“Well, all of your scans look normal,” Luna Isabella was saying as she stood next to Mercy’s bed, a bunch of papers in her hand. “We’ve run a lot of tests, and I don’t see anything wrong, other than you’re a little malnourished, but that shouldn’t be causing your memory issues. I think it’s safe to say it’s psychological at this point, honey.”Mercy nodded, thinking she had to be right. “What do we do about that?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.“Well, I suppose you’ve got a good reason for not wanting to remember these things, honey, or else you wouldn’t be blocking them all out, right?” Isabella gave her a sympathetic smile.Not knowing what to say, Mercy let her eyes drift to the ground. Isabella had a point. Mercy knew from her dreams and from the incidents she’d had whenever August had said certain things that began to trigger those memories her mind was fighting so hard to lock away.“We don’t have a therapist or psychologist in the pack, but I believe there is on
Isabella had insisted on waiting for August to be available in order to take Mercy to the house that they shared in the center of the village. Mercy could understand that. After all, she hadn’t exactly proven herself to be the sort of person one could trust not to have a problem on the short walk. For all Isabella knew, she could faint, take off running, or set the house on fire….Mercy didn’t think there was much of a chance of any of those things happening, but that didn’t mean Isabella trusted her.Once August arrived, there was a private conversation in the storage room of the medical center. She heard whispering, but she had no idea what mother and son were talking about. Other than the fact that it was probably about her. She hoped she wasn’t stirring up any trouble between the two of them. They were both such wonderful people. She’d hate to come between them in any way.After a few moments, August walked out first, a smile on his face. “Hi, Mercy,” he said. “How are you today?”
“Mercy? Mercy? Are you all right?”It was happening again, and there was nothing August could do to help her or prevent it. All he’d done was welcome her home when he saw her eyes roll back into her head and her body went limp.He’d caught her, thank goodness. So she wasn’t physically injured. But Mercy was lying limp against his arm as he stared into her beautiful face, willing her to open her eyes and look at him.She did--whether he actually managed to convince her to or she just happened to not have slipped too far away from him this time.Mercy blinked a few times, a vacant look on her face. At first, he thought maybe she didn’t recognize him. The idea of having to start all over again, of trying to explain who he was, where she was, how she’d gotten there one more time, made his heart leap into his throat.“Are you okay?” he asked her, keeping his voice calm and soft.“Y-yeah,” Mercy said, struggling to stand up. He helped her get back upright. “What happened?” she asked, a hand
This was the most comfortable room she’d ever been in. Mercy was sure of it--even though she couldn’t remember a single place she’d been before the healing center. Still, sitting on the end of the bed in the room that August had taken her to, she was certain she’d never been in a room like this before.Mercy wasn’t sure what to do. Part of her wanted to climb into the comfy bed and go to sleep. But she wasn’t really tired. It just seemed so inviting. She ran her hand along the soft blue comforter and sighed. What must it be like to live in a house like this? To have so many nice things?A shower also sounded pleasant. She’d taken a few while she was at the healing center, but she had the feeling that the bathroom attached to this luxurious room had to be unlike any accommodations she’d ever seen in her life.Mercy kicked off her shoes and took off her socks before letting her bare feet sink into the soft carpet of the floor. A flash of a memory came across her. Cold, concrete. Damp, u
A beautiful woman had just moved into his house.August was sitting at his desk, doing his best to focus on his work, but his mind kept going back to Mercy. What was she doing right now? Was she okay? Was she sleeping? Was she hungry?He was trying to focus on the reports he needed to finish looking over, but it was rough with such a huge distraction just down the road. He wanted to go see how she was doing, to see if he could get her anything, but he also knew he had a way of making her feel like her head was going to explode.August picked up the last report he’d been given and had just started going over it when his phone rang. Part of him was glad for the distraction, but then he looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Rider, the Alpha from Black Hole Moon.“What do you want, Rider>” August said as he picked up the phone. The last person in the world he wanted to talk to was the Alpha that had been in the picture where Mercy was being abused.“Oh, come on, August, don’t be lik
“How do we even know that Rider is telling us the truth?” August’s mom asked him from her seat across from his desk. “He could just be messing with us, trying to scare us.”“I’m not scared of her name, Mom. Hell, I’m not even scared of her. Maybe I should be, but I don’t think she’d do anything to hurt us.”He could’ve been putting his entire pack at risk by having a woman he didn’t know who clearly had some sort of magical powers in their midst, but it was difficult for him to think that Mercy could be dangerous to him or to anyone else. He was usually a pretty good judge of character, and he felt that Mercy was a good person, that anything that she’d been through in her past wasn’t due to her bad character but due to the horrible people she’d been with.And Rider was a pretty horrible person.For years, he’d waged war on surrounding packs, attempting to convescate more territory. He’d killed indiscriminately and even raided some villages where women and children became his victims.
It was cold.Darkness surrounded her, and the smell of dampness filled her lungs. Close to her head, she heard the ping of water falling from above her, landing in a puddle on the concrete, over and over and over again. Dripping, constantly, cutting into her thoughts, eating through her mind. It needed to stop.But there was no way to make it stop, and as long as she was down here in the damp, dark, cold, she wouldn’t be able to do anything to help herself.How long had she been down here? It seemed like forever. Her stomach felt like it was eating itself, but then, she didn’t really have stomach pains anymore because she was so used to being hungry.She tried to stretch her back, but she couldn’t because of the restraints. Why they thought binding her hands around her ankles and tying her ankles together would stop her from using her abilities, she didn’t know, but she could still use them.She could still pick them up and throw them across the room.She could still blow out the glas
Making breakfast was not something August was particularly good at. Cooking in general was not his forte, but since he couldn’t go back to sleep after he woke up at 5:00 in the morning, he decided to get up around 6:00 and go to the kitchen to make breakfast for Mercy.He’d laid awake for much of the night, thinking about what Rider had told him and the discussion he’d had with his mom. He knew that she was right, that he shouldn’t tell Mercy what he’d found out. But at the same time, he hated keeping information from her, too. If he was in her position, wouldn’t he want to know what his real name was?He wanted to say yes to that, but then, he’d never been in a situation where he’d been abused by an entire pack of people, possibly two packs, and then had to run for his life. So maybe if he’d been in a similar circumstance to the one she was fleeing, he wouldn’t be so quick to think it would be better if she knew.He sat down at the island to sip some coffee while the breakfast casser