Chapter 3: The Memory I Shouldn't Have
1303 Words
~ALDRIC’S POV~
I do not stop until the forest begins to thin.
Only then do I slow.
The cold night air fills my lungs, but it does nothing to settle my thoughts. If anything, it makes them sharper. Harder to ignore.
I should not have stayed near her as long as I did.
That thought will not leave me. It follows every step, measured and controlled, and still far from calm.
I should not have touched her. I definitely should not still be thinking about her.
That would have been the correct decision. The clean one. Observe. Assess. Understand what she was before deciding what to do next.
Yet here I am.
I stop beside a large oak and rest one hand against the rough bark.
My heartbeat is too fast. Sweat gathers across my back and under my collar, even with the cold pressing in from every side. It feels like I am being hunted by something I cannot see. Something I should have faced and ended before it could follow me this far.
Moonlight breaks through the branches and flashes across my face.
I drag in another breath and force myself to settle.
I cannot.
Even my wolf should be fighting this with me right now. Rejecting it. Demanding distance from her.
Instead, he is listening.
Waiting.
That bothers me more than it should.
The forest around me goes silent. Too silent. As if even the trees have noticed something is wrong and are holding still to watch.
Slowly, I lower my hand and look down at my wrist.
For a heartbeat, the mark appears again.
Dark gold.
Faint.
Incomplete.
A crescent trying to force itself beneath my skin. Then it vanishes.
My jaw locks hard.
Wind cuts across my skin, sharp and cold, but it does nothing to settle what is coiled inside my chest.
“This shouldn’t exist,” I mutter.
The words sound thinner than when I said them to her. Less certain. Less useful.
My wolf pushes forward immediately. Not angry.
Certain.
That disturbs me more than the mark itself.
I curl my hand into a fist.
I should have rejected her the moment I saw another man’s mark on her neck.
Instead, my wolf recognized her. Reached for her. Wanted her closer. Even after the discomfort, after the blood, and after whatever the hell that bond did to us.
The memory of that moment returns with painful clarity.
The instant she collided with me.
The strange sense of recognition.
The feeling that I had lost something important and somehow found it again.
No.
I push the thought aside immediately.
That is exactly the kind of thinking that gets wolves into trouble.
I turn and begin walking toward Moonwake, toward the only home they glorify me as Alpha.
The sooner I return there, the sooner this nonsense can end.
At least that is what I tell myself.
My claws press briefly into my palms before I force them back.
I did not run away from her because I felt nothing at all.
I ran because I felt too much.
More than curiosity. More than caution. More than I should have felt for someone I had just met.
And that exact moment I looked directly at her mark, something inside me shifted violently.
Not attraction.
Something deeper.
Older.
Then the memory hits again.
Not like a thought. Like recognition.
Blood.
Too much blood.
Bodies covering the ground.
Red-masked figures.
One of them reaching for someone.
A scream cuts through the memory so sharply the rest of it fractures around it.
A girl is crying.
Begging.
“Please—!”
The sound cuts off violently.
I stagger back before the memory disappears completely, leaving only the echo behind.
My breathing roughens.
My hand slips against the bark behind me as I catch myself.
For a second, the forest blurs.
I stand completely still, and for a little while I let the cold wind hit my face.
My heart pounds harder than it should.
“No...”
The word leaves me low and strained.
That was not a dream.
It felt real.
Too real.
I press harder against the tree, forcing myself to think.
The girl. The mark. The pull.
They are connected somehow.
They have to be.
That realization hits harder than the memory itself.
But something still does not make sense.
If that memory is real, if I was truly there, then why did my wolf react to her like that? Why did he not fight the bond? Why did he reach for her instead?
My jaw clenches again.
“What the hell are you?” I mutter.
But part of me already knows the question is not only for her.
A shift in the air makes me pause.
My gaze drifts toward the distant trees behind me.
Toward the direction where I left her.
Part of me expects the feeling to fade as the distance grows between us.
It does not.
The strange pull remains.
Faint.
Persistent.
It stretches, like something refuses to let go.
I hate that I notice it.
I hate that I check for it.
And I hate that a small part of me feels relieved when I find it still there.
My wolf lifts his head inside me.
There.
The sensation comes again, not like a thought, not even like a memory, but like a feeling.
She is still moving.
Still alive.
Still somewhere beyond the forest.
I should not be able to sense that.
Yet somehow I do.
The realization makes the forest feel heavier around me.
This is dangerous.
Everything about it feels too dangerous.
Every instinct tells me to stay away from her completely. To let whatever this is die before it grows worse and uncontrollable.
But another question refuses to leave me alone.
If she means nothing to me...
Why did seeing her hurt?
I stare into the darkness for a long moment.
Then her question echoes hard in my mind.
“What are you remembering when you look at me?”
At that particular moment, that question was more dangerous than a weapon.
It left something hanging in my throat that I could not name. Because I did not know how to answer her with something that frightened me more than she realized.
Something I found difficult to understand.
Pressure builds beneath my ribs.
Not pain.
Resistance.
As if the bond is not accepting separation.
And then it happens.
A sharp internal snap.
It is not breaking.
Not healing.
Something in between.
My wolf jerks violently inside me like he felt it too.
I freeze, because somewhere beyond the trees, I feel her react.
It does not feel like confusion.
It does not feel like fear.
It feels like impact.
Like whatever just happened inside me landed inside her at the exact same time.
My breathing slows.
“That should not be possible,” I whisper.
The words are so quiet I almost think the trees will swallow them.
I glance around once, as if the forest might answer me.
It does not.
But the silence around me confirms one thing.
It already is possible.
I draw a slow breath and force myself to stand straighter.
My pulse still races, but my body begins to obey again. Slowly. Reluctantly.
Eventually I continue walking.
Moonwake waits ahead.
My responsibilities wait ahead.
My life waits ahead.
Yet for the first time in years, my thoughts remain somewhere behind me.
Back in the forest.
Back with a girl carrying a fractured silver mark.
Back with questions I cannot answer.
Back with a dark-gold crescent that should not have appeared at all.
I keep moving through the dark.
And for the first time, I am not entirely certain I want those answers to stay buried.
Or what happens if they don't.
- Writer
