Colson

The Day I Forgot on Purpose

Colson POV

I was almost out.

Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Physically.

Three streets from Eclipse, boots hitting cracked pavement in a rhythm that matched my heartbeat, the bass from the club finally fading into something distant and manageable. Neon thinned into dying streetlights. The air cooled just enough to feel breathable instead of predatory.

I hadn’t realized how tightly wound I was until my shoulders started to loosen.

I told myself I’d done enough for one night. I’d confirmed the era. Seen Sage. Confirmed Ezra’s presence. Learned that fate, once again, had a twisted sense of humor and zero respect for personal boundaries.

The smart move was to disappear.

Find somewhere quiet. Somewhere neutral. Get my bearings. Think.

Which is exactly when the universe decided to remind me it hates smart moves.

“Colson.”

One word.

No raised voice. No urgency. No threat.

Ezra didn’t need those things.

My steps slowed, then stopped entirely. Every instinct I’d ever had screamed at me to run—not because I’d been caught doing anything wrong, but because the sound of his voice still carried power over me. A reflex carved into bone and blood from years of obedience I liked to pretend didn’t exist.

I turned.

Ezra stood beneath a flickering streetlamp like he’d always been there. Hands folded behind his back. Suit immaculate. Shoes untouched by grime. The city bent around him without ever daring to stain him.

He smiled mildly, like a man who’d spotted something familiar he’d misplaced and just remembered where he left it.

“Were you planning on leaving without saying hello?” he asked.

The question was polite.

The implication was not.

Had I been discovered?

The thought hit fast and sharp. If Ezra knew—if he sensed the difference in me, the fracture of time clinging to my magic like residue—

I wouldn’t get a warning.

Ezra didn’t torture anomalies.

He erased them.

So I did the only thing I could.

I smiled.

Slow. Lazy. Familiar.

“Didn’t want to interrupt,” I said. “You looked busy.”

Ezra’s gaze lingered on my face—not suspicious, not yet—but assessing. Cataloging. Like he was checking inventory.

“Come,” he said, already turning back toward Eclipse. “We need to talk.”

Not would like to.

Need to.

I followed.

Back into the club. Back through the private corridor. Back into memory so vivid it felt like a wound reopening. Every step pulled something loose—fragments of the man I used to be sliding back into place whether I wanted them to or not.

Ezra opened the door to his office and gestured inside.

“Sit.”

I did.

The chair was exactly where I remembered it. Leather. Slightly too low. Designed to remind you—subtly, constantly—who held power in the room.

The office smelled the same too. Incense layered over blood and old magic. The desk lamp angled just enough to keep his face half-shadowed.

And then it hit me.

Not all at once—but like a slow, horrible click.

I remembered this day.

Not clearly at first. Not in detail. But in sensations. The weight in my chest. The itch under my skin. The sense that something important was happening and I was too arrogant to notice.

Ezra settled across from me, fingers steepled.

“I have a job for you,” he said.

There it was.

The words slid into place like a lock turning.

This already happened.

A colder realization followed.

If I was here—

Then where was the other me?

The past Colson. The one who should be sitting in this chair, smirking, pretending he didn’t care, mentally tallying how much this job would benefit him.

The answer landed with terrifying clarity.

There was no other me.

I wasn’t visiting this moment.

I was inhabiting it.

Breathing through it. Speaking through it.

Replaying my own past.

My throat went dry.

Ezra continued, unaware—or uninterested—in the war unfolding behind my eyes.

“Kendrick has been making noise again,” he said mildly.

The name slammed into me like a fist.

Kendrick.

I had forgotten him.

No—that wasn’t accurate.

I’d buried him.

Shoved the memory into a place so deep I’d convinced myself he was dead right now. Or irrelevant. Or no longer my problem.

Kendrick was none of those things.

He was a vampire lord with a taste for cruelty and the power to indulge it. Strong. Sadistic. Arrogant enough to believe he couldn’t be touched—and usually right. His territory was a graveyard disguised as entertainment, and his underground fight club wasn’t just about blood.

It was about breaking people.

About reminding the city who it belonged to.

And he hated me.

Which was fair.

I hated him too.

“In his fight club,” Ezra continued, “there’s talk of a meeting. A group of witches. During the matches.”

I leaned back, crossing my arms, forcing boredom onto my face like armor.

“Witches gossip everywhere,” I said. “Why should I care?”

Ezra smiled thinly.

“Because they’re whispering about an ancient one,” he replied. “A witch born of the original origin blood.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Amaris.

Or someone tied to her lineage. Her power. Her fate.

This was it.

This was why she sent me here.

Ezra watched my face carefully, searching for cracks.

“I want to know who,” he said. “And whether they’re foolish enough to show themselves.”

I nodded slowly, like this was just another night’s work.

“Anything else?”

“Yes.” His gaze sharpened. “Be discreet.”

I almost laughed.

Ezra always said that.

I stood, smoothing my coat. “I’ll handle it.”

He inclined his head. “I know you will.”

I turned to leave, muscle memory guiding me—and then, because I remembered who I was supposed to be, I added casually,

“I’ll need two human feeders. By the time I get back.”

Ezra’s approval was immediate.

“Of course.”

The words tasted like ash.

I hadn’t fed on humans in a very long time. But Ezra didn’t know that. This Ezra expected the monster I used to be.

And I had to play the part.

I left Eclipse and headed toward Kendrick’s territory, my jaw clenched hard enough to ache.

The city shifted as I crossed invisible borders. Lights dimmed. Streets narrowed. Buildings leaned closer together like they were listening. Violence soaked the air so thoroughly it felt sticky.

Here, screams didn’t echo.

They were absorbed.

Kendrick’s fight club sat beneath an abandoned warehouse, hidden behind wards so old they’d learned how to rot. The guards smiled too wide when they saw me.

They let me in.

They always did.

Inside, the pit roared.

Blood soaked the sand. Magic flared with every blow. Creatures fought for money, for favors, for survival. The crowd cheered pain like it was art.

I remembered standing here once.

Laughing.

Betting.

Not caring.

The memory twisted something ugly in my gut.

I took a seat in the shadows, senses stretching outward.

This time, I focused.

This time, I listened.

Whispers threaded through the chaos.

“…origin blood…”

“…older than the covens…”

“…she doesn’t know what she is…”

A witch laughed—nervous, excited.

“She’s close,” someone murmured. “Or already here.”

My pulse quickened.

This was it.

Whatever Amaris couldn’t tell me—whatever truth shattered the future—it played a part here. In this pit. On this night I’d dismissed as just another job.

I clenched my fists.

I will remember this time.

I will not look away.

Because now I understood the truth.

I wasn’t just here to observe.

I was here to change something I’d already lived through.

And survive doing it.

I leaned back, eyes scanning the shadows.

“Alright,” I muttered. “Let’s see what I was too stupid to notice the first time.”

And deep in my pocket, the watch remained silent.

Waiting.