Strangerin the mirror

POV: Elara

​The first thing I felt was a dull throbbing behind my eyes, and when I tried to move my hand, it felt like it was weighted down by lead pipes, so I just laid there for a moment listening to the steady beep of a machine nearby. I slowly forced my eyelids open, and the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital room made me wince and shut them again, but eventually, I managed to focus on the ceiling.

I turned my head to the side and saw a man sitting in a chair by the window, and he was staring at his phone with a deep scowl on his face, looking like he would rather be anywhere else in the world than in this room.

​"You're finally awake," he said, and his voice was deep and rough, but there wasn't a single drop of relief in it as he stood up and walked toward the bed.

​I blinked at him, trying to place the face or the voice, but nothing came to me, and my mind felt like a chalkboard that had been wiped completely clean.

"Who are you?" I asked, and my voice came out as a dry, cracked whisper that made my throat ache.

​The man stopped at the foot of the bed and let out a harsh, mocking laugh, and he ran a hand through his dark hair while shaking his head.

"Very funny, Elara, and I’m glad to see your little stunt didn't take away your sense of humor, but we don't have time for your games today because I have a pack to run."

​"I don't know who Elara is, and I don't know who you are either," I said, and I tried to sit up, but a sharp pain shot through my ribs and I gasped, leaning back against the pillows.

​"Stop it," he snapped, and his eyes narrowed as he leaned over the bed, his shadow falling over me. "I know exactly what you're doing, and you're trying to make me feel guilty for what happened at the party, but running into the road was your choice, and this amnesia act is even more pathetic than your usual begging for attention."

​"I'm not acting," I replied, and I looked him straight in the eyes, noticing that I didn't feel the fear or the urge to cry that I somehow felt I should be feeling. "I don't recognize this place, and I don't recognize you, and I definitely don't know why you're being so aggressive toward someone you supposedly know."

​He stared at me for a long time, looking for a crack in my expression, and then he pulled a chair closer and sat down with a heavy thud.

"You’re my wife, Elara, and you’re the woman who spent the last three years following me around like a lost puppy, and you’re the rogue I took in when nobody else wanted you, so don't tell me you forgot all of that."

​"I'm your wife?" I asked, and the word felt strange and wrong on my tongue, and I looked down at my bare ring finger.

​"Yes, and you're pregnant with my heir, which is the only reason I’m even sitting here right now," he said, and he watched me closely to see if that news would trigger a memory.

​"Pregnant," I repeated, and I placed my hand on my stomach, but it felt flat and empty. "Where is the baby? Is it okay?"

​"The doctor says the pup is fine, but you need to stop this nonsense because the nurses are already calling you 'Luna' and expecting me to play the worried husband, and I’m not going to do it," he said, and he stood up again, pacing the small room.

​A nurse walked in just then, holding a clipboard and smiling warmly at me, and she checked the monitors before looking at the man. "It's good to see her awake, Alpha Silas, and we were quite worried about the Luna after the surgery, but she seems to be a fighter."

​"She’s fine, Nurse, she’s just having a bit of a lapse in memory," the man, Silas, said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

​"I don't know what a Luna is, and I don't know who this man is," I told the nurse, and she stopped what she was doing, her eyes widening as she looked between us.

​"It's common with head injuries, dear, and sometimes the mind blocks out trauma to protect itself," the nurse explained, but Silas just scoffed and looked out the window.

​"She’s lying," Silas said, and he turned back to me with a cruel smirk. "Tell me, Elara, if you’ve really forgotten everything, do you remember the time you spent a week outside my door because I told you that you weren't allowed to eat at the main table? Or how about the way you used to apologize for the way you smelled because you were so ashamed of being a rogue?"

​I listened to him, and while the stories sounded terrible, they didn't feel like they belonged to me, and I felt a strange sense of distance from the woman he was describing.

"That sounds like a very weak woman, Silas, and I don't think I’m her anymore."

​He laughed again, but this time it sounded a bit more uncertain, and he walked closer to the bed until he was just inches from my face.

"You’re exactly who you’ve always been, and once we get you back to the pack house and out of this hospital bed, you’ll go right back to tripping over your own feet to please me."

​"I’d like a mirror," I said, ignoring his threats, and the nurse quickly handed me a small hand mirror from the bedside table.

​I lifted the mirror and looked at the woman staring back at me, seeing the bandages wrapped around my head and the bruises on my cheeks, but my eyes looked different than what I expected.

They weren't the eyes of someone who begged for scraps of affection, and they weren't the eyes of a woman who would let a man talk to her the way Silas was talking to me. I looked at the sharp line of my jaw and the way I held the mirror with a steady hand, and I felt a surge of cold, quiet power that I didn't understand.

​"What are you looking at?" Silas asked, sounding annoyed that I was ignoring him.

​I lowered the mirror and looked at him, and for the first time, I saw the way his shoulders were tense and how he was trying so hard to maintain control of the situation.

"I'm looking at someone who doesn't belong to you," I said, and I watched the way his jaw tightened and a vein began to throb in his neck.

​"We’ll see about that when the discharge papers are signed tomorrow," he muttered, and he turned and walked out of the room without looking back, leaving the door swinging behind him.

​I turned back to the mirror and touched the cold glass, and I wondered who the woman in the reflection really was and what she was going to do when she finally left this hospital, but the one thing I was sure of was that I wasn't going to be the "vessel" he wanted me to be.

I laid back down and stared at the door, waiting for the morning to come so I could see what else was waiting for me in this life I couldn't remember, and I felt a strange smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.