Sebastian
Downstairs, 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
AriaI wake up a few hours after falling asleep in Sebastian’s arms. He doesn’t sleep much, so I’m not surprised to see him awake and looking at me. “Hi,” he says quietly before kissing me softly.“Hi,” I say back as soon as I can breathe again. I know if I stay here, we’ll go for another round, and while that’s not the worst thing in the world I can think of to do, I want more than anything else to go back to my room right now. I have some unfinished business there. Although, I know there’s a good chance Mim might be with Dez, I need to speak to her.I start to get up, but Sebastian keeps his arm around me. “Where are you going, baby?”“I need to go back to my room, at l
AriaI am planning to bide my time, to let days go by, even weeks, without me doing anything at all suspicious. I want to go downstairs and comb through offices, but I don’t. Instead, I go back to my regular job, cleaning Sebastian’s room, and only going downstairs for meals if I have to. When I do, I get snickers from the other girls but ignore them. Mim tells a couple of them where they can go, and I try not to laugh.A few days after the conversation I had with Mim, where I sort of forgive her, I’m cleaning Sebastian’s bathroom, thinking about how she’s been awfully nice to me recently. I look down at my mom’s ring and wonder why Mim was so interested in it. Maybe she was just being polite.It’s easy for me to get lost in thoughts of M
AriaThe urge to sneak downstairs and start digging through desk drawers in offices is killing me, but I continue to put it off, not letting my impatience get the better of me. I spend most of my days in Sebastian’s room, cleaning, and most of my nights in Sebastian’s room, making it dirty again. Most of the time, though, he has to leave before I even fall asleep because the rogues are still out there, and he and Dez, along with their team of Omegas, have made it a priority to catch these bastards and figure out what they are doing.I am nearly asleep on his chest when his cell phone rings. Since it’s on the nightstand on the other side of the bed, he has to pull away from me to get it. I reluctantly move back to my pillow. “Sorry, baby,” he says as he stretches to get it. “Hello?”
A couple of days after the situation with Mim, I am in Sebastian’s room, finishing up my cleaning for the day when he comes into the room with a huge smile on his face. I turn and stare at him, not sure what’s going on. “Hi,” I say, though there is definitely a question in my tone.“Hi,” he replies, grinning at me as he approaches. “I have something for you.”My eyebrows arch as I try to figure out what it might be. He is good about bringing me things--a favorite meal, a new pair of earrings, a flower he found outside that was the perfect shade of red to match my hair…. But his hands are empty this time, so I have to ask, “What’s that?”He digs into his pocket and pulls out a small plastic bag. “Guess what Grip was able to track down?&rdq
Aria“What are you doing?”Mim’s voice cuts through the darkness and makes my heart leap out of my chest. At first, I wasn’t sure who it was sitting in the dark, but as soon as I hear her speak, I know who it is, and even though it takes me a second to recover, I’m still a little nervous. She doesn’t sound exactly friendly.I flip the lightswitch on and try to stay calm. “Mim, you scared me a little. Why are you sitting there in the dark?”“Sorry,” she says, but she doesn’t exactly sound sorry. “I was wondering where you were. I mean, I know that the guys are out on a reconnaissance. So… what were you doing?”Her tone i
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