Page 35 of A Memory Not Mine (Sanguis Amantium #1)

Chapter thirty-four

Mira

“I’ll run the shower for ye, let it warm up a bit,” Baird said softly, sliding out of bed. “Come down when yer done, and I’ll make breakfast. Ye can tell me more about this man ye saw the other day.”

His voice was gentle, but there was a guarded edge to it—something just beneath the surface that didn’t sit quite right. It made my stomach twist with unease. He must have thought I was crazy.

As the hot water poured over my face, I let the steam rise around me, hoping it would loosen the grip of fear still lingering in my chest. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d somehow lost hold of myself.

Was I unraveling?

Had I sounded completely unhinged last night, rambling about strange men and dreams that bled into reality?

Maybe Baird was right to be wary .

Who was I now? This Mira—haunted, reactive, a stranger to her own sense of control—felt nothing like the woman I’d always been. Normally rational. Steady. Unshakable.

Now I felt reckless. Untethered. Taken hold of by something I couldn’t define—and worse, something I couldn’t deny. It moved beneath the surface of my thoughts like a tide I couldn’t swim against, pulling me further and further from the version of myself I used to trust.

I dressed for comfort—old jeans, tennis shoes, a soft T-shirt. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, keeping it out of my face and out of the way.

When I came downstairs, Baird handed me a cup of coffee without a word.

“Scrambled eggs and toast okay?” he asked.

I nodded absently, still caught in the fog of my thoughts.

He moved about the kitchen, but I could feel the weight in the room before he even spoke again. He looked troubled—more so than when I’d first woken in his cottage days ago. Something was pressing down on him, dragging the spark from his eyes. He looked older somehow. Worn.

“Why didn’t ye tell me someone was following ye?” he asked at last, his voice low, rough with fatigue.

“I didn’t want to tell you at the time,” I said quietly. “At first, I honestly thought I might have imagined it. And then later that night…I was here with you. It felt like the last thing I should bring up.”

I hesitated, my fingers tightening around the coffee mug. “I thought you’d think I was crazy.”

Baird was silent. His expression had turned to stone—impassive, unreadable .

The walls were back up. Not slowly this time, not subtly. They had slammed into place, locked tight. And somehow, that chilled me almost as much as the nightmare had.

Last night, he’d told me I needed to reframe who I was. He’d spoken like he believed in me—like he saw something more than the broken, haunted version of myself I tried to keep buried.

But now I could see the shift in his eyes, the wheels turning behind them.

I wasn’t a gifted diviner. I wasn’t some woman touched by the universe.

I was just the cursed, odd, broken girl again.

And this time, I was sure he saw it too.

He turned his back to me, busying himself with cleaning up after breakfast. I could tell he didn’t want to talk to me.

I needed to leave. Get some distance from whatever was happening to me.

“Um—I think I should go,” I said, rising from the stool at the counter. “These past few days…they’ve been the best I’ve ever had. I’ve never felt so cared for, but—”

Before I could finish, he was suddenly in front of me, blocking my exit.

My breath caught. He’d been at the sink only a second ago.

Another wave of disorientation hit me—like my brain couldn’t process the steps it must have taken for him to cross the room. I hadn’t seen him move. Hadn’t heard him—the same way the dark man moved in my nightmare.

My vision shimmered at the edges, a dizzy rush rising in my chest. I felt like I might faint. His face twisted with anguish—anger, pain, sadness all colliding in a storm just beneath the surface. The expression was almost unrecognizable, and for the first time since I’d met him, I was afraid .

“What is happening, Baird?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “What’s wrong?”

“You don’t really know me,” he said, his voice low, heavy with a sadness that felt centuries old.

I didn’t understand what was happening, but my fear twisted, calcified—became anger. And what made it worse was the truth in his words. He was right.

But I didn’t know who I was more furious with—him for hiding, or myself for letting sex take the place of real questions.

“You know what? You’re right,” I snapped, arms folding tightly across my chest. “Somehow you know my whole freakin’ life story.

How did you pull that off in less than a week?

I’ve known people for years who don’t know half as much about me as you do.

” My voice rose, heat spilling out now. “But you? You’ve told me next to nothing. ”

Baird’s jaw tensed. “I know, Mira. I do. And I want to fix that—I need to—but I don’t know the words to explain what I need to say.”

“Oh, let me help you then.” My tone sharpened, fury barely leashed. “Here’s what I’ve figured out on my own, just by watching you. You’re smoking hot, somewhere between thirty-five and forty. You’ve got a cottage on an island, a multimillion-dollar townhouse here, and a giant dog.”

I pointed to Bunny, who was snoring peacefully in her bed, blissfully unaware of the rising storm between us.

“You’re obsessively neat. You can cook but barely eat. You collect art—some of it museum-worthy. And you’re some kind of tantric sex god or—” I stumbled over my words. “I don’t even have the vocabulary for what you are in bed.”

He didn’t move. He just watched me, silent, taking every word .

“But as for what you've told me?” I lifted my hand, fingers counting off.

“One: your name. Two: the cottage belonged to your grandmother. Three: you sold a company and now you farm and own real estate. Four: you made some vague reference to losing someone long ago. And five?” I popped up my thumb.

“Your dog is five and her name is Bunny.”

I stared at him, my whole hand raised. “ That’s it. That’s all you’ve given me.”

My voice cracked, but I pushed through. “I’ve looked for you online, Baird. Tried to find anything . A digital footprint. A photo. An article. A business listing . But there’s nothing. It’s like you don’t even exist. Like you're just…” I faltered. “Like you’re some figment of my imagination.”

My anger began to tremble under the weight of something else—something I didn’t know how to name. “And yet I know how you make me feel. Seen. Cared for. Safe. Important.”

I dropped my hand, the silence between us thick, aching.

Then, Baird’s voice broke the stillness, soft and sure.

“Do ye remember when you told me about your clairvoyance?” he asked. “Ye didn’t think I’d believe ye, did ye?”

“No…not really,” I said quietly, my voice stripped bare.

“I don’t think saying words can communicate what I need ye to know, but I’ve had an idea that may,” Baird said, a splinter of hope in his voice.

“I need ye to promise me ye won’t run away.

Ye will have so many questions, and I need to know ye’ll stick around to ask them.

Just promise me that much.” Baird held out his hand to me, and when I took it, he gave it a small squeeze.

He led me up the stairs to the third floor.

With each step, my heart began to pound erratically. Part of me wanted to turn and run—to bolt from whatever this was. But I’d made a promise. I wanted answers. Answers to who he was…and to what the hell was happening to me .

Baird passed the master suite wordlessly and continued down the hall until we came to one of the guest rooms—the one with the French blue walls, the brass bed, and at the foot of it, the old trunk.

The trunk was wrapped in dark, timeworn leather, its edges studded with tarnished brass tacks. The corners were cracked and peeling, like skin too long exposed to the elements. It looked like it had been waiting—patiently, ominously—for someone to open it.

Baird let go of my hand and stepped into the room. He knelt beside the trunk, running his hand over the worn leather before slowly lifting the lid. The hinges groaned in protest, a rusty, aching sound that echoed in the stillness as the top creaked open.

I hadn’t even taken a full step into the room when I felt it—that strange, unmistakable pull. There was something inside. Calling to me.

Baird looked over his shoulder and saw me still standing in the doorway, frozen.

“Come kneel down with me,” he said softly.

“I want ye to touch this. I think—I think this is the only way ye’ll truly understand, Mira.

” Something raw flickered in his eyes—hope, fear, a silent plea, maybe.

I crossed the floor and sank to my knees, even though every part of me wanted to stay standing.

It felt just like that day at the gravestone on Arran—something pulling me down, not just gravity, but something deeper.

Older. Winning the battle against my will.

I went down slowly, my body resisting, my face twisted with fear and the bone-deep certainty that something was about to be revealed. Something I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

Baird shifted beside me, placing one arm gently behind my back. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to protect me—or stop me from running .

Inside the open trunk lay a parcel wrapped in old linen. My hands moved toward it, almost without permission, and as I peeled back the fabric, that familiar wave of anxiety surged through me.

Beads of sweat broke across my forehead, though my skin had gone cold. My breath turned shallow, thin. It was as if I was watching the scene from outside my body—kneeling beside Baird, but also hovering above us, detached, observing.

The panic was recognizable. But this time, I didn’t fight it.

Something deep within me whispered that the only way forward was to surrender—to trust this strange ability of mine, whatever it truly was.