Page 90 of Goldilocks

“Wait.” Eric’s gaze flashed to Connor and the stranger. Laurence slid his arm through Eric’s and pulled him out of the room, kicking it closed behind them.

“The doctor is this way,” Laurence’s voice drifted in from a distance.

Sam looked at Connor, who was murmuring to the stranger. “…leave the bruises on his head but heal the inside. Can you do that? I bet you can. You’re so incredibly talented.”

The stranger puffed out his chest as he straightened. Haughty pride transformed his face.

“Connor,” Sam said warily. “What’s going on?”

The door opened and shut; Roan slipped inside. He cast a look of total disgust at the back of the stranger’s head, which flattened into a blank expression when Connor twisted toward him. “We have little time,” Roan said.

“Take in some deep breaths, Sam. And trust me. You’ll feel much better soon.”

Before Sam could object, the stranger was in his space, cupping the base of his skull where the worst of his headache resided. Warmth bloomed in his head, and Sam’s entire body became weighted. From his fingertips to his eyelids, he sank down into a wall of blossoming warmth and heat, every bit of pain eaten up in seconds.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Before night fell, Sam was discharged into Eric’s custody with a clean bill of health and the doctor remarking how quickly Sam had bounced back. The guards came by afterAdonis had healed him, but Sam’s memory of how he’d ended up with his head knocked in was still notably absent. The last thing he concretely remembered was sending Jasper off with Laurence at the dock. After that, it was a blank void of nothing.

He sat at the kitchen table in Eric’s flat, nursing a cup of tea, racking his brain, but nothing new shook loose despite his efforts.

“I’m a tattoo artist,” Ivan said, prompting Sam to pull himself out of his thoughts and into the present. Ivan leaned against the counter in the kitchen, facing Sam. Eric stood with his back turned, focusing all his attention on the pan he was cooking stir-fry in. At Sam’s left sat Roan, still in Connor’s clothes. Even with his memories returned, it irked Sam. Though Roan telling Sam he could call him by his name, something that he knew was reserved to just him—everyone else had to call him Goldilocks—eased his irritation. “And this memory loss thing isn’t the worst,” Ivan continued, “because you and I didn’t get off to a great start.” Ivan had met them at the flat, groceries bought and the kettle boiling for tea the second they’d stepped inside.

“I remember that,” Sam said.

Ivan groaned. “Seriously?”

“You were talking crap about my dad and I told you not to.”

“I apologised. Do you remember that?”

“No,” Sam lied.

Eric shot Ivan a heated look that said ‘Apologise again’, and Ivan met that look with an irritated one of his own.

Roan hummed, rubbing the back of Sam’s neck in a soothing gesture. Given that Roan’s hands seemed to run at a hundred degrees, it felt incredibly nice. He adjusted the golden chain of the dagger that hung around Sam’s neck, something he’d returned to Sam the moment they’d left the hospital. Apparently, Connor had made him take it in case the hospital staff took it off him. Memories of Roan had returned in full – at least he thought so.

“It is good to defend your sire,” Roan told him. Sam was grateful that Roan spoke softly for Sam’s ears alone. “You are right not to yield; you need yield only to me, and no other.” He leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to Sam’s lips. He kept it chaste, not putting enough of anything into the kiss to make it embarrassing for Sam.

“Goldilocks is coming back to you, is he?” Ivan asked, something particularly sharp and pointed in his eyes now. “Bad form to be making moves on someone who doesn’t even remember you, isn’t it?”

Eric twisted, clear unease in his expression as his gaze darted between the two of them.

Roan tensed, shoulders tightening as his gaze fixed right back on Ivan, except he looked a dozen times more intimidating than Ivan did.

“I remember him,” Sam said. He captured the hand that Roan had dropped from the back of his neck and squeezed it. Roan didn’t take his eyes off Ivan, but he squeezed Sam’s hand back, so Sam knew he had the merman’s attention. “All of you, I think. I was at his place checking out nurses for Dad right before my accident.” The accident that Sam still couldn’t remember. It was hard to believe he’d slipped in the garden when everything was bone dry. They told him about a break-in the day before too, but Sam couldn’t recall that either.

Eric nudged his elbow to Ivan’s, and the sharpness in Ivan’s gaze eased. He bumped Eric back and broke eye contact with Roan with a loose shrug and a relaxed smile. “Just making sure everything’s all straight. Shall I start plating up the noodles?” Ivan rubbed Eric’s back as he passed behind him, and the tension eased from his brother’s shoulders. Eric remained a blank slate for Sam, but he remembered now that it had been like that before his concussion.

Four plates of heaped food were set, and a weird feeling washed over Sam as they began dinner. Eric sat at Sam’s right, a bundle of nerves whose eyes kept darting to Sam with each bite he took – either checking that he didn’t choke or if he liked the food, Sam wasn’t sure which. Ivan ate and talked, relaxed, if not for that sharp look he couldn’t disguise behind his numerous casual shrugs. He was watching, on the alert, for something that would set off alarm bells and end with Roan getting kicked out. If Ivan could manage that was another question entirely.

Roan ate, his attention split between Sam and Ivan, the latter getting on his nerves. Sam didn’t think it was as anything more than a minor annoyance, since Roan didn’t act on it. For that, Sam was grateful.

“Is it okay for you to both be down here?” Sam asked. “I thought you were catching up on work?”

“I wasn’t about to let Eric drive down here alone after that phone call. He was convinced something bad had happened to you. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.”

Eric cast Ivan an annoyed look. “I wasn’t that bad.”