Todos los capítulos de Ruthless Amnesia : Capítulo 21 - Capítulo 28

POV: MatteoRhys sat alone in the family archive long after the household had gone quiet, boxes of his mother's old belongings pulled down from storage he hadn't opened since before the injury, not that he remembered opening anyway. He didn't fully know what he was looking for. Only that Matteo's face in the study earlier that day, the hurt buried under careful composure, had lodged itself somewhere in his chest and wouldn't let him rest.I would rather you hate me and be safe than love me and be gone. He'd meant every word of it when he said it. He still meant it now, sitting alone in the dark archive. That frightened him more than anything else about the whole exchange.Where does this come from, he thought, running his hand over a stack of his mother's old letters, bound in faded ribbon. This certainty that control is the same thing as care. I don't remember learning it. I only know it's there, sitting under everything I feel for him, sharp and immovable.He found the letter near t

POV: Matteo"A messenger's here for you," the household steward said, appearing in the doorway of the sitting room with a folded parchment held out in careful hands. "Marked urgent. Council seal."I set down the correspondence I'd been sorting and took it from him, my stomach already tightening before I'd broken the wax. Council seals didn't arrive urgent for small matters.I read it twice before the words fully landed.An emergency session has been called for tomorrow evening, addressing matters of Alpha fitness following recent medical circumstances. Attendance required of Alpha Callahan and consort."Fitness," I said aloud, my voice tight, the word sitting wrong and dangerous in my mouth. "Medical circumstances.""Is something wrong, my lord," the steward asked, hovering uncertainly."I don't know yet," I said, though a cold, sinking dread was already answering the question for me.I found Rhys in the study minutes later, the parchment still clutched in my hand, and the moment I st

POV: Matteo"Yes," I said.One word, and the entire chamber seemed to hold its breath around it."I knew," I said again, louder this time, steadier, because I'd decided somewhere in the space between the elder's question and my own answer that I wasn't going to soften this, wasn't going to perform the shame everyone in this room was clearly waiting to witness. "I've known for two weeks."Murmurs broke out immediately, sharp whispers rippling through the assembled council, but I kept my eyes fixed on the elder, refusing to look away, refusing to let this become something I endured rather than something I owned."You knew," the elder repeated, her voice carefully neutral, "and you said nothing. Not to this council. Not, it seems, even to your own husband directly.""That's correct.""Why," she asked, simply, the single word carrying the weight of everything the chamber wanted to understand.I felt Rhys go very still beside me, waiting, as uncertain of my answer as everyone else in the r

POV: Matteo"This session is called to order," the elder said, her voice tight with exhaustion, dawn light spilling pale and gray through the chamber windows. "Beta Bane, you requested this hour. I trust you have good reason.""I do," Dave said, standing at the center of the floor, something in his posture different this morning, more deliberate, more final, like a man playing a card he'd been holding for years and had finally decided to spend."Before this council votes on tonight's leadership challenge," he said, "there is something you all deserve to know about the foundation this marriage was built on. Something far larger than Alpha Callahan's concealed memory.""Explain," the elder said.Dave turned toward the chamber doors and raised his hand.The doors opened.I felt the air leave the room before I understood why. A man stepped through the entrance, flanked by two of Dave's own household guard, and the entire chamber went utterly, impossibly silent.I knew that face. I had gri