That single word is a knife to my heart.
He continues flatly. “I’m only telling you this because you seem to know who I once was. I do not want word of this going around HQ. And you need to understand that whoever I was, whatever version of me that exists in your memories, doesn’t exist anymore.”
A sob threatens to break free as his name leaves my lips. “Kain—”
“Do not presume any familiarity between us, Ms. Donaldson. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just another staff member who works here. Nothing more.”
My lips tremble. I blink anxiously. My hands shake furiously.
“Whoever you think you remember,” he says icily, “that isn’t me anymore.”
The pain I feel at those words is beyond description. There is no suffering in this world, no anguish that I wouldn’t rather bear than this. My legs feel like they can’t support my weight anymore. I’m no longer breathing; I’m gasping for air.
Before any rational thought can stop me, I lift the photograph and show it to him. My hand is trembling so badly that the image shakes, but I try everything in my power to steady it.
“You don’t remember this?” My voice practically shatters on the question. “This is you.” I point at the boy in the picture. “And that’s me. You really don’t remember?”
Kain peers at the photograph. His eyes narrow, and his brow furrows. I see a flash across his features, too quick for me to interpret, before his face returns to being a wall of impenetrable blankness again.
“Like I said.” His tone is final. “Whoever that is, whoever that was, it’s not me anymore. This is the last time I will address this matter, Ms. Donaldson.”
He turns and walks away. I hear every single one of his footsteps as he leaves me there by the door to the stairwell.
I stand there, unable to move. It feels like he has just taken a hammer to my heart. Like he pulverized it into pieces so small that I will never be able to put it back together.
My lungs forget what they’re supposed to do for a moment. My hands hang uselessly at my sides as if they don’t belong to me anymore.
My world has ended.