Aria
“What are you doing in here, Dez?’ I ask as I turn to look at the man staring at me. Mim’s bed is made, which means she hasn’t slept here. At least, that’s what I surmise from the fact that she should be here now if she has slept here. For a moment, my mind goes to the obvious; Mim has gone to Dez and told him what happened. I feel anger starting to well up inside of me.
“Cameras, Aria,” he says, his voice infused with sadness, as if he hates that he’s the one standing here talking to me. “We saw you on the cameras when you left. I convinced Mr. Kurts not to send Grip or anyone else after you, promising you’d come back. I’m glad you did, or it would be my neck on the line, too. What the hell were you thinking?”
I can
AriaMr. Kurts is staring at me like I am an alien and he isn’t sure whether he should destroy me or dissect me. I am delivered to the center of a circle the rest of the suits have formed beneath a bald lightbulb that glares down on me, leaving their faces in the shadow. As soon as Dez walks me over, Mr. Kurts says, “Thank you, Desmond. You are dismissed.”Dez tries to object. “Sir, if I may--”“I said you are dismissed!” Victor Kurts is not messing around. I shake a little at his tone, but I try not to flinch because I don’t want him to think I’m scared of him.I catch Dez’s eyes as he leaves. He looks like he knows he is leaving me to be burned alive, and I can see that he’s sorry.
SebastianI’ve never wanted to get home so quickly as I do right now, this Monday afternoon, after Dez let me know that Aria was back and that my father had ordered that she be punished both for sneaking out and also for shifting. I can only imagine what the two punishments will be, but neither will be good, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to help her from where I am now, the car.I ask my driver to go faster, and he nods, but the car doesn’t seem to speed up. I haven’t left the job my father asked me to do any earlier than scheduled. I was just able to finish the negotiations earlier than planned. We have come to a peaceful arrangement. Making other packs see the benefit of working with us without resorting to violence and threats is a specialty of mine, one I did not learn from my father. I am glad I was
AriaI wake up with my bottom on fire, and for a moment, I have trouble remembering where I am and what’s happened. It all seems like a dream, a horrible nightmare, something that can’t possibly be real. Not just the paddling and the fact that I now find myself in solitary confinement but my parents’ deaths and the betrayal I feel toward the entire Kurts family. I remember my oath, that I will make the people responsible for my parents’ murders pay, and that I have no doubt in my mind at the moment that that person is Victor Kurts. The physical pain I’m feeling is nothing compared to the whole in my heart.“How are you, dear?”A voice in the darkness reaches out to me, and I am alarmed at first, thinking I’m just hearing things. No one can possib
Sebastian“I just don’t understand why Mim would tell her that I said the cameras weren’t monitored when we never even talked about that,” Dez says as he sits on the sofa in my room, sipping a whiskey on the rocks. I’m on my third, and it’s only early afternoon. Alcohol doesn’t do much to us anyway since we are shifters, but it makes me feel slightly better, so I’m drinking whatever the hell I feel like drinking.“It doesn’t make any sense to me either,” I say, not quite sure what to make of it. “I don’t understand why Mim pushed her to go.”“We don’t know that she did.” Dez sounds a bit defensive, and I try to be careful of what I say and how I say it. He is confused about Mim at the moment,
SebastianDownstairs, I hear voices coming from one of the offices in the same hall as my father’s, and I recognize one of them immediately as Stan Klem, one of the little rat bastards who was there when Aria was paddled and thrown in that cell by herself in the dark. I pause for a moment, trying to figure out who he’s talking to. This office belongs to Frank Taylor, but it isn’t his gruff voice I hear Stan talking to. It sounds like Rick Castor, another one of the assholes on my list. If I can handle them both at the same time, that’ll make my work a lot easier.I don’t knock on the closed door. Instead, I kick it open. The pair are sitting at a table across from Frank’s desk, smoking cigars and looking at a file. I don’t know what the paperwork is for, and I don’t give a damn. I just hope
SebastianMy knuckles are aching. On both hands. And I have a small cut under my right eye from where one of the bastards thought he’d get cute with me. He might’ve gotten in one punch, but he was the one limping away after the fight. I am headed back to my office, thinking maybe I should try to get some work done when I hear my father call my name.I look around and see him standing near his office door. He has a scowl on his face. I have to hide a smirk. I guess he’s heard what I’ve been up to. I am certain he’s made, and he’ll give me one of his lectures, but I’m not in the mood. I am feeling rebellious at the moment. Still, when he says, “Can you come in here for a moment?” I do as he asks. It’ll do me no good to be a rebel if I forget to tell the boss man that I’m rebe
AriaMy eyes burn when the door opens. This time, it’s Sebastian’s mom who has entered, but the light in the hallway behind her is on. In fact, there must be lights on everywhere. I feel like I’m staring directly into the sun as she stands in the doorway and speaks to me. I’m sitting on the edge of the cot, having just finished some exercises, trying to catch my breath.“Hi, Aria. I’m here to take you to your room,” she says in that sweet, soft voice of hers. “Do you think you can walk on your own, or do you need a hand?”“No, I’m fine,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t sound too rude. I am not angry at her. It’s not her fault her husband is a lunatic, murdering asshole. I stand and walk toward her, waiting for h
AriaSebastian’s room is clean. Like… immaculately clean. I don’t know who has been cleaning it while I was locked up, but whoever it was knows what they are doing. It’s probably cleaner than it is when I am cleaning it every day. So, there really isn’t much for me to do. I know he’s done this on purpose. He wants me to rest, but he knows that I will insist on coming to his room to do my job because that’s what I’m meant to do.There is a large pizza on the table when I walk in. It’s my favorite kind. Pepperoni with green peppers. He knows this because we had it once a few nights before I went to the city. It’s still warm. I’m starving after having only eaten bread and water for four days, plus the little bit of meat that Mrs. Kurts snuck to me. So I dig into the pizza and
Sebastian I am standing at the end of an aisle, outside in my mother’s garden behind our house, waiting for the most wonderful woman in the world to walk down and stand beside me so that the preacher before us can pronounce us man and wife. All of our friends and family are also here, including the remaining members of Vargas Pack. There are rows and rows of white folding chairs covering the velvety green lawn. The sky is crystal blue, white puffy clouds roll by high above us, and I can’t imagine how my life could be any more perfect than it is at this moment. My father retired from being the pack Alpha a few months ago. He said he hoped it wouldn’t interfere with the wedding plans, but it was time. Mom had this river cruise she wanted to go on in Europe, and it was getting ready to set sail. He said he’d neglected her wishes for far t
Sebastian“I remember.”Hearing Aria say those two words is almost as good as it was to hear her say that she loved me for the first time. Tears fill my eyes as I look into hers, the magic from the rings in the moonlight dissipating as we are left in the ruins of her home with our arms around one another.“You do?”Her smile widens as she nods enthusiastically. “I do. I remember everything.”A sigh of relief escapes my lips as I wrap her up into my arms and swing her around. “I’m so glad,” I tell her as I set her down on her and brush her hair back before I kiss her. Just like our hands melding together started the magic that brought he
SebastianAria and I walk hand-in-hand up the hill that leads to her old village with the light of a full moon guiding our feet along the path. I am nervous about what might happen when we get to the top and she sees her old homesite. Either she will recognize where she’s at and a flood of memories will come back to her, or she won’t, and this entire visit will leave her devastated.I try to reassure her as we go. “Now, if this doesn’t work, it’s all right. There are lots of other things we can try. There are people we can see. We’ll go visit your old packmates. It’s possible that some of them will be able to help you remember. Or we can find a doctor, an expert on amnesia. I bet there’s a good one that knows about the shifter world already. If not, they don’t have to know you’re
AriaWe take another plane to my hometown, or at least, as close to it as we can get. Sebastian tells me that there are no airports in my former territory. In fact, the closest one is a few hours’ drive from where we want to go. This time, on the airplane, when he wants to hold my hand, I not only let him, I want to hold his hand, too.The flight is much longer this time, over three hours. To pass the time, I ask Sebastian questions about his childhood, and he tells me stories about when he was a little boy. I wonder how many of them I have heard before and how many of them are brand new to me. He makes me laugh, and I love to hear the sound of his voice.But I am nervous. What if this is my last chance to remember? What if I get to my hometown and I don’t recognize anything?
AriaOnce again, Sebastian has me by the hand and is leading me down the stairs to another part of this enormous house. I have no idea where we are going, only that we are looking for some rings that Dez mentioned when he was talking about Mim.I don’t bother to ask Sebastian any more questions because he seems to not want to tell me anything. He said he needed to show me. Maybe whatever he’s going to show me will help me to understand more, even if it doesn’t help me remember.We stop at an office door on the first floor, and Sebastian knocks. I hear a deep voice that I think is his dad say, “Yeah? Who is it?”“Father, it’s me, Sebastian, with Aria. Can we come in?”
SebastianWaking up next to Aria, I think for a moment that things are normal, that all of this has just been one horrible nightmare, and she’s still exactly the way she should be, her memories are intact, and she knows who I am and who she is.Then her eyes open, and I can see the vacancy registering there. My heart feels crushed again. She blinks a few times and then smiles at me, and I don’t feel quite as bad.Since she lost her memories, I’ve felt terrible for her, but I have also held onto one selfish fear, that she will never remember me and won’t learn to love me again. I have been terrified that she will decide she doesn’t want to be with me anymore.This smile reassures me that that isn’t the case, that
AriaI feel like a wanton woman, but I want this man, and since we have been together many times, I can’t convince myself that it’s not okay. Trying to keep my hands off of him is like trying to prevent myself from breathing. The longer I try, the more it burns, the greater grows the need.I don’t know if the two of us being together will inspire any memories to fire off within my head, but at the moment, I don’t care. He is kissing me like he loves me, and I believe that maybe he does. He tastes like rain water, and I can’t get enough of the feel of his tongue against mine. He is cautious at first, taking his time, but when I place my mouth on his mark, he knows what I want and that I’m sure that I want it.We waste little time stripping our clothing off as
SebastianI take Aria to my room, not sure what to expect. I am surprised that she’s had such vivid memories of Mim. It seems that scents can trigger memories for her, so I will have to try to think about how I can use this knowledge to help the situation in the future.I’m not sure there are any particular scents she can associate with my room at first, but when I open the door and see the bed, one comes to mind.Her memories might be trapped in her mind somewhere, but mine are not, and walking into the room, holding her hand, seeing the bed where we made love for the first time, where we made love so many times, I miss her in a way I haven’t missed her since she was lying in that hospital bed and I was sitting in the waiting room, waiting to see if she would recover.
AriaAfter a few days, I am dismissed from the hospital. Dr. Wilson, charming man that he is, says that normally, he would keep a patient who has no memories a bit longer, but in my case, he was fine sending me home. He said it was best if “my kind” took care of me. Since i still think I am his kind, I don’t appreciate this. But I go because I’d rather be anywhere but in the hospital.On the plane ride to Sebastian’s home, I sit next to him but say next to nothing as I stare at the window of the private jet we are on. His parents, who seem like nice enough people, although I’m not crazy about his dad, sit in the row in front of us and also don’t talk. Sebastian tries to get me to speak a few times. I mostly shrug and use one word responses, so he gives up. I know he wants to hold my hand, so when