Sarah
Everything hurts. My head feels like someone took a hammer to it.
I open my eyes to slits and quickly close them again. Pain rushes through me in waves like it has its own tide, and my breath is driving the current.
I know where I am. Sydney’s scent is everywhere.
I tried to leave him. I really did try. I thought it was what I was supposed to do to protect him and our son, but the Goddess laughed in my face, didn’t She?
I slowly turn my head to the only source of light I can find and carefully open my eyes again.
Sydney’s sitting at a desk only a few feet away, his back to me. The soft click, click, click, of his keyboard fills my ears as his laptop screen comes into view.
It’s a blueprint of some kind. An equation pops up on the screen that takes him a single second to figure out, and then the blueprint shifts, new numbers and letters appearing that make little sense to me.
He turns his head slightly, reaching for the mug of what smells like fresh coffee despite the fact it’s fully dark, probably sometime in the middle of the night.
But the light coming from his screen illuminates his face and he’s… wearing glasses.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” I whisper, my voice tight and rasping.
Sydney freezes. He slowly turns his head and looks at me.
I blink, keeping my eyes closed for a moment against the headache raging through my temples, and open them again to find him staring at me.
His lips part as he sucks in a breath. He takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose for a moment, his head bowed, and then puts them on again. “How are you feeling?” His voice sounds like someone took a rake to his vocal cords.
“How long?”
“I asked how you were feeling. That’s what matters now.” He reaches for the lamp on his bedside table.
“Please, don’t,” I croak, wincing as I try to sit up. Every joint pops; every muscle strains.
“Don’t try to move yet–”
“How long have I been like this?”
“A little over a week.”
I have no choice but to lie back down. My body melts into the mattress–his mattress. It’s his scent on the soft sheets and his pillow that I rest my head on.
“Blake?” I ask weakly, tears burning to life.
I stare at the ceiling, catching Sydney rising from his chair and moving the foot or so it takes for him to reach the bed.
He sits on the edge, facing me, and lays a hand on my thigh. It’s a fight not to flinch away from his touch. I don’t deserve it.
“He’s fine. He misses you.”
I try to swallow past the painful lump forming in my throat, but it’s impossible.
“I missed you,” he admits. It shatters me.
“I don’t deserve your pity or kindness, Alpha–”
“Never call me Alpha again,” he rasps.
“Sydney, we can’t do this.” Desperation clouds my senses. Fear burrows into my heart, twisting hard, tugging on the threads of our bond.
His hand tightens around my thigh. He can feel it now–everything. My fear, my guilt, and absolute sorrow over what fate had in store for us. I showed him my memories. I showed him the truth. I lied to him. I hid a pregnancy from him. His son….
“I can’t stand the idea of Gabriel getting his hands on you,” I admit tearfully, my vision clearing enough to fully see his face. He’s withdrawn, his features hazy with similar grief and uncertainty. “He will never touch you again,” he whispers.
“You don’t understand what he is–what he can do–”
“I don’t care, Sarah. I’ve witnessed him. I’ve seen his stolen powers. He’s a madman. A demon, something that needs to be banished.” His voice suddenly drops, his eyes darkening to a midnight blue edged with fury. “Worst of all, he touched my mate. He marked my mate. I am going to find him–”
“No–”
“I’m going to find him,” he repeats, cutting me off. “And I will take him apart, piece by piece, just like he did to you. He is not your problem anymore. Gabriel is mine.”
There’s so much vindication in his voice. He’s serious. Dead serious. He’s going to hunt Gabriel like Gabriel is hunting me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I lie in silence for a while. My brain is mush, and my powers are nothing more than a whisper under my skin, but Sydney is still touching me, his hand firm and warm on my leg.
He’s not leaving. He saved me. He refused to let me die.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, choking on the words. “Sydney, I am so sorry.”
His hand moves up my thigh as he scooches closer. “Don’t, Sarah–”
“No, I don’t deserve this. After what I did to you, what I continued to do to you… you had to forget. I couldn’t risk you finding me after we realized we were mates. I had to take that memory from you. I didn’t find you after I found out I was pregnant with Blake because I… I couldn’t risk you. I couldn’t risk Gabriel finding you and hurting you because it would have been my fault–”
“I understand why you did it.” He takes my trembling hands. “I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter. What matters now is that you rest and get better.”
I try to pull away from him, but a shooting sensation grips my upper arm. I cry out as fresh, tearing pair ignites, causing beads of sweat to prickle over my overhead.
Sydney lunges into action. He scoops me up and lays me in the center of the bed as I start to shake.
His body curls around mine as he holds me to his chest, his hand pressed to the tight bandages on my upper arm. A strange, coursing kind of heat travels through my arm. I close my eyes as soft light fills my vision, and the pain starts to recede.
Sydney’s healing powers fill the wound on my arm and make it go numb again.
“How did you keep it hidden?” he asks quietly, whispering the words into my hair as he powers knit through every muscle and wrap around every bone until my body is limp and at peace. “The mark and your scent.”
“Our bond?”
“Yeah,” he says, swallowing hard.
“It was all in your head. I just didn’t let you see or feel those things. They wouldn’t have registered.”
“So you can control minds?”
“Not… not really. It’s not that simple.”
He shifts his weight, adjusting both of our positions so my cheek is squished against his arm. He wraps his other arm around my waist and pulls me tight against him, shielding me with his warmth as I shiver uncontrollably. “I’m sorry, Sarah. It’s my power in your blood right now. That’s why you’re shivering.”
“I’m fine,” I whisper, but my voice is ragged from lack of use. I’m not fine. I know he can sense that. I know because I can feel his concern and feeling of utter lack of control through our bond.
He’s silent for a few minutes while my body ebbs with his power. It’s putting me to sleep. I’m on the cusp of going under when he murmurs, “We have guests, Sarah. My cousin and her mate are here.”
Kenna. It has to be her.
I keep my eyes closed as he continues, “In the morning, if you’re well enough, we need you to explain everything to us. How your powers work, why Gabriel needs you, everything.”
“Okay,” I whisper against his arm, breathing in his scent.
Sydney doesn’t move from his place on the bed while I fall asleep in his arms, but I wake up several hours later to the door opening on the far side of the room.
I blink into the warm sunshine–a startling feeling. I peer out the window, noticing the ice hugging the shutters has begun to melt.
I know it’s Sydney entering the room without needing to roll over. His footsteps are soft as he rounds the bed and sits down, turning to me.
My heart swells as the familiar scent of my son hits me, and I sit up, ignoring the aches in my back.
Blake squeals, gripping the T-shirt I’m wearing that I believe is Sydney’s.
But my breasts are… empty. Even Blakes excited coos and rooting doesn’t cause milk to let down.
I meet Sydney’s eyes full of guilt and heartbreak.
But he lays a hand on my shoulder and leans down so our foreheads are touching.
“Kenna and Evander are having breakfast with my parents this morning, but they’ll be returning soon, and we need to talk before then.”
“Okay,” I whisper, my eyes downcast on Blake as he toys with my fingers.
Sydney lays his hand over Blake’s stomach and closes his eyes. “Are you working with Gabriel?”
My blood runs cold. “Sydney? No, of course not!”
“I had to ask.”
I pull away from him and gaze into his eyes. He looks so tired still, like he didn’t sleep at all last night.
“Sarah,” he says, a bit painfully, “we’re in a serious bind, all right? You’re Sasha. You showed me that. I’ve been tasked with tracking you down and turning you into the Allied Kings.”
I tighten my grip on Blake. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“Nothing,” he says sternly, his gaze darkening. “Nothing is going to happen to you, I promise. No one is going to know that you’re Sasha.”
“But I am.” There’s no way around it.
But Sydney shakes his head. “Not anymore. You haven’t been Sasha since you were a child. You’re Sarah. Sarah, my mate. Sarah, the mother of my child. My Luna.” I shake my head, but he continues, “Even if it’s not what you want, it has to be done. I am the only person who can stand between you and the Kings. We have to marry. You will be Luna of Shadowcrest.”
“You didn’t want this–”
“I want you,” he says, his eyes a heartbreaking shade of blue. “I wanted you even when I thought my mate was still out there. I wanted you before I realized you and her were one and the same. I thought I was the one protecting you by vowing to never find my mate, never having children…” He looks at Blake with so much love in his eyes that it nearly breaks me. “I didn’t know you were doing the same thing, and how much it was killing you. That’s all I’ve thought about all week while you lay in this bed, out of reach. How did you do it? How could you stand to even be around me knowing what I was to you, yet I couldn’t remember?”
“I did it for him. I had to do something right for him, even if it meant I couldn’t have you but you… it happened anyway, didn’t it?” I know we’re both thinking of the hotel room, of lying side by side after the kiss when we wanted so much more from each other but couldn’t bring ourselves to act on those feelings, knowing the consequences.
“Sarah,” he breathes, looking suddenly boyish and shy, “I have one request.”
I nod, knowing at this point I owe him the world. I can’t say no, no matter what it is.
“I want to remember that night. All of it. From the moment I laid eyes on you for the first time to the second you took that memory from me. You only showed me pieces. I want it back.”
“I can show you,” I tell him and reach up to cup his cheek.
My powers tremble, tired and aching, then flow freely, unlocking the wards I’d spun around those memories when I locked them away in the furthest reaches of his mind.
Sydney’s eyes soften before he closes them, leaning into my touch. I watch his mouth tick into a smile as he sees the images I robbed him of and feels those feelings like they're fresh and new.
A tear glides down my cheek at the same moment the door to his bedroom opens, and Cosette steps inside, looking immensely relieved to see me sitting upright and alert.
She’s holding a tray, and I know without a shadow of doubt that my favorite tea is in that teapot.
“Welcome home, sweetheart. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to come back,” she smiles tearfully, and crosses the room.