Page 6

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KEANE

My head wasn’t working right, and it made no sense. At first I thought it was my memory, but I’d been learning a lot about my mate. Learning and retaining it. We’d been here for a few days, and I remembered all of our conversations. At least I thought I did.

He chattered on and on during the day, telling me about himself, his brothers, his family—even his job. He explained to me what he liked, what he didn’t like, when he first got his wolf. So many things that stayed right there in the forefront of my mind. Heck, I could tell you about a math test he failed as a kid because he read the directions wrong.

But the more I tried to figure out how I got the drug—the doctor called it Duskthorn—in my system, the less I was able to remember that night at all. If I could remember every single detail of the past few days, shouldn’t I be able to remember that? But the more I tried, the worse I failed.

I’d been going from place to place. I wouldn’t stay long, leaving almost instantly in some cases. The weirdest part was I couldn’t tell you what those places were… possibly restaurants or bars or maybe stores? But then again, I couldn’t actually tell anyone anything, being trapped in my fur like this.

That night was incredibly blurry. Where I went and why? Not a clue, but I remembered that every time I left, I was flustered, almost angry. It was like a bad dream you kept going through the same cycle of, never being able to break it.

And then—I met my mate, and I was in this form. I’d been under a dumpster when he found me. That I was sure of, but less because I remembered it and more because he told me. It somehow solidified or possibly created the memory.

But why? Why was I there? My gut said it had to be the result of something really bad. I wasn’t one to wander the city in my fur. With my luck I’d run into more than one do-gooder human over the years who tried to catch me with the hopes of finding my owner. Sleeping in my fur in the sunlight cascading in through the window was enough adventure for me.

Except the night I met Boaz, apparently.

This entire situation was all such a mess, and it kept getting worse and worse and worse. My mate mentioned drugs. I wasn’t someone who took drugs… ever. That wasn’t me. And I hadn’t even had any alcohol.

But why would he lie about that? He didn’t come across as the type. But if I did have drugs in my system… was that why my memory was such a hazy mess? Probably. I wouldn’t have done it on purpose, though. That I was sure of. Peer pressure had never been a powerful influence in my life, and being an omega, it was always safest to keep a straight head while out. It wasn’t as if I had a beast that could do me any good in a fight. My entire superpower as a cat was looking up at people with my big eyes and winning them over with my cuteness.

Had I gone out looking for a hook-up? Did someone roofie my drink? That happened a lot on TV… so did it happen in real life? But also—wouldn’t a roofie just make me pretty much fall asleep and be compliant? Not hide under a dumpster in my fur while my mate showed up.

I generally wasn’t a hook-up kind of omega, but I was grasping at straws… any straw that might contain a single answer.

The whole situation was a mess, one I wasn’t going to be able to get out of until I regained my skin.

It was moments like these, moments when my mate was outside, that everything got worse. My memory faded more quickly, my nerves ratcheted up, and my senses were overloaded, with the notable exception of my scent which was still gone. Was that from the drugs too? No. That had been longer. I thought. Arggg, this was so frustrating.

The longing for him to be by my side, to comfort me, to ground me, was overwhelming. He’d gone out with the trash, promising he’d be right back. Only a minute ago—or maybe five, ten? I wasn’t even sure anymore.

I was spiraling.

My cat backed under the chair, hiding—I wasn’t even sure from what. We were safe here. My mate promised us that, and he wouldn’t lie to me. I might not remember much of who I was or how I got here, but I was sure of that .

And then the door rattled. It opened. And then… he came walking in. Relief flooded me. I ran over to him and jumped on his shoulder, wrapping myself around his neck, needing to be close to him. I rubbed my chin against his jaw and then licked his cheek.

“Did you miss me, little one?”

He’d taken to calling me that, which was honestly better than when he called me Kitten, although that was growing on me now too. Anything that showed affection and not just disappointment in the drugs.

The Duskthorn I was still having a hard time believing I consumed—but wasn’t the proof there? The doctor found it in my blood. The doctor I didn’t remember.

I believed Boaz when he said that we went, or that they came to us, I wasn’t sure which, but a doctor had seen me. I believed I was checked out and given tests and they came back positive for drugs. There was no reason for him to lie about that. But try as I could, there was no image of that in my head at all. Not even a hint of memory about it.

Maybe it was just being in this form for so long that was doing this to me. I’d taken naps, lots of naps, in my fur over my years. But never had I stayed there for more than overnight. Or maybe I had and those memories had faded too.

Was I turning into my cat? Would the human side of me just fall away? Was that what was happening?

He reached up and pulled me down from his neck, holding me close in his arms. “Hey. Hey. It’s okay, I promise. How about some tuna? You like tuna, right?”

I did. And I’d been eating a lot of it. I appreciated that he was giving me tuna and not cat food. I’d done that once in this form, and whoa, did I regret it when I shifted back.

A soft purr began to build in my chest. This was where I belonged, wrapped in his arms.

He brought me to the kitchen, sat me on a chair, and grabbed a can of tuna. It was the good stuff too—not the 99-cent bargain tuna. It was processed with oil, nice thick chunks, and I enjoyed every last bite of it as he held it out to me, piece by piece.

I could eat it on my own. Physically, I was fine. My cat could jump and run and purr—all the good stuff. It was my brain that wasn’t working. But there was something comforting about having him feed me like this, taking care of me. And piece by piece, I ate it.

Then, after he cleaned up the bowl, he carried me to the bed, sat me on a pillow he’d set up for me, and joined me, taking out a book and reading it aloud until I fell asleep.

It was the story of a prince who found a treasure map and set off on an adventure. I must’ve been more tired than I realized, because I drifted off before he got to any of the good stuff. I didn’t remember anything past him making a plan to leave the castle under the full moon. But then again, my memory had been shit lately, so maybe I listened to the entire thing.

A crash woke me. It was cold. So cold. And I went to grab my blanket, to wrap it around me—and realized pretty quickly I wasn’t home.

Where was I?

I climbed out of bed, my two legs rather wobbly, and found the source of the noise almost instantly. A book about a prince had fallen onto the ground. Had I been reading this? It didn’t seem like my kind of book, but then again, I wasn’t even sure where I was.

It was comfortable, though. Safe even. I belonged here. There was no urgency to leave. But also… none of this space was mine.

“Where the fuck am I?” My voice was scratchy, as if I hadn’t used it in days. “And how did I get here?”

I climbed back into the bed, hoping it would trigger a memory, not wanting to leave despite not knowing where I was. Maybe this was a dream. Yeah, that was it. Nothing else made any sense.