Chapter 1

Aeliana POV

My eyelids feel heavy. Like someone attached tiny weights to my lashes while I slept.

The first thing I notice isn't the unfamiliar room; it's the silence. Not the comfortable quiet of my little apartment above the bookstore, where the old radiator hums and Mrs. Ross's cat meows at three in the morning. This is different. Thick. Expectant.

I force my eyes open and—

What the hell?

Velvet curtains. Actual velvet, the kind you see in period dramas, hanging from windows that stretch nearly to the ceiling. The morning light filters through them like golden honey, casting everything in an amber glow that feels too rich, too warm for my simple life. My fingers grip the sheets beneath me, and even those are wrong. Silk. Real silk that slides between my fingers like water.

This isn't my bed. This isn't my room. This definitely isn't Montana.

My heart starts doing that thing where it tries to escape through my throat. The familiar panic creeps in...the same suffocating feeling I've lived with for two years now, ever since I woke up in that hospital with nothing but my first name and a head full of cotton. I sit up too quickly, and the room tilts.

Breathe, Aeliana. Just breathe.

But I can't. Not when I'm staring at walls adorned with hunting trophies and ancient scrolls that look like they belong in a museum. Not when there's a massive hearth across from the bed with embers still glowing like watching eyes. The smell hits me then, earthy and wild, like the forest after a storm. It's intoxicating and familiar in a way that makes my chest tight.

How did I get here?

Yesterday is crystal clear in my memory. I locked up the bookstore at six, walked the three blocks home, heated up leftover Chinese takeout, and curled up with that romance novel I'd been meaning to read. The one with the brooding werewolf on the cover that made Mrs. Ross click her tongue disapprovingly whenever she caught me stocking it.

"Werewolves aren't your average pet, dear," she'd say, shaking her silver head. "They're wild things. Dangerous. You'd do well to remember that."

I always nodded and smiled, but privately I thought she was being dramatic. They're just... different. Stronger, maybe. More intense. But dangerous? The stories seemed exaggerated.

Now, sitting in what's obviously someone else's bedroom, I wonder what Mrs. Ross is going to say about this.

My hands shake as I push my hair back. The headache starts then, sharp and sudden, like someone's driving nails behind my eyes. I've had these before. They always come when I try too hard to remember or when I'm having a panic attack.

Images flash through my mind like photographs scattered in the wind. A man's face, blurred but unmistakably handsome. Eyes that burn with golden fire. A voice, deep and rough, whispering my name like a prayer. The images feel real and impossible at the same time, like memories that belong to someone else.

Who am I really?

The question that's haunted me for two years feels heavier now, more urgent. What if the life I've built in Montana, the bookstore, the quiet apartment, and the careful routine... what if none of it is really mine? What if I'm supposed to be somewhere else entirely?

"Aeliana."

My blood turns to ice.

The voice comes from the doorway, low and rumbling like distant thunder. I know that voice. Not from memory exactly, but from something deeper. Something that makes my entire body respond before my brain catches up.

I turn, and there he is.

Holy shit.

He's massive. Not just tall, though he has to be at least six and a half feet, but broad and powerful in a way that fills the entire doorway. His hair is midnight black with silver threading through it at the temples, giving him an air of authority that makes my mouth go dry. But it's his eyes that steal my breath completely. Amber. Pure, molten amber that seems to glow with inner fire.

And that scar. A jagged line cutting across his chest, visible through his partially unbuttoned shirt. It should be ugly, that scar. Instead, it makes him look dangerous. Untamed.

Beautiful.

The thought comes unbidden and makes my cheeks burn. What is wrong with me? I'm trapped in a strange place with a man who could probably snap me in half, and I'm thinking about how attractive he is?

"Do you remember me?"

His question hangs in the air between us, heavy with expectation and something that might be hope. The way he's looking at me, like I'm the answer to every prayer he's ever whispered, makes my chest ache with emotions I don't understand.

I want to remember. God, I want to remember so badly it physically hurts. But there's nothing. Just shadows and whispers and the frustrating sense that something important is locked away behind the wall in my mind.

"I..." My voice comes out hoarse, unused. "Where am I?"

Something flickers across his face. Disappointment, maybe. Or pain. He steps into the room, and I catch his scent—pine and leather and something wildly masculine that makes my pulse skip.

"You're in my room," he says carefully. "In our home. The Moonveil Clan territory, in the San Juan Mountains."

Colorado? That's... that's over five hundred miles from Montana. How did I—

"Why am I here?" The words burst out of me, sharper than I intended. Fear makes them cutting. "How did I get here? I was at home, in my apartment, and I went to sleep in my own bed, and now...."

"I'm Caelan," he interrupts gently. "Caelan Draven. Alpha of the Moonveil Clan." He takes another step closer, and the air between us seems to shimmer with electricity. "And you, Aeliana, are my mate."

Mate.

The word hits me like a physical blow. Images explode behind my eyes...flashes of this room, this man, and moments of intimacy and tenderness that feel both foreign and achingly familiar. My hands fly to my head as the pain intensifies.

"No," I whisper, but even as I say it, something deep inside me recognizes the truth in his words. Some primal part of me that's been sleeping for two years suddenly stirs to life. "That's impossible. I would remember—"

"Would you?" His voice is soft now, infinitely gentle. "You've been missing for two years, Aeliana. Two years of searching, of hoping, of waiting for you to come home."

Missing. Not lost. Not confused. Missing.

The wall in my mind cracks, just a little, and through that crack pours a flood of emotion so intense it nearly brings me to my knees. Love. Loss. Longing. And underneath it all, a connection so deep it feels carved into my very soul.

I look at Caelan...really look at him, and for just a moment, the stranger's face overlays with something achingly familiar. Home. Safety. Love so fierce it could move mountains.

Then the moment passes, and he's a stranger again.

But the feeling remains, and still here I am wondering what this smoking hot stranger wants from me with all this mate talk.