Chapter 3- All’s Different

GREGOR

I forced myself to hold still. I was not ready to climax yet. But she was so warm, so wet, so tight.  I squeezed her breasts, kneaded them in my palm. She let out a soft, almost cat- like moan. 

"Oh yes," she purred, pressing her breasts against my hand and reaching down to touch herself. 

I started to move again, driving all the way in before pulling back out. 

I knew every inch of her body, down to the little mole at the side of her breasts so why did it feel like I was screwing a stranger?

"Faster," she whispered, arching her back. 

Apparently I was too slow for her because in one quick movement, she wiggled out from under me, pushed me back on the bed, straddled me and pushed my entire length into her tight sheath. 

With a muttered curse, she got off, yanked my trousers all the way down and tossed it over her shoulder. Then she was on me again, riding me at a frenzied pace. 

I was thrusting in and out of her, loosing myself to the pleasure when it happened. 

As she started to climax, she gripped my shoulders, her nails digging into the flesh. Seconds before my seed shot into her, her eyes changed from brown to blue. I froze and blinked. Her eyes were brown again but I knew what I had seen.  

I felt her sex clench over my erection. Once. Twice. She sighed and got up. All thoughts of the mind blowing sex we had been having forgotten, I lay there watching her, asking myself if I had imagined her eye colour change. 

But it wasn't only that, I told myself. Arianna's attitude had also changed. She was firmer now, more aggressive.

 She had spent all of yesterday roaming the house and grounds, only coming in here this afternoon apparently for sex. 

As Arianna started to get dressed, a knock sounded at the door. 

"Come in," I called after Arianna had slipped on some clothes and I had pulled on my pants. 

Amber, the children's nanny, came into the room. She bowed. 

"Luna," she said. "The children are back now. They are in their rooms, crying and asking for you."

The hairbrush Arianna was using to brush her hair fell to the floor with a soft thud. 

"Ch-children?" she stuttered. "You mean... my children?"

 Amber and I exchanged a surprised look. 

"Yes, Luna," she said. "Jamie and Julia."

Arianna repeated their names like she had never heard them before. 

"Excuse us, Amber," I said, cutting in. "Amuse the children as best as you can. Tell them their mother will soon come to see them. Amber!"

With a start, the nanny dragged her eyes away from Arianna and hurried out of the room. 

I waited until her footsteps had faded away before marching over to Arianna. She was staring at her reflection. There was a stunned look on her face. 

The flush she had just a few minutes ago was gone. She was pale now. 

"What is wrong with you?" I asked her. "Why were you acting like you don't know who Jamie and Julia are?"

She chewed on her bottom lip nervously, something I didn't remember her ever doing. 

Again, I felt that sense of something being very wrong. 

"That's because I don't," she said so quietly I could barely hear her. With a groan, she began massaging her temples. "I- I don't know what is wrong with me. This thing... It started yesterday. I found myself forgetting the most important things and now..."

"Now?" I prompted when she was silent for a long time. 

"Now I can't even remember that I have children. Yesterday, I thought maybe I was stressed or falling ill but whatever is wrong with me seems to be getting worse."

I dropped into the nearest chair.

"Tell me what you remember. All you remember," I added. 

She thought and thought. The silence lingered.

 Her eyes grew wide and scared as she finally admitted, "I can hardly remember anything. Everything in my head is so foggy. The things I know... I'm forgetting them. What is happening to me?"

She tugged at her blonde hair. I recognized the signs. If I didn't calm her down now, she would probably go hysterical. 

Regretfully, I glanced at the clock. I had a meeting with the pack elders in five minutes. That would have to wait now.

 I couldn't have the Luna running around the place, telling everyone who cared to listen that she didn't know who she was. A rumour like that could stir up all sorts of problems in the kingdom. 

With a groan, Arianna buried her face in her hands. She rocked herself back and forth in her chair. 

"Am I going crazy?" she murmured. "I feel like I'm losing my mind."

I thought for a long time. In all my years, I had never heard of amnesia happening like this. Or was it dementia?

No. It couldn't be. Arianna was too young to have that. She could be faking the amnesia of course, but then she had absolutely nothing to gain by doing that. 

I looked up to see Arianna staring at me with what I thought was a crafty, watchful expression in her eyes. The impression was gone the next instant and I was sure I had imagined it. 

"Look," I said. "I don't know what is happening to you. I will have a talk with the pack healer about it but in the meantime, there are things you should know."

I didn't want to sit here and talk to her but I was hoping that something I would say would help jog her memory. 

"First off," I continued. "I am Gregor, king of Shadowvale Kingdom." I heard her murmur 'Shadowvale' under her breath. "Your name is Arianna, Queen Arianna, my wife, mother of my four year old pups, Jamie and Julia."

"Jamie... Julia... They're- they're twins?"

"Yes. Your father is Lord Alvan Dale, the Alpha of Bannock pack." 

She repeated her father's name. I shifted impatiently. There was something very annoying about her parroting what I said like she was an idiot child. 

I forced myself to go on, "Your father's pack is one of the many kingdoms under my rule. As for the other packs nearby, you will get to know their names with time. Meanwhile, use the library to get all the information you need so you don't look like a fool if someone asks you something you're supposed to know."

I felt the very first pang of worry as I watched her. Nothing I said seemed to be registering. Her expression remained blank. I had been so sure my words would bring a spark of awareness into those eyes. 

"Tell me-" she began leaning forward and placing her hand on my knee. 

I immediately jerked it back, out of her reach. Her hand fell back to her side. 

"One more thing," I growled. "Except when we're having sex, you don't get to touch me. Ever."

I saw her lips start to form the question 'why'. A glance at my forbidden expression had her pursing her lips and nodding.  

She cleared her throat. "So we umm- we are really royalty? I'm- I'm really a queen? And you're a king?"

"Yes," I said, getting to my feet, a signal that the conversation was over for me. I jerked out a drawer, pulled out a thick photo album and tossed it at her. "Something in there might help.*

I left her sitting there, in the tastefully furnished room she couldn't remember, looking at the pictures she couldn't remember posing for, her brown eyes wide with wonder.